“Wola Mawlawi Sahib”: Afghanistan’s Cry That Shattered Pakistan’s Illusion of Power

When the smoke rose from the Afghan-Pakistan border this week, it carried with it the ashes of decades of hypocrisy. Pakistan, the very nation that once armed and sheltered the Taliban for its own strategic ends, found itself humiliated on the battlefield and, worse, at the diplomatic table.

It began with an unprovoked act of aggression: Pakistani warplanes bombed areas near Kabul, claiming to target Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants. That claim quickly collapsed when reports confirmed that the supposed TTP leader was not in Afghanistan at all, but in Pakistan itself. The falsehood exposed not only Islamabad’s habitual deceit but also its utter disregard for Afghan sovereignty.

As videos of Afghan Taliban fighters fiercely defending their territory flooded social media, one moment became emblematic of a new national spirit: a fighter shouting “Wola Mawlawi Sahib!”, “Hit them, Mawlawi Sahib!”, as bullets rained down on Pakistani border posts. That cry echoed far beyond the battlefield; it symbolized a nation no longer willing to be bullied by its neighbor’s arrogance.

While ordinary Afghans rallied around that defiant clip, a different kind of firestorm erupted online. Dr. Farhat Taj, ( @farhat_taj92047) a Pakistani academic teaching in Norway university of Tromso, tweeted with chilling contempt: “Burn Kabul and Kandahar as General Roberts burned them in the Anglo-Afghan wars.” The statement was not only grotesque, it revealed the deep-rooted colonial mindset still haunting segments of Pakistan’s elite, who view Afghanistan not as a sovereign nation, but as a backyard to be punished whenever Islamabad’s insecurities flare.

But history may have turned a corner. By the request of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, both sides have now agreed to cease hostilities. Yet this ceasefire is not Pakistan’s victory—it is Afghanistan’s diplomatic triumph. For the first time in decades, Pakistan’s generals are not dictating terms from behind closed doors in Rawalpindi; they are sitting across the table from the Afghan Taliban’s defense minister in Doha.

This moment carries profound symbolism. The same Pakistan that once claimed the Taliban as a proxy now faces them as an equal, if not a superior, power at the negotiating table. The illusion of Pakistani dominance over Afghan affairs has shattered. The country that tried to manipulate Afghanistan’s fate for seventy years now finds itself dragged into dialogue by global pressure and Afghan resilience.

In the broader context, this episode marks a shift in the regional balance of dignity. Afghanistan, battered yet unbowed, has shown that sovereignty is not negotiable. Pakistan, meanwhile, faces a reckoning. Its reckless airstrikes, its misplaced arrogance, and its ideological rot are all catching up to it.

For too long, Pakistan has played both arsonist and firefighter, creating the fires of extremism and pretending to put them out. But the flames it ignited on the Afghan border this time burned its own credibility. The “strategic depth” that Pakistani generals once bragged about has become a strategic disaster.

The cry of “Wola Mawlawi Sahib” will be remembered not as a call to war, but as a declaration of independence, from Pakistan’s manipulation, from colonial arrogance, and from the hypocrisy that has long poisoned South Asia’s politics.

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