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Pashtunization

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Pashtuns
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Pashtunization (Pashto: پښتون‌ جوړونه, Dari: پشتون‌سازی),[1][2][3] is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which someone or something non-Pashtun becomes acculturated to Pashtun influence. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and second-largest in Pakistan.

History

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Pashtunization has historically taken place whenever non-Pashtuns have settled in Pashtun-dominated areas, leading to them adopting the Pashtun culture and language over generations.[4]

There are also many cases of Pashtun tribes migrating and settling in large numbers in non-Pashtun lands,[5] resulting in the erosion of the local customs, traditions, and languages of the non-Pashtun peoples due to the political power and regional influence of the Pashtuns.[6]

Pashtunization of the Khalaj Turks

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Further information: Khalaj people and Turco-Afghan
Tents of nomads in Badghis Province, Afghanistan. Known in Pashto as Kōchyān, they are mostly from the Ghilji tribe and migrate seasonally. Farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan about 7,000 years ago.[7]

The Khalaj people underwent a form of cultural assimilation as a result of living in the Pashtun-populated regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan for several centuries.

"In the eighth and ninth centuries, ancestors of many of today's Turkic-speaking Afghans settled in the Hindu Kush area (partly to obtain better grazing land) and began to assimilate much of the culture and language of the Pashtun tribes already present there."[8]

— Craig Baxter, Library of Congress Country Studies

The Khalaj were originally a Turkic tribe which had long domiciled in the Ghazni, Qalati Ghilji (also known as Qalati Khalji), and Zabulistan regions of present-day Afghanistan. They intermarried with the local Pashtuns and gradually adopted the Pashtun culture. Najib Bakran's geography, Jahān Nāma (c. 1200–1220), described the Khalaj as a "tribe of Turks" that had been going through a language shift. During the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, many found refuge in the Subcontinent, where they established the Khalji dynasty. Because they had already been Pashtunized by then, the Khalji were often seen as Pashtuns by the Turkic nobles of the Delhi Sultanate.[9][10][11][12][13]

The Ghiljis are one of the largest Pashtun tribes. According to historian C.E. Bosworth, the tribal name "Ghilji" is derived from the name of the Khalaj, and it is likely that the Khalaj Turks initially formed the core of the tribe.[14]

Pashtunization of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

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Further information: History of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Pashtuns migrated into and settled in the region of modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for centuries, resulting in the Pashtunization of local Indo-Aryan tribes. By the 15th century, the Pashtuns were a prominent political player in the region, establishing the Lodi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate.[15] Several Yusufzai tribesmen also began moving into the Peshawar Valley,[16] displacing other Indo-Aryan and Pashtun tribes.[17] In the 16th century, further migrations occurred during the rule of the Sur dynasty.[18] In the 18th century, this process was once again intensified due to the establishment of the Durrani Empire.[5]

Many former Pashayi speakers have adopted the ethnonym Safi and often refer to themselves by the mountain valleys in which they live, whereas many of the former Dardic speakers of Swat and Indus Kohistan now claim to be Pashtuns.[19][20]

Pashtunization of Rohilkhand

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Further information: Rohillas and Rohilla dynasty
See also: Pathans in India

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Pashtun tribesmen (collectively known as the Rohillas) settled in present-day Western Uttar Pradesh.[21][22][23] These Rohillas gave their name to the Rohilkhand region.[24] The Rohilla dynasty (a Pashtunized Jat dynasty)[25][26] led the Rohillas and established the Kingdom of Rohilkhand, and later the Rampur State.[27][28]

Pashtunization of Afghanistan

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Further information: Pashtun colonization of Northern Afghanistan and Pashtun nationalism

The Pashtun colonization of Northern Afghanistan started in the late 19th century. In 1880, when Abdur Rahman Khan came into power, the Pashtun population in the north was almost nonexistent, numbering around 2 to 4% of the population.[29][30][31] The Amir encouraged Pashtuns to settle in the north, while Turco-Persians and Tajiks were brought in to the south.[32][33] This was done to strengthen the Amir's rule in Afghan Turkestan, and to consolidate Afghanistan's northern borders with the Russian Empire.[29] The British Empire supported the Amir's policies, hoping to reduce Russian influence in Afghanistan.[32]

Following the Hazara uprisings, roughly 80,000 Hazaras would flee from Hazarajat to escape the Hazara genocide.[34][35] The abandoned land was then redistributed to nearby non-Hazara loyalists, such as the Kochi Pashtuns.[36][37]

Pashtunization attempts were continued by the Musahiban, leading to some success.[38][39] In the central Ghor Province, some southern groups of Aimaqs adopted the Pashto language.[40] In the eastern Laghman Province and Nangarhar Province, many Pashayi are now bilingual in Pashto.[41][42] Following the Saur Revolution, the Khalqists attempted to undermine the status of Dari in a bid to make Pashto the lingua franca of Afghanistan and remove Dari as an official language.[43]

Before the overthrow of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, Pashto made up more than 50% of media in Afghanistan.[43] A Soviet GRU dossier described Najibullah as: "a Pashtun nationalist, he is one of the motivating spirits of the policy of “Pashtunization” of Afghan society. Within his closest circle he speaks only in Pashto. He is inclined to select colleagues not for their professional qualities but for their personal devotion to him, predominantly relatives and fellow-villagers".[44]

Richard Strand argues that Pashtunization continues to occur due to intermarriages between Pashtun women and native Dardic Indo-Aryan and Nuristani men. He argues that the Pashtun wives rarely learn their husbands' language due to the "chauvinistic" attitude of Pashto speakers, leading to the children speaking Pashto as their primary language.[45]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Nayak, Pandav (1984). Pakistan, society and politics. University of Michigan: South Asian Publishers. p. 189.
  2. ^ Ahmed, Akbar S. (1997). Pakistan Society: Islam, Ethnicity, and Leadership in South Asia. Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0195778373.
  3. ^ Institute of Objective Studies (New Delhi, India) (1989). Journal of Objective Studies, Volume 1. Institute of Objective Studies. p. 39.
  4. ^ Banting, Erinn (2003). Afghanistan the People. Crabtree Publishing Company. p. 14. ISBN 0-7787-9336-2. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  5. ^ a b Meri, Josef W. (2006). "Sedentarism". Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 713. ISBN 0-415-96691-4.
  6. ^ Lansford, Tom (2003) A Bitter Harvest: US foreign policy and Afghanistan Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants, England, ISBN 0-7546-3615-1, page 16: "The modern history of Afghanistan has witnessed a "Pashtunization" of the state as the customs, traditions and language of the Pashtuns have combined with the groups political power to erode the distinctive underpinnings of Afghanistan's other groups.FN20". FN20 cites: US, Department of the Army, Afghanistan: A Country Study, 5th ed. reprint (Washington, DC.: GPO, 1985) page 108.
  7. ^ Dupree, Nancy Hatch (1970). An Historical Guide to Afghanistan. Vol. First Edition. Kabul: Afghan Air Authority, Afghan Tourist Organization. p. 492. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
  8. ^ Craig Baxter (1997). "Islamic Conquest". Library of Congress Country Studies on Afghanistan. Library of Congress.
  9. ^ Chaurasia, Radhey Shyam (2002). History of medieval India: from 1000 A.D. to 1707 A.D. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. p. 28. ISBN 81-269-0123-3. Retrieved 2010-08-23. The Khiljis were a Turkish tribe but having been long domiciled in Afghanistan, and adopted Afghan habits and customs. They were treated as Afghans in Delhi Court
  10. ^ Yunus, Mohammad; Aradhana Parmar (2003). South Asia: a historical narrative. Oxford University Press. p. 97. ISBN 0-19-579711-6. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  11. ^ Cavendish, Marshall (2006). World and Its Peoples: The Middle East, Western Asia, and Northern Africa. Marshall Cavendish. p. 320. ISBN 0-7614-7571-0. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  12. ^ "Khalji Dynasty". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  13. ^ Thorpe, Showick Thorpe Edgar (2009). The Pearson General Studies Manual 2009, 1/e. Pearson Education India. p. 63. ISBN 978-81-317-2133-9. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  14. ^ Pierre Oberling (15 December 2010). "ḴALAJ i. TRIBE". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 4 July 2020. Indeed, it seems very likely that [the Khalaj] formed the core of the Pashto-speaking Ghilji tribe, the name [Ghilji] being derived from Khalaj.
  15. ^ Sen, Sailendra (2013). A Textbook of Medieval Indian History. Primus Books. pp. 122–125. ISBN 978-9-38060-734-4.
  16. ^ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2007). Historic Cities of the Islamic World. BRILL. ISBN 9789004153882. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  17. ^ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2007). Historic Cities of the Islamic World. BRILL. ISBN 9789004153882. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  18. ^ "the Pashtun conquest of the Peshawar subregion in the early sixteenth century meant the Pashtunization of the area", Arlinghaus, Joseph Theodore (1988) The Transformation of Afgham Tribal Society: Tribal Expansion, Mughal Imperialism and the Roshaniyya Insurrection, 1450-1600 Thesis/dissertation, Duke University, p.17, OCLC 18996657
  19. ^ "DARDESTĀN". Encyclopedia Irannica.
  20. ^ "AFRĪDĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
  21. ^ Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, Robert L. Canfield (2010). Ethnicity, Authority, and Power in Central Asia. Routledge. ISBN 9781136927492.
  22. ^ Jos J. L. Gommans (1995). The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire. BRILL. p. 9. ISBN 9004101098.
  23. ^ Robert Nichols (2008). A History of Pashtun Migration, 1775-2006. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-547600-2.
  24. ^ Gommans, Jos J.L. (1995). The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire: c. 1710–1780. Brill. p. 219. ISBN 9004101098. The designation Rohilla developed during the seventeenth century as a fairly broad notion of the people coming from Roh or Rõh, corresponding roughly with the mountainous terrain of the eastern Hindu Kush and the Sulaiman Range. Only in the seventeenth-century Indian and Indo-Afghan works is Roh used as a more specific geographical term which corresponded with the territory stretching from Swat and Bajaur in the north to Sibi and Bhakkar in Sind, and from Hasan Abdal in the east to Kabul and Kandahar in the west.
  25. ^ Khan, Iqbal Ghani (2002). "Technology and the Question of Elite Intervention in Eighteenth-Century North India". In Barnett, Richard B. (ed.). Rethinking Early Modern India. Manohar Publishers & Distributors. p. 271. ISBN 978-81-7304-308-6. "Thus we witness the Ruhelas accepting an exceptionally talented non-Afghan, an adopted Jat boy, as their nawab, purely on the basis of his military leadership..."
  26. ^ Strachey, Sir John (1892). Hastings and the Rohilla War. Clarendon Press. p. 11. ...this remarkable chief was not an Afghan by birth, but a Hindu, a Jat by caste.
  27. ^ Potter, George Richard (1971). The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge University Press. p. 553.
  28. ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1999) [1980]. History of the Sikhs. Vol. III: Sikh Domination of the Mughal Empire (1764–1803) (2nd rev. ed.). Munshiram Manoharlal. p. 11. ISBN 978-81-215-0213-9. OCLC 165428303. "The real founder of the Rohilla power was Ali Muhammad, from whom sprang the present line of the Nawabs of Rampur."
  29. ^ a b Christian Bleuer (2012). "State-building, migration and economic development on the frontiers of northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan". Journal of Eurasian Studies. 3 (1): 69–79. doi:10.1016/j.euras.2011.10.008.
  30. ^ "Paying for the Taliban's Crimes: Abuses Against Ethnic Pashtuns in Northern Afghanistan" (PDF). Human Rights Watch. April 2002.
  31. ^ Noelle-Karimi, Christine; Noelle, Christine (1997). State and Tribe in Nineteenth-century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826-1863). Psychology Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-7007-0629-7.
  32. ^ a b Christian Bleuer (October 17, 2014). "From 'Slavers' to 'Warlords': Descriptions of Afghanistan's Uzbeks in Western Writing". Afghanistan Analysts Network.
  33. ^ Mundt, Alex; Schmeidl, Susanne; Ziai, Shafiqullah (June 1, 2009). "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Return of Internally Displaced Persons to Northern Afghanistan". Brookings Institution.
  34. ^ O. Roy, Ethnic Identity and Political Expression in Northern Afghanistan, in Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change, 1992, ISBN 0-8223-1190-9.
  35. ^ Ali Ehsassi, Fayçal El-Khoury. "Enduring and Overcoming: The Struggle of the Hazaras in Afghanistan" (PDF). 44th Parliament, 1st Session. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2024. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  36. ^ Monsutti, Alessandro. "Hazāra ii. History". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
  37. ^ Mousavi, Sayed Askar (1998) [1997]. The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study. Richmond, NY: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-17386-5.
  38. ^ Rubin, Barnett R. (2002). The fragmentation of Afghanistan: state formation and collapse in the international system. Yale University Press. p. 66. ISBN 0-300-09519-8. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  39. ^ Atabaki, Touraj; John O'Kane (1998). Post-Soviet Central Asia. Tauris Academic Studies in association with the International Institute of Asian Studies. p. 208. ISBN 1-86064-327-2. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  40. ^ Vogelsang, Willem (2002). The Afghans. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 18. ISBN 0631198415. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  41. ^ Pashai, Ethnic identity in Afghanistan, on nps.edu
  42. ^ "Palaso" (PDF). 9 March 2015.
  43. ^ a b Ahady, Anwar-ul-Haq (1995). "The Decline of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan". Asian Survey. 35 (7): 621–634. doi:10.2307/2645419. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2645419.
  44. ^ "Woodrow Wilson Center Digital Archive. Nuclear Proliferation International History Project". The SHAFR Guide Online. doi:10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim010030016. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  45. ^ Strand, Richard (2001). "Indo-Âryan-Speaking Peoples of the Hindu-Kush Region". Nuristân: Hidden Land of the Hindu Kush.
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