Being a Punjabi in Pakistan is ‘risky business’ these days. With the ongoing parleys between the federal government and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), opponents of these talks concentrate on one aspect and that is the desire of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to keep their political base in Punjab safe from any terrorist activity at the expense of other provinces in the country. 

Much that goes wrong in Pakistan is blamed on Punjab and the Punjabis. The fact that Pakistan got a ‘one unit’ in what became West Pakistan to create the concept of parity between East and West Pakistan, and thus give us the first constitution in 1956, is of course blamed on the Punjabis. During the Bengali war of independence in 1971, the Bengalis blamed not ‘West Pakistanis’ but the Punjabis. Even today, the Baloch are fighting against Punjabi hegemony, and anybody from Punjab is fair game in Balochistan. Until a few decades ago, the ‘Pashtunistan’ movement was also aimed against the Punjabis. Anybody in any of the smaller provinces of Pakistan that has a gripe with the ‘federation’ always blames Punjab for all problems but then some historical retrospection is in order.

First about Balochistan: it was Jinnah, a non-Punjabi, who ordered military action in Balochistan. As far as the first 11 years of Pakistan are concerned, in the post-Jinnah period, Liaqat Ali Khan, our first Prime Minister (PM), is not considered to have a Punjabi bias. After him, we saw only two Punjabi PMs, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali and Malik Sir Feroz Khan Noon who collectively served for about two years. The real power, after the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan, resided in the office of the governor general and then in the presidency.

Malik Ghulam Muhammad, as governor general (1951 to 1955), was the first Punjabi to exercise true executive power and indeed he did ‘bad’ things’ but as a ‘federalist’ and not as a Punjabi. After his removal from office, for more than two decades, non-Punjabis ruled Pakistan. First Iskander Mirza, and after him General Ayub Khan, followed by General Yahya Khan and then the Sindhi Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. General Ziaul Haq, who replaced ZAB, was amongst the few Punjabi that ruled Pakistan. However, it is important to emphasise that Zia represented the Pakistan army. The army represented the political interests of the federation and the corporate interests of the army.

The decade of the 1990s saw Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif alternating as PM. Only during the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif could it be truly said that a Punjabi was running the country but that only lasted for about two years before he was removed from office by General Musharraf, another non-Punjabi. After nine years, Musharraf was replaced by the Sindhi Asif Ali Zardari of the PPP who then ruled Pakistan for the next five years. So, if we exclude the four years of Ghulam Muhammad as governor general and the 11 years of Zia, Pakistan has been ruled by a Punjabi, Nawaz Sharif, the only popularly elected Punjabi PM, for about two years. 

Much is made of the Punjabi ‘establishment’, which includes the army and the bureaucracy. Punjab is a majority province in the country and as such it is inevitable that a majority of the army as well as the bureaucracy is of Punjabi origin. However, at the same time, it is equally important to remember that Punjabis have often not only supported but also voted for non-Punjabis. Without Punjab’s support for the All India Muslim League, led by Jinnah in the Punjab legislative elections in 1946, Pakistan would not have happened. And it was Punjab that gave Zulfikar Bhutto a majority in West Pakistan in the 1970 elections. Also Benazir could not have been elected PM twice nor could Zardari have been elected president without significant Punjabi support.

Another canard hurled against Punjab is that it is a centre of religious extremism. The population of Punjab is close to 100 million and, as such, people of all sorts of religious points of view can be found in it. But then Lahore, the capital city of Punjab, is referred to as ‘Data ki nagri’ (the place of Data Ali Hujweri, a Sufi saint) and the major festivals in Lahore, now that Basant (festival of the kites) has been banned, are the celebrations commemorating Sufi saints like Hujweri, Mian Mir and Shah Hussain. 

My earliest memories are of a small town called Kabirwala where, as a child barely four-years-old, I would often go around with my ‘nanny’. I vividly remember coming across a bunch of wild looking men dressed in green, beating something in a large ‘pestle’ with a big ‘mortar’ with bells singing “Dam a dam mast qalandar, Ali da pehla number”. Before I get berated by the Salafi types, when a qalandar says “Ali da pehla number” (Ali is number one), what he means is that Ali (RA) was the first qalandar. As I later found out, what these men were preparing was bhang (marijuana). 

A decade later, as I accompanied my late father in the Moharram processions in Lahore, no one was concerned about any sectarian attacks. As a matter of fact, the Sunnis would provide ‘sabeels’ (water stops) along the way. As far as I am concerned, most Punjabis are neither religious extremists nor into sectarianism. Interestingly, many of the original leftist Punjabis have now found religion. After my recent article, ‘Why I don’t like India’ (Daily Times, February 1, 2014), I was severely chastised for being a Punjabi chauvinist by a former ‘progressive’ friend who, in his day, drank deep of the fount of ‘Punjabi chauvinism’. Clearly, he is now concerned more with eschatology than with progressive ideas. Many former progressives in Pakistan are now supporters of religious extremists and their fellow travellers like a formerly famous ‘crusading journalist’. Why? Allah knows best.