CHAPTER XIX
EPILOGUE
I
The Gathering Clouds
The march of events has rendered It necessary to
add an epilogue to the foregoing, to follow it up to its
poignant and strange sequel. In pursuance of the plan
which he had hammered out in consultation with Gan-
dhiji, Badshah Khan set up a centre at Sardaryab for the
training of the Khudai Khidmatgars. At his request Gan-
dhi ji first sent Shrimati Mirabehn (Miss Slade) and then
Bibi Amtus Salam (a Muslim lady who has joined his Ash-
ram and become like a daughter to him) to help Badshah
Khan especially in the work of education and social reform,
among Muslim women. In 1939 Gandhi ji again visited
the Frontier Province, but during the interval his health
had suffered a serious setback and he was unable to tour
the districts, or even to visit the Khudai Khidmatgar cen-
tre, and he had to postpone to some future date the con-
summation of his and Badshah Khan's dream of going
and burying themselves among the Pathan folk and
Khudai Khidmatgar trainees, to conduct the experiment
of evolving the non-violence of the strong. But that was
never to be.
On 3rd September, 1939, war was declared between
England and France and the Axis Powers. On the 23rd
of October the Congress decided to go into the wilderness
and the Working Committee called upon the Congress
Ministries to resign as a protest against India being de-
clared a belligerent country without her consent, and the
persistent refusal of the British Government to apply in
her case the principles for which the war was professed to
be fought. In obedience to that call the Congress Ministry
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