Bacha Khan: A Towering Legacy

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as Badshah Khan or Bacha Khan is one of the towering figures of anticolonial resistance in South Asia. Born in 1890, in the Peshawar district of what is now Pakistan, Bacha Khan dedicated his life to non-violent resistance against British colonial rule. His work, across educational, cultural and political fronts, continuing after the creation of Pakistan, is unparalleled.

For founding the long-term nonviolent movement organization, the Khudai Khidmetgar, he is known as the "Frontier Gandhi." Bacha Khan built institutions on an unparalleled scale. In its heyday, the Khudai Khidmetgar members numbered more than a 100,000 men and women.

On the educational front Bacha Khan found the Anjuman-i-Islahul Afghania. The Anjuman was responsible for eventually establishing 134 Azad schools. Alongside, Mathematics, Science, English, History, Urdu and Geography, Azad schools also taught technical skills, Islamic studies and sports. It held regular cultural activities and featured speeches and lectures by anticolonial leaders such as Nehru and Gandhi.

Bacha Khan also found the first Pashto language journal called the 'Pakhtun' magazine in 1928. The magazine published articles which raised the call for the freedom struggle and reform within Pashtun society. It was banned by the British and later also by Pakistan.

Where Bacha Khan's work remains unparalleled, so does his courage and sacrifice. Out of the 93 years of his life, Bacha Khan spent 37 years in British and later Pakistani jails.

He was a proud, strong Muslim farmer from Hashnagar, who knew neither Sartre nor the sophistication of cricket, as seen through the lens of CLR James, but he remains for us a decolonial thinker and activist of no small measure. It will take a few decades or more but in time Bacha Khan’s methods and works will set again the course for our future. Comparisons may be dull, but they motivate and guide us. Bacha Khan was not just the Khan of the Khans but the region’s greatest political genius.