Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan : biography

In the Indian city of Delhi, the popular Khan Market is named in honour of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and another market in the Karol Bagh of New Delhi is named after him called Ghaffar Market

Vibhu Puri is reportedly making a Bollywood Biopic on the life of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan titled Chenab Gandhi.

Footnotes

Arrest and exile

Ghaffar Khan took the oath of allegiance to the new nation of Pakistan on 23 February 1948 at the first session of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly.http://www.baachakhantrust.org/AbdulGhaffarKhan.pdf Ghaffar Khan walking with [[Jawaharlal Nehru after the Cabinet Mission, 1946.]] He pledged full support to the government and attempted to reconcile with the founder of the new state Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Initial overtures led to a successful meeting in Karachi, however a follow-up meeting in the Khudai Khidmatgar headquarters never materialised, allegedly due to the role of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, Abdul Qayyum Khan who warned Jinnah that Ghaffar Khan was plotting his assassination.M.S. Korejo (1993) The Frontier Gandhi, his place in history. Karachi : Oxford University Press.Azad, Abulkalam (1960) India wins freedom. New York, Longmans, Green.

Following this, Ghaffar Khan formed Pakistan’s first National opposition party, on 8 May 1948, the Pakistan Azad Party. The party pledged to play the role of constructive opposition and would be non-communal in its philosophy.

However, suspicions of his allegiance persisted and under the new Pakistani government, Ghaffar Khan was placed under house arrest without charge from 1948 till 1954. Released from prison, he gave a speech again on the floor of the constituent assembly, this time condemning the massacre of his supporters at Babrra.Syed Minhajul Hassan,(1998) Babra Firing Incident: 12 August1948, Peshawar: University of Peshawar. [[Sheikh Abdullah with Jawaharlal Nehru and Ghaffar Khan at Nishat Garden, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir in 1945|right]] "I had to go to prison many a time in the days of the Britishers. Although we were at loggerheads with them, yet their treatment was to some extent tolerant and polite. But the treatment which was meted out to me in this Islamic state of ours was such that I would not even like to mention it to you."Badshah Khan, Budget session of Assembly on March 20, 1954.

He was arrested several times between late 1948 and in 1956 for his opposition to the One Unit scheme.Abdul Ghaffar Khan(1958) Pashtun Aw Yoo Unit. Peshawar. The government attempted in 1958 to reconcile with him and offered him a Ministry in the government, after the assassination of his brother, he however refused.September 28, 2005 Wednesday Dawn by Syed Afzaal Husain Zaidi He remained in prison till 1957 only to be re-arrested in 1958 until an illness in 1964 allowed for his release.PAKISTAN: The Frontier Gandhi (Jan 18, 1954) Time Magazine. Publisher: Time Inc.

In 1962, Abdul Ghaffar Khan was named an "Amnesty International Prisoner of the Year". Amnesty’s statement about him said, "His example symbolizes the suffering of upward of a million people all over the world who are prisoners of conscience."

In September 1964, the Pakistani authorities allowed him to go to United Kingdom for treatment. During winter his doctor advised him to go to United States. He then went into exile to Afghanistan, he returned from exile in December 1972 to a popular response, following the establishment of National Awami Party provincial government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

He was arrested by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government at Multan in November 1973 and described Bhuttos government as "the worst kind of dictatorship".Wolpert, Stanley A. 1993. Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507661-5

In 1984, increasingly withdrawing from politics he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.McKibben, William (September 24, 1984)New Yorker

He visited India and participated in the centennial celebrations of the Indian National Congress in 1985; he was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1967 and later Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in 1987.Abdul Ghaffar Khan, 98, a Follower of Gandhi (January 21, 1988) New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2008