People say that Pakistan created the Taliban but it’s wrong though we might take a credit for it. The Taliban came into existence through the truck mafia, said former foreign secretary Najmuddin A. Shaikh.

“When they used to go to Kandahar, they had to pass eight to 10 checkpoints where they had to pay a fine. The truck mafia said to the seminary students and ordinary sepoys, who were not Taliban to give it a safe passage and requested them to provide it and they did that,” he said while speaking in a session, The Imperial Ghost Wars in Afghanistan on the concluding day of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) on Sunday.

“Then we said, ‘the Taliban are our boys’ but the Taliban did not accept that and told that Naseerullah Babar had nothing to do with them.”

Mr Shaikh added that Osama bin Laden went to Afghanistan in a C-31, which was only possible through the US government. “I was then the foreign secretary. I wrote to our intelligence agencies to keep a watch on him because his presence there was going to create problems for us.”

He termed peace in Afghanistan essential for Pakistan because any disturbance there would multiply in Pakistan.

Former ambassador to the US Maleeha Lodhi said that for Pakistan, the US was part of an external strategy to counter India’s threatening posture with Pakistan. She said the relationship has been very mercurial, problematic and turbulent and it was best when the both sides had common objectives like both sides wanted US withdrawal from Afghanistan, both sides wanted the dissemination of Al-Qaida.

“We are in a transitional phase. It is hard to see how the new relationship is going to be redefined unless there is meaningful engagement at the senior level which I am not seeing so far. Perhaps the US has other issues now in mind vis-à-vis Ukraine.”

Ms Lodhi said the relationship is going to be affected by three factors, the Sino-US confrontation, India factor as Pak-India relations are not normalised and the situation of Afghanistan where Pakistan wanted a greater engagement.

Writer and journalist Zahid Hussain said US-Pakistan relations had gone through many phases in the last sixty years but a new alliance emerged after 9/11. “Before 9/11 happened, the US and Pakistan were pursuing different policies in Afghanistan but things changed after 9/11.”

He said after the incident, Pakistan was important for the US to engage in Afghanistan as the mastermind of 9/11 was living there and Pakistan was deeply involved in Afghanistan before that.

“There had been a lot of political statements by political leaders that ‘one call’ led to Pakistan’s alliance with the US which was completely wrong. Pakistan did not have a choice.”

After the return of US forces from Afghanistan, the nature of relations had completely changed and they had gone back to the same situation that was before 9/11, he said.

Zahid Hussain added that there had been a lot of talk that the US had betrayed Pakistan but one thing should be clear that nations make their relations based on their national interests.

He said when Taliban ruled Afghanistan before 9/11, there were no Taliban fighting in Pakistan but now the TTP had emboldened, and its back in the former tribal areas of Pakistan which should be a concern for Pakistan.

AKBAR ZAIDI: Political economist Akbar S. Zaidi talking about his book, Making of A Muslim, said many things told about Pakistan and the Muslims of 19th century were wrong.

“I was intrigued by the idea how the idea of a Muslim is portrayed in history, social sciences by very prominent historians, including the one who was here yesterday but I can’t take the name.

“There was a region in Hindustan where everything was written in Urdu and our historians, with some exceptions, don’t read Urdu despite writing extensive books.”

Mr Zaidi said the crux of this book was to explore what were the Muslims talking about in the 19th century, adding that he read newspapers from that era, exploring the Khuda Bakhsh Library in Patna, Aligarh Library and British Library.

He said contemporary historians claim that a Muslim nation came into being after 1857. “I refuse to accept it. There was nothing like it.”

He declared there was no better word than Zillat (humiliation). “The book has many themes and there is one theme of Zillat.”

The Urdu speaking elite realised that the condition they were in was utter Zillat.

“People think that the sects of Islam, Deobandi, Barelvi and Ahle Hadith, had been there since centuries. In 1867, the Deoband sect started, the Barelvis came in 1895 and Ahle Hadith originated in 1870-1875. These sects are just infants compared to the 1,400 years long history of Islam.”

Talking about his book again, Mr Zaidi said his argument was that due to the Zillat of 1857, Aligarh came into being, Sir Syed appeared, and all Muslim sects came into being. “In Aligarh of 19th century, Ghalib was not taught and you could not talk about Urdu poetry. Keats was taught. There were a Union club and English debating club,” he said.

“Calling Sir Syed as an educationist is bullshit. Aligarh’s objective was getting jobs and not knowledge,” Mr Zaidi declared.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2022