Pashtun Qaumi Jirga and The State Of Pakistan

The Immediate Response Of The State To Pashtun Qaumi Jirga

The people of Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa (KPK) feel that even today their political representatives are not that independent. This Jirga was headed by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, and a day before this Jirga, it was banned by the government. A very ammature but traditional way of Pakistani government, rather establishment to handle crisis and opposition. The government decided the day before the Jirga that the Pashtun Tahafuzz movement is illegal; it was declared as a non-governmental organization. Whoever took this decision, it is a wrong decision. Most of the people in PTM are young, and those young people, their families have been affected, their areas have been affected, they have grown up in a warlike environment for the last 30-40 years, they have been told this repeatedly, and now there is an international evolution as well that if you look at the Pakhtunkhwa, all the international media, social media, they are telling this to the Pakhtun youth again and again that the state is usurping your rights, the state is killing you, this whole drama is happening because of the state. It is plotting to capture your country; the state wants to make you slaves, etc.. So an international network is also involved in this. In such a situation, when the Pashtun youth already have an anti-state agenda in their minds, which is against the state, an anti-state scenario has been created. In such a situation, the state should have put its hand on their heads. If people had gathered and there was a discussion on the issues, it would have been a good thing. The state should have sent its representative. Whatever happened now, I think the way the Balochistan issue has been mishandled over the year makes me unable to understand what the state wants. I think the state should have understood this issue; otherwise, some of the neighbouring countries, both in the east and the west, are such that they are not taking any action on this issue. They will exploit it, and we have seen that for the TTP people who are fighting against the state, this is, as they say, a ripe moment that will automatically fall in their lap.

Points Of Pashtun Qaumi Jirga

Pashtun Qaumi Jirga was first called in Bannu in 2022, and after that in 2024, it has been called for more than three days, from 11 to 13 October. In this Jirga, all the big elders of tribal (qabaili) people of the province, political groups, and common people have been called, and they have been told that we have to discuss four topics.

1. The first thing is that after 9/11, when America started war in Afghanistan, it directly impacted the region. Terrorism increased, and to end that terrorism, the army conducted military operations, and in those military operations, many lives were lost. More than 90% of the people who were martyred in that war and terror were Pashtuns, so the Pashtun people have borne a very heavy price, and now they cannot afford any new military force. So the first objective is to discuss military operations in the Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa region. It has become a tradition now that every new army chief launches an operation against its own people, claiming to eliminate terrorists just to get something in his name. One such dictator, General Zia, used Pashtuns preaching Jihad to fight against the Soviets on American agenda, and when America felt like it had to fight against terror, those Jihadis became terrorists, and now the army is used against them by the generals on American dictation.
2. The second is autonomy. After the 18th amendment, all the provinces were given powers, but the people of Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa feel that even today their political representatives are not that independent. They cannot make independent decisions because this province is a frontline province. It borders Afghanistan. The interference of the establishment has always been more in it; that is the case of whole Pakistan and also on the Jirga’s agenda as well.
3. The third thing is socio-economic development. The people of this province have been deprived of socio-economic development. So, a joint demand for that should also be made from the government and the state. That the people here should be given the economic prosperity and opportunities like people in Punjab and other provinces have.
4. The fourth demand of this Jirga is to ensure cultural identity and human rights. There are many complaints of the people that their people are being harassed. The youth of Pakhtun Khawa have to face atrocities.
   Extrajudicial killings take place; missing persons and people face a lot of atrocities. So, people from the entire province have been brought together to discuss these four agendas in a Jirga, which is the traditional Pakhtun way of discussing matters and making decisions, but since its scope is not limited to a family or tribe but on a national level, which makes it a grand Pakhtun Jirga.

Background of the Pashtun Qaumi Jirga

The government has taken very strict action on this because this jirga is being headed by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, and a day before this jirga, it was banned in the same way as many militant organisations of Pakistan are banned that have been declared terrorist organizations. The government and establishment were about to make another blunder by banning the organization and it seemed they would use force to halt the Jirga proceedings. The Jirga invited a lot of crowds and elders of the province to mobilize for a good cause with all the powers constitution gives them. After a short delay because of establishment concerns, the Jirga did proceed and was held for three days. On 11th October, the entire public was called in this Jirga. Statistics were presented in front of them. Presentations were made to them about how the war has caused destruction in the province. How people have been deprived of socio-economic development because of the war. And a consensus was developed among the entire public. On the second day, private meetings were held in this Jirga in which political parties and elders of the province, NGOs, and human rights organizations met, and they prepared a plan of action on how we have to ensure human rights along with cultural identity in the province. And on the third day, a committee was formed, which is called the Pashtun National Jirga Organization Committee, whose purpose is to see the progress on all these discussions in the coming period and to take action on it. Keeping in mind the loopholes, which need to be eliminated. Now a jirga was also called earlier in Bannu in 2022; even then these things were discussed, but that was a haste; we did not see any concrete measures on it in these two years. So, for this reason, this Jirga had been called again in 2024. Now what is the historical significance of this jirga? All the things that were discussed in this jirga are socio-economic prosperity, insuring human rights, giving self-governance to both, and making the Pashtun ethnic prosperous again. This is the concept of Pashtun nationalism. All these things revolve around this concept. How this Pashtun nationalism emerged in the subcontinent, how did it get setbacks, what challenges did it face, and what demands are these people making today?

During the British colonial era, British government tried to administer the people in the subcontinent through their direct colonial rule and the British government created a space for the Pashtuns living in the FATA region to run their affairs through their own Jirga system and except for FATA, the rest of the territory of the subcontinent was ruled by the British themselves but the Pashtuns always resisted that colonialism because the Pashtuns believed
that this British rule is weakening their identity, it is destroying their culture, it is suppressing their ethnicity, so the Pashtuns have always shown resistance against the British rule, and they have always stood up for the economic and cultural prosperity of their ethnicity. In 1929, a non-resistance movement was started. Later, from both sides, it was called the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement, and the one who started it was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who is also known as Bacha Khan. Bacha Khan was a very liberal Pashtun leader who used to talk about violence should not happen and Pashtuns should progress socio-economically; Pashtun women should get education; they should be politically well aware; and they should get self-government. So this was a non-resistance movement, which was a very liberal and progressive movement which used to talk about uplifting the Pashtun ethnicity. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was not in favour of the formation of Pakistan; he was in favour of United India because he believed that if India is divided, then the border that will be formed between Pakistan and Afghanistan will divide the Pashtun areas
and Pashtun nationalism will get a big setback and this is what happened in 1947 when Pakistan came into existence. A border was formed between Afghanistan and Pakistan. A line was drawn, which is called the Durand Line, and what happened was that the Pashtun belt was divided into two parts, and half of the Pashtuns remained on the Afghanistan side and half on the Pakistan side. So the Pashtuns of Afghanistan refused to accept the Durand Line as an international border, and they tried repeatedly to encourage the Pashtuns of Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa, and together they could bring about a separate territory called Pashtunistan.

After the formation of Pakistan, a struggle for Pashtun nationalism continued in the name of Pashtunistan. It was a non-violent struggle and there was no way of violence in it. And in this way a party came into existence, Awami National Party NP, which continued this non-violent struggle in the Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa region and this constant struggle continued slowly and gradually This liberal movement turned into a radical movement when the Soviet-Afghan war started in 1979. Zia-uluHaq started the struggle of these Pashtun people in the name of Islamization. They were filled with the narrative of Jihad and were told that they should go and fight against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The state is making Jihad compulsory for you. These were innocent people who had nothing to do with wars. They used to talk about progressive things. They used to talk about economic and social prosperity. They used to talk about uplifting their culture. The Pakistani state filled their minds with the narrative of Jihad and sent them to Afghanistan with weapons and told them to go and fight there. In this Soviet-Afghan war, many people from Afghanistan migrated to Pakistan to take refuge, and they came and started spreading the same radicalism.

Slowly and ultimately, the progressive movement in Pakistan was transformed into a radical movement. When the Soviet-Afghan war ended, and after that, the war started. After 9/11, when America attacked Afghanistan, many terrorist groups came to Pakistan with the attack on Afghanistan, and they spread the same radicalism. The Taliban started radicalizing the Pashtun belt and captured many Pashtun areas. They started to spread a very strict type of Islam there and radicalize the society, where the Taliban were on one side and the other was on the other.

While they were radicalizing the people, America was bombing these areas and doing drone attacks, and innocent people were getting killed. So the same non-violent struggle, the same Pashtun nationalism, which started with liberal values, slowly started moving towards radicalization and extremism, and ultimately war and terror ended. The province got autonomy to some extent with the 18th amendment, and then under the 25th amendment, FATA was merged with KPK. Peace came to some extent through military operations. Then another struggle started in the name of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement.

Those who raised their voice against the persecution of Pashtuns, Pashtun youth, are being killed in extrajudicial killings; they are being picked up; they are being designated as missing persons; they stood up against it, and slowly they started a non-violent struggle again in which the same thing happened again. There was Pashtun nationalism talks about socio-economic prosperity, cultural recognition, and self-autonomy, and when this movement started again, this movement was not seen as a liberal movement in that way; it was designated as a movement funded by foreign forces to destabilize Pakistan.

Pakistan started dealing with them with an iron hand; they were banned, their leadership was removed, they were dealt with strictly, and then within this tension, this Jirga was held with the same demands, which were once the demands of Bacha Khan in the Khudai Khidmatgar movement that women’s rights should be insured, education should be given, and socio-economic prosperity should come. Those who are demanding their recognition and their socio-economic and human rights, we have made many mistakes in the past. There were some similar problems in East Pakistan too, which we did not address. We tried to suppress them and ultimately they separated from us. Today, similar problems are going on in Balochistan, where Baloch nationalism is gaining momentum and they are also demanding similar rights. Pashtun nationalism is on the rise in KPK, where they are leading a non-violent struggle, so the path of dialogue should be adopted, socio-economic development should be ensured, reconstruction should be done, and instead of military operations, planned measures should be taken to root out these terrorist and extremist elements because whenever you wage a war, there are miscalculations, innocent people are killed, children are killed, and then the same people get radicalized, and whose innocent children are killed, they fight against the state, so the state should look at this trickle down effect. The government should make a decisive policy in which settlement is done through diplomatic channels and non-violent channels, and instead of these military operations, intelligence-based operations should be done where you target with calculation those elements that are spreading unrest in Pakistan and are spoiling the peace and prosperity of Pakistan shall be eliminated so that peace can be established in the province and confidence-building measures can be taken so that the people of Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa shall express loyalty towards the state.