What do you think about maharaja Ranjit Singh ji ?

[Wahe Guru]

.......And if your talking about the conquest of Ranjit Singh - the Sikhs alone or the British, French, Italian etc even american leaders and also many Muslims (which was the force of Ranjit Singh at the time) could not defeat or invade the Pashtuns neither could the British alone without help the only option to invade the Pashuns was to stick together. kinda like the situation the past 10 years against the Pashtun in which 42 joint countries are doing the same thing and once again not able to.

Imagine if the Russians had invaded when Stalin was the boss and he decided to round up all Pashtuns and take them to freeze in a vast camp in Siberia. What would Pashtuns have done? Be thankful the 42 countries invaded in 20xx instead of 193x. If some Pashtuns had not allowed people like Bin Laden to roam around in their land and cause terror in different places then the 42 countries (really just USA and UK) would not have come to Afghanistan. It does not help that Pakistan wants to make Afghanistan into their colony.

[Manzareh]

Imagine if the Russians had invaded when Stalin was the boss and he decided to round up all Pashtuns and take them to freeze in a vast camp in Siberia. What would Pashtuns have done? Be thankful the 42 countries invaded in 20xx instead of 193x. If some Pashtuns had not allowed people like Bin Laden to roam around in their land and cause terror in different places then the 42 countries (really just USA and UK) would not have come to Afghanistan. It does not help that Pakistan wants to make Afghanistan into their colony.

What would we have done?? We would fight Stalin and defend our lands just as we have done against Alexander and Gengis. Even if it was in 1930's and Stalin etc whatever it makes no difference, my ancestors would not fear a camp or whoever the world see's as a boss, only fear is of Allah - infact Pashtuns were more fearless and courageous back then, history shows the Pashtuns have defeated enemies which were deemed impossible to even fight let alone defeat.

Just like how when Guru Nanak was spreading Sikhi around, the Sikhs were massacred which forced them to become militarized - the Pashtun has also been forced to become militarized, however the difference with the Pashtun is its culture has been militarized for thousands of years were as with Sikhs its only been a couple of hundred years.

Pashtuns had not allowed people like Bin Laden to roam around in their land and cause terror in different places then the 42 countries (really just USA and UK) would not have come to Afghanistan.

In our culture people that flee, ask for help or seek refuge are always protected, Its against our code of conduct to dismiss someone without having a fair trial, a chance is always given for them to sell there side of the story - in OBL's case his excuse was to do with protecting Muslims from the invading west and Islam, something which is a delicate subject.

Its not just OBL Afghans have also protected fugitives in the past despite doing so would seem as a death wish and detrimental - despite this our Pashtunwali regarding 'Melmastia' and 'Nanawati' has still never been shaken.

[Wahe Guru]

What would we have done?? We would fight Stalin and defend our lands just as we have done against Alexander and Gengis. Even if it was in 1930's and Stalin etc whatever it makes no difference, my ancestors would not fear a camp or whoever the world see's as a boss, only fear is of Allah - infact Pashtuns were more fearless and courageous back then, history shows the Pashtuns have defeated enemies which were deemed impossible to even fight let alone defeat.

Just like how when Guru Nanak was spreading Sikhi around, the Sikhs were massacred which forced them to become militarized - the Pashtun has also been forced to become militarized, however the difference with the Pashtun is its culture has been militarized for thousands of years were as with Sikhs its only been a couple of hundred years.



In our culture people that flee, ask for help or seek refuge are always protected, Its against our code of conduct to dismiss someone without having a fair trial, a chance is always given for them to sell there side of the story - in OBL's case his excuse was to do with protecting Muslims from the invading west and Islam, something which is a delicate subject.

Its not just OBL Afghans have also protected fugitives in the past despite doing so would seem as a death wish and detrimental - despite this our Pashtunwali regarding 'Melmastia' and 'Nanawati' has still never been shaken.

That is true, Sikhs were only peaceful people worshiping and singing hymns to God until they started getting massacred and suppressed at which point the Gurus (spiritual leaders) decided enough is enough...I would also like to inform that the Sikh Gurus had many Pashtun friends and supporters who helped the Gurus during difficult times.

Please note that it is wrong to think that when India was ruled by foreigners or invaded by foreigners, no Indians or Punjabis were fighting back or resisting..As an example Jat and Rajput tribes were always fighting for control whenever they could. It was Jat and Med tribes who fought Bin Qasim in Sindh and earlier they had been the ruling "royal" tribes in Sindh until a Brahmin cunningly managed to get control. Later Sher Shah Suri planned to settle many Pashtuns in north Punjab because Rajput tribes were a threat to his rule there. Similarly when the Moghul empire began to disintegrate many areas were taken over by Jat rulers in Punjab and north India - because they were always there fighting back whenever they could. All that before the Sikhs became a force.

Sikhs were fighting only a couple of hundred years obviously but the tribes that became Sikhs had been fighting all along. Sikhs were a very strong force as they were warriors of religion, but they were not trying to impose their religion on others.

If OBL wanted to protect Muslims he should have gone and fought Israel first. You cannot protect Muslims by demolishing World Trade Centre. If you recall OBL initially denied Al-Qaeda was involved in 9/11 but then began to boast of it. So he lied to begin with.

[Wahe Guru]

What rubbish is this! The British didnt want to take control of Afghanistan????, do your research - they exhausted all there efforts in 3 separate wars to take Afghanistan,

in the 1830's the British were established in Peshawar, they pushed Ranjit to the side and made it part of their game. they tried taking Pashtun lands what did this result in?? it resulted in the entire force being massacred by the Pashtuns in FATA, i dont see how that would make them comfortable or "..fine to keep over half the Pashtuns on their side of the line" as you put it. to regain there dignity after they were defeated they retreated and the next thing they done instead was conquer the Sikh kingdom in Punjab!!


And if your talking about the conquest of Ranjit Singh - the Sikhs alone or the British, French, Italian etc even american leaders and also many Muslims (which was the force of Ranjit Singh at the time) could not defeat or invade the Pashtuns neither could the British alone without help the only option to invade the Pashuns was to stick together. kinda like the situation the past 10 years against the Pashtun in which 42 joint countries are doing the same thing and once again not able to.

The British defeated the Sikhs in two short wars. The first war was not a complete victory for the British. The bad thing was that the Hindu Dogra commanders had been bribed by the British (who promised to give them Kashmir to rule as independent rulers) and those guys gave all the battle plans in advance to the British. This is documented by Muslim historians in Punjab - that the Sikhs army fought leaderless and lost due to treachery of the commanders. Though I believe in the end the British would most probably have won anyway.

Now you tell me something. The British later just drew that Durand line on the map and divided Pashtun land into two. No great battles or wars were fought. Is that not correct?

I am not trying to downgrade Pashtuns or upgrade Sikhs. I am just saying that there are few people who cannot be defeated sometime or other.

So let us be thankful that US does not have a leader like Hitler...Please let OBL and Arabs fight Israel, you guys protect yourself from Kayani's Pakistani Army as they think they are your bosses now.

[Wahe Guru]

Hey facts are uncomfortable. The Sikh religion is thoroughly influenced by Islam, their first Guru even went to Hajj. The culture of the Sikhs is defined by their resistence to Mughal/Afghan oppression. Any Sikh will accept this as truth,

There is truth (it seems to me) in what you say, oppression led to resistance and then lead to taking control from the oppressors. Sikhs were influenced by Islamic teachings but from Indian Islamic saints.

[az4er]

There is no doubt that ranjit sing was one of the brightest rulers of his time; the contributions he made in uniting poonjabis of different religious backgrounds is largely undermined, primarily by british writers of the time who portray him as somewhat despotic. It is, as one would expect, propaganda, used as a tool to create friction among the different religious groups (and try to psychologically undermine others into submission). That was, of course, one of the things they were best at.

Having grown up under Afghan rule, he understood well their limitations and shortcomings, specifically, their tendency to go to war with one another at the drop of a hat. One of the best decisions he made was appointing nalwa-who was proficient in Pashto-as his right hand man.

After Ahmad Shah Durrani, the throne was handled by Timur Shah, who was reluctantly accepted as the de facto ruler. Members of his own tribe, including his family, saw him as an incapable and weak ruler. This was illustrated by how quickly he waltzed out of the poonjab when the marthas invaded. He would have left Pakhtunkhwa as well had the Yusufzai, Jadoon and Tareen not taken it upon themselves to wipe out expeditionary hindoo forces east of Attock (3rd battle of panipat took place afterwards). As monarch, he spent most of his time exiling and killing his relatives, including those from the rival Barakzai faction.

When Zaman Shah (he installed ranjit singh as governor of lahor) came into power by defeating his 22 other brothers, he spent most of his time trying to-unsuccessfully-imitate his grandfather in achieving an armistice between the many tribes. The british, who saw another Afghan invasion as the greatest threat to their all but imminent take-over of hindostan, somehow got Mahmud Shah to coax the Persians into invading Herat. It ended badly for Mahmud Shah who subsequently struck up an alliance with the popular Barakzai chief Fateh Khan, who wanted revenge against Zaman Shah for assassinating his even more powerful father, Paindah Khan Barakzai (paranoia). Mahmud Shah would, of course, be usurped by Zaman Shah's full brother Shuja Shah, who lost the throne after Fateh Khan who had pledged loyalty to Mahmud Shah, freed him from the Bala Hissar Fort in Peshawar.

Shuja tried to escape to india, but was captured by the governor of Attock, Jahndad Khan Bamizai, who handed him to his brother Atta Mohammad Khan, who refused to extradite Shuja. Mahmud Shah sent Fateh Khan to bring him back to Kabul and to bring whatever was in the Kashmiri treasury back to Kabul. Fearing his forces would be too fatigued to fight-since the route to Kashmir was tougher and more hostile west of the Indus-Fateh Khan acquired sikh assistance (the deal was that the sikhs get 1/3rd of what was in the Kashmir treasury), east of the Indus to help capture Shuja. Atta Khan surrendered without a fight, which ultimately led Fateh Khan to renege on the agreement that had been made prior to the "invasion" of Kashmir.

Annoyed by this, ranjit singh, offered jahndad khan the opportunity for revenge if he'd agreed to accept his rule over Attock. jahndad agreed. Upon learning this, Fateh Khan immediately set out towards Attock and squared off against a larger and much better equipped opposition.

Fateh Khan was close to winning a decisive victory until he and his force were hastily called from the front-lines by Mahmud Shah to deal with the Persians (again), even though more than twice as many sikhs had been killed in comparison to his own losses, he left Attock and then Kashmir (post death, thick of civil war) to the sikhs. Shuja Shah, fearing he'd be killed in Kabul left with the sikhs towards ludhiana.

Dost Mohammad Barakzai, Fateh Khan's brother, was also part of the army which defeated the Persians, and was accused of harassing one of the wives of the governor of Herat, who happened to be the daughter of Mahmud Shah.

Mahmud Shah's son, Kamran Khan, had already harbored a great deal of animosity towards Fateh Khan for discarding him as a protégé (and was also responsible for his father's constant paranoia), overstepped his authority and ordered (with or without his father's consent, dunno? Different books say different things) to have him blinded, when Fateh Khan was subpoenaed to testify on his brother's behalf. He was brutally killed just before the Barakzai invaded Kabul for refusing to get his brothers to stop. This ultimately led to the loss of Multan, where Muzaffar Khan, had on 4 different occasions defeated the sikhs, but after witnessing the events that transpired in Attock and Kashmir; and since there was no hope of receiving any back-up, decided to give in.

During this time, many key tribes, including the Yusufazai, Khattak, Masood, Wazir, Ghilzai,etc had grown weary of the monarchy and had withdrawn their support, instead choosing to remain independent (What happened at Kashmir, Attock and Multan didn't help). The british saw this as the perfect time to launch an invasion of Afghanistan (they used the sikhs). The empire was weak, wrought with civil war, disunited along tribal lines. They already had the insider knowledge they needed in the form of the exiled and an increasingly bitter Shuja Shah, who'd struck a deal for the throne with the sikhs and the british. He was to cede Peshawar to the sikhs, and the british were allowed to establish large garrisons and cantonments (basically colonize).

After the fiasco at Attock and subsequently Multan, the sikhs struck key deals with different tribes allied with or at least sympathetic to Shuja and set up posts in Peshawar, Nowshera and Mardan. When the Durrani chiefs of Peshawar sent word to Kabul for assistance, Azam Khan and Sangin Khan invaded Peshawar, killed and drove out many sikhs. They (sikhs) regrouped at Nowshera with a large contingent under Jean-Baptiste Ventura and Jean-François Allard. Azam Khan called on Pir Ahmad-Shah Khan of Buner, who rallied an ill equipped force of irregulars and held off the sikhs and some of their fellow Afghans at Nowshera, however, Azam Khan failed to back them up. This would be the first real loss the Afghans experienced on their territory and it would be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

The Khattak, Yusufzai, Afridi, Jadoon and Tareen had, now, officially parted ways with the Durrani, and agreed to allow the sikh’s safe passage to Kabul and a standing force in Peshawar, as long as they didn’t interfere with their affairs. For nalwa and his army, this was more than enough. They immediately set off for Peshawar and then later, Jamrud.

By this time Dost Mohammad Khan was proclaimed Amir in Kabul. He’d set out establishing control over and pacifying dissidents, primarily those from the Sadozai clan and the Persians in Herat (again, british). Dost Mohammad Khan's reign was mostly spent dealing with the Russians and the British from trying to overthrow his empire and use Greater Afghanistan as a vassal state for their nefarious expansionist designs each may have; a period better known as "The Great Game".

He’d sent his sons Afzal, Ajmal and Akbar Khan to recapture the lost territories of Peshawar, Nowshera, Bannu, Hazara, Kashmir, Derajat, Attock and Multan, but having lost the support of a great deal of tribes, they were on their own. They dealt serious and heavy casualties to the sikhs, including killing nalwa. By now, 1837, Peshawar was virtually under British control, with company officials moving in Peshawar as early as 1834, under the governorship of ex-mercenary Paolo Avitable. Before Akbar Khan could launch another, more decisive endeavor, he was held back by his father (and later, the british invasion and then his own death) who instead sought british advice, by writing a letter to the indian viceroy Auckland, on whether he should invade the poonjab or not.

Ranjit was smart in that he never meddled with Pashtun affairs (something many English writers get wrong) because he knew it ultimately wouldn’t turn out well. He let the people go about their own business. While Auckland, seeing the letter as an opening, lied to Dost Mohammad Khan by telling him that it wasn't policy to interfere in the affairs of independent states, and immediately launched an invasion against Afghanistan.

Dost Mohammad Khan was finally overthrown in 1839, same year ranjit singh died. Shuja Shah, after 30 years of absence, was finally back on the thrown. Instead of administrating, he went about meting revenge against everyone he perceived as having betrayed him. This resulted in Shuja, Burnes’s and McNaughten’s murder, and the first Anglo-Afghan War. Akbar Khan mysteriously died after his father took the throne a second time and oddly enough when he’d received key endorsements from the Utmanzai Wazir, Kukikhel Afridi and Masood tribes. The rest is pretty much straight forward (unless anyone wants me to go through that as well?)

The british had by now begun establishing regiments in the Pakhtunkhwa, by arming rival tribes to the bone and setting them loose on one another in Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and FATA. They spent a great deal of money and lives in trying to take control of Afghanistan, and managed to succeed marginally (no pun intended!) by drawing an imaginary line, manipulating the populace, planting agents (Qayyum Khan) and leaving behind successor states that needn’t exist in the first place.

So to sum it up, NO, Ranjit Singh was not in any way responsible or played a role in the division of the Pashtuns or the creation of pakistan, and suggesting anything along those lines is nothing short of rubbish. It’s the kind of nonsense regurgitated by many english, pakistani and indian authors meant to denigrate the Pashtuns and/or to self-aggrandize fallacious exploits. Singh’s military exploits against the Pashtuns are extremely over-exaggerated. His authority in Peshawar was aided by the british and executed through proxies who enjoyed no such privilege over territories outside the Peshawar Valley, as was illustrated by the massacres in Mattani and Bajaur. Other places where there were/are sikhs, were granted Nanawatai, e.g. Tirah, Bannu, Swat,etc. These divisions, as mentioned earlier, began as a result of inter-Sadozai fighting which caused a large scale domino effect and brought about increased tensions amongst the entire Pashtun confederacy. When the Barakzai lost the support of the Yusufzai and Khattak, larger Afghanistan, as it was had effectively splintered. No one, not even the british could have faced off against a united Afghanistan, regardless of whatever kind of weaponry they wielded.

Fact is, no matter how hard you try, you can never force a Pashtun to do anything he doesn’t want. Think of the Pashtuns in pakistan as a result of sibling rivalry. They would’ve gotten over it long ago, had the british (the pakistani, the soviet and the american gov’ts) not managed to prolong it. After all, blood is thicker than water.

[Soldat_Amir]

Child, are you trying to argue that the British Rajs borders with Afghans had nothing to do at all with Ranjit Singhs conquests before then? Is this your argument child?

Lol @ the British never took over FATA. No, they appointed Agents, bombed their villages, organized tribal paramilitaries who pledged allegiance to them, etc but never took over FATA.

Ranjit Singh is one of Pakistans founding fathers. The very reason a Pakistani Pakhtun exists today is because Ranjt Singh

I do agree with you the British took control over FATA very easily even to this day they have the same British Political Agents and the same FCR being applied on them but with Muslim names.

The British never fought the Pashtun in the tribal belt they just rented him.

People need to get this idea of Pashtun unity in those times out of their heads the minute Pakistan was made every Pashtun in Waziristan especially betrayed Faqir ipis calls for a Pashtunistan with Afghanistan and they were bribed and accepted Jinnahs calls for a Pakistan.

They left Faqir ipi, the man who freed them of the British, and even rejected his opposition towards sending Wazirs to Kashmir to fight for the Pakistani army, and the most funny and typical aspect to that conflict in Kashmir was, that these same Kashmiris whom the Tribals gave their lives to protect, were mocked and called Rapists and looters, and to this day, Pashtuns are hated by people in Kashmir, ask me, I knew a Pashtun guy who was dating a Mir Puri girl, they both had to leave the area and this was in the UK because the girls family did not like Pashtuns.

Do not take our history too much into excitement, we may have fought a lot of battles and won at times but we were still slaves to these same powers to oppress us now.

[Soldat_Amir]

There is no doubt that ranjit sing was one of the brightest rulers of his time; the contributions he made in uniting poonjabis of different religious backgrounds is largely undermined, primarily by british writers of the time who portray him as somewhat despotic. It is, as one would expect, propaganda, used as a tool to create friction among the different religious groups (and try to psychologically undermine others into submission). That was, of course, one of the things they were best at.

Having grown up under Afghan rule, he understood well their limitations and shortcomings, specifically, their tendency to go to war with one another at the drop of a hat. One of the best decisions he made was appointing nalwa-who was proficient in Pashto-as his right hand man.

After Ahmad Shah Durrani, the throne was handled by Timur Shah, who was reluctantly accepted as the de facto ruler. Members of his own tribe, including his family, saw him as an incapable and weak ruler. This was illustrated by how quickly he waltzed out of the poonjab when the marthas invaded. He would have left Pakhtunkhwa as well had the Yusufzai, Jadoon and Tareen not taken it upon themselves to wipe out expeditionary hindoo forces east of Attock (3rd battle of panipat took place afterwards). As monarch, he spent most of his time exiling and killing his relatives, including those from the rival Barakzai faction.

When Zaman Shah (he installed ranjit singh as governor of lahor) came into power by defeating his 22 other brothers, he spent most of his time trying to-unsuccessfully-imitate his grandfather in achieving an armistice between the many tribes. The british, who saw another Afghan invasion as the greatest threat to their all but imminent take-over of hindostan, somehow got Mahmud Shah to coax the Persians into invading Herat. It ended badly for Mahmud Shah who subsequently struck up an alliance with the popular Barakzai chief Fateh Khan, who wanted revenge against Zaman Shah for assassinating his even more powerful father, Paindah Khan Barakzai (paranoia). Mahmud Shah would, of course, be usurped by Zaman Shah's full brother Shuja Shah, who lost the throne after Fateh Khan who had pledged loyalty to Mahmud Shah, freed him from the Bala Hissar Fort in Peshawar.

Shuja tried to escape to india, but was captured by the governor of Attock, Jahndad Khan Bamizai, who handed him to his brother Atta Mohammad Khan, who refused to extradite Shuja. Mahmud Shah sent Fateh Khan to bring him back to Kabul and to bring whatever was in the Kashmiri treasury back to Kabul. Fearing his forces would be too fatigued to fight-since the route to Kashmir was tougher and more hostile west of the Indus-Fateh Khan acquired sikh assistance (the deal was that the sikhs get 1/3rd of what was in the Kashmir treasury), east of the Indus to help capture Shuja. Atta Khan surrendered without a fight, which ultimately led Fateh Khan to renege on the agreement that had been made prior to the "invasion" of Kashmir.

Annoyed by this, ranjit singh, offered jahndad khan the opportunity for revenge if he'd agreed to accept his rule over Attock. jahndad agreed. Upon learning this, Fateh Khan immediately set out towards Attock and squared off against a larger and much better equipped opposition.

Fateh Khan was close to winning a decisive victory until he and his force were hastily called from the front-lines by Mahmud Shah to deal with the Persians (again), even though more than twice as many sikhs had been killed in comparison to his own losses, he left Attock and then Kashmir (post death, thick of civil war) to the sikhs. Shuja Shah, fearing he'd be killed in Kabul left with the sikhs towards ludhiana.

Dost Mohammad Barakzai, Fateh Khan's brother, was also part of the army which defeated the Persians, and was accused of harassing one of the wives of the governor of Herat, who happened to be the daughter of Mahmud Shah.

Mahmud Shah's son, Kamran Khan, had already harbored a great deal of animosity towards Fateh Khan for discarding him as a protégé (and was also responsible for his father's constant paranoia), overstepped his authority and ordered (with or without his father's consent, dunno? Different books say different things) to have him blinded, when Fateh Khan was subpoenaed to testify on his brother's behalf. He was brutally killed just before the Barakzai invaded Kabul for refusing to get his brothers to stop. This ultimately led to the loss of Multan, where Muzaffar Khan, had on 4 different occasions defeated the sikhs, but after witnessing the events that transpired in Attock and Kashmir; and since there was no hope of receiving any back-up, decided to give in.

During this time, many key tribes, including the Yusufazai, Khattak, Masood, Wazir, Ghilzai,etc had grown weary of the monarchy and had withdrawn their support, instead choosing to remain independent (What happened at Kashmir, Attock and Multan didn't help). The british saw this as the perfect time to launch an invasion of Afghanistan (they used the sikhs). The empire was weak, wrought with civil war, disunited along tribal lines. They already had the insider knowledge they needed in the form of the exiled and an increasingly bitter Shuja Shah, who'd struck a deal for the throne with the sikhs and the british. He was to cede Peshawar to the sikhs, and the british were allowed to establish large garrisons and cantonments (basically colonize).

After the fiasco at Attock and subsequently Multan, the sikhs struck key deals with different tribes allied with or at least sympathetic to Shuja and set up posts in Peshawar, Nowshera and Mardan. When the Durrani chiefs of Peshawar sent word to Kabul for assistance, Azam Khan and Sangin Khan invaded Peshawar, killed and drove out many sikhs. They (sikhs) regrouped at Nowshera with a large contingent under Jean-Baptiste Ventura and Jean-François Allard. Azam Khan called on Pir Ahmad-Shah Khan of Buner, who rallied an ill equipped force of irregulars and held off the sikhs and some of their fellow Afghans at Nowshera, however, Azam Khan failed to back them up. This would be the first real loss the Afghans experienced on their territory and it would be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

The Khattak, Yusufzai, Afridi, Jadoon and Tareen had, now, officially parted ways with the Durrani, and agreed to allow the sikh’s safe passage to Kabul and a standing force in Peshawar, as long as they didn’t interfere with their affairs. For nalwa and his army, this was more than enough. They immediately set off for Peshawar and then later, Jamrud.

By this time Dost Mohammad Khan was proclaimed Amir in Kabul. He’d set out establishing control over and pacifying dissidents, primarily those from the Sadozai clan and the Persians in Herat (again, british). Dost Mohammad Khan's reign was mostly spent dealing with the Russians and the British from trying to overthrow his empire and use Greater Afghanistan as a vassal state for their nefarious expansionist designs each may have; a period better known as "The Great Game".

He’d sent his sons Afzal, Ajmal and Akbar Khan to recapture the lost territories of Peshawar, Nowshera, Bannu, Hazara, Kashmir, Derajat, Attock and Multan, but having lost the support of a great deal of tribes, they were on their own. They dealt serious and heavy casualties to the sikhs, including killing nalwa. By now, 1837, Peshawar was virtually under British control, with company officials moving in Peshawar as early as 1834, under the governorship of ex-mercenary Paolo Avitable. Before Akbar Khan could launch another, more decisive endeavor, he was held back by his father (and later, the british invasion and then his own death) who instead sought british advice, by writing a letter to the indian viceroy Auckland, on whether he should invade the poonjab or not.

Ranjit was smart in that he never meddled with Pashtun affairs (something many English writers get wrong) because he knew it ultimately wouldn’t turn out well. He let the people go about their own business. While Auckland, seeing the letter as an opening, lied to Dost Mohammad Khan by telling him that it wasn't policy to interfere in the affairs of independent states, and immediately launched an invasion against Afghanistan.

Dost Mohammad Khan was finally overthrown in 1839, same year ranjit singh died. Shuja Shah, after 30 years of absence, was finally back on the thrown. Instead of administrating, he went about meting revenge against everyone he perceived as having betrayed him. This resulted in Shuja, Burnes’s and McNaughten’s murder, and the first Anglo-Afghan War. Akbar Khan mysteriously died after his father took the throne a second time and oddly enough when he’d received key endorsements from the Utmanzai Wazir, Kukikhel Afridi and Masood tribes. The rest is pretty much straight forward (unless anyone wants me to go through that as well?)

The british had by now begun establishing regiments in the Pakhtunkhwa, by arming rival tribes to the bone and setting them loose on one another in Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and FATA. They spent a great deal of money and lives in trying to take control of Afghanistan, and managed to succeed marginally (no pun intended!) by drawing an imaginary line, manipulating the populace, planting agents (Qayyum Khan) and leaving behind successor states that needn’t exist in the first place.

So to sum it up, NO, Ranjit Singh was not in any way responsible or played a role in the division of the Pashtuns or the creation of pakistan, and suggesting anything along those lines is nothing short of rubbish. It’s the kind of nonsense regurgitated by many english, pakistani and indian authors meant to denigrate the Pashtuns and/or to self-aggrandize fallacious exploits. Singh’s military exploits against the Pashtuns are extremely over-exaggerated. His authority in Peshawar was aided by the british and executed through proxies who enjoyed no such privilege over territories outside the Peshawar Valley, as was illustrated by the massacres in Mattani and Bajaur. Other places where there were/are sikhs, were granted Nanawatai, e.g. Tirah, Bannu, Swat,etc. These divisions, as mentioned earlier, began as a result of inter-Sadozai fighting which caused a large scale domino effect and brought about increased tensions amongst the entire Pashtun confederacy. When the Barakzai lost the support of the Yusufzai and Khattak, larger Afghanistan, as it was had effectively splintered. No one, not even the british could have faced off against a united Afghanistan, regardless of whatever kind of weaponry they wielded.

Fact is, no matter how hard you try, you can never force a Pashtun to do anything he doesn’t want. Think of the Pashtuns in pakistan as a result of sibling rivalry. They would’ve gotten over it long ago, had the british (the pakistani, the soviet and the american gov’ts) not managed to prolong it. After all, blood is thicker than water.

Blood is thicker than water...do us a favor boy, go read on Pashtun Tribalism......every power bought Pashtuns for a few rupees even to this day a Pashtun will kill his own Pashtun for a 1000 rupees.

Look at the crime, the smuggling, drug market, religous fundamentalism, the Pashtun region is truely a crime infested crap hole, yeah they wont listen to anyone even those who speak sense and have good intentions, they will remain the backward tribalists who roam around in gangs of 20 in pick up trucks shooting other family members

[az4er]

Blood is thicker than water...do us a favor boy, go read on Pashtun Tribalism......every power bought Pashtuns for a few rupees even to this day a Pashtun will kill his own Pashtun for a 1000 rupees.

Look at the crime, the smuggling, drug market, religous fundamentalism, the Pashtun region is truely a crime infested crap hole, yeah they wont listen to anyone even those who speak sense and have good intentions, they will remain the backward tribalists who roam around in gangs of 20 in pick up trucks shooting other family members

I'm sorry, BOY, do I know you? And why did you bother to address me with such a rhetorically redundant statement? What point do you wish to prove? Or better yet, why do you bother being on this forum anyway? You don't contribute positively or argue properly? And you're always speaking and wishing ill on the people whose best interests you claim to have?

And are the Russians, Germans, Chechens, British, Americans, Chinese or whatever you're so enamored by any better than the Pashtuns? What do you suppose was the Holocaust? Or the tens of millions killed under the Soviet Union? The 50 million killed by Mao? The Native American genocide? The daily murder of new born baby girls in India? The Armenian genocide by the Turks? You seem to be under the impression that barbarism is native only to Pashtuns or Muslims in general?

Also, more than "tribalism", the Pashtuns have been mostly the victims of circumstance, primarily because of the key geographic region they inhabit. I've seen and studied enough to come to that conclusion, whereas you on the other haven't matured anywhere near enough to come to any conclusion, which is clearly illustrated by your fascination with Communism; a phase most people grow out of in high school. And no, do us all a favor and go see a good psychiatrist and quit being belligerent.

O ka khwahish dhe ma tsara thalokath wran nakai no bya lag dha tsarithob thalafuz hezda ka o khabara pa zai prezdha. You have enough people who want you booted off this forum as it is. Don't add to it.

There is a lot that is bad in the region but there is more that is good, and unlike you most Pashtuns still hold on to their beliefs and Imaan because that more than anything is what it means to be a Pashtun; to never give up and be strong in the face of adversity.

[JattApache]

Ranjit Singh's earliest conquests as a young misldar (baron) were effected by defeating his coreligionists, the heads of other Sikh Sardaris (popularly known as the Misls). By the end of his reign, however, he had conquered vast tracts of territory strategically juxtaposed between the limits of British India to the left and the powerful Afghan Empire to the right. The land that eventually became the Kingdom of the Sikhs had been ruthlessly subjected to the worse kind of atrocities by invading armies coming through the Khyber Pass into the Indian sub-continent, over eight centuries.

In 1799, Ranjit Singh captured Lahore and made it his Capital. After the capture of Lahore, Ranjit Singh rapidly annexed the rest of the Punjab, the land of the five rivers. Having accomplished this, he extended his empire further north and west to include the Kashmir mountains and other Himalayan kingdoms, the Sind Sagar Doab, the Pothohar Plateau and trans-Indus regions right up to the foothills of the Sulaiman and Hindu Kush mountains.