The Pashtunistan Issue

In their colonial period, European nations created frontiers throughout Asia and Africa that left legacies of bitterness, and often of war, for the independent nations that emerged from colonial rule. Although it was never colonized, Afghanistan was no exception. The Durand Line had been bitterly resented by Amir Abdur Rahman, and none of his successors gave up the notion of Pashtun unity, even though they cooperated with the British government in other matters. The line dividing the Pashtun people became extremely irksome to the Afghans and the Pakistani government, which inherited the frontier upon the partition of British India in 1947. The fragility of the new nation of Pakistan may have incited the Afghans to reassert the concept of Pashtunistan in 1947.

Although the issue became most vexing at the time of the partition, British policy in the area before 1947 also contributed to the development of the Pashtunistan problem. In 1901 they had created a new administrative area, the NWFP, which they detached from the Punjab, and had divided the new province into Settled Districts and Tribal Agencies, the latter ruled not by the provincial government but by a British political agent who reported directly to Delhi. This separation was reinforced by the fact that the experiments in provincial democracy inaugurated in 1919 were not extended to the NWFP.

In the 1930s Britain extended provincial self-government to the NWFP. By this time the Indian National Congress (Congress), which was largely controlled by Hindus, had extended its activities to the province. The links between the political leaders of the NWFP with the Hindu leaders of Congress was such that a majority in the NWFP cabinet originally voted to go with India in the partition, a decision that might have been rejected by a majority of voters in the province. In July 1947 the British held a referendum in the Settled Districts of the province that offered the population the choice of joining an independent India or a now-inevitable Pakistan. Although local leaders now leaned toward independence, a position officially supported by the Afghan government, this was not an option offered in the vote. Although these leaders advocated a boycott of the referendum, an estimated 56 percent of the eligible voters participated, and of these over 90 percent voted to join Pakistan. In the Tribal Agencies a Loya Jirgah was held. Offered the choice between joining India or Pakistan, the tribes declared their wish for the latter.

Both the Afghan and Indian leaders objected to both procedures, declaring that, because the tribes had the same kind of direct links to the British as the princely states of India, the Pashtun tribes should be treated the same way, i.e., they should be offered a third option of initial independence until they could decide which state to join. The birth, along with India, of the independent nation of Pakistan, accompanied by massive dislocation and bloodshed, was thus further complicated by the agitation for independence or provincial autonomy by a significant minority, and perhaps a majority, of the residents of the NWFP. This issue poisoned relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan for many years. The conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the Pashtunistan issue was manifested not only in bitter denunciations but also by such actions as Afghanistan's casting of the sole negative vote on Pakistan's admission to the United Nations (UN) and Pakistan's meddling with the transit of commodities to its landlocked neighbor.

Although both Afghanistan and Pakistan made conciliatory gestures-including Afghanistan's withdrawal of its negative UN vote and the exchange of ambassadors in February 1948the matter remained unresolved. In June 1949 a Pakistani air force plane bombed a village just across the frontier in one of the government's attempts to suppress tribal uprisings. In response, the Afghan government called into session a Loya Jirgah, which promptly proclaimed that it recognized "neither the imaginary Durand nor any similar Line" and declared void all agreements-From the 1893 Durand agreement onwardrelated to the issue. There was an attempt to set up an independent Pashtun parliament inside the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, which was undoubtedly supported covertly by the Afghan government. Irregular forces led by a local Pashtun leader crossed the border in 1950 and 1951 to back Afghan claims. The Pakistani government did not accept the Afghan government's claim that they had no control over these men, and both nations' ambassadors were withdrawn. Ambassadors were exchanged once again a few months later. In March 1952 the assassination of the Pakistani prime minister by an Afghan citizen living in Pakistan was another irritant in bilateral relations, although the Pakistani government accepted Afghan denials of any involvement on its part.

The Pakistani government, despite its preoccupation with many other problems, adopted from the beginning a very conciliatory attitude toward its Pashtun citizens. The residents of the Tribal Agencies were permitted to retain virtual autonomy, expenditures on health and other services in the NWFP were disproportionately higher than in other areas of the country, and only a few units of a locally recruited Frontier Corps were left in the Tribal Agencies (in contrast with the 48 regular army battalions that had been kept there under British rule). The government also continued to pay subsidies to hundreds of maliks (chiefs or leaders) in the tribal areas. The issue of the international boundary through Pashtun areas was of the greatest possible importance to the policymakers in Kabul, just as it had been in the days of Amir Abdur Rahman. The beginning in recent times of Afghanistan's ties to the Soviet Union grew at least partially from the Pashtunistan and related issues. By the 1950s the United States-which had replaced Britian as the major Western power in the regionhad begun to develop a strong relationship with Pakistan. When in 1950 Pakistan stopped vital transshipments of petroleum to Afghanistan for about three months, presumably to retaliate for the attacks across the border by Afghan tribes, the Afghan government became more interested in offers of aid from the Soviet Union and, in July 1950, signed a major agreement with the Soviet Union.