Since assuming office as the 18th Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on March 2, 2024, Ali Amin Gandapur has rarely stepped out of the limelight, with his fiery speeches and controversial views repeatedly placing him in the media’s crosshairs.
It also marked his second election to the provincial assembly, having earlier secured the PK-94 (Dera Ismail Khan) constituency in 2013. From 2013-2018, he served as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s revenue minister. After the 2018 general elections, however, he opted to join the National Assembly as part of the PTI-led government. As a MNA, Gandapur served as the Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan minister from Oct. 5, 2018 to April 10, 2022. His political career is a continuation of the efforts of his father, Aminullah Gandapur, who served as a member of the caretaker cabinet under military dictator Pervez Musharraf.
Origin of Gandapur
The Gandapur tribe is one of two Sherani Pashtun tribes (the other being the Baḵhtiar) who claim their origin in southwestern Afghanistan, with a non-Pashtun, Syed ancestor. They numbered about 8,000 in the early 20th century, occupying an area of approximately 460 square miles in the western foothills of the Suleimān mountains, with their population concentrated in the town of Kulachi in Dera Ismail Khan. They have since been absorbed into the local populations, with no groups of any significant size currently identifying as Gandapur. The Mashwani from the Kakar tribe and the Wardak and Hani from the Karlanri tribal confederation, all located in southeastern Afghanistan, are the other Pashtun groups who claim a common Syed ancestry with the Gandapur.
According to standard genealogical accounts, Baḵhtiar ancestor Sufi Syed Moḥammad Gesudaraz wandered in from Khorasan or Turkistan, offered “prayers and intercessions” on behalf of the local people, and, in return, was granted the hands in marriage of each host community’s daughters. Gesudaraz, however, left without his Pashtun wives and children, who remained with their maternal grandfathers. His descendants claim Pashtun ethnic identity and forbid their children “on pain of disinheritance” that Gesudaraz had any relationship to any Pashtun tribe, including the Gandapur.
The Gandapur, meanwhile, consider themselves Pashtun by virtue of culture and social organization, such as adherence to Pashtunwali (Pashtun charter for appropriate social behavior), the Pashto language, and the institution of 40 local adult males designated to implement decisions of tribal councils. In his Hyat-i-Afghanistan, Muhammad-Hayat Khan described the Gandapur as a people who live “among the Afghans [Pashtuns], but not being of them,” an assertion rejected by chief Sher-Moḥammad Khan.
Gandapur and Qandahar
The Gandapur, like many other nomadic Pashtun groups in the region, regularly moved between Afghanistan and the Daman plains stretching from the Indus to the eastern slopes of the Suleiman mountains. They combined pastoral nomadism with transporting and peddling of goods between Central and South Asia. The pattern of these nomadic movements and the transformations of their society fluctuated with the rhythms of trade and the nature of their contacts with the surrounding political economies throughout their history. During the 17th century, most of the Gandapur had settled in Dera Ismail Khan, with large numbers engaged in the trade between India and Khorasan, which intensified in the next two centuries.
The origin of the name Gandapur is not clear. It is unlikely that it has etymological roots in the terms Qandahar or Gandhara. The literal meaning of the term in Persian (bad son) might be interpreted to indicate the descendant(s) of a person who incurred a stigmatized social identity due to an illicit relationship in violation of local norms or custom. Popular Pashtun genealogical accounts relate that Tari, the putative ancestor of the Gandapur, a grandson of Gesudaraz by one of his Sherani Pashtun wives, violated the local tradition by marrying a girl without her father’s permission and against the wishes of his own father. Thereupon, he was banished by his people, forcing the couple into a distant post-marital residence.
Ali Amin Gandapur
The incumbent Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister completed his early education at Saint Helen’s High School, Dera Ismail Khan, subsequently shifting to Peshawar due to his keen interest in sports as a squash player. In the provincial capital, he matriculated from the Police Model School and graduated from Lahore’s National College of Arts in fashion design.
Upon assuming office, Gandapur pledged to advance the province’s development and restored the Sehat Insaf Card. He also highlighted the importance of law and order and vowed to attract foreign investment, while working with the federal government to safeguard the province’s rights. He also maintained his government would put a special emphasis on governing the newly merged tribal districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
On the lines of the rest of the country, he has also announced a solar scheme aimed at providing free solar panels to impoverished citizens of his province. However, his accomplishments have increasingly been overshadowed by controversy.
Former KP Communication and Works minister Shakeel Khan resigned from his post after accusing Gandapur and the secretary of corruption, alleging the secretary had offered him a bribe to remain quiet but he had refused to expose the corruption. When other PTI leaders—Atif Khan, Sher Ali Arbab, Junaid Akbar—came out in Shakeel’s support, Gandapur relieved them of their party positions, highlighting that there would be zero tolerance for any dissent in his government. Last week, while attending a public rally on the outskirts of Islamabad, he came under fire for offensive language directed at journalists, particularly women, as well as a tirade directed against the security establishment. Consequently, he “went incommunicado” for several hours, with the party initially claiming he was “abducted” before flipping their statements to suggest he had “voluntarily” attended a meeting on law and order that lasted into the wee hours of the night. In his first public appearance after his “return,” he set off a new firestorm by appearing to infringe on the right of the federation by claiming he would personally initiate dialogue with the Afghan Taliban to “resolve issues” and restore peace.
The firebrand politician is currently rumored to be under pressure over his controversial remarks. But those expecting him to depart without a fight are in for a surprise.