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Asian Affairs
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THE PATHAN AND HIS LAND: CENTRE OF THE WORLD'S ATTENTION

Humayun Khan Published online: 15 Feb 2010.

To cite this article: Humayun Khan (2010): THE PATHAN AND HIS LAND: CENTRE OF THE WORLD'S ATTENTION, Asian Affairs, 41:1, 1-9 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03068370903472033

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Asian Affairs, vol. XLI, no. I, March 2010

THE PATHAN AND HIS LAND: CENTRE OF THE WORLDS ATTENTION

HUMAYUN KHAN
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Humayun Khan was formerly the permanent Secretary of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry and Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation. This is the edited text of the lecture which he gave to the Society on 24 June 2009.

My focus is the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, the adjoining Tribal Area and the people who inhabit it. They are called the Pathans in English, but their true designation is Pushtun or Pukhtun. There are altogether about 40 million of them spread over Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is also a considerable diaspora in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US. I would have liked to give a very detailed account of the land, the people, their history, their environment and their culture, but that would take too long. In any case, it is to British authors that we owe most of our knowledge of the Pathans, and many of you must be familiar with their writings. The recognised history of this often romanticised race is still that written by Sir Olaf Caroe. Like many of his other countrymen, Caroe wrote, not only on the basis of thorough research, but also of decades of personal experience. He was perhaps the last of the mandarins of the Frontier, a handful of dedicated, hardworking men who fashioned a system of governance which was both unique and imaginative, and which they implemented with skill, with fairness and with a rare affection for the people they governed. In essence, this system remains in place today, and such modications that have been made over the past 60 years have not always been for the better. The Frontier is a harsh battleground, bleak and barren, with extreme heat and extreme cold. The Pathan, or Pashtun, who inhabits this land is himself a mass of contradiction; displaying, at the same time, honour and treachery, devotion and betrayal, simplicity and cunning, hospitality and hostility. His descent has been variously traced to the Aryans, one of the lost 12 tribes of Israel, the Greeks and to local aborigines. He lives by a tribal code called Pushtunwali which enjoins on him certain obligations. These include hospitality to strangers, asylum to fugitives who seek refuge with him, forgiveness to enemies who ask for it, honouring his word to provide safe passage through his territory, but most important of all, upholding his and his familys honour by avenging any harm inicted on them. This concept of revenge, or badal, is central in his life and vendettas can continue for generations. However, the tribal structure provides a forum for reconciliation, through a Jirga, which can settle on blood money or other compensation. The inhospitable mountains offer little scope for
ISSN 0306-8374 print/ISSN 1477-1500 online/10/010001 9 # 2010 The Royal Society for Asian Affairs http://www.informaworld.com DOI: 10.1080/03068370903472033

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livelihood. At most a Pathan might nd modest pastures for his goats. Not surprisingly, therefore, he has had to resort to predatory ways like robbing travellers, raiding adjacent territories or kidnapping rich merchants. To deal with such a people calls for great qualities of individual character, and the whole administrative edice rests, to a large extent, on the personal image the administrator builds for himself. The mandarins of the Frontier did this very successfully. John Nicholson, for example, generated a sect of hero worshippers called Nickle Seynies. Mackeson was known throughout the land as Kisen Baba. Abbotts farewell party went on for a week and every resident of the district was invited. The list of Frontiersmen is a glorious Roll of Honour. Civilians like Henry and John Lawrence, Herbert Edwardes , Warburton and Roos-Keppel. Soldiers like Roberts of Kandahar, Sam Browne of leather belt fame, Wavell, Alexander and Auchinleck. I mention so many names because they include numerous members of this Society. Indeed, the father of tribal administration, Lord Curzon, was a founding member. So the links between the RSSA and the Frontier are of long standing and it is heartening for us that your interest in it remains strong. So too does that of modern historians who may not have lived there. The trilogy by Jules Stewart consisting of his history of the Khyber Ries, of the Frontier Province and of the First Afghan War is a case in point. I wish there were time to dwell more on this history because, for some odd reason, this bleak and desolate Frontier, arid and lonely, inhabited by the poorest of people, has been at the heart of global interest with amazing regularity. Before 1500 BC the Aryans traversed it. Twelve hundred years later came Alexander the Great, and then a succession of invaders, including Huns, Persians, Tartars, Mongols, Turks, Afghans and great Moghuls. Here was played the Great Game between the British Empire and the Czarist Russia. At the time the British annexed the Punjab in 1849, this Frontier had come to be viewed as the main gateway for foreign invaders, and the preoccupation of Imperial policymakers was how best to keep this gateway closed against those who might have an eye on the Jewel in the Crown, which was India. Today, this frontier is no longer the gateway for invaders. It could be a land bridge to be used, not by armies, but by traders and merchantmen, between South and Central Asia. Yet, sadly, this has not happened and the area is once again in turmoil. It is, once more, the centre of the worlds attention because of the single horric event that occurred in faraway America on 11 September, 2001. No Pathan, as indeed no Iraqi, was involved in that crime, but the objective of bringing one man, Osama bin Laden, and his gang to justice has already resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Pashtuns. It has also brought about the virtual destruction of two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and an imminent threat to a third, which is Pakistan. It is this phenomenon on which I wish to concentrate. How and why have militant extremism and its concomitant of terrorism spread like wildre throughout this region in the last eight years. More importantly, can it be eradicated or even contained. If so, how? I can only list for you some of the causes,

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both internal and external. As far as my own country is concerned, I want to say at the outset that, though outside actors have, to an extent, been responsible for our travails, my thesis is that, in the nal event, it is we ourselves who are to blame more than anyone else. To go back briey to recent history, by the turn of the 20th century, the British had established a modicum of peace and stability in the Frontier and a three-tiered policy had emerged. Between the river Indus and the foothills of the tribal belt, the regular system of administration, prevalent in the rest of India, with its whole paraphernalia of law courts, police, tax collectors etc. was in operation and a separate province of the North West Frontier was created. At the time of independence in 1947, the North Peshwar Frontier Province consisted of six settled districts, Peshwar, Mardan, Hazara, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. Today, there are 24. The second tier extended from the western borders of these districts and the foothills of the Hindukush-Tartara-Suleiman range to the Durand Line, negotiated with Amir Abdur Rehman in 1893. (This was the subject of an informative talk to this Society by the young scholar, Bijan Omrani, in October 2008 see Asian Affairs XL.II). Here the laws of British India did not apply. The Governor-General of India entered into written agreements with the tribes whereby their independence in respect of all internal matters was assured. In return for their good behaviour vis a vis the Sirkhar they were granted allowances on a collective as well as an individual basis and a blanket law, the Frontier Crimes Regulation, was passed which provided for collective responsibility, whereby the whole tribe could be punished for anti-government actions by one of its members in its territory. Punishments ranged from collective nes, stoppage of allowances, restriction of movements, taking of hostages and, in the last resort, punitive military action. The administration of tribal affairs was retained by the Viceroy and Governor- General himself but he delegated his powers to his appointee, the Governor of the NWFP, and not to the elected provincial government. Thus, these areas came to be known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Today, the hideous acronym, FATA, is a household world everywhere. The entire area was divided into Political Agencies, each under a Political Agent, who was the counterpart of the Deputy Commissioner in the settled districts, but who enjoyed powers unbridled by the courts or by elected politicians. At the time of Independence, there were ve Agencies: Malakand, which included the Princely States of Dir, Swat and Chitral with its headquarters at Malakand and inhabited by various branches of the major Pashtun tribe, the Yusufzai; Khyber, land of the Afridi and the Shinwari, with headquarters at Landikotal; Kurram of the Turis and the Mangals, the only agency with a sectarian divide between Shias and Sunnis, with the picturesque capital of Parachinar; North Waziristan of the Utmanzai Wazirs and the Daurs, administered from Miranshah, and South Waziristan, home to the Ahmadzai Wazir and the fearsome Mahsud, where the Political Agent wintered in Tank and moved up to Wana in summer. These agencies constituted the so-called prickly-hedge between the buffer state of Afghanistan and British India. Since 1947, Agencies

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have been created in Bajaur, a part of the original Malakand Agency, Mohmand, and Orakzai. In addition to these full-edged agencies, there are strips of FATA which are attached to the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. As stated earlier, by the turn of the 20th century, the system of tribal administration was in place and seemed to be working well. Political Agents were selected with great care and, though incidents of sniping and kidnapping were commonplace, tribal uprisings were limited to specic areas and were the result of specic events. The last such insurrection took place in the 1930s, when the legendary Faqir of Ipi lead a revolt in Waziristan because a minor Hindu girl, who had converted to Islam and married a Muslim, was handed back to her parents by a court in Bannu. The Faqir of Ipi kept the British fully occupied for a decade and the many military operations in North and South Waziristan provided excellent training for ofcers and the men of the British Indian Army, before they went on to ght in World War II. When Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the tribal areas were more or less quiet and Mr. Jinnah felt condent enough to withdraw the regular army from there. Full authority was now vested in the Political Agents who had at their disposal the Civil Armed Force called the Frontier Corps, or the Scouts. Chenevix Trent has written a good book on the Scouts and Jules Stewart has written recently about the Khyber Ries. This unique brand of militia was also the brainchild of Curzon. Its ofcers come from the regular army, but the men are recruited from the tribes. They do not, as a rule, serve in the area of their own tribe. Originally, they were lightly armed, but now they have sophisticated weapons. Their names adorn some of the most glorious passages of Frontier history and today are in the forefront of the ght against terrorists. The Khyber Ries, the Tochi Scouts of North Waziristan, the South Waziristan Scouts, the Kurram Militia, and the Chitral Scouts are among the legends. By the time I had my rst experience of tribal administration as a young Assistant Commissioner in Tank, in 1958, the Frontier had been quiet for ten years. The tribe I dealt with was a minor one called the Bhittani of Jandola. Their area was peaceful, but today it is at the centre of a storm. My main problem in Tank was with the unruly Mahsuds who came down for the winter. I later moved on as Deputy Commissioner, Bannu, and came to know the Ahmedzai Wazirs, many of whom had summer homes in Afghanistan. They were a somewhat neglected tribe compared to their cousins living in South Waziristan. Recently, they have been suspected of harbouring AlQaeda terrorists and CIA drones have attacked them. I next moved to the fort at Miranshah as Political Agent, North Waziristan. This, together with its sister agency, South Waziristan, was reputed to be the most difcult of all tribal areas to administer. As you know, today it is these two agencies which are the source of most of the problems we face. When I was there in the 1960s, things were relatively quiet. Only once were we red upon while out on a ag march, and once I had to ask the Tochi Scouts to

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disperse a violent, hostile Lashkar and 17 people were killed. Otherwise, my memories are of glorious winter sunshine and convivial evenings in the Scouts mess. In sharp contrast to Waziristan, my next charge at Malakand was like a wellearned rest. Swat was the only remaining princely State to which I was accredited. It was peaceful, well administered and a popular destination for tourists. My arduous duties consisted of being the Walis guest twice a week to shoot partridge and duck, or to sit on the banks of the mountain streams angling for mahseer and trout. All this came to an end when the Government of Pakistan decided to merge the State in 1969 and it became my unpleasant duty to visit the Wali one morning and, over a cup of coffee and a stiff brandy, deprive him of his kingdom. We had discussed this unavoidable eventuality many times and he was enlightened enough to accept it with good grace. Since the merger, the story of Swat has been downhill all the way. It has been the focus of a major military operation and more than three million people have ed their homes. I have recalled all this purely as a prelude to what we are witnessing today. The NWFP and the tribal area, together with neighbouring Afghanistan, were quite peaceful for 30 years after Pakistan became independent. Then came Christmas 1979, when on a freezing winter morning, the rst Soviet soldier looked out of his tank turret after a night-long drive, to nd himself in a strange land, among a strange and bewildered people who spoke a strange language. That was to be the turning point in the history of our region. Pakistan was then under the military rule of Gen Zia ul Haq and the pious Jimmy Carter had made him a virtual pariah. No world leader was prepared to shake his hand and his country was under a variety of sanctions. Then overnight, as he condemned the Soviet invasion and tried to rally the Islamic world, he became the darling of the so-called free world and his country was respectfully designated a Frontline State against a spreading communist empire. It is a matter for later historians to judge whether the US, in its eagerness to humiliate its Cold War adversary, was right in throwing Afghanistan and the region into turmoil. Who was to know that the Soviet Union would collapse under its own weight within the decade and the luke-warm Red Revolution in Afghanistan might well have given way to a moderate, secular republic, instead of an unstable country threatened by religious fanatics. But that is water under the bridge. The US threw its full might behind the mujahideen, or freedom ghters, using Pakistan as a conduit. Money and arms poured in. The CIA, acting through Pakistans Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), recruited thousands of fanatical young men from all over the Islam world, mostly men whom their own countries were eager to get rid of, brought them to Pakistan, trained them and sent them to ght the Soviets. I do not deny that the freedom ghters achieved miracles by forcing a super-power out of their country, but they brought with them a culture of religious extremism and violence which is responsible for the travails the region faces today. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the struggle for power among the various mujahideen factions in Afghanistan led to a virtual state of civil war

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in the country for six or seven years. Finally, a relatively unknown entity calling themselves the Taliban, meaning students or seekers, emerged victorious in 1996. In addition, the thousands of foreign zealots who had been brought in by the CIA remained in the area. They were not welcome back in their own countries so they stayed on, married local women, joined one or other faction, including that of a Saudi named Osama bin Laden, who had participated in the anti-Soviet jihad. Many moved into the tribal area of Waziristan. Equally serious was the fact that a number of mujahideen commanders had forged close links with Pakistans ISI, and were counted amongst that Agencys prime assets, to be used for covert activities in Kashmir. Many of us were fearful at that time that these very forces might turn against us, but the military-intelligence establishment thought otherwise and continued to patronise them. Alas, our fears have come true, and the suspected links between the ISI and some of the rebels have been a real hindrance in the way of full cooperation between allies in the ght against terror. In September 2001, the Taliban were ruling in Kabul and enforcing a strict and oppressive rule which was universally deplored. But they had no direct quarrel with any other country. To their extreme misfortune, the horric crime of 11 September 2001 was traced to their guest, Osama bin Laden. The Americans, understandably perhaps, were angered to the point that they applauded George Bush when he truculently declared in the Congress, If you are not with us, you are against us. So, by not handing over bin Laden, the Taliban regime in Kabul became an enemy of the US, just like him. The massive military strike on Afghanistan in October 2001 successfully overthrew the Taliban regime, but it wound up before it had destroyed or captured bin Laden, because Americas attention was diverted to Iraq. What it did achieve was the killing of thousands of innocent Afghans, the pushing of vast numbers of Taliban across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and the installation in power in Afghanistan of the non-Pushtun minorities of the Northern Alliance. Having forced the Taliban into our territory, the Americans then wanted us to ensure that they did not return. Most important of all, the ruthless bombing of innocent Afghans and the destruction of their homes generated a surge of hatred against the Americans among the Pashtuns. Pakistans military leader, General Musharraf, allied himself with the US, partly out of fear, but largely to gain for himself a powerful patron just as Zia ul Haq had done 20 years earlier. This had earned Zia 11 years in power, it earned Musharraf nine. Again, like Zia, Musharraf planned an election of sorts in 2002 to give himself an air of legitimacy. For the rst time in the history of Pakistan, religious parties were elected to power in the border provinces of NWFP and Balochistan. This was a direct result of the attack on Afghanistan, and during the next ve years, religious extremism prospered under ofcial patronage in the land of the Pashtuns. In the 2008 elections, the Pathans rejected the religious parties, not because anti-Americanism had lessened, but because their government palpably failed to deliver. Instead, they voted for the secular Awami National Party (ANP), heirs to the legacy of the Pushtun leader Khan Abdul Ghaffer Khan. This raised the hope that, because the ANP enjoyed good

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relations with Afghanistan and the tribes, the chances of peace would improve. However, by this time, the Pakistani Taliban had become not just a religious movement, but a political force, blatantly seeking power. We know of instances where the followers of Baitullah Mahsud did not even know the common Muslim prayer. I hope this claries in some measure why the province and the tribal areas of the NWFP are in the state that they are in today. Let me describe that state. Religious extremism is at its peak and the inuence of the Friday sermon is strong; this in spite of the fact that, in Pushtun society, the mullah does not enjoy high status. His role is conned to rituals like weddings, funerals and leading congregational prayers. He lives on the charity of the tribal elders. Now, he has become a force to be reckoned with. Waziristan is in a state of armed rebellion under a warlord named Baitullah Mahsud. He has set up a Taliban organisation of Pakistan which has little to do with Afghanistan but is aimed at the State of Pakistan itself. He has found supporters in almost every tribal agency and in the provincial territories of Dir, Swat and Malakand. The Pakistan army has deployed around 100,000 troops in the entire tribal belt. There are around 50,000 Scouts in action. Government forces have had upward of 2000 killed; the insurgents probably more. More than three million people have been displaced from their homes. Ripe crops and orchards have been abandoned. The education of the young has been disrupted. Civilian causalities rise by the day. Suicide attacks killing innocent people are a regular occurrence and this virus has spread beyond the limits of our province to the Punjab and Sind. In the face of all this, the Government of Pakistan has shown a curious ineptitude, as indeed has the provincial government of the NWFP. Law and order has broken down completely, the police force is non-functional and the civil services have been totally destroyed by General Musharraf. Though the present civilian government loudly trumpets its democratic credentials, it has already lost the condence of the people as evidenced by independent polls. Its priorities remain focused on staying in power and its practices are no different to those of its civilian predecessors. The Pakistan army, deeply blemished by its record of seizing power at regular intervals and of repeated misrule, is still busy repairing its image in the eyes of the people. It has valiantly answered the call of the civilian authorities to tackle the terrorists, but with mixed results. Its forays into Waziristan were not a great success. It made two halfhearted attempts in Swat, following which the civilian government meekly surrendered to the demands of the Taliban rebels led by an undistinguished mullah named Fazlullah. It is now engaged for the third time in what is claimed to be the nal assault. As I write this, the damage caused to the rebels is far less than the misery caused to the public who are eeing their homes in droves. But at least this time both the government and the army seem determined, and the vast majority of Pakistanis support the action. In assessing whether the army action in Swat will turn the tide against the extremists and the terrorists, we have to remember that there are other fronts, like Wazirirstan, still remaining. It is very doubtful that military action alone will put an end to the insurrection in all places. Moreover, military action

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creates its own problems. Disaffection, economic disruption and rehabilitation all have to be addressed. Even that will not be the end of it. The roots of terror and extremism draw succour from many sources: poverty, injustice, unemployment, illiteracy, oppression, denial of rights, bad governance and so on. These have to be holistically addressed by Pakistan and by Afghanistan with the help of the international community. Whether the present governments in Islamabad and Kabul have the capability remains in doubt. As for the external inuences, the signals coming from the US are, at the moment, somewhat confusing. On the one hand, the policy statements of President Obama indicate that he understands the complexities of the problem much better than his predecessor and is convinced that military action alone cannot solve it. Yet he is committed to the intensication of the military effort to eliminate Al-Qaeda and its safe havens in the tribal belt. Tactics like the drone attacks on Pakistani territory and the 20,000-man surge in American troops may help the commanders in the eld, but they engender more hatred and arouse suspicion about the genuine goodwill of Washington. They do not help in the so-called battle for hearts and minds. Many Pakistanis still believe that the US has ulterior motives and it seeks to interfere in Pakistan because of its ultimate aim of depriving the country of its nuclear capability. Again, the allocation of billions of dollars for economic upliftment is a laudable action, but how can you carry out development work in areas where there is no security and hostile gangs hold sway? For the moment, it is fair to say that the defeat of the rebels, particularly in the settled areas like Swat, has to be the rst priority. After that, an imaginative development strategy has to be worked out where you rst work in the soft areas on the periphery and limit activity in the others to a non-intrusive type in the shape of scholarships, employment generation, community- managed micro-projects etc. It will be a long process. The continued presence of foreign troops in large numbers in Afghanistan, and incursions into Pakistan is going to hinder, not facilitate, this process. Similarly, it seems to me that the call for drastic changes in the system of tribal administration is well founded but that the moment is not opportune. The rst task must be to restore some semblance of order and to see that the writ of State runs. Once a semblance of normality is restored, we have to make renewed efforts to bring the tribal areas at par with the rest of the country. However, we shall have to be careful to take into account their peculiar traditions, their customs and their culture. We must not make the same mistake as we did in Swat, where we replaced the efcient and benevolent rule of the Wali with a burdensome and corrupt bureaucratic order. In the last resort, as I said at the beginning, the future of the NWFP, the tribal areas and indeed the whole country lies with the people of Pakistan themselves. If they are to enjoy the benets of democracy it is for them to elect the right leaders who will give them justice and peace and progress. So far, their choice has been less than inspired. The ruling elites of Pakistan have to realise that the present crisis represents the cumulative result of 60 years of mis-governance and the wrong allocation of resources. The concept of a security-obsessed State constantly under threat from a larger neighbour needs to be

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revised and Pakistan has to nd its place as a partner in South Asia, enjoying all the benets of cooperation between neighbours. India, of course, must play a lead role in bringing this about. It is a major factor in Afghanistan today, but it must do all it can to reassure Pakistan that this is not part of any policy of encirclement. Domestically, my country faces a host of problems which no leader has meaningfully addressed. The economy remains fragile; corruption is at an all time high. In 62 years, we have yet to nd answers to basic questions like civil-military relations, the role of religion in the State, provincial autonomy, independence of the judiciary and so on. Friends like the US and the UK have always been helpful and their help will continue to be necessary, not only in the current ght against terrorism, but in our efforts to establish a truly progressive, democratic and stable order. In supporting us, they must ensure that their friendship and their assistance are directed at the people of Pakistan rather than military dictators and corrupt civilians who are prepared to do their bidding. Pakistanis are a resilient and industrious people and will respond readily to good leadership. That is what we need most of all.