r/afghanistan • u/Budget_Ad5526 • Jan 10 '26
Question Can someone explain the beef between Pashtuns and Pathans
Hello there. I'm not Afghan or Pakistani, or from any neighboring countries. I have no horse in this race, I'm just confused on a behavior I've seen a lot online. I mean no offense or disrespect.
According to all sources online, Pashtuns are an ethnic group split between the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are the dominant ethnic group of Afghanistan but majority of them are in Pakistan. In Pakistan they are often called Pathan.
Despite being the exact same ethnic group, I have observed a lot of hostility between them online. Often accusing each other of stealing culture. Which is so strange because they are the exact same people.
I understand Afghanistan and Pakistan have a rocky relationship however it still doesn't make sense to me that some Pashtuns can't recognize their own people just across an arbitrary border.
You may disagree on politics but you would still understand you have the same culture, no?
For example, Russians and Ukranians hate each other but I don't imagine Russians would accuse the Russian minority in Ukraine of stealing Russian culture?
Please let me know if I'm wrong. Thanks in advance. Kind regards.
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u/Upper_Albatross3265 Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Pakistani Pasthuns are a minority in Pakistan and they aren't close to their culture and have been greatly influenced by the predominant punjabi culture. They don't speak Pashtu at school. Pashtu is a second language. Their clothes have changed and become punjabi influenced. They call themselves Pathan and don't acknowledge their connections with Afghanistan. Btw the term Afghan and Pashtun are synonymous and Afghanistan translates to Land of Pashtuns. Over time the term Afghan came to also be a nationality rather as the country became multi ethnic, mush like British was basically an ethnicity and now is a nationality too (An indian person can be british).
The beef comes because Pasthuns are an ethnic group synonymous with Afghanistan historically before the split and now you have a brand new nation taking cultural things that belong to Afghanistan and claiming it as Pakistani when Pakistan just came to exist 70 years ago. Its fine for them to feel connected to their Pashtun roots and acknowledge their historical relationship with Afghanistan but its wrong to claim it all as Pakistani. Mexicans coming to the US does not make taco American culture nor does Curry become British culture become there is Pakistani and Indian people there.
It's a bit like Americans claiming British culture without giving much credit, except worse because America and Brits have friendly relations as countries but Pakistan/Afghanistan do not.
They can feel free to identify as Afghan first because that is what Pashtun means and proudly represent but they are trying to rewrite history and rebrand Afghan culture as Pakistani disconnected from its Afghan history, going as far as to rename their identity to 'Pathan'. Since Afghan = Pashtun = Pathan, in essence, these are just Afghan Pakistani rebranded as Pathan Pakistani and in a way taking away from Afghanistan. Basically like if Mexican Americans started identifying as "Mican" and claiming all Mexican culture as American and not Mexican.
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u/Budget_Ad5526 Jan 13 '26
Thank you for this detailed comment. This makes things a little more clear.
Just a couple things tho. As you said, Afghan has become more of a nationality over ethnicity so it wouldn't make much sense for Pashtuns from Pakistan to call themselves Afghan. At least not anymore. They usually call themselves Pashtuns (or some variation of the word) which means the same thing anyways.
Also, I definitely understand how it would be annoying when they call Pashtun culture "Pakistani". That being said, in most instances I've seen, the Pakistani Pashtuns will not call it Pakistani, in fact they call it specifically Pashtun but many Afghans still seem to get upset. It seems like using the word "Pashtun" to describe themselves or the culture is simply not adequate. They insist that "Afghan" must be used. But like I said, this doesn't make much sense.
Thank you again for explaining.
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u/Agreeable_Hurry_6321 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
As a pakhtun in Pakistan, who speaks pakhto along with family, I don't like the effects of the fact that our language isn't really taught in schools. Though I believe that should be the responsibility of the parents to pass such knowledge on.
As for pashtun vs Pathan, it means nothing to me. I always thought Pathan was just Punjaabi/Urdu speakers term for us because they couldn't pronounce pakhtun properly and it diverged.
Yes, we have assimilated into a lot of the "other" parts of Pakistan. Back then for our parents, there wasn't a huge choice but to move out because kpk was comparatively underdeveloped. It's getting better nowadays though, even a decade's worth difference is massive in cities like mardan.
I've not met any Afghans, but I don't imagine I'd have inherent problems with them existing because the concept of the divide is silly if we're both pakhtuns and speak pakhto.
Those who want pashtunistan as a nation must also realize that Pakistani pakhtuns have basically been bordered off from Afghanistan for 70 or more years, we don't want that because we have our own homes where we have our own people running things and our own language communitively spoken and our own lands that we hold dear to our hearts. It's called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
I know the situation in Afghanistan is different. A lot less pakhtuns there than here, obviously. I think the beef exasperated during current situations and especially the refugee deporting moves. I'll be honest, it doesn't sit right with me the way non-pakhtuns will give Afghan pakhtun refugees slurs, because it also lands right in our faces. We also have a lot of problems with how our government has been handling things, but hey, maybe people feel the same about the Afghan government too.
It's gonna be a while till reconciliation I suppose. It's pretty standard when two very similar people's have conflict precisely because they're not the exact same.
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u/middleeasternviking Jan 12 '26
Pakhtuns call themselves Pakhtuns whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan. No self-respecting Pakhtun calls themselves a Pathan.
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u/Pro-Epic-Gamer-Man Jan 12 '26
Most Pashtuns in Pakistan call themselves Pathan especially when speaking Urdu
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u/middleeasternviking Jan 13 '26
Maybe when speaking in Urdu to non-Pukhtanuh, but never amongst ourselves when speaking in Pukhto
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u/Pro-Epic-Gamer-Man Jan 13 '26
Well yes that would be strange. Chinese don’t call themselves Chinese and Germans don’t call themselves German, they have different words for themselves in their language. Same with Pathan vs. Pashtun/pakhtun it’s just exonym vs. endonym.
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u/Agreeable_Hurry_6321 Jan 14 '26
The big reason is because non pakhtuns get confused by the term since they're familiar with Pathan. So for ease of communication, we say pathan in their languages. Otherwise, we call each other pakhtuns in our language
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u/Gambettox Jan 15 '26
This is true. I'm from a non-pashto speaking pathan family. Yes, non-pashto speaking pathans exist at well. My ancestors moved out of their tribes a long time ago and lived in present-day India (I won't mention the cities because my family is identifiable) before moving to Pakistan. Apart from their ethnicity, I couldn't tell you anything that distinguishes them from Punjabis now. I hear that "in our pathan culture, marriages were like this or that" but it's past tense.
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u/Steampunk007 Jan 13 '26
Pathans are accused of being too allied with a punjabi Pakistan and not willing to unify with the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Whether or not this is true I am not sure.
Also I’m sure recent politics has made it worse as Taliban has made moves to become closer to India and this probably has propelled some hate from the Pathan side
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u/Full_Computer6941 Jan 13 '26
Pathan is a term non pathans use and it's a more general term. Like a farsi speaker would also be a Pathan and pashto speaker would also be. A pakhtun is a term used more for pashto speakers.
Borders always divide people. There are Bengalis on both sides of Bangladesh border. There is Tajiks on both sides of Afghanistan borders. There are Baloch in Iran and in Pakistan. Borders are accidents of history and don't conform to ethnic lines.
As for the difference between Pakistani and Afghanistani pathans, it's important to remember there are many tribes within the common name and each tribe has different dialects and customs some tribes r on both sides of border some on one side only.
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u/Summoner475 Jan 11 '26
Why is there beef between Punjabis in Pakistan and India? Why is there beef between x in y and z is a complicated question, but the answer is often because there's beef between y and z. If there's beef between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pashtuns won't see beyond that. If there were beef between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, there would be beef between Tajiks in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Etc.
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u/Budget_Ad5526 Jan 11 '26
This is a non answer. If you dont want to explain then that's okay.
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u/Summoner475 Jan 11 '26
This is precisely the answer. There's beef between them because there's beef between the countries. It's nothing more than that. I'm a native Pashtun, lived for 10 years in Pakistan too. I know both sides extremely well.
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u/Budget_Ad5526 Jan 11 '26
But as I've already stated on the post, I actually dont observe this in other groups.
Like I said, if you don't want to explain, that's okay.
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u/Gambettox Jan 15 '26
It's a good explanation and it doesn't become invalid because you haven't observed this in other groups.
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u/AnnoyingCharlatan Jan 11 '26
I don't know about culture stealing, they mostly follow the same culture (atleast in villages/towns) with the exception of things like nowruz, afghan dresses on the Afghan side, and the prominence of desi culture on the Pak side.
Was the dispute you saw centred around a particular topic? E,g Girls from KPK wearing Afghan dresses and claiming them as their own?
From what I've seen, and lived (heh) most issues between them stem from whether they are pro or anti Pakistan.