THE DEHGANS OF KUNAR: PAST AND PRESENT
<p>The Dehgans (or Dehqans) are fragments and relics of the ancient pre-Islamic social order of imperial (Sassanian) Persia. Now disenfranchised, diminished and forgotten, their community has acquired a tribal structure and they speak only Pashto of the Ningarhari variety. They exist most numerously in Kunar, which boasts the largest Dehgan community in Afghanistan. The numerous dialects of extinct Middle Persian they are known to have spoken into early modern times have since been extirpated. Their present status is that of a minority Pashtun community relegated vaguely to the peripheries of the tribal society. This does not at all accord with their glorious past, and the last Dehgan rulers of society were the Swatis of northern Pakistan and north-eastern Afghanistan. Only the Dehgan name has miraculously survived the ravages and tumults of time — together with a sense of pride in roots and being special which only a true Persian aristocrat can possess. But beyond that very few of them now know why they feel this way. Many ignorant and unscrupulous people arbitrarily lump them as a Dardic tribe without knowing the true provenance of the term “Dehgan”. In this, such rascally types are assisted by the general decrepitude and neglect which has befallen the Persian historical narrative and its legacy outside of modern Iran.</p>
<p><a href="https://akhundzadaarifhasankhan.medium.com/the-dehgans-of-kunar-past-and-present-863f5fef0d69"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>