Taliban targets Frontier Gandhi’s secular values
At the time the Taliban attacked Bacha Khan University on Wednesday, more than 3,000 students and 600 visitors were on campus to commemorate the death anniversary of the political and spiritual leader after whom the institution had been named. Bacha Khan or Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan was born in Charsadda, where the university is now located, and had led a successful non-violent movement against the British, which earned him the nickname of Frontier Gandhi. He was a devout Muslim who sought to uplift his people through education. Peace and progressive values defined the legacy of this Pashtun leader. The symbolic value of a Taliban attack on an institution named in his memory must not be ignored. Indeed, it should be a searing commentary on the Pakistani state and what it has become in the past seven decades.
This apart, there's little else to say about Wednesday's attack that hasn't already been said many times before — and perhaps that says something about the problem at hand. Still, it is pertinent that the attack on Bacha Khan University comes just a year after the carnage at the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, wherein the Taliban gunned down 141 people, including 132 school-children, some of whom were as young as eight years. That attack, possibly because it targeted Pakistan's elite, stunned the nation which had become somewhat immune to bomb blasts and suicide strikes. The consequent public outrage forced the Government into action — a National Action Plan was drawn up to fight terrorism, the unofficial moratorium on death penalty executions was lifted, the Constitution was amended to allow military courts to try terrorists, and the Armed Forces' anti-terror operations were ratcheted-up. But as Wednesday's attack shows, Pakistan still has a long way to go.
It is hardly a coincidence that both attacks happened in the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the watch of Mr Imran Khan’s party. At the helm since May 2013, the party has had no problem in flirting with the Taliban and other assorted jihadi groups. Mr Khan has been a strong votary of talks with the Pakistani Taliban (even though the latter does not even recognise the Pakistani state), is known for hobnobbing with the likes of Hafiz Saeed, and his public rallies were once dotted with Taliban flags. In fact, after the Peshawar school attack, Mr Khan shied away from naming the Taliban in his condemnations, and had previously been ambivalent about the attack on Malala Yousafzai, who too was shot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in 2012. Notably, Mullah Fazlullah, the Taliban leader who shot Ms Yousafzai, is now the chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. That may explain the high-profile attacks in the Province (though Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas, has always been restive) since the Mullah is a native of the Province.