North-West Frontier Province Pakistan: Encyclopedia II - North-West Frontier Province Pakistan - History

North-West Frontier Province Pakistan - History

Since ancient times the NWFP has been invaded by numerous groups including the Dravidians, Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Mughals, Sikhs, and the British. The original inhabitants of ancient of NWFP, and other regions of Pakistan, were the aborigine tribes speaking languages related to Munda languages. The Dravidians invaded from the Iranian plateau and settled in the Indus valley around 4000 BCE. The Dravidian culture blossomed over the centuries and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization of Pakistan around 3000 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization spanned much of what is today Pakistan, but suddenly went into decline just prior to the invasion of Indo-European tribes from Eastern Europe. A branch of these tribes called the Indo-Aryans are believed to have founded the Vedic Civilization that have existed between Sarasvati River and Ganges river around 1500 BCE and also infuenced Indus Valley Civilization. Later, these Aryan groups would become the Pakhtuns and the various Dardic peoples who currently populate the region.

The Vale of Peshawar was home to the Kingdom of Gandhara starting around the 6th century BCE and later ancient Peshawar became a capital of the Kushan Empire. The region was visited by such notable historical figures as Darius II, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Winston Churchill among others.

The region was, in ancient times, a major center of Buddhism as attested by recent archaeological and hermeneutic evidence. Buddhism remained prominent in the region until the Muslim Arabs and Turks conquered the area before the 2nd millennium CE. Over the centuries local Pakhtun and Dardic tribes were converted to Islam, while retaining some local traditions such as Pashtunwali or the Pakhtun code of honor. The NWFP became part of larger Islamic empires including the Ghaznavid Empire and the empire of Muhammad of Ghor and was nominally controlled by the Delhi Sultanate and Ilkhantate Empire of the Mongols. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia including NWFP.

The NWFP was an important borderland that was often contested by the Mughals and Safavids of Persia. During the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the NWFP required formidable military forces to control and the emergence of Pakhtun nationalism through the voice of local warrior poet Khushal Khan Khattak united some of the tribes against the various empires around the region. The area, as a predominantly Pakhtun region, merged following a loya jirga with the Durrani Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747 and remained mainly under Afghan control until the coming of the British.

A series of conflicts known as the Anglo-Afghan wars during the imperialist Great Game between Britain and Russia led to the eventual dismemberment of Afghanistan. The annexation of the region led to the demarcation of the Durand Line and administration as part of British South Asia. The Durand line is a term for the poorly marked 2,450 kilometer (1,519 mile) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. After being defeated in two wars against Afghans, the British succeeded in 1893 in imposing the Durand line, dividing Afghanistan and what was then British South Asia. Named for Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British colonial government, it was agreed upon by representatives of both governments, while the Afghan side greatly resented the border and viewed as a temporary development as opposed to a permanent settlement as the British viewed it as being. One of the two representatives of the Afghan government was the revered Ahmadi Sahibzada Abdul Latif of Khost. The border was drawn intentionally to cut through the Pakhtun tribes.

During the early 20th century the so-called Red Shirts led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan agitated through non-violence for an rights Pakhtun areas. Following independence, the NWFP voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in 1947. However, Afghanistan's loya jirga of 1949 declared the Durand Line invalid. During the 1950s, Afghanistan supported a secessionist movement in the NWFP known as the Pakhtunistan movement. The issue kept Pakistan and Afghanistan at odds for decades until the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Following the invasion over 5 million Afghan refugees poured into Pakistan, most residing in the NWFP. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the NWFP served as a major base for supplying the Mujahideen who fought the Soviets during the 1980s.

The NWFP remained heavily influenced by events in Afghanistan and the civil war led to the rise of the Taliban, which had emerged in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan as a formidable political force that nearly took-over all of Afghanistan. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NWFP became a frontline region again as part of the US-led 'war on terror'.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki