A man and his people…
In my last post I mentioned Gandhi and non violence. Gandhi once mentioned that true non violence can be practiced by the strong, it isn’t for the weak. The strong chooses, the weak is forced. For me nothing epitomises the sentiment more so than the Khudai Khidmatgar movement.
Khudai Khidmatgar ( also known as Red Shirts ) was an organization started by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. It was based in the NWFP and was composed predominantly of Pathans. The Red Shirts were completely non violent and were pledged to the same. They were more social than political. The British, weary of the unquestioned support for the party amongst the Pathans exacted great brutalities on them. A british officer once remarked it was strange to see the same Pathans who wouldn’t have thought twice before shooting down a person for any perceived insult suffer indignation without raising a hand.The british used horrific tactics – shaving beards, blackening faces, insulting women, charging the protesters with cars and horses but they wouldn’t scream and they wouldn’t hit back. They even overturned an international law which prohibited the use of air power against civilians. In Waziristan, there was more police than the rest of India combined !
Khan was an extraordinary man. He was religious, simple and humane. He opposed the partition of India. He was vociferously opposed to succession to Pakistan. The Congress party abandoned the NWFP and they had to merge with Pakistan. Khan’s last words to the Congress leadership were “You’ve thrown us to the wolves”. After independence, Khan had to suffer greatly at the hands of the Pakistani government. He was considered a secessionist and thrown into jail. When he died, Afghan – Soviet war came to a halt for one day. Thousands carried his body to Jalalabad to be buried. He became the first non – Indian citizen to receive the Bharat Ratna.
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