The Qissa Khwani massacre ( ps, د قصه خوانۍ بازار خوڼۍ پېښه) in

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

(modern day

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) on 23 April 1930 was one of the defining moments of the independence movement in British India. It was the first major confrontation between the

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

and demonstrators in the city, belonging to Abdul Ghaffar Khan's non-violent Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of God) movement against the British colonial government. Estimates at the time put the death toll from the shooting at between the official count at 20, and the figure of 400 dead put forth by Pakistani and Indian sources. The gunning down of unarmed people triggered protests across British India and catapulted the newly formed ''

Khudai Khidmatgar Khudai Khidmatgar ( ps, خداۍ خدمتګار; literally "servants of God") was a predominantly Pashtun nonviolent resistance movement known for its activism against the British Raj in colonial India; it was based in the country's North-West ...

'' movement into prominence.

Background

The ''Khudai Khidmatgar'' (literally ''Helpers in the name of God''), led by

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Abdul Ghaffār Khān (; 6 February 1890 – 20 January 1988), also known as Bacha Khan () or Badshah Khan (), and honourably addressed as Fakhr-e-Afghan (), was a Pakistani Pashtun, independence activist, and founder of the Khudai Khidmatgar ...

, were a group of Muslims committed to the removal of British colonial rule through non-violent methods. On 23 April 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested after giving a speech in Utmanzai urging resistance to British colonial rule. Ghaffar Khan's reputation for uncompromising integrity and commitment to non-violence inspired most of the local townspeople to take the oath of membership and join the ''Khudai Khidmatgar'' in protest.Johansen, p. 62. Simultaneous demonstrations were led by a cross section of civil society in and around Peshawar, led by Maulana Abdur Rahim Popalzai against discriminatory laws like the

Frontier Crimes Regulation The Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) were a special set of laws of British India, and which were applicable to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). They were enacted by in the nineteenth century and remained in effect in Pakistan un ...

against the people of the province.

Clashes at the Qissa Khwani bazaar

After other ''Khudai Khidmatgar'' leaders were arrested, a large crowd of the group gathered at the Qissa Khwani bazaar. As troops of the British Indian Army (BIA) moved into the bazaar, the crowd was loud and stones were thrown. A BIA dispatch rider was killed and his body burned. Two BIA armored cars drove into the square at high speed, killing several people. It is claimed that the crowd continued their commitment to non-violence, offering to disperse if they could gather their dead and injured, and if the British Indian Army left the square. The BIA refused to leave, so the protesters remained with the dead and injured. At that point, the BIA officers present ordered their troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd."Civil Disobedience 1930-31". Social Scientist (September – October 1997) (Social Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 9/10) 25 (9–10): pp. 43–66. . Retrieved 2007-12-03. The Khudai Khidmatgar members willingly faced bullets, responding without violence. Instead, many members repeated 'God is Great'(اللہُ اکبر) and clutched the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...

as they were shot. Qissakhwanibazaarmassacre

The exact number of deaths remains controversial— official figures give 20 dead while nationalist sources claimed several hundred were killed, with many more wounded. Two platoons of a respected British Indian Army regiment, the Royal Garhwal Rifles, refused to board buses that were to take them into Peshawar for anti-riot duty. A British civil servant wrote later that "hardly any regiment of the Indian Army won greater glory in the Great War (World War I) than the Garhwal Rifles, and the defection of part of the regiment sent shock waves through India, of apprehension to some, of exultation to others." The NCOs of the two platoons, including one led by Hawaldar Major Chandra Singh Garhwali, involved were sentenced to terms of up to eight years imprisonment. The violence continued for six hours.

Gene Sharp Gene Sharp (January 21, 1928 – January 28, 2018) was an American political scientist. He was the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the study of nonviolent action, and professor of pol ...

, who has written a study of

nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, cons ...

, describes the scene on that day:

When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their chests bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so much so that some people got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic. . . . The
Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...
paper of
Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...
, which represents the official view, itself wrote to the effect that the people came forward one after another to face the firing and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o'clock in the evening. When the number of corpses became too many, the ambulance cars of the government took them away.

Aftermath

In Peshawar and the surrounding area, the ''Khudai Khidmatgar'' experienced some of the most extreme crackdowns against the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

. Ghaffar Khan later wrote that this was because the British colonial government thought a non-violent Pashtun was more dangerous than a violent one; claiming that this led them to repeatedly provoke the movement into becoming violent, with little effect. The massacre created numerous instances of unrest throughout British India. This resulted in

King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of Ind ...

(Emperor of India) launching a legal investigation into this matter. The British Commission brought the case forward to Chief Justice Naimatullah Chaudhry, a distinguished Judge of the Lucknow protectorate. King George VI subsequently knighted Naimatullah Chaudhry. Naimatullah personally surveyed the area of

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

and published a 200-page report criticizing the actions of the British Indian Army. Olaf Caroe, then secretary to the Chief Commissioner, gave the following report of the event ('Public and Judicial Department. Civil Disobedience Campaign in NWFP. Response to Patel allegations'. British Library reference number L/PJ/6/2007):

″I received a note on 23rd April evening from Sir Norman Bolton asking me to do what I could to arrange for the burial of as many of the casualties as possible during the night, in order to avoid the danger of a fresh riot occurring over the funeral procession. I spoke to R.S. Mehr Chand Khanna and asked him to bring me some of the leading Khilafists at the Municipal Library. He brought M. Abdurrab Nishtar; M. Ataullah Jan, Municipal Commissioner; M. Aurangzeb Khan, Vakil; Qazi Mohd Aslam, Vakil. I informed these persons what was required and asked for their co-operation as peace-loving citizens and good Muslims. They agreed to do what they could and asked me to arrange for lorries, saying they would persuade the relatives to agree. I arranged for lorries through Shahji – one of C.C.’s orderlies – who is I believe a Peshawari and a Syed. During the night in this way we sent away seven or eight bodies in lorries. Some of them had no relatives and arrangements were made to pay for a mullah and to carry through the obsequies with all regard to religious rites. The next day Qazi Mohd Aslam came to see me and said that he was making himself unpopular by assisting in the matter. He gave me to understand that he could do no more. I fancy that the association of these four men with the action taken will put an end to any attempt to make capital of the incident.″

Background

Clashes at the Qissa Khwani bazaar

Aftermath

See also

References

Further reading