Wali Khan: The Frontier Liberal – by Dr. Muhammad Taqi
Originally published in the Peshawar Statesman:
The Frontier Liberal: a tribute to Wali Khan
By Dr. Mohammad Taqi
January 25, 2010
کسے کہ کشتہ نہ شد از قبیلہ ما نیست
kasay keh kushtah na shud az qabeela e ma neest )
He who lacks the will to protest, should step away from my fold. Anyone not willing to sacrifice does not belong to my clan, said Nazeeri Nishaburi.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century Wali Khan indeed remained the voice of protest and democratic opposition in Pakistan.
One is tempted to compare Wali Khan’s legacy to the mystical story in Rumi’s Mathnawi, of the elephant surrounded by several men in a dark room trying to figure it out. He certainly was different things to different people.
For his adversaries like the right-wing Muslim Leaguers a la Qayyum Khan or the populist ZA Bhutto he was the arch-enemy – an absolute traitor – who should have been physically eliminated. And to this end they tried their best – at times using the services of a certain leftist group in the NWFP.
His adversaries at least concurred on him being a constant thorn in their side. However, his admirers faced a bigger dilemma – how to classify Wali Khan and which aspects of his thought and politics to choose,subscribe to and admire.
Was a he a Pashtun nationalist, out to undo the wrongs of history and colonialism and reunite the Pashtun irredentas of Afghanistan,FATA, NWFP and Baluchistan and recreate a greater Pashtunistan – something that had not been achieved since Ahmed Shah Durrani.
The others argued that he was a socialist in the Nehruvian mould, who relished his role in the Afro-Asian Solidarity movement. And yet others believed that the Solidarity was a front for a complete implementation of the Soviet agenda and Wali Khan was somehow keen on carrying the latter out.
Like the people around the elephant in that dark room, in Rumi’s parable, most of us – supporters and detractors alike – only felt parts of Wali Khan’s political being and mistook that part for the whole. Such differences in vantage points and observations made therefrom , make Wali Khan’s legacy infinitely negotiable.
For example, the late Jauhar Mir – a PPP intellectual and poet- writing about Wali Khan had stated that Wali Khan really had no political creed of his own and he borrowed and adopted the leftist ideology from his fellow travelers.
On the other hand, his comrade-in-arms Habib Jalib opened his poem about Wali Khan with :
جو نہ مٹ سکے وطن پر میرا ہمسفر نہیں ہے
jo na mit sakay watan per mera hamsafar naheeN hai)
(There is no one in my entourage whose creed is pettiness. No such person travels with me who can’t make a sacrifice for the motherland)
Jalib was visiting Peshawar in 1990 to address election rallies when I asked him about his inspiration for this particular poem about Wali Khan. He acknowledged that indeed it was the Nazeeri Nishaburi’s verse quoted in the opening which he had paraphrased.
While the contemporary historians and his biographers – of whom there is a dire need – would certainly keep negotiating and determining Wali Khan’s political legacy, one thing is clear that he was a pioneer in the center-left electoral politics in the undivided Pakistan.
Wali Khan’s most underestimated contribution perhaps is that he made a clean break with the politics of street agitation espoused by Maulana Hameed Bhashani and the militant adventurism championed by Major (R) Ishaq and Muhammad Afzal Bangash.
The Peshawar declaration of July 1, 1968 announcing the formation of Pakistan National Awami Party (NAP) with a clear electoral program and a socialist economic manifesto was a watershed event in the history of the leftist electoral politics in Pakistan. Along with Professor Muzzafar Ahmed , Mahmud ul Haq Usmani, Arbab Sikander Khalil and G B Bizenjo, Wali Khan had brought the leftists and nationalists not just together but at the verge of political power through ballot.
Another landmark achievement of Wali Khan was using the anti-Ayub campaigns of the 1960s to help the Pashtun polity metamorphose into the twentieth century political party organization. While Baacha Khan’s anti-British struggle had trickled down to the town and village level, the organization of the Red Shirts had remained arrested at a pre-independence stage. Wali Khan was acutely aware of this shortcoming and deployed the anti-Ayub campaign’s scaffolding to build the NAP’s organizational structure along modern lines.
Wali Khan’s campaign in support of Ms.Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan, not only reflected his anti-tyranny character but in doing so resonated well with the Pashtun youth by then entering the universities and getting exposed to the modern thought. Some of these students like Latif Afridi and Afrasiab Khattak were to later inherit Wali Khan’s political mantle at different levels.
Wali Khan’s foremost acknowledged contribution remains his role in the post-1971 constitution making. It was at this juncture that he shone as a polished Westminster style democrat and negotiated and delivered with Z A Bhutto the unanimously approved 1973 Constitution of Pakistan.
While the PPP’s tactics of political intrigue and personal and political persecution threatened to derail the process every step of the way, Wali Khan and other NAP leaders remained above personal fray and pettiness. Former PPP Law Minister Rafi Raza and Sardar Sherbaz Khan Mazari’s written accounts are succinct portraits of the magnanimity displayed by the opposition leaders in bringing the constitution-making to fruition.
I am not sure if he would have liked to be called one, but in his words and actions Wali Khan was the liberal in the western sense of the word.
Without subscribing to any textbook ideology, Wali Khan groomed the diversity of political visions he had managed to rally around him. He was bridge between the anti-British struggle and the needs of conducting politics in a modern nation-state. While keeping his values and historical inheritance intact he looked forward to a changing world.In a country teeming with overt religiosity, he had remained a torchbearer of secular ethos till the very end.
I believe that Wali Khan’s politics will continue to be studied,admired and criticized from various ideological,political and personal perspectives but I hope that due attention would also be paid to Wali Khan the man. The man who once acted on the stage as a child-star, who was a repertoire of poetry -whether Pashto tapay or Faiz’s Urdu ghazals, who loved Yousuf Lodhi’s political cartoons and Gulzar Alam’s music.
Like Rumi himself, Wali Khan’s creed was not the moral certitude but an acknowledgment that an alternative view existed too. This, to me, was the hallmark of the Frontier Liberal that Wali Khan was.
January 26th marks the fourth death anniversary of Wali Khan.
(Author teaches and practices Medicine at the University of Florida and is a contributor to the think tank www.politact.com. He can be reached at mazdaki@me.com )
The role models such as Bacha Khan depict the true virtues and traditions of Pahustun’s. On part of Pakistan’s establishment severe injustices have been done to distort such individuals who were at the other end of the ideological battle. A revised and true history will acknowledge the non-violent movement and such a campaign is needed to win this war.
Who killed the Mahatma!
– Dhirendra Sharma
Conservatives of all colours forget that all of us are born of a Human Mother. There is no exclusive blood group which divide us as Marathi and Bihari, Christian, Hindu, Muslims, or Shias and Sunnies, Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri, Baloch or Sindhi, Aasamese and Bangalis, Tamils and Sinhalas, Dalits and non-Dalits. Once a young girl asked Dr. Abdul Kalam, “Are you a muslim, Indian, Tamil, scientist, or the President of India?”
“I am a human being and that covers all others”,
replied the scientist sage Kalam.
But the chauvinist Thakares should be reminded of Badshah Khan who suffered for our unity and Independence. Thousands of followers of the Badshah Khan had joined Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement (1942). Yet, Free India did not grant “Freedom Fighter” status to the Khudayi Khidmadgar volunteers of the North West Frontier. At the time of partition the Frontier Gandhi had cried “The Congress (India) had abandoned us to the wolves.” During the British Raj, Abdul Ghafar Khan had suffered 8 years imprisonment but he spent his last 18 years inside the Islamic prison of Pakistan. His worthy son Dr. Wali Khan too suffered long imprisonment under the Pakistani regime.
The Badshah Khan willed not to be buried in the (napak) soil of Pakistan. His majaar is outside the Pak territory, beyond Khyber Pass, inside the Afghani soil. The Khans’ home at the outskirts of Peshawar is a Museum of Indian Freedom Struggle.
During my visits to Pakistan I met many “Kashmiri Feedom fighters” and academics who failed to recognize historical weakness of religious-political paradigm. There is a total absence of Marx and Gandhi in the Muslim world. For instance, I asked Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy of Islamabad University to hold a seminar on Philosophy of Gandhi. He expressed inability “it would be misconstrued here”, he said.
However, in a recent article ( in the Hindu/Dawn) Dr. Hoodbhoy sincerely expressed Pakistani frustration “at Indian obduracy in Kashmir”. If India wanted a rapprochement with Pakistan, he argues, that “has nothing to do with feelings of friendship or goodwill, (but) it has to do with survival of India.” He further insisted that without peace in Kashmir the forces of cross-border jihad, and its hate-filled holy warriors, would continue to receive the state, and people’s support against India. And the “Indian soldiers (will) continue to needlessly die –and oppress and kill Kashmiri innocents,” wrote Prof. of Physics of Islamabad University. He seems unaware that Kashmir conflict and the jihadi Taliban were creation of the cold-war strategy which had now backfired.
In Kashmir, I witnessed the burning of Indian flags. While hoisting the Pakistani flags, they were shouting “Hans-ke liya hai Pakistan, lad-ke lenge Hindustan.”
(Laughing we got Pakistan. By fighting we shall capture India.) All this happened in front of armed Indian soldiers who did not open fire on unarmed citizens. I wondered if such could happen in reverse in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. It was not Indian but Pakistani soldiers who killed thousands of muslims for hoisting a Bangaladeshi flag. Nonetheless, the Talibans and the Thakres must realize that fighting for exclusive regional or religious identities has no place in 21st century Space Age world order.
The Jingoist politics of Thakres’ notwithstanding, we are proud of Khans and hosts of Muslim saints, writers, actors, music maestros, leaders, ministers, scientists, professors and vice-chancellors who are our popular celebrate in India. Nevertheless, ours is the only country in the world that had built segregated “ Haji Air Terminus” for Muslims Only (sic. Whites Only). And New Delhi has not granted resident Visa to Ms. Taslima Nasreen. Human Rights campaigner, Ms. Asma Jahangir had rightly complained that Indian polity encourages (pampers) Muslim conservatism.
In order to become a Developed South Asian community we must give up fighting for narrow chauvinistic ideologies. We should prepare a roadmap for Peaceful- Prosperous Democratic South Asian Union based on traditional feeling of friendship and goodwill for all humanity.
Once while traveling between Lahore and Peshawar ( Texlia), I stopped by a road side to chat with truck drivers. They offered me tea and asked:
“ Bhaijaan, ek saval poonchu? Aap (Indians) hamse quen ladte hain? ( Dear brother, Why do you Indians fight with us).
“That is the very question I wanted to ask you my Pakistani brethren. Why do
you fight with us?” I retorted.
“Alright then, settle the matter: give us Madhuri Dikshit, and take
Kashmir,…” All of us clapped. This very warm and friendly exchange took place in Hindustani, not in Marathi.
The Torch of Unity and friendship has now been picked up by the Khans of Bollywood. Once again the Khans are carrying the Cross for which the Mahatma was killed by a Marathi Hindu manoos.
Dhirendra Sharma words: 790.
I would like to know reaction of the Islamists/Talibans to my above article.
Could someone arragne a meeting with the Taliban fighters to meet me
-an unarmed Indian oldman to discuss the future of humanity in 21st century Space Age.
When you are in uncomfortable position and have no cash to move out from that, you would need to receive the home loans. Just because that should aid you for sure. I get college loan every single year and feel myself good just because of this.