What’s wrong with Achakzai?

Coming from a politician known for speaking candidly, and respected for his contribution to democracy and democratic struggles, it was such a strange statement. Afghanistan Times, a newspaper based in Kabul, quoted Mahmood Khan Achakzai as saying that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province belongs to Afghans and they can live there without fear and irritation.

“If Afghans are harassed in other parts of Pakistan, they should come here to the Pakhtunkhwa province, where no one can ask them for refugee cards, because it also belongs to them,” the chief of the Pakhtukhwa Milli Awami party (PkMAP) was quoted as saying.

The news report stirred a hornet’s nest as media persons and rival politician attacked Achakzai with anything they could lay their hands on, despite his clarification. His explanation made two things clear. First, the Afghan newspaper had not interviewed him but was quoting or misquoting his interview to Voice of America, without bothering to mention the source. Secondly, he did not state that KP was a part of Afghanistan.

However, his explanation fuelled more debate, though he has expressed similar views on many occasions earlier. Talking to a television channel, he said: “The area from Oxus to Indus was historically the land of the Afghan people. It was the only independent state other than Turkey (in that time), inhabited by independent and self-ruling people. Peshawar remained the winter capital of Afghans till 1820. When [the] Durand Line was drawn and Afghan people were divided, we did not remain Afghan citizens but we are still Afghans.”

This is basically the narrative of the Afghan state, weaved by cherry picking certain periods and events of history. All nation-states make such creative use of history for identity formation and Afghanistan is no exception. The source of confusion here lies in the way he uses the word Afghan to mean two different things simultaneously. Historically, the term Afghan has been mainly used to refer to the Pakhtuns. However, since the creation of the state of Afghanistan, it has been used more often to refer to the civic identity of a citizen of Afghanistan irrespective of their ethnicity. This has forced the original ‘Afghans’ to switch to the term Pakhtun or Pashtun, as has been done by Achakzai himself for the name of his own party.

Achakzai’s historical argument is also distorted. Pakhtuns have never lived in such a large area and this area remained under the Afghan empire for a relatively short period. For much of history, parts of Afghanistan were ruled by different empires and it was a draw-bridge of empires, rather than their graveyards, due to its geographical location. His reference point, like that of the state of Afghanistan, is the Durrani empire, founded by Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1747 by snatching a large part of the Persian empire of Nadir Shah, whom he had served as a senior army officer, after Nadir’s Afsharid kingdom fell to pieces upon his assassination in that year.

However, when the Durrani empire was founded, which Afghans consider the starting point of their state, it comprised almost all of Pakistan. The boundaries of the Afghan kingdom started shrinking after the rise of the new political forces including the Sikhs and the East India Company.

Ahmad Shah’s son, Timur Shah Durrani, chose Peshawar as his winter capital in 1776 and the Bala Hissar Fort in Peshawar was used as the residence of Durrani kings till the city was captured by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1818. In fact, Kabul remained summer retreat for the Mughal emperors for a much longer period – from 1585 to 1739 to be specific. However, if Afghan means Pashtuns, the beautiful city of Peshawar is still the capital of Afghans ruled by a Khattak under the able guidance of a Niazi, who unfortunately can’t speak Pashto, while Kabul has almost lost its Pakhtun character and is in the hands of a Persian-speaking establishment.

Leaving historical facts and fiction aside, Achakzai’s basic point of close affinity between Pakhtuns and Afghanistan is not only true but a huge understatement. Pakistan’s links with Afghanistan are not merely ethnic and they cannot be confined to a short period of history. The bonds between the people of two countries start from the very advent of civilisation and have continued without a break.

Recent excavations have established that the Indus Valley Civilisation was extended into the modern-day Afghanistan as far as the Oxus river. We have often suffered the same invaders and at times inflicted pain upon each other. For example, according to local proverbs in some parts of Pakistan, Ahmad Shah took away everything from people, except what they had eaten and worn already. But that’s how pre-modern, kings, kingdom and raiders behaved.

South Asian Muslim thought and traditions have been heavily influenced by the Afghan thinkers, poets, Sufis and activists. Of the three greatest Sufi poets – Sanai, Ittar and Rumi – the first two were Afghan and Iqbal can be considered the last of this great tradition. No wonder, he had immense love for Afghanistan and called it the heart of Asia.

While we have very close bonds with all Afghans, in case of Pakhtuns the boundary between us and them is dissolved as A in Pakistan stands for Afghania and we cannot even begin to imagine Pakistan without Pakhtuns. This brings us to the second point made by Achakzai that due to these close ties we must not mistreat Afghan refugees at a time when relations between the two states have deteriorated. I am totally with him on this and have written already on the topic.

However, his suggestion that all Afghan refugees should retreat to KP if they are mistreated in other parts of the country is totally out of place. They have not been mistreated in any part of the country so far and there is no reason for us to become hostile to them now. The decision to support jihad in Afghanistan was not made by the people of KP and refugees from Afghanistan were not encouraged to migrate by an elected government in the KP province. Therefore, the province of KP cannot be expected to take the burden of Afghan refugees, some three million today or many more million in future if Afghan is further destabilised. It is a national and humanitarian issue and our shared responsibility.

Going back to our Afghan brethren and their ideas of expansion, I wonder why they do not aspire to the original and pristine form of the Afghan empire as it was on the day of its formation – comprising all of Afghanistan and Pakistan – but insist on a moth-eaten map and frontiers truncated by Ranjit Singh and the East India Company. Why not have one country, dear brethren? In that way we can have our strategic depth and you can take care of your nostalgia for the lost empire.

The writer is a social anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan