Pashtunistan

Pashtunistan
پښتونستان
Historical region
Map of Pakistan's major ethnic groups in 1980
Map of ethnic groups in Pakistan, with Pashtun-inhabited areas shown in green and shared with neighbouring Afghanistan
Countries Pakistan
 Afghanistan
Population
 (2012)
 • Total
c. 55–60 million[1][2][3]
Demographics
 • Ethnic groupsMajority: Pashtuns
Minorities: Baloch, Gujjar, Pashayis, Tajik, Nuristanis, Hazaras, Indus Kohistani
 • LanguagesMajority: Pashto
Minorities: Dari, Gujari, Urdu, Punjabi (Hindko, Inku), Balochi, Brahui, Ormuri, Parachi, Torwali, Pashayi languages, Nuristani languages
Time zoneUTC+04:30 (Afghanistan)
UTC+05:00 (Pakistan)
Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox settlement with unknown parameter "blank_info [Kohat bangas..."

Pashtunistan (Pashto: پښتونستان, lit. 'land of the Pashtuns')[4]or Pakhtunistan is a historical region on the crossroads of Central and South Asia, located on the Iranian Plateau, inhabited by the Pashtun people of southern and eastern Afghanistan[5] and northwestern Pakistan,[6][7] wherein Pashtun culture, the Pashto language, and identity have been based.[8][9][10] Alternative names historically used for the region include Pashtūnkhwā or Pakhtūnkhwā (پښتونخوا), Pathānistān,[11][12] or simply the Pashtun Belt.[13][14][15]

During British rule in India in 1893, Mortimer Durand drew the Durand Line, fixing the limits of the spheres of influence between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India during the Great Game and leaving about half of historical Pashtun territory under British colonial rule; after the partition of British India, the Durand Line now forms the internationally recognized border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.[16] The traditional Pashtun homeland stretches roughly from the areas south of the Amu River in Afghanistan to the areas west of the Indus River in Pakistan; it predominantly comprises the southwestern, eastern and some northern and western districts of Afghanistan, as well as most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan in Pakistan.[17] The region is bordered by Punjab[a] to the east, Balochistan to the south, Kohistan and Chitral to the north, and Hazarajat and Tajik-inhabited territory to the west.

The 16th-century revolutionary leader Bayazid Pir Roshan of Waziristan and the 17th-century "warrior-poet" Khushal Khan Khattak assembled Pashtun armies to fight against the Mughal Empire in the region. During this time, the eastern parts of Pashtunistan were ruled by the Mughals while the western parts were ruled by Safavid Iran. Pashtunistan first gained an autonomous status in 1709, when Mirwais Hotak successfully revolted against the Safavids in Loy Kandahar. The Pashtuns later achieved unity under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded the Durrani dynasty and established the Afghan Empire in 1747. In the 19th century, however, the Afghan Empire lost large parts of its eastern territory to the Sikh Empire and later the British Empire. Many famous Indian independence activists emerged from the region include Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his anti colonial Khudai Khidmatgar movement to free the region from British control.[18] In 1969, the autonomous princely states of Swat, Dir, Chitral, and Amb were merged into the Pakistani NWFP. In 2018, the Pashtun-majority Federally Administered Tribal Areas, formerly an autonomous buffer zone with Afghanistan, were also merged into the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (previously known as the NWFP), fully integrating the region with Pakistan proper.[19]

The Pashtuns practice Pashtunwali, the indigenous culture of the Pashtuns, and this remains significant for many Pashtuns. 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.[20]Depending on the source, the ethnic Pashtuns constitute 42-60% of the population of Afghanistan.[21][22][23][24][25][26] In neighboring Pakistan they constitute 18 percent of over the 241 million population, which does not include Pashtun diaspora in other Pakistani cities and provinces.[27]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference CIA-Pak-pop was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Afghanistan population: 30,419,928 (July 2012 est.) [Pashtun 42%] = 12,776,369". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Archived from the original on July 26, 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2010.
  3. ^ Lewis, Paul M. (2009). "Pashto, Northern". SIL International. Dallas, Texas: Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Retrieved 18 September 2010. Ethnic population: 49,529,000 possibly total Pashto in all countries.
  4. ^ Various spellings result from different pronunciation in various Pashto dialects. See Pashto language: Dialects for further information.
  5. ^ Minahan, James (10 February 2014). Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia : An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California. ISBN 978-1-61069-018-8. OCLC 879947835.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Roddy, Stephen J.; Sharma, Shalendra D., eds. (1 May 2002). "Asia Pacific: Perspectives" (PDF). University of San Francisco. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
  7. ^ Minahan, James B. (30 August 2012). Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598846607 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Nath, Samir (2002). Dictionary of Vedanta. Sarup & Sons. p. 273. ISBN 81-7890-056-4. Retrieved 2010-09-10.
  9. ^ "The History of Herodotus Chapter 7". Translated by George Rawlinson. The History Files. Archived from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2007-01-10.
  10. ^ Houtsma, Martijn Theodoor (1987). E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. Vol. 2. Leipzig: BRILL. p. 150. ISBN 90-04-08265-4. Retrieved 2010-09-24.
  11. ^ The Modern Review, Volume 86. Prabasi Press Private. 1949. The Afghan Government is actively sympathetic towards their demand for a Pathanistan. It has been declared by the Afghan Parliament that Afghanistan does not recognise the Durand line...
  12. ^ The Spectator. Vol. 184. F.C. Westley. 1950. Instead it adopted the programme of an independent "Pathanistan" — a programme calculated to strike at the very roots of the new Dominion. More recently the Pathanistan idea has been taken up by Afghanistan.
  13. ^ "Hindi music 'has roots in Hindu Kush's Pashtoon belt'". The Express Tribune. 17 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  14. ^ Dan Caldwell (17 February 2011). Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Stanford University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-8047-7666-0. A majority of Pashtuns live south of the Hindu Kush (the 500-mile mountain range that covers northwestern Pakistan to central and eastern Pakistan) and with some Persian speaking ethnic groups. Hazaras and Tajiks live in the Hindu Kush area, and north of the Hindu Kush are Persians and Turkic ethnic groups.
  15. ^ Students' Britannica India. Vol. 1–5. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2000. ISBN 9780852297605. Ghaffar Khan, who opposed the partition, chose to live in Pakistan, where he continued to fight for the rights of the Pashtun minority and for joining Afghanistan. Afghanistan means literally land of the pashtun people! the Homeland of the Pashtuns is Afghanistan
  16. ^ Synovitz, Ron. "Controversial Proposal Of 'Pashtunistan'". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.
  17. ^ Shane, Scott (5 December 2009). "The War in Pashtunistan". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rizwan was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ "The Fata merger: What's happening now and what should happen next?".
  20. ^ Ahmed, Feroz (1998) Ethnicity and politics in Pakistan. Karachi. Oxford University Press.
  21. ^ Janda, Kenneth; Jeffrey M. Berry; Jerry Goldman (2008). The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America (9 ed.). Cengage Learning. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-618-81017-8. Retrieved 2010-08-22. Even within the largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns (about 50 percent of the population)...
  22. ^ Congressional Record. Government Printing Office. 1955. p. 10088. ISBN 9780160118449. Retrieved 2010-09-24.
  23. ^ Taylor, William J. Jr.; Abraham Kim (2000). Asian Security to the Year 2000. DIANE Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 1-4289-1368-8. Retrieved 2010-09-24.
  24. ^ "AFGHANISTAN v. Languages". Ch. M. Kieffer. Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 2010-10-24. Paṧtō (1) is the native tongue of 50 to 55 percent of Afghans...
  25. ^ Brown, Keith; Sarah Ogilvie (2009). Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. Elsevie. p. 845. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7. Retrieved 2010-09-24. Pashto, which is mainly spoken south of the mountain range of the Hindu Kush, is reportedly the mother tongue of 60% of the Afghan population.
  26. ^ Hawthorne, Susan; Bronwyn Winter (2002). September 11, 2001: feminist perspectives. Spinifex Press. p. 225. ISBN 1-876756-27-6. Retrieved 2010-09-24. Over 60 percent of the population in Afghanistan is Pashtun...
  27. ^ "Why Pakistan's Pashtun Minority Won't Be Easily Crushed". American Enterprise Institute - AEI. 2018-06-25. Retrieved 2022-06-12.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).