The Pashtuns of Balochistan: districts, tribes and a province in dispute

At a glance

• In the 2023 census 4,955,245 people in Balochistan gave Pashto (پښتو) as their mother tongue, 34.03 per cent of the 14,562,011 with a recorded language. Balochi was first at 39.91 per cent and Brahvi third at 17.22. [3]

• The Pashto speakers form a belt of districts north and east of Quetta. In the 2017 tables 96 to 99 per cent of Killa Abdullah, Pishin, Ziarat, Killa Saifullah, Sherani and Zhob gave Pashto, and 56 per cent of Quetta district. [1]

• Under Britain the area ran as two systems: a Chief Commissioner's province with its agencies, and the Khan of Kalat's state with the other princely states. One Unit swallowed the first in 1955. When it ended on 1 July 1970, both were joined in one province. [5, 6, 18]

• The Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) says the Pashtun districts should join Khyber Pashtunkhwa or form a province of their own, and that until then the province's resources should be divided equally between Pashtuns and Baloch. A Baloch former chief minister says the province's problem is political and not administrative, and a Baloch essayist writes that Baloch leaders would not oppose a separate Pashtun unit. [4, 12, 14]

• Chaman, a Pashtun town of Achakzai and Noorzai families on the Afghan border, held a sit-in from 21 October 2023 against passport and visa rules and ended it in July 2024 without an official notification. [20, 25]

A belt of districts north and east of Quetta

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 drew the line in one sentence. Pashto, it said, "is spoken throughout the country lying eastward of a line drawn from Sangan near Sibi to Chaman". Khetrani was spoken in the south-east of Loralai, Eastern Baluchi in the Marri and Bugti country and Brahui in Sarawan and Jhalawan. [5] The 2017 district tables of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, which count mother tongue, show the same map. [1]

• Killa Abdullah (with Chaman): 741,823 of 758,354, 97.8 per cent

• Pishin: 718,749 of 736,903, 97.5 per cent

• Ziarat: 156,272 of 160,095, 97.6 per cent

• Killa Saifullah: 335,527 of 342,932, 97.8 per cent

• Sherani: 151,682 of 152,952, 99.2 per cent

• Zhob: 298,020 of 310,354, 96.0 per cent

• Loralai (with Duki): 359,384 of 397,423, 90.4 per cent

• Harnai: 81,021 of 97,052, 83.5 per cent

• Musakhel: 139,282 of 167,243, 83.3 per cent

• Quetta: 1,268,722 of 2,269,473, 55.9 per cent

The percentages are calculated from the bureau's counts. [1] Sixteen districts, these and six where Pashto is a small minority, hold 4,302,692 of the province's 4,359,533 Pashto speakers. [1] In Sibi 11.0 per cent gave Pashto, in Nushki 6.2 and in Kohlu 5.1. [1] The counts are of speakers, and non-nationals are inside them: the bureau recorded 283,869 in Quetta, 69,367 in Pishin, 31,041 in Killa Saifullah, 21,397 in Killa Abdullah and 20,831 in Loralai. [1] How the census treats language and ethnicity is in Pashto speakers in Pakistan's censuses.

By 2023 the districts had been cut up. Chaman, a tehsil of 434,561 people in 2017, became a district of 466,218, and Killa Abdullah without it, 323,793 in 2017, counted 361,971. Duki also left Loralai, and the 2023 count gives Duki 205,044, Loralai 272,432, Zhob 355,692, Sherani 191,687, Killa Saifullah 380,200, Pishin 835,482 and Quetta 2,595,492. [1, 2] The Pashtun-majority districts other than Quetta add up to 3,568,107 people, 24.0 per cent of the province's 14,894,402. [2] That total is added from the 2023 table. Mother-tongue shares by district are given above for 2017 only.

The tribes

The British counted tribes in 1901 and the Gazetteer printed the results. The Kakar were the largest Pashtun tribe in what it called Baluchistan, at 105,444, followed by the Tarin (37,906), the Pani (20,682) and the Shirani (7,309). [5] It placed the Kakar mostly in Zhob, Quetta-Pishin and Loralai, the Tarin in Loralai, Sibi and Quetta-Pishin, the Musa Khel of Zhob among the Pani, and the Shirani under the Takht-i-Sulaiman. [5] These are a colonial office's figures for one year. The 2023 census report, a Pakistani government document, names the Pashtun tribes of the province as the Kakar, Ghilzai Tareen, Mandokhel, Sherani, Luni, Kasi and Achakzai. [3]

The Gazetteer wrote the genealogies as the Afghans tell them: the Mando Khel, Babi, Kakar and Pani as descendants of Gurgusht, and the Tarin and Shirani as descendants of Saraban. [5] In Zhob it gave 43,000 Kakar, 38,000 of them Sanzar Khel, and 4,300 Mando Khel. [5] The Achakzai, whom it called Abdals, held the Chaman subdivision and part of Pishin. [5] The Kasi of the Quetta valley and the Kakar and Tarin of Pishin are in the article on Quetta, and the Mando Khel, Kakar and Sherani of Zhob in the Gomal pass and Zhob. The Sherani and their mountain are in the Sulaiman mountains.

Two administrations under Britain

Britain did not govern the area as one province. The Gazetteer divides it into British Baluchistan, the tehsils of Shahrig, Sibi, Duki, Pishin and the Chaman subdivision, and the Agency Territories. The latter included the Quetta tehsil and the Bolan, Nushki and Nasirabad tracts leased from the Khan of Kalat, Chagai, and the Zhob and Loralai agencies. [5] The head of all of it was the Agent to the Governor-General, who from 1887 was also Chief Commissioner for the assigned districts. [5] Headmen were paid allowances to keep followers and control their tribes, the system the Gazetteer calls Sandeman's. [5] The states of Kalat and Las Bela stayed under a Political Agent in Kalat. [5]

Pashtun writers tell the same history as the loss of land. The PkMAP's account says the districts of Pishin and Sibi came to Britain by the treaty of Gandamak in 1879 as "assigned districts" that were not "permanently severed from the limits of the Afghan kingdom", that Loralai was added in 1886 and Zhob in 1890, and that the Chief Commissioner's province should have been called British Pashtunistan or British Afghanistan. [4] That is a party's reading. The official 2023 census report gives a shorter history: the 1876 treaty with Kalat, Gandamak, the Bolan Pass in 1883, and the 1893 Durand Line, which is told in the Durand Line article. [3]

In 1947 the question was who spoke for the province. The census report records that on 29 June 1947 the Shahi Jirga and the non-official members of the Quetta municipality voted for Pakistan, that Kalat's representatives were excluded, and that Qazi Muhammad Isa of the Balochistan Muslim League told Jinnah the jirga did not reflect the will of the people. [3] The report adds that the Anjuman-i-Watan Baluchistan opposed partition. [3] Its founder's story is in the article on Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai.

One Unit joined the western provinces and the states in a single province on 14 October 1955, and General Yahya Khan dissolved it on 1 July 1970. [18] The Chief Commissioner's province and the Kalat states were then put together as the province of Balochistan. [4] Dawn wrote in 2012 that when One Unit was abolished the Pashtun-dominated urban part of British Balochistan was merged into the province, and that Achakzai alone among Pashtun nationalists opposed it and asked for parity. [6] The Frontier side of One Unit is in the 1947 referendum article.

How many, and who says so

RFE/RL's summary of the 1998 census says that 55 per cent of the province's 6.5 million spoke Balochi or Brahui and about 30 per cent were Pashtun. [16] In 2017 Pashto was 35.34 per cent, or 4,359,533 of 12,335,129, and in 2023 34.03 per cent. [3] Balochi and Brahvi together were 57.13 per cent in 2023. [3]

The 2017 results brought a second question, about growth. Dawn reported that the nine Pashtun-majority districts, with 3.2 million people, held 26 per cent of the province against 26.6 per cent in 1998, while the Baloch share in 21 districts fell from 61 to 55.6 per cent. [17] It quoted the editor of the Balochistan Express, Sadique Balooch, saying he did not know why the Pashtun districts had not grown. [17] The final district tables add up to 3,123,308 for those nine districts, 25.3 per cent of 12,335,129. [1]

Both sides have argued from the numbers. Before the 2017 count Sardar Akhtar Mengal of the Balochistan National Party said: "Participating in the census is tantamount to committing suicide in the presence of Afghan refugees." [16] His spokesman Agha Hassan Baloch said millions of refugees would be counted as locals. [16] Hasil Bizenjo of the National Party said: "You first need to send the foreigners back, whether they are Persian speakers, Pashto speakers or Balochi speakers." [16] Senator Usman Kakar of the PkMAP, a party that boycotted the 1998 census, said the figures had been manipulated since 1947, first by Attaullah Mengal in 1972, and added: "We do not seek any controversy with the Baluch brothers over the census, but they are welcome to verify the numbers." [16]

The argument is still open. In the National Assembly in February 2026 the defence minister Khawaja Asif said that about 50 per cent of Balochistan is Baloch and 34 per cent Pashtun, and Mahmood Khan Achakzai answered that the Pashtun share is about 50 per cent. [15] The census counts languages, not ethnic groups, so neither figure can be read straight from it.

The demand for a Pashtun province

The PkMAP's own page puts the demand in two parts. The Pashtun areas of Balochistan should either be merged into Khyber Pashtunkhwa or the old Chief Commissioner's province restored, without a couple of Baloch districts and under a name that reflects its people; until that happens, all the province's resources should be divided equally between Pashtuns and Baloch. [4] Dawn's profile in 2018 says the party's support rests on a share for Pashtuns in resources and jobs on a par with the Baloch, "sometimes going as far as engaging in the rhetoric of demanding a separate Pashtun province". [7]

The party's leaders put it in their own words. Rauf Lala told Dawn in 2012: "We do support Balochistan comprising Baloch areas, not Pashtun areas." [6] In July 2018 Mahmood Khan Achakzai told a jirga in Quetta that "many people in Balochistan are offended by PkMAP because we demand equal rights for Pashtuns in the province", and urged Baloch and Pashtuns to launch a joint movement for their rights, saying that further segregation could hurt both. [8] A breakaway group led by Khushal Khan Kakar went further at the end of December 2022 and asked for a province from Bolan to Chitral, with Pashto as its official language. [9]

The Baloch side has not answered with one voice. Nawab Aslam Raisani, a former chief minister and chief of the Sarawan, said in July 2026 that peace was possible through "political decisions, not administrative divisions" and that the government seemed to want to make "the historically settled Pashtun and Baloch nations fight". [12] Baloch Siddik Azad, an essayist from Balochistan, wrote in September 2026 that Baloch thinkers have long held that if Pashtun-majority regions want a separate administrative unit "Baloch leadership will not oppose it", while rejecting an artificial division, and he criticised Achakzai's statement that Pashtuns cannot support every Baloch demand. [14] That is an opinion piece by one writer, not a party's position. At a meeting at the Quetta Press Club in August 2026, speakers from the BNP, the National Party, the Awami National Party, the PkMAP and others rejected proposals for new provinces and called for unity among Pashtun, Baloch and Hazara forces. [13]

The immediate dispute in 2026 is over districts. Under a Revenue Department notification, Balochistan gets 11 divisions and 41 districts, including a Pishin division of Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Chaman and Barshor, and a Quetta division with Mastung and two new Quetta districts. [12] Achakzai said: "Do not include the land of Pashtuns in British Balochistan here and there." [12] He opposed dividing districts in the Pashtun-majority areas and promised jirgas to decide with local communities. [10] The government spokesman, Babar Yousafzai, replied that any division is at once "equated with the division of nationalities" and that the decision was about emergency relief and security. [12] At a three-day jirga of southern Pashtunkhwa (سوېلي پښتونخوا, Sweli Pashtunkhwa) in Quetta at the end of August, chaired by Nawab Ayaz Khan Jogezai, Achakzai said that "State affairs can be run through the force of the gun, but the minds of the people, their political consciousness, constitutional rights and resources cannot be permanently controlled". He added: "Pashtuns are not advocates of hatred or discrimination against any other human being, nation or religion." [11]

Chaman and the 2023 sit-in

Chaman sits across the Durand Line from Spin Boldak in Kandahar province. Dawn calls it the second-largest commercial border point with Afghanistan, after Torkham, and says it rose to prominence in the late 1970s with Afghan trade. [23] In 2017 its tehsil had 434,561 people, 424,632 of them Pashto speakers. [1] RFE/RL names the Achakzai and Noorzai as most of the residents on both sides of the line. [19]

Pakistan announced on 3 October 2023 that no one would cross without a passport and visa after 31 October, ending what RFE/RL calls the century-old "Easement Rights" for communities that straddle the line. [19–21] A sit-in began on 21 October, blocking the Quetta to Chaman highway, with the support of the PkMAP, the Balochistan Awami Party, the JUI and others. [20] A union leader, Faiz Mohammad, told RFE/RL that at least 20,000 families in Chaman depended on travel without documents. [19] The committee's spokesman Sadiq Achakzai said that more than 40,000 people crossed daily and that the rule was "unacceptable". [20] Mohammad Alam Shinwari, who ran an auto spare parts shop in Chaman and lived in Spin Boldak, said: "Why should I show my passport and visa when commuting in my home?" [20]

The provincial government's reply came from its information minister, Jan Achakzai: "It's the government's responsibility to regulate the border", and he said that no government in the world allows people to enter its territory without a passport. [21] Pakistani officials said movement across the line had to be regulated to improve security and control smuggling, and blamed the Afghan Taliban for sheltering the Pakistani Taliban. [19, 25]

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan sent a fact-finding team in March 2024, which found that small-scale trade was the livelihood of many families and recommended visas on arrival and border markets. [22] A protester, Ameer Mohammad, told it that his inherited land had been split by the border fence, leaving more than a hundred acres on the Afghan side. [22] On 4 May 2024 the committee said the Frontier Corps had opened fire in their camp and killed one man, and the Frontier Corps said an investigation was under way. [24] Dawn found trade at a standstill in June 2024, after clashes in which protesters stormed the deputy commissioner's office and the committee's spokesmen were arrested. [23]

The sit-in ended in July 2024 after nine months. VOA Deewa reported that small traders could cross again with Pakistani or Afghan identity documents, that the former caretaker interior minister Inayat Ullah Kasi had mediated, and that the government had issued no notification. [25] A Pashto report from Afghanistan International in October 2024 calls it a year-long sit-in, says pro-government tribal elders ended it on promises, and says that young men restarted it two weeks later, claiming the promises were broken. [26] A Chaman resident, Esmatullah, said: پر دروازه سوداګري محدوده شوې ده (Par darwaza sodagari mahduda shwe da), "trade at the gate has been restricted". [26] The word the report uses for a sit-in is پرلت (parlat). [26] In December 2025 heavy fire at Chaman killed at least five people and closed the crossing again, with Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban blaming each other. [27] More on the line itself is in the Durand Line article and Afghanistan and the Pashtun lands since 2021.

Quetta

Quetta district is the one place where the belt meets the other communities, and the 2017 tables show it. In Quetta city tehsil 807,038 of 1,722,746 people gave Pashto (46.8 per cent), in the urban part 481,694 of 999,385 (48.2 per cent), against 131,079 Brahui and 90,278 Balochi speakers. [1] The Saddar tehsil, all rural, had 452,669 Pashto speakers among 527,716 (85.8 per cent). [1] Its history, the Kasi, the cantonment and the 1935 earthquake are in the article on Quetta.

In February 2026 the argument over the city's origins returned. Achakzai told the National Assembly that Quetta historically belonged to the Kasi, Bazai and Yasinzai Kakar, and quoted the British Gazetteer: "Quetta is entirely an Afghan city; the Baloch here hold only nominal status." [15] Humayun Khan Kasi, an advocate, agreed. Sanaullah Baloch of the BNP-Mengal said the question of Quetta's ownership "is politically irrelevant at this time" and that the focus should be on the province's injustices. [15] The 1908 Gazetteer lists the Quetta tehsil among the areas leased from the Khan of Kalat. [5]