KARACHI: Begum Nasim Wali has said that the Taliban are bad for sure but what is more dangerous is the hidden fanatics in political parties which do not speak up against terrorism.

Speaking at a meet the press organised by the Karachi Press Club on Sunday, the senior most member of the Awami National Party, now divided into two factions; spoke candidly about the prevailing issues the party faces in the province in particular and the country in general.

Looking frail and petite, Begum Wali asked members of the press to stop calling her Begum Sahiba and remarked: “It makes me sound like a Begum who is a drawing room politician,” and asked them to address her as Mor [mother] Bibi.
Flanked by a party member on stage, who repeated questions to her from time to time in case of a communication problem with the press, she took all the questions head on, answering each one of them in detail.

Says she has brought Ghaffar Khan’s message of peace and non-violence to Karachi

She began by speaking about her visit to Karachi adding that she had come to the city with a message of peace and non-violence which used to be the hallmark of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s politics in the subcontinent.

She then spoke about the ANP as a party and how it ended up where it did. “There were corruption charges against our MPAs which had never happened before. Also, there were cases of use of violence, which is completely against the teachings of Bacha Khan. This is something which I and some of our members couldn’t tolerate and so we decided to launch our own party — ANP-Wali.”

This other faction of the party, launched in February this year, met with a lot of criticism from the present members of the ANP.

Speaking about it she said: “I don’t care how my actions are perceived because they are in line with the principles of the party which was founded by Khan Abdul Wali Khan.”

She said that her party wanted to correct the actions of the past and aimed to reach out to everyone. “The ANP is considered to be a party for the Pakhtuns only. I want to tell everyone that our party is open to all progressive and non-violent people.”

Begum Wali was sidelined from party politics in 2005 on the pretext of her old age and internal conflicts the party was going through at the time. Her troubled relationship with her stepson, Asfandyar Wali Khan, and the impact it left on her was apparent when she remarked: “He always called me his father’s wife and never a mother.”

During the question and answer session, she was asked about the ongoing sit-ins in the country and her opinion of it, she replied smiling: “We never organised a dharna rather arranged massive rallies whenever we felt it was needed. I organised the party when Wali Khan was in jail.”

Explaining further, she said: “I have immense respect for Imran Khan as a social worker and think that he is doing politics the way he knows best. I do politics the way I think best. I don’t want to impose my ideologies on him and expect the same from him as well.”

Answering a question about the continuing violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the number of victims it claims every other day, she said: “The extremist forces are getting stronger because those with a progressive mindset are not united.

The Taliban are bad for sure, but what’s more dangerous is the hidden fanaticism in political parties which don’t speak up against terrorism.”

Apart from a few members of the ANP, the meet the press was attended by old members from the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy days, who had come to listen to Begum Wali talk about the party and the way forward.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2014