PUKHTOONS

The man in the poet

By Zafar Ali Yousafzai

Ghani Khan's life passed through various phases and almost all of them are reflected in his writings Most people know little about Ghani Khan. For many, he is only a poet who wrote about love, music, pleasure, wine and sensuality. For some, he is a rebel while for others he is a heretic. It, therefore, makes sense to talk about his life and times instead of discussing his poetry in isolation.
Ghani Khan was born in January 1914, at Utmanzai village in District Charsadda. He was the eldest son of Bacha Khan who founded the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement and who rose to prominence because of his relentless, non-violent struggle against the British rule in the subcontinent. When Ghani was five, his mother died of influenza and his paternal grandmother took charge of his upbringing. But she died in 1923.
Ghani Khan received his early education from a traditional religious teacher at an Utmanzai mosques. He was then sent to the National High School in Peshawar. After he had studied there for one year, his father set up Azad Islamic Madrassa in his hometown Utmanzai in 1921 and Ghani Khan was admitted to it. At the age of 14, he started composing poetry while he was still at school. But it was in December 1928 that his first poem appeared in Pakhtoon, a monthly journal launched by his father as the organ of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement for the promotion of the Pashto language.
In 1929, Bacha Khan sent him to London for higher education where he also came to learn about Christianity. Even in those years of adolescence, he was able to impress others with his body and bent of mind. While in London, he got involved in a love affair with an eminent film actress but Bacha Khan did not approve of it. Ghani Khan was told by his father to depart for the United States of America to study of sugar technology at the University of Southern Louisiana.
But though Ghani Khan went to America his heart was in London. It was then that he wrote many verses on the liberalism of the western society. He also wrote about his emotional deprivation.
He did Chemical Engineering from the US and on his return was appointed in a sugar mill in Uttar Pradesh province as chief chemist.
It was also during these days that, deeply moved by the atrocities committed by the British government against his father's Khudai Khidmatgars, Ghani Khan sought Bacha Khan's permission for an armed struggle. Instead he was sent to Allahabad where he stayed with Jawaharlal Nehru. In February 1934 Ghani Khan and Indra Gandhi were admitted to Tagore's Shantiniketan College of Arts where, along with journalism, he started studying sculpture and painting. His stay at Shantiniketan had a profound effect on him. In his own words, "it was in Shantineketan that I discovered myself and the past greatness of my own culture and civilisation which has produced several men of versatile geniuses, who have been appreciated by historians and scholars of the West."
In December 1934 he went to Bombay where, at a friend's house, he met and instantaneously fell in love with Roshan (1907-1987), a Parsi lady of noble birth and the youngest daughter of Nawab Rustum Jang Faridoonji of Hyderabad Deccan. They married on November 24, 1939.
In 1940, he joined Frontier Sugar Mills, Takht-i-Bhai in Mardan District as cane manager. In February 1943, he resigned. But soon the circumstances compelled him, much against his natural inclinations, to actively associate himself with electoral politics.
Ghani Khan was against non-violence preached and practiced by Bacha khan. He believed in struggle through any means possible. This was what prompted him to set up an armed organisation named Zalmey Pakhtoon (Pakhtoon Youth) to protect Khudai Khidmatgars and members of the Congress Party from violence by the state. But despite his belief in an armed political struggle, he took part in electoral politics. At 32, he was elected as the youngest member of the Central Legislative Assembly of India in December 1945 on the only general seat for the Frontier province.
Zalmey Pakhtoon was banned after Pakistan came into being and Ghani Khan was put behind the bars for allegedly subversive activities. His agricultural land was also confiscated by the provincial government. He remained in different jails for six years and was finally released in 1954.
He devoted the rest of his life entirely to poetry. In 1987 a peasant killed Ghani's only son Fareedon Khan. Though the incident shook him greatly, he pardoned his son's killer.
Atrocities by the state, plight of the Pathans and death of his only son gave his poetry a philosophical colour which became a hallmark of his literary persona.
Ghani Khan's first poetic collection was Da Penjery Chaghaar (Chirpings of the Cage) which he wrote from 1947 to 1954 while he was in jail. His other books include Palwashey (Beams of Light), Panoos (Chandelier), Latoon (Search) and Kulyat-e-Ghani (A collection of Ghani's poetry).
It is because of his varied and colourful personality that one can see so many shades -- ranging from freedom, love of God, land and people, nationalism, fate, the mysteries of life and death, the joys of communion, and the woes of separation to beauty -- in his poetry.
According to him, it is the duty of the poets to turn man's attention to those higher centres of his being where he might see the reflection of his own perfection and the face of his eternal beloved -- beauty. A poet, therefore must worship beauty -- in thought, in word and in deed. Ghani Khan was of the view that beauty is the essence of civilisation and culture which includes almost all human creative activities like painting, sculpture and music. "Without the search for beauty in thought, word and deed we cannot have any kind of civilisation."
Beauty and love are the foundation upon which the building blocks of his poetry are lying. Beauty, according to him, is present everywhere. If one is beautiful from within, then the whole universe would be beautiful. But if one were hypocritical and ugly from within, then the whole world would be dark and unattractive.
Love for him is the divine gift of God. It is far more superior to beauty because physical beauty is mortal and would perish while the spirit of love is immortal. The beauty of the beloved is essential but it is the passion of the lover which makes love eternal.
Ghani khan possessed such a great wisdom that he could see things in their true colours. His poetry at times reads like the description of the secrets and mysteries of life.
For him, life without an objective has no meaning. Death is the manifestation of the kindness of the Creator for man. It is death, which unites man with God and is proof of God's love and mercy for mankind.
Apart from Pashto, Ghani Khan also wrote in English. His first English book, The Pathans, was published in 1947. It is a description of history, culture, traditions and customs of Pakhtoons. It also depicts their feuds, enmities and their attitudes to life. "Pathan is not merely a race but in fact, a state of mind; there is a Pathan lying inside every man, who at times wakes up and overpowers him," he once wrote. He was very proud of his being a Pakhtoon and thanked God that he was born among Pakhtoons.
Ghani Khan died on March 15, 1996 in Peshawar and was buried by the side of his mother in his ancestral graveyard near Utmanzai.