PASHTUN IDENTITY: FALSIFICATIONS AND FALSEHOODS GALORE
A group of amateur and self-styled experts claims to have produced a “complete genetic profile” of the Nekpikhel clan of the Swat Yusufzai tribe. The main purpose of this “study” is to attempt to disprove the fact that the Nekpikhel is actually a composite formed in the way of a reward — by the invading Yusufzai Afghans— to some Mitravi Swati Tajiks, who betrayed the Jahangiri Sultan of Sawad (now Swat) to them and joined their camp. The Mitravis had prepared the ground for this by claiming ancient bloodline affinities with the Yusufzais, from the time they were in Sistan centuries prior to moving north and then to Swat. The aim of this study is to refute this mixing, and present the Nekpikhel — otherwise known as the royal Yusufzai clan — as being “pure”, i.e homogenous and monolithic.
Not only is the manner in which this study is compiled and presented questionable, but the agenda of these researchers is to falsify the central importance of Haplogroup Q2b in Swati genealogy and present it in a deliberate but vague and confused non-professional manner as being some external “Dardic influence”. This goes contrary to the evidence of this chromosome’s six successive and closely grouped mutations over a period of about 4600 years within the Greater Sistan historical region, beginning in 5700 BCE. They like to dismiss Swatis as Dards — but when confronted with the fact that a sizeable number of their Nekpikhel clansmen also carry Q2b, they are at a loss to answer and try to change the subject.
These researchers, if they can be called that — claim on the basis of a few tests, to have demonstrated the cohesion and homogeneity of the Yusufzais. They have not shown any documentary evidence in this regard, and when asked one of them claimed to have run a “collective test” for ten males at a cost of PKR 0.1 million. Not only is there no such thing as a “collective test” in genetics, but the cost mentioned is laughable. One wonders whom they want to fool. Such crooked platitudes, are therefore perhaps spun to impress the ignorant boors, loud mouths and low IQ types who unfortunately dominate most matters of local discourse here…but if subject to quality scrutiny and proper standards, then they wouldn’t pass the test at all.
It should be recalled that as far as the Nekpikhel clan is concerned, not only has Y-DNA testing proved their composite Yusufzai-Swati nature, but the traditions in this regard are also very strong and well-founded. In one famous instance from the 1950s, a key Nekpikhel elder named Taj Zeb in a sworn official deposition made before a state revenue functionary — claimed that he was a Mitravi Swati Tajik, and that his clan consisted of the remnants of those people.
The fact is that the Pashtun society in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan is not really Pashtun to begin with. It consists of a thin but dominant Pashtun tribal and elitist over-layer imposed upon the vast base of an ancient Indian society which now speaks Pashto, but consists mostly of lower caste merchant and artisan menial classes. Over here, ethnicity is not determined along the modern parameters of language and cultural considerations — but strictly follows the (Indian) tradition of paternal bloodline and race. Even primitive trades such as barbers, butchers, weavers, potters, washers (of clothes), blacksmiths, milkmen and cobblers are caste-bound and considered as distinct “tribal” categories unto themselves — professions almost exclusively practised by Indic peoples of lower caste status. The “religious classes” or Astanadars such as Pirs, Sahibzadas, Mians, Akhundzadas and Syeds, etc. bind together other non-Pashtun but Turco-Iranian categories of people who belong here. More often one can find “respectable” aristocratic and land-owning families among the latter category — but no Indic menial is regarded here as such. And these distinctions are indelible.
Another controversial example involving Q2b and falsifications is that of the case of the famous saint Sayed Abdul Wahab, popularly known as Akhund Panju Baba. A noted writer of Bajaur District Abul Haleem Asar Afghani (d. 1962) has attributed a Swati Arghash-Aal pedigree for him; Haleem Afghani himself claimed descent from Akhund Panju. A certified member of the Arghash-Aal clan in Mansehra has tested as being Q2b. Recently some persons from Akbarpura a village in Peshawar’s suburbs (where the saint is buried), claiming descent from Akhund Panju got tested and turned out to belong to a clade of R1a. This was picked up by a vociferous Pashtun lobby on social media — while the “descendants” in question resorted to crude and unrelenting propaganda against Swatis and Haplogroup Q2b, claiming that they and their supposed ancestor Akhund Panju were Pashtuns. It turns out that these individuals are from the family of the shrine’s caretakers. But that does not mean that they were necessarily descended from the saint himself. Such caretakers were often faithful servants tasked with sweeping and maintaining the shrine and collecting its donations. In time and after a few generations, given the nature of this society and their privileged role, they ended up in calling themselves his descendants which was the next “useful” step for them to take, and very easy to do in this social environment. The revelations of genetic testing however, will confound the lies of such individuals.
When I began my research into the ethnic nature of this society many years ago and in the process uncovered the hidden and repressed history of the Swatis — most of the “menial” or “Kasabgar” groups here at first applauded me for bulldozing the oppressive “Afghan fascism” perpetrated by the Pashtuns and their political nationalistic tendencies. However the next thing that soon happened was paradoxical and shocking to say the least: these Indian-origin Pashto speaking “menials” were in a scramble to try and claim Swati identity for themselves….as a way out of their “inferiority” impasse, something to grab onto or get a foothold in their race to better their caste status against their Pashtun rivals. Their intent is not to neutralize their oppressors, but join or replace them. I had unwittingly and in all sincerity unleashed a torrent of ruthless cunningness and intrigue. When the guardedness and careful insularity of the closely-knit Swatis with their carefully maintained records and genealogies thwarted this attempt, the next thing these menials did was to revert to their traditional practice….and they began to oppose me and my research resolutely, taking the side of their Pashtun oppressors and claiming Pashtun pedigrees and characteristics. But unfortunately they did not know that they were up against a dedicated researcher, and they themselves lacked any capacity with which they could hope to substantiate their already false grounds.
Because social mobility is a cutthroat process here, official record keeping is almost nil, and counterfeiting is the accepted norm — it is now relatively easy for a person or group of lower caste Indian origins to attempt to try and adopt a higher caste identity or different ethnic pedigree in this fast decaying and old-fashioned system which has no proper notation, regulation or oversight whatsoever.
It seems now that these so-called researchers who are towing this line of trying to prove the Nekpikhel as being “homogenous” are acting on behalf of elements from dubious backgrounds, who are trying to curry favour with their old Yusufzai overlords and clamber falsely onto their identity bandwagon — by giving a fake boost to Pashtun-Afghan identity issues.