Pashto speakers in Pakistan's censuses, 1951–2023

At a glance

• Pakistan's census asks for mother tongue and never for ethnicity. In 2023 it counted 43,633,946 people with Pashto (پښتو) as their mother tongue, 18.15 per cent of the 240,458,089 people for whom the bureau holds full records. [1, 7]

• The share has risen from 13.15 per cent of households in 1981 to 15.42 per cent of people in 1998 and 18.24 per cent in 2017. It dipped to 18.15 per cent in 2023, although the number of speakers grew by 5,748,505. [1, 6, 8, 9]

• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa holds about three in four of the speakers, 32,919,592 of them. Balochistan has 4,955,245, Sindh 2,955,893, Punjab 2,387,378 and Islamabad 415,838. [7]

• The early censuses handled language differently each time: the 1961 form asked every person for a mother tongue, the 1972 census collected only core characteristics, and in 1981 the question was put to households, not to people. [1, 9, 10]

• The counts are disputed from several sides: Baloch parties feared Afghan refugees would be counted in Balochistan, Pashtun parties boycotted the 1998 count there, and Pashtun politicians in the tribal districts and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa say their populations were undercounted. [14, 17, 18, 20]

What the census counts

The census does not ask who is a Pashtun. The bureau lists what the 2023 census recorded as age, mother tongue, religion, disability, migration, literacy, employment and nationality, and ethnicity is not among them. [1] Its enumerator manual defines mother language as "the language that a person has been speaking since childhood", the one used with parents and other family members. [13] A Pashtun family that has spoken Urdu, Punjabi, Hindko or English at home for generations appears under that language. A family of other descent whose children grew up speaking Pashto appears as Pashto speakers. The figures in this article are therefore counts of speakers, and the wider picture of who counts as a Pashtun is in Pashtuns today.

Three limits on the 2023 figure are in the bureau's own report. The population is 241,499,431, but detailed records, mother tongue among them, exist for 240,458,089 people, because people in restricted areas were counted by headcount only. [1] The nationality table gives 238,332,010 Pakistani citizens and 2,126,079 non-nationals, which together make exactly the total of the language table, so non-nationals are inside the Pashto count. [1, 7] They include 1,923,453 Afghan nationals, 939,878 of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 474,812 in Balochistan, and the table does not say how many of them gave Pashto. [1] The 2017 tables add up the same way: 206,287,447 citizens and 1,397,179 non-nationals make the 207,684,626 of its language table. [1, 6]

The choice of languages on the form has changed. The 1998 census listed six languages, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and Saraiki, and put the speakers of the other 67 languages under "others", 4.66 per cent of the country. [8, 12] The 2017 tables added Kashmiri, Hindko and Brahvi, and the 2023 form added Shina, Balti, Mewati, Kalasha and Kohistani. [1, 6] Zubair Torwali, who works on education and development in Swat, noted before the 2023 count that speakers of Torwali and Gawri had to write their language under "others" or be counted as speakers of Kohistani, and that when speakers of these languages meet they "speak a third language, mostly Pashto". [13]

The early censuses, 1951 to 1981

Pakistan has held seven censuses. The first, in 1951, was run by the Office of the Census Commissioner in the Ministry of Interior and covered East and West Pakistan. [1] The bureau's long series gives 33.74 million people for 1951, 42.88 million for 1961, 65.31 million for 1972 and 84.25 million for 1981. [1]

The 1961 census did ask the question. Its individual schedule has a line, "Q. 9. Mother-tongue?", with the instruction to ring the number under the person's language, and one more line for "other languages you can easily speak". The enumerators' notes say that every person must have a mother tongue and only one, and that for a small child or a deaf-mute the language is the one the parents or guardians mainly speak at home. [10]

The 1972 census, held a year late after the separation of East Pakistan, collected total population and core characteristics for what had been West Pakistan. [1] The bureau's 2023 national report quotes no language figure for it.

In 1981 the Population Census Organisation asked no question about mother tongue to individuals. It asked instead what language was spoken in the household. [9] Pashto was the language of 13.15 per cent of households nationally (13.2 in the report's text), 1,651,223 of 12,561,877. [9] The household table shows how sharply the language is placed on the map. In the Frontier province, outside the tribal agencies, 1,099,620 of 1,610,022 households (68.3 per cent) spoke Pashto, and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas 262,931 of 263,712 (99.7 per cent). In Balochistan it was 147,884 of 589,866 (25.1 per cent), in Sindh 83,043 of 2,714,420 (3.1 per cent), in Punjab 55,317 of 7,325,485 (0.8 per cent) and in Islamabad 2,428 of 58,372 (4.2 per cent). [9] The figures of 13.35 per cent that circulate for 1981 do not match the report.

1998

The 1998 census, held seven years late, was the first in which the armed forces took part in the field operation. [1] Its mother-tongue table gives Pashto as 15.42 per cent of Pakistan's people, 18.06 per cent of the rural population and 9.94 per cent of the urban. [8] On the census population of 132,352,000 that is roughly 20.4 million speakers, a figure worked out here from those two numbers and not printed in the table. [1, 8]

The provincial shares were 73.9 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 99.1 per cent in the tribal areas, 29.64 per cent in Balochistan, 4.19 per cent in Sindh, 1.16 per cent in Punjab and 9.52 per cent in Islamabad. [8]

2017 and 2023

The sixth census was held from 15 March to 24 May 2017, after a delay of nineteen years, with people counted at their usual place of residence. [1] Its Table 11 counted 37,885,441 Pashto speakers in a population of 207,684,626, which is 18.24 per cent. [6] The Pashto share was 21.68 per cent in the countryside and 12.24 per cent in towns and cities. [1] The number of speakers in cities and towns was 9,265,481. [6]

The seventh census, the first to be done digitally, followed in 2023 and the Council of Common Interests approved its results on 5 August 2023. [1] The count was 43,633,946, which is 18.15 per cent. The rural share rose to 22.44 per cent and the urban share fell to 11.36 per cent, although the number of urban speakers grew to 10,582,019. [1, 7] The bureau's report says the Pashto share "marginally decreased" from 2017. [1] The population grew by 15.8 per cent between the two counts and the Pashto speakers by 15.2 per cent. [1, 6, 7]

Before the results were approved the bureau ran a post-enumeration survey from 8 to 19 July 2023, of 2,500 blocks in 48 districts, because its trend committee had found over- or under-counting in certain areas. [1]

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal districts

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with the former tribal agencies merged into it in 2018, is where the language is the majority. The provincial report counts 28,363,363 Pashto speakers in 2017 (79.89 per cent) and 32,919,592 in 2023 (81.00 per cent), a rise of 16.1 per cent. [2] In the province's towns the share was 78.85 per cent in 2023, not far below the 81.38 per cent of its villages. [2] Hindko, at 9.39 per cent, and Saraiki, at 3.17 per cent, are the next languages. [2]

The 2017 national table still kept the tribal areas apart. In the old province, outside them, 23,450,066 of 30,508,920 people gave Pashto (76.9 per cent). In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas it was 4,913,297 of 4,993,044, which is 98.4 per cent. [6] That agrees with the 99.1 per cent of 1998 and the 99.7 per cent of households in 1981. [8, 9] The provincial report for 2023 does not tabulate the merged districts apart. A map of the 2023 district results, drawn from the bureau's district table by a Commons contributor, puts Orakzai, Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber and North Waziristan among the ten districts with the highest Pashto shares, all above 99.5 per cent. [11]

The tribal districts are also where the undercount is argued most. After the provisional 2017 results the Awami National Party leader Bushra Gohar wrote that nearly two million registered displaced people had come from North Waziristan alone and asked how the population of the tribal areas could be just five million. [17] A youth organiser from the tribal areas told the Herald in 2018 that the Akakhel of Khyber, known to have at least 90,000 voters, were counted at between 30,000 and 35,000, that his group put the population of the tribal areas at 8.5 million, and that displaced families had been counted in the districts where they were sheltering. The Fata Research Centre in Peshawar put the figure at about 4.6 million. [18] A statistics teacher answered that the census counts a person where he has lived for more than six months, and that many people from the tribal areas have settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for good. [18] The bureau's chief told the magazine that displaced people were counted temporarily where they lived and would be adjusted to their home areas during processing. [18]

Balochistan

In Balochistan Pashto is the second language. It was 29.64 per cent in 1998, 35.34 per cent in 2017 (4,359,533 people) and 34.03 per cent in 2023 (4,955,245 people), while Balochi rose from 35.49 to 39.91 per cent over the last two counts. [3, 8] The 2023 report says the Pashto share "slightly decreased" even though the number grew by 595,712. [3]

This is the province where the count is most fought over, and Pashtun and Baloch parties have taken opposite positions at different moments. In 1998 the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party boycotted the census. Its senator Usman Kakar told Radio Free Europe in 2017 that Baloch nationalist governments had manipulated the figures in 1972 and 1998. [14] The Herald records that Pakhtuns in Quetta and elsewhere refused to be counted in 1998 because the provincial government was headed by a Baloch nationalist party and they feared that local Pakhtuns would be taken for Afghans. [18] The Express Tribune columnist Shezad Baloch, writing from the Baloch side in March 2017, said that Baloch parties feared a census might lead to Pashtun claims of an equal or majority population, and named the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party as the one party publicly backing the census and identity cards for Afghans. [15]

Before the 2017 count the Balochistan National Party (Mengal) said that it would oppose the census until Afghan refugees were repatriated, and its spokesman said that millions of refugees would be counted as locals. [14] The Balochistan High Court ordered in March 2017 that Afghan refugees be excluded and displaced Baloch included. [18] The bureau's chief told the Herald that Afghans outside refugee camps had to be counted under census rules, while United Nations observers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that they were not allowed to watch enumeration in refugee villages, where no census was taking place under a government directive. [18] Kakar rejected the claim that millions of Afghans held Pakistani papers and said the Baloch were welcome to verify the numbers. [14] Shezad Baloch's column asked the government to look into rises of more than 100 per cent in Killa Abdullah, Killa Saifullah and Zhob. [15] Dawn reported in September 2017 that the nine Pashtun-majority districts held 3.2 million people in 2017 against 1.74 million in 1998, which was 26 per cent of the province, slightly down from 26.6 per cent, and that the Baloch districts' share fell from 61 to 55.6 per cent. [16] Quetta, where both languages are spoken, grew from 773,936 to 2.275 million. [16] The city's history is in Quetta.

In 2023 the dispute was about the province's total. A petition in the Balochistan High Court said that the digital count had first shown 21.7 million people and that the Council of Common Interests cut the figure by seven million. [22] The bureau's report gives Balochistan 14,894,402 people. [1]

Sindh and Karachi

Pashto is the third language of Sindh, after Sindhi and Urdu. The provincial report counts 2,613,790 speakers in 2017 (5.46 per cent) and 2,955,893 in 2023 (5.31 per cent). [4] They live in towns: 9.00 per cent of Sindh's urban population gave Pashto in 2023, against 1.00 per cent of its rural population. [4] The 1998 share was 4.19 per cent. [8]

For Karachi, Zia Ur Rehman reported in The News that the Pashto share of the city was 8.7 per cent in 1981, 11.42 per cent in 1998 and 15.01 per cent in 2017, when 2,406,011 people gave Pashto. [19] The 2023 figure for the city, 13.52 per cent, is in Karachi's Pashtuns, which also tells the history behind these numbers. In 2017 the Pakistan Peoples Party leader Taj Haider told the Senate that a survey put Karachi at 24.7 million people and the provisional count at 14.7 million, and that the city was "the largest abode of Pakhtuns". [23]

Punjab and Islamabad

In Punjab Pashto speakers numbered 2,178,102 in 2017 (1.98 per cent) and 2,387,378 in 2023 (1.87 per cent), 2.57 per cent in the towns. [5] The share was 1.16 per cent in 1998. [8] In the federal capital, the 2017 table counted 370,653 of 2,003,368 people, which is 18.5 per cent, and the 2023 table 415,838 of 2,283,244, which is 18.2 per cent. [6, 7] Both shares are worked out here from the tables' counts. In 1998 the figure was 9.52 per cent. [8] The share in the capital has almost doubled since 1998.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the 2023 count

The 2023 results met objections in the province. At a seminar in Peshawar in August 2023 speakers from the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Awami National Party said that the count had reduced the population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, that the number of families had fallen in several areas, and that millions of the province's people live abroad. The Awami National Party's Salahuddin said that his party would not stay silent on what he called census injustice. [20] The PPP senator Taj Haider said that his party had reports that, in remote and sensitive areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where no enumeration took place, the notified figures were shown significantly lower. [21] The bureau's account is the post-enumeration survey and the Council of Common Interests' unanimous approval. [1] The bureau's table gives the province 16.92 per cent of the national population in 2023, against 17.09 per cent in 2017. [1]