The official change in name of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa this month may be the final nail in the coffin of the Raj. If only.

Rather, an attempt to change names and wipe out the past is a twisted recognition that the politics of the Raj have continued into the present. They are likely to stay with us well into another century.

Where British troops once fought, Pakistani troops now tread. Where biplanes once flew, drones now hover. A change in name is far from a change in reality.

NWFP, so christened by the British in 1901 when separated from Punjab province, is essentially a collection of areas pried from Afghanistan by Great Britain during the course of the 19th century. Bit by bit, tribe by tribe.

The Khyber Pass came under the control of British India after the 2nd Afghan War of 1878. Its incorporation into the new name of the province is meant to designate the "Land of the Pukhtoons this side of the Khyber." "Pukhtoonkhwa" itself was long considered a dangerous secessionist slogan ever since Bacha Khan campaigned against the Raj in the 1920s, and then against Pakistan after 1947. It suggests that there something greater than Pakistan in the area. To the charge that it will fuel secessionists in other parts of the country, supporters counter that all the other provinces of the country (Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan) already are named after their dominant ethnic group. True.

Nonetheless, the new name itself is an unstable pairing. What about the Pukhtoons on the other side of the Khyber, in Afghanistan? The ethnically-oriented term also does not acknowledge the many non-Pukhtoons in the province, like the people of Hazara district and residents of cities like Peshawar. How will it impact the 3 million Pathans in Karachi under growing ethnic siege?

Khyber-Puktoonkhwa is also unstable in a wider international sense. The newly-named province's fate is partially in the hands of players from Jeddah to Washington, from Teheran to Delhi, from Moscow to Dushanbe. Most unfortunately, violence has become the dominant currency in the region.

This violence may appear to outsiders to be endemic. Not true. Twenty years ago, while interviewing Bacha Khan's son, the great Pathan poet, painter and freedom fighter Khan Abdul Ghani Khan, I asked him how it was that despite British violence during the Raj, Pathans adopted the creed of non-violence instead. He reminded me that the area in which we were, Charsadda District outside Peshawar, was the home of ancient Buddhism. During the 1930s, in his words,

"Gandhiji used to say that only a brave nation can become truly non-violent. It takes moral courage. And the Pathan was warrior enough to understand that in this war, you cannot lose. With non-violence, the fellow who beats you gets a nasty feeling. With non-violence several of them [British Indian police] even used not to shoot.

"I would talk to several of the Magistrates, all Englishmen. One of them was Secretary to the Governor, Bacon. In those days [1937-39] my uncle [Dr. Khan Sahib] was Chief Minister, and I was member of the Central Assembly, and Bacon used to come to the house. His wife was friendly with our ladies.

"He told me, Ghani, I was the Assistant Commissioner in Charsadda [District which includes Utmanzai and Mohammad Naray villages] in 1930. He said this Red Shirt would be brought to me. I had orders to give them each two years rigorous imprisonment. They would come to me and I would say, are you a Red Shirt? They would say yes. Are you against the Government? He would say yes. Do you want freedom? Yes, I want freedom. If I release you, will you do it again? Yes. He said I would want to get up and hug him. But instead I used to write two years rigorous imprisonment.

"Boys of 14 and 15 coming up to me and saying, yes I will do it again, you have no right to be here, go back to your country. He said I was absolutely going mad, I used to do nothing but drink until my wife said to the Governor if you do not want Bacon to go mad, transfer him from Charsadda. He just could not stand it.

"We knew if you shoot one of them [the British], he will shoot fifty of us. With non-violence, you can never lose. If they put you in prison, you get a light sentence, and when you come out you do it again.

"This non-cooperation, not buying British goods, was a terrible thing for the British. The first year that we started Non-cooperation [1930], when we started burning British cloth, in Birmingham [England] eighty mills stopped working. Imagine the unemployment. Eighty! We understood that this was a winning game. Sometimes they [Red Shirts] had arms with them, had a pistol hidden somewhere but they would not use it."

How times have changed. A new name may not do much more than add fuel to a conflagration drawing in one nation after the other.

All vintage images published by Holmes of Peshawar around 1910.