Has anyone been able to kill an ideology with bullets and bombs so far?
JAMSHORO: Bacha Khan once said, “You have thrown us to the wolves.” Abdul Ghaffar Khan, famously known as Bacha Khan, meaning ‘king of chiefs’, was born in Utmanzai, Charsadda. He was a political leader who endeavoured for the independence of Pakhtuns during British rule in India. He was a progressive thinker. He believed in the non-violent perspective of the struggle for freedom. He was a very close friend of Mahatma Gandhi because of ideological likeness.
And on January 20, when the TTP attacked Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, killing students and staff, it was painful to watch. But has anyone been able to kill an ideology with bullets and bombs so far? These frenzied fanatics do not know that ideas prevail in the mind and when an idea is accepted extensively, it keeps reproducing in different minds at different times. The Pakhtuns have historically had secular leanings and this tendency will eventually emerge if they follow the teachings of their progressive leaders.
Nirdosh Odhano
Published in The Express Tribune, January 22nd, 2016.
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