Jan Achakzai

(Courtesy Frontier Post- April 24-25, 2010) By Jan Assakzai Though the official number of Pakhtuns in Pakistan constitutes 15 percent of country's population, some NGOs and observers believe that their actual number could be between 40 to 50 million comprising over 35 percent of country's population, provided and "ethnic" demographic is carried out instead of "linguistic" census. The main reason for Pakhtuns' under counting is the census only choice: spoken-language-at home-principle whilst there is no racial or ethnic background choices available in the census form as is the case in multi-cultural countries like the United State or United Kingdom. Due to under counting, Pakhtuns in state intuitions including Pakistan's army, are under represented and getting disproportionately less share in other divisible national assets. The under counting of Pakhtuns in FATA, Karachi, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is much pronounced phenomenon, meaning...

By Jan  Assakzai (Courtesy The Frontier Post) April, 15   2010   will go down in the history of Pakistan as a major leap froward  when  the country's parliament   succeeded to purge the anti-democratic clauses from the constitution,  and put an end to the acronym of  NWFP   by replacing with   Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa , the ultimate outcome of the numerous sacrifices of  thousands of political workers, activists, civil society, political parties, leaders and media. 18 th  amendment is an attempt to respond to the crisis of federalism that Pakistan is facing  since its  Independence. Repeated decisions to centralise power have deprived smaller provinces of their most pressing demands at the time of joining the state: increased provincial autonomy and the devolution of power. For about  six decades, the promise of federalism has eroded under the weight of unfettered military rule , unbalanced and undemocratic s...

By Jan Assakzai Though the historic 18th Amendment including the renaming of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa was passed by the parliament, the preceding Hazara's division's violent opposition, which claimed at least 7 unfortunate lives, to the identity of Pakhtuns shocked many. Hazara opposition was fuelled by PML (Q) which came out as the champion for their rights and opposed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa vehemently. PML (N) had second thoughts on Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa adopting the attitude of " we told you so". Right-wing- ideologues raised their voices vociferously saying that violence has vindicated their stand: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is part of "secessionist" agenda of anti-federation and anti-Pakistan forces hence needed blocking. As far the Hazara community is concerned, it has, inadvertently, fallend prey to the shenanigans of anti-Pakhtun lobby by opposing Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Why? let us examine the sub-plots behind its opposition. Hazara community has, by and large, been l...

Courtesy Daily Times By Shahid Ilyas As Jinnah rightly fought to gain for the Muslims more seats than their numerical strength in the central legislature of India would entail, the same can be argued for the numerically inferior Baloch, Pakhtuns and Sindhis in Pakistan For far too long, the smaller nationalities in Pakistan have been ruled from Rawalpindi and Islamabad. It took 63 years for the Pakhtuns to obtain a name for the region that should have been theirs since the beginning. Although a good start, the change of name from NWFP to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the abolition of the concurrent list by no means constitute the granting of full citizenship rights to everyone in Pakistan. There is a long way to go before the Baloch, Sindhis and Pakhtuns have full rights and, thus, start feeling like citizens, not subjects. The Centre still holds a wide range of powers including its almost complete control over the country’s kitty, which is filled every year with revenue coming from ...

By Jan Assakzai The recent spate of  outburst  by Afghan President Karzai against the West,  blaming foreigners for last year’s election fraud, accusing Western troops of meddling in his country’s internal affairs and even threatening  to join the Taliban,  has caused a clamour in western media to the extend  that some commentators  labelled him as "crazy". But such over reaction disguises  underlying tension between Karzai and the West: the obvious reason is  yawning  trust deficit. Karzai  does not trust some of  the US Diplomats like  US Ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry,  who dubbed Karzai as "inadequate strategic partner" recently,  and  Washington's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan,  Richard   Holbrooke. Karzai   is very sceptic   of Mr Holbrooke  suspecting him being  under a Pakistani spell. Mr Holbrooke's recent remarks in K...

Courtesy The Frontier Post Jan Assakkzai The plight of Pakhtuns in Balochistan has become very important in the context of ongoing round of negotiations on the proposed constitutional package. Any act of commission or omission of constitutional committee will have great forbearance on the political, economic and social rights of Pakhtuns in Balochistan. Ignoring Pakhtuns in reform package, the committee will push them further into decades of political wilderness and economic deprivation. First and foremost is the identity crisis: Pakhtuns in Balochistan are facing acute sense of identity crisis. Though they are happy that at least people of NWFP will eventually get Pakhtunkhwa as their name and hope one day they will follow suit by getting their own name which they refer to as Southern Pakhtunkhwa. You may take it for granted wherever you meet someone from Balochistan who is even speaking Pakhto, that he is a “Baloch”. When I was a student in 1980s in Quetta, I was touring Punja...