Pashtuns are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group in Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan. Originating in Afghanistan - they are also referred to as Afghans - The Pashtuns form a large percentage of both populations, being the dominant 53% of the population of Afghanistan and 15% of the population of Pakistan, the second-largest ethnic group there. Pashtun people typically adhere to the Pashtunwali set of beliefs. Most Pashtuns follow Sunni Islam with a small Shia and Christian minority.
Politics[]
The Communist militia of Ismatullah Achakzai in Kandahar
From the 1920s to the early 1990s many Pashtuns were attracted Marxist-Leninism forming various groups such as the Khalqists led by Nur Muhammad Taraki. Pashtun Marxists also held Irredentist views that all Pashtun lands occupied by Pakistan should be returned to Afghanistan or become its own Socialist State known as Pashtunistan or Pashtunkhwa.[1]
Most Pashtuns hold the belief that they were forced to be apart of the Punjabi dominated Pakistan against their will as they were refused the option to vote to join Afghanistan or establish a Pashtunistan. As a result of this 51% of eligible voters did not come, most of the voters not being Pashtun but instead Hindko or Hazara. Most Pashtuns however were not eligible to vote as residents of the princely states did not gain the option to choose let alone choose to join Afghanistan.[2]
Ancestry[]
The Pashtuns are the descendants of various Eastern Iranian groups such as the Scythians and White Huns (Hephthalites).[3]
- ↑ Letter From Pakistani General Zia to President Carter https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v12/d16
- ↑ Meyer, Karl E. (5 August 2008). The Dust of Empire: The Race For Mastery In The Asian Heartland – Karl E. Meyer ISBN 9780786724819.
- ↑ https://iranicaonline.org/