33 A PILGRIMAGE FOR PEACE

it. Breaches of the agreement were numerous and the
Khudai Khidmatgars were given no peace. On the 23rd
of December the Khan brothers were invited by the Chief
Commissioner to a Darbar, They declined the invitation
as a protest against continuance of repression on the rank
and file of the Khudai Khidmatgars. On the night of the
24th of December, with almost all the important members
of the family they were arrested under an Ordinance and
sent out of the Frontier Province for detention for an
indefinite period, just on the eve*of Gandhiji's return from
the Second Round Table Conference.

During the two Civil Disobedience struggles between
1930-33, there was a virtual Black-and-Tan regime im-
posed upon the Frontier Province. Standing crops of
civil resisters were burnt, Stocks of grain ruined by pour-
ing kerosene oil into them and houses set fire to. There
were martial law, shootings and lathi f charges and indig-
nities and brutalities that will not bear telling. As an
American tourist observed, " Gunning the Red Shirts wTas
a popular sport and pastime of the British forces in the
province/' They were stripped naked, made to run
through cordons of British soldiers who kicked them and
jabbed them with rifle ends and bayonets as they ran.
They were thrown out from the roofs of houses, ducked
in dirty ponds and subjected to indecent tortures which,
in some cases, left them maimed for life.

The Pathans are a proud, sensitive race who prefer
death to dishonour. One of the Khan brothers' cousins,
Haji Shah Nawaz Khan, compelled by domestic circum-
stances to pay security to secure release, was so overcome
by remorse that he quietly killed himself as an expiation
for his weakness. His friends and relatives in vain argued

shake hands with one another as much as in a game of football or
cricket. And here, in this instance, there is no question of victory.
We have just had a draw in which there is no victor and no vanquish-
ed.'1 When they parted from each other, the soldier said, "Well,
well, we have known each other so well that I hope and pray the
* Guides' may not have to be guilty of anything bad in Charsadda."
t Long bamboo sticks sometimes heavily shod with iron.