Chapter 28
Inheriting the British Mantle
NWFP was in some ways special case. It has the most sensitive from
the point of view of Britain’s century-long imperialist and colonial
objectives. Britain’s problem had always of course been the fact
that this Muslim majority province had remained opposed to Muslim
League Politics and Britain’s own world designs alike. Indeed, in
the last election before independence, the Khudai Khidmatgars had
obtained a two-thirds majority in the provincial assembly.
For this reason it becomes important both for the British and the
Pakistan Government to deal with this province and the Khudai
Khidmatgars first. It used to be said about Mr. Jinnah in those days
that he believed that the Pathan yields to no one except the
British. Probably it was that belief that led to the appointment of
so many British officers in key position in the early years of
Pakistan that it used to be difficult to believe that the British
had really left and we were a free people. The Governor was a
Briton; the chief secretary was a Briton; and so were the
secretaries of various departments, the police chief, and even the
secretaries of the public works and of the electricity departments.
In addition to the NWFP, there was also the worry about the tribal
areas. In the light of the century-long experience of the British,
it had been made clear hat the Maliks o these tribes should be
assured that Britain’s resources would remain available to the new
state. Even the British officers would stay on in senior positions
and would even be in supreme command of the army. The tribals had
yet to announce their allegiance to Pakistan, and it was considered
necessary that they be firs assured that there was going to be no
material break from the past, that a kind of continuity would be
maintained. They could even sign their new agreement with the
British rather with the Pakistan authorities.
The British had convinced the government of Pakistan that they would
themselves want to reassure the tribals that the Pakistan government
was their true successor and that they were going to remain in full
strength to give Pakistan the necessary support and stability. It
was believed to be best, there fore, that all the agreements reached
from time to time between the colonial rulers and the tribals should
be renewed for the Government of Pakistan only through the British
governor and officials.
Considering the strategic importance of the area, the British were
not only concerned about their past agreements with the tribals but
also had an eye on the future policies of the government of
neighbouring Afghanistan. The British government remained true to
the view that since the government of Pakistan was is rightful
successor, all the past accords negotiated by the government of
India in this region would automatically pass on the Pakistan. It
had also made it clear to Afghanistan that since Pakistan was now a
member of the British Commonwealth, the agreement reached between
the British and Afghanistan would remain in force relation to
Pakistan as well. In other words, the Durand Line that had
heretofore been considered the international boundary between
British India and Afghanistan would continue to remain exactly the
same between Pakistan and Afghanistan; it would now demarcate the
limits of the commonwealth. Britain also emphasised to Kabul
Pakistan was now a member of the commonwealth, Britain also
emphasised to Kabul that since Pakistan was no a member of the
commonwealth, the defence of its sovereignty and territorial
integrity would be a responsibility of the British government.
This must have surprised the Afghanistan government. There was a
time when following the German attack on Russia and the latter’s
retreat right up to Moscow, the British had felt reassured that
Germany had early conquered Europe and if it also succeeded in
defeating Russian then the danger it had Continually felt from the
latter in the subcontinent would ended. Besides, when Japan had
overrun the British colonies one after the other and, annexing
Burma, had started bombing Calcutta, the British were in panic, and
were said to have themselves sent word to Kabul that it demand from
British the restoration of the Afghan territories that, as the
Frontier province and Baluchistan, it had annexed to India under the
treaty of 1893.
There was thus time when British itself was keen to restore these
areas to Afghanistan, and there was now this situation-now that
Germany and Japan had lost the war and the Soviets had won and there
was a need in the British view to revive the Red bogey-that the same
Britain had been reminded of the sacredness of the Durand Line and
its own responsibility with regard to that international boundary.
On the face of it, the British were anxious about Pakistan’s
integrity and stability. In fact, their concern was their own
imperialist interest. They wished to see that Afghanistan remained
no more than a merebuffer state, and that their anti-Soviet
objectives in the region were promoted through Pakistan.
This talk of succession reminds one of a related situation. When a
political party by the name of Muslim League had emerged here in
NWFP, it was seen that although it kept swearing by Islam at every
step, its leaders were bereft of the basic human considerations, let
alone the primary demands of good political conduct. Since they
could offer no argument against the Khudai Khidmatgars, they used to
malign their services and sacrifices as coming from a party that was
an agent of the Hindu Congress. They adopted the line of the British
governor Sir George Cunningham – that since the Hindus were not a
people of the Book, and since the Khudai Khidmatgars were working in
concerned with the Hindu Congress for national independence and
freedom from British slavery, hence this partnership was in fact a
partnership with heathenish, with Kufr.
The Muslim League spoke in the same vein and declared that the
Khudai Khidmatgars were the friends of kafirs. Some of the Muslim
Leaguers even went beyond delivering such fatwa’s and descended to
the level of using abusive language in their speeches and
statements, calling the Khudai Khidmatgars the natural off spring of
Hindus. But when during the Pakistan-making phase communal riots
were engineered to drive out the non-Muslims, it were the same
Muslim League leaders who took possession of the evacuee properties,
the big houses and factories left behind, as their rightful due.
I used to question the Muslim Leaguers on this strange logic – that
when we were fighting alongside the Congress for the independence of
the country, these gutless Muslim Leaguers used to denounce us as
the off-springs of Hindus, but now that the Hindus had left behind
billions of rupees worth of properties the same Muslim Leaguers have
jumped and seized them. I would argue that according to all temporal
and divine laws the true legatees of fathers are their sons, but
look who was laying claims to the estates and properties left behind
by the Hindus; it should be clear that whoever had the authorisation
from the Hindus, he alone had the right to their inheritance, and he
alone was their offspring.
It was, indeed, an odd situation. When it was a question of
struggling and giving sacrifices for the independence of the country
against the British, the Khudai Khidmatgars were blamed for being
the progeny of Hindus; but when it was a matter of the inheritance
of these same Hindus, the Muslim Leaguers were the first to stake
the claim that it were they who were their rightful legatees. Now
leave the decision to the Muslim Leaguers themselves as to who were
the true progeny of the Hindus, they or the Khudai Khidmatgars.
Similarly, take this issue of being successors to the British. What
real basis did the Muslim League have to claim that status? Did the
Muslim League launch any movement, wage any struggle, and render any
sacrifice to qualify for that right? If the Congress claimed to be
the natural in heritors of power in India, it had a basis to do so.
It had rendered invaluable sacrifices in the cause of independence;
thousands of men and women had lost their lives, hundreds of
thousands had languished endlessly in jails; and after years of
bitter struggle they had forced independence out of the grasp of
British imperialism.
In contrast, what had been the role of Pakistan’s ruling party, the
Muslim League? It had been an ally of the British, and in the
conflict between the British and the Congress it remained on the
farmer’s side. Leave alone sacrifices in the cause of independence,
it actually stayed hostile to all the movements launched in that
cause. Not only was it opposed to the Congress, it was even wholly
unsympathetic to all the Muslim organisations fighting the British –
to the righteous scholars and leaders of Deoband, whom it did no
even desist from abusing. It was not prepared to recognise the
efforts of other individual Muslims who were contributing to the
national movement for independence. On the contrary, it had kept
pressing the British not to recognise any other Muslim or Muslim
organisation except the Muslim League as representative of the
country’s entire Muslims.
The conclusion then must be that since the Muslim League had no role
in liberating this land from British slavery and since the party had
rendered no sacrifice, waged no battle to obtain this real estate,
and since, on the contrary, its exertions had largely been in
support of the British, the question of Muslim League’s succession
is reduced only to its assuming the mantle of the British. The
Muslim League will have to accept that in laying claim to British
succession it was only avowing to be in the direct line of British
descent, to be the natural heir to the British.
Let us leave this issue here. We should next look at what happened
after independence to the Muslim League and to the political parties
that had been opposed to the British. In the light of historical
events and confidential records we shall examine how following World
War II and the liquidation of their empire, the British were obliged
to pass one their designs in the region to the U.S. We shall also
see how, true to tradition, the Muslim League allowed itself to be
used by Uncle Sam, its new masters, for the promotion of the
latter’s neo-colonialist and neo-imperialist policies in the
international arena. And how the Muslim League leaders used the
sacred name of Islam to make other Muslim countries as well
satellites of the U.S.
It is a matter of some satisfaction that just as the British have
preserved their confidential papers in their archives, so there are
secret American documents also, some of which have come to my hand.
There is much in them for the student of history and for the
nationalist Pakistani. I will take them up in my next book.
THE AUTHOR
Born in Utmanzai near Charsadda in Peshawar District on 11th January
1917. Initial education at the Azad Islamia High School established
by his father Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Was its first student in
1922. Later shifted to Public School Dera Dun run by an Irish. Did
his Senior Cambridge in 1933 when he developed eye trouble and the
doctors advised him no more studies.
Began his political career as a Khudai Khidmatgars in 1942. Sent to
jail for the first time in 1943 under the Frontier Crimes
Regulations without trial but released shortly afterwards. Was
arrested and detained umpteen times, before and after the partition
of the Sub-Continent, while fighting for the right of the people.
Was member of the All India Congress Committee and Joint Secretary
of the NWFP Congress in 1947. Jailed in 1948 without trial and freed
by the Federal Govt. in 1954 because there were no detention orders.
Elected to the National and Provincial Assemblies in 1970 on NAP
(National Awami Party, one of the leading most political parties of
Pakistan dedicated to the democratic traditions) ticket. Elected
leader of the Combined opposition in the National Assembly. Has been
President of the NAP, NDP for several times. Currently President of
the Awami National Party. NAP was banned in February 1975 and the
author was arrested along with many other party leaders. Put on
trial before Hyderabad Tribunal and freed by the Court in December
1977. A widely traveled politician. Attended twice the Peace
Conference held by the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation in
Stockholm in 1958 and Copenhagen in 1986. |
