In the glittering Ashoka Hall of Rashtrapati Bhawan where President of India honours dignitaries, confers awards and holds swearing in ceremonies, lies a statue of Gautam Budha, the apostle of peace which is visible without straining your eyes just behind the left hand knuckle of the President’s chair. The base of the statue is of the same height as that of the roof-top of the arch of India Gate at Rajpath in New Delhi from where our Republic Day Parade starts after the floral tribute to the unknown soldier. India Gate was built by British after the Afghan War.

From 1011 A.D. when Afghanistan separated from India on religious grounds; there was no peace there. Tribals fought with each other and also made life impossible for others. British troops passing by Khyber Pass or other places were trapped and looted or killed.Loya Jirga, an assembly of tribal chieftans, could not guarantee peace. Pakhtoonis who spoke Pushtoo were demanding separate state of Pakhtoonistan, as Baloochis were bent upon Baluchistan. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab and his clan thereafter were always at war with them. After a few futile attempts at war, British were able to broker peace with the then Ruler of Afghanistan, took away the administration of Pushto speaking areas from him for a period of 100 years after which the territories were to be returned to Afghanistan. This treaty was signed on 12 Nov 1893 by Abdur Rahman Shah, Ruler of Afghanistan and Sir Mortimer Durrand, Foreign Secretary of the colonial Government of India. After this treaty was signed the acquired Afghani territory was named NWFP with its capital at Peshawar. The imaginary border was called Durrand Line.

The treaty expired on 11 November 1993. Successive Afghan governments have not been able to demand return of N.W.F.P. from Pakistan as per the international convention as Hongkong was returned to the Chinese by the British . Thus Pakistan would not like to have a strong and stable government at Kabul and shall keep on creating trouble. Any one keeping a track of I.S.I . chief’s movements shall have no doubts of the Pakistani intentions and shall understand its track record of crushing the aspirations of Pakhtooni people.