The British wrote their own history of Pashtuns, shaped by a white gaze that excluded indigenous and grassroots sources of knowledge vital in understanding history and self-perception. Since women were considered of no value in this discourse, they were erased and limited to the private sphere that these officials then imagined into being as an entirely oppressive space since they had no real access to it. It is no coincidence that most of the earlier work written on Pashtuns is by white colonisers, and contemporary writers have built on this misrepresentation.
Recently, in visual and written discourse alike, the Pashtun body has emerged as a racial caricature of its identity; a ludicrous distortion that depicts Pashtuns in terms of war, militancy and hypermasculinity. These orientalist representations have been lent credence by narratives conflating Taliban and Pashtun identity. These racial tropes provide a simplistic answer for a very complex problem; Pashtuns are scapegoated as a reason why militancy exists in the region as opposed to delving into a deeper analysis of state making. As a result of all of this, women are either absent in statist history and archives, or are reduced to victims of a male imposed order.
As a Pashtun woman, the most remarkable personalities I have come across or heard of have all been women. The women of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement against the British, who would organise their own rallies. The wives of male members of the movement who would be resolute when their husbands would be rotting in prison subject to the worst kind of torture, and would reportedly remind them of the dishonour it would bring if they were to renounce the movement. As Bacha Khan stated, the movement would not have been possible without the involvement and support of women in the community.
Bakhtnama Kakar who was a freedom fighter in Balochistan against the British from 1925 to 1930, and was later arrested and hanged. Halima, who was the daughter of Khushal Khan Khattak, and a poet herself. The lesser known Laleena Mahsud who refused to leave her house in Waziristan during the 2009 operation, and survived 6 years in a region torn by war and destruction. From Malala Maiwand to Wrranga Loni, there are a multitude of anecdotes central to identity making and history writing that have been missed out.
There are also many women who might not make it to history as revolutionary or political heroines, but still resist tropes of Pashtun women in their everyday lives. My grandmother who was the wittiest, strongest woman I have ever come across. She was a master of Tappay (folk poetry), and a repository of our family history; through her stories I vicariously roamed the valley of Badar. Her recent passing has left a hole in my heart.
My mother who taught me compassion and kindness, and taught me Pashtunwali not by telling me what it is, but through her actions, her strength, and her ability to forgive. She told me that if an enemy were to set foot in our home, I would have to treat them with kindness. It was only much later that I realised she taught me the concept of melmastia (hospitality), central to Pashtunwali.
My aunt who sent off her husband to do right by his people despite knowing he wouldn’t come back alive; he was killed by the Taliban in Waziristan.
All the countless women in my village in former FATA who guard their homes, who kill snakes and scorpions with their bare hands, who give birth behind closed doors because there aren’t any hospitals nearby, women who send their husbands off to faraway lands to earn a living while they hold the fort back home in a region militarised to the teeth; their resilience, bravery is far greater than that of any man I’ve come across. I wish we can rewrite the women - the unsung heroes - back into our history, and I hope we don’t silence them in the present, and I dream of a day when they are our future.