Written Out Of History: The Forgotten Afghans Of Sri Lanka 

By Tuan M. Zameer Careem –MAY 5, 2020

Tuan M. Zameer Careem

 Sri Lanka experienced major waves of immigration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when throngs of immigrants from India & other British colonies took up residence on the island. Indentured labourers from the erstwhile Madras Presidency & Malabar, who were recruited to work on the central Hill plantations of tea, rubber & coffee, constituted the greatest proportion of this group, followed by Coast Moors, who also came from South India. Presumably, the least known among the surfeit of ethnic groups that settled in Ceylon are the ‘Afghans’, who were originally brought to the Island by the British to work as horse-keepers and indentured labourers and by the turn of the 20th century, many had become full-time usurers and traders in Ceylon. These ‘Afghans’ who were mainly of Pashtun extraction, hailed from Afghanistan & from the North-Western frontiers & Baluchistan Agency of British India (present-day Pakistan) and were popularly identified as “Bhais” in Ceylon,. Their numerical strength according to the population census of 1881 was just over a thousand, extremely insignificant in proportion to the whole population of Ceylon at the time and by 1901, their population had plummeted to 270. The census of 1911 gave them 466 souls, census of 1921 recorded 304 members and by 1946 their number had risen to 551. After which, there has been no mention of ‘Afghans’, in any of Sri Lanka’s population censuses and demographic statistics. The money lending ordinance (1918), citizenship act & the infamous repatriation bill led to their disappearance from Ceylon, nonetheless, there are a handful of families that claim Pashtun ancestry in Sri Lanka. 

Afgan Traders 

The Afghans who took up residence in Ceylon, were referred to a by a multitude of terms, viz. Afghan karayo (Sinhala for Afghan man), Pattani, Pattaniyar (Pathan), Kabul Manishen (Tamil for man from Kabul), Bangali etc. but the most common term employed by the natives was, “Bhai”, which was not only affixed to their names but was also recorded by officials in Ceylon as their surname. As a matter of fact, my paternal great-grandfather was an Afghan (Pathan) named Carim Ghani (Khan) Baay, a coach driver who permanently settled in Ceylon, following his marriage to a Ceylonese lady from Slave Island. Although these Afghans belonged to numerous tribes (Afridi, Khilji, Yousufzai, AhmedZai, Kakar etc) and bore patronymics and titles like Khan etc, the British deliberately registered them as Bhais (Baay), which was clipped to their individual names mainly to distinguish them from other minorities of Ceylon like the Parsis, among whom the surname Khan was popular (the Khan clock tower in Pettah was built by a Parsi Merchant Framjee Bhikhajee Khan). Interestingly the Malays in Ceylon identified the Afghans as, “Bangali Orang”, meaning “man from Bengal”.  That was because, the Pathans who were addicted to commercial pursuits, made frequent trading visits to Bengal, especially to Calcutta, the then capital of British India & some of them even had families there. Calcutta is still home to a significant population of Pathans, referred to locally as, “Kabuliwalas” (Kabul man). In fact, the fabled Bengali novella “Kabuliwala” (1892) penned by Indian Laureate Rabindranath Tagore revolves around a Pathan (Pashtun) merchant who is friends with a five-year-old girl Mini who hails from an aristocratic Bengali family in Calcutta. The terms “Pathan” and “Afghan” were used interchangeably by the British to describe the ethnic Pashtuns who lived in the Indian subcontinent. As a matter of fact, the word ‘Pathan’ is simply the Hindustani variant of the word ‘Pashtun’. However, irrespective of the terms used to describe the Pathans, only those who lived in major cities knew of their existence, mainly because their population was exceedingly small when compared with the other principal races back then. In fact, many presumed them to be part of the larger Moor community despite their (Pathans) peculiar physical characteristics & distinctive form of clothing.

An Afghan man with Ceylon Moors

Pathan Warriors

Legend has it that Pathan cloth traders from Kabul arrived somewhere in the late 15th century when their schooner sought shelter in Batticaloa harbour from a storm. At the time, there were many Tamil fisherfolk tribes living on the Eastern coast, competing for trade & scarce resources, in particular, the pearl & conch shellfisheries. The various tribes came into conflict with each other, but the most frequent skirmishes were between the Thimilars & Mukkuvars (also spelt “Mukkiyar”). Thimilars (named after “thimil” a Tamil word for “boat”, literally meaning boatmen) had their settlements in ‘Thimilar Theevu’ & on the Northeastern coast of Ceylon while ‘Eravur’ in Batticaloa was the stronghold of the Mukkuvar tribe. During the annual rice-harvesting season, Thimilars raided & pillaged Eravur & other Mukkuvar hamlets, razed their temples, destroyed their crops and their meager livestock, & raped & abducted Mukkuvar women. Ergo the “Mukkuvars” established an alliance with the Pathans, & sought their help to thwart the Thimilar’s incursions into Eravur. The tall & robust Pathan Traders, renowned for their martial prowess helped the Mukkuvars to stave off the attacking Thimilars. Several place names in Batticaloa appertain to these historic battles between the Thimilars and Mukkuvars-Pathans. These are “Vantharumoolai’ (Came-rested corner), ‘Sathurukondan’ (meaning “where the Enemy was killed” referring to the execution of the Thimilar chief), ‘Santhiveli’ (Meeting-moor) & “Vathiyai-thookia-palai” (Place where the Thimilar Queen/ Chieftess was hanged). Legend also has it that the Pathans helped the Mukkuvars of Akkaraipattu to fend off a group of Vedda bandits. These Pathans were rewarded through marriages with local women & were subsequently assimilated into the Mukkuvar tribe. Interestingly, in traditional Mukkuwar families, the descent is traced through the mother and her maternal ancestors, “taay vali/ pen vali’ (meaning mother’s/women’s way) ergo every member of a Mukkuvar ‘kudi’ (social organization) inherits the membership to the clan & subclan from his/her mother. Because the Mukkuvars stringently followed their customs & practices of matrilineality & matrilocality, the children sired by Pathan traders & their descendants became part of the “Mukkuvar tribe”, resultantly the Pathans lost their distinctiveness & cultural identity.

Under British Rule

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