The Khetrans are an
ethnolinguistic
Ethnolinguistics (sometimes called cultural linguistics) is an area of anthropological linguistics that studies the relationship between a language or group of languages and the cultural practices of the people who speak those languages.
It exa ...
group primarily native to
Barkhan in
Balochistan
Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region o ...
and
Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan, abbreviated as D.G. Khan, is a city in the southwestern part of the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, 16th most-populous city in Punjab and List of most p ...
in
Punjab, Pakistan
Punjab (, ) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. With a population of over 127 million, it is the Demographics of Pakistan, most populous province in Pakistan and the List of first-level administrative divisions by popu ...
. The total population was estimated to be about 150,000 in 2017, at least two-thirds of which are speakers of their native
Khetrani, an
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...
. A sizeable population in Barkhan can speak
Balochi, while Khetrans who have settled to the east in the Dera Ghazi Khan speak
Saraiki.
Origins
According to the 1st edition of ''
Encyclopedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Islamic world. It is considered to be the standard ...
'', Khetrans pre-date
Baloch migrations into their native hilly tract of the
Sulaiman Mountains
The Sulaiman Mountains, also known as Kōh-e Sulaymān, Kasē Ghrūna Da Suleiman Ghruna (Pashto: د كسې غرونه ، د سلیمان غرونه; "Mountains of Qaes/Kasi and Solomon") ( Balochi:; "Mountains of Solomon") are a north–south ex ...
. Khetrans were already going through assimilation by the Baloch in the 19th century, a process slowed down only by the advent of
British rule
The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent,
*
* lasting from 1858 to 1947.
*
* It is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
* or dire ...
, and were organized in a similar way to a Baloch ''
tuman''.
[ Conversely, Khetrans have assimilated several other peoples in their vicinity as well, including ]Jats
The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in ...
, Baloch and Pashtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghan (ethnon ...
.[
]
History
In 1845 under the command of Sir Charles James Napier 7,000 men attacked the Bugtis, killing many of them. Khetrans provided sanctuary to hundreds of Bugtis who took refuge in their lands.
1918 rebellion against British rule
References
{{reflist
Social groups of Balochistan, Pakistan
Indigenous peoples of South Asia