The Wakhi people: discovery of an ancient civilization

The Wakhi Pamiri people live around the Pamir knot that overlaps four countries – Gojal, Ishkoman and Chitral districts in Northern Areas of Pakistan, the Kohistani Badakhshan Autonomous province of Tajikistan, Wakhan corridor of the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan and the Yarkand, Srikol and Tashqurghan regions of Sinkiang province, China. The region serves as a confluence for some of world’s highest mountain ranges and being the territory through which the ancient Silk Route passed it has also been a place of cultural cross currents. A very rough estimate of the population of Wakhi (Xhik) people is over 200,000 worldwide.

Colonial expansionism of the 19th century initiated by Great Britain and Russia known as the Great Game further fragmented the region and created zones of interest. The Pamiri people became embedded within the conflicts between Russia, Britain, China and Afghanistan; their destinies became intimately linked to the political histories of the emerging nation states in the region. Gilgit-Baltistan as part of the British Empire in India were integrated into Pakistan. Afghan Badakhshan went through endless periods of turbulence under various Afghan dynasties, followed by the communist-led revolution and subsequent wars between the Mujahideen and the Taliban movements.

The Pamiris of the eastern mountains were incorporated into China and experienced the various ideological struggles that have dominated Chinese history since the revolution. But Pamiris in Gorno-Badakhshan under communist rule made tremendous progress in education, higher fields of knowledge and culture in comparison to the Pamiri people of Gojal, Ishkoman and Brughil who suffered decades of oppression under the Mirs as well as the isolation of centuries that benighted that region. It was only in the 1974 when the princely states were abolished and the Pamiri region of Pakistan saw development and education flourish which has since brought noticeable change in the economy and life of the people.