A NEW PORTENT ( 31

clause under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and they had to serve
out full terms of their sentence. One of them at the

expiry of his term in 1942 came to Gandhiji and stayed for
some time as a member of his Ashram at Sevagram.

The man who brought about this marvellous trans-
formation was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, » popularly
known as Badshah Khan in his province who, in 1929-30.
with his elder brother Dr. Khan Saheb, launched the
Khudai Khidmatgar movement. " A King among men by
stature and dignity of bearing " as Charlie Andrews des-
cribed him, " practising ahimsa or non-violence and en-
joining it upon his followers, and implicitly taking his in-
structions from Mahatma Gandhi '^cM^'story of his life

almost reads like a-KJeg$od -or a "romance. He was born
in 1890 |>f £#fe' rich, 'aristocratic family of Khans of the
Mohmadzai tribe. His father, Khan Saheb Behram Khanr
was the chief Khan of the village of Utmanzai in the
Charsadda Tahsil of the District of Peshawar. He studied
in the Edward Mission High School but failed to matri-
culate and stayed at home unlike his elder brother, Dr.
Khan Saheb, who proceeded to England for his higher
medical studies, and returned home a full fledged mem-
ber of the Indian Medical Service,,. after serving in
France in World-, War I. For' ^'ar" while Badshah
Khan nursed the ambition to serve in the army
and distinguish ij Jiimself as a , soldier but was saved
from it by Providence when he saw with his own
eyes the disagreeable spectacle of a friend of his in
the army, whom he had gone to visit, being grossly
insulted by a British officer of inferior rank. Later he
joined the Aligarh Muslim University but was summoned
home after one year by his father, who wanted him to
proceed to England for education as an engineer. Every-
thing had been duly arranged. Even the passage by a
P. & 0. liner had been booked. But devotion to mother
proved stronger than the ambition to become an engineer,
" One of my sons is already away. What shall I do if you
go away as well ? " the mother sobbed when he went to
her to bid go'odbye. The son's heart melted and the plan