Hindki

Hindkowans

Total population
(300,000)
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Pashtu, Gojri, Hindko, Urdu, Kandhari, Sindhi
Religion
Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
other Indo-Aryan peoples

Hindki (Pashto: هندکي‎) is the name given to an ethnic group who inhabit Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. They are found all over the country. H. W. Bellew, in his Races of Afghanistan, estimated their number at about 300,000. The name Hindki is also loosely used by Pathans on the upper Indus, in Dir and Bajour, to denote the speakers of Punjabi or any of its dialects. It is sometimes applied in a historical sense to the Buddhist inhabitants of the Peshawar Valley north of the Kabul River, who were driven thence about the 5th or 6th century C.E. and settled in the neighbourhood of Kandahar.

The terms Hindki and Hindko is a term Pashtuns used to denote Indians, and Hindkowan can mean "Indian speaking" just as Farsiwan can mean "Persian speaking". In the extreme sense, Hindko can literally mean exactly mean Indian in Pashto. However, after the partition of India and Pakistan, a mew term Hazarawal is preferred, to discourage Pashtuns and others from associating Indo-Aryans from the new republic of India and instead associate them with the new nation of Pakistan.

Origins

British anthropologist Horace Arthur Rose says:

Hindki, a generic term, half contemptuous, applied to all Muhammadans who being of Hindu origin speak Hindko and have been converted to Islam in comparatively recent times. In Bannu the term usually denotes a Jat cultivator, but in a wider sense it includes all Muhammadans who talk Hindi, Panjabi or any other dialect derived from them.

See also

• Hindko language
• Hinduism in Afghanistan
• Buddhism in Afghanistan

References

• Districts of Afghanistan#Faryab Province Andkoi, the real place of Migration from Afghanistan.

External links

• Afghan Hindus and Sikhs
• Afghan Hindu Association