Shift and Drift in Hazara Ethnic Consciousness

Abstract

The paper argues that ethnicity and ethnic consciousness among the Hazaras is inexorably linked with the emergence of the Afghan state in the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis and instability that it has gone through in recent decades. The paper explores the impact of incorporation of the Hazarajat region into the Afghan state and subsequent political marginalization and mass migration as well as internal responses to these external forces, in particular articulation and expression of a shared memory of persecution and marginalization by literate Hazaras, in particular the ulema and intelligentsia, in Afghanistan and certain places in the Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, in shaping and defining Hazara ethnic identity. To account for the different phases in articulation of ethnic identity as well as the dramatic changes in the external environment in which these developments took place, the paper makes a distinction between the periods before and after 1978, when the war began in Afghanistan. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the evolution of Hazaras ethnicity and ethnic consciousness is a salient but complex and dynamic process. It is the product of external political, economic and social environment as well as actions and initiatives by members of this particular ethnic group in different locations.