The names Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Frontier Gandhi to Indians and Badshah Khan to Pathans of the Af-Pak region is a near-forgotten figure in the subcontinent. Ghaffar Khan was the Gandhi to India lost when the subcontinent was partitioned. Recently Taliban shot 132 children on December 16, 2014 in the school which was set up by Frontier Gandhi in the neighborhood.
His 125th birth anniversary on February 6 was humdrum. People have abandoned his credo of ahimsa. After independence, he forced to live in the prisons of Pakistan, as he was opposing the Partition.
Two decades after, a young activist Faisal Khan from Farrukhabad, UP, found him an inspirational figure. He revived Khudai Khidmatgars, the army of non-violent activists that Badshah Khan raised in 1929. Four years on, Khudai Khidmatgars have volunteers in 14 states. The AMU, for instance, has a strong Khidmatgars unit with many girls leading the movement.
Rajmohan Gandhi, who wrote Badshah Khan’s biography, says the idea of Khudai Khidmatgars and Badshah Khan’s legacy needs to be supported. Gandhi and Khan meant a source of spiritual exploration and philosophical inquiry. For others, religion is a political baggage, he added.
Ganga Sagar, a 22-year-old college student, was an RSS activist got inspired by the Khidmatgars three years ago. He now leads Ram-Rahim Shanthi Sena, part of Khudai Khidmatgars, and campaigns against alcoholism and for communal harmony. Mustafa Muhammad, a builder after a close observation of almost six months joined Khidmatgars and helps in running up a school in UP.
Badshah Khan envisioned Khidmatgars as a spiritual body of volunteers drawn from all religions, who will work towards allegiance to non-violence, service without seeking rewards. Faisal aims to build a movement of volunteers, capable of defusing communal tension and addressing social and educational issues.