PUKHTOONS

Few leaders are fortunate enough to be revered long after they have ceased to occupy positions of power and authority; even fewer are able to impact the lives of their people as to change their entire outlook, the effects of which can be felt several generations later. One such man, lost to the world, but held in the highest esteem by his people to this day, lived on the North West Frontier of India (later to become part of Pakistan). Named Abdul Ghaffar, meaning ‘man of God’ (Ghaffar is one of the 99 names for God in Islam, meaning the Compassionate or Merciful),he became known as Bacha Khan or the King of Khans (Khan is a title reserved for a large landowner or chieftain in Pukhtun society). Standing at 6 foot 3 inches, he literally did tower over all the other Khans in the region. Bacha Khan was one of the foremost leaders of the Indian struggle for independence and one of the most highly respected all over India, North West Pakistan and Afghanistan. His formal initiation into Indian politics came in 1929 with the formation of the Khudai Khidmatgar (meaning servants of God),

which was a secular reformist party closely allied with the Indian National Congress. His party, later known as the red shirts for the red uniforms worn by the non-violent Khudai Khidmatgar ‘army’ would grow to a total of 100,000 generals, commanders and other office bearers, while he won a much larger following. Bacha Khan, who came from the most violent and politically volatile part of British India, chose the politics of a non-violence and became a close associate of Gandhi. However his entry into mainstream politics was forced by British brutality and persecution. He preferred to remain a social reformer, which he remained till the day of his death. Bacha Khan saw the violence, poverty and ignorance of his society as the greatest retarding forces and decided to wage his struggle against them. His first brush with the authorities came when he opened a school in Utmanzai, his hometown on the Frontier, in 1910, for which he was imprisoned by the authorities. He continued to open schools and tour villages, talking to the villagers to resist British rule, the cause for which he would remain behind bars for 15 years under British rule. Perhaps his greatest contribution to Pukhtun society came from his choice of non-violence as the means of achieving independence. Non-violence is seen by many as the creed of the weak. Bacha Khan however, was a Pukhtun, belonging to a so called warrior race. His grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan remembers two basic lessons learnt from Bacha Khan. "He said that violence needs less courage than nonviolence," quotes Asfandiyar, who is himself an active politician in Pakistan. This might seem counter intuitive but it rings true in Pukhtun society where disputes were traditionally settled through self help and therefore taking up arms was the most natural instinct; the threat of violence, if not violence itself, was always present. "Second,” recalls Asfandyar “violence will always breed hatred. Nonviolence breeds love." It was this conviction of belief in non-violence and the integrity and perseverance with which he observed it that inculcated a devout following amongst Pukhtuns. The British resorted to the worst forms of killings and brutality to oppress the movement, for what they feared was a sinister and treacherous plot, unable to believe that the Pukhtuns could take to non-violence. At least 200 Khudai Khidmatgar members in Peshawar were murdered on April 23, 1930. The protesters lined up and faced the bullets with their chests bared, with the carnage stopping only because a regiment of Indian soldiers finally refused to continue firing on the unarmed protesters, an impertinence for which they were severely punished. Bacha Khan’s adherence to non-violence was absolute; it was more than a political slogan or even an aspiration or belief. It was a way of life. He himself was a Khan and with the following he had built, it was not hard for him to turn his non-violent protest into violent resistance. Indeed it would be a justifiable resistance against foreign occupation. However he chose non-violence in every political decision he took. He was the only Congress leader to walk out when it decided to support the British in their war against Germany; he refused to resort to violence even when his demand for a separate state for the Pukhtuns was rejected by the British and he was later persecuted, jailed and forced into exile by successive Pakistani governments for his opposition to the creation of Pakistan. His Pakistani opponents dubbed him a ‘traitor’ to Islam and to the Muslims of India. He had throughout his political career used his political party to bolster Hindu-Muslim unity, and his opposition to the creation of Pakistan was based on his opposition to the politics of sectarianism, a political and personal stand he had taken long before there was any mention of Pakistan in Indian politics. He toured all over India with Gandhi to stop the riots that had swept across the country at the time of partition and deployed 10,000 Khudai Khidmatgars in Peshawar alone to protect the Hindus and Sikhs in the Frontier regions during the ensuing riots. Later during the 1964 Gujrat riots he toured India with Nehru to stop the violence that had erupted between Hindus and Muslims, and observed a fast for 3 days. Eknath Easwaran writes, “Khan’s action electrified India and the bloodshed stopped.” Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains (Nilgiri Press, 1999). It is easy to attribute his creed of non-violence to his association with Gandhi, and therefore the title ‘Frontier Gandhi’. However, Bacha Khan arrived at this ideology through personal introspection and by observing the effect that violence had on his people, and most importantly from his firm faith in Islam and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. "There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pukhtun like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence," Ghaffar Khan is quoted by Eknath Easwaran "It is not a new creed. It was followed 1,400 years ago by the Prophet all the time when he was in Mecca." For Bacha Khan, Islam meant muhabbat (love), amal (service), and yakeen (faith). Paying tribute to Bacha Khan, J.S. Bright MA writes in his booklet, Frontier and its Gandhi, “Ghaffar Khan is in complete accord with the principle of non-violence. But he has not borrowed his outlook from Mahatma Gandhi. He has reached it. And reached it independently. Independently like a struggler after truth. No doubt, his deep study of Quran has influenced his doctrine of love..." He added, "At any rate, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan is not a Brahmin. Neither is he a mullah commissioned by his Majesty the King of Afghanistan. He is a plain khan and tribesmen do not doubt his sincerity. Hence, if Ghaffar Khan has arrived at the philosophy of non-violence, it is absolutely no wonder. Of the two, Ghaffar Khan and Mahatma Gandhi, my personal view is that the former has achieved a higher level of spirituality. The Khan has reached heaven, while the Pandit [Jawaharlal Nehru] is firmly on the earth but ironically enough the Mahatma is struggling in the air! Ghaffar Khan like Shelley has come from heaven to the earth, while Mahatma Gandhi like Keats is going from the earth to heaven.” (Quoted from http://www.geocities.com/khyber007/bachakhan.html). Bacha Khan was not merely an idealist who spoke of ideals that he did not expect to realize. A firm believer in equality and respect for all classes, he organized his ‘servants of God’ into ranks with titles, with positive discrimination in favor of the poor. Bacha Khan tried to practically inculcate an ethos of equality in a society that was experiencing increasing tensions due to income and status disparities as a consequence of British patronage of certain loyal khans and opportunists. He raised the Qasabgaran (the working class) to the status of generals and commanders of the Khudai-Khidmatgars over the khans and chiefs who supported his movement. He opened a shop to encourage Pukhtuns to take up trade and commerce and to remove the stigma associated with belonging to one of the professional classes. He did not preach austerity today making vainglorious promises of wealth and power to be realized for the benefit of the coming generations. He believed in living a simple life guided by universal human values of tolerance, discipline, integrity, patience and respect for human dignity, guided by a firm faith. He prided himself in his austerity, in an age and society that was gradually becoming materially wealthy and wealth was increasingly becoming the measure of individual worth. His Khudai Khidmatgar army underwent training in camps that lasted for about one week. Continuing the themes of discipline and service, activities included drills, physical fitness training, village cleaning, political education, spinning, grinding wheat, political-cultural performances, and speeches from senior members including Bacha Khan (Banerjee 2001: 75-76) The camps were often large; some camps had 800 participants. Sadly, his movement died following the suppression and complete censure that the Pakistani state imposed on Bacha Khan and his party. The Khudai Khidmatgars were banned as a political party and their top leadership including Bacha Khan were jailed, some of whom died in prison. Several of his followers were killed while he was locked up in prison. Bacha Khan spent a total of 15 years languishing in Pakistani jails under charges of treason and disloyalty to the state. He exiled himself to Afghanistan in 1964, where he spent 8 years, and upon his return in 1972, at age 82, he was welcomed by ‘the largest crowd to have gathered together in living memory’. He lived the rest of his years in and out of Pakistani prisons, during the regime of Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq, for protesting against authoritarian and military governments, right up till the age of 95. He passed away in 1988 at the age of 98, of which he had spent three decades behind bars. The contentious Durand Line border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was opened to allow tens of thousands of his followers from Pakistan to travel to Afghanistan to attend the funeral, while the mujahideen and Soviet backed government agreed to a ceasefire for three days. Even in death Bacha Khan brought peace and unity to the people he loved so dearly. He is buried in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.