Khudai Khidmatgar - Conservative Backlash

Conservative Backlash

The increasingly liberal movement faced an increasing backlash from conservatives because of its support for the Congress party amidst growing support for the Pakistan movement. The decision of Dr. Khan Sahib to support his daughters marriage to a Sikh soldier led to some senior associates of Bacha Khan to leave.

Similarly his son, Ghani Khans criticism of feudal landlords angered many conservative "Khans" and Nawabs, some formerly sympathetic to the movement.

This coincided with a determined effort by the British Raj to discredit the movement with the assistance of mullahs and ulema allied with the British. The British Governor, Cunningham, instructed the big khans to meet each mullah on individual basis and tell him to serve the 'cause of Islam' for which he would be duly paid. The Mullahs were told that in case of good progress they would also be considered for government pension. A Cunningham policy note of 23 September 1942 reads: 'Continuously preach the danger to Muslims of connivance with the revolutionary Hindu body. Most tribesmen seem to respond to this', while in another paper he says about the period 1939-43: 'Our propaganda since the beginning of the war had been most successful. It had played throughout on the Islamic theme.