Pathans in Kashmir Preserve Identity By Nafeesa Syeed
A group of elders gather in the main square in one of the Pathan enclaves of Gotli Bagh, Kashmir
OTLI BAGH, Indian Kashmir – Abdul Wadud Khan is a fiercely proud Pathan, who speaks what he deems as “pure Pashto.” But he doesn’t live in Afghanistan. Nor does he reside in Pakistan.
The 83-year-old belongs to a small minority of Pathans settled in Indian-administered Kashmir who have maintained their distinct cultural and linguistic identity a century after their ancestors emigrated from Peshawar and the Swat valley in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan. They carry on customs such as holding jherga councils to decide disputes and observing strict rules of purdah (separation) for women. They watch TV programs broadcast from Peshawar and Kabul and set Pashto pop songs as their ringtones. But times are changing for this insular group, as more youth, especially girls, pursue their education and employment outside. With norms being eroded, some are worried about the community’s future cohesion.
Beyond speech, customs and blood, they are also tied to their brethren across borders when it comes to being affected by conflict, by the troubles raging in South Asia. In Gotli Bagh, they say they’re pained when they hear about ongoing violence impacting fellow Pathans in Pakistan or Afghanistan. They experienced their own horrors during the 1990s, when armed militancy and anti-insurgency crackdowns dominated the Kashmir valley. They prefer not to recount those times, but as they tend their apple orchards, the unresolved status of Kashmir’s political situation is evident in the large Indian army bunker on the main street running through this village. A refrain youth and elders oft repeat here is that Pathans are, in fact, a peaceful people.
From where they came. In the Ganderbal district, about an hour from the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar, a sign points to a roadway crawling up the foothills toward Gotli Bagh, home to the largest concentration of Pathans in Kashmir. It’s late August and fluorescent-green blades rise from terraced rice paddies and peaks covered with pine forests as well as denuded mountains soar above fruit trees. Mr. Khan, a bearded man with leathery skin, sits in front of his double-storey home wearing a karakuli, a sheepskin cap. He removes his dentures when a visitor comments on him looking younger than the octogenarian that he is. The father of 10 has spent his entire life here, but can’t speak Kashmiri. In Urdu, also not his mother tongue, he describes how his grandfather, Sharifullah, left his home near Peshawar, where “there was too much gun culture and disturbance,” at the turn of the 20th century. Sharifullah found Kashmir calm and told his relatives of the Yousufzai-Madhyakhail tribe to join him.
Locals put the current numbers of Pathans in Gotli Bagh from 8,000 to 10,000, whereas researchers say it’s probably more like 3,000 to 5,000. There are other Pashto-speaking enclaves with smaller populations in Kupawara, in north Kashmir, and in Anantnag, in south Kashmir. Historians say there have been successive migrations of Pathans to Kashmir over the past two centuries, including under an Afghan dynasty that ruled the valley in the late 18th-century and then under Sikh and Dogra Hindu regimes up until the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947. Many worked as soldiers under these regimes—considered hostile and oppressive by Kashmiris—and were then granted land in Kashmir for their service. Others moved here to escape inter-tribal conflicts or were dispersed by rulers, such as the British, who considered Pathans a threat to their territories.
Far from their homeland, descendants of the later migrants remained isolated, allowing them to preserve their heritage, said Dr. Gulshan Majeed, a history professor at the Institute of Kashmir Studies at the University of Kashmir who has studied the communities. “They did not mix with the Kashmiris in general and they created their own resources within their own societies to sustain themselves.”
They forbade intermarriage with outsiders and were adamant about speaking Pashto. Villagers have texts written in Pashto from their forefathers and still teach their children how to read and write the script. Mr. Khan and others claim that their Pashto is “unadulterated,” unlike the Pashto spoken in Peshawar or Afghanistan, which they say has mixed with other languages. They rely on newspapers published abroad and the Internet for Pashto-language resources. (Pashto, Urdu and Kashmiri are entirely disparate tongues.)
The Pathans share the same Sunni Muslim faith as the majority of Kashmiris, but have about a dozen of their own mosques around Gotli Bagh, residents say. They also have their own religious leaders. Streams of boys and men in white skullcaps follow the turbaned Mir Qutb Alam, a guide for the Naqashbandi-Mujaddidi Sufi order, as he proceeds to a local mosque where his father, the saint Mir Alam, is buried. The younger Alam said his father came from Swat, a valley in northern Pakistan, and settled in Kashmir in the 1920s after traveling across Central and South Asia for his religious education. He later became a member of the state legislative council. Besides Pathans, Mr. Alam also counts some Kashmiris and people from the Indian state of Maharashtra among his followers.
Other traditions the Pathan communities have perpetuated is not requiring dowry for weddings, which has caught on in Kashmiri society. Men also gather for the jherga where they discuss the community’s grievances and welfare. They say they resolve most disputes in the jherga even before turning to the police. Other signs echo their ancestors, including clay tandoor ovens outside homes and sports such as cockfighting.
Women have played a pivotal role in maintaining the community’s distinct cultural and linguistic heritage.
A woman’s place. Pivotal to passing down their customs and language have been the efforts of women. Under their system of purdah, a woman’s space is largely limited to her home and venturing outside requires a burqa. The voice of Gulshan Ara, 26, who married last year and is now a housewife, is muffled as she holds her fist to her mouth in the presence of a male relative. Upon his exit, she drops her hand and words come flowing out.
“Purdah is the main thing that can safeguard a woman,” Ms. Ara said. “Women don’t go outside, so due to that the culture will be preserved.”
She’s dressed in the characteristic outfit worn by Pathan women here: a printed shalwar kameez dress with a large white chadar cloth draped around her head and shoulders, used to quickly cover one’s face when in their homes or neighborhoods. She said women don’t travel alone and many only speak Pashto. When they leave their villages, they’re seen donning black robes and face-veils. (While some Kashmiri women also cover their faces, this degree of gender separation is not commonly practiced.)
The fact that Ms. Ara can communicate in Urdu—she can’t speak Kashmiri—reflects a shift in the community in the past 20 years. The push for Kashmiri female education dates back several decades, with some of the earliest women earning graduate degrees in the 1950s and legions joining the workforce in subsequent years. Yet that was not the case in the Pathan community. A survey by a university researcher in 1988 cited women’s illiteracy in the Pathan community at 89%.
Then came the 1990s. During that time, locals say some Pathan parents began encouraging their daughters to join boys at school, with those such as Ms. Ara now completing their matriculation of 10th grade and even graduating from high school. A handful of government and private schools with names like New Light Public School are scattered in the area.
Mumtaz Sarafaraz Khan, a 37-year-old mother of three, is a pioneer of sorts, having obtained her master’s degree in political science and conversing in fluent English. A slight woman, Sarafaraz Khan explains how girls’ education was prohibited in her community, but she persisted with backing from her parents, particularly her father.
“People used to say, ‘Where are they going because women have no role to play outside their homes, they have to remain inside homes and look after their children, what have they to do with education?’” she said of her naysayers.
She said there are positive trends with more Pathan girls becoming educated and working in schools, government offices and social service organizations. But progress, she said, shouldn’t come at the cost of maintaining their mores. For her part, she wears a burqa when en route to the higher secondary school where she teaches, and doesn’t leave the house unless it’s urgent or without a man. For instance, there’s a store in her lane that she’s never been to, because shopping is a man’s job, she said. At home, she speaks exclusively in Pashto with her children.
“Some girls are going to school without purdah, they are speaking other languages, some are marrying with other communities,” she said. “It is not a good development.”
Layered conflicts. Pathan elders said they were considered outsiders in Kashmir and taxed as such until they were given “state-subject status” in the mid-20th century, giving them relative parity with other Kashmiris. Today though, they complain that they aren’t afforded the same privileges as other minorities in the state, which they assert would give them more equal economic footing and facilities in their vicinities.
They said they get along well with their Kashmiri neighbors, who exhibit an interest in Pathan culture and language. But as a minority community in a troubled region there can be a delicate game of balancing loyalties. Some might express solidarity with the separatists, while others say they enjoy being part of India.
The community overall shies away from discussing politics, saying their priority is the socio-economic advancement of their people. Short of speaking about exactly how they were affected and the extent of their involvement and on which sides of the unrest they stood, several Pathans acknowledge that they have not been spared during the past two decades of tumult.
“Whatever misfortunes happened to Kashmiris, those misfortunes happened to us,” said Mr. Khan, the community elder.
Many Pathan men have gone on to serve as police officers, and some familiar with the community say Pathans have sustained good relations with the military. One can’t miss the Indian security forces camp in Gotli Bagh, clearly marked in red and blue paint with barbed wire coiled along the stone wall. As in other villages, soldiers here conduct routine patrols of the area and are seen roaming in their fatigues. In whispered conversations, there are insinuations that the community is monitored more because of their ethnicity, given the extreme elements coming out of Pashto-speaking lands across the border.
At the same time, the pan-Pathan sentiment can be felt when Gotli Bagh natives talk about the duress they see and hear about in neighboring countries, especially in Pakistan, where many here still have relatives with whom they keep in touch. There’s also an awareness that along the spectrum of conflicts impacting Pathans across South Asia, Kashmir may be a comparatively enviable spot despite its lingering uncertainties.
“We are watching TV and listening to the radio about what is happening there, we are shocked when we hear that news, how many people were killed there, how many innocents got killed there…mostly Pathans are affected,” said Mohammad Sarafaraz Khan, 39, a government worker who is Mumtaz’s husband, describing across-the-border woes. “We are safe here. We are better here. We are getting more privileges.”
Mudasir Nawaz, 20, who is studying for his bachelor’s degree in commerce, said he wants to meet his relatives in Swat, but there are problems in obtaining a visa. Much like others in this tight-knit group, Nawaz counters the perception of Pathans being warring tribesmen and denounces weaponry: “We don’t like violence; we are peace-loving people.”
As he stands amid apple trees of the Delicious variety, around the corner from the army bunker, the hazel-eyed Nawaz counts his blessings.
“I think our status is better here than Pathans living in Pakistan, (where) there’s Taliban and terrorist attacks, here we are living in peace,” he said. “We pray to God to ask that they have peace like we have.”
Nafeesa Syeed is a freelance writer based in Washington and New Delhi. You can follow her on Twitter @
NafeesaSyeed.
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