Pashtunistan
Encyclopedia
Pakhtunistan or Pashtunistan, meaning the "land of Pakhtuns" or "land of Pashtuns", is a modern term used for the historical
region
inhabited by the native Afghans or Pashtun
(Pakhtun people) since at least the 1st millennium BC
. Possibly since at least the 3rd century CE and onward, the region was mostly recognized as Afghanistan
and by the people in the Indian subcontinent
as Pathanistan.
Pashtunistan was politically divided for administration in 1893 by the Durand Line
, a disputed and poorly-marked border between Afghanistan
and British India
. Today, the Pashtun homeland stretches from the Hindu Kush
mountain range in Afghanistan to areas west of the Indus River
in Pakistan.
until the 20th century has always been Afghanistan
, which has been mentioned by the 6th century Indian astronomer & mathematician Varahamihira
, 7th century Chinese pilgrim Hiven Tsiang
, 14th century Moroccan scholar Ibn Batutta, Mughal Emperor Babur
, 16th century historian Firishta
and many others.
The name Pakhtunistan ( (Naskh
)), or in the soft Pashto
dialect, Pashtunistan, evolved originally from the Indian word "Pathanistan" (Hindustani
: (Nastaleeq), पठानिस्तान (Devanagari
)). The very concept of Pashtunistan was taken from the old word "Pakhtunkhwa
." Like other Hindustani
terms, "Pathanistan" entered the Pashto
lexicon. The British Indian leaders and even the Khudai Khidmatgar
s started using the word "Pathanistan" to refer to the region, and later on the word "Pashtunistan" became more popular.
people of Pashtunistan are the Pashtuns
(also known as Pakhtuns, Pathans or ethnic Afghans). They are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan
and the second largest in Pakistan. The Pashtuns are concentrated mainly in the south and east of Afghanistan but also exist in northern and western parts of the country as a minority group. In Pakistan they are concentrated in the west and northwest, inhabiting mainly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (former North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), as well as parts of Balochistan
, Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir
and Mianwali
and Attock
districts of Punjab
. They are also found in large numbers in the Pakistani city of Karachi
, and with sizable numbers in Rawalpindi
-Islamabad
, Lahore
, Sialkot
, and Hyderabad
. The main language spoken in the delineated Pashtunistan region is Pashto, followed by others such as Balochi
, Hindko
, and Urdu
.
Pashtuns practice Pashtunwali
, the indigenous
culture of the Pashtuns, and this pre-Islamic identity remains significant for many Pashtuns and is one of the factors that have kept the Pashtunistan issue alive. Although the Pashtuns are politically separated by the Durand Line
between Pakistan and Afghanistan, many Pashtun tribes
from the FATA area and the adjacent regions of Afghanistan, tend to ignore the border and cross back and forth with relative ease to attend weddings, family functions and take part in the joint tribal councils known as jirgas.
Depending on the source, the ethnic Pashtuns constitute 42-60% of the population of Afghanistan
. In neighboring Pakistan they constitute 15.42 percent of the 170 million population
. In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, Pashto speakers constitute above 73 percent of the population as of 1998.
, the region now inhabited by the native Pashtun people have been influenced by early Aryan tribes
, the Medes
, Achaemenids
, Greeks
, Mauryas
, Kushans
, Hephthalite
s, Sassanids
, Arab Muslims, Turks
, and others. In recent age, people of the Western world
have nominally explored the area.
Arab Muslims
arrived in the 7th century and began introducing Islam
to the native Pashtun people, some of the Arabs
settled in the Sulaiman Mountains
and slowly became Pashtunized
over time. The Pashtunistan area later fell to the Turkish Ghaznavids whose main capital was at Ghazni
, with Lahor
serving as the second power house. The Ghaznavid Empire was then taken over by the Ghorids from today's Ghor, Afghanistan. The army of Ghengis Khan arrived in the 13th century and began destroying cities in the nearby regions, mostly Persian cities in the north. In the 14th and 15th century, the Timurid dynasty
were in control of the nearby cities and towns, until Babur
captured Kabul in 1504.
era, the region was ruled by Turkic-Afghan dynasties from Delhi
, India
. An early Pashtun nationalist was the "warrior-poet" Khushal Khan Khattak
, who was imprisoned by the Mughal
emperor Aurangzeb
for trying to incite the Pashtuns to rebel against the rule of the Mughals. However, despite sharing a common language and believing in a common ancestry, the Pashtuns first achieved unity in the 18th century. Pashtunistan was ruled by the Mughal Empire
during the early 18th century when Afghan led by Mirwais Hotak successfully revoluted
against the Persian Safavids
in the city of Kandahar. This uprising and taken over of the Persian throne by the powerful Hotaki dynasty of Afghanistan united all the tribes of Pashtunistan. By 1738 the Mughal Empire has been defeated by forces of a new Turkmen
ruler from Greater Khorasan
, Nader Shah
. Besides Persian and Turkmen forces, Nader was accompanied by the young Ahmad Shah Durrani
and 4,000 well trained Pashtun troops from Afghanistan.
After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani created his own large and powerful Durrani Empire
, which included Pashtunistan among many other places. The famous couplet by Ahmad Shah Durrani
describes the association the people have with the regional city of Kandahar:
The last Afghan Empire
was established in 1747 and united all the different Pashtun tribes
as well as many other ethnic groups. Small part of the Pashtunistan region around Peshawar
was invaded by Ranjit Singh
and his Sikh
army in the early part of the 19th century, but they were defeated by the British Raj
, the new powerful empire which reached the Pashtunistan region from the east.
Following the decline of the Durrani dynasty and the establishment of the new Barakzai dynasty
in Afghanistan, the Pashtun domains began to shrink as they lost control of the Punjab region
and the Balochistan region to the British. The Anglo-Afghan wars were fought as part of the overall imperialistic Great Game
that was waged between the Russian Empire
and the British. Poor and landlocked Afghanistan was able to defend its territory and keep both sides at bay. In 1893, as part of a way for fixing the limit of their respective spheres of influence, the Durand Line Agreement was signed between Afghan "Iron" Amir Abdur Rahman and British Vicroy Mortimer Durand
. In 1905, the North-West Frontier Province (today's Khyber Paskhtunkhwa) was created and roughly corresponded to Pashtun majority regions within the British domain. The FATA area was created to further placate the Pashtun tribesmen who never fully accepted British rule and were prone to rebellions, while the city of Peshawar was directly administered as part of a British protectorate state with full integration into the federal rule of law with the establishment of civic amenities and the countruction of railway, road infrastructure as well as educational institutes to bring the region at par with the developed world.
During World War I
, the Afghan government was contacted by the Ottoman Turkey
and Germany, through the Niedermayer-Hentig Mission, to join the Central Allies on behalf of the Caliph
in a Jihad
; some revolutionaries and Afghan leaders including a brother of the Amir named Nasrullah Khan were in favour of the delegation and wanted the Amir to declare Jihad.
Kazim Bey carried a firman from the Khalifa in Persian. It was addressed to "the residents of Pathanistan." It said that when the British were defeated, "His Majesty the Khalifa, in agreement with allied States, will acquire guarantee for independence of the united state of Pathanistan and will provide every kind of assistance to it. Thereafter, I will not allow any interference in the country of Pathanistan." (Ahmad Chagharzai; 1989; PP: 138-139). However the efforts failed and the Afghan Amir Habibullah Khan maintained Afghanistan's neutrality throughout World War I (for more information see ).
Similarly, during the 1942 Cripps mission, and 1946 Cabinet Mission to India
, the Afghan government made repeated attempts to ensure that any debate about the independence of India must include Afghanistan's role in the future of the NWFP. The British government wavered between reassuring the Afghan to the rejection of their role and insistence that NWFP was an integral part of British India.
The Khudai Khidmatgar
were a non-violent group, and Ghaffar Khan claimed to have been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi
. While the Red Shirts were willing to work with the Indian National Congress
from a political point of view, the Pashtuns as a people desired independence from India. When the decision for independence was announced, it included the condition of a referendum being held in the North West Frontier Province because it was ruled by the Khudai Khidmatgar-backed Congress government of Dr. Khan Sahib. The inhabitants of the province were given two choices: the choice to join either Pakistan or India. On 21 June 1947, Khudai Khidmatgar leaders met under the presidency of Amir Mohammad Khan at Bannu and believed that a referendum was inevitable and that the participants would declare that Pakhtuns did not accept India or Pakistan and announced a boycott of the referendum. When the vote was completed, the vast majority of the residents of province voted in favour of Pakistan and the region was subsequently incorporated into the new country with full civic amenities and rights.
, some rigid Pashtun nationalists proposed merging with Afghanistan or creating Pashtunistan as a future sovereign state
for the local Pashtun inhabitanits of the area. At first, Afghanistan became the only government to oppose the entry of Pakistan into the United Nations
in 1947, although it was reversed a few months later. On July 26, 1949, when Afghanistan–Pakistan relations were rapidly deteriorating, a loya jirga
was held in Afghanistan after a military aircraft
from the Pakistan Air Force
bombed a village on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. As a result of this violation, the Afghan government declared that it recognized "neither the imaginary Durand nor any similar line" and that all previous Durand Line agreements were void
. During the 1950s to the late 1960s, Pashtuns were promoted to higher positions within the Pakistani government and military.
Afghanistan and Pashtun nationalists did not exploit Pakistan's vulnerability during the nation's 1965
and 1971 wars
with India, and even backed Pakistan against a largely Hindu India. Further, had Pakistan been destabilised by India, nationalists would have had to fight against a much bigger country than Pakistan for their independence.
In the 1970s, the roles of Pakistan and Afghanistan reversed, despite the fresh crackdown on Baloch and Pashtun nationalists by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
. The Pakistan government decided to retaliate against the Afghan government's Pashtunistan policy by supporting Islamist opponents of the Afghan government including future Mujahidin leaders Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
and Ahmad Shah Massoud. This operation was remarkably successful, and by 1977 the Afghan government of Mohammed Daoud Khan
was willing to settle all outstanding issues in exchange for a lifting of the ban on the National Awami Party
and a commitment towards provincial autonomy for Pashtuns, which was already guaranteed by Pakistan's Constitution, but stripped by the Bhutto government when the One Unit
scheme was introduced.
There are several arguments from the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan regarding the Pashtunistan issue. These arguments sometimes overlap but can be distinctively defined. The British influence in the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan was most prominent during the late 19th century and early portion of the 20th century, when the British sought to reestablish efforts at colonization in the East India Company
during Britain's imperial century. This British experiment was known as The Great Game
, and was a subversive attempt at establishing Afghanistan as a buffer region between British-India and the Tsardom of Russia
. By seeking to accord certain terrain international legitimacy based upon British failures to assert control over the fiercely independent Pashtun people
and tribes in the region, the establishment of a border that would separate British interests from tribal interests was extremely important to British foreign policy.
The British demarcation established as a result by the Durand Line
was a deliberate strategy designed to divide the Pashtun territory along the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The overall effect of the division was to alienate the Pashtun tribes from their neighbors as part of the British divide and conquer strategy, or divide and rule
. This strategy had the ultimate effect of fostering anti-colonialist sentiment in the tribal regions, and Pashtuns as a result had a deep desire for independence and freedom from British rule.
However, this claim by Afghanistan is rejected by Pakistan
on the basis of existing Pushtun population in the territory of Pakistan. As of 2009, there were 27 million Pashtuns living in Pakistan. In addition, there were 1.7 million predominantly Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan. There were estimated to be more than 12 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan
in 2010. Karachi has a larger Pashtun population than Kabul.
Afghanistan makes its claim on the Pashtun areas on the ground that it served as the Pashtun seat of power since 1709 with the rise of the Hotaki dynasty followed by the establishment of the Durrani Afghan Empire
. According to historic sources Afghan tribes did not appear in Peshawar valley until after 800 AD, when the Islamic conquest of this area took place.
Agreements cited by the Afghan government as proof of their claim over the Pashtun tribes include Article 11 of the Anglo–Afghan Treaty of 1921, which states: "The two contracting parties, being mutually satisfied themselves each regarding the goodwill of the other and especially regarding their benevolent intentions towards the tribes residing close to their respective boundaries, hereby undertake to inform each other of any future military operations which may appear necessary for the maintenance of order among the frontier tribes residing within their respective spheres before the commencement of such operations." A supplementary letter to the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1921 reads: "As the conditions of the Frontier tribes of the two governments are of interest to the Government of Afghanistan. I inform you that the British government entertains feelings of goodwill towards all the Frontier tribes and has every intention of treating them generously, provided they abstain from outrages against the people of India."
. Ghaffar Khan stated in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1948 that he simply wanted "the renaming of his province as Pakhtunistan. Like Sindh, Punjab, etc." Another name mentioned is Afghania where the initial "A" in Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Khan's theory
stated in the "Now or Never
" pamphlet stands for the second letter in "Pakistan". However this name has failed to capture political support in the province.
There was support, however, to rename NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa (which translates as "Pashtun quarter"). Nasim Wali Khan
(the wife of Khan Abdul Wali Khan) declared in an interview: "I want an identity.. I want the name to change so that Pathans may be identified on the map of Pakistan... [Pakhtunkhwa was] the 3,000 year old name of this area: the name used by Ahmed Shah Abdali who said he forgot everything including the throne of Delhi but not Pakhtunkhwa".
On 31 March 2010, Pakistan's Constitutional Reform Committee agreed that the province be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
inhabited by the native Afghans or Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
(Pakhtun people) since at least the 1st millennium BC
1st millennium BC
The 1st millennium BC encompasses the Iron Age and sees the rise of many successive empires, and spanned from 1000 BC to 1 BC.The Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the Achaemenids. In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the rise of Hellenism. The...
. Possibly since at least the 3rd century CE and onward, the region was mostly recognized as Afghanistan
Name of Afghanistan
The name of Afghanistan is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, which is documented in a 10th century geography book called Hudud ul-'alam focusing on territories south of the Hindu Kush around the Sulaiman Mountains. The root name "Afghan" has been used historically in reference to the...
and by the people in the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
as Pathanistan.
Pashtunistan was politically divided for administration in 1893 by the Durand Line
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
, a disputed and poorly-marked border between Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. Today, the Pashtun homeland stretches from the Hindu Kush
Hindu Kush
The Hindu Kush is an mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The highest point in the Hindu Kush is Tirich Mir in the Chitral region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.It is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram Range, and is a...
mountain range in Afghanistan to areas west of the Indus River
Indus River
The Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...
in Pakistan.
Origin of term
The name used for the region during the middle agesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
until the 20th century has always been Afghanistan
Name of Afghanistan
The name of Afghanistan is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, which is documented in a 10th century geography book called Hudud ul-'alam focusing on territories south of the Hindu Kush around the Sulaiman Mountains. The root name "Afghan" has been used historically in reference to the...
, which has been mentioned by the 6th century Indian astronomer & mathematician Varahamihira
Varahamihira
Varāhamihira , also called Varaha or Mihira, was an Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who lived in Ujjain...
, 7th century Chinese pilgrim Hiven Tsiang
Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
, 14th century Moroccan scholar Ibn Batutta, Mughal Emperor Babur
Babur
Babur was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother...
, 16th century historian Firishta
Firishta
Firishta or Ferishta, full name Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah , was born in 1560 and died in 1620 and he was a Persian historian. The name Firishta means angel or one who is sent in Persian.-Life:...
and many others.
The name Pakhtunistan ( (Naskh
Naskh (script)
Naskh is a specific calligraphic style for writing in the Arabic alphabet, thought to be invented by the Iranian calligrapher Ibn Muqlah Shirazi . The root of this Arabic term means "to copy". It either refers to the fact that it replaced its predecessor, Kufic script, or that this style allows...
)), or in the soft Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
dialect, Pashtunistan, evolved originally from the Indian word "Pathanistan" (Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
: (Nastaleeq), पठानिस्तान (Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
)). The very concept of Pashtunistan was taken from the old word "Pakhtunkhwa
Pakhtunkhwa
The Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been known by a number of names during its existence. In addition to North-West Frontier Province, the official name by which it was known from 1901 to 2010, other names used or proposed for the province include Afghania, Pakhtunistan, Pashtunistan,...
." Like other Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
terms, "Pathanistan" entered the Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
lexicon. The British Indian leaders and even the Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God, represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province....
s started using the word "Pathanistan" to refer to the region, and later on the word "Pashtunistan" became more popular.
The native people
The native or indigenousIndigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
people of Pashtunistan are the Pashtuns
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
(also known as Pakhtuns, Pathans or ethnic Afghans). They are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan
Ethnic groups in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a multiethnic society. The population of the country is divided into a wide variety of ethnolinguistic groups. The ethnic groups of the country are as follow: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri and some others.-Ethnic...
and the second largest in Pakistan. The Pashtuns are concentrated mainly in the south and east of Afghanistan but also exist in northern and western parts of the country as a minority group. In Pakistan they are concentrated in the west and northwest, inhabiting mainly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (former North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies and six FRs...
(FATA), as well as parts of Balochistan
Balochistan (Pakistan)
Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
, Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
and Mianwali
Mianwali District
Mianwali is a district in the northwest of Punjab province, Pakistan. It borders eight districts: Attock District in the north, Chakwal District in the northeast, Khushab District in the east, and Bhakkar District in the south, while Lakki Marwat lies to the west, Kohat and Karak districts to the...
and Attock
Attock District
Attock District is a district in the north-west Punjab Province of Pakistan.The district was created in April 1904 by the merger of Talagang Tehsil in the Jhelum District with the Pindigheb, Fatehjang and Attock tehsils from Rawalpindi District of the Punjab province of British India.Attock...
districts of Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
. They are also found in large numbers in the Pakistani city of Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, and with sizable numbers in Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
-Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
, Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Sialkot
Sialkot
Sialkot is a city in Pakistan situated in the north-east of the Punjab province at the foothills of snow-covered peaks of Kashmir near the Chenab river. It is the capital of Sialkot District. The city is about north-west of Lahore and only a few kilometers from Indian-controlled Jammu.The...
, and Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Sindh
is the second largest city in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the seventh largest city in the country. The city was founded in 1768 by Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhoro upon the ruins of a Mauryan fishing village along the bank of the Indus known as Neroon Kot...
. The main language spoken in the delineated Pashtunistan region is Pashto, followed by others such as Balochi
Balochi language
Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...
, Hindko
Hindko language
Hindko , also Hindku, or Hinko, is the sixth main regional language of Pakistan. It forms a subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by Hindkowans in Pakistan and northern India, some Pashtun tribes in Pakistan, as well as by the Hindki people of Afghanistan...
, and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
.
Pashtuns practice Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali or Pakhtunwali is a non-written ethical code and traditional lifestyle which the indigenous Pashtun people from Afghanistan and Pakistan follow. Some in the Indian subcontinent refer to it as "Pathanwali". Its meaning may also be interpreted as "the way of the Pashtuns" or "the code of...
, the indigenous
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
culture of the Pashtuns, and this pre-Islamic identity remains significant for many Pashtuns and is one of the factors that have kept the Pashtunistan issue alive. Although the Pashtuns are politically separated by the Durand Line
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
between Pakistan and Afghanistan, many Pashtun tribes
Pashtun tribes
The Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the second largest in Pakistan. Pashtun, tribes are divided into four supertribal confederacies: the Arbanee , Betanee , Gharghasht, and Karlanee .Traditionally, according to folklore, all Pashtuns are said to have descended, at...
from the FATA area and the adjacent regions of Afghanistan, tend to ignore the border and cross back and forth with relative ease to attend weddings, family functions and take part in the joint tribal councils known as jirgas.
Depending on the source, the ethnic Pashtuns constitute 42-60% of the population of Afghanistan
Demography of Afghanistan
The population of Afghanistan is around 29,835,392 as of the year 2011, which is unclear if the refugees living outside the country are included or not. The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between...
. In neighboring Pakistan they constitute 15.42 percent of the 170 million population
Demographics of Pakistan
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Pakistan, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
. In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, Pashto speakers constitute above 73 percent of the population as of 1998.
History
Since the 2nd millennium BC2nd millennium BC
The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot...
, the region now inhabited by the native Pashtun people have been influenced by early Aryan tribes
Ancient Iranian peoples
Iranian peoples first appear in Assyrian records in the 9th century BCE. In Classical Antiquity they were found primarily in Scythia and Persia...
, the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Achaemenids
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
, Greeks
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC...
, Mauryas
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC...
, Kushans
Kushan Empire
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus in what is now northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.During the 1st and early 2nd centuries...
, Hephthalite
Hephthalite
The Hephthalites or Hephthalite is a pre-Islamic Greek term for local Abdali Afghans, who's famous ruler was Nazak Abdali . Hephthalites were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure...
s, Sassanids
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
, Arab Muslims, Turks
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
, and others. In recent age, people of the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
have nominally explored the area.
Arab Muslims
Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
The Islamic conquest of Afghanistan began in the middle of the 7th century after the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, when Arab Muslims defeated the Sassanid Empire at the battles of Walaja, al-Qādisiyyah and Nahavand. The Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of Persia...
arrived in the 7th century and began introducing Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
to the native Pashtun people, some of the Arabs
History of Arabs in Afghanistan
The history of Arabs in Afghanistan spans over one millennium, from the 7th century Islamic conquest when Arab ghazis arrived with their Islamic mission until recently when others from the Arab world arrived to defend fellow Muslims from the Soviet followed by their liberation by NATO forces...
settled in the Sulaiman Mountains
Sulaiman Mountains
The Sulaiman Mountains are a major geological feature of southeastern Afghanistan and northern Balochistan province of Pakistan. In Pakistan, it forms the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau where the Indus River separates it from the Asian Subcontient...
and slowly became Pashtunized
Pashtunization
Pashtunization is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a...
over time. The Pashtunistan area later fell to the Turkish Ghaznavids whose main capital was at Ghazni
Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...
, with Lahor
Lahor
Lahor is a town of Swabi District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The town serves as the headquarters of Lahor Tehsil and is administratively subdivided into two Union councils. The town is a settlement of 35,000 people and is located at with an altitude of 308 metres and lies west of Swabi and...
serving as the second power house. The Ghaznavid Empire was then taken over by the Ghorids from today's Ghor, Afghanistan. The army of Ghengis Khan arrived in the 13th century and began destroying cities in the nearby regions, mostly Persian cities in the north. In the 14th and 15th century, the Timurid dynasty
Timurid Dynasty
The Timurids , self-designated Gurkānī , were a Persianate, Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Iran, modern Afghanistan, and modern Uzbekistan, as well as large parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the...
were in control of the nearby cities and towns, until Babur
Babur
Babur was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother...
captured Kabul in 1504.
Delhi Sultanate and the last Afghan Empire
During the Delhi SultanateDelhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
era, the region was ruled by Turkic-Afghan dynasties from Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. An early Pashtun nationalist was the "warrior-poet" Khushal Khan Khattak
Khushal Khan Khattak
Khushal Khan Khattak was a prominent Pashtun malik, poet, warrior,A charismatic personality and tribal chief of the Khattak tribe. He wrote a huge collection of Pashto poems during the Mughal Empire in the 17th century, and admonished Pashtuns to forsake their divisive tendencies and unite...
, who was imprisoned by the Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
emperor Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb
Abul Muzaffar Muhy-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir , more commonly known as Aurangzeb or by his chosen imperial title Alamgir , was the sixth Mughal Emperor of India, whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707.Badshah Aurangzeb, having ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for nearly...
for trying to incite the Pashtuns to rebel against the rule of the Mughals. However, despite sharing a common language and believing in a common ancestry, the Pashtuns first achieved unity in the 18th century. Pashtunistan was ruled by the Mughal Empire
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
during the early 18th century when Afghan led by Mirwais Hotak successfully revoluted
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
against the Persian Safavids
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Persian empires since the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning...
in the city of Kandahar. This uprising and taken over of the Persian throne by the powerful Hotaki dynasty of Afghanistan united all the tribes of Pashtunistan. By 1738 the Mughal Empire has been defeated by forces of a new Turkmen
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
ruler from Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
, Nader Shah
Nader Shah
Nāder Shāh Afshār ruled as Shah of Iran and was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty. Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Persia or the Second Alexander...
. Besides Persian and Turkmen forces, Nader was accompanied by the young Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani , also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose...
and 4,000 well trained Pashtun troops from Afghanistan.
After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani created his own large and powerful Durrani Empire
Durrani Empire
The Durrani Empire was a Pashtun dynasty centered in Afghanistan and included northeastern Iran, the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan, and northwestern India. It was established at Kandahar in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an Afghan military commander under Nader Shah of Persia and chief...
, which included Pashtunistan among many other places. The famous couplet by Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani , also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose...
describes the association the people have with the regional city of Kandahar:
"I forget the throne of Delhi when I recall the mountain peaks of my beautiful Afghanistan."
The last Afghan Empire
Durrani Empire
The Durrani Empire was a Pashtun dynasty centered in Afghanistan and included northeastern Iran, the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan, and northwestern India. It was established at Kandahar in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an Afghan military commander under Nader Shah of Persia and chief...
was established in 1747 and united all the different Pashtun tribes
Pashtun tribes
The Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the second largest in Pakistan. Pashtun, tribes are divided into four supertribal confederacies: the Arbanee , Betanee , Gharghasht, and Karlanee .Traditionally, according to folklore, all Pashtuns are said to have descended, at...
as well as many other ethnic groups. Small part of the Pashtunistan region around Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
was invaded by Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh
Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.-Early life:...
and his Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
army in the early part of the 19th century, but they were defeated by the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, the new powerful empire which reached the Pashtunistan region from the east.
European influence
Barakzai dynasty
The Barakzai dynasty ruled Afghanistan from 1826 until 1929 or 1973 when the monarchy rule finally ended under Mohammad Zahir Shah. The Barakzai dynasty was established by Dost Mohammad Khan after the Durrani dynasty of Ahmad Shah Durrani was removed from power...
in Afghanistan, the Pashtun domains began to shrink as they lost control of the Punjab region
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
and the Balochistan region to the British. The Anglo-Afghan wars were fought as part of the overall imperialistic Great Game
The Great Game
The Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia, were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813...
that was waged between the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and the British. Poor and landlocked Afghanistan was able to defend its territory and keep both sides at bay. In 1893, as part of a way for fixing the limit of their respective spheres of influence, the Durand Line Agreement was signed between Afghan "Iron" Amir Abdur Rahman and British Vicroy Mortimer Durand
Mortimer Durand
Sir Henry Mortimer Durand was a British diplomat and civil servant of colonial British India.-Background:Born at Sehore, Bhopal, India, he was the son of Sir Henry Marion Durand, the Resident of Baroda and he was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School, and Tonbridge School.-Career:Durand...
. In 1905, the North-West Frontier Province (today's Khyber Paskhtunkhwa) was created and roughly corresponded to Pashtun majority regions within the British domain. The FATA area was created to further placate the Pashtun tribesmen who never fully accepted British rule and were prone to rebellions, while the city of Peshawar was directly administered as part of a British protectorate state with full integration into the federal rule of law with the establishment of civic amenities and the countruction of railway, road infrastructure as well as educational institutes to bring the region at par with the developed world.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Afghan government was contacted by the Ottoman Turkey
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and Germany, through the Niedermayer-Hentig Mission, to join the Central Allies on behalf of the Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
in a Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
; some revolutionaries and Afghan leaders including a brother of the Amir named Nasrullah Khan were in favour of the delegation and wanted the Amir to declare Jihad.
Kazim Bey carried a firman from the Khalifa in Persian. It was addressed to "the residents of Pathanistan." It said that when the British were defeated, "His Majesty the Khalifa, in agreement with allied States, will acquire guarantee for independence of the united state of Pathanistan and will provide every kind of assistance to it. Thereafter, I will not allow any interference in the country of Pathanistan." (Ahmad Chagharzai; 1989; PP: 138-139). However the efforts failed and the Afghan Amir Habibullah Khan maintained Afghanistan's neutrality throughout World War I (for more information see ).
Similarly, during the 1942 Cripps mission, and 1946 Cabinet Mission to India
1946 Cabinet Mission to India
The British Cabinet Mission of 1946 to India aimed to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership, providing India with independence under Dominion status in the Commonwealth of Nations...
, the Afghan government made repeated attempts to ensure that any debate about the independence of India must include Afghanistan's role in the future of the NWFP. The British government wavered between reassuring the Afghan to the rejection of their role and insistence that NWFP was an integral part of British India.
The Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God, represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province....
were a non-violent group, and Ghaffar Khan claimed to have been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
. While the Red Shirts were willing to work with the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
from a political point of view, the Pashtuns as a people desired independence from India. When the decision for independence was announced, it included the condition of a referendum being held in the North West Frontier Province because it was ruled by the Khudai Khidmatgar-backed Congress government of Dr. Khan Sahib. The inhabitants of the province were given two choices: the choice to join either Pakistan or India. On 21 June 1947, Khudai Khidmatgar leaders met under the presidency of Amir Mohammad Khan at Bannu and believed that a referendum was inevitable and that the participants would declare that Pakhtuns did not accept India or Pakistan and announced a boycott of the referendum. When the vote was completed, the vast majority of the residents of province voted in favour of Pakistan and the region was subsequently incorporated into the new country with full civic amenities and rights.
Birth of Pakistan in 1947
Since the late 1940s with the dissolution of British India and creation of PakistanPartition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
, some rigid Pashtun nationalists proposed merging with Afghanistan or creating Pashtunistan as a future sovereign state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
for the local Pashtun inhabitanits of the area. At first, Afghanistan became the only government to oppose the entry of Pakistan into the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in 1947, although it was reversed a few months later. On July 26, 1949, when Afghanistan–Pakistan relations were rapidly deteriorating, a loya jirga
Loya jirga
A loya jirga is a type of jirga regarded as "grand assembly," a phrase in the Pashto language meaning "grand council." A loya jirga is a mass meeting usually prepared for major events such as choosing a new king, adopting a constitution, or discussing important national political or emergency...
was held in Afghanistan after a military aircraft
Military aircraft
A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:...
from the Pakistan Air Force
Pakistan Air Force
The Pakistan Air Force is the leading air arm of the Pakistan Armed Forces and is primarily tasked with the aerial defence of Pakistan with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Navy. The PAF also has a tertiary role of providing strategic air transport...
bombed a village on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. As a result of this violation, the Afghan government declared that it recognized "neither the imaginary Durand nor any similar line" and that all previous Durand Line agreements were void
Void (law)
In law, void means of no legal effect. An action, document or transaction which is void is of no legal effect whatsoever: an absolute nullity - the law treats it as if it had never existed or happened....
. During the 1950s to the late 1960s, Pashtuns were promoted to higher positions within the Pakistani government and military.
Afghanistan and Pashtun nationalists did not exploit Pakistan's vulnerability during the nation's 1965
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. This conflict became known as the Second Kashmir War fought by India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, the first having been fought in 1947...
and 1971 wars
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...
with India, and even backed Pakistan against a largely Hindu India. Further, had Pakistan been destabilised by India, nationalists would have had to fight against a much bigger country than Pakistan for their independence.
In the 1970s, the roles of Pakistan and Afghanistan reversed, despite the fresh crackdown on Baloch and Pashtun nationalists by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party — the largest and most influential political party in Pakistan— and served as its chairman until his...
. The Pakistan government decided to retaliate against the Afghan government's Pashtunistan policy by supporting Islamist opponents of the Afghan government including future Mujahidin leaders Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...
and Ahmad Shah Massoud. This operation was remarkably successful, and by 1977 the Afghan government of Mohammed Daoud Khan
Mohammed Daoud Khan
Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan or Daud Khan was Prime Minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and later becoming the President of Afghanistan...
was willing to settle all outstanding issues in exchange for a lifting of the ban on the National Awami Party
National Awami Party
The National Awami Party was a leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded in Dhaka in erstwhile East Pakistan in July 1957 through the merger of several leftist and progressive groups. It advocated provincial autonomy, rights on the basis of ethnicity, recognition of ethinicities...
and a commitment towards provincial autonomy for Pashtuns, which was already guaranteed by Pakistan's Constitution, but stripped by the Bhutto government when the One Unit
One Unit
One-Unit was the title of a scheme launched by the federal government of Pakistan to merge the four provinces of West Pakistan into one homogenous unit, as a counterbalance against the numerical domination of the ethnic Bengalis of East Pakistan...
scheme was introduced.
The Pashtunistan debate
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
during Britain's imperial century. This British experiment was known as The Great Game
The Great Game
The Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia, were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813...
, and was a subversive attempt at establishing Afghanistan as a buffer region between British-India and the Tsardom of Russia
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...
. By seeking to accord certain terrain international legitimacy based upon British failures to assert control over the fiercely independent Pashtun people
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
and tribes in the region, the establishment of a border that would separate British interests from tribal interests was extremely important to British foreign policy.
The British demarcation established as a result by the Durand Line
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
was a deliberate strategy designed to divide the Pashtun territory along the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The overall effect of the division was to alienate the Pashtun tribes from their neighbors as part of the British divide and conquer strategy, or divide and rule
Divide and rule
In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy...
. This strategy had the ultimate effect of fostering anti-colonialist sentiment in the tribal regions, and Pashtuns as a result had a deep desire for independence and freedom from British rule.
However, this claim by Afghanistan is rejected by Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
on the basis of existing Pushtun population in the territory of Pakistan. As of 2009, there were 27 million Pashtuns living in Pakistan. In addition, there were 1.7 million predominantly Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan. There were estimated to be more than 12 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
in 2010. Karachi has a larger Pashtun population than Kabul.
Afghanistan makes its claim on the Pashtun areas on the ground that it served as the Pashtun seat of power since 1709 with the rise of the Hotaki dynasty followed by the establishment of the Durrani Afghan Empire
Durrani Empire
The Durrani Empire was a Pashtun dynasty centered in Afghanistan and included northeastern Iran, the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan, and northwestern India. It was established at Kandahar in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an Afghan military commander under Nader Shah of Persia and chief...
. According to historic sources Afghan tribes did not appear in Peshawar valley until after 800 AD, when the Islamic conquest of this area took place.
Agreements cited by the Afghan government as proof of their claim over the Pashtun tribes include Article 11 of the Anglo–Afghan Treaty of 1921, which states: "The two contracting parties, being mutually satisfied themselves each regarding the goodwill of the other and especially regarding their benevolent intentions towards the tribes residing close to their respective boundaries, hereby undertake to inform each other of any future military operations which may appear necessary for the maintenance of order among the frontier tribes residing within their respective spheres before the commencement of such operations." A supplementary letter to the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1921 reads: "As the conditions of the Frontier tribes of the two governments are of interest to the Government of Afghanistan. I inform you that the British government entertains feelings of goodwill towards all the Frontier tribes and has every intention of treating them generously, provided they abstain from outrages against the people of India."
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Prominent 20th century proponents of the Pashtunistan cause have included the late Khan Abdul Wali Khan and Khan Abdul Ghaffar KhanKhan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India...
. Ghaffar Khan stated in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1948 that he simply wanted "the renaming of his province as Pakhtunistan. Like Sindh, Punjab, etc." Another name mentioned is Afghania where the initial "A" in Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Choudhry Rahmat Ali was a Pakistani Muslim nationalist who was one of the earliest proponents of the creation of the state of Pakistan. He is credited with creating the name "Pakistan" for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia and is generally known as the founder of the movement for its...
Khan's theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
stated in the "Now or Never
Pakistan Declaration
The Pakistan Declaration was a pamphlet published on 28 January 1933 by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, and was supported by Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak, Sahibzada Sheikh Mohd Sadiq, Inayat Ullah Khan in which the word Pakistan was used for the first time and was presented in the round table conference in...
" pamphlet stands for the second letter in "Pakistan". However this name has failed to capture political support in the province.
There was support, however, to rename NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa (which translates as "Pashtun quarter"). Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan is a politician in Pakistan. Nasim Wali Khan is a major leader of Awami National Party. Nasim Wali Khan is the former provincial president and parliamentary leader of the Awami National Party in Provincial Assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa....
(the wife of Khan Abdul Wali Khan) declared in an interview: "I want an identity.. I want the name to change so that Pathans may be identified on the map of Pakistan... [Pakhtunkhwa was] the 3,000 year old name of this area: the name used by Ahmed Shah Abdali who said he forgot everything including the throne of Delhi but not Pakhtunkhwa".
On 31 March 2010, Pakistan's Constitutional Reform Committee agreed that the province be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
See also
- PashtunizationPashtunizationPashtunization is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a...
- PashtunwaliPashtunwaliPashtunwali or Pakhtunwali is a non-written ethical code and traditional lifestyle which the indigenous Pashtun people from Afghanistan and Pakistan follow. Some in the Indian subcontinent refer to it as "Pathanwali". Its meaning may also be interpreted as "the way of the Pashtuns" or "the code of...
- Pashtun peoplePashtun peoplePashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
Further reading
- Ahmed, Feroz (1998) Ethnicity and politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
- Ahmad, M.(1989) Pukhtunkhwa Kiyun Nahin by Mubarak Chagharzai. pp. 138–139.
- Amin, Tahir (1988) -National Language Movements of Pakistan. Islamabad Institute of Policy Studies.
- Buzan, BarryBarry BuzanBarry Gordon Buzan is Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen and Jilin University...
and Rizvi, Gowher (1986), South Asian Insecurity and the Great Powers, London: Macmillan. p. 73. - Caroe, OlafOlaf CaroeSir Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe KCSI KCIE was an administrator in British India. He later became a writer on the Middle East and Asia.-Life:...
(1983) The Pathans with an Epilogue on Russia. Oxford University Press. pp. 464–465.