backs to the future, 1929–33worst tribal uprising for thirty years, instigated by Fazl Wahid, the Hajji
Sahib of Turangzai. 19 The Hajji Sahib, a Deobani-trained pir and disciple
of the Hadda Mullah, had already spent several years in jail for anti-British
agitation. Following his release he took refuge among the Mohmands on
the Afghan side of the Frontier. From 1926 Hajji Sahib put pressure on the
maliks of the ‘assured tribes’ – that is, those in receipt of British subsidies
- not to accept British rupees any longer and any clan that refused this
‘request’ risked being raided by Hajji Sahib’s mujahidin and their maliks
and khans assassinated. The British responded by increasing the subsidies
of loyal clans, bombing rebel settlements and imprisoning Hajji Sahib’s
relatives and supporters. Fazl Wahid retaliated by attacking British outposts
in the Khyber Pass and extended the revolt into the Tochi valley, Khurram
and Waziristan.
In November 1929 a relative and associate of Hajji Sahib, Khan ‘Abd
al-Ghaffar Khan, or Bacha Khan, an Utmanzai Pushtun from the Peshawar
region, formed a non-cooperation movement, the Khudai Khidmatgar,
Servants of God, more commonly known as the Red Shirts after the colour
of its followers’ pehrans. ‘Abd al-Ghaffar Khan had been educated in the
Church Missionary Society (cms) school in Peshawar. In 1920 he joined the
Khilafat Movement and participated in the Hijra to Afghanistan, for which
he was sentenced to three years hard labour. Inspired by Rev. Edmund
Wigram, head of the cms Mission in Peshawar, who had instilled in him
the importance of education, ‘Abd al-Ghaffar Khan established hundreds of
schools throughout the Frontier and was a leading light in the promotion
of Pushtu literature and Pushtun national identity. Among the institutions
he founded were the Anjuman-i Islah-i Afghan (the Society for the Reform
of Afghans, 1928), the Pukhtun Jirga (1927), aimed specifically at young
Pushtuns, and Pukhtu (1928), a monthly political journal funded by the
Pushtun diaspora in California. Indeed, ‘Abd al-Ghaffar’s contribution
to education, Pushtu literature and Pushtun self-determination was far
more significant and long lasting than that of Tarzi and his Young Afghan
clique in Kabul.
The Khudai Khitmatgar was a left-wing socialist movement that British
propaganda claimed was Bolshevik-inspired, but the movement’s philo-
sophical roots were in Pushtun identity and an Islamic version of Mahatma
Gandhi’s satyagraha, or pro-active, non-violent protest. Politically, ‘Abd
al-Ghaffar was at odds with the All India Muslim League’s demand for a
separate Muslim state and supported Gandhi’s plan for a unified, secu-
lar India. After Partition, which Bacha Khan opposed, he demanded the
establishment of an independent Pukhtunistan, a stance that led to him