"The Red Shirts"
Khan drew his first recruits from the young men who had graduated from his schools. Trained and uniformed, they served behind their officers and filed out into various villages to seek recruits. They began by wearing a simple white overshirt, but the white was soon dirtied. A couple of men had their shirts dyed at the local tannery, and the brick-red colour proved a breakthrough, it was this distinctive colour that earned the Khudai khidmatgar movement activists the name "the Red shirts" or surkh posh.
Read more about this topic: Khudai Khidmatgar
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or shirts:
“Billboards, billboards, drink this, eat that, use all manner of things, everyone, the best, the cheapest, the purest and most satisfying of all their available counterparts. Red lights flicker on every horizon, airplanes beware; cars flash by, more lights. Workers repair the gas main. Signs, signs, lights, lights, streets, streets.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)
“It’s true I’ve got no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue—
But don’t let that unsettle you:”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)