HINA KHAN
Khan Abdul Ghani Khan. PHOTO/Harappa
“I was browsing the web (usual), I came across this interview of Ghani Baba (rare), and I thought I’d share (usual).” Hina Khan
Khan Abdul Ghani Khan (eldest son of Khan Abdul Ghuffar Khan, aka Bacha Khan) was one of the finest Pushto poets of this century. He was born in 1915 and died in year of 1996. He led the Pathans in what is today Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in the struggle against British colonialism from the 1920’s until 1947. The excerpts below are from a two hour interview of Ghani Khan at Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, NWFP. Ghani Khan had recently been shown on Pakistani television for the first time. He was about to be discharged after a minor ailment.
(Ghani Khan was interviewd by Omar Khan of Harappa website in 1990.)
Q: How did you get the name Red Shirts?
A: Red Shirts because in our village they had this big tanning industry. They tanned leather for soles for these Pathan shoes which were exported to Afghanistan and Kandahar. It was a huge industry. Now there are no tanneries. The used the tannin water they poured [from working with skins]. The skins, they used to sew them up and they used to hang them from these huge trees, which were put there on the edge of this tank. These skins used to hang all year around, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12. The servants used to pour tannin water into them, outside and inside. The tannin water was there all the time. So these fellows were asked to dip their clothes into the tannin water tank and get free color. They got a deep red sort of color. Brown red. This is how people began to call them Red Shirts. After that of course no one put theirs into the tannin tank. They used to get a little bit of color from the bazaar, and color them red.
Q: Had your father met Gandhi and gotten into non-violence by this time, 1928 or 1929?
A: No, he did not meet him then. The first agitation they started was to have the right to choose their members for the District Board [of Education]. They were also nominated. They wanted they should be given the vote for the District Board. They were arrested [in 1928]. Gandhijis story starts somewhere around 1929, 1930. Father was in jail and they began to shoot these people, everywhere people began to agitate. Like the Kissa Khani [Bazaar Massacre in Peshawar of April 23 1930]. Father was there. There were others where he was not there, in Thucker and Utmanzai and in Waziristan [District] they killed 60 or 70 people. A lot of operations. [During these operations] our village was surrounded, for a month you could not get out of it, you could not get into it. The animals were starving, because our fields were out [of commission]. And raiding and attacking people, there were hellish experiences and we had no law here. So two of my fathers [jailed] friends dressed themselves as donkey drivers, because there was some repair work going on in the jail, they escaped with these bricklayers donkeys and told father that these English are just finishing us off, no news is coming. There is no one to help us, there is no news about it in the Indian newspapers. God knows when they are going to stop. It does not look like they are going to stop. So, Father said go to all the big Muslims in India, there are so many of them. Go to Bhopal and Rampur, they are Pathan rulers, and see all the big people among the Muslims, and tell them what is happening. Even if for heavens sake if you cannot do anything, at least shout about it. They went all over India and nobody agreed [to help them]. The only person who said yes was Gandhiji. But he said you must become affiliated with the Congress. I do not want you to become submerged in the Congress, but you must become affiliated so I have an excuse [to support you]. Then I will send you an Inquiry Committee, I will do propaganda for you all over the world. So they came and told Father. He said Good Lord, we can join the devil provided this shooting stops. Tell him we will join the Congress. So Gandhiji sent Patel over here, the big Patel Committee Inquiry Report [was produced]. He [Sardar Patel] was not allowed into the Frontier so he stayed on that side of the Indus [in Punjab]. But we used to send him people [who had been arrested by the colonial authorities], actually people whom they had castrated. All sorts of things, people castrated, horrible, you would not believe that a civilized nation could do things like that.
Q: What did they do?
A: Castrated people, with this castrating machine from the veterinary hospital. Eight people have medical certificates from the civil surgeon here. That they were absolutely castrated. Because the Pathans would not stop, even if they kept on beating them, kept on shooting at them all over [the province]. What was it all over? We wanted to stop the wine shops. We said we do not want whisky in our village. We do not like it. It is against our religion and our boys should not get used to drinking it. Stop this shop. That was all. So, thats how father joined Gandhi. As soon as he joined Gandhi the Government released him and all of them [because of the propaganda and publicity they got]. Gandhiji was staying at Wardah at Birlas place. He [Birla] was a multi-millionaire, but also a great idealist and a great patriot. He built a great house there for Gandhiji. I went and stayed there for a couple of months too. Uncle [Dr. Khan Sahib, brother of Ghaffar Khan, Chief Minister of NWFP in 1936] used to stay there. Father would stay with Gandhiji in Sevagram, a couple of miles away. There were no roads then, just a bullock track. He stayed with him and then they grew to like one another. Gandhiji used to say his Prarthana [prayer] and father used to say his prayers. Then in the prarthana sometimes they would have something from the Veda or one of the Hindu holy books, and then something from the Quran, this sort of thing used to go on. Thats how he got to know Gandhiji and they grew to like one another. He was very fond of Baba [Father] and Baba was very fond of him.
Hina Khan for more
(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)