Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890 - 20 January 1988 was a Pashtun political and spiritual

leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India. A lifelong pacifist, a devout
Muslim, and a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, he was also known as Badshah Khan (also
Bacha Khan, Pashto: lit., "King Khan"),Fakhr-e-Afghan(pride of Afghans) and Sarhaddi
Gandhi (Urdu, Hindi lit., "Frontier Gandhi").

He was initially encouraged by his family to join the British Indian Army; however the
treatment of a British Raj officer towards a native offended him and a family decision for him to
study in England was put off after his mother's intervention.

Having witnessed the repeated failure of revolts against the British Raj, he decided social
activism and reform would be more beneficial for Pashtuns. This ultimately led to the formation
of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement (Servants of God). The movement's success triggered a
harsh crackdown against him and his supporters and he was sent into exile. It was at this stage in
the late 1920s that he formed an alliance with Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. This
alliance was to last till the 1947 partition of India.

Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed the Muslim League's demand for the partition of India. [2] [3]
When the Congress party accepted the partition plan, he told them "You have thrown us to the
wolves." [4]

After partition, Ghaffar Khan was frequently arrested by the Pakistani government in part
  because of his association with India and his opposition to authoritarian moves by the
government. He spent much of the 1960s and 1970s either in jail or in exile.

In 1985 he was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. In 1987 he became the first person not
holding the citizenship of India to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.
Upon his death in 1988, he was buried in Jalalabad, despite the heavy fighting at the time, both
sides in the Afghan war declared a ceasefire to allow his burial.

Khan Ghaffar Khan

1. Early years

Ghaffar Khan was born into a generally peaceful and prosperous family from Charsadda, in the
Peshawar Valley of British India. His father, Behram Khan was a local farmer in Charsadda.
Ghaffar was the second son of Behram to attend the British run Edward's mission school—an
unusual arrangement since it was discouraged by the local mullahs. At school the young Ghaffar
did well in his studies and was inspired by his mentor Reverend Wigram to see the importance
of education in service to the community. In his 10th and final year of high school he was
offered a highly prestigious commission in The Guides, an elite corp of Pashtun soldiers of the
British Raj. Ghaffar refused the commission after realising even Guide officers were still
second-class citizens in their own country. He resumed his intention of University study and
Reverend Wigram offered him the opportunity to follow his brother, Khan Sahib, to study in
London. An alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University,he eventually received the permission of his
father, Ghaffar's mother wasn't willing to lose another son to London—and their own culture
and religion as the mullahs warned her. So Ghaffar began working on his father's lands while
attempting to discern what more he might do with his life. [5]

2. Ghaffar "Badshah" Khan

In response to his inability to continue his own education, Ghaffar Khan turned to helping others
start theirs. Like many such regions of the world, the strategic importance of the newly formed
North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) as a buffer for the British Raj from
Russian influence was of little benefit to its residents. The oppression of the British, the
repression of the mullahs, and an ancient culture of violence and vendetta prompted Ghaffar to
want to serve and uplift his fellow men and women by means of education. At 20 years of age,
Ghaffar opened his first school in Utmanzai. It was an instant success and he was soon invited
into a larger circle of progressively minded reformers.

While he faced much opposition and personal difficulties, Ghaffar Khan worked tirelessly to
organize and raise the consciousness of his fellow Pushtuns. Between 1915 and 1918 he visited
500 villages in all part of the settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. It was in this frenzied
activity that he had come to be known as Badshah (Bacha) Khan (King of Chiefs). [5]

He married his first wife Meharqanda in 1912; she was a daughter of Yar Mohammad Khan of
the Kinankhel clan of the Mohammadzai tribe of Razzar, a village adjacent to Utmanzai. They
had a son in 1913, Abdul Ghani Khan, who would become a noted artist and poet. Subsequently,
they had another son, Abdul Wali Khan (17 January 1917-), and daughter, Sardaro. Meharqanda
died during the 1918 influenza epidemic. In 1920, Abdul Ghaffar Khan remarried; his new wife,
Nambata, was a cousin of his first wife and the daughter of Sultan Mohammad Khan of Razzar.
She bore him a daughter, Mehar Taj (25 May 1921- ), and a son, Abdul Ali Khan (20 August
1922-19 February 1997). Tragically, in 1926 Nambata died early as well from a fall down the
stairs of the apartment they were staying at in Jerusalem. [6]

3. Khudai Khidmatgar

In time, Ghaffar Khan's goal came to be the formulation of a united, independent, secular India.
To achieve this end, he founded the Khudai Khidmatgar ("Servants of God"), commonly known
as the "Red Shirts" (Surkh Posh), during the 1920s.

The Khudai Khidmatgar was founded on a belief in the power of Gandhi's notion of Satyagraha,
a form of active non-violence as captured in an oath. He told its members:
"I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand
against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience
and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it." [7]

The organization recruited over 100,000 members and became legendary in opposing (and dying
at the hands of) the British-controlled police and army. Through strikes, political organisation
and non-violent opposition, the Khudai Khidmatgar were able to achieve some success and
came to dominate the politics of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. His brother, Dr. Khan Abdul Jabbar
Khan (known as Dr. Khan Sahib), led the political wing of the movement, and was the Chief
Minister of the province (from the late 1920s until 1947 when his government was dismissed by
Mohammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League).

4. Ghaffar Khan & the Indian National Congress

Ghaffar Khan forged a close, spiritual, and uninhibited friendship with Mahatma Gandhi, the
pioneer of non-violent mass civil disobedience in India. The two had a deep admiration towards
each other and worked together closely till 1947. [2] [3]

The Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of god) agitated and worked cohesively with the Indian
National Congress, the leading national organization fighting for freedom, of which Ghaffar
Khan was a senior and respected member. On several occasions when the Congress seemed to
disagree with Gandhi on policy, Ghaffar Khan remained his staunchest ally. In 1931 the
Congress offered him the presidency of the party, but he refused saying, "I am a simple soldier
and Khudai Khidmatgar, and I only want to serve." [8] He remained a member of the Congress
Working Committee for many years, resigning only in 1939 because of his differences with the
Party's War Policy. He rejoined the Congress Party when the War Policy was revised.

On April 23, 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested during protests arising out of the Salt Satyagraha.
A crowd of Khudai Khidmatgar gathered in Peshawar's Kissa Khwani (Storytellers) Bazaar. The
British ordered troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd, killing an
estimated 200-250. [9] The Khudai Khidmatgar members acted in accord with their training in
non-violence under Ghaffar Khan, facing bullets as the troops fired on them. [10]

Ghaffar Khan was a champion of women's rights and nonviolence. He became a hero in a
society dominated by violence; notwithstanding his liberal views, his unswerving faith and
obvious bravery led to immense respect. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in his non-
violent methods or in the compatibility of Islam and nonviolence. He viewed his struggle as a
jihad with only the enemy holding swords. He was closely identified with Gandhi because of his
non-violence principles and he is known in India as the `Frontier Gandhi'. [3] One of his Congress
associates was Pandit Amir Chand Bombwal of Peshawar.

"O Pathans! Your house has fallen into ruin. Arise and rebuild it, and remember to what race
you belong." -- Ghaffar Khan [11]

5. The Partition

Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed the partition of India. [2] [3] While many Pashtuns (particularly the
Red Shirts) were willing to work with Indian politicians, many other Pashtuns were sympathetic
to the idea of a separate homeland for India's Muslims following the departure of the British.
Targeted with being Anti-Muslim, Ghaffar Khan was attacked in 1946, leading to his
hospitalization in Peshawar. [12]

The Congress party refused last ditch compromises to prevent the partition, like the Cabinet
Mission plan and Gandhi's suggestion to offer the Prime Ministership to Jinnah. As a result
Badshah Khan and his followers felt a sense of betrayal by both Pakistan and India. Badshah
Khan's last words to Gandhi and his erstwhile allies in the Congress party were: "You have
thrown us to the wolves." [4]

When the referendum over accession to Pakistan was held, Badshah Khan and the Indian
National Congress Party boycotted the referendum. As a result,in 1947 the accession of Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa to Pakistan was made possible by a slight majority of the 50.1% votes cast. A loya
jirga in the Tribal Areas also garnered a similar result as most preferred to become part of
Pakistan. Ghaffar Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgars, however, chose to boycott the polls along
with other nationalistic Pakhtuns. Some have argued that a segment of the population voted was
barred from voting,. [13]

6. Arrest and exile

Ghaffar Khan took the oath of allegiance to the new nation of Pakistan on 23 February 1948 at
the first session of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. [14

Ghaffar Khan walking with Jawaharlal Nehru after the Cabinet Mission, 1946.

He pledged full support to the government and attempted to reconcile with the founder of the
new state Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Initial overtures led to a successful meeting in Karachi,
however a follow-up meeting in the Khudai Khidmatgar headquarters never materialised,
allegedly due to the role of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, Abdul Qayyum Khan who
warned Jinnah that Ghaffar Khan was plotting his assassination. [15] [16]

Following this, Ghaffar Khan formed Pakistan's first National opposition party, on 8 May 1948,
the Pakistan Azad Party. The party pledged to play the role of constructive opposition and would
be non-communal in its philosophy.

However, suspicions of his allegiance persisted and under the new Pakistani government,
Ghaffar Khan was placed under house arrest without charge from 1948 till 1954. Released from
prison, he gave a speech again on the floor of the constituent assembly, this time condemning
the massacre of his supporters at Babrra.

"I had to go to prison many a time in the days of the Britishers. Although we were at
loggerheads with them, yet their treatment was to some extent tolerant and polite. But the
treatment which was meted out to me in this Islamic state of ours was such that I would not even
like to mention it to you." [18]

He was arrested several times between late 1948 and in 1956 for his opposition to the One Unit
scheme. [19] The government attempted in 1958 to reconcile with him and offered him a Ministry
in the government, after the assassination of his brother, he however refused. [20] He remained in
prison till 1957 only to be re-arrested in 1958 until an illness in 1964 allowed for his release. [21]

In 1962, Abdul Ghaffar Khan was named an "Amnesty International Prisoner of the Year".
Amnesty's statement about him said, "His example symbolizes the suffering of upward of a
million people all over the world who are prisoners of conscience."

In September 1964, the Pakistani authorities allowed him to go to Britain for treatment. During
winter his doctor advised him to go to America. He then went into exile to Afghanistan, he
returned from exile in december 1972 to a popular response, following the establishment of
National Awami Party provincial government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

He was arrested by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhuttos government at Multan in November
1973 and described Bhuttos government as "the worst kind of dictatorship". [22]

He visited India and participated in the centennial celebrations of the Indian National Congress
in 1985; he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in 1987. [23]

Ghaffar Khan died in Peshawar under house arrest in 1988 and was buried in Jalalabad,
Afghanistan according to his wishes. This was a symbolic move by Ghafar Khan, this would
allow his dream of Pakhtun unification to live even after his death. The Indian government
declared a five-day period of mourning in his honour. [24]

Although he had been repeatedly imprisoned and persecuted, tens of thousands of mourners
attended his funeral, described by one commentator as a caravan of peace, carrying a message
of love from Pashtuns east of the Khyber to those on the west, [15] marching through the historic
Khyber Pass from Peshawar to Jalalabad. A cease-fire was announced in the Afghan Civil War
to allow the funeral to take place, even though it was marred by bomb explosions killing 15. [25]

7. Political legacy

His eldest son Ghani Khan was a poet, his other son Khan Abdul Wali Khan is the founder and
leader of the Awami National Party and was the Leader of the Opposition in the Pakistan
National Assembly. Ghaffar Khans family was the frequent target of government arrests due to
their involvement in politics and being accused of being anti-Pakistani.

His third son Khan Abdul Ali Khan was non-political and a distinguished educator, and served
as Vice-Chancellor of University of Peshawar. Ali Khan was also the head of Aitchison College,
Lahore and Fazle Haq college, Mardan. Asfandyar Wali Khan is the grandson of Khan Abdul
Gaffar Khan, and leader of the Awami National Party, the party in power in Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa. His great granddaughter Salma Ataullahjan is a conservative senator in Canada.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan's political legacy is mixed he is renowned amongst Pakhtuns and
internationally as a leader of a non-violent movement. He is credited with his tireless advocacy
of peace in the region he belonged to. However, within Pakistan, there is a large section of
society which still has not come to grips with his siding with the All India Congress over the
Muslim League as well as his opposition to Mr. M. A. Jinnah who is revered in Pakistan as the
father of the nation. In particular people have questioned Ghaffar Khan's patriotism following
his insistence that he be buried in Afghanistan after his death and not Pakistan.