There is so much hatred for Afghans today in our Pakistani society but Pakistanis also at the same time believe that their beloved Afghan Taliban is supported by the majority of Afghans. This is cognitive dissonance.
The majority of Afghans, including Pashtuns, hated the Afghan Taliban. The Taliban represented only a fraction of the rural Pashtun population in southern Afghanistan. As corrupt as the Karzai and Ghani governments were, they were preferred by most Afghans over the Taliban. The only reason former Afghan government lost was because their soldiers were not motivated enough to die for a corrupt government whereas the Taliban fighters were highly motivated by the thought that they were fighting to establish Sharia.
Our people bring up the actions of anti-Pakistan governments in Afghanistan between 1947-1992 while totally ignoring that in 1992 Pakistan had a golden opportunity to make brotherly relations with the Afghan Muslims we had assisted in the jihad against the Soviet Union.
Pakistan alienated the majority of Afghans in 1992 by supporting the rebellion of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against the government of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under President Burhanuddin Rabbani. That government of Afghan Mujahideen, made up of both Pashtun and Tajik Islamists such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmed Shah Massoud and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf was not originally anti-Pakistan. They supported Kashmiri Muslims and were even willing to hold a referendum in Afghanistan on accepting the Durand Line as the international border. They just wanted an independent foreign policy. ISI could not have that.
Later, Pakistan shifted from supporting Hekmatyar to the hardline Deobandi Taliban. It was only after Pakistan supported the Taliban which overthrew the Afghan mujahideen's government in Kabul in 1996, that Rabbani and Massoud created Northern Alliance and started taking help from India. Ironically, the Taliban (being Pashtun themselves) never accepted the Durand Line.
Pakistan had a chance to reconcile with the Northern Alliance in 2001 when the Taliban was overthrown and the majority of Afghans welcomed the US' overthrow of the Taliban. Instead Pakistan continued providing safe havens to the Afghan Taliban who carried out an insurgency against the Afghan Muslim government and killed tens of thousands of Afghan Muslim civilians, especially in suicide bombings.
This is why most Afghans hate us.
The Taliban did the same thing in Afghanistan which TTP did in Pakistan.
As for TTP, there can be no doubt they share the same ideology and have links with the Afghan Taliban, regardless of whether India may have aided them or not. There are no Indians in Afghanistan today, yet the number of TTP attacks targeting our soldiers has increased since the US left and the Afghan Taliban came to power.
I don't think Afghan Taliban will ever cut off their ties with the TTP, regardless of what they might say.
In my view its likely that Pakistan will eventually invade Afghanistan to overthrow the Afghan Taliban if this TTP problem is not resolved.
My only worry is that Pakistan Army, which reflects the sentiments of the society it comes from (which today is very anti-Afghan), might commit atrocities like rape and murder in Afghanistan as happened in Bangladesh in 1971. This would bring a bad name to our Army and brave jawans again. At least in 1971 we could argue that Pakistan Army was provoked by atrocities the Bengalis first committed against Bihari and West Pakistani Muslims.
The only way to stop this scenario is to educate Pakistanis that neither is the Afghan Taliban different to TTP nor does the Afghan Taliban represent the majority of Afghans.
In any future possible fight with the Afghan Taliban we MUST keep the Afghan people on OUR side.
