Pakistani Nomads Resist the Call to Arms, The National, 21 January 2010
EXCERPT: "Impoverished native nomads of central Pakistan’s desert region have been practically immune to concerted recruitment drives by militant groups over the past 20 years, a series of interviews has revealed. The Seraiki-speaking nomads, an underclass in a rural, feudal society where position is determined by ownership of agricultural land, have instead clung to their centuries-old way of life, scratching a living in the desert as livestock herders and, often, as criminals. The nomads harmoniously share the region with ethnic Punjabis, mostly landowning farmers and sharecroppers who migrated from neighbouring districts of India upon independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Residents said the nomads’ preference for living on the margins of village communities and a general tendency of limiting their religious practice to visiting Sufi shrines have kept them apart from the Punjabi-dominated militant groups that have been fighting India in the disputed territory of Kashmir since 1988."
Read the full story.
Related articles:
Punjabi Taliban: Threat or spent force, The National, 18 January 2010
Talibanisation of Punjab [comment], Daily Times, 18 July 2009
South Punjab sees Taliban connection as stigma, DAWN, 24 May 2009
Related posts:
Punjab: Old jihadis, new threats, 9 December 2009
Lashkar-e-Taiba poised to strike again, 2 December 2009
Taliban taps Punjab heartland for recruits, 17 November 2009
Tribesmen pawns in "duplicitous" game, 4 November 2009
