Pashtuns are no longer enthused by clarion calls of jihad by the Pakistan Army and are slowly but steadily defying the diktats from GHQ Rawalpindi. Manzoor Pashteen, head of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) in a recent interview admitted that though Pashtuns have embraced martyrdom at the call of Pakistan Army over the last several decades they would NOT do so now. Reason? Pashtuns have understood that over the years Panjabi bosses of Pakistan Army have only used them as cannon fodder, who are asked to die in the name of Jihad. So, over the years while the Pashtuns embraced martyrdom (read died) in the name of Islam the Panjabi officers of Pakistan Army mint money, lead lavish lives and build business empires.
There are around 654,000 active military personnel in the Pakistan Army, of which 25% are Pashtuns. At around 65% Panjabis comprise the largest share in Pakistan Army. The percentage of Baloch and Sindhi is marginal. It is the Pashtuns who form the core strike unit of Pakistan Army. Pashtuns have now understood the dirty gambit of Rawalpindi. “We Pashtuns are not so selfish as to garner all spots of heaven for us. We wish to give other communities a chance,” Manzoor Pashteen said sarcastically.
Manzoor Pashteen explained that Pashtuns have been participating in Pakistan Army sponsored Jihad for several decades and lakhs of Pashtuns have embraced martyrdom as a result. Yet what have the Pashtuns received in return? Pakistani forces commit rapes, murders, abductions and all kinds of atrocities across Pashtunistan (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA) and the region remains devoid of all kinds of development. Manzoor Pashteen goes on to say that situation in Pashtunistan (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA region) is far worse than in Kashmir. He added that hundreds of Pashtun women and children have been killed at point blank range by the Punjabi Pakistan Army. “There’s a huge Pakistan Army that’s been kept at the tax-payer’s expense so let them go and fight why should the poor Pashtun be sent as cannon fodder to die for the Panjabis.”
Yet another Pashtun politician Sher Afzal Khan Marwat, who is a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly was asked if he will fight alongside Pakistan Army against India if war breaks out over Kashmir. “If the war escalates, I will go to England,” Sher Afzal Khan quipped. These utterances reveal the deep ethnic fault lines that exist within the Pakistan Army.