“A few drops of our blood and the blood of our leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan were shed today outside the Malakand Fort. I think it is for the good of both the Pathans and of India, because they may prove to be the seed of our future understanding.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru told this while addressing thousands of Red Shirts (Khudai Khidmatgars) at Sardaryab near Peshawar on 21 October 1946.
Nehru was on a visit to North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as head of the Interim Government of India. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his brother Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan (the then Chief Minister of the NWFP) were the most potent political figures in the region. They both supported Congress and accompanied Nehru during the visit, during which the latter was gathering support of Muslims for the Congress. It was no surprise that Mohammad Ali Jinnah led Muslim League opposed this visit.
On 16 October when Nehru reached Peshawar by air, Muslim League supporters started violence targeting him. Thousands of Muslim Leaguers armed with spears, lances and staves gathered outside the airport. Nehru was taken out safely from an alternate exit but the mob attacked Dr. Khan Sahib (CM) with a spear which a police officer took on himself. It was reported that the CM was also hit.
Next Day, Nehru and the Khan brothers left for Waziristan by air. Violent mobs were waiting for them everywhere. H. A. Standish, while covering for The Sydney Morning Herald, reported, “When Nehru reached Razmak his plane was greeted with shots fired by tribesmen hiding in rocks overlooking the airfield. British artillery replied. and a sporadic battle went on for two hours before Nehru landed.”
The real trouble came on the penultimate day of the tour, 20 October, when the Leaguers successfully injured Nehru, the Khan brothers, several foreign journalists and security personnel. Hundreds of people attacked Nehru’s convoy near Landi Kotal. For at least five minutes, security personnel and the mob exchanged fires.
Duncan Hooper reported for Reuters, “I was sitting with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his car when his road convoy from Landikhotal to Peshawar was involved in a gun battle between hostile tribesmen and Nehru’s escort, Khyber Rifles, this morning. I still have a small wound on my head-caused by a stone-as a souvenir of the incident.”
He further wrote, “I and another correspondent decided that we would get out and try to reason with the demonstrators. As we did so, the first showers of stones began to fly, and I jumped into a car which was then nearest to me which happened to be Pandit Nehru’s car. In the confusion I had not realised that it was the Indian leader’s car. What I wanted was some kind of shelter against the hail of stones or rocks which were whizzing from all sides. As I got in, a large chunk of rock smashed through the side window and hit me on the side of the head. Glass flew about and cut my wrists, but others in the back of the car, who were Pandit Nehru, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Dr. Khan Sahib, were not hurt. At that moment firing began between the troops and tribesmen on the mountainside.”
“Pandit Nehru was sitting calm and erect, looking ahead as though thinking about something, and received me as politely as though I were paying him a social call, instead of taking refuge in his car in the middle of hundreds of angry tribesmen. “Come in,” he said, “Do not worry. It is nothing really.”
“Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whose eyes seemed to have the light of battle in them, was smiling even as rifles crashed around us. ‘It is only a ‘tamasha’, he said.”
The next day, on 21 October, Nehru and the Khan brothers were again attacked near Malakand fort. This time the attackers were successful in hitting Nehru and the Khan brothers.
The Indian Express reported, “Pandit Nehru, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Dr. Khan Sahib were all injured, but only slightly, each of them had either a cut or abrasion on the face when anti-Nehru demonstrators threw stones at Pandit Nehru’s car near Malakand. Press officials with Pandit Nehru’s party said that Pandit Nehru was slightly injured on the head by a glass splinter during the stoning. The latest account of the incident is that while Pandit Nehru was driving away from Malakand and was close to the town of Malakand a demonstrator’s lorry drew across the road blocking Pandit Nehru’s path while another lorry came up from the rear making the jam complete. The demonstrators then swarmed forward throwing stones and are said to have inflicted heavy damage on Pandit Nehru’s car.”
Nehru could be saved by the brave effort of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan when he threw himself over Nehru and took injuries on himself. Khan received fractures in two of his fingers, serious injuries in nose, skull and shoulder and had to be admitted in the hospital.
The intelligence reports and rumours claimed that the plan was to kidnap Nehru. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan blamed the Britishers for the attack and said, “I hold every Britisher morally responsible for the attack on our lives.”
The issue around which the tribesmen rallied was the bombing of Waziristan by the British Airforce. It must be noted that the Faqir of Ipi led a popular armed uprising in the region during the Second World War and as the War drew to an end the Allied forces dropped bombs on the villages. The tribesmen believed that Congress was behind the bombing.
Nehru told thousands of Pathans at Sardaryab, “In the face of these incidents, it was but natural that these tribesmen should feel incensed. The tribesmen were told, I do not know by whom, that bombing of Waziristan was ordered by the Congress. Actually bombs were dropped some weeks earlier. We stopped the bombing. The tribesmen are brave people and I have the highest regard for brave people. (This remark was cheered with cries of ‘Nehru Zindabad.’ ‘Faqre Afghan’). I want to go to the tribal area to meet the tribesmen and I shall go again. Theirs is a complicated problem. I do not know what measures and arrangements will be necessary, but whatever is done, will be done by mutual consent.”
After the public meeting at Sardaryab, Nehru went to Peshawar with a great reception from Red Shirts. API reported, “Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Red Shirt organisation gave a magnificent reception to Pandit Nehru at Sardaryab this evening. The whole of the 16 mile route from Sardaryab was lined with 16,000 Red Shirts. Rifle armed tribesmen guarded the route, tanks and armoured troops were also out in force deployed in fields near Sardaryab in constant wireless contact with each other.”
(The views expressed are personal and do not represent the Heritage Times)
