Last Sunday, Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s insinuation about Lahoris’ collusion with Hindus and Sikhs against Afghans stirred a heated response. I think by Lahoris he meant Punjabis in general. The people of the Punjab are frequently accused of not putting up a fight against invaders from the north.

Achakzai re-invented that allegation by accusing Punjabis (he called them Lahoris, though) of aiding and abetting Hindus and Sikhs to defeat Afghans. Thus, to him villainy of the Punjabis had been their collusion with Hindus and Sikhs against the Afghans and not what they are usually accused of.

Achakzai’s statement generated intense indignation among the Punjabi literati, which included the writer of these lines. Many social media sources keep reminding the Punjab and its residents of their passivity in resisting the invaders from the north. Those invaders were ethnic kith and kin of Mr Achakzai, therefore, he found it expedient not to mention what Ahmed Shah Abdali and Nadir Shah did to the Punjab. Piling up human skulls and making minarets of them was their favourite pastime.

The socio-political malaise in all of North India was the result of ravages of Ahmad Shah and Nadir Shah. The Punjab bore the most devastating brunt of their killing spree. The atrocities committed by these and several other like them have been recorded in the annals of history but what Mr Achakzai said can hardly be substantiated by historical facts.

Had Achakzai been a bit more specific about his unsubstantiated claim, it might have been better. When exactly did the people of the city of his hosts do what he has so nonchalantly pointed to? Some political commentators attribute Achakzai’s insinuation against the people of the ‘Lahore’ to their indifference to the public meeting (jalsa) of Pakistan Democratic Movement.

Whatever his motivation, it was highly impolitic as well as impertinent for a seasoned politician to say such a thing to embarrass his hosts. Besides, PML-N’s claim representation of the Punjab was hit by Achakzai’s exclamation. Saad Rafique’s invocation of the Punjabi identity was an unequivocal reflection of PML-N’s claim over the Punjab, particularly Lahore.

After Achakzai’s open deprecation of the Punjabis, people conscious of their Punjabi roots must have felt estranged. The adversaries of Nawaz League would certainly highlight this to their own political advantage.

But the question worth exploring is why the Punjab has incurred such insinuations from the leaders and laureates of other provinces? Apparently berating the Punjab and Punjabis has assumed the form of a discourse that has acquired a great deal of currency and credibility. Even people from UP were not positively disposed towards Punjabis. Hameed Akhter, a known Progressive writer from the Punjab reminisced about Josh Malihabadi expressing his astonishment over the former being such a gentleman despite being a Punjabi.

The smaller provinces started nursing malediction against the Punjab with the promulgation of One Unit in 1954. Some Pashtuns might have engendered antipathetic feelings for the Punjabis because during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rein, North West was conquered and governed in stern manner. The Punjab conquering Pashtun territory amounted to the pendulum of history moving in the reverse direction. Barring that one occasion, Pashtuns and Turks had ransacked the Punjab ruthlessly numerous times. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a part of the Punjab until 1902, when it was finally given the status of a chief commissionerate by Lord Curzon.

In Pakistan Punjabis became the target of vituperation from the other provinces when Sindh, the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan were lumped together with the Punjab at the behest of Chaudhary Muhammad Ali, Malik Ghulam Muhammad, Sikander Mirza and Ayub Khan. That move was meant to neutralise the Bengali majority. Out of these four two were Punjabis — Chaudhary Muhammad Ali and Malik Ghulam Muhammad.

The principle of parity was introduced to stop 56 percent Bengalis from asserting their numerical strength. Lahore was made the capital of the West Pakistan and the likes of the Nawab of Kalabagh ruled from there. That dispensation lasted until 1970 but by then it was a bit too late. During these years, the distinct identities of different ethnicities and lingual groups were not allowed political articulation.

Hence, the vilification of the Punjabis started. But I have not heard any criticism having been levelled against Dr Khan Sahib, the first chief minister of the West Pakistan. He secured that coveted position of power with the covert support of the wily Sikander Mirza. The let up in the tirade against Punjabis comes only when Peoples Party forms its government at the Centre.

Then the draconian rule of Ziaul Haq who hardly represented Punjabis provided an excuse to the critics of the Punjab to demonize the whole region. Under him, ZA Bhutto was executed to settle a personal vendetta. Then the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), which had its epicentre in Sindh, was brutally muzzled that, of course, was a tragedy without a parallel in the history of Pakistan.

That authoritarian and unrepresentative regime did the most harm to the inter-provincial harmony and sowed the seeds of discord. Zia’s political protégé, Nawaz Sharif, was the only politician of national stature to play the Punjabi card in 1988. He did it at the behest of Lt Gen Hamid Gul and Gen Aslam Baig who wanted to block Benazir Bhutto’s coming to power.

Nawaz Sharif made the Punjab his political base, caring a hoot about other regions whenever he was in power. But the way Benazir Bhutto was treated accentuated the bitterness against Punjabis. All I want to assert here is that all that was the orchestration of a few individuals and not of Punjabis as a community.

Punjab lent unequivocal support to the Pakistan Peoples Party in the 1970s. Before that the National Awami Party also had a sizeable representation in the Punjab. Having said all that, I will be really interested in what the critics of the Punjab say about Pervez Musharraf’s rule and ascendancy of the MQM? To conclude, this column, I will only ask Mr Mehmood Khan Achakzai to spare some time from his busy schedule to read history in a dispassionate manner.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the

Beaconhouse National University, Lahore