Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, more popularly known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’ in India, and ‘Bacha Khan’ in Pakistan was the pioneer of a Gandhian-style, non-violent struggle against the British.
He was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, and also a political and spiritual leader of the Muslims and the rest of the country. Ghaffar Khan met Gandhi and entered politics in 1919, during the agitation over the Rowlatt Act, which permitted the confinement of political protestors without trial. During the following year, he became part of the Khilafat Movement, and in 1921, he was elected president of a district Khilafat committee in his native province.
Soon after attending a Congress meeting in 1929, Ghaffar Khan founded the Red Shirts movement among the Pashtuns. It championed non-violent nationalist agitation in support of Indian independence, and sought to awaken the Pashtuns’ political consciousness.
By the late 1930s, Ghaffar Khan had become a member of Gandhi’s inner circle of advisers.
Ghaffar Khan, who had opposed the partition, chose to live in Pakistan. His memory, ‘My Life and Struggle’, was published in 1969.
