Is Afghanistan going to divide Pakistan into 4 pieces?
Taliban wants to divide Pakistan into 4 parts. so if their plan successful, then tomorrow’s Pakistan will not look like this, but like this. India and Pakistan are rivals and we all know it. but there is one country which loves Pakistan more than us. a country who is in conflict with Pakistan from an era when Pakistan was not even formed and that is Afghanistan. it may be Taliban or any Afghani person. if we talk about Pakistan with them, then they get angry. but why? why does Afghanistan hate Pakistan? what is the history of these two countries and how does it matter to us?
Friend or enemy?
In 2021, when America decided to leave Afghanistan and run away, they thought the Afghan government would be able to handle the situation. but that didn’t happen. only in 10 days, Taliban established its control all over Afghanistan. Today, the Taliban formed its government in Afghanistan, and in its inaugural ceremony, only six countries were invited. One of them was Pakistan. Pakistan was happy with the Taliban. After all, the Pakistani army had trained them in the past. literal meaning of Taliban is student, from this logic. The Taliban and Afghanistan must be friends with Pakistan, right? But this is just the half truth. as there is family politics in India. Similarly, in Pakistan, there are 2 big families that have been controlling the country’s politics. Sharif family and Zardari family We know them as the Bhuttos. On December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto was at a rally in Rawalpindi. This leader had been the prime minister of Pakistan twice when suddenly firing started, a bomb blast happened, and Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The Taliban had a role in this.
In 2014, they committed a brutal attack in Peshawar on an Army public school. Here, 150 people were dead, of whom 134 were students. In 2022, such attacks have increased, with the Taliban involved. In fact, last year, the Taliban conducted 262 attacks on Pakistan. We are talking about the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), which is a Pakistani extremist organization. which has become the biggest headache for Pakistan; when American military forces were in Afghanistan, there was someone to control them. Now they are going out of control, and they have the full support of the Afghan Taliban. then weapons which Americans had left behind, by using those weapons only, attacks are happening on common people of Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s history
In 1947, when Pakistan was formed, Afghanistan was the only country to vote against them in the United Nations, from the start itself. They wanted to stop Pakistan from joining the United Nations to understand today’s Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict. We need to rewind a bit, because this too has its roots in colonization. In 1830, the British were growing their empire in India and Pakistan. Similarly, one more country was expanding its empire in the rest of Asia: Imperialist Russia. This expansionist attitude is known as increasing your sphere of influence. Like a cold war for more than a century between these two nations, a power play was going on, which is known as the great game,” and this name is so appropriate, only to expand their power and their influence. These two powers threw away half of the world in a fire. Basically, what was happening was that Britain had made trade routes through Afghanistan, Turkey, and Persia, and Russia wanted to capture them. To control Afghanistan, Britain fought four wars, and they lost all of them. After all, Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires. Afghanistan was important for Britain. because between Russia and British India, it would have worked as a buffer.
This cartoon accurately depicts the situation at the time. This is Amir of Afghanistan, who is stuck between a British lion and a Russian bear. On November 12, 1893, between Amir Abdur Rahman and British India’s Mortimer Durand, a pact was signed and the Durand line was created. Basically, this was a border; on one side was Afghanistan, and British India was on the other, which means today’s Pakistan. Some areas of Afghanistan were taken into British India. And British India got control. After 1919, Afghanistan was completely independent, and Pakistan was formed in 1947. but as Britishers left India-Pakistan’s conflict halfway Similarly, they left this conflict halfway because of the 1921 Anglo-Afghan Treaty. There is an important line: this treaty will be enforced for 3 years from the date of its signature. That is why Afghans believe that the Durand Line’s agreement was with British India and not with Pakistan. then that agreement must be void. After the British left. They say that, as people from British India and princely states were given the option to join India or Pakistan, it was important to give a similar option to people living in the bordering areas. Pashtuns live along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Afghanistan, officially, was not ready to accept the Durand Line. So Pakistan attacked these areas in 1949, where many Pashtuns died. In the 1950s, Britishers said that the Durand line was official and Afghanistan must accept this. and until the 1970s, small border fights kept happening between these two countries.
Using Afghanistan to defeat India
Pakistan’s and India’s relations are complicated. Actually, that’s an understatement. For the past 50 years, Pakistan’s military has kept only one objective: to destroy India. when Zia Ui Haq came in power, till then Pakistan had already fought 3 wars with India and also lost them. Now they needed a different strategy. The Pakistani military used a doctrine known as “strategic depth.” With this strategy, Pakistan started to interfere with Afghanistan’s governance and started controlling Afghanistan as a pawn. If India attacks Pakistan in the future, then they can make their weapons, tanks, and military bases in Afghanistan. Afghanistan can be used to counterattack India. Keeping this in mind, they started handing out weapons to people living near the Durand line. They created militants out of tribal people. Today, due to those militants alone, an organization like TTP has become a threat to Pakistani people. Attacks happen in Pakistan too, where common Pakistani people die. “If you have snakes in your backyard, you can’t expect them to bite only your neighbors.” Eventually they will bite the people who keep them in their backyard.” It would be insensitive to say “you reap what you sow,“ but the truth is that today the amount of danger Pakistan has from India is very small compared to the danger it has from TTP. an organization that was made by Pakistan’s leadership only.
Pakistan in big trouble
Today, there is a triple threat for Pakistan. Apart from Bharat-Pakistan’s conflict, Balochistan’s people want to separate themselves from Pakistan, and from Afghanistan’s side, TTP is attacking Pakistan. The TTP wants to establish an Islamic state in Pakistan. It wants to overthrow the Pakistani government. TTP wants this whole area known as FATA, where they will establish their caliphate, and the interesting part is that. They don’t consider POK as Pakistan’s territory. They say it is India’s, and Pakistan must give it back to India. Basically, today, if they get control of this FATA area, they will still be surrounded by Pakistan on three sides. But if POK becomes India’s part, then at least India will be on one side, and for the past 75 years, India has practiced its “no first strike” policy. meaning we won’t attack first. TTP also wants that Balochistan become a separate country and that Punjab and Sindh are also separated. which means they want to divide Pakistan into four pieces.
Conclusion
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, Pakistan was happy. They thought that now they could negotiate with the Taliban and resolve their personal issues, but exactly the opposite happened. Even today, Afghanistan officially doesn’t consider the Durand Line to be valid, and this is a big headache for Pakistan. Today, we see that Pakistan is going through a big economic crisis. The people here don’t have jobs, they don’t have food, the electricity is not reliable, and the roots of all these things are linked to the Pakistani military’s support for militancy. Just think, if so much of their resources, so much of their power, so much of their attention, and so much of their money were not spent supporting militancy. then today that country would have reached places. because if we learn from Pakistan’s mistakes, then we understand what we must not do. Because only a fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.