Pathans of India
[14] Pashtuns also arrived as traders, officers, administrators, diplomats, travelers, religious saints and preachers,[5] students, and as soldiers serving in the armies of India's rulers.
[11] The Pashtun homeland is located in Central Asia and the northwestern region of South Asia;[17] 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,[18] with the Durand Line acting as the border between the two countries.
[10][1][22] The term "Hindu Pathan" is used for Hindus who hailed or were born in the predominately Pashtun regions of British India (now Pakistan),[23][24] as well as those who arrived from Afghanistan.
[36] 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.
[37][38] 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.
[39] 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.
[27] The women wore a traditional hand-embroidered dress known as the kakrai kameez, similar to a firaq – the upper garment worn by Pashtun females.
In 2018, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai met members of this community and inaugurated the Sheenkhalai Art Project during the Jaipur Literature Festival.
[44] 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.
[49] The community observes Pashtun customs such as jirga for mediation on disputes, and Pashto television channels like Khyber TV are followed to keep up to date with news in the region.
[50] The rulers of the state historically shared a harmonious relationship with their Hindu and Sikh subjects, giving them protection and equal rights as minorities, which is one of the reasons why the city was mostly spared from violence during the partition.
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.
[70][71] 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.
[12] One such incarceree who was serving life imprisonment on the island, Sher Ali Afridi, became known as the assassin of Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, while the latter was visiting the settlement in 1872.
[73] 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.
[80] 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.
[81] 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.
[88] 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.
[88] Tandoori chicken was popularised in India by Kundan Lal Gujral, a Punjabi Hindu-"Pathan" chef from Peshawar who moved to Delhi in 1947 and founded the Moti Mahal Delux chain of restaurants.
[96] The Qissa Khwani Bazaar area of Peshawar is the location of the ancestral homes of the Kapoor family, Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan.
[22][107] 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.
[22] It is believed that the famous Pathan character of Sher Khan, which was scripted by Salim–Javed and portrayed by Pran in Zanjeer (1973), was based on the Mumbai mafia don Karim Lala.
[22] The song Yaari Hai Imaan Mera, Yaar Meri Zindagi ("friendship is my faith, the friend is my life") from that movie features an influence of the Pashtun instrument rubab, and is danced to by men in the attan style.
[22][120] 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.
[123] 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.
[130][128] The area forming modern-day Uttar Pradesh was among the few regions in India where Pashto literature continuously developed; Pashtun litterateurs from the Rohilla community produced works in the language up until the late 18th century.
[131] 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.
[132][133] The Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies (CPCAS) at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University offers bachelor-level degrees in Pashto.
[141][142] 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.
