Central to the Radicalization of Taliban is the Pashtun question. The failure and unwillingness of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to absorb these tribal ethnic group called Pashtuns into their state structures. The failure to incorporate them into the economic and political fabric of nation-state and resultant alienation, deprivation creates conditions for religious extremism to arise. While ethnic groups like Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen in afghanistan and Baloch, sindhi and Punjabi in Pakistan enjoy better living conditions, the pashtuns are the most deprived of the lot in the AF-PAK region. While these does not justify violence, it perhaps helps to explain it. Consider for example that 88 percent of the pakistani pashtun population is illiterate (pakistan illiteracy rate is 45 percent). In North Waziristan (pashtun area), the literacy rate of women is just 1 percent (pakistan average is 63 percent). Only 43 percent of pashtun populace has access to drinking water (pakistan average is 89 percent). To top it there is drone attacks from USA and military operations by Pakistani army to destroy few militants who have got into the region because of open borders of Pakistan. Religious extremism is also the product of these critical failures in the state-building exercise and failed policy of the state in allowing extremism to grow in the first place by not investing in development.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 09:13:09 +0000
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