79-414: Mohammad Daoud Khan ( Pashto : محمد داود خان ; also romanized as Daud Khan or Dawood Khan ; 18 July 1909 – 28 April 1978) was an Afghan military officer, specifically the commander of the 1st Central Corps, and politician who served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and, as leader of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état which overthrew the monarchy , served as
158-471: A loya jirga approved a new constitution. It wrote in several new articles and amended others - one of these was the creation of a presidential one-party system of government. He also began to moderate his socialist policies, although the 1977 constitution had a nationalist bend in addition to previous socialism and Islam. In 1978, there was a rift with the PDPA. Internally he attempted to distance himself from
237-713: A proxy war in Afghanistan. Since coming to power, under pressure from the PDPA and to increase domestic Pashtun support, Khan took a stronger line on the Pashtunistan issue and promoted a proxy war in Pakistan. Trade and transit agreements with Pakistan were subsequently severely affected. The year 1975 was a watershed in Afghan-Pakistan relations. Pakistan blamed Afghanistan for unrest in Bajaur agency and
316-453: A royal decree of Zahir Shah formally granted Pashto the status of an official language, with full rights to use in all aspects of government and education – despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian. Thus Pashto became a national language , a symbol for Pashtun nationalism . The constitutional assembly reaffirmed the status of Pashto as an official language in 1964 when Afghan Persian
395-619: A device). Post-7th century borrowings came primarily from Persian and Hindi-Urdu , with Arabic words being borrowed through Persian, but sometimes directly. Modern speech borrows words from English, French , and German . However, a remarkably large number of words are unique to Pashto. Here is an exemplary list of Pure Pashto and borrowings: naṛә́i jahān dunyā tod/táwda garm aṛtyā́ ḍarurah híla umid də...pə aṛá bāra bolә́la qasidah Shah Mahmud Khan Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan ( Pashto / Dari : سردار شاه محمود خان – b:1890 d: 27 December 1959)
474-441: A factor of 2 to 3. Amin sent complete orders for the coup from his home while it was under armed guard, using his family as messengers. The army had been put on alert on 26 April because of a presumed coup. On 27 April 1978, a coup d'état , beginning with troop movements at the military base at Kabul International Airport , gained ground slowly over the next twenty-four hours as rebels battled units loyal to Daoud Khan in and around
553-492: A leader in a democratic process and therefore a target for communists. One of the army generals arrested under suspicion of this plot with Maiwandwal was Mohammed Asif Safi , who was later released. Khan personally apologized to him for the arrest. In 1974, he signed one of two economic packages that aimed to greatly increase the capability of the Afghan military. At this time, there were increasing concerns that Afghanistan lacked
632-625: A modern army comparable to the militaries of Iran and Pakistan. In 1975, his government nationalized all banks in Afghanistan, including Da Afghanistan Bank , Afghanistan's central bank . Khan wanted to lessen the country's dependence on the Soviet Union and attempted to promote a new foreign policy. In 1975 he visited some countries in the Middle East, including Egypt , Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, all of which were anti-Soviet states, to ask for aid, He also visited India . Regarding
711-548: A parliament with elected members and the separation of powers was replaced by a now largely nominated loya jirga (meaning "grand assembly"). The parliament was disbanded. Although he was close to the Soviet Union during his prime ministership, Khan continued the Afghan policy of non-alignment with the Cold War superpowers. Nor did he bring drastic pro-Soviet change to the economic system. In Khan's new cabinet, many ministers were fresh faced politicians, and only Dr Abdul Majid
790-665: A promoter of the wealth and antiquity of Afghanistan's Pashto culture." From the 16th century, Pashto poetry become very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote in Pashto are Bayazid Pir Roshan (a major inventor of the Pashto alphabet ), Khushal Khan Khattak , Rahman Baba , Nazo Tokhi , and Ahmad Shah Durrani , founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Durrani Empire . The Pashtun literary tradition grew in
869-623: A result of his policies and support to militias in areas along the Durand Line, Pakistan closed its borders with Afghanistan and the latter severed ties, causing an economic crisis and greater dependence on the USSR . The USSR became Afghanistan's principal trading partner. Within a few months, the USSR sent jet airplanes , tanks , heavy and light artillery , for a heavily discounted price tag of $ 25 million, to Afghanistan. That same year he attended
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#1732776641645948-554: A tentative agreement on a solution to the Pashtunistan problem with Ali Bhutto. Khan met Leonid Brezhnev on a state visit to Moscow from 12 to 15 April 1977. He had asked for a private meeting with the Soviet leader to discuss with him the increased pattern of Soviet actions in Afghanistan. In particular, he discussed the intensified Soviet attempt to unite the two factions of the Afghan communist parties, Parcham and Khalq . Brezhnev described Afghanistan's non-alignment as important to
1027-522: A variety very similar to it, while others have attempted to place it closer to Bactrian . However, neither position is universally agreed upon. What scholars do agree on is the fact that Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language sharing characteristics with Eastern Middle Iranian languages such as Bactrian, Khwarezmian and Sogdian . Compare with other Eastern Iranian Languages and Old Avestan : Zə tā winə́m /ɐz dɐ wənən/ Az bū tū dzunim Strabo , who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that
1106-680: Is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province , areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and in Islamabad . Pashto speakers are found in other major cities of Pakistan, most notably Karachi , Sindh, which may have the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in India , Tajikistan , and northeastern Iran (primarily in South Khorasan Province to
1185-420: Is evidence that Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan would not bow to foreigners, regardless of their nationality. Particularly, in his last meeting with [Soviet leader] Leonid Brezhnev, he proved his bravery and patriotism. But KGB deceptions and the games that they played could have benefited from Daoud Khan's influence in the armed forces. So Daoud Khan, indirectly and with total unawareness, could have been manipulated by
1264-454: Is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The exact number of speakers is unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan . In Pakistan , Pashto is spoken by 15% of its population, mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern districts of Balochistan province. It
1343-508: Is taught poorly in schools in Pakistan. Moreover, in government schools material is not provided for in the Pashto dialect of that locality, Pashto being a dialectically rich language. Further, researchers have observed that Pashtun students are unable to fully comprehend educational material in Urdu. Professor Tariq Rahman states: "The government of Pakistan, faced with irredentist claims from Afghanistan on its territory, also discouraged
1422-586: Is the second-largest provincial language of Pakistan , spoken mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan . Likewise, it is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is at least 40 million, although some estimates place it as high as 60 million. Pashto is "one of the primary markers of ethnic identity" amongst Pashtuns. A national language of Afghanistan , Pashto
1501-776: The 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade making Afghanistan one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement . As a result of continued resentment against Daoud's autocratic rule , close ties with the USSR and economic downturn because of the blockade imposed by Pakistan, Daoud Khan was asked to resign. Instead of resigning, Daoud Khan requested King Zahir Shah to approve new 'one-party constitution' proposed by him which would in turn increase Daoud Khan's already considerable power. Upon rejection, Daoud Khan angrily resigned. The crisis
1580-808: The Central Corps of the Afghan Armed Forces in Kabul from 1951 to 1953. Khan was appointed prime minister in September 1953 through an intra-family transfer of power, replacing Shah Mahmud Khan . His ten-year tenure was noted for his foreign policy turn to the Soviet Union , the completion of the Helmand Valley project, which dramatically improved living conditions in southwestern Afghanistan, as well as tentative steps towards
1659-561: The Indo-European language family , natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan . It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ( افغانی , Afghāni ). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns , it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Dari , and it
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#17327766416451738-729: The Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana , Khan said that Cuba "only pretends to be non-aligned." Surprisingly, he did not renew the Pashtunistan agitation; relations with Pakistan improved thanks to interventions from the US and the Shah of Iran . These moves alerted the Soviets. In 1977, he established his own political party, the National Revolutionary Party , which became the focus of all political activity. In January 1977,
1817-582: The Pashtun tribes spoke Pashto as their native tongue . King Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign (1926–1929) as a marker of ethnic identity and as a symbol of "official nationalism" leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. In the 1930s, a movement began to take hold to promote Pashto as a language of government, administration, and art with
1896-502: The Pashtunisation of Afghanistan reached such an extent that the word 'Afghan' started being used to refer only to Pashtuns and not to the other minority groups who collectively formed a majority in Afghanistan. The Afghan Armed Forces were allied with Daoud Khan and supported his goal of promoting Pashtuns to higher posts in the Afghan Armed Forces . In 1963, Afghan Uzbeks were barred from becoming high-ranking officers in
1975-486: The Pashtuns living in the border regions of Pakistan should be given a choice to join Afghanistan or form an independent state, which led to tense relations with Pakistan from the onset. Afghanistan went through economic troubles in the early 1950s, and having failed at an ambitious irrigation scheme in western Afghanistan, Mahmud Khan was eventually replaced by Daoud Khan . This Afghanistan biographical article
2054-481: The Soviet Union because Egypt took the same route in 1974 in distancing itself from the Soviet Union. After the murder of Mir Akbar Khyber , the prominent Parchamite ideologue, his funeral on 19 April 1978 served as a rallying point for the Afghan communists. An estimated 1,000 to 3,000 people gathered to hear speeches by PDPA leaders such as Nur Muhammad Taraki , Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal . Shocked by this demonstration of communist unity, Khan ordered
2133-825: The 8th century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana . Pə́ṭa Xazāná ( پټه خزانه ) is a Pashto manuscript claimed to be written by Mohammad Hotak under the patronage of the Pashtun emperor Hussain Hotak in Kandahar ; containing an anthology of Pashto poets. However, its authenticity is disputed by scholars such as David Neil MacKenzie and Lucia Serena Loi. Nile Green comments in this regard: "In 1944, Habibi claimed to have discovered an eighteenth-century manuscript anthology containing much older biographies and verses of Pashto poets that stretched back as far as
2212-415: The Afghan armed forces. Similarly only a few Tajiks were allowed to hold the position of officer in the Afghan army, while other ethnicities were excluded from those positions. Pashto language Pashto ( / ˈ p ʌ ʃ t oʊ / PUH -shto , / ˈ p æ ʃ t oʊ / PASH -toe ; پښتو , Pəx̌tó , [pəʂˈto, pʊxˈto, pəʃˈto, pəçˈto] ) is an Eastern Iranian language in
2291-594: The Afghan military and the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His body was discovered 30 years later and was identified by a small golden Quran gifted by King Khalid of Saudi Arabia he always carried. He received a state funeral . Mohammad Daoud Khan was born in Kabul , Emirate of Afghanistan , into a Barakzai Pashtun family and was the eldest son of the diplomat Prince Mohammad Aziz Khan (1877–1933; an older half-brother of King Mohammad Nadir Shah ) and his wife, Khurshid Begum . His father
2370-543: The KGB." Sayed Makhdoom Raheen in 2003 After returning to Afghanistan, he made plans that his government would downscale its relationship with the Soviet Union, and instead forge closer contacts with the West as well as the oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Iran . Afghanistan signed a co-operative military treaty with Egypt and by 1977, the Afghan military and police force were being trained by Egyptian Armed Forces . This angered
2449-526: The King on 17 July 1973. The coup was bloodless , and backed by a large number of army officers who were loyal to him, facing no resistance. Departing from tradition, and for the first time in Afghan history, he did not proclaim himself Shah , establishing instead a republic with himself as president . The role of pro-communist Parchamite officers in the coup led to him receiving the nickname " Red Prince " by some. King Zahir Shah's constitution establishing
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2528-493: The Pakistani Pashtun people with Afghanistan, but this would have involved taking a considerable amount of territory from the new nation of Pakistan and was in direct opposition to an older plan of the 1940s whereby a confederation between the two countries was proposed. The move further worried the non-Pashtun populations of Afghanistan such as the minority Hazara , Tajik , and Uzbek , who suspected his intention
2607-529: The Pashto Movement and eventually allowed its use in peripheral domains only after the Pakhtun elite had been co-opted by the ruling elite...Thus, even though there is still an active desire among some Pakhtun activists to use Pashto in the domains of power, it is more of a symbol of Pakhtun identity than one of nationalism." Robert Nicols states: "In the end, national language policy, especially in
2686-680: The Society's annual meeting in 1927. In 1955, Pashtun intellectuals including Abdul Qadir formed the Pashto Academy Peshawar on the model of Pashto Tolana formed in Afghanistan. In 1974, the Department of Pashto was established in the University of Balochistan for the promotion of Pashto. In Pakistan, Pashto is the first language around of 15% of its population (per the 1998 census). However, Urdu and English are
2765-559: The USSR and essential to the promotion of peace in Asia, and warned him about the presence of experts from NATO countries stationed in the northern parts of Afghanistan. Daoud bluntly replied: "we will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan. How and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan state. Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions" "All of his life experience
2844-425: The arrest of the PDPA leaders, but he acted too slowly. It took him a week to arrest Taraki, Karmal managed to escape to the USSR , and Amin was merely placed under house arrest. Khan had misjudged the situation and believed that Karmal's Parcham faction was the main communist threat. In fact, according to PDPA documents, Amin's Khalq faction had extensively infiltrated the military and they outnumbered Parcham cells by
2923-511: The backdrop to weakening Pashtun power following Mughal rule: Khushal Khan Khattak used Pashto poetry to rally for Pashtun unity and Pir Bayazid as an expedient means to spread his message to the Pashtun masses. For instance Khushal Khattak laments in : "The Afghans (Pashtuns) are far superior to the Mughals at the sword, Were but the Afghans, in intellect, a little discreet. If
3002-483: The bombing of a PIA B707 at Islamabad airport in 1975. The 130 passengers of PIA B707 had deplaned before the explosion took place and thus no one was harmed in the explosion inside the aircraft. At the same time, Afghanistan also faced several short lived uprisings in retaliation in eastern Afghanistan and in Panjshir valley , which Afghanistan blamed on Pakistan. There was also deployment of additional troops by both
3081-512: The capital. Khan and most of his family were assassinated during the coup by members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The coup climaxed in the Arg , the former chief royal palace, during the early hours of 28 April 1978, involving heavy fighting and many deaths. Shortly afterwards, the new military leaders announced that Khan had been killed for refusing to pledge allegiance to
3160-721: The communist elements within the coup. He was concerned about the tenor of many communists in his government and Afghanistan's growing dependency on the Soviet Union. These moves were highly criticized by Moscow , which feared that Afghanistan would soon become closer to the West, especially the United States ; the Soviets had always feared that the United States could find a way to influence the government in Kabul. During his latter years in charge, his purge of communists in his government strained his relations with them, while his desire for one person rule created conflicts with
3239-616: The countries along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The same year Kabul was also quietly negotiating with Islamabad to defuse the tensions between the two countries. In early 1976, relations between the two countries improved and the leaders of the two countries, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Douad Khan, exchanged visits. Daoud Khan was also worried about the growing power of communists within his government so he started improving his relations with Pakistan and Iran. The same year Pakistan also provided aid to Afghanistan to help alleviate
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3318-414: The country." Some Afghans fondly consider him to be the best leader their country has had in modern times. During his time as prime minister and president, Khan was highly unpopular among the non-Pashtun minorities in Afghanistan because of his alleged Pashtun favouritism. During his regime, all significant positions in the government, army and educational institutions were held by Pashtuns . His attempt at
3397-410: The different tribes would but support each other, Kings would have to bow down in prostration before them" Pashto is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language with split ergativity . In Pashto, this means that the verb agrees with the subject in transitive and intransitive sentences in non-past, non-completed clauses, but when a completed action is reported in any of the past tenses, the verb agrees with
3476-648: The east of Qaen , near the Afghan border). In India most ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) peoples speak the geographically native Hindi-Urdu language rather than Pashto, but there are small numbers of Pashto speakers, such as the Sheen Khalai in Rajasthan , and the Pathan community in the city of Kolkata , often nicknamed the Kabuliwala ("people of Kabul "). Pashtun diaspora communities in other countries around
3555-443: The eighth century. It was an extraordinary claim, implying as it did that the history of Pashto literature reached back further in time than Persian, thus supplanting the hold of Persian over the medieval Afghan past. Although it was later convincingly discredited through formal linguistic analysis, Habibi's publication of the text under the title Pata Khazana ('Hidden Treasure') would (in Afghanistan at least) establish his reputation as
3634-540: The emancipation of women, giving women a higher public presence, which led to significant amounts of freedom and educational opportunities for them. With the creation of an independent Pakistan in August 1947, Prime Minister Daoud Khan had rejected the Durand Line , which had been accepted as international border by successive Afghan governments for over a half a century. Khan supported a nationalistic reunification of
3713-562: The establishment of a Pashto Society Pashto Anjuman in 1931 and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy (Pashto Tolana) in 1937. Muhammad Na'im Khan, the minister of education between 1938 and 1946, inaugurated the formal policy of promoting Pashto as Afghanistan's national language, leading to the commission and publication of Pashto textbooks. The Pashto Tolana
3792-451: The field of education in the NWFP, had constructed a type of three tiered language hierarchy. Pashto lagged far behind Urdu and English in prestige or development in almost every domain of political or economic power..." Although Pashto used as a medium of instruction in schools for Pashtun students results in better understanding and comprehension for students when compared to using Urdu, still
3871-549: The first president of Afghanistan from 1973 until his assassination in the Saur Revolution . Born into the Afghan royal family and addressed by the prefix " Sardar ", Khan started as a provincial governor and later a military officer before being appointed as prime minister by his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah , serving for a decade. Having failed to persuade the King to implement a one-party system, Khan overthrew
3950-482: The first time excluding all members of the royal family from the Council of Ministers. Khan had already stepped down. In addition to having been prime minister, he had also held the portfolios of Minister of Defense and Minister of Planning until 1963. Khan was unsatisfied with King Zahir Shah's constitutional parliamentary system and lack of progress. He planned rebellion for more than a year before he seized power from
4029-399: The government of Pakistan has only introduced Pashto at the primary levels in state-run schools. Taimur Khan remarks: "the dominant Urdu language squeezes and denies any space for Pashto language in the official and formal capacity. In this contact zone, Pashto language exists but in a subordinate and unofficial capacity". Some linguists have argued that Pashto is descended from Avestan or
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#17327766416454108-413: The government, and many of his policies also displeased religious conservatives and liberals who were in favor of restoring the multiparty system that existed under the monarchy. Social and economic reforms implemented under his ruling were successful, but his foreign policy led to tense relations with neighboring countries. In 1978, he was deposed and assassinated during the 1978 Afghan coup d'état , led by
4187-479: The leftists. According to one account, Daoud Khan planned to appoint Maiwandwal as prime minister, leading to the Parchamite Minister of Interior, Faiz Mohammad , along with fellow communists, framing Maiwandwal in a coup plot, then torturing him to death without Daoud Khan's knowledge. Louis Dupree wrote that Maiwandwal, one of few Afghan politicians with an international reputation, could have been
4266-726: The liberals who had been in charge during the monarchy. At the same time, his persecution of religious conservatives engendered enmity with them and their followers as well. As during his time as prime minister, Daoud Khan again pressed on the question of Pashtunistan , again leading to sometimes tense relations with Pakistan. Daoud hosted General Secretary of the National Awami Party Khan Abdul Wali Khan , Ajmal Khattak , Juma Khan Sufi, Baluch guerrillas, and others. Khan's government and forces also commenced training of anti-Pakistani groups to conduct militant action and sabotage in Pakistan. The campaign
4345-461: The monarchy in a virtually bloodless coup with the backing of Afghan Army officers, and proclaimed himself the first president of the Republic of Afghanistan , establishing an autocratic one-party system under his National Revolutionary Party . Khan was known for his autocratic rule , and for his educational and progressive social reforms. Under his regime, he headed a purge of communists in
4424-483: The native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages . As noted by Josef Elfenbein, "Loanwords have been traced in Pashto as far back as the third century B.C., and include words from Greek and probably Old Persian". For instance, Georg Morgenstierne notes the Pashto word مېچن mečә́n i.e. a hand-mill as being derived from the Ancient Greek word μηχανή ( mēkhanḗ , i.e.
4503-400: The new regime by Lieutenant Imamuddin of the 444th Commando Battalion. Upon Daoud's assassination, Afghan singer Fazal Ghani wrote the song “ Khalqi Nizam” which mocked the former president for his baldness and for being “finished with one strike”, which was aired on Radio Television Afghanistan . On 28 June 2008, his body and those of his family were found in two separate mass graves outside
4582-465: The possessed in the genitive construction, and adjectives come before the nouns they modify. Unlike most other Indo-Iranian languages, Pashto uses all three types of adpositions —prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions. *The retroflex rhotic or lateral, tends to be a lateral flap [ 𝼈 ] at the beginning of a syllable or other prosodic unit, and a regular flap [ ɽ ] or approximant [ ɻ ] elsewhere. In Pashto, most of
4661-625: The reunification of the Pashtun people failed to gain support from the majority of Pashtuns in Pakistan . In 1960, Khan sent troops across the poorly-marked Durand Line into the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan in an attempt to manipulate events in that area and to press the Pashtunistan issue, but the Afghan forces were defeated by the Pashtun Tribal militias. During this period, the propaganda war from Afghanistan, carried on by radio,
4740-444: The subject if it is intransitive, but with the object if it is transitive. Verbs are inflected for present, simple past, past progressive, present perfect, and past perfect tenses. There is also an inflection for the subjunctive mood . Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masculine and feminine), two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (direct, oblique, ablative, and vocative). The possessor precedes
4819-461: The suffering caused by earthquake and floods in northern Afghanistan. This gesture by Pakistan had helped mollify Afghan public opinion about Pakistan. By October 1976, the head of Pakistan intelligence agency, Jilani was informing a US diplomat that Afghanistan was no longer creating troubles for Pakistan. By August 1976 relations with Pakistan had improved to a high degree. Later on, while promoting his new foreign policy doctrine, Daoud Khan came to
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#17327766416454898-550: The tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana . This was around the time when the area inhabited by the Pashtuns was governed by the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom . From the 3rd century CE onward, they are mostly referred to by the name Afghan ( Abgan ). Abdul Hai Habibi believed that the earliest modern Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri of the early Ghurid period in
4977-411: The two official languages of Pakistan. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north Balochistan . Yet, the primary medium of education in government schools in Pakistan is Urdu. The lack of importance given to Pashto and its neglect has caused growing resentment amongst Pashtuns. It is noted that Pashto
5056-542: The walls of Pul-e-Charkhi prison , District 12 of Kabul city. Initial reports indicate that sixteen corpses were in one grave and twelve in the other. On 4 December 2008, the Afghan Health Ministry announced that Daoud's body had been identified on the basis of teeth molds and a small golden Quran, a present he had received from the King of Saudi Arabia , found near the body. On 17 March 2009, General Daoud
5135-508: The world speak Pashto, especially the sizable communities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia . Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari Persian . Since the early 18th century, the monarchs of Afghanistan have been ethnic Pashtuns (except for Habibullāh Kalakāni in 1929). Persian, the literary language of the royal court, was more widely used in government institutions, while
5214-566: Was Governor of Kandahar Province from 1935 to 1938. In 1939, Khan was promoted to Commander of the Central Forces. As commander, he led Afghan forces against the Safi during the Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947 . From 1946 to 1948, he served as Defense Minister , then Interior Minister from 1949 to 1951. In 1948, he served as Afghan Ambassador to France. In 1951, he was promoted to General and served in that capacity as Commander of
5293-479: Was a ministerial carryover from Khan's Prime Minister era (1953–1963); Majid was Minister of Education from 1953 to 1957, and from 1973 was appointed Minister of Justice until 1977. Initially about half of the new cabinet were either current members, former members or sympathizers of the PDPA , but over time their influence would be eradicated by Khan. A coup against Khan, which may have been planned before he took power,
5372-724: Was assassinated in 1933 in Berlin , while serving as the Afghan Ambassador to Germany. He and his brother Prince Naim Khan (1911–1978) then came under the tutelage of their uncle Mohammad Hashim Khan (1884–1953). Daoud proved to be an apt student of politics. Educated in France , he served as a senior administrator in the Kingdom of Afghanistan , serving as Governor of the Eastern Province in 1934–35 and in 1938–39, and
5451-419: Was finally resolved with his forced resignation in March 1963 and the re-opening of the border in May. Pakistan continued to remain suspicious of Afghan intentions and Daoud's policy left a negative impression in the eyes of many Tajiks who felt they were being disenfranchised for the sake of Pashtun nationalism . He was succeeded by Mohammad Yusuf . In 1964, King Zahir Shah introduced a new constitution , for
5530-405: Was given a state funeral. His only surviving child, Dorkhanai, attended the funeral. Daoud and following family members that were killed (resembling the Murder of the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks ) on the same day on 28 April 1978 are buried at an incomplete hilltop tomb located 2.5 km west of Darul Aman Palace , Kabul: News sources in the 1970s claimed that General Daoud Khan said he
5609-427: Was happiest when he could "light his American cigarettes with Soviet matches." Mohammad Daoud Khan was retrospectively described as an "old-fashioned statesman, compassionate yet reserved and authoritarian" by The Guardian ' s Nushin Arbabzadeh. Then-President Hamid Karzai hailed Khan's courage and patriotism in comments after his 2009 state funeral, saying he was "always thinking of the advancement and prosperity of
5688-523: Was later incorporated into the Academy of Sciences Afghanistan in line with Soviet model following the Saur Revolution in 1978. Although officially supporting the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing". King Zahir Shah (reigning 1933–1973) thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933 that officials were to study and utilize both Persian and Pashto. In 1936
5767-553: Was married to Safora Sultan, a sister of Amanullah Khan Under his leadership, relatively free 1949 elections were permitted, in response to a mostly middle-class youth movement wanting reforms. However, by the 1952 elections , the policy reverted to strict control. Also during his time as Prime Minister, the Pakistani state was formed following India 's independence from the United Kingdom . The Afghans contended that
5846-634: Was officially renamed to Dari . The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In British India , prior to the creation of Pakistan by the British government, the 1920s saw the blossoming of Pashto language in the then NWFP : Abdul Ghafar Khan in 1921 established the Anjuman-e- Islah al-Afaghina (Society for the Reformation of Afghans) to promote Pashto as an extension of Pashtun culture; around 80,000 people attended
5925-451: Was relentless. In 1961, Daoud Khan made another attempt to invade Bajaur with larger Afghan army this time. However, Pakistan employed F-86 Sabres jets which inflicted heavy casualties against the Afghan army unit and the tribesmen from Kunar province who were supporting the Afghan army. Several Afghan soldiers were also captured and were paraded in front of international media, which in turn caused embarrassment for Daoud Khan. In 1961, as
6004-469: Was repressed shortly after his seizure of power. In October 1973, Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal , a former prime minister and a highly respected former diplomat, was arrested in a coup plot and died in prison before his trial set for December 1973. This was at a time when Parchamites controlled the Ministry of Interior under circumstances corroborating the widespread belief that he had been tortured to death by
6083-619: Was significant enough that even one of Bhutto's senior colleagues, minister of interior and head of the provincial branch of Bhutto's party of/in the then- North-West Frontier Province (renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010), Hayat Sherpao , was killed, ostensibly on the orders of the later-acquitted Awami Party. As a result, Afghanistan's already strained relationship with Pakistan further dipped and Pakistan likewise started similar kinds of cross-border interference. By 1975, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto , through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had begun to engage in promoting
6162-533: Was the Prime Minister of Afghanistan from May 1946 to 7 September 1953, under King Mohammad Zahir Shah 's monarchy. He was from the Pashtun tribe of Barakzai Mohammadzai . He was a brother of King Mohammad Nadir Shah , who ousted Habibullāh Kalakāni (also known as Bacha-ye Saqao), and uncle of both Zahir Shah and Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan , his eventual successor. His other two brothers are Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan and Sardar Shah Wali Khan . He
6241-427: Was to increase the Pashtuns' disproportionate hold on political power. Abdul Ghaffar Khan (founder of Khudai Khidmatgar movement), stated "that Daoud Khan only exploited the idea of reunification of Pashtun people to meet his own political ends. The idea of reunification of Pashtun people never helped Pashtuns and it only caused trouble for Pakistan. In fact it was never a reality". Moreover, Daoud Khan's project for
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