Thought 1

Chairman Gillani’s poker face reading printed statements as an incomplete Senate voted on possibly the most controversial constitutional amendment in the history of the 1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The most numbing image, seared into our minds and memories. Yes, there was controversy when the original constitution was being passed as well, but 50 years on, we have learned nothing. The months and weeks and eventually days leading up to this evening have been dreadful. But today, there was numbness, an old friend, this emotion, when you are Pakistani, when you are expected to just ‘chin up’ and keep going. So I am doing what I always do in numbness. I write.

Thought 2

There is rage amongst PTI folks. Understandably so. The lead up to the amendment comical tragedy is rife with a dangerous new level of both imagination and accommodation (here and globally) for political and human rights violations, coercion and terror. The BNP was dragged into it; their leader stood ground against voting on the amendment, irrespective of the draft, but their senators have risked disqualification. JUI-F, not so much. Leader and senators aligned at the last minute.

Ali Amin Gandapur keeps reappearing in these expressions of rage and frustration. That his James Bond-like disappearance and mysterious reappearance in KP Assembly led to an information asymmetry that broke the momentum around Islamabad’s D Chowk on 5/6 October: the ultimate betrayal of Imran Khan, which has engendered this senseless attack on Pakistan’s judiciary in the form of the 26th amendment. Aside: which draft was tabled as a bill and passed, nobody knows, probably not even those who voted on it because nothing was read out to the Senate other than the serial number of the document, and given the unprecedented lack of transparency around the draft(s) in this process, anything can be expected.

So let’s try and break this down. It’s just an attempt. It isn’t a final word.

Thought 3

Let me start by stating that I am not convinced yet that Ali Amin Gandapur is a traitor to Khan or, especially, Pakistan. My position is that he is not compromised intellectually or inherently ethically. He is in a compromised position, and Khan warned him about it.

The day KP had to turn back from Burhan and leave Pindi resisting heavy shelling and police fire on ground at Liaquat Bagh or nearby, I tried to talk to members associated with KP government and/or qafla. This was 28 September 2024. I got mixed messages. Workers clearly wanted to march on and try to combat the over 100 containers and trucks parked on the M1, many without tyres or with deflated ones. Some leadership wanted to accompany them ahead. But key leadership, the CM KP, didn’t want to risk death. And the risk was real because Punjab Police was positioned amongst the many bushes and undulating terrain of the hills after Burhan Interchange/Haro River with a better view of the protest caravan than vice versa. The caravan seemed unprepared for the nature of roadblocks ahead (after the km long blockade were mounds of sand blocking the motorway). Having started later than expected from Peshawar, the caravan didn’t have enough light in the day to resist police shelling and vantage fire and keep moving heavy obstacles with heavy machinery.

My sense is this worry of death and the spilling of Pashtun blood was immediately sniffed up by the powers that be. After all, this is what they’re trained for – just not against their own, of course, but that is a story for another day. It was plotted and planted and awaited Gandapur’s arrival in Islamabad.

Thought 4

A few days later, on Khan’s firm insistence, a second push was made towards D Chowk Islamabad. Pindi and Islamabad resisted all day and night of 4 October. But it was the KP qafla resistance that seemed genuinely otherworldly. Cut off from phone and data connectivity, stuck in the rural landscape through which the M1 passes from Punjab into KP, probably over 100,000 KP voters, supporters and workers of the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf resisted over 24 hours of shelling, direct pellet/rubber fire, vantage fire, physical obstacles and – according to a very recent narration – live fire.

At least one young man was reported dead from direct police fire into the head by the morning of 5 October despite having been shifted to hospital in Swabi in the night. There is heaps of video footage of CM Gandapur actively resisting all kinds of police brutality from the front of the qafla, which, at one point, was being shelled from all four directions for hours. This time, he was prepared. Heavy machinery, emergency services, thousands of committed workers who faced shelling with simple cloths, water, salt and D Chowk in their eyes, and pushed ahead.

At Islamabad, Gandapur disappeared the next afternoon.

This is where I think the worry for spilling Pashtun blood reappeared. Not in Gandapur. Not in the qafla. But in the upcoming Pashtun Jirga.

The state knew PTM had issued a call for a jirga on 11 October. TikTok was full of videos documenting Manzoor Pashteen going all over KP for this cause. So if we knew here in Lahore, they definitely knew. They also knew some of the hardest demands that were going to be placed. A big no-no.

Surely that wasn’t what FWO and NLC were given all those logistical contracts for, only to be kicked out of KP in two months? Who is going to complete and retain control over the new port facility at Torkham, for instance? Let’s not even open up the Waziristan investments or the mining issues. And do I need to mention the words ‘Absolutely Not’ for which Prime Minister Khan put his entire government at risk in the summer of 2021? Big no-nos.

My hypothesis is CM KP was cornered on basis of his constitutional position, which demands he maintain law and order in his province. This is an idea that I know gets brought up here and there, but it is a political question I have been replaying in my mind since the first time KP had to turn from Burhan. Can CMship run alongside PTI provincial presidency? Khan knew this risk as well. This is why he warned Gandapur to not become fixated with the idea of retaining government. More philosophically, I think what Khan meant was to not get scared and allow threats of security and governance crises to derail the greater cause.

But this seems to be exactly what was used against Gandapur.

In those hours of ‘disappearance’, CM KP may well have been told point blank to expect state resistance to the Pashtun jirga. Not peaceful resistance. Resistance that, if not handled by the government of the day, could quickly (be allowed to) get out of control, possibly requiring enforcement of Governor Raj (AND severe crackdown against PTM and its jirga plans). The attack on KP House was likely a prelude, a trailer of sorts, of what was possible right there in peaceful, sleepy, fully settled, fully guarded capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad.

In other words, be ready to choose between leading all your people in KP or leading only a political sub-portion of those people against which all other party/movement actors can always be ‘unleashed’. This might explain why the day after the jirga, CM KP categorically said in KP Assembly, ‘Well, (I’m) not going to say anything political anyway.’

Note: I am not offering a position on whether this warning during the ‘disappearance’ could have included references to ‘other’ actors as well. It could have, based on what I know, such as plenty of testimonies from young men along border towns of KP who have explained the blurred lines on ‘ownership’ of security and terrorist actors.

Within 3 days of his reappearance, CM KP was under severe pressure to handle the shooting in District Khyber. With pressure mounting from across Pakistan (especially the PTI vote bank that demanded protection of all people’s rights after experiencing brute fascism itself) KP government had to develop a strategy specific to the Pashtun Jirga. The resultant commitment was a big one, a constitutional one, understandably, but one directly at odds with the political responsibility also on Gandapur’s shoulders.

Thought 5

I think there is a second component to all of this, and this is regional. Gandapur may also have been told in clear terms to be prepared to lose electoral control over the South. In fact, this could even be the manner in which he would lose CMship.

The South is key here for several reasons: primarily because of its access to Balochistan (through Suleiman range from the Sherani tribe area of Drazinda towards Zhob) and large swathes of former tribal areas; but also because it is a direct site of electoral contest for CM KP and his brothers (as PTI) against no less than infamous Maulana, PPP’s Kundis (including current Governor KP) and even a warring tribal faction of Gandapurs based out of Kulachi (who also claimed PTI allegiance at one point).

If you visit the South, especially D I Khan as a district, it is visible that JUI-F is losing its stronghold. This may have once upon a time been good ground for a direct allegation against intelligence manipulation of the vote bank, but support for PTI is genuine on ground. It is the result of years of effort by the Gandapur brothers, especially going back to the 2012 Waziristan march and, amongst younger citizens, a clear attempt to bridge sectarian and ethnic divides that were used to rip D I Khan apart during the War On Terror years. Ali Amin Gandapur has also remained directly accessible to his workers and a large portion of voters from D I Khan city, from where he wins despite all other (still unsubstantiated) allegations against him (ranging from corruption to paedophilia).

I cannot say whether any of these allegations featured in the hours of ‘disappearance’. They might have, but I don’t think they were significant enough otherwise they would have worked back when Ali Amin was being given a custodial tour of Pakistan’s prisons and police stations.

I still think the threat is primarily a collapsing security situation under his CMship and (or through) honouring Maulana by ‘reallocating’ seats in D I Khan to him. In December 2022, a number of my ground sources told me about intentions by intelligence agencies (including MI) to take KP from PTI, and at least the south of KP from PTI.

The people made this impossible, simply out of allegiance to Ali Amin, a man unyieldingly loyal to Imran Khan. (Remember the mound of roses he got buried under at Zaman Park?)

So how do you break that compact between the people and the representative? Defang him by holding his entire province’s security in limbo against his party responsibilities.

Maybe this particular problem will help explain why JUI-F voted for the constitutional amendment after weeks of acting like it really cared for Pakistan’s judiciary. And if the current draft that has been voted on is not the original version with the military trial allowance or fundamental alteration to judicial structure, and if other analysts’ positions are anything to go by, there will be a second round of constitutional amendments.

And this time, these will be in their original form, the ones the system actually needs. The ones in which the entire judicial structure is undone, in which the overlap of executive power into judiciary is not just embedded in the constitution of benches and selection of a CJP, but in which the party out of state favour (here, PTI) is denied all judicial relief and anyone (including, and especially, Imran Khan) is taken to military trial without opportunity for civilian appeal (such as before an independent- minded Peshawar High Court bench, as was the case with a number of military- convicted prisoners).

Final Thought

If even half of what I have hypothesised has any truth, Ali Amin Gandapur must heed Imran Khan’s advice. He was voted in by the people, and chosen for KP CMship by Khan, for very specific reasons. If ground realities are changing, CM Gandapur must demonstrate intellectual and political acumen to respond to these changes, not just for KP, but for the constitutional framework within which KP has any chance of securing its rightful place in Pakistan’s political order.

And that has nothing to do with being only Pashtun or head of KP province. It has everything to do with being a politically free Pakistani.

Aside: PTM clearly hasn’t seen or understood the cantonments in Punjab. The cantonments in KP are miserable in comparison. They’re literal barracks. The one in D I Khan is probably one of the worst, low-budget cantonments I’ve seen anywhere in Pakistan (I can’t say much for the ones in Balochistan, but have heard better things about Quetta, at least). If PTM ever took the time to study life beyond its self-imposed ethnic exile from the rest of Pakistan, it would understand the ‘militarised KP’ problem is not exclusively an ethnic issue; it is an intersectional ethno-class struggle and the solution to many of the problems in KP’s merged districts (as in settled) have directly to do with the class component that is indicative of Pakistan’s extractive elite disease. Aimal Wali Khan’s senatorship provides excellent evidence of this. Remember that other than FC junior ranks, all officers serving across KP can be any kind of Pakistani. Why are the cantonments at the most vulnerable points of our Western border so visibly distinct to the prosperous ones at the clearer and more stable border (East)?

My personal political analysis of the PTM problem is that if this is a genuine movement for Pashtun rights, it should long ago have aligned itself with many of Pakistan’s other dispossessed. If it was able to transform from being a Mahsud Tahaffuz Movement to Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, it could surely have benefitted from broader cross-society alliances. This will always remain my critique of the movement, although in principle, I stand firmly with the rights of the residents and people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (as I do with anyone else who falls within the sovereign jurisdiction and responsibility of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan).

Soufia Siddiqi, a Rhodes Scholar from Pakistan, is an academic specializing in social and political justice in the UK and Pakistan.