Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Why Khorasan is Crucial?

|

Why Khorasan is Crucial?

Islamic fundamentalists including the leaders of Al-Qaeda seized upon the legend of Greater Khorasan to inspire followers to pursue their terrorist agenda. According to legend Prophet Mohammed had prophesied that one day a great power would rise in the east to demolish enemies and spread Islam across the world. That created the legend of Greater Khorasan.

The traditional concept of Greater Khorasan included territories of Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran. Well, it seems that the legend of Greater Khorasan is being overtaken by the reality of lesser Khorasan. And that might signify in the view of this scribe a crucial and much desired development.

A distinguished Afghan journalist and author, an authority on the Taliban, Mr. Musa Khan Jalalzai, in his recent book (Civil War and the Partition of Afghanistan) reports that a strong movement for autonomy and self-rule by the non-Pashtun tribes of northern and central Afghanistan is gathering strength. In Pakistan's Daily Times he wrote: "This irresponsible method of governance (during the Taliban regime) empowered the voices of those politically alienated ethnic groups who finally demanded the division of Afghanistan along ethnic lines.

Their demand of territorial autonomy and decentralization of power has received massive support in the northern and central parts of the country… Ten years ago, Tajik groups re-introduced themselves as the direct descendants of the Aryans and claimed that all Persian-speaking people belong to them. Having associated with this interpretation of history, they want to establish an independent Khorasan state and believe Afghanistan is the country of the Pashtuns and not the Afghans.

In their understanding, the demand for Pashtunistan itself is the denial of united Afghanistan and they say that the Pashtuns themselves want the partition of the country in terms of an independent Pashtunistan state. They regret supporting Pashtun political demands in the past because their recent demand for an independent Khorasan receives no support from their Pashtun brothers."

Last week for the first time the debate for the creation of a Khorasan state within Afghanistan was formally initiated. Afghanistan was described as an artificial state created by the Great Game played between Imperialist powers. Indeed, in 1525 Babar had written: "The people of Hindustan call every country beyond their own Khorasan… On the road between Hindustan and Khorasan, there are two great marts: the one Kabul, the other Kandahar." But the current debate for Khorasan has left both the Pashtuns and the non-Pashtun tribes confused. How might the conflicting demands of the Pashtuns on the one side and the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras on the other be resolved peacefully to ensure stability?

There is only one rational way of achieving it. The unnatural legacy of colonialism which created the arbitrary Durand Line dividing Pashtun tribes between Pakistan and Afghanistan cannot possibly endure. Sooner or later ethnic identities will assert themselves. The demand for Khorasan state within Afghanistan is precisely that assertion. The unworkable arrangement that exists presently in Afghanistan-Pakistan was recognized belatedly after painful experience by the Americans themselves. Robert Blackwell's proposal for NATO troops to withdraw from all Pashtun territories and get stationed in northern Afghanistan was acknowledgment of ground realities.

The question is how might ethnic demands of political identity be met without upheaval and discord? Should present nation states be Balkanized and new sovereign states be created? That would require drastic change incapable of peaceful realization. Should federal arrangements within the present states be attempted to defuse separatist demands? That alone would not deliver satisfactory results. The problem of asserting common identity across international borders would not be addressed. The challenge is how to allow consolidation of cross-border ethnic identities without altering existing international borders.

That can only be achieved through federalism within nation states being augmented by confederalism in the entire region. In other words, a regional community on the principles of the European Union would have to be created. For both Kabul and Kashmir no other formula would put the region on the road to stability as nature had intended and imperialism had derailed. The realization of a South Asian Union would conceivably create the template for a new world order based upon federal democracy. It could also alter the balance of power in the world. That is why the enemies of India and Pakistan, and the unthinking dummies within both nations manipulated by them, bitterly oppose the concept of a South Asian Union.

On returning to Pakistan from America, Benazir Bhutto had outlined her political aim. She said: "Learning from Europe following World War II, we will build democracies and common markets, we will open up markets, we will open up roads and we will open up endless opportunities for the people of South Asia." She talked about the region encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

This would have frustrated both Al-Qaeda and those nations strategically opposed to the consolidation of South Asia. That is why on 27 December, 2007 this scribe opined that Benazir's agenda led to her assassination. Benazir is dead. Her agenda lives. It will remain alive until politicians of the region realize what nature intends for South Asia and what one day will inevitably become real. History will compel a choice between Confederation and Balkanization.

Analyzing the impact on the Af-Pak region of the movement led by the non-Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan to carve a new Khorasan State one concluded the first part of this article with the words: "History will compel a choice between Confederation and Balkanization."

Thus far this scribe has consistently advocated a South Asian Confederation as the best and most peaceful option to stabilize the region. That is the politically correct approach. It is the humane approach. Federating Afghanistan through the creation of a Khorasan province could start the process of creating national federations within a South Asian confederation.

However it must be confessed that the prospects of this happening remain dim. For a South Asian Confederation to emerge it requires two hands to clap. But Pakistan's hand alternately opens and clenches into a fist. The latest example of this is provided by Pakistan's cricket captain Shahid Afridi.

His gracious conduct while in India won many admirers. But on returning to Pakistan his tune changed. Uncharacteristically he ventured into politics. He said: "It is a very difficult thing for us to live with them (Indians) or to have long-term relationship with them. Nothing will come out of talks. See how many times in the past 60 years we have had friendship and then how many times things have gone bad."

The reasons adduced for Afridi's change of mind by Indian commentators may be conveniently discarded. It is obvious that his new script was dictated by the hardliners in the Pakistani establishment. That compels one to assess the hard option. The soft option was earlier described by this scribe as the attempt to tame Pakistan's hardliners through nudging its establishment towards a confederation. The hard option was described as waiting for Pakistan to implode and get Balkanized.

Since the liberal elements in Pakistan's civil society seem incapable of confronting the hardliners, let us consider Khorasan in the context of the hard option.
The Jasmine movement in the Middle East most likely will hit Pakistan in fatal fashion. The plans to disintegrate Pakistan have been on the Pentagon's drawing board for some time. Unfolding events in the Middle East suggest that implementing those plans may have already started.

It is worth recalling that West Asia was always described as the Greater Middle East. But for the first time US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used the term "New Middle East" to the world in June 2006. She was speaking in, of all places, Tel Aviv. The timing of introducing the new term was highly significant. The June 2006 issue of the US Armed Forces, a journal closely reflective of the Pentagon's views although not officially connected to it, carried an article by a retired US Army officer and military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters. The article was entitled "Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look".

The article was explosive. It expressed what had been pointed out repeatedly in these columns. Namely, that the legacy of colonialism had left unnatural international borders by violating all accepted norms of nationhood. The author going by ethnic, religious and linguistic criteria drew the map of a New Middle East just before Condoleezza Rice borrowed that term for use in Israel. Let us ignore for the moment what Peters envisaged for West Asia and consider his views about Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He wrote:
"What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi."

The restructuring of the Af-Pak region is along the lines that were anticipated in these columns much earlier. Independent Pashtunistan, independent Baluchistan, while Punjab and Sind remain in truncated Pakistan. The possibility of this happening will increase manifold if the new movement for Khorasan gathers force. After the article appeared in the Armed Forces Journal there were letters questioning how the Pentagon could ever implement these ideas. Well, five years later the Jasmine revolutions erupted in the Middle East.

Is that mere coincidence?
Robert Blackwell's suggestion of redeploying NATO troops in Afghanistan clearly intended encouraging Pashtun consolidation across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to lay the foundation for a Khorasan movement that is now emerging. It is in this overall situation that one advocated the creation of a South Asian Union as a means for present day Pakistan to survive without altering its borders.

There are signs that the Pakistan establishment is unwilling or unable to deliver results to that end. That leaves the hard option and possible Balkanization if Pakistan's army and its hardliners do not change quickly enough. Balkanization will be messy. The future of South Asia will become uncertain. But South Asia will survive the crisis.

Rajinder Puri is an Indian Journalist based in New Delhi, India.

Go Top