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Muhammad Zai Khan
Showing posts with label Khudai Khidmatgar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Khudai Khidmatgar. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Thursday, April 15, 2010
FRONTIER GANDHI
This year marks the 75th anniversary of an unprecedented yet almost entirely unknown event in the history of nonviolent resistance. In the main square of the city of Peshawar, in modern day Pakistan, several hundred nonviolent Pashtun resisters were shot and killed by British-led troops as they peacefully protested the arrest of their leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, known as Badshah Khan to his followers, and later known in India as “the Frontier Gandhi.”
That they were gathered peacefully in the first place, unarmed, is astonishing in itself since these were Muslim Pashtun from the Northwest Frontier Province of India, members of one of the most violent tribal societies in the world. Khan had persuaded them to lay down their guns and knives and become members of his nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatgars, “Servants of God,” and join Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement against British rule.
Badshah Khan was born in 1890, a member of a wealthy and aristocratic Muslim family. Educated and inspired by British missionaries, he began opening schools among the impoverished and mostly illiterate Pashtun villagers of the Frontier Province while still in his early twenties. In 1919, he led demonstrat ions against British rule and was imprisoned for sedition for three years in unusually harsh conditions that almost broke his health. Undeterred, he continued devoting himself to education and reform work among the Pashtun, and claimed to have visited all 1000 villages over a period of about ten years.
Khan was a devout Muslim who claimed to draw his nonviolence directly from Islam. “There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pashtun like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence,” he wrote. “It is not a new creed. It was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, but we had so far forgotten it that when Gandhi placed it before us, we thought he was sponsoring a novel creed.”
In the late Twenties, after a long period of fasting and meditation, Khan came up with the idea of a “nonviolent army” of Pashtun tribesman who would renounce violence and the code of revenge deeply embedded in Pashtun society. They wore red military uniforms (and were called “Red Shirts”), took an oath foreswearing violence, retaliation and revenge, formed regiments, trained and drilled, and devoted themselves to village uplift, education and reform. When Gandhi declared Indian Independence in 1930, he ignited a massive civil disobedience movement across India in which thousands were jailed, beaten and some killed.
On the remote Northwest Frontier, the repression was far worse. The British regarded the Pashtun tribes as savages. They sealed the borders to the province and unleashed a campaign of violent repression unmatched during the civil disobedience movement. “Red Shirts” were publicly stripped and beaten (shades of Abu Ghraib), their property confiscated, their crops burnt. Through it all, they remained nonviolent. Some Khudai Khidmatgars chose suicide rather than allow themselves to be publicly humiliated. But repression only gathered more recruits to the cause. At its height, Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgars numbered more than 80,000.
On April 23rd, 1930, the British arrested Khan and a mass demonstration filled the main square of Peshawar to protest his arrest. In a moment of panic, British-led troops began firing into the crowd. In his study of nonviolence Gene Sharp, formerly of Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, describes the scene: “When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their breasts bared and exposed themselves to the fire one after another, and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o’clock in the evening.” An estimated two to three hundred Pashtun were killed. One regiment of soldiers refused to fire on the unarmed Pashtun and were court-martial and sentenced to long prison terms.
But Khan’s nonviolent Pashtun army remained nonviolent. Even Gandhi found it remarkable: “That such men who would have killed a human being with no more thought than they would kill a chicken or hen should at the bidding of one man (Khan) have laid down their arms and accepted nonviolence as the superior weapon sounds almost like a fairy tale.”
When a truce was signed two years later, Indians were given the right to elect their own provincial governments for the first time. Khan’s brother, Dr. Khan Saheb became the first prime minister of the Northwest Frontier Province. Badshah Khan himself remained apolitical, choosing to focus on village reform. He became a close confidante of Gandhi’s and can be seen in many photos, the 6 foot 4 Khan towering over the diminutive Mahatma.
In his biography of Badshah Khan, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam (Nilgiri Press, 1995), Eknath Easwaran writes: “Badshah Khan based his life and work on the profound principle of nonviolence, raising an army of courageous men and women who translated it into action. Were his example better known, the world might come to recognize that the highest religious values of Islam are deeply compatible with a nonviolence that has the power to resolve conflicts even against heavy odds.”
India received its independence in 1947, and Khan’s province became part of Pakistan. His close ties to Gandhi and the Indian Congress Party aroused suspicions and his movement was suppressed. Khan himself served another fifteen years in prison for protesting various military dictatorships. In 1962 he became Amnesty International’s first “Prisoner of the Year” and was the first non-Indian to receive the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor. In 1985 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and died at home near Peshawar in 1988, at the age of 98, having served thirty years in prison.
That they were gathered peacefully in the first place, unarmed, is astonishing in itself since these were Muslim Pashtun from the Northwest Frontier Province of India, members of one of the most violent tribal societies in the world. Khan had persuaded them to lay down their guns and knives and become members of his nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatgars, “Servants of God,” and join Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement against British rule.
Badshah Khan was born in 1890, a member of a wealthy and aristocratic Muslim family. Educated and inspired by British missionaries, he began opening schools among the impoverished and mostly illiterate Pashtun villagers of the Frontier Province while still in his early twenties. In 1919, he led demonstrat ions against British rule and was imprisoned for sedition for three years in unusually harsh conditions that almost broke his health. Undeterred, he continued devoting himself to education and reform work among the Pashtun, and claimed to have visited all 1000 villages over a period of about ten years.
Khan was a devout Muslim who claimed to draw his nonviolence directly from Islam. “There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pashtun like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence,” he wrote. “It is not a new creed. It was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, but we had so far forgotten it that when Gandhi placed it before us, we thought he was sponsoring a novel creed.”
In the late Twenties, after a long period of fasting and meditation, Khan came up with the idea of a “nonviolent army” of Pashtun tribesman who would renounce violence and the code of revenge deeply embedded in Pashtun society. They wore red military uniforms (and were called “Red Shirts”), took an oath foreswearing violence, retaliation and revenge, formed regiments, trained and drilled, and devoted themselves to village uplift, education and reform. When Gandhi declared Indian Independence in 1930, he ignited a massive civil disobedience movement across India in which thousands were jailed, beaten and some killed.
On the remote Northwest Frontier, the repression was far worse. The British regarded the Pashtun tribes as savages. They sealed the borders to the province and unleashed a campaign of violent repression unmatched during the civil disobedience movement. “Red Shirts” were publicly stripped and beaten (shades of Abu Ghraib), their property confiscated, their crops burnt. Through it all, they remained nonviolent. Some Khudai Khidmatgars chose suicide rather than allow themselves to be publicly humiliated. But repression only gathered more recruits to the cause. At its height, Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgars numbered more than 80,000.
On April 23rd, 1930, the British arrested Khan and a mass demonstration filled the main square of Peshawar to protest his arrest. In a moment of panic, British-led troops began firing into the crowd. In his study of nonviolence Gene Sharp, formerly of Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, describes the scene: “When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their breasts bared and exposed themselves to the fire one after another, and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o’clock in the evening.” An estimated two to three hundred Pashtun were killed. One regiment of soldiers refused to fire on the unarmed Pashtun and were court-martial and sentenced to long prison terms.
But Khan’s nonviolent Pashtun army remained nonviolent. Even Gandhi found it remarkable: “That such men who would have killed a human being with no more thought than they would kill a chicken or hen should at the bidding of one man (Khan) have laid down their arms and accepted nonviolence as the superior weapon sounds almost like a fairy tale.”
When a truce was signed two years later, Indians were given the right to elect their own provincial governments for the first time. Khan’s brother, Dr. Khan Saheb became the first prime minister of the Northwest Frontier Province. Badshah Khan himself remained apolitical, choosing to focus on village reform. He became a close confidante of Gandhi’s and can be seen in many photos, the 6 foot 4 Khan towering over the diminutive Mahatma.
In his biography of Badshah Khan, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam (Nilgiri Press, 1995), Eknath Easwaran writes: “Badshah Khan based his life and work on the profound principle of nonviolence, raising an army of courageous men and women who translated it into action. Were his example better known, the world might come to recognize that the highest religious values of Islam are deeply compatible with a nonviolence that has the power to resolve conflicts even against heavy odds.”
India received its independence in 1947, and Khan’s province became part of Pakistan. His close ties to Gandhi and the Indian Congress Party aroused suspicions and his movement was suppressed. Khan himself served another fifteen years in prison for protesting various military dictatorships. In 1962 he became Amnesty International’s first “Prisoner of the Year” and was the first non-Indian to receive the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor. In 1985 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and died at home near Peshawar in 1988, at the age of 98, having served thirty years in prison.
Monday, August 3, 2009
NON VIOLENT SOLDIER BY (Scott Baldauf )
Here are two words that don't often appear in the same sentence: nonviolent Pashtuns
For centuries, Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and in India's northwest frontier were famed for their vendettas and feuds, for their bravery and treachery, for their unwillingness to accept outside rule. Pashtuns formed the bulk of Islamic militants who expelled first the British and then the Russian imperial armies from Afghanistan, and later formed a religious extremist movement called the Taliban.
But back in 1930, tens of thousands of Pashtuns tried a path less traveled: nonviolent civil disobedience. This movement - called the Khudai Khidmatgar, or Servants of God - united bickering tribes for an astounding 17 years to end British colonial rule."Pashtuns by nature are peace lovers," says Murtaza Khan Shaheen, a biographer of Abdul Gaffar Khan, the nonviolent leader known to his followers as Badshah Khan, or King of KingsKnowing his statement bucks a good 600 years of history, Mr. Shaheen adds a caveat. "But, they live in an area that is the gateway to India, and throughout history, they were constantly invaded by others. They had to defend themselves, but they never attacked anyone and they never surrendered to anyone either."
From southern Afghanistan to northwestern Pakistan, there is precious little sign of the Pashtuns' peacenik side. Most of the major military bases from which American troops are operating in Afghanistan are in Pashtun areas, putting US soldiers face to face with one of the world's least understood cultures. But historians say the key to avoiding mistakes in Pashtun lands, and undermining potential allies in the region, is understanding the strong pacifist streak that runs through Pashtun history.
"If the [Khudai Khidmatgar] movement had employed guerrilla tactics, it would not have lasted 17 years," writes Mukulika Banerjee, a historian of the movement and anthropologist at University College in London. "Nonviolent demonstration had the virtue of being a surprise tactic, as the British did not expect it from what they saw as an archetypal warrior race."Persuading all those Pashtuns to turn the other cheek required a charismatic man of the people, and Badshah Khan fitted the bill. Son of a wealthy landowner, and product of a British university education, Badshah Khan used his better circumstances as a tool to help his people. Wearing simple clothes and traveling from village to village, the barrel-chested leader convinced one tribe at a time that the only way to improve their lives was to stop fighting each other and start resisting the British.
While others called for jihad, or holy war against the British infidels, Badshah Khan called for a reform of Pashtun culture itself. It was not Britain's superior numbers, weapons, or even culture that kept Pashtuns subjected. Instead, it was the Pashtuns themselves, through endless land feuds and tribal bickering.Badshah Khan knew that Pashtuns could never defeat the British through violence that required money, arms, and complete secrecy, three things that were in short supply on the impoverished frontier. A disciplined moral cause, on the other hand, was cheap, and required only thousands of Pashtuns with attitude.Typical of these activists is Musharraf Din, a 90-something villager who joined the movement at the age of 20 after hearing a speech by Badshah Khan. Khan's compassion for the common man impressed Mr. Din, and his ideology helped Din remain true to nonviolence, even when he felt like grabbing a gun.
"The British used to torture us, throw us into ponds in wintertime, shave our beards, but even then Badshah Khan told his followers not to lose patience," says Din, his Jack Nicholson-style sunglasses perched atop his forehead beneath a broad white turban. "He said, 'there is an answer to violence, which is more violence. But nothing can conquer nonviolence. You cannot kill it. It keeps standing up.'"
Din recalls his first major protest one cold April morning in 1930, when British troops came to Charsadda to break up a public meeting of the Khudai Khidmatgar. Wearing their trademark bright-red baggy uniforms and Sam Browne-style leather belts, Din and his fellow KKs formed a human roadblock.
"The British sent their horses and cars to run over us, but I took my shawl in my mouth to keep from screaming," he says. "We were human beings, but we should not cry or express in any way that we were injured or weak."Firsthand written accounts from the period show that the British administrators clearly had no idea what to do with the Servants of God. Beating and jailing the Khudai Khidmatgar only seemed to make them grow. In a single year, from 1930 to 1931, the KKs had grown from 1,000 to 25,000 members.
Sadly, Khan's attempts to reach across ethnic and religious lines to other independent-minded Indians, such as Mahatma Gandhi and several other Sikh and Hindu leaders, ended up damaging his reputation when Indian independence finally came in 1947. It was then that India was partitioned into two states, with the mostly Muslim north broken off into East and West Pakistan.
Under the new rulers of the Pakistan Muslim League, the Khudai Khidmatgar were banned and jailed as traitors, in part because of their close ties to India's new rulers, the Congress party.But the movement reemerged a few decades later as the Awami National Party. In the brief decade of civilian rule in the 1990s, the Awamis ruled Northwest Frontier Province with little competition. Local political observers say last October's elections, in which the Awamis were defeated in favor of a coalition of extreme religious parties, had more to do with voter discontent with mainstream politics than with the Awamis themselves.
For his part, Musharraf Din says he has no doubt that nonviolence has relevance today among Pashtuns. The clearest evidence is the Pashtun tradition for negotiating disputes through jirgas, or tribal councils, and their distaste for open, face-to-face fights.And even though his legs aren't as strong as they once were, he can still remember the marching drills he learned 70-odd years ago.
"I'm a Khudai Khidmatgar member until death," he says proudly. Pulling himself off a string cot by grasping a hooked cane, he stands at full attention. "Left-face," he shouts, pivoting, and then stomping his right foot. "Ow," he winces, and then smiles. "Need to warm up my knee first."
For centuries, Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and in India's northwest frontier were famed for their vendettas and feuds, for their bravery and treachery, for their unwillingness to accept outside rule. Pashtuns formed the bulk of Islamic militants who expelled first the British and then the Russian imperial armies from Afghanistan, and later formed a religious extremist movement called the Taliban.
But back in 1930, tens of thousands of Pashtuns tried a path less traveled: nonviolent civil disobedience. This movement - called the Khudai Khidmatgar, or Servants of God - united bickering tribes for an astounding 17 years to end British colonial rule."Pashtuns by nature are peace lovers," says Murtaza Khan Shaheen, a biographer of Abdul Gaffar Khan, the nonviolent leader known to his followers as Badshah Khan, or King of KingsKnowing his statement bucks a good 600 years of history, Mr. Shaheen adds a caveat. "But, they live in an area that is the gateway to India, and throughout history, they were constantly invaded by others. They had to defend themselves, but they never attacked anyone and they never surrendered to anyone either."
From southern Afghanistan to northwestern Pakistan, there is precious little sign of the Pashtuns' peacenik side. Most of the major military bases from which American troops are operating in Afghanistan are in Pashtun areas, putting US soldiers face to face with one of the world's least understood cultures. But historians say the key to avoiding mistakes in Pashtun lands, and undermining potential allies in the region, is understanding the strong pacifist streak that runs through Pashtun history.
"If the [Khudai Khidmatgar] movement had employed guerrilla tactics, it would not have lasted 17 years," writes Mukulika Banerjee, a historian of the movement and anthropologist at University College in London. "Nonviolent demonstration had the virtue of being a surprise tactic, as the British did not expect it from what they saw as an archetypal warrior race."Persuading all those Pashtuns to turn the other cheek required a charismatic man of the people, and Badshah Khan fitted the bill. Son of a wealthy landowner, and product of a British university education, Badshah Khan used his better circumstances as a tool to help his people. Wearing simple clothes and traveling from village to village, the barrel-chested leader convinced one tribe at a time that the only way to improve their lives was to stop fighting each other and start resisting the British.
While others called for jihad, or holy war against the British infidels, Badshah Khan called for a reform of Pashtun culture itself. It was not Britain's superior numbers, weapons, or even culture that kept Pashtuns subjected. Instead, it was the Pashtuns themselves, through endless land feuds and tribal bickering.Badshah Khan knew that Pashtuns could never defeat the British through violence that required money, arms, and complete secrecy, three things that were in short supply on the impoverished frontier. A disciplined moral cause, on the other hand, was cheap, and required only thousands of Pashtuns with attitude.Typical of these activists is Musharraf Din, a 90-something villager who joined the movement at the age of 20 after hearing a speech by Badshah Khan. Khan's compassion for the common man impressed Mr. Din, and his ideology helped Din remain true to nonviolence, even when he felt like grabbing a gun.
"The British used to torture us, throw us into ponds in wintertime, shave our beards, but even then Badshah Khan told his followers not to lose patience," says Din, his Jack Nicholson-style sunglasses perched atop his forehead beneath a broad white turban. "He said, 'there is an answer to violence, which is more violence. But nothing can conquer nonviolence. You cannot kill it. It keeps standing up.'"
Din recalls his first major protest one cold April morning in 1930, when British troops came to Charsadda to break up a public meeting of the Khudai Khidmatgar. Wearing their trademark bright-red baggy uniforms and Sam Browne-style leather belts, Din and his fellow KKs formed a human roadblock.
"The British sent their horses and cars to run over us, but I took my shawl in my mouth to keep from screaming," he says. "We were human beings, but we should not cry or express in any way that we were injured or weak."Firsthand written accounts from the period show that the British administrators clearly had no idea what to do with the Servants of God. Beating and jailing the Khudai Khidmatgar only seemed to make them grow. In a single year, from 1930 to 1931, the KKs had grown from 1,000 to 25,000 members.
Sadly, Khan's attempts to reach across ethnic and religious lines to other independent-minded Indians, such as Mahatma Gandhi and several other Sikh and Hindu leaders, ended up damaging his reputation when Indian independence finally came in 1947. It was then that India was partitioned into two states, with the mostly Muslim north broken off into East and West Pakistan.
Under the new rulers of the Pakistan Muslim League, the Khudai Khidmatgar were banned and jailed as traitors, in part because of their close ties to India's new rulers, the Congress party.But the movement reemerged a few decades later as the Awami National Party. In the brief decade of civilian rule in the 1990s, the Awamis ruled Northwest Frontier Province with little competition. Local political observers say last October's elections, in which the Awamis were defeated in favor of a coalition of extreme religious parties, had more to do with voter discontent with mainstream politics than with the Awamis themselves.
For his part, Musharraf Din says he has no doubt that nonviolence has relevance today among Pashtuns. The clearest evidence is the Pashtun tradition for negotiating disputes through jirgas, or tribal councils, and their distaste for open, face-to-face fights.And even though his legs aren't as strong as they once were, he can still remember the marching drills he learned 70-odd years ago.
"I'm a Khudai Khidmatgar member until death," he says proudly. Pulling himself off a string cot by grasping a hooked cane, he stands at full attention. "Left-face," he shouts, pivoting, and then stomping his right foot. "Ow," he winces, and then smiles. "Need to warm up my knee first."
Monday, July 27, 2009
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God. It represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North West Frontier Province(Pukhtunistan). The movement was led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan/Badshah Khan).
Conditions prior to the movement
At the turn of the last century Pakhtuns ociety was colonized, stagnant, and violent,worn down by feuds, inequalities, factionalism, poor social cooperation, andplain ignorance. Education opportunities were strictly limited. Pukhtuns are Muslim; Mullahs were known to have told parents that if their children went to school, they would go to hell. Bacha Khan stated that “the real purpose of this propaganda”was to keep Pakhtuns “illiterate and uneducated”, and hence his people “were the most backward in India” with regard to education.
