Swat - Afghanistan in the making?

I imagined Swat to be a place with green meadows, tall mountains, white sands and a sparkling river washing its banks.

Smita Mishra

In my school days I had a very dreamy picture of Swat Valley. I imagined it to be a place with green meadows, tall mountains, white sands and a sparkling river washing its banks with water so clear that you could almost see the crisscross of sunlight on marine plants and colourful fish playing hide and seek on its shingle bed! What inspired such fantastic imagination I do not know, but Swat somehow always sounded very close and familiar to me. It might have been because of all those history books that I read which spoke of a Swat that was culturally a gold mine and that it was the birthplace of Vajrayan Buddhism and monk Padmasambhava. It had a population of Pashtuns as majority and Kohistanis and Gujjars as other residing communities- with the pre historic Aryans as their ancestors! Broken bangles, shreds of colourful pottery, gold cashes and unopened graves have so many secrets to tell, but who would listen in the din of Swat’s chaos? Sometimes I feel the British rule in Swat was much better, when it was a princely state ruled by the Wali dynasty, despite the fact that the Walis ruled with an iron hand and had their own laws. The Wali system was abolished in 1969 when Swat was made an NWFP district. Even under the Wali system, Swat as it is mostly conservative had a judicial system headed by a Quazi and laws were a combination of local tradition and Sharia. But the Walis encouraged education and opened a number of schools as a consequence of which a majority of Swat’s population is literate. Swat, the ‘Switzerland of Pakistan’ and a popular tourist destination till recently has been fighting against the advancing Taliban. Swat had hit headlines in late 2007 when Taliban had captured the entire Alipur district, forcing the local police to flee. However soon the Pak military had triumphed killing as many as 250 militants with claims to have almost sanitised the valley. But by incidents like the killing of the liberal leader of Awami National Party Malak Bakht Bidar and the kidnapping of Prof Israr Mohammad and his son because they opposed Maulvi Fazlullah, the Taliban continued to keep fear kindled in the hearts of people. Who is Maulvi Fazlullah? Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) was a small organization founded by a petty local mulla Sufi Mohammad. With time it gradually became quite powerful. Sufi went to support Taliban in 2001 with 30,000 supporters and was badly defeated. He ran for his life in Pakistan where the authorities captured and imprisoned him for seven years. Maulvi Fazlullah, the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad started a similar but more aggressive organization called Tahreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and soon spread his terror in the entire Swat Valley. Aiming at the complete Talibanization of Swat, Fazlullah targeted TV, cable, barber’s shops and children’s schools. So what has actually happened now? It is the Malakand Deal signed between the NWFP govt that has agreed to the demands of TNSM for enforcement of Sharia that has actually shaken the world. The Pakistan Government has left the world dumb founded and wondering by signing accord with a militant organization that has bombed more than 170 schools, torched public buildings, murdered journalists, kidnapped and butchered liberals and spread terror in the entire valley. What do the people of Swat want? Long rallies in support of Taliban may create the impression that the conservative Swat is only too happy with the new political arrangement. But this is not the case, otherwise why would it vote in support of the liberal ANP? The Awami National Party lead by none other than the grand son of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan had won all national and assembly seats from Swat. The ANP tried hard to counter the growing strength of Taliban, but failed miserably. It could not match the militancy of Sufi Mohammad and Fazlullah with Pukhtunwali (the Pukhtun code of law). The ANP is now fighting the battle of survival in Swat. The solution If the people of Swat were initially okay with the signing of the deal it was because all they wanted was peace. But unending gun battle and suicide attacks, closing of schools, ban on free movement of women and imposition of innumerable curbs on life and thoughts are gradually eroding the hope of any respite. The only solution to the problem of Swat lies with Pakistan. If the US can bomb Taliban out of Afghanistan, Pak would not have to take much trouble in driving a handful of mullas away from Swat. The world should step up pressure on Pak to sanitise Swat as allowing Taliban to grow anywhere would mean nurturing a disease that has the potential to pose threat akin to 9/11 anytime anywhere. Pak in containing Taliban would also do service to its own people. If it encourages or remains blind to the onslaughts of the Taliban in Swat, it would not take long for this Rig Vedic land of Suvastu in turning into another Bamiyan and the cancer of terrorism spreading to the very heart of Pakistan.