
Today,20 January 2024, it will be thirty-five years since Badshah Khan left this world! Although he had suffered more imprisonment and torture during the British Raj than any other citizen of present-day Pakistan during India’s freedom struggle and although his political journey began with his participation in the first convention of the Muslim League in Agra in 1913, Badshah Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was one of the first people to be staunchly opposed to the creation of Pakistan in the Lahore Resolution of 1940, and he had to suffer the consequences of this decision even after 15 August 1947, till his death.
There is a huge difference between speaking and writing against Pakistan while living in India and speaking and writing against Pakistan while living in Pakistan. Badshah Khan got to live for almost a hundred years. And the best part of his life, almost a quarter of it, was spent in the jail of the British Raj and later the Pakistani government. He did not accept the existence of Pakistan till his death.
And look at the irony of history, Barrister Muhammad Ali Jina and Barrister Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not at all religious people, but they were successful in implementing the politics of dividing a country on the basis of religion. And Badshah Khan was hardly a religious person in the public life of that time comparable to Mahatma Gandhi, but two barristers Jina and Savarkar are responsible for dividing the country by doing politics on the basis of religion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modiji announced to celebrate 14th August as Partition Day! He did it on Independence Day two years ago. And I welcomed his announcement and said that even after 75 years, if we honestly search for the reasons of Partition, which forces led to the partition of India? There is a need to find out the reasons for this. And history will not be complete without remembering Badshah Khan at that time.
Barrister Jina passed away in about thirteen months after the partition. But Barrister Savarkar lived for twenty years even after the partition. And Badshah Khan lived for 43 years (he died on 20 January 1990!) and was alive for 100 years. And he was imprisoned for half of his time in protest against the creation of Pakistan. And with the help of his Lal Dagle or Khudai Khidmatgaro, he opened a front against the Pakistani governments. On 8 July 1948, after the North West Frontier government banned the Khudai Khidmatgar organization, more than a thousand Khidmatgars were imprisoned, but despite that on 12 August 1948, i.e. when Pakistan was two days short of one year of its creation, he was imprisoned.
Even more horrific than Jallianwala Bagh happened in a mosque near Charsadha in a village named Babra, when Pakistani soldiers opened fire on a gathering of Khudai Khidmadgars. More than two thousand people were killed in this incident. This included women and children as well. And that graveyard is still present at that place as the biggest graveyard of that area. And the Pakistani government tried its best to suppress the news of this incident. But this incident also happened within a year of the creation of Pakistan. Apart from this, the Pakistani army also bombed the Pashtun part with planes.
And according to me, I think of this incident as a living example of the test of non-violence, that just saying ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharma’ and following non-violence even after such violence. And this community, which has been famous for its livelihood with arms for centuries, has perhaps been experimenting with non-violence against people who are famous for using weapons, this seems to be the first such experiment in the recent times in the world history. Did Sarhad Gandhi get this title just like that? The most important thing is that Badshah Khan, being under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi, kept on inspiring his followers (who belonged to a community that had been fighting for centuries!) to stick to the principle of non-violence even after such a large number of people were killed. One can imagine how much the stature of non-violence has grown due to this incident.
It is very easy to talk about non-violence while living an ordinary life. But to keep oneself committed to the principle of non-violence in such incidents was the real test of non-violence. And the principle of non-violence was directly applied in the Babra massacre, which massacre D.G. Tendulkar (author of ‘Mahatma’ in 6 volumes!) writes in his book ‘Abdul Ghaffar Khan’ while comparing with Jallianwala Bagh, “This incident was so terrible that it was more barbaric than the Jallianwala Bagh incident”.
This is the fundamental difference between Mahatma Gandhi’s other boastful followers and Badshah Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. I know many Gandhians who preached the principles of non-violence even better than Khan Saheb. But Khan Saheb was the only follower who actually practiced non-violence.
And this is the thing, if there was any true personality compared to all those who were against the partition of India, then it was Badshah Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. And that too while living in Pakistan, rejecting the partition is beyond imagination.
On one hand, one feels pity on the intelligence of those who write a book called ‘Hindutva’ and on the other hand, oppose Partition only by mouthing it. There is no mention of any attempt by any of these people to take action against Partition. Apart from killing 80-year-old unarmed Mahatma Gandhi, there is no other example of this impotent group.
On the contrary, it is the communalists who have partitioned India. And they are from both sides (Hindutvaists and Islamists, and that too only for their own selfish politics!) because in his conversations with his close friends, barrister Jina often used to say, “Am I not creating Pakistan for these ignorant people?” It means that Jina has carried out the partition only to fulfill his personal ambition. This is my clear belief. And the Hindutva elements have only helped him. Congress governments resigned as a protest against the Morley-Minto reforms, and the coalition of Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha governments, that too even after the Lahore proposal, this step will make the Hindutva people look into their own conscience in history. And it will be known that due to this step of theirs, the demand of Muslim League for Pakistan got recognition. On whose head did they blame and kill him? Mahatma Gandhi, who was against partition till the end, was killed? And nowadays there is a race to glorify that act. What kind of venom is being spewed in the so-called Sadhu Sansad (there is a Parliament established by law in the country) from the minority communities to Mahatma Gandhi? And it is even more serious that the people in power have their consent.
I have had the opportunity to visit Pakistan twice so far. And once I went to Jhaydan via Pakistani Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan via the Wagah border. That means I entered Iran from the part of Baluchistan bordering Pakistan.
So how much hatred the people of Punjab have for the rest of Pakistan. I have seen it step by step. As a meter to our Punjabi driver, I saw that, before entering Sindh province from Punjab, he stopped our car at a petrol pump to get petrol, and we were accompanied by a convoy of two Punjab police vehicles (one in front and the other behind) with security guards. So the security guards went with AK 47 and started clearing the crowd at the petrol pump. I saw from the front seat next to the driver that a short man closed the shutter of the petrol pump office and said, “Now even if Asif Ali Jhardari comes, I will not open the petrol pump.” (Jhardari was the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time.) As soon as I heard this dialogue, I automatically opened the car door, came out and hugged him and said, “Wow, it’s amazing, even today this spirit is alive in Pakistan, it feels very good to see this. Even if you don’t give us petrol, it’s okay, I hugged you to salute your spirit.” Then the people in the crowd said, “These are our guests, give it to them first.” That short man was probably the owner of the petrol pump. He told me, “Look, these security people of yours are asking for petrol by showing a gun. That’s why I got angry!” So I said that “This is the heat of the uniform, which we see in our country as well.” And he first gave us petrol. We must have taken a few steps forward with the petrol when the Punjabi driver said, “He was a Baloch. And all these Baloch are rascals and traitors.” After a while when the Sindh province started, the driver said, “And we have come among traitors.” Meaning that the unification of Pakistan has still not happened. And more than that, the situation in Balochistan is worse than Kashmir. That is why we were told in Karachi that “There is a lot of chaos in Sindh province, so we are sending reinforcements from here by plane.”
Within an hour of leaving Karachi, our plane had to stop for a while at Quetta airport. So, after getting down from my seat and landing on the airport ground, I saw that the entire airport was surrounded by AK 47s, cannons and armored vehicles at every ten feet. So I asked the ground staff if this was an army airport. He said, “You probably don’t know, this is Balochistan. And the fight for freedom is going on here 24 hours a day for 12 months. That is why there is so much security at this airport. And this airport is civil. But it comes under the category of most sensitive security zone.”
Although I was well aware of the situation in Balochistan, our Karachi host asked me “why were you not allowed to go from Karachi to Jhajdan by road?” We said that they were talking about some security.” To this he replied “Whose security? Yours or Pakistan’s?” I was confused and asked “what about Pakistan’s security?” To which he replied that “when you reached Quetta, more than one lakh people had gathered and were ready to welcome you. “I said that even our neighbours don’t recognize us properly, and there is no Sachin Tendulkar or Shahrukh Khan amongst us, that such a huge crowd would gather for us.” So they said that they are preparing for your welcome with the hope that you people will raise the issue of independent Balochistan like Palestine. And in view of this, the Pakistani army has decided to send you directly to Jhajdan by plane instead of going further to Karachi by road. And I also deliberately asked as soon as the plane landed after some time from Karachi, we asked if we have reached Jhajdan? So the airhostess said that this is Quetta airport, and there is a layover of forty-five minutes here. So I also took advantage of this situation, my knees start paining, so I want to get down for a little walk. So the airhostess said that please you can just take the plane around. Please do not go here and there too much, and with that excuse I got a chance to set foot on the soil of Quetta.
And most importantly, I got a glimpse of Pakistan’s attitude towards Balochistan. I keep getting a lot of information about the Baloch war. More than forty thousand Baloch are missing. And I knew the news of the march from Quetta to Islamabad for their liberation. That means I was updated with the information about the atrocities by the Punjabi lobby in Islamabad, which is from the army, administration to the judiciary and police, media. That is why I have come to the conclusion that despite seventy-five years, Pakistan has not been able to unite. And this is a warning for India as well, that if you try to force on issues like language or religion or culture, then Pakistan next door and another important example next to it is the so-called Soviet Russia. What has happened to the 70-year-old steel wall in 1990? If you cannot learn a lesson from them, then even Lord Ram will not be able to save you, this much is certain.
During my previous visit, I had met some people from Swat Valley at Lahore Fort. And that day was also 6th December. They were telling us about the fearful environment in which we live there. I met some people from POK at Jina’s shrine in Karachi. They took me alone in our bus and were telling me their sorrows while crying about the atrocities being committed against them.
What does the creation of Bangladesh 55 years ago symbolize? Can’t the so-called Hindutvaites of India see all this? Or are they deliberately ignoring it? This country has been divided once on the basis of religion, and today after 75 years, have your minds become paralyzed? That after seeing all this reality, you don’t feel that doing politics on the basis of religion is wrong. Because India has been divided only on religious grounds. What could be a greater tribute than this on the 34th death anniversary of Badshah Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Saheb?
Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal