EPILOGUE 183
length. The Pathans? he said, had for over a quarter of
a century been in the vanguard of the battle of freedom
against the British and it was they who had made Paki-
stan possible. The capitalist class at the head of Pakistan
administration feared the Pathans because they were
unselfish and ever feadj to suffer in the cause of the
country.
He had been strongly opposed to the division of India,
he said* His stand had been well justified, judging from
the bath of blood and untold miseries through which
millions of people had subsequently to pass. Since the
Inauguration of Pakistan, however, he had regarded " the
good or harm done to Pakistan as if it were done to him-
self."
The Pathans, said Badshah Khan, were apprehensive as
to their future and wanted to know their exact place In
Pakistan. If It was really intended to treat them as bro-
thers, they should be consulted about the form of adminis-
tration In Pakistan and other matters. In India, the Provin-
cial Cabinets were consulted about the choice of their
Governors whereas in the North-West Frontier Province,
an English bureaucrat, disliked by the Pathans, had been
inflicted over their heads. The Pathans consequently
wanted to know their status In Pakistan. Would they be
treated as equals ?
The Khudai Khidmatgars, he said, did not want
anything but the removal of the present poverty and
backwardness of the masses of Pakistan, and in their efforts
in that direction, they would stick through thick and thin
to their life-long principle of non-violence.
On the 15th of April, 1948, he had a meeting with
Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah. The latter, it seems, wanted to know
if the Khudai Khidmatgars would be prepared to merge
themselves with the Muslim League or co-operate with
the Frontier Ministry by going Into a coalition with it. In
reply, Badshah Khan, while reiterating Ms loyalty to
Pakistan, expressed his Inability either to merge with the
Muslim League or to enter into a coalition with the Front-
ier Ministry. Qaid-e-Azam thereupon announced at a