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
I second the argument that nothing changes with a name change(there might be many to dispute it) considering the other colossal issues Pakistan is facing right now but isn’t it another glaring instance of the chauvinistic politics a la mode? ANP, PML-N and PML-Q all aggravated the situation instead of offering a referendum in a cordial environment so that hazarawals wouldn’t have felt the urge to come to the streets even when PML-Q was fueling the fire to gain political hold in the area. And I think it would be inane to expect the masses to react differently or even sensibly when police openend fire at the demonstrators, killing a man right at the spot.. (The history and my personal experience of the region shows hazarawals to be the extremely ductile and non-violent people).No cause teaches burning public property but no power institution should be used to suppress the masses by violence either. The beneficiaries are the political parties at the end of the day and the sufferers are the masses (10 dead included 4 kids straight from the school, hundreds in hospitals without proper medical facilities and thousands left sore and enraged). I don’t intend to proliferate the blame game but the interests of all involved parties should be taken into account before ‘blaming’ the masses as well.
Prof. Najam, I seem to be seeing yo simultaneously talking to every channel on the Benazir murder report.. First on Geo then ARY. By the way, I like very much what you say. Thank you for speaking so honestly and bluntly about this.
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “Khyber-Hazara_Pakhtoonkhwa (KHP) or even Hazara-Pakhtoonkhwa would have been better. Achievement of aims should be through politics in a democracy and not through death and destruction!”
– “i m niether in the favor of pakhtoonkhwan nor hazara. if this trend takes place, punjab will b divided in to two provinces, sindh will b also caus mqm will b emnading karachi as a separate province etc etc.
so i think just KHYBER is okay.”
– “well, this shows how divided this nation has become now. what was wrong with just NWFP? we should be one nation regardless of what province we belong to or what’s its name. tragically, now we are fighting just on a minor issue of what should be the name of NWFP. everyone is thinking for his own. May Allah make us one nation, Ameen”
– “Senators today shamelessly approved this ridiculous name change as people are dying in Abbotabad. They fete while the country burns.”
– “I am all for dividing the provinces. Our provinces are too big to be administered properly.”
– “does the name makes any differnt lolz would they then face any less load shedding less crime better employment chances lolzzz we seriously need to grow as a nation and think abt constructive things beyonds names and individual…”
– “changing the name is not a big thing which these people have needed,
we have got some serious problems which needs more attention like war against terror, education provideing to citizens, loadshedding, how to stop foreign interfere in our country like drone attacks etc etc. why is the current GOVT ignoreing these problems…………..
well coming towards the situation in hazara, i think that in abbotabad there is the majority of pukhtoons. and second thing is that in peshawar and other area of pukhtoon the hazareval people are called as punjabis by pukhtoons, while at the punjab side they are known as part of pukhtoons in short may be people belonging to hazara want their confirmed identity by creating the new province and they feel like they are ignored by khyber pukhtoonkhva GOVT.
But they dont know that todays all simple Pakistanis are ignored by present G***, they are least bothered about our problems which need special attention.”
What will a new province or a new name do for these people?
Every common citizen of Pakistan, even if s/he is uneducated and poor, knows his/her needs and understands that these are nothing but gimmicks. They will not provide them food, education or electricity.
These are only tricks to divert our attention to divert are attention from the real issues.
The murderer policemen were using that ambulance to escape the angry crowd. They were intercepted, beaten and the vehicle was set on fire by the angry crowd.
Hazara province was never a serious issue even in Hazara but after this incident it has become a public demand.
The ANP is a fascist and racist organization and their discriminatory policies and attitude has caused this issue. The ANP has no plan or vision for economic and social development. They need stunt issues to maintain their politics. First Kalabagh Dam and now this Khyber-“Khamakhuwa”. They are portraying as if the Pukhtoons had no birth certificate which this change of name will give them.