, image = Khan Abdul Ghani Khan 1940s.jpg , image_size = 250px , caption = Khan in the 1940s , birth_date = , birth_place = Hashtnagar, North-West Frontier Province,

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 ...

, now

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ...

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 ...

, death_date = , death_place = Charsadda, North-West Frontier Province, now

, nationality = , notablework = ''Da Panjre Chaghar'', ''Panoos'', ''The Pathans'', ''Da Ghani Latoon'', ''Kuliat-e-Ghani'' , native_name = , native_name_lang = ps , relatives = , pseudonym = , awards = Sitara-i-Imtiaz (1980) Khan Abdul Ghani Khan (; – 15 March 1996) was a Pashtun philosopher, poet, artist, writer and politician. He was a son of

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 ...

, a prominent

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

-era Indian independence activist. Throughout his life as a poet in both

and

, Khan was known by the titles ''Lewanay Pālsapay'' () and ''Da īlam Samander'' ().

Life

Khan was born in Hashtnagar, in the Frontier Tribal Areas of

—roughly located in the modern-day village of Utmanzai in Charsadda District,

. He was a son of

, a prominent Indian independence activist, and was the elder brother of Abdul Wali Khan. Khan's wife, Roshan, was from a Parsi family and was the daughter of Nawab Rustam Jang a prince of

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

. He went to study at the art academy at

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

's University in Shantiniketan, where he developed a liking for painting and sculpture. He visited

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and studied sugar technology in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, after which he returned to British India and started working at the Takht Bhai Sugar Mills in Takht Bhai in 1933. Largely owing to his father's influence, Khan was also involved in politics, supporting the cause of the Pashtuns of British India. Due to his activism, Khan 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 to be the best work of his life. His contribution to literature (often unpublished) was ignored by the Pakistani 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—for his contributions to

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

literature and painting, the then- President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, conferred on him the Sitara-i-Imtiaz on 23 March 1980.

Political Life and Imprisonment

During a part of Ghani Khan's life, modern-day

did not exist. India was under British rule (hence called

) and was fighting for its independence from the British. On 15 August 1947, India finally gained its independence. And a day before, on 14 August 1947, Pakistan had been born, becoming independent of British India. Hence, before all this independence, the Pashtuns who are now in Pakistan 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 nonviolent 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").

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'', ''Kullyat'' 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). 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.In 1982, At Edwards College Peshawar, Quaid Muhammad Khan(President Of Pushto Literature) familiarized Ghani Khan with Sardar Ali Takkar so that he could be able to read Ghani Khan ghazals with some music at the background (Modern Day Tappy).

Quotes and prose

Ghani Khan's love for nature and the local habitat of the Pashtun people is visible in his work. He wrote * "Pashtun is not merely a race but, in fact, a state of mind; there is a Pashtun lying inside every man, who at times wakes up and overpowers him." * "The Pashtuns are rain-sown wheat: they all came up on the same day; they are all the same. But the chief reason why I love a Pashtun is that he will wash his face and oil his beard and perfume his locks and put on his best pair of clothes when he goes out to fight and die." *As a progressive and intellectual writer, he wrote, "I want to see my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and a strong sense of justice, who can carve out a future for themselves in harmony with nature."
Ghani khan poetry
څوک دې ماته وُوائي څه رنګې شیدا شي څوک؟ څوک چې چاته وُخاندي ولې پۀ خندا شي څوک؟ ستوري د غره څوکې تۀ غلي شان بېګا وُوې مینې پۀ ژړا وُوې حسن پۀ خندا وُوې

Tribute

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 of land, naming it "Ghani Derai" (the mound of Ghani). The site is a 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.

References

Sources

*Mohammad Arif Khattak: Ghani Khan – A Poet of Social Reality,

External links

Ghani Khan
– interviews, images, and poems

– Audio and video interviews *
Ghani Khan – PoetryLife & Works of Ghani Khan
– an English translation of Ghani Khan's 141 poems, by Deewa radio, Voice of America {{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Ghani Abdul 1910s births 1996 deaths Pashtun people Pashtun nationalists Pashto-language poets Pakistani poets Recipients of Sitara-i-Imtiaz Ghani People of British India 20th-century poets