Remembering
Wali Khan
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
The
passing away of Khan Abdul Wali Khan at the ripe
old age of 89 offers an opportunity to analyze the
life and times of this remarkable man. No doubt
he was paid the rich tributes he rightly deserved
but we in Pakistan are in the habit of praising
a person and discovering their hidden qualities
only after death. Wali Khan’s late father
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, an iconoclast in his own
right, was referring to this trait when he observed
that his Pakhtun people love their heroes once they
are dead.
Wali Khan had many qualities. Unlike most politicians,
he never sought power through the back door. There
were temptations galore and offers were made to
lure him but he made it clear time and again that
he wasn’t interested. In the truest sense
of the word, he could neither be bought nor cowed
down. He wasn’t tempted even when his political
party won enough seats in the NWFP to form the government
in coalition with other parties and Wali Khan as
the head of the National Awami Party (NAP), and
subsequently the Awami National Party (ANP), was
in a position to claim a lucrative government job.
In fact, Wali Khan had become such a familiar figure
as a perennial opposition leader that even the thought
of him serving as prime minister or chief minister
would have appeared odd. Like the late Nawabzada
Nasrullah Khan, he chose to do what he did best,
and that was opposing dictatorial rulers and fighting
for democracy. The difference between the two men
was that Wali Khan, unlike the Nawabzada, had the
political strength and clout to reach the corridors
of power and even then he opted not to do so.
Another quality was Wali Khan’s commitment
to his ideals and principles. No amount of political
victimisation, coercion and temptation could make
him abandon his views. For him going to jail, character
assassination and financial losses were the price
that principled politicians like him had to pay
while upholding a stand that had been willingly
taken. There was no regret or remorse because that
is the way his politics had been shaped by his father
Bacha Khan, who spent more than two decades of his
life in prison but refused to make compromises.
Like his father, Wali Khan went to jail both before
independence and after Pakistan’s creation
in 1947 and lost almost ten precious years of his
life as a prisoner of conscience.
Wali Khan’s democratic credentials are also
worth emulating. Under his leadership, the ANP regularly
held party elections and discussed policies in a
democratic way. Despite his stature, Wali Khan wasn’t
in the habit of throwing his weight around. He also
stopped contesting elections when voters in his
native Charsadda rejected him and instead voted
for his rival Maulana Hasan Jan in the 1990 polls.
For him it was time to make way for others even
though his tally of votes was quite impressive and
his defeat became possible due to an anti-ANP alliance
of every other political party active in Charsadda.
Wali Khan also gave up his office as the ANP president
and gracefully faded out of politics. His followers
created a new position for him by the name of Rahbar-i-Tehrik
so he could continue as patron of the ANP but he
stopped playing an active political role and let
his successors, Ajmal Khattak, Nasim Wali Khan and
Asfandyar Wali Khan, run the party. He stopped issuing
political statements and refused to interfere in
party affairs. As a true democrat, he set up an
example for politicians to practice what they preach.
There was no scandal, monetary or moral, involving
Wali Khan. He was elected to the legislature on
quite a few occasions and also remained leader of
the opposition to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, probably
the only Pakistani prime minister with the status
and power that should go with this position. He
could have made money and benefited his family and
friends in so many ways but there is no instance
that he used his position for self-interest. One
reason that he lost the election from his Charsadda
constituency was his lack of interest in solving
the personal problems of voters. It was his belief
that lawmakers should make laws and debate national
policies in parliament instead of getting money
from the government to carry out small development
schemes.
However, Wali Khan was a human being and he had
his shortcomings. He had succeeded his father as
the leader of the Pakhtun nationalist movement and
parties like the NAP, NDP and ANP that came out
of its womb, and he let his family to take control
once he opted to give up politics. Though poet-politician
Ajmal Khattak remained the ANP president for some
time, there was no doubt that the Wali Khan family
continued to run the party. First it was his wife
Nasim Wali Khan who controlled the ANP and in the
process came to be known as the iron lady of the
party. Later, eldest son Asfandyar Wali Khan took
over as the party leader. It has been argued that
the party rank and file would not accept anyone
other than a member of the Bacha Khan family as
head of the party and inheritor of his political
legacy. However, political parties ought to grow
on the basis of policies and performance instead
of the popularity of a family or a leader. It was
sad that a movement and party that had set up praiseworthy
examples of democratic traditions also fell prey
to the charms of dynastic politics. Though it wasn’t
the ANP alone that adopted this non-democratic course,
it would have been in character to resist the trend
and live up to expectations of being a truly democratic
and disciplined party.
Wali Khan also failed to stem the falling popularity
of his party. Starting with the 1970 general elections,
the party’s electoral performance has gone
down or remained static. In 1970, the ANP emerged
as the single largest party in the NWFP and Balochistan
and was the senior partner in coalition governments
with the JUI-F in both provinces. By 1988, it had
to accept the position of junior partner to the
PPP in the coalition government in the NWFP. In
subsequent elections, it won extra seats by becoming
part of electoral alliances and entered into coalitions
with the IJI and PML. And by the time the 2002 elections
were held, the ANP was almost wiped out by the pro-MMA
wave that swept the NWFP and parts of Balochistan.
In fact, the ANP became a marginal player in Balochistan
politics after the parting of ways between the Pakhtun
and Baloch leadership of the nationalist movement.
One could argue that the ANP’s declining popularity
was due to extraneous factors and on account of
manoeuvrings by the all-powerful military and the
use of money and religious agendas. But political
parties and their leaderships should be adapting
to changed circumstances and strengthening their
organisations to meet new challenges. In any case,
refusal to move beyond the single-point agenda of
Pakhtun nationalism at a time when other issues
had become important and relevant wasn’t going
to fetch more votes. A leader of Wali Khan’s
caliber could have guided his party and his dedicated
followers to alter priorities and maintain its primacy
in electoral politics. Still this failure shouldn’t
take away from Wali Khan what is his due as a great
politician. He was one of the last freedom fighters
in the subcontinent and his legacy will continue
to inspire generations of Pakhtuns and other oppressed
peoples.
(The writer is an executive editor of The News International
based in Peshawar. Courtesy The News)
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