The way out of history

Khyber Pakhtukhwa and Fata are hostage to history. A paradigm shift is needed to be out of the bonds of obscurantism. The shackles arresting the progress of this area are feudal politics steeped in conservatism, which are associated also with the religous Right. There is a need to change political leadership from feudals to progressive elements of society to make this shift possible.
Since the early 20th century, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been socially and politically led by land-holding families who had the time and resources to invest in power politics. The absence of a trading and industrialist class provided the space for the big and middle class feudals to occupy the leadership role.
Since the big landholders, awarded with fiefdoms and jagris by the British colonisers, cut across the egalitarian principles of the Pakhtun society, the middle landholding families had the opportunity to form an alliance with the downtrodden segments and cause trouble for the British Empire in India. This was the historical social scenario which gave birth to the Khudai Khidamtagar Movement, led by Baacha Khan aka the Frontier Gandhi.
The Khudai Khidmatgar metamorphosed into different political parties – the National Awami Party (NAP), the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the current Awami National Party (ANP) – after the creation of Pakistan. After the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, the NAP became the political platform of Baloch and Pashtun nationalists, with some space for pro-Moscow Marxists but the party was banned in 1975 after the assisination of Hayat Muhammad Khan Sherpao – the provincial leader of the PPP.
During all these years the core leadership of the NAP, NDP, and ANP has come from middle landholding families of the Peshawar valley. Despite its progressive principles, it is barred by the attitudes and outlook of rural middle-income landholding families. With some noble exceptions such as the Bilours, the ANP and its forebearers have failed to attract the entrepreneurial and industrial class into its folds.
The other major political stream in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been led by the various versions of the Muslim League – a political group led by big landlords or nawabs as elsewhere in India and Pakistan. For sometime during the early nineties, its leadership was tested with a fedual-cum-industrialist, a well-known political figure from Mardan, but by and large the Muslim League has remained a conservative force. Mian Nawaz Sharif’s experiments to try the leadership of the PML with a little known pir from Sri Kot in Hazara also failed and the party is currently in disarray in the province.
The JUI-F has been appealing to religious sentiments, mostly in the rural and under-developed areas, but has failed to provide any economic leadership to the province in terms of development. The JUI and JI’s coalition of MMA ruled the province for five years without achieving any notable development. Rather the MMA’s policies further isolated the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The JI, led by middle-class professionals, has been successful in winning some constituencies in district Dir but has failed to attract the attention of the masses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwwa.
The PPP aliented the industrial class in Pakistan due to its socialist and nationalisation policies, hence it didn’t attract the industrialist families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa too. Currently, the PPP is also in disarray in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, though it still has a cadre of dedicated workers intact.
The PTI is led by Imran Khan, whose family background makes it difficult for him to understand the nuances of clientele politics in Pakistan. Though Imran Khan has attracted a considerable chunk of disenchanted youth, and some industrialists, by and large the party’s concepts of justice and change are non-appealing to genuine political workers.
Because of the vast industrial base, feudals have been sidelined by the industrialists and the commercial classes in the political arena in Punjab. The Sharifs have provided comparatively good leadership in Punjab because of their industrial and urban background but politics in the other provinces, with the exception of the MQM, has been hostage to rural and land-owning families.
The industrialists and traders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa too can organise a better political option for the people and replace an outdated political model. There are already some prominent industrial political families which have been in one or the other political party – at the sidelines. However, the need is to organise a core team of industrialists who feel disenchanted with the political parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and create a political platform of their own with a vision of economic development.
Industrialists are progressive by their very nature as they represent a higher stage of social development and bring in new values and attitudes because of a different economic formation. Sooner or later, these industrial political families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will realise that, instead of playing second fiddle, they should be at the forefront of a political party that has a better understanding of the economic needs of the region.

The writer is an Islamabad-based Fulbright scholar with a background in law, politics and human rights. Email: mr352@georgetown.edu