Abdul Wali Khan

His mother, Mehar Qanda Khan, belonged to the nearby Razar village, and married Bacha Khan in 1912; she died during the flu pandemic after World War I.

Wali Khan, the second of three sons, received his early education from the Azad Islamia School in Utmanzai.

Khan Abdul Wali Khan (خان عبدالولي خان; خان عبدالولی خان; 11 January 1917 – 26 January 2006) was a Pakistani democratic socialist politician who served as president of Awami National Party.

Son of the prominent Pashtun nationalist leader Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Wali Khan was an activist and a writer against the British Raj like his father.

His early years were marked by his involvement in his father's non-violent resistance movement, the "red shirts" against the British Raj.

He narrowly escaped an assassination in his early years and was later sent to school at Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehra Dun.

In his late teens, he became active in the Indian National Congress.

Wali Khan was born on 11 January 1917, to a family of local landlords in the town of Utmanzai in Charsadda district of the North-West Frontier province of what was then undivided India.

His father, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan), was a prominent Pashtun Nationalist and founder of the pacifist Khudai Khidmatgar ("Volunteer" in Pashto) movement.

In 1922, this school became part of a chain of schools his father had formed during his social reform activities.

It was from this network of schools that the Khudai Khidmatgar movement developed, eventually challenging British authority in the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) through non-violent protests and posing one of the most serious challenges to British rule in the region.

In May 1930, Wali Khan narrowly escaped being killed during a military operation by the British Indian Army against his home village.

In 1933, he attended the famous Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehra Dun.

He did not pursue further education because of recurring problems with his eyesight, which led to him wearing glasses for the rest of his life.

Despite his pacifist upbringing, as a young freedom fighter, Wali Khan seemed exasperated with the pacifism advocated by his father.

He was to later explain his frustration to Gandhi, in a story he told Muklaika Bannerjee, "If the cook comes to slaughter this chicken's baby, is non-violence on the part of the chicken likely to save the younger life?"

The story ended with a Twinkle in his eye when he remembered Gandhiji's reply, "Wali, you seem to have done more research on violence than I have on non-violence."

In 1942, Wali Khan a young man of 25 years, joined the Khudai Khidmatgar movement.

Soon after, he formally stepped into politics by joining the Indian National Congress where he eventually served as a provincial joint secretary of the party.

He was arrested and charged under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, in 1943, at the height of the crackdown against the Quit India Movement.

After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, Wali Khan became a controversial figure in Pakistani politics during his political career because of his association to the Congress which opposed the creation of Pakistan.

He opposed the 1947 division of the India and criticised the decision.

His decision to serve in a more prominent political role was said to have been influenced by his elder brother, Ghani Khan's, decision to withdraw from politics.

With his father in jail, Khan took over leading his father's supporters.

Despite his father's efforts against division and a brief attempt to instead create a new nation called Pakhtunistan, on 14 August 1947, Pakistan came into being.

The new nation was divided into two wings (West and East Pakistan), separated by a thousand miles (1500 km) of Indian territory.

Like his father after the creation of Pakistan, Wali Khan agitated for Pashtun autonomy within a Pakistani Federal system, which placed him at odds with government authorities.

Imprisoned without charge in 1948, he was freed in 1953; he immediately started negotiations with the central government to allay apprehensions about the Khudai Khidmatgar.

He held talks with then NWFP Chief Minister Sardar Abdul Rashid and Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra.

He also held a series of meetings with then Governor General Ghulam Mohammed.

These negotiations proved successful and led to the release of hundreds of imprisoned activists belonging to the Khudai Khidmatgar movement.

His first wife died in 1949 while Wali Khan was in prison.

In 1954, he married Nasim Wali Khan, the daughter of an old Khudai Khidmatgar activist.

Wali Khan next joined the National Awami Party (NAP) in 1956, a new political party formed by his father along with other progressive and leftist leaders from both wings of Pakistan.

The National Awami Party seemed to be on its way to victory in the 1959 elections, when the civilian President Iskandar Mirza was ousted in a coup by the military, under Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan.

One of Ayub Khan's first decisions after he came to power was to outlaw political activity and imprison politicians.

Abdul Wali Khan, along with many other politicians at the time, was imprisoned and disqualified from contesting elections or participating in politics as part of this purge.

A respected politician in his later years, he contributed to Pakistan's third constitution and led protests for the restoration of democracy in the 1960s and 1980s.

By 1962, Ayub Khan introduced a new constitution and announced he would run in the next Presidential election.

In the 1970s, he also served as the parliamentary leader of opposition in Pakistan's first directly elected parliament.