Khan Wali Khan
Encyclopedia
Khan Abdul Wali Khan was Pakistani democratic socialist and Pashtun leader who also served as President of National Awami Party
. Son of the prominent Pashtun
(Pakhtun) Bacha Khan
, Wali Khan was an activist
and a writer
against the British India
like his father.
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 Dehra Dun
. 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.
A respected politician in his later years, he contributed to Pakistan's third constitution
, led protests for the restoration of democracy in the 1960s and 1980s. In the 1970s, he also served as the parliamentary leader of opposition in Pakistan's first directly elected parliament.
in Charsadda
district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of undivided India. His father, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
(Bacha Khan), was a prominent Afghan (Pashtun
) Nationalist and founder of the pacifist Khudai Khidmatgar
("Servants of God" 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
.
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.
In May 1930, Wali Khan narrowly escaped being killed at the hands of a British soldier during a military crackdown in his home village. In 1933, he attended the government's Deradun
Public School and completed his Senior Cambridge. 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.
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." 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.
where he eventually served as a provincial joint secretary of the party. He was arrested and charged under the Frontier Crimes Regulations
, in 1943, at the height of the crackdown against the Quit India Movement
.
He opposed the 1947 partition of the subcontinent and criticized the British decision to break up India.
His decision to serve in a more prominent political role was said to have been influenced by his elder brother, Ghani Khan
's, decision to withdraw from politics. With his father in jail, Khan took over leading his father's supporters.
Despite his father's efforts against partition and a brief attempt to instead create a new nation called Pakhtunistan, on August 14, 1947, Pakistan came into being. The new nation was divided into two wings (West and East Pakistan), separated by a thousand miles (1500 km) of Indian territory.
Like his father after the creation of Pakistan, Wali Khan agitated for Pashtun autonomy within a Pakistani Federal
system, which placed him at odds with government authorities. Imprisoned without charge in 1948, he was freed in 1953; he immediately started negotiations with the central government to allay apprehensions about the Khudai Khidmatgar. He held talks with then NWFP Chief Minister Sardar Abdul Rashid and Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra
. He also held a series of meetings with then Governor General Ghulam Mohammed
. These negotiations proved successful and led to the release of hundreds of imprisoned activists belonging to the Khudai Khidmatgar movement. Wali Khan next joined the National Awami Party
(NAP) in 1956, a new political party formed by his father along with other progressive and leftist leaders from both wings of Pakistan.
The National Awami Party seemed to be on its way to victory in the 1959 elections, when the civilian President Iskandar Mirza was ousted in a coup by the military, under Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan. One of Ayub Khan's first decisions after he came to power was to outlaw political activity and imprison politicians. Wali Khan, along with many other politicians at the time, was imprisoned and disqualified from contesting elections or participating in politics as part of this purge.
, sister of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah
. Wali Khan assisted Fatima Jinnah in her election campaign and served as her election agent.
The opposition's election campaign however proved a failure and Ayub Khan was re-elected in 1964, in part due to alleged vote rigging by the central government, and also because of divisions within the opposition. These divisions were particularly sharp between Wali Khan and National Awami Party President Maulana Bhashani, as the Pro-Mao
Bhashani was alleged to have unofficially supported Ayub Khan because of the government's pro-China policy.
These divisions came to the surface in 1967, when the National Awami Party formally split into Wali Khan and Bhashani factions. Wali Khan was elected President of his own faction of the National Awami Party in June 1968. In the same year, popular unrest broke out against Ayub Khan's rule in Pakistan, due to increasing corruption and inflation. Wali Khan, along with most of the opposition parties, including future Bangladeshi President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
and others, formed the Democratic Action Committee to negotiate with Ayub Khan for the restoration of democracy.
Attempting to provide Ayub Khan with an honorable exit from power, negotiations between Ayub Khan and the opposition continued between May 9 and May 10, 1969. However, despite a compromise agreement on some issues, it was alleged that the military leadership and its political allies did not want Ayub Khan to succeed. Wali Khan held a separate meeting with Ayub Khan on 11 May to convince him to compromise. Ayub refused, and shortly afterwards Ayub resigned under pressure from the military.
The new military leader, Yahya Khan
, called for general and provincial elections in 1970, promising to transfer power to the majority party. In the elections, Sheikh Mujeeb-ur Rehman, Bengali nationalist and leader of the Awami League, won a majority of seats nationally and all the seats from the East wing of the country. (See Elections in Pakistan
.) In West Pakistan, the charismatic populist Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto won the second largest number of seats in the assembly, almost solely from the Punjab
and Sindh
provinces. Wali Khan was elected to both the provincial Assembly as a member of the Provincial Assembly and the National Assembly from his home constituency of Charsadda.
Despite the results, the military government rejected the Awami League's victory. Shocked on hearing the news that the military junta would not transfer power to the majority Bengalis, Khan was to later tell A.P. journalist Zeitlin, "I remember Bhutto said that it had been arranged with the 'powers that are' that in East Pakistan Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would rule, and in West Pakistan, Mr. Bhutto would be the Prime Minister."
In 1971, in an attempt to avert a possible showdown between the Military and the people of East Pakistan, on March 23, 1971, Khan, along with other Pakistani politicians, jointly met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. They offered support to Mujib in the formation of a government, but it was already too late to break the impasse as Yahya Khan had already decided on a full scale military crackdown. Pakistan's increasing vulnerability and widespread international outrage against the military crackdown eventually created a situation that led to war
between Pakistan and India. This war proved disastrous and culminated in Pakistan's armed forces being defeated in East Pakistan and the creation of the new state of Bangladesh
. Shocked by the defeat, Yahya Khan resigned from office and the military. Under General Gul Hassan Khan
, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was brought back from America and appointed the Civilian Chief Marshal Law Administrator and President.
During the martial law crackdown against East Pakistan, the National Awami Party under Wali Khan was one of a handful of parties that protested the military operation. In one case, Khan helped a senior East Pakistani diplomat's son escape to Afghanistan from possible internment in West Pakistan. The military government, in retaliation against the protests, banned the party and launched mass arrests of party activists.
, a paramilitary force under the alleged orders of Bhutto, attacked a public opposition rally at the Liaquat Bagh in the town of Rawalpindi
and killed a dozen people; many more were wounded by their automatic gunfire. Wali Khan narrowly escaped a bullet during the attack. Public anger amongst ethnic Pashtuns ran high, as almost all the dead and most of the wounded were from the NWFP and were mostly members of the National Awami Party. The enraged party workers and followers wanted to parade the dead bodies on the streets in Peshawar
and other cities of the province, and provoke a full scale confrontation. Wali Khan rejected this notion and held back his infuriated party cadres, escorting the dead bodies to Peshawar; he had them buried quietly and solemnly with their bereaved families.
Despite the massacre, Wali Khan continued to support talks with Bhutto over a new constitution. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed the leader of the opposition by joint agreement of all the opposition parties. He then led negotiations with Bhutto for the passage, in August 1973, of Pakistan's only unanimous constitution.
Last minute disagreements over issues ranging from provincial rights to the renaming of NWFP, according to federal negotiator Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
, despite reservations, Wali Khan agreed to a compromise with the precondition that issues of Judicial independence and provincial rights would be granted by the federal government after transition periods of five and ten years, respectively.
However, he succeeded in incorporating Hydel and gas royalties for NWFP and Baluchistan as well as having obligated the Federal government to ensure equal improvements for all regions in Pakistan. Due to Bhutto's party's large majority in Parliament and opposition divisions, Khan was critically unable to stop Bhutto from concentrating greater power in his office.
It was during this period that Wali Khan supported Bhutto's move toward the release of prisoners of war captured by India in the 1971 war and full normalization of relations through the Simla peace agreement.
Hayat Sherpao was killed in a bomb blast, Bhutto convinced that Wali Khan, Khan Amirzadah Khan and the National Awami Party were responsible, and in retaliation the federal government banned the National Awami Party. It also ordered the arrest and imprisonment of most of its senior leadership, including Wali Khan. The widely discredited Hyderabad tribunal
subsequently put Wali Khan and his colleagues on trial.
Refusing to participate in what he felt was a farcical trial, Wali Khan did not take part in his own legal defense. In response to one of the charges before the Hyderabad Tribunal, that he had been sent Rs 20 million by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
through a certain emissary, Wali Khan sarcastically filed a civil suit against the emissary for the recovery of the Rs 20 million. He argued that, although he could not imagine why Indira Gandhi would send him such a large sum of money, he had never received the money, and obviously the emissary had embezzled the money. As civil unrest was widely spread the country, the power struggle between PNA, Pakistan Armed Forces and Bhutto, including his colleagues, was triggered and, Vali Khan saw Bhutto's actions as his last stand In an open public seminar, Vali Khan quoted that "There is one possible grave for two people ... let us see who gets in first".
" policy of the British and that Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(Pakistan's founder), along with various religious leaders and feudal landlords, acted on their behalf.
(ANP). Wali Khan was elected its first President and Sindhi Nationalist Rasool Baksh Palijo became the first Secretary General of the party.
The ANP, under Wali Khan's presidency, contested the 1988 national elections in alliance with former rivals the Pakistan Peoples' Party of Benazir Bhutto
(Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter). The ANP's success in the elections was limited to the NWFP and even then only certain regions of that province. In addition, Wali Khan lost his provincial seat to a PPP candidate, a sign of the decline in the ANP's popularity. The ANP-PPP alliance collapsed in 1989 after a perceived snub by PPP Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a dispute over ministerial posts and the governorship of NWFP. After joining the opposition, Wali Khan started talks with the Army backed IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance) and joined the alliance before the 1990 general elections.
(a close confidante of the Afghan Pashtun leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar), Wali Khan opted to retire from electoral politics and turned down a senate ticket from his party and the offer from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
of contesting Lahore
. When asked his reason for retirement, he said that he had no place in politics "when the mullahs and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) decide our destiny and politics".
As Wali Khan withdrew from politics, his contact with the press and public became limited. This period in the 1990s would be marked by his party's assumption of power in alliance with former army-backed opponents, a focus only on provincial politics, the increasing influence of his wife in party affairs, corruption scandals hitting the once clean image of his supporters and in particular the focus on renaming the NWFP Pakhtunkhwa ('Land of the Pashtuns').
The exception was in 1998, when in response to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's announcement of the construction of Kalabagh Dam
, Pashtun and Sindhi nationalists opposed construction of the dam because they believed it would give control of Pakistan's water resources to the majority Punjabis. In response to the announcement, Wali Khan led a massive rally against the dam in the town of Nowshera.
The rally spurred other parties, in particular Benazir Bhutto's PPP, into leading a campaign against the construction of the dam. The campaign was successful and Sharif dropped the plan.
In another press conference in 2001, Wali Khan supported the US attack on the Taliban and said that had the US not attacked Afghanistan, the country would have turned into an Arab colony since Osama Bin Laden
had a well-equipped army of 16,000 people, which far outnumbered the trained soldiers in the Afghan army.
Wali Khan's final press conference was in 2003, when he announced his close friend and colleague Ajmal Khattak
's return to the ANP, along with many other colleagues, who had briefly led a splinter faction of the party between 2000 and 2002.
". In exchange Bhutto would accuse Khan of collusion with India and Afghanistan in an attempt to break up Pakistan.
Wali Khan accused Zulfiqar Bhutto of attempting his assassination on the floor of Pakistan's parliament. 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).
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
, 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.
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.
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.
(FCR) by the British Raj in 1943 for his role in the Khudai Khidmatgar
movement. On June 15, 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. 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.
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!'" 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. As part of the crackdown, his brother-in-law was forced into exile and his son was tortured. In his book Facts Are Sacred, he wrote of this stint in prison with some bitterness.
This difficult experience prompted Wali Khan to be often ambivalent in his criticism of military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
who in 1977 ousted Bhutto and in 1979 had him executed.
; condolence messages were sent from Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai
. 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, 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, 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 and Baluchistan (declared in 1972) rather than the majority languages of Pashto and Balochi
.
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". 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." He remained tagged with the title of traitor by the state run media and Pakistan's ruling establishment for much of his political career. 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.
However writers like Lawrence Ziring 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".
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.
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." 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".
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.
He was also accused of being a communist, or a secular Pashtun
nationalist. 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. 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."
National Awami Party
The National Awami Party was a leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded in Dhaka in erstwhile East Pakistan in July 1957 through the merger of several leftist and progressive groups. It advocated provincial autonomy, rights on the basis of ethnicity, recognition of ethinicities...
. Son of the prominent Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
(Pakhtun) Bacha Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India...
, Wali Khan was an activist
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
and a writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
against the British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
like his father.
His early years were marked by his involvement in his father's non-violent resistance movement, the "red shirts" against the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. He narrowly escaped an assassination in his early years and was later sent to school at Dehra Dun
Dehradun
- Geography :The Dehradun district has various types of physical geography from Himalayan mountains to Plains. Raiwala is the lowest point at 315 meters above sea level, and the highest points are within the Tiuni hills, rising to 3700 m above sea level...
. In his late teens, he became active in the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
. After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, Wali Khan became a controversial figure in Pakistani politics
Politics of Pakistan
Politics of Pakistan have taken place in the framework of a federal republic, where the system of government has at times been parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential. In the current parliamentary system, the President of Pakistan is the largely ceremonial head of state, the Prime...
during his political career because of his association to the Congress which opposed the creation of Pakistan.
A respected politician in his later years, he contributed to Pakistan's third constitution
Constitution of Pakistan
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the supreme law of Pakistan. Known as the Constitution of 1973, it was drafted by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and, following additions by the opposition parties, was approved by the legislative assembly on April 10, 1973...
, led protests for the restoration of democracy in the 1960s and 1980s. In the 1970s, he also served as the parliamentary leader of opposition in Pakistan's first directly elected parliament.
Early life
Wali Khan was born on 11 January 1917, to a family of local landlords in the town of UtmanzaiUtmanzai
Utmanzai is a town in Charsadda District in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. It is located at 34°22'24N 71°45'33E with an altitude of 390 metres and lies to the north of Charsadda city. Utmanzai is famous for being the birth place of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan....
in Charsadda
Charsadda
Charsadda is a town and headquarters of Charsadda District, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located at 34°8'43N 71°43'51E with an altitude of 276 metres and lies 29 kilometres from the provincial capital - Peshawar....
district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of undivided India. His father, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India...
(Bacha Khan), was a prominent Afghan (Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
) Nationalist and founder of the pacifist Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God, represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province....
("Servants of God" 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
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Wali Khan, the second of three sons, received his early education from the Azad Islamia School in Utmanzai
Utmanzai
Utmanzai is a town in Charsadda District in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. It is located at 34°22'24N 71°45'33E with an altitude of 390 metres and lies to the north of Charsadda city. Utmanzai is famous for being the birth place of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan....
. 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.
In May 1930, Wali Khan narrowly escaped being killed at the hands of a British soldier during a military crackdown in his home village. In 1933, he attended the government's Deradun
Dehradun
- Geography :The Dehradun district has various types of physical geography from Himalayan mountains to Plains. Raiwala is the lowest point at 315 meters above sea level, and the highest points are within the Tiuni hills, rising to 3700 m above sea level...
Public School and completed his Senior Cambridge. 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.
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." His first wife died in 1949 while Wali Khan was in prison. In 1954, he married Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan is a politician in Pakistan. Nasim Wali Khan is a major leader of Awami National Party. Nasim Wali Khan is the former provincial president and parliamentary leader of the Awami National Party in Provincial Assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa....
, the daughter of an old Khudai Khidmatgar activist.
Early politics
In 1942, Wali Khan while still in his teens, joined the Khudai Khidmatgar movement. Soon after, he formally stepped into politics by joining the Indian National CongressIndian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
where he eventually served as a provincial joint secretary of the party. He was arrested and charged under the Frontier Crimes Regulations
Frontier Crimes Regulations
The Frontier Crimes Regulation comprises a set of laws enforced by the British Raj in the Pashtun-inhabited tribal areas at the Northwest British India...
, in 1943, at the height of the crackdown against the Quit India Movement
Quit India Movement
The Quit India Movement , or the August Movement was a civil disobedience movement launched in India in August 1942 in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for immediate independence. Gandhi hoped to bring the British government to the negotiating table...
.
He opposed the 1947 partition of the subcontinent and criticized the British decision to break up India.
His decision to serve in a more prominent political role was said to have been influenced by his elder brother, Ghani Khan
Ghani Khan
Ghani Khan is widely considered as one of the best Pashto language poets of the 20th century, along with Ameer Hamza Shinwari. He stands on a par with Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba. He was also a respected writer and artist...
's, decision to withdraw from politics. With his father in jail, Khan took over leading his father's supporters.
Despite his father's efforts against partition and a brief attempt to instead create a new nation called Pakhtunistan, on August 14, 1947, Pakistan came into being. The new nation was divided into two wings (West and East Pakistan), separated by a thousand miles (1500 km) of Indian territory.
Like his father after the creation of Pakistan, Wali Khan agitated for Pashtun autonomy within a Pakistani Federal
Federation
A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...
system, which placed him at odds with government authorities. Imprisoned without charge in 1948, he was freed in 1953; he immediately started negotiations with the central government to allay apprehensions about the Khudai Khidmatgar. He held talks with then NWFP Chief Minister Sardar Abdul Rashid and Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra
Muhammad Ali Bogra
Nawabzada Mohammed Ali Bogra was a Pakistani statesman of Bengali origin, who served as the third Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1953 until 1955.-Early life:...
. He also held a series of meetings with then Governor General Ghulam Mohammed
Ghulam Mohammed
Ghulam Mohammed was an Indian film score composer, who is most remembered for his work in Hindi musical hits films like, Mirza Ghalib , Shama and Pakeezah ....
. These negotiations proved successful and led to the release of hundreds of imprisoned activists belonging to the Khudai Khidmatgar movement. Wali Khan next joined the National Awami Party
National Awami Party
The National Awami Party was a leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded in Dhaka in erstwhile East Pakistan in July 1957 through the merger of several leftist and progressive groups. It advocated provincial autonomy, rights on the basis of ethnicity, recognition of ethinicities...
(NAP) in 1956, a new political party formed by his father along with other progressive and leftist leaders from both wings of Pakistan.
The National Awami Party seemed to be on its way to victory in the 1959 elections, when the civilian President Iskandar Mirza was ousted in a coup by the military, under Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan. One of Ayub Khan's first decisions after he came to power was to outlaw political activity and imprison politicians. Wali Khan, along with many other politicians at the time, was imprisoned and disqualified from contesting elections or participating in politics as part of this purge.
Politics: 1958–1972
By 1962, Ayub Khan introduced a new constitution and announced he would run in the next Presidential election. The opposition parties got united under the Combined Opposition Party alliance and fielded a joint candidate against Ayub Khan in the Presidential elections. As an opposition leader, Wali Khan supported the consensus candidate Fatima JinnahFatima Jinnah
Fatima Jinnah , was one of the figurative and pioneering woman figure in Pakistan Movement and was the younger sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. An active political figure in the movement for independence from the British Raj, she is commonly known in Pakistan as Khātūn-e...
, sister of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Muslim lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam and Baba-e-Qaum ....
. Wali Khan assisted Fatima Jinnah in her election campaign and served as her election agent.
The opposition's election campaign however proved a failure and Ayub Khan was re-elected in 1964, in part due to alleged vote rigging by the central government, and also because of divisions within the opposition. These divisions were particularly sharp between Wali Khan and National Awami Party President Maulana Bhashani, as the Pro-Mao
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
Bhashani was alleged to have unofficially supported Ayub Khan because of the government's pro-China policy.
These divisions came to the surface in 1967, when the National Awami Party formally split into Wali Khan and Bhashani factions. Wali Khan was elected President of his own faction of the National Awami Party in June 1968. In the same year, popular unrest broke out against Ayub Khan's rule in Pakistan, due to increasing corruption and inflation. Wali Khan, along with most of the opposition parties, including future Bangladeshi President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a Bengali nationalist politician and the founder of Bangladesh. He headed the Awami League, served as the first President of Bangladesh and later became its Prime Minister. He headed the Awami League, served as the first President of Bangladesh and later became its...
and others, formed the Democratic Action Committee to negotiate with Ayub Khan for the restoration of democracy.
Attempting to provide Ayub Khan with an honorable exit from power, negotiations between Ayub Khan and the opposition continued between May 9 and May 10, 1969. However, despite a compromise agreement on some issues, it was alleged that the military leadership and its political allies did not want Ayub Khan to succeed. Wali Khan held a separate meeting with Ayub Khan on 11 May to convince him to compromise. Ayub refused, and shortly afterwards Ayub resigned under pressure from the military.
The new military leader, Yahya Khan
Yahya Khan
General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan Qizilbash, H.Pk, HJ, S.Pk, psc was the third President of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971, following the resignation of Ayub Khan...
, called for general and provincial elections in 1970, promising to transfer power to the majority party. In the elections, Sheikh Mujeeb-ur Rehman, Bengali nationalist and leader of the Awami League, won a majority of seats nationally and all the seats from the East wing of the country. (See Elections in Pakistan
Elections in Pakistan
At the national level, Pakistan elects a bicameral legislature, the Parliament of Pakistan, which consists of a directly elected National Assembly of Pakistan and a Senate, whose members are chosen by elected provincial legislators. The Prime Minister of Pakistan is elected by the National Assembly...
.) In West Pakistan, the charismatic populist Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto won the second largest number of seats in the assembly, almost solely from the Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
and Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
provinces. Wali Khan was elected to both the provincial Assembly as a member of the Provincial Assembly and the National Assembly from his home constituency of Charsadda.
Despite the results, the military government rejected the Awami League's victory. Shocked on hearing the news that the military junta would not transfer power to the majority Bengalis, Khan was to later tell A.P. journalist Zeitlin, "I remember Bhutto said that it had been arranged with the 'powers that are' that in East Pakistan Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would rule, and in West Pakistan, Mr. Bhutto would be the Prime Minister."
In 1971, in an attempt to avert a possible showdown between the Military and the people of East Pakistan, on March 23, 1971, Khan, along with other Pakistani politicians, jointly met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. They offered support to Mujib in the formation of a government, but it was already too late to break the impasse as Yahya Khan had already decided on a full scale military crackdown. Pakistan's increasing vulnerability and widespread international outrage against the military crackdown eventually created a situation that led to war
Bangladesh Liberation War
The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....
between Pakistan and India. This war proved disastrous and culminated in Pakistan's armed forces being defeated in East Pakistan and the creation of the new state of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. Shocked by the defeat, Yahya Khan resigned from office and the military. Under General Gul Hassan Khan
Gul Hassan Khan
Lieutenant-General Gul Hassan Khan , was a former three star general and the last Army Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army from December 20, 1971 – March 3, 1972...
, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was brought back from America and appointed the Civilian Chief Marshal Law Administrator and President.
During the martial law crackdown against East Pakistan, the National Awami Party under Wali Khan was one of a handful of parties that protested the military operation. In one case, Khan helped a senior East Pakistani diplomat's son escape to Afghanistan from possible internment in West Pakistan. The military government, in retaliation against the protests, banned the party and launched mass arrests of party activists.
Tripartite agreement
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. 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.Liaquat Bagh massacre and framing the constitution
On March 23, 1973, the Federal Security ForceFederal Security Force
Federal Security Force was a paramilitary force created by Pakistani President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Established in 1972, created as a civil task force of the federal government, ostensibly...
, a paramilitary force under the alleged orders of Bhutto, attacked a public opposition rally at the Liaquat Bagh in the town of Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
and killed a dozen people; many more were wounded by their automatic gunfire. Wali Khan narrowly escaped a bullet during the attack. Public anger amongst ethnic Pashtuns ran high, as almost all the dead and most of the wounded were from the NWFP and were mostly members of the National Awami Party. The enraged party workers and followers wanted to parade the dead bodies on the streets in Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
and other cities of the province, and provoke a full scale confrontation. Wali Khan rejected this notion and held back his infuriated party cadres, escorting the dead bodies to Peshawar; he had them buried quietly and solemnly with their bereaved families.
Despite the massacre, Wali Khan continued to support talks with Bhutto over a new constitution. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed the leader of the opposition by joint agreement of all the opposition parties. He then led negotiations with Bhutto for the passage, in August 1973, of Pakistan's only unanimous constitution.
Last minute disagreements over issues ranging from provincial rights to the renaming of NWFP, according to federal negotiator Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
Abdul Hafiz Pirzada, Senior Advocate Supreme Court, is one of the premier lawyers of Pakistan. Pirzada, a lawmaker and legal expert, is one of the founding members of Pakistan Peoples Party , a democratic socialist party, and a close associate and aide of former Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto...
, despite reservations, Wali Khan agreed to a compromise with the precondition that issues of Judicial independence and provincial rights would be granted by the federal government after transition periods of five and ten years, respectively.
However, he succeeded in incorporating Hydel and gas royalties for NWFP and Baluchistan as well as having obligated the Federal government to ensure equal improvements for all regions in Pakistan. Due to Bhutto's party's large majority in Parliament and opposition divisions, Khan was critically unable to stop Bhutto from concentrating greater power in his office.
It was during this period that Wali Khan supported Bhutto's move toward the release of prisoners of war captured by India in the 1971 war and full normalization of relations through the Simla peace agreement.
Arrest and Hyderabad tribunal
In 1974, after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's close ally and governor of the North-West Frontier ProvinceNorth-West Frontier Province
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...
Hayat Sherpao was killed in a bomb blast, Bhutto convinced that Wali Khan, Khan Amirzadah Khan and the National Awami Party were responsible, and in retaliation the federal government banned the National Awami Party. It also ordered the arrest and imprisonment of most of its senior leadership, including Wali Khan. The widely discredited Hyderabad tribunal
Hyderabad tribunal
The Hyderabad tribunal , also known as Hyderabad conspiracy case, is the name of a former judicial tribunal used in Pakistan to prosecute opposition politicians of the National Awami Party on the charges of treason and acting against the ideology of Pakistan.The tribunal was set up on the orders of...
subsequently put Wali Khan and his colleagues on trial.
Refusing to participate in what he felt was a farcical trial, Wali Khan did not take part in his own legal defense. In response to one of the charges before the Hyderabad Tribunal, that he had been sent Rs 20 million by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
through a certain emissary, Wali Khan sarcastically filed a civil suit against the emissary for the recovery of the Rs 20 million. He argued that, although he could not imagine why Indira Gandhi would send him such a large sum of money, he had never received the money, and obviously the emissary had embezzled the money. As civil unrest was widely spread the country, the power struggle between PNA, Pakistan Armed Forces and Bhutto, including his colleagues, was triggered and, Vali Khan saw Bhutto's actions as his last stand In an open public seminar, Vali Khan quoted that "There is one possible grave for two people ... let us see who gets in first".
Publication of books
Although not widely known, Wali Khan had previously written a book in Pashto on his father's non-violent movement, The Khudai Khidmatgar. In 1986, he published another book called Facts Are Facts. This book was written gradually over many years and included critical and declassified British Imperial documents before the creation of Pakistan. Wali Khan, citing those documents, alleged that Pakistan's formation was done as part of a deliberate "divide and ruleDivide and rule
In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy...
" policy of the British and that Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Muslim lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam and Baba-e-Qaum ....
(Pakistan's founder), along with various religious leaders and feudal landlords, acted on their behalf.
Awami National Party
In July 1986, Wali Khan and other former National Awami Party members formed the Awami National PartyAwami National Party
The Awami National Party is an Pashtun nationalist, socialist, centre-left political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International...
(ANP). Wali Khan was elected its first President and Sindhi Nationalist Rasool Baksh Palijo became the first Secretary General of the party.
The ANP, under Wali Khan's presidency, contested the 1988 national elections in alliance with former rivals the Pakistan Peoples' Party of Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....
(Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter). The ANP's success in the elections was limited to the NWFP and even then only certain regions of that province. In addition, Wali Khan lost his provincial seat to a PPP candidate, a sign of the decline in the ANP's popularity. The ANP-PPP alliance collapsed in 1989 after a perceived snub by PPP Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a dispute over ministerial posts and the governorship of NWFP. After joining the opposition, Wali Khan started talks with the Army backed IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance) and joined the alliance before the 1990 general elections.
Post-retirement politics
After his defeat in the 1990 elections at the hands of opposition candidate Maulana Hassan JanMaulana Hassan Jan
Maulana Hassan Jan Madani was a Pakistani Islamic scholar. He was born on 6 January 1938 in Prang, Charsadda. He was Shaikhul-Hadith at Darwesh Masjid in Peshawar and used to deliver Friday sermons in the same mosque...
(a close confidante of the Afghan Pashtun leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar), Wali Khan opted to retire from electoral politics and turned down a senate ticket from his party and the offer from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif
Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani conservative politician and steel magnate who served as 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from November 1990 to July 1993, and from February 1997 to October 12, 1999...
of contesting Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
. When asked his reason for retirement, he said that he had no place in politics "when the mullahs and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) decide our destiny and politics".
As Wali Khan withdrew from politics, his contact with the press and public became limited. This period in the 1990s would be marked by his party's assumption of power in alliance with former army-backed opponents, a focus only on provincial politics, the increasing influence of his wife in party affairs, corruption scandals hitting the once clean image of his supporters and in particular the focus on renaming the NWFP Pakhtunkhwa ('Land of the Pashtuns').
The exception was in 1998, when in response to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's announcement of the construction of Kalabagh Dam
Kalabagh Dam
The Kalabagh dam is a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Indus River at Kalabagh in Mianwali District of the Punjab province in Pakistan. The project has been controversial since its inception.-History:...
, Pashtun and Sindhi nationalists opposed construction of the dam because they believed it would give control of Pakistan's water resources to the majority Punjabis. In response to the announcement, Wali Khan led a massive rally against the dam in the town of Nowshera.
The rally spurred other parties, in particular Benazir Bhutto's PPP, into leading a campaign against the construction of the dam. The campaign was successful and Sharif dropped the plan.
In another press conference in 2001, Wali Khan supported the US attack on the Taliban and said that had the US not attacked Afghanistan, the country would have turned into an Arab colony since Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
had a well-equipped army of 16,000 people, which far outnumbered the trained soldiers in the Afghan army.
Wali Khan's final press conference was in 2003, when he announced his close friend and colleague Ajmal Khattak
Ajmal Khattak
Ajmal Khattak was a Pakistani politician, writer, Pashtun poet, Khudai Khidmatgar, former President of Awami National Party and close friend of the late Khan Wali Khan....
's return to the ANP, along with many other colleagues, who had briefly led a splinter faction of the party between 2000 and 2002.
Relationships
His relationship with PPP leader and Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was characterized by a fierce rivalry and a powerful clash of egos. He used to criticize the Prime Minister for his "fascist tendencies" by calling him "Adolph Bhutto" and "Raja DahirRaja Dahir
Raja Dahir , born 661 AD — died 712 AD, was the last Hindu ruler situated in Sindh and parts of Punjab in modern day Pakistan. During the beginning of the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent his kingdom was conquered by Muhammad bin Qasim, an Arab general, for the Umayyad Caliphate.- Reign...
". In exchange Bhutto would accuse Khan of collusion with India and Afghanistan in an attempt to break up Pakistan.
Wali Khan accused Zulfiqar Bhutto of attempting his assassination on the floor of Pakistan's parliament. During Bhutto's time in office, Khan survived four assassination attempts. The attempts occurred in Malakand
Malakand Division
Malakand Division was an administrative division of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, until the reforms of 2000 abolished the third tier of government....
, Dir
Dir, Pakistan
Dir is a town in Upper Dir District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. It is sometimes known as Dir Proper or Khas Dir to distinguish it from the district. It lies at the foot of the Lowarai Pass, the main motor road to Chitral, on the Dir River, a tributary of the Panjkora River.Dir was...
, Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
and Gujranwala
Gujranwala
Gujranwala is a industrial city in the north-east of the Punjab province. It is the sixth largest city in Pakistan with a population of approximately 2,661,360 as on 24 June 2011...
. 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).
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
Abdul Qayyum Khan
Abdul Qayyum Khan was a major figure in Pakistan politics, in particular in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province where he served as deputy speaker, Chief Minister and Minister in the Central Government and as Federal Interior Minister.-Early life:His father Khan Abdul Hakim was a Tehsildar in N.W.F.P...
, 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.
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.
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.
Imprisonments
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 RegulationsFrontier Crimes Regulations
The Frontier Crimes Regulation comprises a set of laws enforced by the British Raj in the Pashtun-inhabited tribal areas at the Northwest British India...
(FCR) by the British Raj in 1943 for his role in the Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God, represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province....
movement. On June 15, 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
Haripur Central Prison
Central Prison Haripur is a prison in the city of Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.-References:...
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
Mardan
Mardan , known as The city of hospitality, is a city and headquarters of Mardan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. It is the de facto headquarters of the Yousafzai tribe and the second most populous city in the province, located at 34°12'0N 72°1'60E and an altitude of in the south...
hospital. Wali Khan was not allowed to attend her funeral. In February 1949, Wali Khan was moved from Haripur jail to Mach jail in Balochistan, then to Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
jail in May 1951, and to Dera Ismail Khan
Dera Ismail Khan
Dera Ismail Khan is a city in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. It is situated on the west bank of the Indus River, west of Lahore and northwest of Multan. The city is the capital of the district and tehsil of the same name. In Pakistan, its name is often abbreviated to D. I...
jail in 1952. He was brought back to Haripur jail in March 1952 and then released on 14 October 1953.
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!'" This was followed by another brief arrest in 1969 after another military ruler, Yahya Khan
Yahya Khan
General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan Qizilbash, H.Pk, HJ, S.Pk, psc was the third President of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971, following the resignation of Ayub 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. As part of the crackdown, his brother-in-law was forced into exile and his son was tortured. In his book Facts Are Sacred, he wrote of this stint in prison with some bitterness.
This difficult experience prompted Wali Khan to be often ambivalent in his criticism of military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...
who in 1977 ousted Bhutto and in 1979 had him executed.
Death and criticisms
After a long illness, Wali Khan died of a heart attack on 26 January 2006 in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was buried in his ancestral village in Uthmanzai, Charsadda. His funeral was widely attended by members of the public and senior political leaders including Prime Minister Shaukat AzizShaukat Aziz
Shaukat Aziz is a world acclaimed Pakistani economist who was the 15th Prime Minister of Pakistan from May 20, 2004 to 15 November 2007 in a joint military government led by General Pervez Musharraf. A Citibank executive, Aziz returned to Pakistan from the United States to be became Finance...
; condolence messages were sent from Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
. He is survived by his wife Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan
Nasim Wali Khan is a politician in Pakistan. Nasim Wali Khan is a major leader of Awami National Party. Nasim Wali Khan is the former provincial president and parliamentary leader of the Awami National Party in Provincial Assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa....
, three daughters and two sons. Asfandyar Wali Khan
Asfandyar Wali Khan
Asfandyar Wali Khan is a democratic socialist and the current the President of the Awami National Party in Pakistan.His father, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, was the party's first President...
, 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, 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, Baluchistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies and six FRs...
into one large province that could be named Pakhtunkhwa
Pakhtunkhwa
The Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been known by a number of names during its existence. In addition to North-West Frontier Province, the official name by which it was known from 1901 to 2010, other names used or proposed for the province include Afghania, Pakhtunistan, Pashtunistan,...
or Pakhtunistan. Khan also faced criticism for his "betrayal of his language" because of his, and the National Awami Party, support for Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
as the provincial language of instruction in NWFP and Baluchistan (declared in 1972) rather than the majority languages of Pashto and Balochi
Balochi language
Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...
.
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". As a result, he has been criticized for backing separatist ideals as well as causing social unrest in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. His critics blamed him for alienation of Pashtuns from the rest of Pakistan and for supporting "anti-Pakistani forces." He remained tagged with the title of traitor by the state run media and Pakistan's ruling establishment for much of his political career. 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.
However writers like Lawrence Ziring 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".
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.
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." 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".
He also worked well with many politicians from Punjab including prominent Muslim Leaguers
Pakistan Muslim League
The Pakistan Muslim League was founded in 1962, as a successor to the previously disbanded Muslim League in Pakistan. Unlike the original PML which ended in 1958 when General Ayub Khan banned all political parties, each subsequent Muslim League was in some way propped by the military dictators of...
like Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan
Shaukat Hayat Khan
Shaukat Hayat Khan was a prominent Muslim League movement worker and political leader, who worked closely with the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the Punjab.-Background:...
and Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi
Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi
Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi was a politician from Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan. Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi founded a political family of Pakistan....
(father of former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is a politician from Pakistan who was the Prime Minister of that country from June 30, 2004 until August 28 2004...
) and with Baloch politicians especially Sardar Ataullah Mengal
Ataullah Mengal
Sardar Ataullah Khan Mengal , popularly known as Sardar Ataullah Mengal, is a well-known political and feudal figure of Pakistan hailing from Balochistan. He has been campaigning a nationalist and separatist movement in Pakistan for over four decades. He is the head of the Shahizai Mangal tribe...
and Sherbaz Khan Mazari.
He was also accused of being a communist, or a secular Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
nationalist. 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. His opposition to the Pakistan-United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
backed Afghan jihad and support for Afghan communist President Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai , originally merely Najibullah, was the fourth and last President of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.-Early years:Najibullah was born in August 1947 to the Ahmadzai...
damaged his standing amongst many conservative Pashtuns and Pakistanis."
See also
- Dr. Khan Sahib
- Ajmal KhattakAjmal KhattakAjmal Khattak was a Pakistani politician, writer, Pashtun poet, Khudai Khidmatgar, former President of Awami National Party and close friend of the late Khan Wali Khan....
- Dr. Kabir Stori
- Mian Ghulam JilaniMian Ghulam JilaniMajor General Mian Ghulam Jilani was a two-star general officer in the Pakistan Army who, as British Army officer, was a World War II Japanese POW camp survivor at Singapore, who subsequently rose to help negotiate Pakistan’s membership in the Baghdad Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization...
- Khan Abdul Ali KhanKhan Abdul Ali KhanKhan Abdul Ali Khan , noted educationist, Oxford University alumni, former Principal of Islamia College Peshawar, Fazle Haq College Mardan, Aitchison College, former Vice Chancellor of Peshawar University, Gomal University and former education secretary.Born in a political family, Abdul Ali Khan...
- Pakistan National AlliancePakistan National AllianceThe Pakistan National Alliance was a nine-party alliance in Pakistan, formed in 1977 in which the alliance agreed to run as a single bloc to overthrow the rule of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first elected leader of that country. It was a major and largest alliance formed against...
- List of political parties in Pakistan
- Mir Gul Khan NaseerMir Gul Khan NaseerMir Gul Khan Nasir, also widely regarded as Malek o-Sho'arā Balochistan was a prominent politician, poet, historian, and journalist of Balochistan, Pakistan. Born on 14 May 1914 in Noshki, Gul Khan Nasir was at the forefront of the Baloch Nationalist Movement and was most active between 1935 to 1980...
- Mir Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo
- Ataullah MengalAtaullah MengalSardar Ataullah Khan Mengal , popularly known as Sardar Ataullah Mengal, is a well-known political and feudal figure of Pakistan hailing from Balochistan. He has been campaigning a nationalist and separatist movement in Pakistan for over four decades. He is the head of the Shahizai Mangal tribe...
- Khan Amirzadah Khan
Further reading
- Mazari, Sherbaz Khan (1999) A Journey to Disillusionment.Oxford University Press Pakistan ISBN 0-19-579076-6
- Pirzada, Sayyid A. S. (2000) The Politics of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan, 1971–1977 Oxford University Press Inc, USA ISBN 0-19-579302-1
- Wolpert, Stanley (1993) Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times Oxford University Press Inc, USA. ISBN 0-19-507661-3
- Khan, Adeel Pakhtun Ethnic Nationalism: From Separation to Integration. (February 2003) Asian Ethnicity, Volume 4, Number 1, February 2003 Carfax Publishing: Taylor & Francis Group. Available online at http://www.khyber.org/publications/001-005/pakhtunethnicnationalism.shtml. Last accessed on 27/05/2006
- Newburg, Paula (2002)Judging the State: Courts and Constitutional Politics in Pakistan (Cambridge South Asian Studies)Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-89440-9
- Ziring, Lawrence (2004) Pakistan in the 20th Century: A Political History OUP Pakistan. ISBN 0-19-579276-9