All in a name
By Salman Rashid
The most sensible name for the land of the Pukhtuns should be Pukhtunkhwa. To say that it has secessionist undertones is senseless
It is understandable if the absurd title of Northwest Frontier Province or NWFP for the Pukhtun heartland rankles the Pukhtuns of Pakistan. This was the name coined by the British for a block of land that lay on the northwest frontier region of Punjab and documents of the early years of the Raj even referred to it as the Punjab Frontier. The acronym NWFP became fashionable in the early years of the 20th century and has since stuck fast. For years now the discussion to replace this absurd name with a more meaningful and appropriate title has been going on. Some have been suggested. Among these Pukhtunkhwa, Afghania and Khyber are the most frequently cited. So far there is no consensus, however.
Before going into the pros and cons of the names, it would be sensible to look at their origin. Devoid of any logical method of historical research, local (so-called) historians have concocted all sorts of nonsense for the name Afghan or Pukhtun. They derive the one from a man called Afghana, conversely they tell of Pathan being the Hebrew word for rudder. That is simply uninformed drivel. Afghan will be dealt with later, but the word Pathan is not the Pukhtuns’ name for themselves: it was a mispronunciation of Pukhtun on the lips of the Turks which they carried to the rest of the subcontinent.
The word Pukhtun as a collective tribal name for the people of what is now NWFP (parts of Afghanistan also) as well as of their country was first recorded in the 5th century BC by Herodotus of Halicarnassus in his Histories. Of course Herodotus Hellenised the word and pronounced it Paktyike, but even in this rendering it is difficult not to spot the word Pukhtun. Herodotus tells us that people lived “northward of the other Indians” and that their mode of life resembled that of the Bactrians.
The word Pukhtun has thus been in use for two and a half millenniums – very likely much longer. As for the word Afghan, it comes from the Sanskrit word Ashvaka where ashva stands for horse. Now ashva of the Sanskrit transforms into asp in the Persian in which language these people were called Aspagan. One has to be completely tone-deaf not to see the transformation of Aspagan to Afghan through usage. From the chronicles of Alexander the Macedonian we hear of two tribes called Assakenoi and Aspasioi that he fought with and defeated in the region of the Katgala Pass between Swat and Dir. Assakenoi is a straightforward Hellenised version of Ashvaka (Assaka in the vernacular) while Aspasioi is what the word Aspzai – Tribe of the Horse, became on Macedonian tongues. Consequently this name that classified the Pukhtuns as horsemen too has been in use from Classical times.
Pukhtun in the northern and Pushtun in the southern dialect was therefore a generic term for the people who spoke the Pukhtu or Pushto language and whose heartland spread from Dir in the north right down south to Quetta in Balochistan. To the east they were confined by the Indus and to the west by the wind-scoured extension of the Hindu Kush Mountains in central Afghanistan. Among these people was one tribe – the Aspzai – of excellent horsemen who were known for breeding and trading in the finest horses. The mind does not have to be taxed hard to see the modern, duly Islamised tribal name of Yusufzai as coming from the ancient Aspasioi or Aspzai.
But there were others as well. Herodotus and Strabo tell us of two more tribal names among the Paktyike. The one called Aparytai and the other Sattagadae. We are told that Sattagadae is the Greek pronunciation of Shattak – the southern pronunciation of Khattak. Aparytai, on the other hand, went into Greek mouths remarkably unchanged: ask any unlettered Afridi from Tirah and he will tell you he is an Apridai. But all of them, Yusufzai, Afridi, Khattak, Mohmand, Mahsud or Wazir belong to the race called Pukhtun for the last few thousand years.
Good sense therefore dictates that the most sensible name for the land of the Pukhtuns should be Pukhtunkhwa. But it is said such a name will inevitably lead to secession. Nothing could be more facile and senseless. The Bengalis were called East Pakistanis yet they broke away because the seeds of sedition are not nurtured in names. If NWFP were to be called Pukhtunkhwa tomorrow the Pukhtuns will continue to be as good (or bad, if you please) Pakistanis as they are right now. Their love for Pakistan cannot diminish by the mere act of their province being given a name that has an identity. If anything, they will be better Pakistanis.
If, however, secessionist notions are feared, then Afghania, the other suggested title for NWFP is even more dangerous. It links our Pukhtunkhwa with Afghanistan that was our bugbear until the reign of Zahir Shah. And since this name comes from the horse riders of ancient times, who can be certain when the, say, Mahsuds or Afridis up and start clamouring for a province of their own. Their contention surely will be that if the Yusufzais can have the whole province named after them why should they be deprived.
As for the name Khyber, that should be the last choice. Compared to the other two names it is recent for we first hear of it in the Middle Ages and if anything it will be as silly as the current title: from living in a land called Northwest Frontier Province the Pukhtuns will move to a land called Khyber. Will they then be called Khyberites? If the Baloch can have Balochistan why not Pukhtunkhwa for the Pukhtuns? This is the logical choice of title for the land of the Pukhtuns. I say let it be called by that name. And now.