Khudai Khidmatgars, a non-violent movement among the Pathans was started by ______.

Correct — C. The Khudai Khidmatgars, the servants of God, were founded in 1929 in the North-West Frontier Province by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who built a disciplined non-violent volunteer corps among the Pathans.

Their red uniforms gave the movement its second name, the Surkh Posh or Red Shirts, and Ghaffar Khan's alignment with Gandhi and the Congress earned him the title Frontier Gandhi.

Option (c) is the one name on this list belonging to the Frontier at all.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Sachindra Bakshi — Sachindra Bakshi was a revolutionary of the Hindustan Republican Association, tried in the Kakori conspiracy case of 1925 — armed action in the United Provinces, not a non-violent movement in the Frontier.
• (b)
  Bakht Khan — Bakht Khan commanded the rebel forces at Delhi during the revolt of 1857, some seventy years before the Khudai Khidmatgars were founded.
• (d)
  Alluri Sitarama Raju — Alluri Sitarama Raju led the Rampa rebellion of 1922-24 in the hill tracts of the Andhra agency, an armed tribal revolt with no connection to the Pathans.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, called Bacha Khan by his followers and the Frontier Gandhi in the national press, organised Pathan society around schools, social reform and non-violence.

The Khudai Khidmatgar volunteers took an oath of non-violence and wore red-dyed shirts, which is where the name Red Shirts comes from.

They made the North-West Frontier Province one of the Congress's strongest bases in the 1930s — a striking outcome in a region the colonial state governed as a military frontier.

The movement's discipline was tested at the Qissa Khwani Bazaar firing in Peshawar in April 1930, during the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Key facts

• The Khudai Khidmatgar movement was founded by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in 1929 in the North-West Frontier Province.
• Its volunteers were known as Surkh Posh or Red Shirts, after their red uniforms.
• Ghaffar Khan was called Bacha Khan and the Frontier Gandhi, and received the Bharat Ratna in 1987.
• The Qissa Khwani Bazaar firing at Peshawar in April 1930 fell during the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Common traps

• Confusing the Khudai Khidmatgars with the Khilafat Movement because both names sound similar
• Assuming a Frontier movement must have been an armed one

No directly related past PYQ was found.