“Unbowed, unbent, unbroken.'' The motto of the House Martell in Game of Thrones could well be applied to the Panjshir Valley, which has resisted just about every invasion in recent history. Amid reports that Taliban is getting into Panjshir Valley, the last bastion of resistance in Afghanistan, the province, tucked away in the Hindukush, is once again in the limelight.
It will be a tough task for Taliban to take over and retain Panjshir Valley, which is less than a two-hour drive from Kabul but is a different world altogether. In the past 20 years, when one never knew where a bomb would go off in Kabul, or for that matter, anywhere in Afghanistan, Panjshir, the land of five lions, remained an isolated pocket of peace, if not prosperity.
The people here are mainly Tajiks, and they wear their ancestry on their sleeves - never tiring of telling you that they are Panjshiri, and what it means to them. They defend their land with pride, too. During THE WEEK’s visit in 2018, entry into the province was through a gate, guarded with zeal, and everyone - local or foreigner - went through the most thorough security check, with documents scrutinised in detail, after which the guards broke into beaming smiles, welcoming the visitor to their land.
That land which unfolded on the other side of the entrance was beautiful. The Panjshir river tripped along one side of the road - turquoise, with flecks of white, nurturing meadows with willow trees on both its banks. The hills from which the river emerges were snow-capped, reflecting the sunshine like diamonds. Almost every area was a picnic spot. The villages were the typical Afghan ones - houses made of mud and surrounded by thick mud walls. There were terraced fields all around, most of the prosperous Tajiks in the capital - businessmen and mostly government contractors - have their ancestral and weekend homes in the valley, which they visit on holidays and vacations.
The presence of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the lion of Panjshir, loomed large in the valley. He was assassinated in a suicide attack by terrorists pretending to be journalists, just two days before the twin towers were attacked in New York in 2001. A huge portrait of Massoud dominated the entrance to the valley itself, and the most prominent feature here was his mausoleum, built on a hilltop. The main monument was in black stone, and there were steps in concentric circles all around it.
The rugged landscape, the few entry points which are vigilantly guarded, and the spirit of the Panjshiris, are why Panjshir remained unconquered. This freedom, however, came at heavy cost, and Panjshir wears the scars of the multiples battles it has fought. Scattered across the fields were rusted Soviet tanks, reminders of the fierce battles the Soviet army waged on this land in the 1980s. At one place, we saw a tank repurposed into a small office, complete with white curtains. Most others, though, were slowly yielding their iron to the Panjshiri soil. There were memories of other battles, too. We met a middle-aged man with one leg - the other was lost two decades ago while he fought to protect his home from Taliban. Unlike the rest of the country, however, you would not find many youths with amputated limbs there - the last 20 years were peaceful there, even as the rest of the country remained on tenterhooks.
Even after Taliban's takeover of the country, Panjshir remains unconquered. The resistance is, reportedly, building up here again, as it did when the Northern Alliance was formed. Taliban fighters will be up against the formidable Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan's vice president, who relocated to his birthplace after the capital fell and declared himself acting president of the country, and Ahmad Massoud, son of the lion of Panjshir. This battle will be fierce. Panjshir isn't likely to capitulate like Herat or Kabul. Neither are its fighters likely to lay down arms or run for safety across the borders.
One day, these men will sit at the same tea stalls where they had heard their seniors recount stories of battles past. This time, they would have their own memories to add. Will those stories be of the battle won, once again? Only time will tell.
