Pawns in the Game

By Sikander Salahuddin and
Haroon Rashid
Names of Mountstuart Elphinstone and Alexander Burnes rank topmost among the British adventurers who explored and opened up in the 19th century India’s North West frontier and Afghanistan. Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1808 ventured forth with native Indian troops and some white officers. Some accounts say that Sir Syed Ahmaed Khan was also part of his expedition. Whereas. Alexander Burnes embarked on his expedition on 21st January 1831 sailing up the Indus , ostensibly to take four stallions, the gifts sent by King Williams !V for Maharaja Runjeet Singh. From Lahore he went further on to Peshawar, and then Afghanistan proper. The actual aim of these expeditions was to get a thorough understanding of the political state of affairs in these regions and report these findings back to the British government.
The accounts of both these Scottish explorers show profound observations, penetrating analysis of the Pashtoon and deep insight into their psychology. It was the tribal Pathans frontier region where Elphinstone met a tribal leader who said to him something quite interesting. He said “We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master.” What the tribal chief communicated to British explorer represents and encapsulates the very mind, mental outlook and way of life of a tribal Pashtoon.
But Pathans living in plains were subdued first by the Sikhs and later by the British, more due to their conqueror’s organized armies and advanced weaponry than for they lacking in the necessary martial spirit. But in wild mountains of the North West live those Pashtoons whom no body could subdue, conquer or tame. Hence evolved their claim of invincibility and superiority, their disdain of all other kind of people whom they came into contact with . Living by a Spartan code of chivalry and honor, with fierce individualism and passion for liberty they become people like no others. The Sikhs are equally renowned for their warlike nature and fighting skills but they can be content with a master. After the fall of kingdom built by Runjeet Singh in 1849 they quietly flocked to the British fold and began serving their new masters.
But the Pashtoon of the mountains loath to serve masters, they are so much full of themselves. Their way of life is the touchstone with which they measure other kind of people and no body appears their equal, let alone a superior, so why should they serve a master? They are more prone to serve master of another kind, a non human master: a God whom they only like to worship and happily serve.
Pathans are profoundly religious people but why Pathans are more religious and take their religion more seriously than the other people? One theory is that being not sufficiently advanced and sophisticated, their absorption in religion is actually primitive man’s fascination for his religion. After all, it was the religion that determined and dominated the whole life of man during ancient history and subsequently as civilization advanced in complexity, the hold of religion over human minds receded considerably. This theory is partially vindicated by the fact that many of those Pathans who came under the spell of communist ideology, when Afghanistan fell to Soviet influence, showed marked departure from their traditional religion and its practices. The same was witnessed among their brethrens across the Durand line in Pakistan. ANP in old days was a leftist party and some of its ideologues had marked Marxist Leninist tendencies including atheism.
Another justification for a Pathan’s fascination for religion can be traced in his great qualities of passionate love and unflinching, unvarying loyalty to those whom he come to love and respect. Let alone friends and loved ones, a tribal Pashtoon provides shelter to a total stranger, in many cases at the risk of his own life. A Pathan fulfills customs and conventions of hate and love equally well. If the same bonds of steadfast love and loyalty are maintained in man to man relationship, then the same must reach their highest level in his relationship with God. It is for the same reason that loves of God, respect for religion, its customs, conventions and rituals form the most essential part of a Pashtoon’s life.
But this absorption and the highest respect for religion, a thing quite nice in itself, brings in its wake something quite unforeseen and unexpected. What if a Pathan falls into the trap set by some clever manipulator who knowing his sensitivity for religion touches and manipulates the strings and cords of his heart that link him to God? From a Pathan’s simple life, mind and simple interpretation of religion the manipulator will easily spin the material for taking control of his mind and energies. In this case scenario, a Pathan’s judgment will be blurred and he will accept a master, a human master. And let us not forget Pathans are people most warlike, vengeful, full of wrath and anger for their enemies and more so for the enemies of God if they believe so or if they are made to believe by their manipulators. Pathans will then in all sincerity unleash his potential and energies at some enemy dictated and chosen by some body else, fighting some body else’s war, shedding their precious blood for some body else’s cause. This is not a hypothetical proposition, but in reality this has happened and still happening.
The foul plot of making use of Pashtoon’s prowess and energies was hatched once the Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1978. One can’t deny the fact that there was much local Pashtoon resentment when Soviet influence began to penetrate in Afghanistan. But the threat was exaggerated beyond limits by their Americans and Pakistanis “backers” and the Pathans were lured into fighting a “jihad “against godless Soviet Union, to ward off supposed threat to their Islamic way of life and centuries old customs. Their simple belief in Islam was systematically manipulated and exploited to make them the fodder of war in fight against “The Evil Empire”. It was stated in propaganda that soviet style system had no morality and all of man and women in Soviet Union had common husbands and common wives. The real fact was that it was USA not USSR where moral degeneration, promiscuity and laxity in sexual decay were rampant , though US claimed itself a country which believed in God and USSR put no belief in organized religion .
But nobody cared for these delicate differences at that time. The world was abuzz with Mujahedin’s valiant struggle and among the Pashtoon few thought seriously that Jihad in Afghanistan had some seamy side to it too. The Pashtoon’s fighting the jihad, on account of their lack of education in international politics and strategic studies couldn’t rise that much high to see the whole affair from a vantage point and appraise their actual role in the war. They had pretty much limited and narrow way of looking at things, being in total ignorance of the fact that they were merely puny figures or pawns at the great game for containing Soviet influence in the region. This fate was sealed and the same fate awaits all of those who without education, and advancement in science and technology live in modern times, loosing the very means to control their own destiny and directions in life
East West rivalry of the Cold war was played out on Afghan and Pakistani soil for ten long years, resulting in the deaths of near one million Afghans, countless others becoming crippled for life and 5 million became refugees in neighboring countries.
Other times quickly followed when Pashtoons were misled by the enemies from within, their own fellow Pathans who urged them to offer their blood again in other wars, against other foes. .As America attacked Afghanistan on October 2001, a massive sympathy wave swept across NWFP, and rest of Pakistan for Taliban and their cause. But it was NWFP where Taliban sympathizers especially JUI organized rallies for raising new recruits to fight American forces. Religious emotions took the better of common people who volunteered themselves for fighting the new invaders, others who couldn’t volunteer donated money. Women donated their gold jewelry and the Pathan recruits crossed the Pak Afghan boarder but proved no match for superior American air power, their dead bodies lying scattered over the mountains and plains of Afghanistan ,others who survived fell into the hands of Northern Alliance fighters who released them only after hostage money was paid by their Pakistani relatives.
But it was AL Qaeda, a sharp witted band of Arabs, with a global agenda and an apocalyptic vision which excelled even the CIA and ISI in exploiting Pathan’s gullibility, his warlike spirit and his simple belief in Islamic creed,. This organization has on its agenda the destruction and defeat of the remaining “infidel super power” and the overthrow of Muslim regimes friendly to the west. To achieve its goals and objectives it needed a territory and a people sympathizing with its cause. But no country in the world even a Muslim one wanted to buy Al Qaeda brand of Islam and its confrontational ideology. But AL Qaeda among the tribal Pashtoons of Pakistan has found both. It has misused and exploited their tribal rules of hospitality, had them indoctrinated and proselytized into there version of Islam and launched them into the war zone laced them with guns, bombs and suicide jackets.. The Pathans have again in the name of Islam become the unconscious agents and foot soldiers of some body else’s war. On the chess board of this new kind of ideological war driven by history, religion and international politics Pashtoons move now again as pawn. Ironically they claim the role of player, but who is the player, the entire world knows except them.