We all like stories because they give us chills and thrills. They give us moments; they give us something to imagine and above all they provide us with conflict; the conflict between the hero and the villain. These two characters are the mainstay of any story. A hero though is allowed to be evil as evilness is for a greater cause however, whatever good a villain does, he lives and dies a villain, and no amount of good can change his fate, it feels that the writer is somehow himself an ardent fan of the hero. Thus, whenever you will hear an Afghan story, you find a common villain, and how good he does, he still remains the villain, you know him, his name is Pakistan.
As I am writing these lines, the repatriation
of the illegal Afghan refugees is underway. Social media platforms are flooded
with many moving pictures and testimonials of the refugees leaving Pakistan.
The population of Pakistan was 77.41 million in 1979 and in 1980 there were more than 4 million
Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, the number only swelled in the following
years. This made the Afghan refugees around 5% of Pakistan's total population
at that point in time. This minor stat only tells you how arduous it was and is
for Pakistan to host the refugees as it entails political, economic, religious, and social ramifications for the State of Pakistan and its people.
We as a country have seen so many lows but
hosting the Afghan refugees is amongst the few highs that are there in our
history. We relived the Mawakhat-e-Madinah by hosting such a large number of
refugees. We shared whatever we had; we opened our socio-economic space to
them. Although, in the popular culture, many blame Pakistan for what has
happened and is happening in Afghanistan while doing that they
conveniently ignore that international relations is a two-way street and
work on the principle of reciprocity. The idea of a nation-state is at heart an
exclusionary idea, and nation-states look at the world from the prism of their
myopic national interests. As the history will tell us, Pakistan and
Afghanistan were no exceptions. Both somehow had to deal with designs of great
powers and amidst all also had to navigate and protect their interests.
Pakistan cannot be blamed for what happened in post-Zahir Shah Afghanistan, the
rise of Socialism, and the bloody Saur Revolution leading to the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan. The Afghan civil war of the ’90s, and the rise, fall, and
rise of the Afghan Taliban is a blame that Pakistan may share as I said
Pakistan was pursuing its own interests like Afghanistan did whenever it got
the opportunity and the vitality.
Now coming back to the question of the repatriation of the refugees to
Afghanistan, the state of Pakistan is surely looking to achieve something out
of all this. One prime reason has been the resurgence of the menace of
terrorism in the country. Through the repatriation, Pakistan would get a chance
to discover and dismantle the sleeper cells of TTP. This could also be used as
an opportunity, to push the Taliban-led Afghan interim government to reign in
the Indian proxies which once again are now using the Afghan soil to carry out
terrorist activities in Pakistan. This has always been a source of grave
concern for Pakistan and has been one impetus for it to stay involved in
Afghanistan. Another stimulant could be the Pakhtoon nationalism which in
recent years especially when Ashraf Ghani was in power in Kabul has returned to
the level of 80’s and 70’s. The creation of PTM is often cited as a
manifestation of that rise in Pakhtoon nationalism, but it would be pertinent
to mention here that there were indigenous push factors too that served as a
basis for rise in the Pakhtoon nationalism. Other than that, the economic
limitations of the state of Pakistan must have also been a consideration and this
initiative can be a tactic to get international donor agencies like UNHCR
and ICRC further involved with the state of Pakistan in helping it to support
the Afghan refugees.
Above could be Pakistan’s reasons for deporting
the illegal Afghan refugees on its soil. However, there is a silver lining in
all this for the Afghan Taliban as well. It is not going to be an easy task but
being able to rehabilitate the returning Afghans will put them above the
Karzias and the Ghanis. This could also serve as an impetus for the
international community especially the donor agencies to directly to engage
with them to let this all not turn into a humanitarian crisis. Something the
interim government of Afghanistan really needs and wants.
In the end, one thing is for sure this
decision must not have been an easy one for Pakistan as the amount of goodwill
that Pakistan has garnered over the years by hosting the Afghan refugees will
be marred by this but the Afghans and the Taliban must understand the
compulsions of Pakistan and also both brotherly countries should partner in
smooth repatriation and rehabilitation of the Aghan refugees and above anything
jointly work towards ensuring long-lasting peace in Afghanistan and an
establishment of the people-led Afghan government in Kabul.
