Ebook: Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns

Born into the Muhammadzai tribe, from the Charsadda valley in the Pakhtun
heartland, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a passionate believer in the nonviolent
core of Islam and sought to wean his people-the fierce warrior Pakhtuns or
Pathans of the North-West Frontier Province-from their violent traditions and fight
for a separate Pakhtun homeland that would no longer be a buffer between
Russia and Britain in the Great Game.
In 1929 came Mahatma Gandhi's call for nonviolent resistance against British
rule and Badshah Khan responded by raising the Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants
of God), an army of 1,00,000 men who pledged themselves to the service of
mankind and nonviolence as a creed. For this, and for his steadfast devotion to
his principles, this towering figure was imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven
years, first by the British and later by the Pakistani government.
This is a perceptive biography that offers fresh insights into the life and
achievements of an extraordinary man, drawing close parallels with the life of
Mahatma Gandhi, his brother in spirit.The author looks at Ghaffar Khan 'with the
spectacles of today rather than those of 1947', emphasizing that for people in
the twenty-first century who live in the shadow of 9/11, Badshah Khan's
unwavering commitment to nonviolence and Hindu-Muslim unity offers valuable
lessons.