Pakhtunistan (Pakistan)

Pushtunistan

Last modified: 2006-07-01 by rob raeside
Keywords: pakistan | afghanistan | pakhtunistan | pashtunistan | mountains | text: arabic | takbir |
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by Jaume Ollé

• Description of the Flag
• About Pakhtunistan
• Pre-independence Flag

• Pre-independence States of North West Frontier
• Aspirant Peoples of Pakistan
• Pakistan
• Afghanistan

• Map of Afghanistan - Pakistan Border ("Pushtunistan") 1988 (349 kb), including the Durand Line

Pakhtunistan: flag adopted upon independence 2 September 1947. The proportion of the flag is quoted as 1:2, but later was used in 2:3.
Jaume Ollé, 22 September 1997

The Arabic scripts are the Takbir (i.e., Allahu Akbar = "God is the greatest") above the emblem, "Pashtunistan" below it.
Harald Müller, 23 September 1997

Pakhtunistan [or Pushtunistan] stands for Afghanistan's agitation for the creation along the North-West Frontier of a Pathan state. In 1947 Afghanistan voted against the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations. There have been major crises in Afghan-Pakistani relations over this issue in 1955-57 and 1961-63. However there is no state nor has there ever been one of Pakhtunistan or Pushtunistan. Still it remains a nightmare for Pakistan. Source: Asian Frontiers, Alastair Lamb, 1968, pp. 91-92.

The basic cause of the situation can be found in the Anglo-Afghan Agreement of 1893, which delimited, by means of a map, the boundary between the spheres of influence of Britain and Afghanistan (the Durand Line). Source: The Geography of Frontiers and Boundaries, J.R.V. Prescott, 1965, with a 2-page detailed account, rather legal terms.
Jarig Bakker, 3 February 2000

The Pashtunistan flag appears on a great many stamps of Afghanistan. Pashtunistan or Pakhtunistan is the name given to the land inhabited by Pushtu/Pashtu-speaking people, who are about evenly divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, all Afghan governments and regimes, regardless of their ideological, political, or religious orientation, have had two basic beliefs in common: (a)there should be a unified Pashtu-speaking polity; and (b) this polity should be under Afghan suzerainty. Pashtunistan Day has been a national holiday, second in importance only to Independence Day, since the early 1950s at least.
Ron Lahav, 3 February 2005

Pakhthunistan: flag hoisted in the months previous to the independence (obverse side instead of reverse side as in my pages).
Jaume Ollé, 22 September 1997

The Arabic script to the right (first word) says "Pashtunistan", the drawing of the second (i.e. the one to the left side) is not exact enough to read.
Harald Müller, 23 September 1997