Pathan: Nation, Constitution (1883)

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

Nation, Constitution

The words Pathan and Afghan are used indifferently by the natives of India to designate the nation under discussion.' But the two words are not used as synonyms by the people themselves. The original Afghans are a race of probably Jewish or Arab extraction ; and they, together with a tribe of Indian origin mth which they have long been blended, still distinguish themselves as the true Afghans, or since the rise of Ahmad Shah Durrani as Dui-ranis,* and class all non-Durrani Pashto-speakers as Opra. But they have lately given their name to Afghanis tan, the country formerly known as Khorasan, over which they have now held sway for more than a century, and which is bounded on the north by the Oxus, on the south by Bilochistan, on the east by the middle course of the Indus, and on the west by the Persian desert ; and, just as the English and Scotch who early in the 17th century settled among and intermarried with the Irish are now called Irish, though still a very distinct section of the popula tion, so all inhabitants of Afghanistan are now in common parlance known as

When our ill-fated Resident Major Cavagnari was lately living at Kabul under the Amir Yakub Khan, those who favoured the British were known as Cavagnarizai, and the national party as Yakubzai. The ending zai is never used by the Afridi.

2 The Dilazak are often called Hindkis by the true Pathans, as having come from India and not from Afghanistan.

3 In Hindustan they are often called Rohillahs, or Highlanders, from Rohi the mountain country of the Pathans (Roh = Koh, a mountain.)

• Either from Durr-i-Daurdn pearl of the age or from Dtin-i-Durrdn '• pearl of pearls.

The title was adopted by Ahmad Suah Abdali when he ascended the throue, in allusion to the Abdali custom of wearing a pearl stud in the right ear.

Afghan, the races thus included being the Afghan proper, the Pathan proper, the Gilzai, the Tajik, and the Hazara, besides tribes of less importance living on the confines of the country.

The true Pathans are apparently of Indian origin. Their language is called Pashto or Pakhto and they call themselves Pukhtana or Pakhto speakers ; and it is this word of which Pathan is the Indian corruption. They held in the early centuries of our rera the whole of the Safed Koh and Northern Snleman systems, from the Indus to the Helmand and from the sources of the Swat river and Jalalabad to Peshin and Quetta. The Afghans and Gilzais spread into their country and adopted their language and customs ; and just as Insh, Scotch, and Welsh speaking the English languages are commonly called Englishmen, so all who speak the Pakhto tongue came to be included under the name Pathan. Thus the Afghans and Gilzuis are Pathans by virtue of their language, though not of Pathan origin ; the Tajiks and Hazaras, who have retained their Persian speech, are not Pathans ; while all five are Afghans by virtue of location, though only one of them is of Afghan race.