Born: 6 February 1890
Died: 20 January 1988
Shri Abdul Ghaffar Khan also known as “Fakhr-e-Afghan” was born on 6 February 1890, Utmanzai into a Pashtun family in the Peshawar Valley of British India. During childhood Khan attended a British missionary school and was a very bright student. He was honored with an invitation to join the eminent Corps of Guides regiment in the British Army, which was a crucial moment in his development. Shortly he realized that even at the highest position he would never be seen as equal as the British people. With his consciousness Khan’s desire for an independent India was set alight. Soon his life’s mission started by establishing a school in Utmanzai, in order to empower Indian citizens with education, and giving them the implement to topple the British Raj.
He was the foremost leader of the Pashtuns (Pathans) in the 20th-century, who became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and was called the “Sarhadi Gandhi”.
Ghaffar Khan met Gandhi and entered politics in 1919 during the trouble over the Rowlatt Acts, which allowed the entombment of political protests without trial. The same year he joined the Khilafat movement, which looked to strengthen the spiritual ties of Indian Muslims to the Turkish sultan, and in 1921 became the elected president of a district Khilafat committee.

During the 1920s, Ghaffar Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement among the Pashtuns, commonly known as the “Red Shirts’’ (Surkh Posh), during the 1920s. This was founded on a belief in the power of Gandhi’s belief of Satyagraha, which supported non-violent nationalist activities in support of Independence and awakened the Pashtuns’ political awareness. By the late 1930’s he became a member of Gandhi’s inner circle of mentors, and soon the Khudai Khitmatgar actively supported the Congress Party basis up to the partition in 1947.
Opposing the partition, Ghaffar Khan chose to reside in Pakistan, where he continued struggling for the rights of the Pashtun minority & Pashtunistan. He reimburses affectionately for his principles, being in jail for many years and later living in Afghanistan. In 1972, Ghaffar Khan returned to Pakistan and his narration, My Life and Struggle, were made public in 1969.
He was arrested several times for his opposition to the One Unit scheme.
Khan died under a house arrest on 20 January, 1988 in Peshawar and was cremated in his house, Afghanistan. Over 200,000 people attended his cremation, including the president of Afghanistan.
On his birth anniversary Swami Vivekanand Subharti University commemorates a freedom fighter who opposed the partition of India and fought for the Pathans.