Pathans in India

The Pathans of India are a community who trace their ancestry to the Pashtun regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. it roughly stretches from areas south of the Amu River in Afghanistan to west of the Indus River in Pakistan, mainly consisting of southwestern, eastern and some northern and western districts of Afghanistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan in western Pakistan, with the Durand Line acting as the border between the two countries. Geographically, the Pathans are an eastern Iranic ethnic group who lived west of the Indo-Aryan ethnicities of the northern Indian subcontinent. Some Pashtuns from the Ghilji tribe historically used to seasonally migrate to India in winter as nomadic merchants. They would buy goods there, and transport these by camel caravan in summer for sale or barter in Afghanistan. ==Demographics==

Pathans of India descend from different tribes and clans. Some of the common Pashtun tribes found in India including the influential Ahmadzai and others like Afridi, Barakzai, Bettani, Panni, Sulemanzai, Tareen, Kakar, Sherani, Khattak, Orakzai and the Shinwari, Yusufzai including the mighty Ghilzai, Durrani and Lodi. There is also a population of Muslim Rajput Pathans in India (also known as Khanzada Rajputs) whose ancestors were Rajputs but got the title Khan after converting to Islam. After many generations, they are now intermixed with Pathans. as well as those who arrived from Afghanistan. The 1947 partition of India led to an exodus of Hindus settled in the former North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, which are part of modern Pakistan, into the newly independent India. and union minister Mehr Chand Khanna; Prithviraj Kapoor, Shammi and Shashi Kapoor), actor Vinod Khanna, Pushpa Kumari Bagai writes that the Hindu Pathans in India, especially those who migrated from the Saraiki-speaking area of Dera Ismail Khan, had their own unique vegetarian cuisine. In her historical magnum opus River of Fire, writer Qurratulain Hyder makes reference to Hindu Pathans from the NWFP who were displaced by the partition and settled in India. Some Hindus who lived in Balochistan prior to 1947, and later migrated to India following the partition, had a highly Pashtunized culture and spoke a form of Pashto or Balochi. They identified themselves culturally as Pathans and members of the Kakari tribe. Originating from Quetta and Loralai, they brought their customs and practices with themselves to India, where they became known as the Sheenkhalai (Pashto for "the blue skinned"). This name stemmed from a novel tradition their womenfolk practised, who would adorn their faces, hands and skin with permanent tattoos to enhance their appearance. These decorative, tribal tattoos were considered a form of art and beauty in their culture, however they were looked down upon by other Indians. The Sheenkhalai, numbering up to 500 at the time of partition, settled mostly in Rajasthan (in Uniara, Jaipur and Chittorgarh) and Punjab, and adopted Indian culture. Although Peshawar was not as violently affected by communal riots as other regions during the partition, the Peshawari Hindus cited economic issues, security challenges and religious violence as reasons for their emigration after independence. A wave of similar migrations continued in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. After living in India for some time, these Hindus are able to secure Indian citizenship. The elderly Peshawari Hindus are distinguishable due to their Peshawari clothing and the Peshawari turban which some of them wear, and they converse in Pashto or the local Peshawari dialect. However, the younger generation is not fluent in these languages. Diaspora A secondary diaspora of Pathans from India also exists, including those who were transported from British India to various other colonies as indentured workers in the early 19th century. ==Distribution==

North India In July 1954, over 100,000 Pashtun tribes people living in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir were granted Indian nationality. They are a mostly endogamous, Pashto-speaking community whose ancestors migrated from what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan prior to India's independence. The village of Gotli Bagh in Ganderbal district is home to around 10,000 Pashtuns. It is notably the only Muslim-majority city in Indian Punjab, since the partition in 1947. The princely Malerkotla State was established and ruled by a Pathan dynasty of Sherwani and Lodi origins. The princely Pataudi State, which was founded by the Pataudi family and ruled by the Nawab of Pataudi, was centred in Pataudi in modern Haryana's Gurgaon district. The Pataudis were of Afghan descent, whose ancestors arrived in India in the late 15th century as mercenaries of the Pashtun emperor Bahlul Lodi, during the latter's reign. There is a small community of Pashto-speaking Hindus and Sikhs who migrated from Parachinar (in Pakistan's Kurram District) to Himachal Pradesh in 1948. They have an organisation known as the Akhil Bharatiya Parachinar Biradari, which seeks to gain Scheduled Tribal status for the community in order to secure various government incentives and opportunities committed under the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes for "displaced" communities. They are settled in a village also named "Parachinar" in Bharmour in Chamba district. The area of Jangpura has long been a hub for Pathan Muslims, possibly due to its proximity to the Nizamuddin Dargah. Central India Western India Pathans are noted as one of the Muslim castes living in Diu, which is part of the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Pathans are noted as one of the many Muslim communities in the state of Goa. They use the surname Khan, while the women may use Khatun, Khatu or Bibi. It has been noted that they freely marry outside their community. Afghanistan has maintained a consulate-general in Bombay since 1915, alluding to the historic presence of Afghans and Pathans in the city. Karim Lala wielded significant political clout and was well known to both the elite and common man of Mumbai. In Gujarat state most of the pathans are seen, those are Turks, Yousafzai, Afghans, Babi, Durrani, lodi.there are many notable persons comes from gujrat pathan like cricketer Salim Durrani, Parveen Babi actress.In area of Junagadh there are turk pathan are mainly seen in indian army and business East India There are Pathan families present in the city of Ranchi. Odisha was historically one of the territories conquered by Pathans, most notably under Khwaja Usman. The Bengal region was historically one of the territories ruled by Pathan dynasties in India. The city of Kolkata has been home to a large Afghan and Pathan community for generations, where they are known by the term Kabuliwala ("people of Kabul") and have historically constituted an integral part of the city's cultural fabric. The term is derived from the iconic and much-romanticised short story of the same name written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1892, which essays the tale of an Afghan merchant who journeys all the way to Kolkata and sells dry fruit. According to Kumar Suresh Singh, in the state of Karnataka, the Pathans are "distributed in all districts." Susan Bayly notes that the 18th-century Travancorean maharajas actively recruited Pathan soldiers to train and lead their armies, as did many other South Indian kingdoms, who were keen to bolster their military capacities with the experiences of such men. The former Hyderabad State had a Pathan community, and also an organisation known as the Pakhtoon Jirga which looked after the interests of the Pashtuns living within that state. Northeast India There are some Afghan businessmen who have been living in Assam for several decades. They are also known as Kabuliwalas. Rajkumar Jhalajit Singh in A Short History of Manipur mentions Pathans as one of the communities among the Manipuri Muslims. In Sikkim, the Muslims are categorised into two main social classes: the ashraf (aristocracy) and ajlaf (commoners). The former usually includes people of "Sayyad, Shaikh, Mughal and Pathan ethnic backgrounds." ==Culture==

In India, the Muslim surname Khan is largely synonymous with and commonly used by Pathans as per Pashtun naming conventions, although not all Khans are necessarily of Pathan descent. In the caste system present among medieval Indian Muslim society, the Pathans (historically also known as ethnic 'Afghans') were classified as one of the ashraf castes – those who claimed descent from foreign immigrants, The earlier generations of Indian Pathans spoke their native language Pashto, while some still adhere to the traditional code and Pashtun way of life known as Pashtunwali. As a result of cultural assimilation with Indians over the course of several centuries, most Pathans in India lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead adopted Hindustani or other local dialects. or roti), which is baked on a tandoor oven. Afghan immigrants in India have popularised other unique Afghan foods, such as the Afghani burger, Afghani naan, mantu dumplings, Afghan and Pathan recipes rely less on spices, and tend to be flavoured with salt, garlic, pepper, raisins, pinenuts, walnuts, and various dried or fresh fruits. Kundal Lal also invented the iconic butter chicken and dal makhani. ==Education==

Each year, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations grants 2,325 scholarships to international students, with six-hundred and seventy-five spots being reserved especially for Afghans. In India, an increasing number of native students are learning Pashto at academic institutions such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University. ==Entertainment industry==

, an actress belonging to the Pataudi family. Cinema The city of Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province gave birth to several prominent actors in the Hindi film industry, Bollywood. Some Indian actors also have ancestry in Balochistan and Afghanistan. The Qissa Khwani Bazaar area of Peshawar is the location of the ancestral homes of the Kapoor family, Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan. Dilip Kumar (born Yusuf Khan) and Shah Rukh Khan, while not ethnically Pathans, are often referred to as "Pathans" due to their culture and origins in Peshawar. Actor Naseeruddin Shah, along with his sons Imaad, Vivaan and nephew Mohommed Ali, belong to the family of the 19th-century Afghan warlord Jan-Fishan Khan, who was born in Paghman of Saiyid descent, and moved to India in the 1850s where he became the first Nawab of Sardhana. Most of the Khans of Bollywood, however, belong to the Pathan community, including the Peshawar-born actor Jayant (born Zakaria Khan) and his son Amjad Khan; the Tanoli-origin siblings Feroz, Sanjay and Akbar Khan, whose father settled in Bangalore from Ghazni, Actress Madhubala, who is sometimes called the "Marilyn Monroe of Bollywood," was a Yusufzai Pathan. There have also been other Pathan film directors, producers and scriptwriters, such as Zia Sarhadi; G. M. Durrani was a noted Bollywood playback singer, music director and radio artist during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In pop music, the Pakistani-origin Adnan Sami has been called the "reigning King of Indipop." In popular culture Pathan characters have been portrayed in many Bollywood films, creating a subgenre of what are known as "Pathan movies". The 1947 theatrical play Pathan was produced by Prithviraj Kapoor's Prithvi Theatre, and was commercially successful across India. Prithviraj played the lead role while his sons Raj, Shammi and Shashi also acted. Kabuliwala (1961), in which Balraj Sahni essays the role of the protagonist, has been called the "mother of all Pathan movies". In 2013, a remake of the film was released in Hindi and Telugu simultaneously, in which Sanjay Dutt and Sri Hari reprised the role of Sher Khan, respectively. They featured in a qawwali-style Pathan dance number, Khochey Pathan Ki Zubaan. The action film Qurbani (1980), in which a police officer named Amjad Khan (played by Amjad Khan himself) chases two fugitives (played by Feroz Khan and Vinod Khanna), featured a song Qurbani Qurbani which was set in a "Pathan's den". In the song, the three protagonists donned Pathan getup. Khuda Gawah (1992) stars Amitabh Bachchan as an Afghan tribesman who settles accounts with his enemies after finding himself trapped in an Indian prison, and was partially shot in Afghanistan. ==Literature and media==

Urdu poetry in India developed under the influence of Pathans, in addition to various other communities belonging to the Perso-Arabic sphere of influence. One such prominent poet was Josh Malihabadi, an Afridi Pathan. Pashto in India Pashto literature thrived in North India from the early 16th century up until the turn of the 19th century, even while Persian remained the dominant language of the region during the Mughal period. It was a provincial language spoken mainly by Pashtun administrative and military elites, and other Pashtun settlers and temporary dwellers in India. He inspired the Roshani movement which, during the late 16th and 17th centuries, gave rise to prominent Pashto poets and writers in the Indian subcontinent. Pashto was the first external radio service of AIR, broadcasting its inaugural transmission on 1 October 1939 for Pashto-listeners across British India's North-West Frontier Province and Afghanistan. Its purpose was to counter German radio propanda infiltrating Afghanistan, Iran and West Asian nations following the outbreak of World War II. The Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies (CPCAS) at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University offers bachelor-level degrees in Pashto. The language is also used by Afghan Pashtun expatriates living in India. , India's third president, on a 1998 postage stamp. ==Military==

In British colonial India, the Pathans were classified as one of the "martial races" and enlisted in large numbers into the British Indian Army. The 40th Pathans, which later became part of the Pakistan Army, remained for some time the only all-Pathan regiment in British India. From 1897 to 1908, the number of Pathan servicemen in the British Indian Army arose from 2,500 to 10,500. By the time of World War I, their numbers had increased to 28,000. ==Politics==

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a Pashtun nationalist and close friend of Mahatma Gandhi who, as leader of the Congress-allied Khudai Khidmatgar, was one of the prominent members of the Indian independence movement against British rule before the partition. Zakir Husain, an Afridi Pathan, was an economist and politician who served as the third president of India from 1967 to 1969. Prior to that, he was the second vice-president of India, and also served as the governor of Bihar. His maternal grandson Salman Khurshid served as India's minister for minority affairs, law and justice, and external affairs in successive terms. ==Sport==

, while bowling in the nets. Pathans have represented the Indian national cricket team both before and after independence. They include Jahangir Khan, a Burki Pathan who played for India between 1932 and 1936, later becoming a cricket administrator in Pakistan. Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, the eighth Nawab of Pataudi, played for both England and India in the 1930s and 1940s, eventually captaining the Indian side in 1946. His son, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, also played Test cricket as a batsman for India between 1961 and 1975 and became the country's youngest captain when appointed in 1962. represented India in Test cricket in the 1960s and 1970s. Ahmed Khan became a gold medalist for India at the 1936 Summer Olympics, while his son Aslam Sher Khan was a member of the Indian squad which won the 1975 Men's Hockey World Cup. They were Pathans from Bhopal. In squash, Abdul Bari was one of India's leading players in the 1940s and represented the country at the 1950 British Open. Yusuf Khan was a ten-time all-India champion his daughters Shabana and Latasha Khan represented the US. Ghaus Mohammad was the first Indian tennis player to qualify for Wimbledon quarter-finals, in 1939. He was an Afridi Pathan from Malihabad. ==List of Notable Pathans of India==

• Madhubala; Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi, the cinema superstar of India and the rest of the world, starred in over 60 films in the span of 20 years including the epic Mughal-e-Azam, the highest-grossing film in India's History. • Amjad Khan – Indian actor known for his iconic portrayal of the character Gabbar Singh in the film "Sholay." • Zareen Khan, Indian actress who made her debut in Bollywood. She has Pashtun ancestry from her father's side. • Arbaaz Khan, Indian actor, film producer, and director. He is of Pathan descent. • Aamir Khan, Famous Bollywood actor • Salman Khan, Famous Bollywood actor • Salim Khan, renowned Film Producer, Screenwriter who revolutionised Indian Cinema • Soha Ali Khan, Actress of Pataudi Royalty • Ayaz Khan, Indian actor and model • Irfan Pathan, Indian cricketer and brother of Yusuf Pathan • Yusuf Pathan, Indian cricketer and brother of Irfan Pathan • Hamidullah Khan, Last Nawab of Bhopal state • Nawab Muhammad Amir Khan, The Founder of Tonk State in Hindustan • Ashfaqulla Khan, Indian Independence freedom fighter against the British Raj who masterminded the Kakori train robbery and was executed by the Colonial Government • Muhammad Ali Jauhar, prominent member of the Muslim League, Khilafat Movement and served as President of the Indian National Congress • Shaukat Ali, Indian Muslim Khilafat activist • Zakir Husain, Indian Educationist Politician who served as the third President as well as first Muslim Head of state of the Indian Republic • Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, Islamic scholar and poet of Barech Durrani origin from Kandahār whose forefather accompanied Nader Shah • Adnan Sami, Indian singer • Ibrahim Khan Gardi, Chief commander of artillery in service of the Maratha Confederacy in the Third Battle of Panipat • Dilip Kumar, Indian Legendary Bollywood actor from Peshawar • Murad (actor) was an Indian character actor who appeared in more than 200 Hindi language films from the early 1940s • Raza Murad India famous actor son of Murad (actor) • ==See also==