پښتانه | |
---|---|
Total population | |
c. 60–70 million | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Pakistan | 43,633,946 (2023 census) [only includes those who speak Pashto as mother tongue][1] |
Afghanistan | 15,000,000 [estimations, 40–50% of the population][2][3][4] |
India | 3,200,000 (2018) [primarily non-Pashto speaking estimates] 21,677 (2011) [Pashto speakers][5][6][7][8] |
Iran | 169,000 (2022)[9] |
United States | 138,554 (2021)[10] |
United Kingdom | 100,000 (2009)[11] |
Tajikistan | 32,400 (2017)[12] |
Canada | 31,700 (2021)[13] |
Russia | 19,800 (2015)[14] |
Australia | 12,662 (2021)[15] |
Languages | |
Pashto in its different dialects: Wanetsi, Central Pashto, Southern Pashto, Northern Pashto[16] | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Islam (mainly Sunni Islam) | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Iranic peoples |
Pashtuns (/ˈpʌʃˌtʊn/, /ˈpɑːʃˌtʊn/, /ˈpæʃˌtuːn/; Pashto: پښتانه, romanized: Pəx̌tānə́;[17]), also known as Pakhtuns,[18] or Pathans,[a] are a nomadic,[22][23][24] pastoral,[25][26] eastern Iranic ethnic group[18] primarily residing in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan.[27][28] They historically were also referred to as Afghans[b] until 1964[34][35] after the term's meaning had become a demonym for members of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan.[34][36]
The Pashtuns speak the Pashto language, which belongs to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Iranian language family. Additionally, Dari serves as the second language of Pashtuns in Afghanistan,[37][38] while those in Pakistan speak Urdu and English.[39][40] In India, the majority of those of Pashtun descent have lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead speak Hindi and other regional languages.[41][42][43]
There are an estimated 350–400 Pashtun tribes and clans with a variety of origin theories.[44][45][46] In 2021, Shahid Javed Burki estimated the total Pashtun population to be situated between 60 and 70 million, with 15 million in Afghanistan.[2] Others who accept the 15 million figure include British academic Tim Willasey-Wilsey[3] as well as Abubakar Siddique, a journalist specializing in Afghan affairs.[4] This figure is disputed due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979 due to continuing conflicts there.[47]
They are the second-largest ethnic group in Pakistan and one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan,[48] constituting around 18.24% of the total Pakistani population and around 47% of the total Afghan population.[49][50][51] In India, significant and historical communities of the Pashtun diaspora exist in the northern region of Rohilkhand, as well as in major Indian cities such as Delhi and Mumbai.[52][7]
Afghanistan's current population of 38 million, the Pashtun account for less than a majority – 15 million – or 39 per cent of the total.
There are 15 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan where they are the biggest and dominant ethnicity (...)
There are some 15 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan (...)
Interacting with mediapersons on Wednesday, Yasmin, the president of All India Pakhtoon Jirga-e-Hind, said that there were 32 lakh Phastoons in the country who were living and working in India but were yet to get citizenship
Over a lakh Pakhtoons living in Jammu and Kashmir as nomad tribesmen without any nationality became Indian subjects on July 17. Batches of them received certificates to this effect from the Kashmir Prime Minister, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, at village Gutligabh, 17 miles from Srinagar.
AFGHANI/KABULI/PASHTO 21,677
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The most familiar name in the west is Pathan, a Hindi term adopted by the British, which is usually applied only to the people living east of the Durand.
Pathan (pəˈtɑːn) – n a member of the Pashto-speaking people of Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, and elsewhere, most of whom are Muslim in religion [C17: from Hindi]
As for the Pashtun nomads, passing the length of the region, they maintain a complex chain of transactions involving goods and information. Most important, each nomad household has a series of 'friends' in Uzbek, Aymak and Hazara villages along the route, usually debtors who take cash advances, animals and wool from them, to be redeemed in local produce and fodder over a number of years. Nomads regard these friendships as important interest-bearing investments akin to the lands some of them own in the same villages; recently villagers have sometimes withheld their dues, but relations between the participants are cordial, in spite of latent tensions and backbiting.
In some parts of Afghanistan, Pashtun nomads favored by the state often clashed with non- Pashtun (especially Hazara) peasants. Much of their pasture was granted to them by the state after being expropriated from conquered non-Pashtun communities. The nomads appear to have lost these pastures as the Hazaras gained autonomy in the recent war.___Nomads depend on peasants for their staple food, grain, while peasants rely on nomads for animal products, trade goods, credit, and information...Nomads are also ideally situated for smuggling. For some Baluch and Pashtun nomads, as well as settled tribes in border areas, smuggling has been a source of more income than agriculture or pastoralism. Seasonal migration patterns of nomads have been disrupted by war and state formation throughout history, and the Afghan-Soviet war was no exception.
A typical issue that continues to disturb social order in Afghanistan even at the present time (2012) concerns the Pashtun nomads and grazing lands. Throughout the period 1929 78, governments supported the desire of the Pashtun nomads to take their cattle to graze in Hazara regions. Kishtmand writes that when Daoud visited Hazaristan in the 1950s, where the majority of the population are Hazaras, the local people complained about Pashtun nomads bringing their cattle to their grazing lands and destroying their harvest and land. Daoud responded that it was the right of the Pashtuns to do so and that the land belonged to them (Kishtmand 2002: 106).
In 1846, the British sought to segregate settled areas on the frontier from the pastoral Pashtun communities found in the surrounding hills." British authorities made no attempt "to advance into the highlands, or even to secure the main passages through the mountains such as the Khyber Pass."2" In addition, the Close Border Policy tried to contract services from more resistant hill tribes in an attempt to co-opt them. In exchange for their cooperation, the tribes would receive a stipend for their services.
The Hazaras, who rebelled and fought an extended war against the Afghan government, were stripped of their control over the Hindu Kush pastures and the pastures were given to the Pashtun pastoralists. This had a devastating impact on the Hazara's society and economy. These pastures had been held in common by the various regional Hazara groups and so had provided important bases for large "tribal" affiliations to be maintained. With the loss of their summer pastures, the units of practical Hazara affiliation declined. Also, Hazara leaders were killed or deported, and their lands were confiscated. These activities of the Afghan government, carried on as a deliberate policy, sometimes exacerbated by other outrages effected by the Pashtun pastoralists, emasculated the Hazaras.
Caldwell2011
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Brit-Pashtun
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).In Afghanistan, up until the 1970s, the common reference to Afghan meant Pashtun. . . . The term Afghan as an inclusive term for all ethnic groups was an effort begun by the "modernizing" King Amanullah (1909-1921). . . .
The largest ethnic group in Afghanistan is that of Pashtuns, who were historically known as the Afghans. The term Afghan is now intended to indicate people of other ethnic groups as well.
Niamatullah knew Persian very well, as all the educated Pashtuns generally do in Afghanistan
In the 1980s and '90s, at least three million Afghans—mostly Pashtun—fled to Pakistan, where a substantial number spent several years being exposed to Hindi- and Urdu-language media, especially Bollywood films and songs, and being educated in Urdu-language schools, both of which contributed to the decline of Dari, even among urban Pashtuns.
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Hindustani had arisen as a lingua franca from the intercourse of the Persian-speaking Pathans with the Hindi-speaking Hindus.
Many of the communities of ethnic Pashtuns (known as Pathans in India) that had emerged in India over the previous centuries lived peaceably among their Hindu neighbors. Most of these Indo-Afghans lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead spoke Hindi and Punjabi.
Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.
By the late-eighteenth century perhaps 100,000 "Afghan" or "Puthan" migrants had established several generations of political control and economic consolidation within numerous Rohilkhand communities
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