Are the Pashtuns a viable Nation?

Pakistan's colonial enterprise in Afghanistan also raises the question of a homeland for its own Pashtun people.

Are the Pashtuns a viable Nation?

The Taliban, mostly drawn from the ranks of Pashtun tribes, living  either in Southern Afghanistan [Kandahar or Helmand region]  or in Northern Pakistan [around Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa(KP)], have won a spectacular victory against the US, and Afghan National Forces, to claim Afghanistan as their homeland. They are still bogged down with forming a Govt. but the final outcome is not in doubt.

Pashtuns in Afghanistan number around 15 million, in a population of 38 million, and are mostly concentrated between the Durand line, that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan in the south, and Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in the north.  The rest of the Afghan population is Tajiks, [an Indo-Iranian people like the Pashtun but distinct from them, who speak Tajik], some 15 million, Uzbeks, [Afghans of Turkic origin] 3 million, and the rest comprising Hazara and others, some 5 million.  The Pashtuns are outnumbered by Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara, 15 to 23.

Can the Taliban, an armed force numbering between 70,000 to 100,000, hold down a population of 38 million?  

The Taliban are about 1.8 armed police for every 1000 people, in a lawless country with a terrain made for guerrilla warfare, and a culture of Warlordism that thrives on collecting taxes/tolls from trade goods on roads under their control.  In a normal state, the police to people ration is 3.5 per thousand citizens.  In Afghanistan, given the terrain and lawlessness, the required ratio may be as high as 5.  So holding down Afghanistan with just the 70 to 100k Pashtun Taliban is going to be a tough call.

The Taliban Govt. could of course add more people to its payroll from the Afghan National police and army.  But what of resources?

Afghanistan’s GDP at current prices is about $19 billion.  Govt. tax revenue [excluding grants] varies between 11 to 14% of GDP.  We can take that number at less than 10% given the disruption in Govt., economy, and trade, going forward.  At 10%, the yield in tax revenue would be about $2 billion annually. Govt. expenses constitute some 40% of GDP.  So some, $5.7 billion or 30% of GDP is required as external assistance to just fund Govt.  

Assuming the Taliban are paid by displacing extant Afghan forces, the new Taliban govt. will need some $6 billion or more in grants annually, just to keep things running.  This is going to be a stiff drain on meagre resources of Pakistan, whose net present value of external debt stock is an astronomical 230% of annual earnings from exports.  [for perspective, India’s ratio is 30%, Bangladesh 68% and Afghanistan itself 104%.]  Where can Pakistan find another recurring $6 billion annually that yields zero returns?

Afghanistan’s population has doubled from around 18 million in 2000, to 38 million in 2020.  The median age of the population is in early 20s.  70% of Afghans have cellphones, 50% of all households are electrified, [though most of the power comes from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and has to be paid for monthly], and most big cities are connected by metal roads.  School enrollment is as high as 70%.  

Afghanistan today, is very well off compared to the days of the first Taliban Govt. that ruled in the 1990s.  How will this young 20s cohort react to falling GDP, high inflation, an Afghani in downward spiral, shrinking job opportunities, and collapsing Govt. services?

As things go forward, the situation will get worse, not better, for another 2 to 3 years, before any new investments made by China or others bear fruit, assuming the Chinese are willing, which is questionable in itself.

As usual, the Pashtuns in Southern Afghanistan will try to find jobs and succor in Pakistan.  

Pakistan’s Pashtuns, number some 56 million, of which KP accounts for the lion’s share of 30 million, and 5.5 million along the western border with Afghanistan in FATA.  So about 36 million Pashtuns live in the border areas of Pakistan, contiguous to the Pashtun population in Afghanistan that numbers 15 million, for a total of 50.5 million people; just a wee bit short of the population of France or the UK.  

Add the others in non-contiguous areas such as Karachi, Punjab, Baluchistan, and the number shoots up to about 70 million comfortably; more than the population of either UK or France.

Pashtuns on either side of the Durand line are ethnically that same Indo-Iranian tribes, they speak Pashto or Dari [same language but Pashto is called Dari in Afghanistan], share the cultural code of Pashtunwaliq, are of the same religion, Sunni Islam, and have a common history.  Their imagination shares the same heroes such as Ahmed Shah Durrani.  

They have always viewed themselves as the mountain people, who had a right to share in the prosperity of the plains-people of Punjab, with or without the latter’s consent. They were always given to banditry, whether it be revenue from trade along the silk route, or plunder of the plains-people in periodic raids; even conquests.  Like other mountain people, their code doesn’t view such things as immoral, much less illegal.

So if one were to go by the normal definition of a “nation”, the Pashtuns meet the criteria in terms of numbers [70 million], ethnic origin, common language, common religion, shared history, shared culture and, the most important, geographical contiguity.  

In any sane world, they would have been given a homeland long ago, saving the world much anguish. Helmand province is largely agricultural, has dams for irrigation, and could make a viable nation.  What it lacks is an egress to the sea, which Iran could provide through Chabahar port, or Pakistan through the neighboring Gwadar port.  Or both in an ideal world.

It is not an accident that the Pakistan establishment is paranoid about Pashtun nationalism.  In fact as I showed in my essay, Read Here Pakistan has waged this 20 year war with the US in Afghanistan, not to push the US out, [it would very much welcome them and their money] as to push India out of Afghanistan, in order to keep it from stoking the flame of Pashtun or Afghan nationalism.  [The two are not the same but, one leads to the other].  From Pakistan’s point of view, Pashtun nationalism is an existential threat.  If that flares up, Pakistan would find it hard to contain it.

Since independence, the Pakistani state has sought to pussyfoot its way through the minefield of Pashtun nationalism.  As a counter strategy, it has used radical Islam to radicalize some parts of the Pashtun tribes to knit them as a religious force.  It has destroyed the Malik system of tribal governance, and replaced it with that of warrior-priests, coming out of its madrassas.  It is these attempts to defuse Pashtun nationalism that led to the rise of Mujahids, and later the Taliban fighters; with lots of help and money from the Americans of course.  

It is not a linear trajectory with simple cause and effect.  Like much history, the trajectory was contingent.  But the broad movement to contain Pashtun nationalism has now culminated in a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.

Where do things go from here?

Pakistan now faces an another existential dilemma.  It has walked into a situation where it has taken on more that it can chew; a classic case of what strategists call “over-stretch”, or we traders call “over trading.”  The opportunity looks dazzling, like the Raffale Deal for Anil Ambani, or demonetization for Modi, but if you fail, you go broke like the Ambani, or make your country go broke, like Modi.   It has to make its adventure in Afghanistan a success, or face a blowback that may well precipitate the very outcome it set out to contain.  

Pakistan’s border areas to the North of Peshawar, towards the Chitral mountain ranges, bordering Kabul, are already radicalized.  KP accounts for 30 million Pashtuns.  It is a mountainous region.  The Swat Valley is a part of it; Peshawar its southern border.  

On the western border along Kandahar, the FATA area too is radicalized.  To add to Pakistan’s woes, the Baloch are restive just when Pakistan needs peace along the CPEC corridor, stretching from Gwadar to Gilgit-Baltistan.  

Pakistan neither has the deep pockets, nor the depth in forces, to provide security in Afghanistan.  Sure it is great in organizing and supplying a guerrilla force.  But holding ground, protecting the population, and keeping the peace, is the exact opposite of its skill set, and peacekeeping is 10X times more expensive than fielding a guerrilla force to disrupt peace.  Pakistan has no experience in such a colonial enterprise.

History is contingent.  The way forward uncertain.  The key may well lie with Pashtun diaspora, who away from Pakistani propaganda, are well positioned to understand how Pakistan’s paranoia has driven their nation through decades of misery, and carnage.  These people are well educated. They send roughly $1 billion in remittances to Afghanistan, and perhaps twice as much to Pakistan, annually.

They are everywhere - US, UAE, KSA, UK and Germany.  Their combined remittances of $3 billion, are nothing to dismiss offhand.  They can change their fortunes, especially if Pakistan’s Punjabi elites continue with their self-obsession.  

Imran Khan, a Pashtun, is PM largely to mollify sentiment in KP.  But such tokenism may not suffice going forward.

Watch how Pakistan manages its new colony going forward.  Any slip up there could be catastrophic at home.