Hindkowans

Hindkowans (Urdu: ہندکوان‎, lit. "Hindko-speakers") are an Indo-Aryan linguistic-cultural group,[4][5] which is native to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pothohar Plateau (Punjab), and Azad Kashmir regions of Pakistan. Hindkowans speak various Hindko dialects of the Lahnda language family in contrast to Pashto.[4][5][6]

Hindkowans
Regions with significant populations
 Pakistan
 India[1]
 Afghanistan[2]
Languages
Hindko
Religion
Predominately: Islam (predominantly Sunni),[3] Minorities: Hinduism and Sikhism[2]
Related ethnic groups
Other Punjabi subgroups


Origin and People

The term "Hindko" has been used to mean different things. For one thing, Hindko refers to a language. It also refers to the river Indus. Yet another use of this term is found in Greek references where it refers to the mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, the "Hindu kush". The term Hindko has also been referred to as “the Indian language” and is used as a generic term applied to Indo-Aryan dialect continuum in the northwest frontier and adjacent district of Attock in the Punjab province of Pakistan to differentiate it from Pashtu. [7]

Hazara Division Hindkowans

The Hazarewal Hindkowans belong to diverse ethnic backgrounds. Almost half the Hindko speakers in Hazara Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are Pashtuns. Some of these Pashtuns speak Hindko as their mother tongue while others as a second language. Pashtuns who have adopted Hindko as their mother tongue are the Jaduns, Swatis, Tareens, Yusufzais, Utmanzais, and Tahirkhelis. The non Pashtun Hindko speakers include the Dhunds, Karlals, Tanolis, Mashwanis, Sayyids, Mughals, Turks, Awans, Qureshis, and Gujjars. [7]

Azad Kashmir Hindkowans

Hindko is the dominant language and spoken in the whole of Northern Kashmiri Neelum District as well as parts of Muzaffarabad District. [8]

Peshawar, Nowshera, Kohat Hindkowans

There are a substantial number of Hindko speakers in Peshawar, Nowshera, and Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Prior to the formation of Pakistan, these areas were dominated by Hindko speakers. Typically, Pashtu speakers were predominant in the rural areas while Hindko speakers dominated the urban areas. The majority status of the Hindkowans however, changed as a higher number of Pashtu speakers started settling in urban centers resulting in the Hindko speakers of these cities in becoming a minority. The Awans form the majority of Hindkowans in these urban centers. [7]

Attock Hindkowans

Hindkowans of District Attock, Punjab, reside in and form a majority of Attock Tehsil and Pindi Gheb Tehsil. Most of these Hindkowans are Awan, Khattar, and Muslim Rajputs with a minority of Pashtun hindkowans as well. [7][9]

Karachi Hindkowans

Though not native to Karachi, hundreds of thousands of Hindkowans, mostly from Hazara Division, reside in Karachi. Most of these Hindkowans migrated to Karachi in the early 1960s during the Ayub Khan era. However, lack of job opportunities and the 2005 Kashmir earthquake has also caused a large-scale migration from the Hazara division to Karachi. [10]

Indian Hindkowans

Sikh settlers from Punjab were settled in Hindko speaking areas by Hari Singh Nalwa during the Sikh rule whereas Hindus were settled in Hindko speaking areas by the British Raj. The popular Bollywood Kapoor family of Samundri, Punjab were settled in Peshawar by the British as government servants. Though originally Punjabis, the family later on adopted the Hindkowan-Pathan identity.[11][12] [13] Similarly, most of the other Sikh and Hindu settlers from Punjab adopted the Hindkowan identity. [14] During the partition of India, almost all of the Sikh and Hindu community migrated to India. Today in India, Hindko is little known, and while there are descendants of Hindko speakers in parts of Jammu and Kashmir as well as among other communities who migrated to India post Partition, by and large it has been absorbed under the broad umbrella of Punjabi. [1][7]

Religion

The overwhelming majority of the Hindkowans are Sunni Muslim. However, a small number of Hindu and Sikh Hindkowans also exist and are descendants of migrants to India after the partition of India in 1947. [15]

Notable Hindko-speakers

See also

References
  1. Venkatesh, Karthik (6 July 2019). "The strange and little-known case of Hindko". Mint. Retrieved 24 September 2019. In India, Hindko is little known, and while there are Hindko speakers in parts of Jammu and Kashmir as well as among other communities who migrated to India post Partition, by and large it has been absorbed under the broad umbrella of Punjabi.
  2. Venkatesh, Karthik (6 July 2019). "The strange and little-known case of Hindko". Mint. Retrieved 24 September 2019. Besides Pakistan, Hindko is also spoken in Afghanistan, where it is referred to as Hindki and largely understood to be the language of its non-Muslim population, i.e. Afghan Hindus and Sikhs.
  3. "Hindko, Southern". SIL International. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  4. West, Barbara A. (2010). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. p. 285. ISBN 9781438119137. The term Hindko as used in Pakistan refers to speakers of Indo-Aryan languages who live among the primarily Iranian Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The origins of the term refer merely to "Indian speaking" rather than to any particular ethnic group.
  5. The rise and development of Urdu and the importance of regional languages in Pakistan. Christian Study Centre. p. 38. Shackle suggests Hindko simply means "Indian language' and describes it as a "collective label for the variety of Indo-Aryan dialects either alongside or in vicinity of Pushto in the northwest of the country'. Hindko is the most significant linguistic minority in the NWFP, represented in nearly one-fifth (18.7%) of the province's total households. ... The Influence of Pushto on Hazara appears to have become more pronounced, due in part to an Influx of Pashtuns replacing the Hindko-speaking Sikhs and Hindus who formerly held key trading positions and who departed at independence.
  6. Masica, Colin P. (1993). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 9780521299442. The worst of the latter is "Hindko", a term (basically meaning 'the language of the Indians' - as contrasted with Pathans) applied not only to several forms of "Northern Lahnda" but also to the Siraiki dialects of Dera Ghazi Khan and Mianwali Districts (also called Derawali and Thali respectively), and of Dera Ismail Khan (Northwestern Frontier Province).
  7. RASHID, Haroon Ur; AKHTAR, Raja Nasim (31 December 2014). "A Phonemic and Acoustic Analysis of Hindko Oral Stops". Acta Linguistica Asiatica. 4 (1): 9–28. doi:10.4312/ala.4.1.9-28. ISSN 2232-3317.
  8. Akhtar Raja, Nasim, "Aspectual Complex Predicates in Punjabi", The Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (2003), Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-020775-0, retrieved 8 March 2020
  9. Shackle, Christopher (1980). "Hindko in Kohat and Peshawar". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 43 (3): 484–86. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00137401. ISSN 0041-977X.
  10. "Hazarawals key to scoring high in Karachi - Pakistan Today". www.pakistantoday.com.pk. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  11. Gooptu, Sharmistha (2010). "Bengali Cinema: 'An Other Nation'". Taylor & Francis. p. 124. ISBN 9780203843345.
  12. "Prithviraj Kapoor (Indian actor)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 3 October 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  13. "Bollywood's First Family". Rediff. 2 February 2006. Archived from the original on 20 February 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
  14. Dani, Ahmad Hasan (2003). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: Development in contrast : from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. UNESCO. ISBN 9789231038761.
  15. "Peshawarites still remember the Kapoor family". Daily Times. 29 December 2003.
  16. Patel, Reply to All | Aakar (25 November 2011). "Does Pakistan have a saviour in Imran Khan?". Livemint. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  17. Sardar, Ziauddin; Yassin-Kassab, Robin (2012). Pakistan?. Oxford University Press. p. 71. ISBN 9781849042239. Peshawar, the oldest living city in South Asia, has developed in four phases which correspond to the city's major settlements. The inner city -- ander shehr -- has been inhavited constantly since at least 539 BCE. People here mostly speak Hindko, which after Pashto is the region's most widely spoken language -- a language that also attests to the city's Indo-Aryan origin. Hindko-speakers from the inner city have supplied some of Bollywood's most celebrated screen talent. Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapur, Vinod Khanna; they were all born here. ... The whole Kapur family, which has a long history in Bollywood cinema, traces its origins to the inner city. Peshawar also gave India one of its greatest English language novelists in Mulk Raj Anand.
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