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Left with the old question

THE Awami National Party has initiated proceedings to expel Afrasiab Khattak — along with another radicalised soul, Bushra Gohar — from its ranks. The event has brought out earth-shaking groans from comrades all round. The politics of the left is in danger once again, only no one knows which politics of the left. All one can pinpoint are various brands of national politics given this or that colour in accordance with the season’s preferences.

Anyway, there are laments, akin to those which confront us the minorities, every time there is talk about a revival of politics of the left in Pakistan, such as when a group of like-minded people take to the social media or other such convenient forums to discuss the revival of the PPP in Punjab. The protest, if it can be called that, is not too dissimilar in content to the last word written whenever a Meraj Muhammad Khan or a J.A. Rahim or a Mubashir Hasan is found to be irrelevant to the cause and forced out of a revolutionary party by a dictator.

Given that this is not happening for the first time — the names given here to corroborate this fact are just a few among many sidelined by the mainstream urge — the benumbing noise is a wee bit difficult to digest. Not last nor the least among the figures on the list of those left out, Afrasiab has managed a few exits from the ANP camp on his own. Indeed, his return to the third-generation red caps was rather strange for many amongst us — or at least so it looked from Lahore as ANP busied itself asserting its position in a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa badly ravaged and divided by war.

Once again it was more nationalism and common sense than any other complicated ideology as Afrasiab Khattak emerged as an unlikely partner to Asfandyar Wali Khan’s quest to stay in contention for power in the province and beyond into territory where the Pakhtun stamp matters in a big way. For the revolution romantics still under the mysterious spell Afrasiab had cast on impressionable minds by virtue of the brand of politics he practised in Peshawar and Kabul in the 1970s and 1980s, this was some kind of a vindication for Asfandyar who had otherwise quite frequently been blamed for following narrow, clannish politics.

Both Asfandyar and Afrasiab have demonstrated they are anti-Imran. But as individuals, they are dictated by two different sets of realities.

For some others, the partnership between the two men was a plain momentary coming together of interests with no long-term future. This second group must now be surprised, considering just how long this latest ANP yatra by Afrasiab lasted. It had been predicted. This Afrasiab was no magician, as in he could not guarantee any permanent shift of the ANP which has shaped a bit like the PPP, only less maligned by a media looking to paint politicians as corrupt.

Comments from Peshawar say there are serious issues with the ANP, which obviously need to be addressed forthwith, in the manner its high command deems fit. It is said that Asfandyar is propping up his son which necessitates certain changes in the party hierarchy. There are some in the ANP who obviously do not quite fancy this impending opportunity to work with the fourth generation of the Bacha Khan branch, meaning that Afrasiab or Bushra Gohar may only be the first of many expulsions that an ANP looking for fresh direction must carry out.

The timing of this first batch’s unavoidable departure from the party is quite logical. Whereas the recent by-elections project the ANP to be making some solid gains against the PTI in KP, this is all the ANP could realistically hope to achieve during this stretch of politics which began with the campaign for the 2018 general election. With no pressing immediate engagements it was time for it to pause and rethink deep and that is probably what the party has done.

Now it should be looking to refashion and reinvigorate and innovate with an eye on the 2023 election and beyond — the right moment for Asfandyar to maybe pass on the baton to his heirs and the moment for the ANP command to bid farewell to the companions it is not comfortable with. It doesn’t matter in politics whether you do it with a heavy heart or you hide it behind a smiling face, or whether you share certain commonalities with those you are parting ways with.

Both Asfandyar and Afrasiab have demonstrated abundantly that they are rabidly anti-Imran Khan, but it seems that as individuals they are dictated by two different sets of realities in KP. By all appearances, Asfandyar wants to stay firmly as a real contender for power, acceptable to the establishment, whereas Afrasiab is visibly stirred on to another path by the emerging reality manifest most starkly in the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. Those with a real grasp and experience of politics in this country would know just how tough then it is for the ANP to have anything to do with Afrasiab and others like him. Indeed, by some estimates the time for this latest experiment which brought together Asfandyar and Afrasiab has long run out.

Afrasiab has been expressing his thoughts in his columns. “More than a week of peaceful protest by thousands of Pakhtun activists (mostly from Waziristan and Fata) in front of Islamabad Press Club may or may not succeed in forcing the government to accept their reasonable demands but it has definitely redefined Pakhtun political discourse in Pakistan…,” he wrote a few months ago, obviously knowing that this will set him adrift from ANP politics. In his explanation to the ANP show cause against him, he has attempted to separate the collective he is a part of from the personal but that is impossible to achieve. Just as it is impossible for a country with no left supporters to craft a genuine leftist leader. We cannot quite lose what we are not entitled to in the first place.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Asha’ar Rehman, "Left with the old question," Dawn. 2018-11-16.
Keywords: National politics , 2018 general election , Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement , Awami national party , Afrasiab Khattak , PPP