File photo of the Pak-Afghan border fence. Aamir Qureshi—AFP
Pakistanis have a way of looking at Afghanistan as a country of their brothers, the Pakhtuns, but what comes to the fore most often is that it is the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan that are hostile to Pakistan while other ethnicities, like the Tajiks and Turkic, remain too marginalized to enter the argument. If you ask Afghans who have taken refuge in Pakistan in millions during the Russian and American invasions, the “anger” comes to the fore, with reasons that are simultaneously various and not so convincing.
Let us look at one assumption: Pakistan has been trying to subjugate and suppress Afghanistan through its proxies for decades. When the Soviets left, Pakistan started arming and supporting different parties and factions against each other to burn Kabul—which resulted in civil war. This assumes that the infighting in Afghanistan was caused by Pakistan, which no one even outside the region takes seriously. The second reason put forward is: “When the brutal Taliban regime came into being, Pakistan supported, influenced and indoctrinated them for their own benefits and goals of using Afghanistan as their province and strategic depth.” This comes from the rare “secular” person who complains of the shared “ideological” affinity between the Afghan fighters and their Pakistani “handlers.”
One has to be careful about who is putting forward the argument: is it an average Afghan or the unhappy “secular”: it is a fact that when the brutal Taliban regime came into being, Pakistan supported, influenced and indoctrinated them for their own benefits and goals of using Afghanistan as their strategic depth. There is also truth to the fact that Kabul did lean to allowing India to come in on what was supposed to be a pure Pak-Afghan arrangement. There was also an effort to play Pakistan and India against each other. A lack of bilateral understanding between the two South Asian powers about communication between India and Afghanistan onwards to Central Asia has reduced the region to war-strategy. But why should the Pakhtun hate Pakistan?
There are reasons hidden behind history and national “textbook” memory: Look at this argument: “During three different periods in history, which included the Afghan king ruling from Peshawar, Pakistan’s goal has been to keep Afghanistan debilitated, divided and needy of resources so they can control the country against the supposed influence and involvement of their arch-rival, India.” Some Afghans are of the view that Pakistan should hand over territory west of River Indus but the most obvious reason seems to be the stationing of hard-Islam advocates fighting America—remember 9/11?—engaging the sympathies of the warrior “nation” inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan played a role in that war of extremism. Some Afghans rightly hate Pakistan for supporting proxies in Afghanistan, which no Pakistani can defend morally. Yet, one should not ignore the fact that Afghans too used proxies against Pakistan and they would have continued with it whether Pakistanis retaliated in the same coin or not.