Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
lets not forget Generals Hamid Gul, Akhtar Abdul Rahman Khan and Babar when discussing Pashtuns with great sway over pakistani histoy and politics. I love the claims of “paki ruling mafia” when pashtuns have as much to do with this “mafia” as anyone else… every debate I hear Niazis are Pashtuns until Gen. Tiger Niazi is discussed, then they are punjabi LOL
zakk…
I’ve always found it interesting that Pashtun nationalists (not saying you are one) are happy to include us (Hindko speaking) among them when it comes to terrritorial claims, but will never do so in any other debate. Similarly its also interesting to note the pashtun nationalist tendecy to overlook our existance as a seperate group until views about Greater Pashtunistan are brought up.. then they are happy to create differentiation. As far as I’m concerned that alone is enough to block renaming NWFP to any ethnic oriented name.
Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
Salam Elahi nice seeing you post..after sometime too! Hameed Gul is Pathan? That’s news to me? Akhtar Abdul Rahman and Babar I am aware off: Zia had a tendency to patronise pro military right wing pashtuns..probably as a counterweight against Sindhis, hence GIK, Fazle Haq, Akhtar Rehman and many others.
One has to be careful about the one side fits all process in politics: Classically people assume a few things
The Pashtuns of Balochistan want a separate province: Technically they want a restoration of the previous province that existed pre 1956. The issue between the Baloch and Pashtun Nationalists is more of what the borders should be.. and not over the principle.
2)Hindko speakers are one homogenus ethnic group: There are vast differences within the community like any other community, the hindko speakers of Kohat and peshawar are politically quite different from those in the hazara belt. Some families in Peshawar were actually foercely opposed to Quaid-e-Azam
It was the pashtun nationalists who promoted the anti Kalabagh and pro Pakhtunkhwa debate: Actually it was Fazle Haq and the Muslim League which did so as far as kalabagh is concerned..as far as renaming it was the present PPP “patriot”, federal interior Minister Aftab Sherpao who introduced it as an issue.
There are pashtun generals and army officers and hence the pashtun nationalist arguments are hypocritical: Actually some of the ex Army officers, are fiercely nationalistic and others like Babar are fiercely anti military involvement in politics (Babar threw away his Army medals in protest against Zia’s government)
5)Pashtuns are well integrated economically into Pakistan so the separatist argument is rubbish: This is true, Pashtuns are well integrated economically into Pakistan..however much the same can be said for the pashtuns pre 1947..Bombay was to the migrant workers , what karachi is today. Political integration and rights is what makes a people well integrated and not economics. Off course the poorest ethnic groups in Pakistan are the Baloch, Northern areas (including Chitral and Kohistan), Pashtuns & Sindhis & Seraikis. With Balochis, the Northern areas and Sindhis having absolute grievences and the pashtuns and seraikis having relative ones.
Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
In Karachi, Pashtuns always tend to get on better with the Punjabi's (Punjabi-Pakhtun-Ittehad etc) rather than Balochi's and Mohajirs whom the have tended to target in their violent gangsterism.
Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
Zakk
I still read the forum from time to time, but the lack of intelligent debate on here discourages me from posting…
The above points are interesting to say the least. I certainly did’nt think that Pashtuns were welll integrated economically like you say above. Give an example please… Secondly, you make the point about political integration and rights. Well what does that say about hte native West Punjabi (original Pakistani) people of Pakistan. I’ve always found it interesting how few Pakistan origin Punjabis have ever been in a leadership position in the country, I would think that Pashtuns have had more of an infleunce than them.
Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
to answer your first question, one mustn’t confuse economic success with economic integration. Presently the dominant economic group is probably Punjabis. But if one was to look at the top 10 richest families in Pakistan you would get about 2 who were pashtun. Which roughly corresponds with the ethnic proportion of pashtuns, the rest would be evenly split between Mohajirs and Punjabis with no Baloch, Seraki or Sindhis..and perhaps one hindkowan.
Second, you can’t really take power as simply a title, people like Junejo and Jamali were Pakistani Prime Ministers, and essentially powerless ones. Ethnic distribution means little if all the core indicators remain the same, the Bhuttos promoted many Sindhis in the 1970’s into the civil service..and as soon as Zia came in he purged the system of them. So the establishment has remained dominated by Punjabis-Mohajirs with the odd Seraiki, Hindkowan and Pashtun thrown in. Most establishment people don’t care for ethnicity initially till they need some legitimacy. You can trace Ayub Khans fall to his increasing promotion of his own family. Similarly Zia promoted his own family and biradri and Musharraf has aggressively promoted Mohajirs within the establishment. So rather than promoting righst for everyone through the political system, dictators in pakistan, rob from peter to pay paul.
Re: Equal rights urged for Pakhtuns in Balochistan
Well, I liked the discourse, but just to add to what ZAK mentioned.
The leaders like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, GIK etc were not plucked out of obscurity, they were already in the establishment and they managed to the top position owing to their pro-Punjabi or Anti-Pukhtuns sentiments. Otherwise can you name a single nationalist being in the helm? off course not, because such people are marked and segregated right in their early service period. Hence Punjab would never allow any body with pro-Pukhtun sentiments, and they arbitrarily regard them as anti-Punjabis.