Font Size:     

Although, historically, the first political manifestations of Pakhtun nationalism may be traced to Bayazid Ansari’s (1525-85) Roshani movement (Gregorian, 1969 :43-45; and Misdaq, 2006: 36-39) and Khushal Khan Khattak’s (1513-89) rebellion against the Mughal rule, however, its ethno-nationalist roots are usually mapped out from the pre-partition mobilization of common Pakhtun masses by the Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of the God) movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Starting off as a social reform society, the Khudai Khidmatgars metamorphosized into first an anti-colonial nationalist movement, evolving on the eve of partition of India, into one of ethnic nationalism. The post-independence period witnessed calls for attainment of either an independent Pakhtunistan or greater autonomy for the Pakhtun regions within a federal structure of the state. The irredentist trend in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics manifested itself in the controversial Pakhtunistan issue that strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani state’s growth and rise in ethnic Pakhtun share in the civil-military bureaucracy witnessed greater integration of Pakhtuns within the polity of Pakistan and a dampening of separatist tendencies in them. Renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and extension of provincial autonomy under the 18th Amendment further boosted Pakhtun ethnic integration into the state of Pakistan. More recently, however, Pakhtun ethno-nationalist movement is believed to be assuming a distinct fervor. The rise of Taliban phenomenon in the tribal belt and settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been labeled as a violent manifestation of Pakhtun ethnonationalism manifested in an Islamist garb. The paper, besides analyzing the integrationist and the separatist (irredentist) trends in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics, also aims at exploring the more recent phenomena of its construction around the conceptual framework of ‘ethnicizing Islam’ in the Pakhtun context.