Calling Khyber...

NAWAZ Sharif has by now mastered the knack of creating the most unlikely political hurdles for himself. Shortly after celebrating a year in office this month,where he boasted of uniting all the parties in Parliament and forming a government of national consensus, Sharif received a jolt last week when the Awami National Party (ANP) walked out of the alliance with one federal minister and three provincial ministers in the NWFP resigning from the coalition government. The ANP took this extreme step because Sharif refused to abide by a verbal agreement to rename NWFP and call it Pakhtoonkhwa.

In true Sharif style, he had recently announced that "there is no written agreement with the ANP to change the name of NWFP to Pakhtoonkhwa". This took the ANP by complete surprise and its leader Khan Abdul Wali Khan, son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, better known as Frontier Gandhi in India, was quick to react: "How can we have faith in an alliance where there is backtracking from a verbal agreement?"

The prime minister was unmoved as he witnessed the demise of one of the longest serving alliances in Pakistan's short history. "We were pained to see that Sharif did not come to our crucial meeting on Pakhtoonkhwa with the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) despite our nine-year-old alliance," said Begum Nasim Wali Khan, provincial president of the ANP and wife of ANP leader Wali Khan.

Sharif's greed for absolute power after the PML won the general elections tempted him to seek unnatural political alliances. He travelled up north to Wali Bagh to forge an alliance with Wali Khan of the ANP—the PML and ANP's only meeting point was their anti-Pakistan People's Party stance.

Wali Khan entered into a verbal agreement with Sharif that whenever a constitutional change was made, the name, North West Frontier Province, a cartographer's title bestowed upon it by the British, would be changed to Pakhtoonkhwa—which means the land of the Pakhtoons. That was all that the ANP had wanted.

"Actually, we do not have a name. NWFP is no name for the Pakhtoons. If the Sindhis have Sindh, the Punjabis have Punjab and the Baloch have Balochistan, it is time that we too had a name of our own," says Asfandyar Wali Khan, son of Wali Khan and ANP chief in the National Assembly.

When Sharif needed the support, he agreed with Wali Khan on the name issue but pleaded for more time before he could fulfil this promise. The ANP waited for a year and got impatient. Christening the frontier province Pakhtoonkhwa is part of the ANP manifesto and if successful, it would emerge politically stronger than its rivals—the PPP, the PML and several small rightist parties in the province. Elections '97 had thrown up several strong nationalist parties in the three small provinces where most had managed to form coalition governments.

But the Punjabi establishment, including the military, has long had strong suspicions about the ANP's credibility. The party, initially called the National Awami Party (NAP) and founded by Ghaffar Khan, was banned in the '70s. It was always looked upon as an anti-national party. The NAP had often talked about a Pakhtoonistan which included areas of Afghanistan as well—the Pakhtoons form the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Taliban are Pakhtoons and the Pakhtoon nationalism has long been a source of worry for the Pakistani establishment.

But today with realities on the ground having changed dramatically, the ANP and another nationalist Pakh-toon party, the Pakhtoon Khwa Qaumi Milli Awami Party led by Mehmud Achakzai, talk of Pakhtoonkhwa within Pakistan and have shunned any secessionist moves. But the Punjabi establishment is not willing to forget the past, and together with the PML, launched a movement in the Hazara areas of NWFP where Pushto is not spoken. There is also a clamour of protest against Pakhtoonkhwa from the camp of Punjabi Muslim Leaguers who live in parts of NWFP—and since the PML cannot afford risking a bulk of its vote-bank, it is soft-pedalling the demand. "Let the province be named Khyber and we are ready to accept it," say the non-Pushto speaking people here.

Says political commentator Imtiaz Alam: "There is a consensus to change the name of NWFP, a relic of colonial nomenclature. And there is no harm in adopting Pakhtoonkhwa, which has a connotation entirely different from Pakhtoonistan and is a part of Pakhtoon discourse and ethno-lingual psyche. However, it is not acceptable to the non-Pakhtoons, who comprise 25 per cent of the population."

 More and more people are venting their ire against Sharif's agenda—the "Punjabisation" of the country. Every important post in the country is being handed over to persons from Punjab. Last week, furious Sindhi parliamentarians aired their grievances on the floor of the House about attempts to shift the head office of one of the leading banks to Lahore from Sindh.

The army, too, has been blamed for bailing out a Punjabi prime minister in the judicial and constitutional crisis which rocked the country in October-November last year and nearly saw the PML government being toppled. The nationalist forces in Balochistan and Sindh are also raising angry voices. There is no denying the fact that these nationalist parties might move their own amendments in parliament for greater provincial autonomy.

Says Wali Khan: "The resolution for the change of name to Pakhtoonkhwa was passed by the frontier assembly. If the frontier assembly does not have the right to legislate and its legislation is not honoured then what do you mean by provincial autonomy?" The alliance with the ANP was beneficial for Sharif because it helped create the impression that the prime minister was taking along the smaller provinces.

This is not all. Sharif's government in the NWFP is also in trouble as the 32 ANP members in the provincial assembly will withdraw support from the PML government and have already asked to sit on the opposition benches. PML chief minister Mehtab Ali Khan of the NWFP faces a shaky future when the ANP withdraws support. The rest of the members of the provincial assembly are either from the PPP or are independents. The stage is set for some more horse-trading which even the 14th amendment, passed in haste to seal the loyalties of politicians, might not be able to stop. This will also give the PPP a chance to try and form a government with the independents together with the usual breakaway members who are only loyal to themselves.

Even more worrying for Sharif is his impending constitutional package where several amendments are to be brought before Parliament. There are only 10 ANP members in the national assembly, and passing these amendments mightn't be that difficult. But it's a different story in the Senate, where the loss of the ANP members will be greatly felt.

 On February 27, Wali Khan and his par-tymen sat on the Opposition benches and were given a rousing welcome by the PPP. The PML does not have an absolute majority in the upper house which has a fair representation of the PPP. For every bill passed by the national assembly it has to be sent to the Senate and be ratified by a two-thirds majority before it becomes law.

The English daily, The Nation, ringing the warning bells, said Sharif's recent pronouncements "are the first cracks in the mega-mandate, reigniting theories that governments in Pakistan begin to tear at the seams after the first year."