Adil Khan in his book, Pakhtun Ethnic Natio­nalism: From Separation to Integration, writes that in 1849, when the British captured the southern part of Afghanistan, they faced stiff resistance from the Pakhtun tribes. The British saw the tribes as the opposite of what the British represented: ‘civilisation’.

Khan informs that this is when the British started to explain the Pakhtuns as ‘noble savages’.

From then onwards, British writers began to spin yarns of a somewhat romanticised image of the Pakhtuns. An image that also became popular among various local historians.

Adil Khan complains that such an attempt to pigeonhole the Pakhtuns has obscured the economic and geographical conditions that have shaped the Pakhtun psyche. He argues that the image of the ‘unbeatable noble savage’ has been presented in such a manner that many Pakhtuns now find it obligatory to live up to this image.

A stereotype created by the British finds currency in the modern times

This image has also been used to build narratives by those who see religious militancy emerging from the Pakhtun-dominated areas in the north-west of Pakistan as a consequence of the state’s ‘callous’ handling of the traditions of the ‘proud Pakhtun tribes’. Such narratives, which are mostly applied by politicians and analysts who have frequently opposed military operations in the country’s tribal areas, suggest that they (the operations) have triggered the ‘historical’ penchant of Pakhtun tribes to indulge in acts of violence as revenge. 

Interestingly, though today the left-leaning Pakhtuns somewhat support military manoeuvres in the tribal areas — mainly due to the fact that many such Pakhtuns have been regularly targeted by their more reactionary brethren — the same narrative was once also used by Pakhtun nationalists.

For example, the central architect of Pakhtun nationalism, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, banked on the myth of Pakhtuns being unbeatable warriors to construct the anti-colonial aspect of his Pakhtun nationalist organisation, the Khudai Khidmatgar.

But Earnest Gellner in his book, Myths of Nation & Class in Mapping the Nation, is of the view that though the Pakhtuns are an independent-minded people and take pride in many of their traditions, they are largely an opportunistic and pragmatic people.

When Pakistan became a participant in the United States’ proxy war against the Soviet forces that had occupied Afghanistan, the Gen Zia dictatorship — to whip up support for the largely Pakhtun Afghan insurgents — used state media to propagate the idea that historically the Pakhtuns were an unbeatable race that had defeated all forces who attempted to conquer them.

One still hears this, especially from those opposing the Pakistan state’s military action in the country’s tribal areas. But is there any historical accuracy in this proclamation?

Not really. The Pakhtuns have been beaten on a number of occasions. Alexander, Timur, Nadir Shah, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and the British, were all able to defeat the Pakhtuns.

In a (albeit controversial) 2008 paper, Losing the Psy-war in Afghanistan, the author writes: ‘True, the British suffered the occasional setback but they eventually managed to subdue the Pakhtun tribes. Had the British wanted they would have also continued to rule Afghanistan, only they didn’t find it worth their while and preferred to let it remain a buffer between India and Russia.’

Another rather convincing theory which began to surface almost a decade after the Soviet troops left Afghanistan in 1988 suggested that the Russians too would never have withdrawn (from Afghanistan) had the Soviet economy not collapsed. And it didn’t collapse because of the war in Afghanistan. It was a gradual implosion which had begun years before the final collapse — mainly due to the fact the state-backed economic policies of the former Soviet Union just could not continue to generate the kind of capital and resources required to maintain a large army and nuclear arsenal to keep up with its Cold War nemesis, the United States. 

Also, had the Americans not pumped in weapons and money to back the so-called mujahideen, the insurgents would have remained as tiny groups of ragged guerrillas. Or they may have just mutated into becoming anarchic outfits led by war lords. In fact, many of them did become just that after the Soviets left and the Americans withdrew their money and weapons. 

In conclusion, the above mentioned paper observes: “… while [Pakhtuns] are terrific fighters for whom warfare is a way of life; they have always succumbed to superior force and superior tactics. ... The Pakhtuns have never been known to stand against a well-disciplined, well-equipped ... force.”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 12th, 2016