Khudai Khidmatgars’ Resistance against Colonial Rule and its Search for Affiliation

The people of North-West Frontier Province (N-WFP) suffered a worst kind of humiliation for gaining political and constitutional rights from British India. The Russian threat compelled the British to manage the affairs of N-WF from a security perspective. Viceroy Lord Curzon separated N-WFP from Punjab in 1901. The Pashtuns as part of Indian nation demanded rights and stood against British atrocities during Khilafat and Hijrat Movements. The Pashtun even started the non-violent Khudai Khidmatgars (God’s Servants) Movement (KKM) as a social movement under the leadership of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The British perceived it as inimical to its own interest, thus making the movement a torch-bearer of resistance in the province. As a movement of Pashtuns in a single province, it could not alone withstand the British Raj, for which it needed an all-India level political support of either All-India Muslim League (AIML) or All-India National Congress (AINC) which culminated in the affiliation with the latter. The present study endeavors to answer the questions that what kind of a resistance KKM put against the British colonial rule and why it made a quest for affiliation with a party at All-India level?