during his period as Prime Minister (Dupree, 1973: 538–58;
Ganguly, 1998: 162–92); an intersection in downtown Kabul was
named ‘Pushtunistan Square’, and a ‘Pushtunistan Day’ was cele-
brated annually in Afghanistan. From September 1961 to May
1963, diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan were
suspended. While Afghanistan pursued the issue of an independent
Pushtunistan with less vigour in the ‘New Democracy’ period than
it had during Daoud’s premiership, the memory of the dispute was
seared into the consciousness of a generation of Pakistani civilian
and military leaders, who feared an insecure rear in the event of
major hostilities with India. This points to the second core
Pakistani interest in Afghanistan, namely to promote forces in
Afghanistan which would be anathema to New Delhi. Following
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, India, after some sharp bureau-
cratic conflicts, adopted a position which essentially accommo-
dated the Soviet invasion, at least in a public sense (Saikal, 1989).
The effect of this posture, far from protecting India from the rise
of ‘an Afghanistan dominated by Islamic extremist forces’ (Dixit,
2000: 23), was to provide Pakistan’s military leader Zia ul-Haq
with one more reason to back such forces. By cutting itself off
from channels of influence with the Afghan resistance, New Delhi
gave a free hand to those who wished to support the most extreme
and radical groups.
The position of General Zia
General Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s Army Chief, had seized power in
Pakistan on 5 July 1977, after months of crisis following a bitterly
contested general election. Zia took the title of ‘Chief Martial Law
Administrator’. Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was detained,
released, and then rearrested; after a controversial trial for alleged-
ly plotting the elimination of a political opponent, he was hanged
on 4 April 1979. The effect of this execution was to make General
Zia an international pariah, and his standing internationally was not
helped by his obvious religious zeal, for which there was little
taste in major Western countries given the fears triggered by the
The Development of Afghan Resistance 69