Editing Hazarajat (section)

===20th and 21st century===
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In the 1920s the ancient [[Shibar Pass]] road which leads through Bamyan and east to the [[Panjshir Valley]] was paved for lorries, and it remained the busiest road across the [[Hindu Kush]] until the building of the [[Salang tunnel]] in 1964 and the opening of a winter route. The Hazarajat became increasingly depopulated as Hazaras migrated to cities and to surrounding countries, where they became laborers and undertook the hardest and lowest-paid work.<ref name="Iranica"/>

In 1979, there were reportedly one and a half million Hazaras in the Hazarajat and Kabul, although a reliable census has never been taken in Afghanistan.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/fragmentationofa00rubi <!-- quote=The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. --> Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven, 2002, p. 26]</ref> As the Afghan state weakened, uprisings broke out in the Hazarajat, freeing the region from state rule by the summer of 1979 for the first time since the death of [[Abdur Rahman Khan]] some Hazara resistance groups were formed in [[Iran]], including [[Al-Nasr (Afghanistan)|Nasr]] and Sipah-i Pasdaran, with some being "committed to the idea of a separate Hazara national identity".<ref>[https://archive.org/details/fragmentationofa00rubi <!-- quote=The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. --> Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven, 2002. pp. 186, 191, 223]</ref> During the war with the [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan]], most of the Hazarajat was unoccupied and free of Soviet or state presence. The region became ruled once again by local leaders, or mirs, and a new stratum of young radical Shiʿi commanders. Economic conditions are reported to have improved in the Hazarajat during the war, when [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] ''Kuchis'' stopped grazing their flocks in Hazara pastures and fields.<ref name="books.google.com">[https://archive.org/details/fragmentationofa00rubi <!-- quote=The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. --> Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven, 2002, p. 246]</ref>
The group ruling Hazarajat was the [[Revolutionary Council of Islamic Unity of Afghanistan]] or ''Shura-e Ettefaq'', led by [[Sayyid Ali Beheshti]]. The region's geographic nature and un-strategic location meant that the government and Soviets ignored it as they fought rebels elsewhere. This effectively allowed the Shura-i Ettefaq administration to rule over the region and give autonomy to the Hazaras. Their politically opposing groups were mostly educated, secular and left-wing.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ibrahimi |first1=Niamatullah |title=THE FAILURE OF A CLERICAL PROTO-STATE: HAZARAJAT, 1979 - 1984 |publisher=Crisis States Research Centre |date=September 2006|citeseerx=10.1.1.604.3516 }}</ref><ref name="Nation 2016">''Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan: Political Islam and the rise of ethno-politics 1992–1996'' by Raghav Sharma, 2016.</ref> Between 1982 and 1984, an internal civil war caused the Shura to be overthrown by the ''Sazman-i Nasr'' and ''Sepah-i Pasdaran'' groups. However inter-factional rivalry continued thereafter. Most of the Hazara groups united in 1987 and 1989 and formed the [[Hizb-e-Wahdat]].<ref name="Nation 2016"/>

During the rule of the [[Taliban]], once again, ethnic and sectarian violence struck Hazarajat. In 1997, a revolt broke out among Hazara people in [[Mazar-e Sharif]] when they refused to be disarmed by the Taliban; 600 Taliban were killed in subsequent fighting.<ref>Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, London and New Haven, 2000, p. 58</ref> In retaliation, the genocidal policies of Amir [[Abdur Rahman Khan]]'s era were adopted by the Taliban. In 1998, six thousand Hazaras were killed in the north; the intention was ethnic cleansing of Hazara.<ref>Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, London and New Haven, 2000, pp. 67–74</ref> At that stage, Hazarajat does not exist as an official region; the area comprises the administrative provinces of Bamyan, [[Ghor Province|Ghor]], [[Maidan Wardak Province|Maidan Wardak]], Ghazni, Oruzgan, [[Guzgan|Juzjan]], and Samangan.<ref name="books.google.com"/> In March 2001, two giant Buddhist statues, [[Buddhas of Bamiyan]], were also destroyed even though there was a lot of condemnation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/03/afghanistan.lukeharding |title=Taliban blow apart 2,000 years of Buddhist history |website=The Guardian |date=3 March 2001 }}</ref>