PESHAWAR, July 17: NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq on Sunday constituted a parliamentary committee of the NWFP Assembly for changing the name of the province. According to an official handout issued here on Sunday, the committee will be headed by provincial Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Malik Zafar Azam while opposition leader Shahzada Gustasip Khan, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, Syed Murid Kazim, Qurban Ali, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, Shahraz Khan, Mian Madar Shah and Naeema Kishwar would be its members.
Various names have been proposed, including Abasin, Afghania, Pakhtunkhwa, Pakhtoonistan and Khyber while some circles were supporting the present name of the province.
What is wrong with Abasin? Remmebr that Punjab, and Sindh are also named after rivers..
But I would perfer Pakhtoonistan out of the two up there, because its easier to pronounce, and anyone who cant pronounce Pashtunkhawa will probably end up calling it Pakhtoonistan anyways.
I like Afghania the best, it will represents all inhabitants of the province. Remember Afghan is not synonymous to Pashtoon anymore. Hinku speakers and others should not have trouble accepting the name Afghania.
[quote]
Various names have been proposed, including Abasin, Afghania, Pakhtunkhwa, Pakhtoonistan and Khyber while some circles were supporting the present name of the province.
[/quote]
Make Peshawar, Hazara, Mansehra, Abbotabad, Kohat, Kaghan and Attock into one seperate Hindko province even if these places exist physically in pockets, Pukhtoons/Punjabis can stay in these areas if they wish or move where they'd be happy after that they can call NWFP (or Punjab for that matter) by any name they want, we can have mass migrations, women and mix ethnicity children belong to the man and should live in his areas and speak his language. :p
Listen son don’t mistake us for the dorcile Pekhawari Hindko’s.
Afghan means Pukhtoon and Pukhtoon means Afghan, Tajiks, Azaras, Uzbeks from Afghanistan are Afghanistani only.
Maybe you guys should go back to your own country Afgahnistan (land of the afghans/pukhtoons), migrate or take your land with you, your ethnic brothers from the northern areas could do with a bit of help..
By the way, Peshawar is very Pashtunized now, All Hindku speakers now call themself Pashtoon and even speak pashto at home. They have inermarraiges with Pashtoon alot.
In Attock Pukhtoon and Hindko people marry with each other a lot too but the girl always adopts her husbands language, but there are some Hindko tribes which have the names of ancient Pukhtoon tribes (confusing).
Hindku speakers in Hazara(Most of them are ethenically Pashtoon) are the only on one who are not integrated into pashoon society fully, all other Hindku area are now Pashtoon and they take it as an insult if someone call them Hindku.
Go to Pashawar, all Hindko now speak Pashto even at their home. I did not say Hindko Speaker are sysnonamous to Pashtoon but they inegrated into Pashtoon culture. Jut like many ethenicities live in Punjab and they have adopted Punjabi language and culture and now they are called Punjabis.
The same is the case in Attock, the original Hindko speaking people who don’t belong to originally Pukhtoon tribes are usually bilingual and tend to show a preference for Pukhtu whilst the Hindko speaking people who belong to Pukhtoon tribes don’t seem to feel the need to learn Pukhto, the earlier generations were bilingual but not the younger ones, some are learning but not as desperate about it as the originally ethnic Hindko people.
Pashtoon are very hard to change, once they adopted a language or anyhing they will stick to it. Also the people of Mianwali who are ethenically Pashtoon love their adopted language.
But people from Mianwali and Attock didn’t just adopt Panjabi (Hindko/Seraiki) like that, they are obviously a mix, you look at somebody from those Panjabi speaking tribes and you can see it in the face that they look like a mix of Pukhtoon and Panjabi, I think generations ago their forefathers were Pukhtoon and hence the tribe names but their foremothers must have been Punjabi (Seraiki/Hindko) that’s why they speak the language they do, they still cal themselves Pathan/Pukhtoon/Afghan whilst being loyal to their languages because they say if your father is something then so are you, which makes sense but annoys me to no end, make your mind up ppl!!
I think the Pashtunisation of Hindko people in NWFP and the renaming of NWFP is a good thing in a way because it makes things a little clear cut, if Hindko is only left in Punjab then it can be classed as a dialect of Punjabi and Hindko speaking people living there will have a province and a larger identity to call their own, but… Who wants to be a Punjabi knowing your ancestors were something else, fair enough Punjabi people are more ‘namaki’ looking ( ) but much rather the Punjabi identity was limited to outside to pull and not extended to ones family and lifestyle… arghhh the confusion, the dillemmas…
That's good some Punjabi has supported the change of NWFP. In fact that's the spirit which is required out of our Punjabi brothers. And Babu bhai, I hope you know Bashir Belour, he is a member of the committee and he is Hindku speaking. I have seen Hindku speaking people are more proud to be Pakhtoon than Pakhto speaking Pakhtoons. Let's see what will be the outcome but overall it is good move, thank you Patroit brother, that's like a good Pakistani.
The problem is picking a name that won't offend Afghanistan. One of Greece's provinces and one of Greece's naighbouring countries both call themselves Macedonia and this has caused a severe diplomatic spat.
Whatever name is picked should be distinct from Afghanistan and yet not imply that the Pakistani province is the land for Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group.
Abasin and Kyber I like.
Just as Khyber is only one agency, remember that there is a precedent in the past for naming a province of even country after just one region in there. Whilst Hyderabad was an independent kingdom, the country took its name from one city within there.
How about we have neutral names through out the country?
Lets face it Punjab has lost its meaning of five rivers and has come to be associated with the majority ethnic group who live there and their language, as is the case with Sindh.
I think compass names for all of the provinces is a goodd idea since Pukhtoons wont feel like the odd ones out anymore, and Seraiki (in Punjab), Hindko (Punjab/NWFP/Kashmir), Pukhtoons (in Baluchistan) and Urdu (in Sindh) speaking people will stop feeling they 'don't belong', province names shouldn't be associated with ethnicicty.
) but much rather the Punjabi identity was limited to outside to pull and not extended to ones family and lifestyle… arghhh the confusion, the dillemmas…