Renaming NWFP

NWFP is not only Mardan, Swabi and Charsada – stronghold of the ANP- but also Kohat, Hangu, Tal, DI Khan, Bannu, FATA comprising of seven large agencies with very independent and strong tribal traditions, Haripur Hazara, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Kohistan, Dir, Bajaur, Amb, Buneir, Swat, and Chitral who have neither much love lost for the name nor for the ANP party itself. Not all of them come from a Pukhtoon dominated or Pushto speaking area but have also a distinct different tinge and tone of culture, language or dialect of their own.. Bannuwals call their lingua franca Bannuchi and not Pushto. Though it is intelligible to most Yousafzei  Pushto speaking Pathans but never-the-less sounds quite different. Kohistani ‘Pushto’ is again not easily comprehensible by many. Urmar the language spoken by the Urmar tribe (Burkis) of South Waziristan is altogether a different language. It is not unders tood by most Pathans. Apart from these variations a very large populace of the province speaks Hindku – the second largest language of the province and they do not wish to be associated with the name Pukhtoonkhwa. They have their own identity which they feel threatened and think would be subjugated by the Pukhtoons of Pukhtoonkhwa.

However, the real reason for their antagonism to the name is their lurking memories of 1947 when the Congress government of the province and the forefathers of the present ANPwalas wanted the province to accede to Bharat and the Brits were forced to hold a referendum in a province with 98 percent Muslim population! Of course the outcome was a foregone conclusion in favour of Pakistan. They have also not forgotten the dying declaration against Pakistan and the will of the Sarhadi Gandhi the God Father of ANP – Bacha Khan – to burry him in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan – a country that he loathed. Ghaffar Khan worked tirelessly to establish an independent  Pukhtoonistan – a brain child of his political and spiritual  mentor Karam Chand Mohan Das Gandhi – to destabilise Pakistan in its infancy. Therefore, the opponents of Pukhtoonkhwa smell the rat of Pukhtoonistan in the name . They are not averse to the change of the name but not to Pukhtoonkhwa. They argue that it could be Khyber, Abasin (Father of the rivers - Sindh,) or even NWFP with its Urdu rendition Sarhad could be retained to which people have gotten used to over the period. Quite understandingly, the more the ANP doggedly sticks to the name Pukhtoonkhwa the more their opponents see the hidden routes of  Pukhtoonistan in it, which is entirely not acceptable to any patriotic Pakistani.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)