Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a spiritual leader and a supporter of Pashtun independence. He was called “Frontier Gandhi” because of his political work and his close relationship with the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. He was a pacifist his whole life and pushed for peaceful protests. He started the Khudai Khidmatgar (which means “Servants of God”) to protest the British army through peaceful protests and political activism. He was a very religious Muslim who was sure that Islam and nonviolence could go together. He had liberal ideas and fought for the rights of women, which made him very popular with the general public. He didn’t want India to be split up, and he dreamed of a united, independent, and secular India. But this didn’t happen, and India was split up in 1947. This made him very sad, and he told the Congress, “You have thrown us to the wolves,” which has become a famous expression of despair. After the partition, he stayed involved in social and political activism. Many Pakistanis thought that his actions were pro-Indian, so he was often arrested for them. The government even tried to make peace with him by giving him a job in the government, but he kept fighting for the causes he believed in.
Early years and childhood
He was born to a wealthy family in the Peshawar Valley of British India on February 6, 1890. Bahram Khan, his father, owned land.
As a child, he went to Edward’s mission school, which was run by the British and was the only school in his area that worked. He did well in school because he was a good student.
His teacher, the Reverend Wigram, made a big impression on him, and he saw how important education was to develop. Early on, he got involved in efforts to end poverty and help people learn to read.
A Years After
In 1910, when he was only 20, he opened a mosque school in his hometown. He was a young man with strong morals and high hopes who went all over the country to talk about his ideas about education.
In 1911, he joined the fight for independence led by Pashtun freedom fighter Haji Sahib of Turangzai.
In 1915, the British government shut down his mosque school. Even though this made Ghaffar sad, it didn’t make him give up. He decided that the only way to get the Pashtuns to be free was through social activism and change.
He met Mahatma Gandhi, a famous leader of the movement for Indian independence, and was deeply affected by his ideas. Gandhi inspired him to run for office in 1919, when there was a lot of trouble over the Rowlatt Act.
In 1920, he joined the Khilafat movement, which wanted to strengthen the spiritual ties between Indian Muslims and the Turkish sultan. The next year, he was made the president of a district Khilafat committee in his home province, North-West Frontier Province.
He was a key figure in the creation of the “Afghan Reform Society” (Anjuman-e Isle-e Afghani) in 1921 and the “Pashtun Assembly” (Paxton Jirga) youth movement in 1927.
In 1929, he went to a meeting of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party). Soon after, he started the Khudai Khidmatgar, or “Red Shirt Movement,” among the Pashtuns. The movement called for nationalists to support Indian independence without using violence.
He got to know Gandhi and they became close friends. By the 1930s, he was one of Gandhi’s most important advisors, and his Red Shirt movement actively supported the Congress Party.
He worked closely with Gandhi for a long time, until 1947, when India was split into two countries. Ghaffar was very against the idea of dividing the country because he wanted a single, secular nation. But that didn’t happen.
After the country was split up, he chose to live in Pakistan and keep fighting for the rights of the Pashtuns. But he was often said to support Indians.
Between 1948 and 1956, he was arrested more than once because he was against the One Unit Scheme, which wanted to combine the Four Provinces of West Pakistan into one province.
He went to the United Kingdom in 1964 to get help for his bad health. There, doctors told him to go to the United States. Then he went into exile in Afghanistan. In 1972, he came back from exile. The government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto arrested him in Multan the very next year.
Over the next few years, he slowly stopped being involved in politics. In 1985, he went to India to take part in the celebrations of the Indian National Congress’s 100th anniversary.
Awards & Achievements
In 1962, he was named the Prisoner of Conscience of the Year by Amnesty International.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding was given to him in 1967.
In 1987, India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, was given to him. He was the first person who wasn’t Indian to get this honor.
Personal History and Legacies
In 1912, he married Meharqanda. She was Yar Mohammad Khan’s daughter from the Kinankhel clan of the Mohammadzai tribe of Razzar. Abdul Ghani Khan and Abdul Wali Khan were their sons, and Sardaro was their daughter. His wife died in 1918, which was sad.
In 1920, he married Nambata, who was related to his first wife. The couple had a son and a daughter. Namrata died in 1926 when he fell down the stairs at their home. This was another sad event. Even though Ghaffar was still young, he chose not to get married again.
He had a long life, and he spent a lot of it working for social and political change. He died in Peshawar on January 20, 1988, when he was 97 years old.
Estimated Net worth
Abdul Ghaffar Khan is estimated to have a net worth of $10 million, and his main source of income is from being a politician. We don’t know enough about Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s house, cars, or lifestyle.