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Pakhtun E-Zine |
Durand Line |
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The British signed a
Document with the person
of King Abdul Rahman Khan in 1893 referring to the borders between
Afghanistan and British India. The line devised by the British was
worked by the British Colonial Officer Durand and thus became known as
the Durand Line. The document was to be ratified by the legislative body
in Afghanistan. It never happened. It was to remain in force for one
hundred years. It has not been revived on the deadline, which was 1993
either. Legally the Durand Line remains as an imaginary line dividing families
on both sides. It has never been demarcated either, especially
from Khyber Agency north to Chitral.
This artificial and imaginary line is increasingly becoming an area of
conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan even with Taleban regime that
ironically has the political and military support of the government of
Pakistan. |
PESHAWAR, Oct 15,2003: Politicians on Wednesday termed the Durand Line as an administrative need of the then British rulers, which had divided the Pukhtuns into four different units and was not a sacred deal between the then Afghan king and the English rulers of the subcontinent.
Speaking at a two-day conference on the Durand Line, organized by the Pukhtunkhawa Qaumi Party here at the Peshawar Press Club, the Pukhtun, Sindhi and Seraiki leaders from Sindh, Balochistan, Multan, Germany and Afghanistan underlined the unity of Pukhtuns for their well-being as a collective ethnic unit.
A delegation of the Pukhtuns Social Democratic Party, headed by Makhan Shinwari from Germany also attended the conference. JalalMahmood Shah, a former Sindh speaker, M. A. Bhutta,senior vice-president of Seraiki National Party and Shahsul Huda Shams of the Afghan Millat Party categorically termed the Durand Line asa legacy of the colonial rule, which needed to be removed.
Awami National Party leaders, Ajmal Khan Khattak, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Fareed Toofan, Zahira Afrasiab, PPP leaders Rahimdad Khan, Yawar Naseer, Shazia Tehmas Khan, NAPP leader Abdul Latif Afridi, Malik Amanullah Khan (Quetta), Shamim Qaiser Khan and some Pukhtun poets and writers were also present on the occasion.
Earlier, opening the maiden session of the conference, the PQP chief Mohammad Afzal Khan explained the importance of the conference. He said this was an administrative need of the British rulers which could not be recognized as a permanent boundary line.
Makhan Shinwari of the SDP was of the view that this division had caused irreparable losses to the Pukhtuns on both sides of the border. In Afghanistan, Pukhtuns were living with Tajiks and Uzbeks and in Pakistan they were residing along with Sindhis, Balochs and Punjabis. But, they themselves were divided into four parts, which resulted into their backwardness and abject poverty, Mr Shinwari added.
Prof Fazal-i-Rahim Khan Marwat, a teacher of Pakistan Studies at University of Peshawar, read out paper on the 'Importance of the Durand Line' and said this ethnic division had multiplied the miseries of Pukhtuns in Balochistan, NWFP, Fata and provincially administered tribal area (Pata).
Mr Afzal Khamosh of the Mazdoor Kisan Party said either Pukhtuns would have to establish a greater Afghanistan or they would have to defend Pakistan. He said Pukhtuns could not be united in the two separate countries.
Ms Shamim Qaiser, a district councillor from Peshawar, said that even the NWFP was being run by, at a time, an elected chief minister and a governor nominated by Islamabad. The governor, she said, was running the tribal belt.
Mr M. A. Bhutta of the SNP said before the imposition of One Unit, the Seraiki people had their own Bahawalpur assembly, but after the dismemberment of the One Unit, the then military rulers had merged Bahawalpur with Punjab. The Bahawalpur state had signed an accord with the governor-general of Pakistan and joined Pakistan after 1947,but the Seraikis were being treated as subjects of Punjab, he added.
Mr Jalal Shah of the Jeay Sindh Mahaz said Pakistan's rulers should first recognize the separate identity of the Sindhis, Punjabis, Balochs and Pukhtuns and grant them their national rights. The nationalism was a political reality of this century, he added. | |
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Durand Line: Jonathan Feiser
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The Durand Line, ratified in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, established the geopolitical architecture that sought to stabilize a clear security risk to British interests: the Pashtun tribes of the Indian frontier. At the time, the Durand Line represented the border between Afghanistan and British India, and then later became the boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan after the partition of 1947.
Today, the United States finds itself in a similar position to that of the British Empire before it: faced with a situation in which military expansion is necessary to establish national security. In this light, the geopolitical as well as the symbolic value of the Durand Line is not lost on the United States.
On a strategic level, this artificial border tore the tribal Pashtuns in half. Moreover, with the expansion of great-power interests and the resulting conflicts, the line eventually evolved into a politicized border region, housing religious fundamentalists and secular terrorist groups alike.
In light of recent events in Afghanistan, it is probable that deeper roots of friction are at work along wobbly ethnic, historical and tribal fault lines. In truth, this friction and the momentum it spurs ape Afghanistan's sacred history. Hence, even on Afghanistan's overly speedy quest toward a democracy envisaged by Western rulers, this unremitting cycle of shifting tribal loyalties and regional alignments generally continues unabated. In hindsight, these various factions were quite helpful in jettisoning the Taliban from power. But, in the following vacuum, such tribal systems are clear agents of decentralization when recuperation and centralization are what is needed.
On a functional level, Afghanistan cannot be subjectively examined under the Western conception of either a state or a nation. The country simply does not operate in any sense of either definition at this time. Both a limited security apparatus and stalled international support have done little to cultivate ancient divisions based on ethnic and religious elements. In regard to the US "war on terror" and domestic efforts employed pursuant to nation-building, these divisions continue to maintain and harass internal efforts and strengthen critiques of US policy.
Moreover, the very nature of the resilient warlord system finds a continued modus operandi uncannily similar to the support networks that operated throughout the Soviet occupation. Thus, in the very same historical pattern that kept change's progress locked in reverse throughout the past three decades, Afghanistan continues to resemble a discombobulated chessboard based on a thesis of revolving alignments and agendas and intrastate power politics.
In this confusing quest for progress, desperately needed foreign investment - not merely subsidized aid from non-governmental organizations - remains a critical and consistent requirement for Afghanistan's future. Hence, if such aid is not forthcoming, present conditions in Afghanistan will continue to represent the combination of factors that inhibit foreign investment and frustrate efficient fiscal and monetary policies. Next
Is durandline a problum by Dr. Yaseen Iqbal Yousafzai
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