Hazaras of Afghanistan

Hazaras of Afghanistan

Subject – IR

Context – The Hazaras have long faced violent persecution from the Taliban and Islamic State for their ethnicity and religious beliefs.

Concept –

• The Hazaras are an ethnic and religious minority group largely found in the rugged and mountainous central Afghan region of Hazarajat.
• They are believed to be descendants of the founder of the Mongol empire, Genghis Khan, and his army that overran the entire region during the 13th century.
• Around 1773, the mountainous region of Hazarajat in modern-day central Afghanistan was annexed and made a part of the territories of the Afghan Empire under Pashtun ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani.
• The Sunni Muslim majority under the Pashtun ruler resulted in marginalisation of the Shiite Hazara community, to the extent that in the 18th and 19th century, they were forced to leave fertile lowlands in central Afghanistan and make the arid mountainous landscape their new home.
• They are targeted by the Taliban because they are primarily Shia Muslims, as opposed to most Afghans who follow the Sunni branch of Islam. Their distinct Asiatic features and use of a Persian dialect called Hazaragi also sets them apart from the rest of the country.
• The Hazaras are one of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic minorities, accounting for about 10-12 per cent of the country’s 38-million strong population. But they were once even larger, constituting approximately 67 per cent of Afghanistan’s total population. Since then, primarily due to violence, oppression and targeted massacres, that number has come down drastically.
• The Hazaras’ brutal history of repression has been traced back to the mid-19th century, when more than half their population was either killed or forced into exile by the then-Pashtun King Amir Abdul Rahman who had ordered the mass execution of all Shias after he invaded their homeland in Central Afghanistan.
• But even after the US invaded Afghanistan and ended the Taliban’s rule in 2001, atrocities against the ethnic minority group continued.
• While the 2004 Afghanistan constitution granted them equal rights and they were even well-represented in the Afghan administration, the Hazaras have been historically denied the freedoms and rights enjoyed by other ethnic groups in the country. Areas such as Bamiyan, which are primarily occupied by this ethnic group, are some of the country’s most backward — often lacking basic facilities such as running water and power.