Turn the tide

Pakistan is presently confronted with a complex political challenge in two of its provinces NWFP and Balochistan that has grown into a serious threat to its territorial integrity.

The misrule and short-sighted policies of the last sixty years, over one half of which was by army dictators, have precipitated hostilities in these areas that have held hostage the peace and well being of the entire nation. The economic meltdown during the last year and a half and the return of begging bowl to the reluctant donors is a link in the same chain. Let us go a little back in history.

A majority of the people of NWFP voted in favour of Pakistan in a referendum held in 1946 boycotted by the Khudai khidmatgar who held majority in the assembly at the time. The province became an integral part of the country and its people are adequately represented in the army, bureaucracy, agriculture, trade, industry and politics. Three out of seven presidents of Pakistan hailed from the NWFP as did several armed forces chiefs.

The seven Khyber agencies are federally administered under a political agent operating through a traditional jirga system with no jurisdiction of the Pakistani laws, though they elect their own members for the National Assembly and Senate. The agencies are male dominated with a low literacy and few human rights.

They have remained under developed except for basic services, roads for supplies and movement, a few schools and hospitals necessary for survival. Neither the ordinary people have been inducted in the national mainstream nor their youth have they been provided with any schemes of earning a livelihood locally that has turned the region into a hub for smuggling and other illegal activities.

Lately, these agencies have been seized by the new phenomenon of Pakistani Taliban, who have taken up arms against our army on one side and the US and NATO forces on the other.

Balochistan has been a trouble spot almost ever since it agreed to accede to be a province of Pakistan in 1946 and the princely states of Dir and Kalat were annexed the following year. A number of separatist groups have engaged in an armed struggle dreaming of creating a Greater Balochistan slicing areas from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

An uprising by Nawab Nowroz in 1958 and a more serious one in the seventies led by Baloch leaders Marri, Bizenjo and Mengal and supported by Wali Khan and Mufti Mahmood from the NWFP had to be put down by the army. Oddly, Nawab Akbar Bugti remained the centre appointed governor of the province during this entire period while the six month old governments in Balochistan and NWFP were dismissed by Prime Minister Bhutto, the leaders were arrested, charged with high treason and their political parties were banned.