Migration, settlements and assimilation Afghan settlements in north west frontier territory

Both Afghan and Mughal literature detail Afghan migration and settlement in India in specific times and places. A series of migrations from second half of the fifteenth century established newly dominant Afghan clans in areas which later on came to be known as North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and included areas like Peshawar valley, swat, and smaller valleys along the Indus River. From sixteenth century onwards a large number of Afghan settlements were also established in north India and a few in Deccan. In this paper, however, we will trace the process of Afghan migration from Afghanistan to North West Frontier region and their subsequent settlements there.

The term North-West Frontier region had different connotations at different stages of Indian history. Generally it was used to indicate the area which lay to the extreme north-west of the possessions of the rulers of Delhi. It was only in the twentieth century during the British rule that this territory across the Indus River was named the North-West Frontier Province. It was established in 1901¹and dissolved in 1955, after eight years as part of the independent state of Pakistan. The area became Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 1955. However, in medieval period of Indian history the north-west frontier region included the North-West Frontier Province of the twentieth century, as well as certain regions of eastern Afghanistan. As the region across the Indus was nearer to the natural boundary of the river Indus, it was politically and militarily more significant than Afghanistan. Until 1947 the province was bordered by five princely states to the north, the minor states of the Gilgit Agency to the northeast, the province of West Punjab to the east, and the province of Balochistan to the south. Afghanistan lay to the northwest, with the tribal agencies forming a buffer zone. The borderline between is officially known as the Durand Line and divides Pashtun Inhabitants of these provinces from Pashtuns in eastern Afghanistan.²