Home to the areas in Pakistan that are being pounded almost daily as part of the war on terror, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) is now caught in another battle: a war of words over its name.
Nearly two years after President Asif Ali Zardari referred to what is often called Pakistan's “nameless province'' as ‘Pukhtoonkhwa' in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, the long-standing demand has now become a bone of contention between ruling coalition constituent, Awami National Party (ANP), and the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).
It is also a major issue that remains to be resolved before the 26-member all-party parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms headed by Senator Raza Rabbani. Giving time to the two parties to resolve their differences, the committee — expected to suggest sweeping constitutional reforms to over-write the changes introduced by the former President, Pervez Musharraf —has postponed a final call on the vexed issue to the very end.
The ANP's contention is that all parties including PML(N) were party to the NWFP Assembly resolution for renaming the province Pukhtoonkhwa; a word used by poets for the region since the days of Mohammad Ghori. Railway Minister and senior vice-president of ANP Haji Ghulam Bilour is of the view that the PML(N) leadership had no reservations on renaming the province Pukhtoonkhwa but was being misguided by some party leaders on the issue.
However, according to senior PML(N) leader Pervez Rashid, Pukhtoonkhwa was not acceptable to a sizable section of the population in the province and there was a danger of the name dividing the people of NWFP. The PML(N)'s opposition stems primarily from the fact that its stronghold in NWFP is the Hazara region and adjoining areas where people speak Hindko.
Confident that the matter would be resolved by the time the committee wraps up its work —an optimism shared by some senior ANP leaders also —Mr. Rashid told The Hindu that the PML(N) was flexible on the issue. “Till now we were not even prepared to consider a name change. All we are insisting on now is that the new name should be acceptable to all.''
Besides Pukhtoonkhwa, five other names are under consideration. The ANP has suggested Pukhtoonistan and Afghania. And, the PML(N) Gandhara, Khyber and Abbasin (Pushto for the river Indus). Senior ANP leader Zahid Khan was hopeful of a compromise on the issue and suggested that the leaderships of the two parties may settle for a hyphenated name that pleases all.
The demand to give NWFP a name was initially raised by Frontier Gandhi — known here as Bacha Khan — in the first legislative assembly of Pakistan. He had suggested Pukhtoonistan but the name did not see the light of day. In the Zia-ul-Haq regime — which accepted the need to give the province a name instead of its geographical identity that was seen as a colonial hand-me-down — Pukhtoonkhwa emerged as a viable alternative as Pukhtoonistan was resented by the anti-Pukhtoon lobby.
