History of Peshawar

olent resistance movement that was led by Ghaffar Khan, a disciple of Mohandas Gandhi. In April 1930, Khan led a large group of locals, in a peaceful protest in Qissa Khawani Bazaar, against discriminatory laws that had been enacted by the British rulers — up to 400 people were killed when British forces opened fire on the demonstrators.

In 1947, Peshawar became part of the newly-created Pakistan after politicians from the Frontier approved the merger. While a large majority of people approved of this action, a small minority, including Abdul Ghaffar Khan, believed that South Asians could form a confederation; however, the call for a united India was deeply unpopular with the local people, who clearly expressed that they did not identify as Indians. Others believed that the province should have been absorbed into Afghanistan — a position that later evolved into a call for the creation of Pashtunistan, an independent state separate from both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A segment of the region's populace believed that an option should have been provided, whereby Peshawar was fully incorporated into Afghanistan in 1947 — a stance that various Afghan governments actively supported. In an attempt to take advantage of Pakistan's post-independence instability, Afghanistan crafted a two-fold strategy to destabilise the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Firstly, it strongly aligned itself with Pakistan's rival, India, and also the USSR, which later invaded Afghanistan. Secondly, it politically and financially back secessionist leaders in the NWFP in the 1960s. Afghanistan's policies placed a severe strain upon Pakistani–Afghan relations in the 1960s, up until the 1970s, when the movement largely subsided as the population came to thoroughly identify with Pakistan; although, resentment against the Punjabi elite continued to develop. Pashtun assimilation into the Pakistani state followed years of rising Pashtun influence in