Opinion Naming and addressing

However,both parties failed to satisfy some of their most committed supporters on the renaming issue. The ultra-Pakhtun nationalists charged the ANP leadership with betrayal — they felt that the addition of Khyber to the new name diluted the importance of Pakhtunkhwa. Besides,many nationalists and certain anti-ANP Pakhtun politicians,including former federal interior minister Aftab Sherpao’s PPP-S,argued that the ruling ANP had no right to bypass the provincial assembly’s past resolutions recommending Pakhtunkhwa as the new name of the NWFP.

The PML-N’s voters in Hazara region,where the majority speaks Hindko language and not Pashto spoken by the Pakhtuns everywhere else in the province,argued that the new name obliterated their identity. Khyber,the name of a mountain pass linking Pakistan to Afghanistan,didn’t reflect their identity while Pakhtunkhwa specifically identified the Pakhtuns. It was clear the PML-N was losing ground in Hazara to PML-Q,which General Pervez Musharraf had created to give a civilian facade to his military rule. The PML-Q took a firm stand against Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and suggested that the province simply be renamed Sarhad,meaning “frontier”. Split into two factions and in decline since Musharraf’s departure,the PML-Q saw a golden opportunity to revive its fortunes not only in Hazara,where it had lost to the PML-N in the February 2008 general elections,but also elsewhere among voters opposed to the regional and ethnicity-based politics of the ANP and other nationalist parties. PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain accused Nawaz Sharif of bowing to the demand of the regional ANP,and harming the integrity of the country.

Though several other names,some funny and bizarre,were proposed for the NWFP,the few given serious consideration included Pakhtunkhwa,Pakhtunistan,Afghania,Khyber and Abaseen. The ANP,presently led by late freedom-fighter Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s grandson Asfandyar Wali Khan,had offered to accept Pakhtunistan and Afghania also if a consensus could be built. Pakhtunistan was a controversial reminder of the past when successive Afghan governments supported it as a separate homeland for the Pakhtuns in Pakistan. Afghania had some appeal for many people. The first “a” in Pakistan’s name as coined by Chaudhry Rahmat Ali was supposed to identify Afghania,which reflected the identity of the Afghans,the race to which all Pakhtuns belong and most of whom live in Pakistan.

Hazarawal,or the people of Hazara,would have agreed to a compound name that included the term Hazara. It is felt Hazara-Pakhtunkhwa would have found acceptance and Afghania could have faced less opposition. But Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provoked spontaneous protests in Abbottabad,Haripur and Mansehra,three of the five districts in Hazara division. There were no protests in the Pakhtun-majority Battagram district and in Kohistan,where the population speaks a Kohistani dialect rather than Hindko. The protests were peaceful for the first 10 days,but imposition of Section 144 by the ANP-PPP provincial coalition government banning gatherings of five or more people led to violence as the police resorted to firing. The death of nine protesters enraged the people and mobs in Abbottabad attacked police stations,seizing and torturing cops,ransacking government offices and looting shops. The situation improved only after the provincial government replaced two top civil and police officers in Hazara and freed the detained protesters. However,the action committee leading the protests and headed by a former minister

Sardar Haider Zaman has made it clear that it now wanted a separate Hazara province instead of merely protesting renaming of the province as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Having realised the popularity of the demand for Hazara province,the PML-N is now supporting the idea and President Asif Ali Zardari’s PPP is willing to consider it. There has been talk of moving the 19th amendment in the constitution to make provision for Hazara and possibly other provinces. A Pandora’s box has been opened as demands are being made for a Seraiki province in Punjab,one for the Pakhtun tribes in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and another for the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs in Sindh. Despite ANP’s opposition to the division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,the PML-N backing for Hazara province could push the PPP-led federal government to seriously consider the demand.

The writer is the Peshawar resident editor of ‘The News’

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