Skip to main content

Pakhtoon Defenders of Pakistan


The growth of resistance in tribal region of north-western Pakistan and southern Afghanistan is usually attributed to the popularity of their messianic brand of Islam and to covert help from Pakistan.
But the Pakistani Pakhtoon identity has a large part to play in this issue as the increasing co-operation between Pakistani Pakhtoon nationalist and Islamist forces against American domination.
In Afghanistan, where the Pakhtoon are the largest single ethnic group, they bitterly resent the disproportionate influence enjoyed by the Tajik ethnic minority in the regime of Hamid Karzai, a legacy of US collaboration with Tajik militias in overthrowing the Taliban. More importantly, it is the Pakhtoon who have been the main victims of US-NATO bombing attacks on the Taliban, who are largely Pakhtoon and operate almost entirely in Pakistani Pakhtoon territory. In one authoritative estimate, civilian casualties in Afghanistan have numbered nearly 5,000 since 2001.
In Pakistan, census data indicate 25.6 million Pashtu speakers. To this must be added some 2.5 million Pakistani Pakhtoon refugees in Pakistan.
There are from two to three dozen Pushtun tribes, depending on how one classifies them, generally divided into four major groupings: the Durranis and Ghilzais, concentrated in Afghanistan; the so-called independent tribes, straddling the Durand Line; and several tribes, such as the Khattaks and Bannuchis, centred on the Pakhtoonkhwa Province of Pakistan.
However, in contrast to Baluch society, with its hierarchical structures and its all-powerful sardars, Pakistani Pakhtoon culture has an egalitarian mystique epitomised by the role of the jirgah (assembly).
Non-Pakhtoon constituted at least 35% –possibly as much as 45%– of the population of Afghanistan during the decades preceding the Soviet occupation. As the ethnic balance has changed, the Pakhtoon in Afghanistan have intermittently attempted to forge some form of political unity with the Pakhtoon in Pakistan that would make possible a restoration of unchallenged Pakistani Pakhtoon dominance in Kabul.
With Pakhtoon outnumbering Baluchis in parts of northern Baluchistan, Pakistani Pakhtoon now propose restructuring the Pakistani state to add all Pakistani Pakhtoon regions in FATA, Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and northern Baluchistan in the province of Pakhtoonkhwa.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Siege - A Poem By Ahmad Faraz Against The Dictatorship Of Zia Ul Haq

Related Posts: 1.  Did Muhammad Ali Jinnah Want Pakistan To Be A Theocracy Or A Secular State? 2. The Relationship Between Khadim & Makhdoom In Pakistan 3. Battle for God; Battleground Pakistan - a time has finally come to call a spade a spade 4. Pakistan - Facing Contradictory Strategic Choices In An Uncertain Region 5. Pakistan, Islamic Terror & General Zia-Ul-Haq 6. Why Pakistan Army Must Allow The Democracy To Flourish In Pakistan & Why Pakistanis Must Give Democracy A Chance? 7. A new social contract in Pakistan between the Pakistani Federation and its components 8. Birth of Bangladesh / Secession of East Pakistan & The Sins of Our Fathers 9. Pakistan Army Must Not Intervene In The Current Crisis - Who To Blame For the Present Crisis in Pakistan ? 10. Balochistan - Troubles Of A Demographic Nature

India: The Terrorists Within

A day after major Indian cities were placed on high alert following blasts in the IT city of Bangalore, as many as 17 blasts ripped through Ahmedabad, capital of the affluent western Indian state of Gujarat . Some 30 people were killed, some at hospitals where bombs were timed to go off when the injured from other blasts were being brought in. (Later, in Surat, a center for the world's diamond industry, a bomb was defused near a hospital and two cars packed with explosives were found in in the city's outskirts.) Investigators pointed fingers at the usual Islamist suspects: Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Bangladesh- based Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HUJI) and the indigenous Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). But even as the police searched for clues, the Ahmedabad attacks were owned up by a group calling itself the " Indian Mujahideen. " Several TV news stations received an email five minutes before the first blasts in Ahmedabad. The message repo

Mir Chakar Khan Rind - A Warrior Hero Of Baluchistan & Punjab Provinces of Pakistan

By Sikander Hayat The areas comprising the state of Pakistan have a rich history and are steeped in the traditions of martial kind. Tribes which are the foundation stone of Pakistan come from all ethnic groups of Pakistan either they be Sindhi, Balochi, Pathan or Punjabi. One of these men of war & honour were Mir Chakar Khan Rind. He is probably the most famous leader coming out of Baloch ethnic group of Pakistan. Mir Chakar Khan Rind or Chakar-i-Azam (1468 – 1565 ) was a Baloch king and ruler of Satghara in (Southern Pakistani Punjab) in the 15th century. He is considered a folk hero of the Baloch people and an important figure in the Baloch epic Hani and Sheh Mureed. Mir Chakar lived in Sibi in the hills of Balochistan and became the head of Rind tribe at the age of 18 after the death of his father Mir Shahak Khan. Mir Chakar's kingdom was short lived because of a civil war between the Lashari and Rind tribes of Balochistan. Mir Chakar and Mir Gwaharam Khan Lashari, hea