Badshah Khan and great philosophy of non-violence

Pervaiz Khan

“My religion is truth, love and service to God and humanity, all religion are based on the some truth, and should be given equal respect, those who are indifferent to the welfare of their fellow men those whose heart are empty of love, those who do not know the meaning of brotherhood, those who harbour hatred and resentment in their hearts, they are yet to know the meaning of religion”. “For me non-violence is not a mere philosophical principle, it is the rule and breath of my life”. — Abdul Ghaffar Khan

A great reformer appears once in a while, several centuries may pass by, without the advent of one. Great reformers are the bravest, purest, most elevating and really inspiring heroes of all times. Generations are associated with in the ages to come, centuries and may be millenniums after we are no more. Seldom, I think human history records of one individual as the one known to the world as Badshah Khan. Many sided personality of his, simplicity of his life, non-violent, disciplined, loyal, inspired, equally distinctive, he was a revolutionary politician and social reformer. He was man of religion; devotee alike of faith and reason; a nationalist; and a man of action, who emancipated his enslaved nation from foreign bondage and showed it the path to freedom. Though his life, one long and ceaseless saga of endeavour to which he all along added, bit by bit, piece by piece, to his monumental structure in the history, advanced, step by step collecting and adding to life all those fragments of truth, one by one, his pursuits for cause, to suffer but to recover, his lost grounds again, with relentless courage, he opened new grounds in all directions and he integrated all his aims and achievements into the unity of his heights. When we look into the splendid mosaic of his life, his thoughts and deeds, there is one thing that stands out as unique and in fact to be remembered in the history and that puts him as a landmark in the evolution of man in our time, it is the philosophy of non-violence of his, to use it as a weapon of truth, love and faith. He always took non-violence to be a sacred trust and always viewed it to be a quest of the human soul for union with God and it was this quest of his that determined Badshah Khan’s all actions For the first in the history of the Pakhtuns, do we come across a man, such a man as Badshah Khan. In him, we had the intimate detail of the inner life of a great public character and spiritual genius, from childhood until death, For him the faith in God was the foundations of all moral values. He considered life as a series of experiments with truth, central to life and work, applying those ideals and principles that have become a part of his life. His convictions that morality is the basis of all actions; truth is the substance of all morality; became the sole objective of his life that grew in him adding to his personality every passing day. Badshah Khan always found himself entirely absorbed in the services of the community, and the reason behind was his desire for self realization, he made the services of humanity as a part of his religion, and he felt that God can only be realized by serving His creatures and for him the service of God was the service of the human being, and all life he practiced this as a religious duty but never did he seek to gain selfish end by its means. He rendered this as a sacred obligation without expecting a reward and this service to the human being revealed to him new implications of truth at every stage. He inspired to realize life through the service of humanity. The weapon of truth and love are infallible for him in all the ordeals of his life and more the hardest they were to achieve the deeper his faith grew. Faith for him, a conception identical with integrity and the best of one’s immediate moral integrity is non-violence, it is a test for one’s genuineness in the pursuit of truth, through one’s actions in the midst of the society and for him a morally progressive society is that in which neither the state nor any social organization is allowed to flout with impurity the sacred principles that every man is entitled to his relative truth. That no one can claim the right to coerce another to treat him as a mean to his end. He was convinced that real thoughts must be connected to moral purposes on the one hand, useful and right action on the other. All sacred actions should be governed by selflessness, non-attachment, non-violence and active service without expectation or worldly gains whatsoever, and that the growth of a man’s personality is in the practice of these values, on the other hand, wrong means corrupts the soul and society as well; that no good can in fact come out of it. Badshah Khan’s philosophy can be classified into different categories at different times. if on the one hand, a main characteristic of his actions were rigid adherence to principles; on the other hand, equally notable were his adaptation to people. The Pakhtun, a soul, totally ignorant of his rights, illiterate he was, affiliated to a culture of hereditary hatreds, family feuds, ferocities and revenges: It was in itself a unique task in the history of the subcontinent for Badshah Khan to adhere and to grasp the philosophy of non-violence. For the Pakhtun society the propogation of Bacha Khan’s message was odd and unfavourable and in an environment that hardly suited to the prevailing trends. It was a difficult task to create grounds for the application of such a philosophy quite unknown to the Pakhtuns. For Badshah Khan to organize and discipline his followers to this philosophy of non-violence and to make the common Pakhtun, understand it and to apply it that long in history as his creed and in the long run leading them to success and liberation was a big achievement. But despite all these odds, he and his followers surprisingly showed their utmost readiness to suffer cheerfully for the severest of punishment and proved to the world the triumph of non-violence. This display was, in the truest spirit, the weapon of the brave against all evils. It, was the charismatic character of Badshah Khan’s personality Badshah Khan took great pains in the initial stages of his struggle, to get the masses acquainted to the philosophy of non-violence; He always stressed that in social life, and in their contacts with each others, Pakhtun should be peaceful, truthful, modest and helpful to others and that he will only admire a man who at some, personal inconvenience and loss, serves his neighbour or another human being, Further they should denounce aggressions and violence; to trust each others; to keep their words; and at the same time be accommodative to others point of view Badshah Khan in order to apply the philosophy apprised his companions with the significance of forgiveness and patient for non-violence first and that it would be on the basis of these two weapons that they combat the colonialist power. Basically the theory of Badshah Khan was strictly under the tenements of Islam. He told them that Quran and the sayings of the Prophet commands to respect others and that the merit of a good life lies in loving others in spite of having vivid knowledge that the one that is to be loved is not a friend, and that the moment there is a slight suspicion in a man as relate his motive towards other, every thing that he does become tainted. He said the fact was that as soon as we lost the moral basis, we cease to be religious, for there is no such a thing as religion overriding morality: a man cannot be untruthful, cruel, and still claim to be near God. Badshah Khan has long recognized this non-violence principle of Islam and Quran and he had accepted it as a part of his life. He had in fact taken a vow, not in a fit of passion, but fully understanding it with a mind fully purified and composed and with the belief that God was his witness. That is what Badshah Khan preached his life and that what he asked his followers to follow, Turning away evil with good and enduring sufferings without retaliation, Non-violence is the mightiest of force at the disposal of humanity, Destruction is not the law of the human, every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause committed or inflicted on another is a crime against the humanity and that never can evil be equal to goodness, and to repel evil with the exercise of patience and self-respect, Self-restrained person grow every day from strength to strength and from power to more power and from peace to more peace. The very first step to self-restraint is the restraint of thought. When he invited the people to his Khudai Khidmatgars movement, he would tell them that the task they were opting had within it the risk to their lives. Also, that they had to take that for the sake of their motherland and their death in that cause would be a noble death. And that it will in return be a service for the benefit of the human beings which itself is a sacred task. He all the while attached great significance to the morality of a man and this religious and moral sense that was instilled in those who joined Khudai Khidmatgars. It gave them a high degree of truthfulness, integrity and awareness. It it not only gave them the power to fight a non-violent battle against the colonist power but at the same time it was marked towards themself too so as to get themselves rid of ethically base motivations such as pride and praise. Anyone who offered to be a Khudai Khidmatgar and in order to achieve this an ideal had to take an oath, “I shall never use violence, I shall not retaliate or take revenge and shall forgive any one who indulges in oppression and excesses against me”, and once the Pakhtun took an oath, he all life, stood committed to it come what may an that is what the followers of Badshah Khan have displayed and proved to the World, in the true spirit. Truth and non-violence were the two ideals of Badshah Khan and in order to achieve these ideals, he put in constant efforts in thoughts, words and deeds being fully aware of the fact that his pursuits were imperfect for the reason that this non-violence was a quality that was only to be attributed to the Almighty, and that it was some thing that cannot be practiced by human beings. Badshah Khan, therefore, considered a person true to the observance of the doctrine of non-violence, when he avoided the violence that was inevitable in life and that, of course, at the risk of his life. He expected every follower of his to perfect himself so as to be able to adopt this non-violence to be a remedy against all evils of society. Also, that the success of non-violence should not be judged in term of victory and defeat of one party or another but in terms of the change of the heart. The progressive, realization of the true nature and power as well as the increasing and effective use of goodness and truth, of love and non-violence, is and can be the highest and the only goal of self conscious humanity. It is the spearhead and symbol of future humanity; for him the quest of truth of life meant its realization, through the means of love and through actions prompted by non-violence. The non-violence approach of his was based on the use and efficacy of moral force as against the physical force or violence; it is foreign to non-violence to seek a victory over other human being in a war in which one group of humand is arrayed against another. The aim and purpose is not to conquer and to humiliate the enemy but to change his mind and will, non-violence means to go unarmed and in that sense, to be defenseless it means to take sufferings upon one’s self and to avoid inflicting it in any way on others. The non-violence approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first of all in more than one way related to a change effecting the heart and soul of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect, calls upon resources of strength and courage they did not know, they had. It is the power of non-violence that develops a sense of dignity and self-confidence as well as to accomplish social changes. These characteristics were demonstrated by the Khudai Khidmatgars much ahead in their direct combat with the colonist power for social reforms as early as 1918. With their efforts for the spread of the mass education all around the province, accomplished with serving the masses. There is another aspect of the thought of Badshah Khan that he applied all his life as a political leader and that was his approach to the freedom of the subcontinent. He was of the firm opinion that the freedom of the subcontinent could only be achieved through truth and non-violence, and once achieved, it shall be a real freedom of the subcontinent. He wanted the freedom of the subcontinent not only for freedom’s sake but for the good of humanity. As an individual must sacrifice himself for the nation, so also must a nation be prepared to sacrifice itself for humanit. He, as a human, was of the opinion that it was the peace of the people that was of prime concern. Their living together on terms of equal rights and privileges and sharing everything justly together and once we could do that we gather more strength, more unity and we grow as a stringed and disciplined nation. The greatest of the contribution of Badshah Khan and his followers was that they led us out of the darkness of conventional wisdom and showed us the falsity the generally accepted belief in the supremacy of violence. He, undoubtedly, an unarmed soldier with an army of unarmed followers fought an unprecedented peaceful battle extending over three decades. Moreover, whenever historians will explain to men as to how they should struggle, against great odds for freedom or for cherished rights, the struggle of the Khudai Khidmatgars will readily come to their lips. In addition, the image of the greatness of Badshah Khan and his followers will always be a guiding factor for struggling men and nations. These followers of Badshah Khan, shared with many others, the goal of a decent, just and equitable society. They besides forcefully added their service to end injustices, tyrannies, corruptions and exploitation of men by their fellow men. They used this non-violence as an essential part of their religion and faith to meet these ends and such an approach when carried in the best spirit of non-violence as a service to the humanity in itself. For me as a humble observer, he was among the greatest of men who remained true to his convictions. All his energies and resources were pressed, into the services of his people and motherland. He throughout his life made every effort, to encourage the full development of the positive aspects of human potentials and to reduce and restrain the negative. A great victorious fighter who always scorned the use of force, he was a man of wisdom and humility having devoted all his strength for the uplifting and betterment of his people. He confronted the brutalities of the imperialists, of all times with dignity and uprightness of a humane individual. Badshah Khan was a thus leader of the people whose success rested on the convincing power of his personality. He by his actions proved to the world that non-violence couldn’t only be implemented in politics but also in day-to-day life of a man. It was the practical display of these qualities with complete renunciation of violence that led the nation to the great political success of all times. He was a messenger of peace, harmony and brotherhood, for the world at large. He lived, thought and acted inspired by the sacred principles and vision of humanity. If humanity is to progress, Bacha Khan thought and his teachings are inescapable Though he is no more with us, his thoughts and ideals will always be cherished with esteem love and devotions for generations to come. It may be hard to believe that such one as Bacha Khan in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.