Hoti, Mardan

This article is about the Pakistani tribe. For the ethnic Albanian tribe in Montenegro highlands, see Hoti (tribe).

Hoti (Urdu: ہوتی ) Oothay (Pukhto) is inhabited by the Kamalzai Pashtuns, a sub-tribe of the Yousafzai. Hoti is located in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. It is part of Mardan District, just west of Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP.

The people of this area speak Pukhto only and adhere strongly to the Pukhtoon traditions of hospitality and loyalty.

Although the MPs are democratically elected in the NWFP, the old feudal system is still strong in Hoti. The head of the leading feudal family is Mohammad Ali Khan Hoti, ex-education minister of Pakistan. They are a well educated family and Mohammad Ali's grandson, Jaffar Khan, was the first Muslim President of the Cambridge Union.

The main source of livelihood for the Hoti tribe is agriculture and they process and export sugarcane to the rest of the country.

The Hoti area is divided by the Kulpani river. The Nawabs of Hoti lives on the Mardan side whereas the Hoti areas across the Kulpani river is still developing. The major cash crops of the area are Tobacco and Sugarcane. The fine verginia tobacco is mostly utilized by the local cigarette manufacturers while the major yield of sugarcane is consumed by the Premier Sugar Mill (established in 1954 by Aishwar Das). As an old tradition some of the sugarcane is use locally to make jaggery (Gur in local Pukhto).

Other people living in this area are Syeds, Shahibzadas,Khashmiryan and Bilandkhails.