Another side to Pathans

They are certainly not naturally of the Talib sort; consider the "Frontier Gandhi", Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan:

Khan had Gandhi's friendship and vision
'He was a 6-foot-5 giant of the human spirit,' says Canadian filmmaker Teri McLuhan. 'That is what attracted him to me.' Emma Graham-Harrison reports on a unique message of peace.

Badshah Khan was close to Mahatma Gandhi, but the Pashtun warrior of the non-violent struggle has been almost forgotten by his people.
Photograph by: Photo From Reuters, Reuters

...Canadian filmmaker Teri McLuhan hopes to drag the man dubbed "Frontier Gandhi," and his role in winning independence from British rule, back into the limelight.

Khan's message of peace, which won him a Nobel Prize nomination in 1985, is still vital, both in the conflicted areas where he spent most of his life and in the West where it can help explode stereotypes about the Muslim world, she says.

Born to relative privilege in the Pashtun tribal heartland that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan -- later dubbed "Badshah" or "King" by his followers -- turned down a career in the British army to build his own force of thousands of troops sworn to non-violence.

"He was a 6-foot-5 giant of the human spirit; that is what attracted me to him," said McLuhan, who was handed his biography by a friend and became so obsessed with telling his story that she has dedicated more than 20 years to the task and learned three languages -- Dari, Pashto and Urdu -- along the way...

Canadian filmmaker Teri McLuhan hopes to drag the man dubbed "Frontier Gandhi," and his role in winning independence from British rule, back into the limelight.

Khan's message of peace, which won him a Nobel Prize nomination in 1985, is still vital, both in the conflicted areas where he spent most of his life and in the West where it can help explode stereotypes about the Muslim world, she says.

Born to relative privilege in the Pashtun tribal heartland that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan -- later dubbed "Badshah" or "King" by his followers -- turned down a career in the British army to build his own force of thousands of troops sworn to non-violence.

"He was a 6-foot-5 giant of the human spirit; that is what attracted me to him," said McLuhan, who was handed his biography by a friend and became so obsessed with telling his story that she has dedicated more than 20 years to the task and learned three languages -- Dari, Pashto and Urdu -- along the way...

The split of India and Pakistan marked the beginning of the decline of Khan's political influence, though not his popularity. He opposed creating a Muslim state, believing people of different faiths should live together, and his non-violent army fanned out to protect non-Muslims amid the violence over partition.

But Pakistan's eventual leaders mistrusted him because of his stance. Former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf appears onscreen expressing that discomfort.

Khan spent around one out of every three days of his life in jail, and much of that time was done under the Pakistani government.

He was also kept out of the media in his new homeland and increasingly forgotten, instead spending much of his time in Afghanistan, pushing the importance of education and urging the country to believe in non-violence.

He was buried in the Afghan city of Jalalabad when he died in 1988 [NY Times obituary here], despite heavy fighting, and the borders were thrown open for his funeral procession...

More here, here and here, plus related video:

His son also became a major political figure--as did his daughter-in-law, Begum Wali Khan, who was important in Pakistani politics in the mid-70s while the son was in jail (I was in Islamabad at the time). Subcontinental politics certainly can be familial. A quote from the preceding link:

...“That press conference Khan Saheb addressed after the Americans landed in Afghanistan following 9/11 was his last major political activity,” she said. In that press conference, Khan Saheb said that had the US not attacked Afghanistan that country would have turned into an Arab colony since Osama bin Laden had his own well-equipped army of 16,000 people which far exceeded the number of trained soldiers in the Afghan army. Had the US not invaded Afghanistan, Osama would have occupied all of Afghanistan and turned it into an Arab colony...