Before the 19  

century the dress of the Pathans was a loose robe similar to the robe worn by present day Arabs.  From 1805 onwards the
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Pathans came into conflict with the Sikhs and a series of battles took place. The Pathans and the Afghans were badly defeated and lost the
entire Northwest Frontier- Multan, Peshawar, Jamrud, Khyber were lost to the Sikh army. The general who led the Sikh army was ‘Hari Singh
Nalwa’ who spread terror in the minds of the Afghans.
Repeated defeats at the hands of the Sikhs unnerved the Afghans who feared capture at the hands of the Sikhs and Nalwa in particular. Nalwa
had a ruthless reputation, but him as per Sikh tenets never attacked or killed women and old people. It was then that it dawned on the Pathans
that the Sikh women wore the Shalwar kameez which was their standard dress and remains so even today. The Pathan thought that the best
way to escape the wrath of Nalwa was to don the Punjabi dress i.e. Shalwar kameez and escape from the clutches of the Sikhs and Nalwa. The
dress over the decades was adopted by the Pathans and is also now known as the ‘Pathani suit’.
The veracity of the above is confirmed by Miangul Aurangzeb, Wali of Swat in a letter to the Taliban as late as the start of the 21  century. The
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above facts are recounted   by Vanit Nalwa in her book Hari Singh Nalwa-champion of the Khalsa (2009). Some Muslim scholars have opined
that the Shalwar kameez came from Turkey, but facts do not support this hypothesis