Colonial masters & misleading Pukhtoon Prides
Deconstructing colonial myths
Playing with Prides & Prejudices was corner stone of colonial policy and in many ways they played with linguistic, ethnic, religious and sub-religious prides and prejudices during her rule. Just imagine colonial masters annexed Nepal, Sheri Lanka, Burma and like wise they also annexed the Punjab, Kabul, Kashmir etc but they did not include Burma, Sheri Lanka, Afghanistan in British India. Even strategically important port of Adan and Burma at Chinese borders were remained part of British India until 1935. We have to rethink about the narratives we were given by the colonial masters. Another misleading narrative is Strategic Depth and that is Pakistani name of 17th century British policy often called as Frontier Forward Policy.Strategic Depth doctrine is re-branding of 17th century's Frontier Forward Policy of the colonizers, the. British!. So deconstructing colonial prides and prejudices is key to success for South, Central and West Asians. Our post colonial friends often pinpointed prejudices only but larger part of that misleading narrative resides in misleading Prides which needs immediate attention.
I often enjoy N F Paracha articles and i pinpointed his short comings too but Parachas or Katris (Muslim Khatris) have a precolonial legacy of trade in Pak-Afghan-Iran region and his current article The misplaced image of the warring Pakhtun is an effort to challenge another colonial myth. Hope in future he will also deconstruct the myth of Marshal Race that was not coined before annexation of the Punjab yet after 1849 under FFP they had to move towards Oxus and for that purpose they need recruitments from near by areas. Both misplaced images of Marshall races and warring Pukhtoons were by product of FFPs. In november 2013 I penned an article When English annexed Afghanistan: A Story of three year 1839-42 for Dawn Urdu Blog as انگریزوں کا افغانستان
read and unlearn the colonial prides and prejudices
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