It has taken me few days to write on the topic because I wanted the noise and chatter to settle down a bit. While we have a war like situation in the newly named Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, it was interesting to see how all political parties came together for and against renaming of the province and ended up creating a new war zone within a war zone. The parties for it got it all settled within 2 weeks and those against it are still battling it out on the streets of Hazara Divsion.
Renaming of old NWFP has been at fore and back of ANP politics since atleast 1980s but the speed with which it got passed this time baffled even its supporters. My opinion on this issue is ‘fine!’ If the majority of people want this name for the province then why not? However, what is happening in Hazara for the past two weeks has been more a muted reaction. Just yesterday several people lost their lives.
What I have not completely understood yet and I am sure our readers will have a lot to say about it in comments below is why renaming a province has been such a polarizing issue in Hazara? May be my views are very simplistic but naam mein kia rakha hai yaar? Naming a province to one ethnicity or group doesn’t give or take anybody any extra rights. I however still think that a decision like this should’ve been taken by referendum where majority of people could have voted on the issue rather than few people deciding on it.
Another dimension of last few days’ events, and it appears quite obvious is that PML(Q) seems to be exploiting the situation in the area which has been the vote bank of PML(N) in the past.
Looks like what started with just renaming of the province may actually end up creating a separate province – Which by the way, may not be a bad idea either. At ATP we’ve discussed the idea of creating more provinces in Pakistan few times. See here and here. Yesterday PML(N)’s Javed Hashmi gave a very strong statement in favour of a separate province of Hazara region. Today PML(Q)’s Chaudhry Shujat has also called for a separate Hazara province.
Urdu newspaper Jang reported that in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s assembly two resolutions have been submitted – by two ANP members – to carve out Hazara province. So this appears to be another dimension of the conflict. The news cutting is to the right.
While the streets of Mansehra-Abbotabad simmer with burning tyres the usual blame game is also going on in full swing. So much so that it appears to be a league tournament – where everybody takes on everybody else. I’ve seen on-record news items where PTI has blamed ANP, PML(N) has blamed PML(Q). PML(Q) has blamed PML(N), local PPP guys have blamed ANP and ANP has blamed every body mentioned above for creating the chaos in Hazara.
This is time to rise above petty politics, because I think all parties want good in the end – It is just their inflated egos which they can’t seem to overcome. The name Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is fine. Congratulations to all those who wanted it. Those who want separate province called Hazara, I hope they lobby and arrange for public referendum on the issue and measure their support by ballot and not by burning public property.
I was especially saddened to see an Edhi ambulance burnt by the mob protesting for Hazara rights two days ago. Photos of this burning Edhi ambulance were published in news media all over – see our title photo above which captured this sad moment. Which cause teaches anybody to burn an ambulance? It is a shame. An excerpt from Dawn news of April 12 goes like this:
The protesters blocked roads, pelted police with stones, torched two police vehicles and an ambulance of Edhi Foundation, smashed billboards and also set a police station on fire.
On the ground – just by renaming the province, nothing changes in terms of rights of people, creating more jobs, better sanitation, more electricity, more schooling etc – Those issues still remian where they were before North West Frontier province was renamed as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
A set of issues are raised in the national assembly. A parliamentary committee consisting of representatives from all parties is constituted to come with recommendations to solve these issues. The committee deliberates over it at length and eventually agrees on an amendment to the law to be tabled in the parliament. The amendment is approved with an overriding majority in the parliament. However a small group of people disagree with certain provisions of the new bill and react violently to it and start demanding that the bill be changed. They threaten violence, cite past injustices and future grievances, point to inconsistency with the ideology of Pakistan and cast those who proposed the bill as unpatriotic. To placate the protestors, should the majority allow a small group of people to hold everyone else hostage? Should they go about changing the basic structure of the federation and the laws of the land because a few tyres are burnt in a couple of cities? And what should the people who support the change, by definition the majority, do? Go out and burn tyres and pelter stones at public property as well? One option could be to create an administrative zone where the minority could impose their own law. Would that be right? I am of course talking about the amendment to hudood ordinance that was passed some time back that led to (small) improvement in womens’ rights and the resulting riots and protests by the Islamist political parties. All references and similarities to the issue under discussion are intentional and deliberate.
The point is, the solution to such issues is not in creation of new administrative structure. There are lots of good reasons for creating more provinces. This my dear friends is not amongst those. We can create a Hazara province but what will we do when the pashtuns living in Hazara demand a separate province. What happens when those living in Oghi believe the people of Mansehra are not giving them their due share and are treating them with contempt because of their accent? And to broaden it just a tiny bit, will we then be ready to carve out Karachi from the rest of Sindh? If ethnic and linguistics differences constitute the determining criteria, what about Makran? What about Attock which is part Punjabi, part Hindko? What about Lyari in Karachi
Democracy is not only about enjoying one’s own rights, it is also about respecting others’ rights. My belief is that the majority of Hazarawals are not pushed either way about the name and are happy to accept the will of the majority. Petty, opportunistic politics by a few is fanning the ongoing violence and it will die down. It is unfortunate and needs to be condemned.
I just saw a video on BBCUrdu in which a man on an Abbottabad street stated what every Hazarwal comes across quite frequently. The man said: “When we go to the area across the Attock (bridge over Indus to Pushtun territory) we are called ‘Punjabian’ (Punjabis); in Punjab we are greeted with welcome ‘Khan baba'”. This in nutshell is the dilemma of every resident of Hazara. They have no identity. Pushtuns don’t consider them of one of their own, others call them pushtuns.
Whether one likes it or not or views it trivial, identity matters! Hazara has been silently suffering discrimination for decades. Ask any student from Hazara who has studied at Peshawar University (or any of its affiliated institutions in Peshawar) how they were subjected to an attitude that belittled their non-pushtun origin. Teachers frequently switch over to Pushto while delivering lectures in English and feel annoyed when reminded that there are those who cannot follow that language; in oral examinations almost always the first question is asked in Pushtu, if one can respond in Pushtu, well and good, otherwise a frown and discomfort on the face of the examiner which might lead to lower grades. The point of narrating these is to highlight the fact that the people of Hazara have never been accepted as equals in Pushtun heartland. Even those saying that there are a large number of Pushtu speakers in Hazara, consider them inferior Pushtuns as their Pushtu is no longer pure.
As a nation, we must not close our minds to ideas that in the long term would suit our country. Many sane voices have been calling for new provinces for what now seems ages but somehow our political class is reluctant to take these ideas seriously. Why must innocent blood be shed all the time for someone in Islamabad to sit up and take notice? People of Hazara are peace-loving folks (columnist Talat Hussain calls them ‘docile’) and would not indulge in the kind of violence witnessed during the last few days for no reason. They may have been politically manipulated but their greviences are genuine that need attention. In the national press an effort is on to belittle their demand. This is sad and would only serve to fan the fire that is being brought in control as I write these lines.
We approve new districts but when some body suggest to create new provinces every one start making noise.
Whats wrong to having 16 or so provinces.
This is the firs step towards greater pakhtunkhwa. ANP is never loyal to Pakistan.
Its a shame that you only wrote about the ambulance but not about the innocent people killed by direct police firing, you only saw ambulance burning in media, didn’t you saw the school kid dragged by police and was beaten to death?
Ayub: dictator
Gohar Ayub: nominated in firing case in Khi
Omer Ayub: exploited the Hazara situation, indirectly responsible for incident..
do you see a pattern?
On the other hand why not add Hazara to the name..”Hazara-Pakhtunkhua”?