Abdul Wali Khan
Khan Abdul Wali Khan (Pashto: خان عبدالولي خان; Urdu: خان عبدالولی خان; 11 January 1917 – 26 January 2006) was a Pakistani democratic socialist politician who served as president of Awami National Party. Son of the prominent Pashtun nationalist leader Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Wali Khan was an activist and a writer against the British Raj like his father.[1]
For other uses, see Wali Khan (disambiguation).
Abdul Wali Khan
عبدالولی خان
عبدالولي خان
عبدالولی خان
عبدالولي خان
11 January 1917
Utmanzai, British India
26 January 2006 (aged 89)
Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan
Awami National Party (1986–2006)
Khudai Khidmatgar
Indian National Congress (Before 1947)
National Awami Party (1957–1968)
National Awami Party-Wali (1968–1986)
Abdul Ghani Khan (brother)
Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan (uncle)
Khan Abdul Bahram Khan (Grand father)
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Meharqanda Kinankhel
Azad Islamia High School
His early years were marked by his involvement in his father's non-violent resistance movement, the "red shirts" against the British Raj. He narrowly escaped an assassination in his early years and was later sent to school at Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehra Dun.[2] In his late teens, he became active in the Indian National Congress. After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, Wali Khan became a controversial figure in Pakistani politics during his political career because of his association to the Congress which opposed the creation of Pakistan.[3][4]
A respected politician in his later years, he contributed to Pakistan's third constitution and led protests for the restoration of democracy in the 1960s and 1980s.[5] In the 1970s, he also served as the parliamentary leader of opposition in Pakistan's first directly elected parliament.
Early life[edit]
Wali Khan was born on 11 January 1917, to a Muhammadzai Pashtun family of local landlords in the town of Utmanzai in Charsadda district of the North-West Frontier province of what was then undivided India. His father, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan), was a prominent Pashtun Nationalist and founder of the pacifist Khudai Khidmatgar ("Volunteer" in Pashto) movement. His mother, Mehar Qanda Khan, belonged to the nearby Razar village, and married Bacha Khan in 1912; she died during the flu pandemic after World War I.[6]
Wali Khan, the second of three sons, received his early education from the Azad Islamia School in Utmanzai. In 1922, this school became part of a chain of schools his father had formed during his social reform activities. It was from this network of schools that the Khudai Khidmatgar movement developed, eventually challenging British authority in the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) through non-violent protests and posing one of the most serious challenges to British rule in the region.[2]
In May 1930, Wali Khan narrowly escaped being killed during a military operation by the British Indian Army against his home village. In 1933, he attended the famous Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehra Dun. He did not pursue further education because of recurring problems with his eyesight, which led to him wearing glasses for the rest of his life.[2]
Despite his pacifist upbringing, as a young freedom fighter, Wali Khan seemed exasperated with the pacifism advocated by his father. He was to later explain his frustration to Gandhi, in a story he told Muklaika Bannerjee, "If the cook comes to slaughter this chicken's baby, is non-violence on the part of the chicken likely to save the younger life?" The story ended with a twinkle in his eye when he remembered Gandhiji's reply, "Wali, you seem to have done more research on violence than I have on non-violence."[7] His first wife died in 1949 while Wali Khan was in prison. In 1954, he married Nasim Wali Khan, the daughter of an old Khudai Khidmatgar activist.
Politics: 1972–1990[edit]
Tripartite agreement[edit]
In 1972, as the opposition leader, Wali Khan was contacted by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who wanted to lift martial law and set up a new constitution. Wali Khan's negotiations with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto led to the signing of an agreement with the government in 1972, called the Tripartite Agreement.[18] The agreement led to the lifting of martial law and removal of the ban on the National Awami Party. This led to the formation of National Awami Party coalition provincial governments in the NWFP and Baluchistan. Despite the initial positive start, the agreement rapidly began to unravel due to the growing animosity between Khan and Bhutto.[3]
Relationships[edit]
His relationship with PPP leader and Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was characterised by a fierce rivalry and a powerful clash of egos. He used to criticise the Prime Minister for his "fascist tendencies" by calling him "Adolph Bhutto" and "Raja Dahir".[11][33] In exchange Bhutto would accuse Khan of collusion with India and Afghanistan in an attempt to break up Pakistan.[34]
Wali Khan accused Zulfiqar Bhutto of attempting his assassination on the floor of Pakistan's parliament.[11] During Bhutto's time in office, Khan survived four assassination attempts. The attempts occurred in Malakand, Dir, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala. He survived the first attack when the vehicle he was travelling in, from Jandol to Timergara in Dir, came under fire. One of his bodyguards was killed in the attack. He survived a grenade attack at the Gujranwala railway station when he, along with Pir Pagara and Chaudhry Zahur Elahi, was on a visit to Punjab under the banner of the opposition alliance United Democratic Front (UDF).[35]
The fourth attack was carried out when he was about to address a public meeting in Liaquat Bagh Rawalpindi, a stray bullet killed a youth standing close to Wali Khan on the stage. Convinced that Bhutto had orchestrated the attacks with the collusion of Khan's old rival Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri, and after one particularly narrow escape, he warned Bhutto on the floor of the National Assembly that he would trade bullet for bullet with Bhutto, after that speech Bhutto's trips to the North-West Frontier Province were heavily guarded.[11]
Debates between the two rivals remained bitter, in one case Bhutto had just returned from a successful trip abroad, and in a confrontational mood he lashed out at the opposition and Khan for slowing him down. When Bhutto was done, Wali Khan responded: "Mr. Bhutto, you stop telling lies about me and I will stop telling the truth about you.[36]
The brutality he and his family experienced at the hands of Bhutto's government led to little sympathy from Wali Khan in 1979 when Bhutto faced execution.[37]
Imprisonments[edit]
Wali Khan served several stints in prison, and survived several assassination attempts during his 48-year political career. His first arrest was under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) by the British Raj in 1943 for his role in the Khudai Khidmatgar movement.[38] On 15 June 1948, he was arrested again, this time by the new Pakistani government, for the Khudai Khidmatgar's opposition to the creation of Pakistan, and placed behind bars in Haripur jail in Haripur, NWFP. In 1953, after serving more than five years in various jails without being charged, he was released by the central government. During this stint in prison, in February 1949, his first wife Taj Bibi and their second son died in a Mardan hospital. Wali Khan was not allowed to attend her funeral.[38] In February 1949, Wali Khan was moved from Haripur jail to Mach jail in Balochistan, then to Quetta jail in May 1951, and to Dera Ismail Khan jail in 1952. He was brought back to Haripur jail in March 1952 and then released on 14 October 1953.[38]
His third stint in prison was after Pakistani President Iskandar Mirza was ousted in a military coup by General Ayub Khan. The new military regime sought to purge political opponents, which led to Khan and hundreds of other politicians being disqualified from participating in politics. Wali Khan commented about his imprisonment to Ayub Khan's Information secretary in 1969 shortly after the Democratic Action Committee's conference with Ayub Khan had finished. Gauhar writes that, "Wali Khan narrated how Khawaja Shahabuddin asked him on three occasions during the conference, 'how is it that I never met a bright and able person like you when I was Governor of NWFP for three years.' Wali Khan let it pass on the first two occasions but on the third occasion he could not restrain himself and rejoined, 'Because all those three years you kept me in prison!'"[39] This was followed by another brief arrest in 1969 after another military ruler, Yahya Khan, assumed power after Ayub Khan resigned.
His final stint in prison was under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government. Khan considered this period his most difficult experience. His party was banned and a brutal crackdown was launched against his family and friends.[40] As part of the crackdown, his brother-in-law was forced into exile and his son was tortured.[41][42] In his book Facts Are Sacred,[43] he wrote of this stint in prison with some bitterness.[43]
This difficult experience prompted Wali Khan to be often ambivalent in his criticism of military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq[35] who in 1977 ousted Bhutto and in 1979 had him executed.[11]
Death and criticisms[edit]
After a long illness, Wali Khan died of a heart attack[44] on 26 January 2006 in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was buried in his ancestral village in Utmanzai, Charsadda. His funeral was widely attended by members of the public and senior political leaders including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; condolence messages were sent from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.[44] He is survived by his wife Nasim Wali Khan, three daughters and two sons. Asfandyar Wali Khan, his eldest son, true to the political traditions of Wali Khan's family, is a politician in Pakistan and the current President of the Awami National Party.
Critics argue that Wali Khan made limited contributions to Pakistan's polarized and corrupt political system. They challenged his claim that he was the major or sole spokesperson for Pashtuns,[45] discounted the benefits of the 1973 constitution and the Simla agreement, and disagreed with his principles of not compromising with dictators. Others argue that if he had compromised with Pakistan's military establishment he may well have ended up Pakistan's Prime Minister, but that his principles proved to be his undoing.
Some Pashtun nationalists were also critical of Wali Khan, as many felt that he squandered a chance to unite all Pashtuns in NWFP (now Khyber Pukhtunkhwa), Baluchistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas into one large province that could be named Pakhtunkhwa or Pakhtunistan. Khan also faced criticism for his "betrayal of his language" because of his, and the National Awami Party, support for Urdu as the provincial language of instruction in NWFP (now Khyber Pukhtunkhwa) and Baluchistan (declared in 1972) rather than the majority languages of Pashto and Balochi.[46]
Wali Khan struggled for most of his life with the twin legacies of his influential father Ghaffar Khan and the perception of his "Anti-Pakistani activities".[3] As a result, he has been criticized for backing separatist ideals as well as causing social unrest in Pakistan. His critics blamed him for alienation of Pashtuns from the rest of Pakistan and for supporting "anti-Pakistani forces".[47] He remained tagged with the title of traitor by the state run media and Pakistan's ruling establishment for much of his political career.[48] Paradoxically he is criticised by democrats for his alleged lukewarm opposition to Zia-ul Haq, who allegedly offered him the Prime Ministership of the country.[49]
However writers like Lawrence Ziring[50] have rejected the charges against him. Syed went a step further, arguing that the clash between the National Awami Party under Wali Khan, "was not a contest between the state of Pakistan and a secessionist force ... but was more like a clash of rival political wills".[51]
His supporters disagree, and believe he promoted left of centre progressive and secular politics in Pakistan. Before his arrest in 1975, he was in fact striving for a more national role more in line with his position as Leader of the Opposition in government and he had started campaigning heavily in Punjab and Sind, where he was attracting large crowds.[52]
In his statements he left an ambiguity in his policies, exemplified in 1972 when a journalist questioned his loyalty and his first allegiance, to which his reply was, "I have been a Pashtun for six thousand years, a Muslim for thirteen hundred years, and a Pakistani for twenty-five."[53] However at the same time, before the 1990 general elections, he stated "The survival of the federation is the main issue in this election. Everyone considers themselves a Sindhi or Pashtun or Punjabi first. Nobody considers themselves a Pakistani. There has to be greater provincial autonomy".[54]
He also worked well with many politicians from Punjab including prominent Muslim Leaguers like Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan and Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi (father of former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain) and with Baloch politicians especially Sardar Ataullah Mengal and Sherbaz Khan Mazari.[35]
He was also accused of being a communist,[55] or a secular Pashtun nationalist.[35] Khan's falling out with Baloch leader Ghous Bizenjo in the late 1970s can be traced to his disillusionment with Communism.
Khan, and by extension his party and family, maintained a long association with senior leaders in the Congress Party of India because of his father's close association with Mohandas Gandhi. His preference for dialogue over conflict with India and his links to India also strengthened the impression that he was anti-Pakistan amongst the more strident anti-India elements in Punjab.[34] His opposition to the Pakistan-United States backed Afghan jihad and support for Afghan communist President Mohammad Najibullah damaged his standing amongst many conservative Pashtuns and Pakistanis."[29] Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan has been established in respect to him by Awami National Party government.