The Frontier Province: Khudai Khidmatgars and The Muslim League

Abstract

During the 1970s a successful Pakhtun businessman in Pakistan who dabbled — unsuccessfully — in politics as a Pakhtun nationalist (whose sons were at university in Afghanistan) explained in an interview why he was so unhappy with the country where he had done so well, and why he had not come to terms with Pakistan and become a loyal Pakistani. He answered in a typical subcontinental idiom: ‘My grandfather’, he said, ‘belonged to Afghanistan, my father to British India, as for myself I am supposed to belong to Pakistan. How could I possibly know what country my sons will belong to? Why should I put my faith in Pakistan?’ The story illustrates a basic problem for the young country of Pakistan and the Pakhtuns, the dominant ethnic group of the North-West Frontier Province, who are an ancient people with a strong sense of history.