Book Review | Pashtuns: One race, two nations; a bloody present but proud past

Pashtuns have been the subject of enquiry for many centuries now, chiefly on account of their warlike nature, refusal to accept foreign overlordship and incredible tenacity in the face of adversity. Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans.” The author goes on to point out that there “has been a fair amount of confusion about the terms Pashtun, Pakhtun, Pathan and Afghan… Until the Sikh conquests in the nineteenth century and then the British Raj, the Pashtuns were politically united and part of a Pashtun empire that stretched eastwards as far as the Indus River. In Pakistan, however, Pashtuns still refer to themselves as Afghans.” Just as the British before them, the state of Pakistan has tried to justify the division of Pashtun lands and promote the fiction that Pashtuns living east of the Durand Line have a different history and ethnicity. Post-Partition, several Pashtun-led Afghan governments, notably those of Mohammad Daoud Khan, intermittently raised the issue of Pashtunistan and about the validity of the Durand Line, and challenged Pakistan’s right to rule over its Pashtun areas.” “For its part, Pakistan has worked systematically to overwhelm Pashtun impulses for Pashtunistan. Here too, by viewing the Pashtuns as one undifferentiated ethnic group straddling two nations, Devasher’s book provides compelling insights into the tumultuous and often violent politics of today’s Pashtun lands.