Khan Abdul Ghani Khan

Life

Khan Abdul Ghani Khan was born in Hashtnagar in the then North-West Frontier Province of British India, or the modern-day village of Utmanzai in Charsadda District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. He was the son of the Red-Shirt Leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and elder brother of Khan Abdul Wali Khan. His wife Roshan came from a Parsi family and was the daughter of Nawab Rustam Jang. He went to study at the art academy at Rabindranath Tagore’s university in Shantiniketan and developed a liking for painting and sculpture. He visited England and studied sugar technology in the United States, after which he returned to India and started working at the Takht Bhai Sugar Mills in 1933. Largely owing to his father’s influence, he was also involved in politics, supporting the cause of the Pashtuns of British India. He was arrested by the Government of Pakistan in 1948 – although he had given up politics by then – and remained in prison till 1954, in various jails all over the country. It was during these years that he wrote his poem collection Da Panjray Chaghaar, which he considered the best work of his life. His contribution to literature (often unpublished) was ignored by the Pakistan government for much of his life although near the end of his life his works did receive much praise and as well as an award from the Government of Pakistan. For his contributions to Pukhto literature and painting, the President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, conferred on him the prestigious award of Sitara-e-Imtiaz (23 March 1980).

Works

Aside from a few poems of his youth and early manhood, Ghani Khan’s poetry, like his temperament, is anti-political. His poem collections include Panoos, Palwashay, De Panjray Chaghar, Kullryat and Latoon. He also wrote in English; his first book was The Pathans (1947). His only published work in Urdu was his book titled Khan Sahib (1994). with thanks and a lot of books

The singular distinction of his poetry – aside from his obvious poetic genius – is a profound blend of knowledge about his native and foreign cultures, and the psychological, sensual, and religious aspects of life.

A translation (Pashto to English) of selected 141 poems of Ghani Khan, called The Pilgrim of Beauty, has been authored by Imtiaz Ahmad Sahibzada, a friend and admirer of the poet. The book was printed in 2014 in Islamabad, Pakistan. It is a joint initiative by individual donors in Pakistan and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Afghanistan. The book also contains paintings of Ghani Khan. The Pakistan launch of the book took place in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Pukhtun Festival, in March 2015. The Afghanistan launch took place on 22 February 2016 by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

Political Life and Imprisonment

During a part of Ghani Khan’s life, modern-day Pakistan did not exist. India was under British rule (hence called British India) and was fighting for its independence from the British. On August 15, 1947, India finally gained its independence. And a day before, on August 14, 1947, Pakistan had been born, becoming independent of British India. Hence, before all this independence, the Pashtuns who are now in Pakistan (all except the Swati Pashtuns, since Swat was an independent, princely state until 1964) were under the rule of British India before the partition of India and Pakistan. This is where and why Bacha Khan’s work was significant.

As for Ghani Khan, he was initially influenced by his father’s political struggles and thus worked for the independence of the Pashtuns ruled by British India. However, he later came to disagree with his father’s ideologies (he stopped supporting the idea of non-violent resistance, seeing that it was not beneficial to the Pashtuns). He says, in an interview, that he left his father’s political movement of non-violence, called “Khudai Khidmatgar” (“God’s Soldiers”) because of some of the movement’s motives that he disagreed with.

Although he was no longer involved in politics by the time of Pakistan’s independence (1947), the government of Pakistan imprisoned him several times, sending him to jails from all over the country. His father spent close to half of his lifetime in jail (44 years out of his 99 years!). Ghani Khan used his time in jail to write poetry; his main work in jail is called Da Panjrey Chaghar (“The Chirping of the Cage”).

Quotes and prose

Ghani Khan's love for nature and the local habitat of the Pashtun people is visible in his work. He wrote

Tribute

Khan Abdul Ghani Khan died on 15 March 1996 and was buried in Utmanzai, Charsadda. After his death, in recognition of his outstanding achievements, the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province built a public library and park as a memorial to him on about 8 acres (32,000 m²) of land, naming it "Ghani Derai" (the mound of Ghani). The site is an historical mound very near his home, Dar- ul-Aman, and within the confines of his ancestral village, Utmanzai, on the main highway from Razzar to Takht-i-Bhai.