Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, who is otherwise believed to be a voice of sanity among the religious scholars in the country, recently made an off-the-cuff remark, linking the Taliban barbarity with the Pakhtun tribal culture. This has triggered a debate in the country about the stereotyping of Pakhtuns, the distinction between the Pakhtun and the Taliban way of life, and a whole lot of other questions.
People from across cultures, provinces, and ethnicities have reacted strongly against such stereotyping; more so because the Pakhtun belt has been historically used to achieve strategic aims and there has been systematic cultural engineering to achieve those aims. It would either be the British empire pitched against Russia, or the Afghan jihad conducted in the backdrop of the Cold War or the Pakistani state’s aims for strategic depth going on in its neighbouring countries.
Even if the post-1947 consequences of the state’s policy are now borne by the entire country, there is this sense that violence is territorialised to an extent -- it germinates in or originates from the tribal mountains. With the stereotyping of Pakhtuns as warriors and fighters, it is logical to conclude that the Shariah and Pakhtunwali (the cultural code most Pakhtuns adhere to) converge at some point, may be in the strictly tribal values espoused by both.
So do the Taliban draw their "political message" from the Pakhtunwali code? At least, the Ghamidi statement seemed to imply that. That people from across cultures and other distinctions reacted to such stereotyping was because they realise the games Pakistani state has been playing in those territories, they realise how big has been the role of Punjab in the making of the state as we know it, and they also realise how Punjab itself is now the hub of militancy.
We at TNS have, therefore, tried to look at the Pakhtun code and its juxtaposition with militancy in the country in great detail in our Special Report today. The evolution of the Pakhtun code is a fascinating journey, because unlike the common perception it is a journey that has aimed at the betterment of its people. Like other cultures, the evolution is ongoing and there are some unworthy omissions, like the status of women, which are still there but not for want of trying.
The biggest jolt to its evolution has come in the shape of the militancy in the region. As Khadim Hussain puts it: "The militant network attempts to delink the Pakhtuns from their history and indigenous narrative … and has tried to isolate Pakhtuns from the rest of the world…" What an affront to Bacha Khan’s legacy!