Why repatriation of Afghans from Pakistan has no historical basis

Pakistan is punishing the Taliban government by sending around 1.7 million Afghan refugees across the Khyber and Khojak passes for not being able to bring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist group on the negotiating table with Islamabad and refusing to accept the Durand line as the international border between two countries.

Implicit in Pakistan’s TTP problem is a canard that the proscribed group is attacking the army of the Islamic Republic at the behest of India with the tacit support of the Taliban government.

While the Taliban has demanded dignity for the Afghan people during repatriation and the refugees have been uprooted from their homes for the past two decades, Islamabad’s callous move to send the refugees back has neither humanitarian nor any historical basis. A cursory look at the 1893 treaty between then Amir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, and the British colonial government of India and the subsequent demarcation of the border by Mortiner Durand reveals that actually, the Afghan refugees are living on their own land, west of Indus river, or what has been defined as Pashtunistan. The 1893 treaty which was amended in 1919 by the British colonials has never been ratified by Afghanistan. It was the line drawn by British colonial Babu that gave parts of Pashtun lands and entire Balochistan to Islamic Republic to ensure that Afghanistan remains a buffer between imperial Britain and Russia. Over the past century, the Afghan leadership has never ever recognized Durand Line as the international border as the Pashtun community has historically existed way beyond the current borders. Mullah Omar’s son Mullah Yaqoob is the acting Defence Minister of Afghanistan and controls the powerful Kandahari faction of Taliban.

As the validity of 1893 treaty or Durand Line Treaty was 100 years, Rawalpindi GHQ approached Amir-ul-Momin Mullah Omar in 1996 after the Taliban had captured Kabul to recognize Durand Line as the international border between the two countries in lieu of military and political support given by Pakistan to his proteges but the then Supreme Leader of Afghanistan flatly refused. His successors Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani also refused to know-tow to the Pakistani demand as Durand Line divided the Pashtun people who were spread beyond Peshawar and Quetta in the erstwhile North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now renamed as Khyber-Paktunkhwa (KPK). One must remember that Afghanistan opposed the formation of Pakistan in the UN and took its own time to forge bilateral relations with the newly formed Islamic Republic in 1947.

While the caretaker government of Pakistan has decided to push the Afghan refugees into frozen Afghanistan, the move is going to rebound on Islamabad in the long run as it will open the historical wound of Durand Line. Simply put, the Taliban occupiers of Kabul have the option to brand the move illegal and without any historical or political basis. The same Afghans/Pashtuns that the Pakistani ISI used as cannon fodder against the Soviets in 1980-1990s and later against the US forces post 9/11 are now being sent back across unacceptable Durand Line as a punishment for supporting terrorism (read TTP) against Pakistan.

While the west is focused on war in Gaza and Ukraine and China always supports its client state Pakistan, the humanitarian aspect of this relocation of Afghan people and their suffering is lost to the world. But the Taliban government now also has an opportunity to correct a historical wrong perpetrated by the colonial British.