Through a simple cricket game, Afghanistan demonstrated its indefatigable spirit, resilience, and pride to stand up for itself it has surely won many hearts
When Afghan Captain, Hashmatullah Shahidi hit the winning runs against Pakistan in the ongoing Cricket World Cup match, all of Afghanistan erupted in a rare moment of joy and a forgotten sense of achievement. It celebrated its much-deserved success as it always does, with lots of gunfire and raw emotions. As a senior player in the Afghan squad, Shahidi maintained relative restraint through the revelry though slipped in a telling concession, “A win against Pakistan tastes nice”. The larger undercurrents playing out on both sides of the contested and invisible Durand Line were unmistakable. As players playing for national pride and their loved ones, the proud Afghan players could not have been oblivious to the trying situation (from so many angles) back home, and therefore to the reality of another nation that has contributed immeasurably to their miseries and diminishment since decades i.e., Pakistan.
It was left to the younger (still only 22) star of the evening and the man-of-the-match, Ibrahim Zadran, to say it more straight-facedly and bluntly when posed a question by the former Pakistani player, Ramiz Raja. Ibrahim dedicated his match-winning 87 runs to “to those who are sent back to Afghanistan, from Pakistan” – that the young player thought it befitting to invoke the tribulations of his people in a moment of personal glory says something about the precocious talent from the scraggy township of Khost, in the Loya Paktia region, along the Durand Line. Amongst the Zadrans from Khost, are the infamous Haqqanis (late Jallaluddin, and his son and the current Minister of Interior Affairs of the Taliban Government, Sirajjuddin Haqqani).
At the root of the latest distrust between the Pakistani State and the Afghans, or more specifically, Pashtuns, who have lived on both sides of the Durand Line for aeons, is the proposed and forced deportation of Afghan refugees. It is believed that 4.4 million Afghan refugees are there in Pakistan, out of whom 1.7 million are ‘illegal’. The move is triggered by the surge in violence in the region (over 300 attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2023 itself) and the Pakistani State is keen to settle scores with an equally belligerent Afghanistan Government by forcibly pushing back Afghan refugees, onto the other side of Durand Line. Expectedly, the refugees are distraught, and the Afghan Taliban government has called the unilateral move, ‘unacceptable’.
It’s not the first time that the Pakistanis have flexed the Afghan refugees to make a point, as it undertook a similar push-back in 2016. A Human Rights Watch report from 2017 slammed the same as the “world’s largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times”. Given the religious, sectarian, and ethnic divides that beset the neighbouring countries of landlocked Afghanistan, the majority of Pashtuns cannot possibly migrate to Iran (sectarian concern), China (religious concern) or northern borders with Tajikistan or Uzbekistan (ethnic concerns) – leaving the southern swathes along the Durand Line with ethnic Pashtuns as the only viable option.
Given that these contiguous areas of Pashtunistan were artificially and unfairly sliced by British and Pakistani machinations, is rarely remembered by Islamabad. Further Pakistan’s relentless quest to establish its ‘Strategic Depth’ in Kabul has led to sponsoring warlords like the ‘Butcher of Kabul’ i.e., Gulubuddin Hekmatyar, or even incubating the Taliban as part of Islamabad’s handiwork, that is coming back to bite it, now.
It is a patent Pakistani ploy to inject toxic and timeserving policies that are meant to perpetuate its interests solely, which has the Afghans up in arms. While it is true that they gave Afghan refugees a place but only for a substantial financial, military, and strategic ‘price’ in the 80s and not out of any goodness of heart – the role of Pakistan in creating the refugee crisis is direct and foremost. Hate towards Pakistan remains the only thing that unites the irreconcilable diversity of Afghans who are divided on ethnic lines as Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks etc.
Serendipitously, the Afghan batters in the said match were indeed facing a battery of bowlers who like them are also Pashtuns, albeit, from the other side of the Durand Line. Four of the six Pakistani bowlers in that match were fellow Pashtuns i.e., Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed, and they would presumably have a sense of ‘moment’ as dialled up by Ibrahim Zadran. Implicit in the refugee deportation move is an assumption of disloyalty and giving shelter to the likes of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) by the refugees. A Pashtun is always irked by questions about his code of honour or Pashtunwali, especially on principles of ‘wapa’ (loyalty) and ‘hewad’ (country), and this is exactly what militates in the consciousness of Pashtuns and therefore their pathological dislike for the Pakistani State.
Today, a country reduced to a pariah status, that has always been the playing ground of the ‘Great Game’ by foreign powers is reduced to rubble by the same powers. Yet through a simple cricket game, it demonstrated its indefatigable spirit, resilience, and pride to stand up for itself. It may or may not win too many matches immediately, but it has surely won many hearts with its feisty performance and the dignified patriotism of its players.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)
