Govt. Girls Post Graduate College Quetta cantt.

Assignment: Ghani Khan as a revolutionary poet

Submitted by: Ayesha Naseem
Submitted to: Mam Raheela khan
Subject: World Literature
Programme: BS. English Literature
Semester: 5th
Date: 23-May-2022
Day: Monday
 Serial No. Topics Name Page No.
1 Abstract 4
1
2 2 Introduction 4,5

3 3 Literature review 5,6

4 3.1 Discourse 6,7

5 3.2 Colonial Discourse 7

6 3.3 Colonialism 8

7 3.4 Anti-colonial resistance 8

8 3.5 Ghani khan and anti- 8

colonial discourse
9 3.6 The Pathans 8,9,10

10 3.7 Gaday- Waday 10,11,12

(Stuff and
Nonsense)

11 3.8 Ghani khan as 12,13,14

Romantic poet

12 4 Aims of Research 14

13 5 Research design 14

14 6 Research Questions 14

15 7 Significance of the 14
study
16 8 Definition of terms 15

17 9 References 16
 Ghani Khan As a Revolutionary Poet

Ayesha Naseem Durrani.

Department of English literature.

Govt Girls Post graduate College Quetta Cantt.

Address: H# 18 Labour Colony Nawa Killi Quetta.

Email: ayeshadurrani9t9@gmail.Com

Phone No. 03330036358

 1. Abstract

Ghani Khan who lived from 1914-1996 is considered as one of the influential poets in Pashto
literature who could speak five languages. He was a drawer and politian as well. We can imply
from Ghani Khan’s several poems that he has discussed about philosophy. Ghani Khan has a
passion to discuss about philosophical conceptions which philosophy talks about such as death,
rationality, social values, individual freedom, and other topics. He has shown compromise to
some of the Western and Eastern philosophical values hence evident from discussing in his
poems. Specifically, there are signs of Western Existentialism and Eastern Sufi Metaphysics in
his poetry. However, there is a contradiction in his and those of other philosophical views. Ghani
views all those philosophical views according to his own view while different from those of
other philosophers. For instance, believers of existentialism view life as sorrow, fright, and
Nihilism whereas for Ghani Khan life is itself a joy and what he can do and should do is to spend
a pleasant time. He depends everything in the universe on his lord Allah. The most important
part of his view is that he considers life as a blessing from the lord thus trying to lessen the
human fear from death. Consequently, most of his poetry is for the betterment of humans and
establishing good relationships between them.
2. Introduction
Ghani Khan is an ardent critic of the social customs and laws and always challenges the flaws of
the system, makes a fun of pseudo intellectuals, hollow religious leaders, ignorant and hypocrite
politicians and rulers. However, a sizable portion of his works has a vivid message of resistance
and revolt against the colonial system. He advocates his people to get unite, topple the British raj
and set free themselves from colonial bonds through the use of force and violence. Sahibzada
(2001) observes that Ghani Khan is a passionate devotee of freedom and an ardent anti-
colonialist and his poetry and prose embody a message of liberty from the British Raj. He has
accommodated the themes of anticolonial discourse and the resistance of the Pakthuns against
the British rulers. He was born during the colonial period (1914) and experienced the colonial
cruelties which hit his educational career and professional talent. The colonial rulers put his
father behind the bars and owing to the economic constrains he could not complete his education.
Ghani Khan is an ardent critic of the social customs and laws and always challenges the flaws of
the system, makes a fun of pseudo intellectuals, hollow religious leaders, ignorant and hypocrite
politicians and rulers. However, a sizable portion of his works has a vivid message of resistance
and revolt against the colonial system. He advocates his people to get unite, topple the British raj
and set free themselves from colonial bonds through the use of force and violence. Sahibzada
(2001) observes that Ghani Khan is a passionate devotee of freedom and an ardent anti-
colonialist and his poetry and prose embody a message of liberty from the British Raj. He has
accommodated the themes of anticolonial discourse and the resistance of the Pakthuns against
the British rulers. He was born during the colonial period (1914) and experienced the colonial
cruelties which hit his educational career and professional talent. The colonial rulers put his
father behind the bars and owing to the economic constrains he could not complete his education.
That is how Ghani khan poetry and prose help as a revolutionary act in the anti colonial
discourse.
3. Literature review:
Abdul Ghani Khan, a painter and sculptor of repute and, in the considered opinion of quite a few,
arguably one of the three most eminent Pashto poets of the twentieth century, the other two being
Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari (December 1907- 18th February, 1994) and Qalandar Moomand
(1st September, 1930). He was born in January 1914 in Utmanzai, situated on the banks of the
river Jindee-a branch of the Swat River as it debouches onto the plains of Hashtnaghar. It was
then a reasonably sized village, now a bustling, populous town, in the Charsadda Tehsil of the
Peshawar District of the North-West Frontier. Having been separated from the Punjab in 1901,
the North-West Frontier was then a Chief-Commissionerate of British India. His father's name
was Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890 -20 January, 1988), a tall, spare, gaunt and bearded prominent
land-owner of the Khwazikhel clan of the Mohammadzai tribe inhabiting Hashtnaghar. He later
rose to international fame as the legendary Bacha Khan (King Khan) and Fakhr-e-Afghan (pride
of the Afghans) on account of the Afghan Jirga and the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God)
Movement which he founded in September 1929, and also because of his relentless, non-violent
struggle, as a leader of the All -India Congress Party, against British rule of the sub-Continent.
His mother, Meharqanda, was a daughter of Yar Mohammad Khan of the Kinankhel clan of the
Mohammadzai tribe of Razzar, a village adjacent to Utmanzai, whom his father married towards
the end of 1912. She died during the post-First World War (1914-18) of influenza epidemic,
when Ghani was five and Abdul Wali Khan (17 January 1917- ), his younger brother, was three
years old and a sister, Sardaro, was just eight months. In 1919, Abdul Ghaffar Khan re-married,
Nambata, a cousin of his first wife and the daughter of Sultan Mohammad Khan of Razzar. She
bore him a daughter, Mehar Taj (25 May 1921- ), and a son, Abdul Ali Khan (20th August 1922-
19 February 1997). After the death of Ghani's mother he was looked after by his paternal
grandmother who, to his misfortune, also died in 1923. To make matters worse, Nambata,
Ghani's stepmother, when on a visit to Jerusalem with her husband after the HaJJ" of May 1924,
accidentally fell down the stairs of the apartment in which they were staying and died. Though
still a young man-34 years of age- Abdul Ghaffar Khan did not marry again but devoted himself
in real earnest to his life's mission of gaining freedom from British Rule.
As was customary in those days, Ghani Khan received his early education from an Imam
(religious teacher) of one of the local mosques of Utmanzai. He was then sent to the National
High School in Peshawar city, which was founded in 1895 by the Hindus of the Province. After
studying there for a year he went to the Azad (Free) School in Utmanzai-founded in 1921 by his
father with the assistance of the Anjuman-e-Islah-ul-Afaghina (Society for the Reformation of
the Afghans). Here he obtained reasonable proficiency in Arabic and Urdu and passed the Punjab
University Matriculation in 1927. Soon thereafter, he was sent to the Jamia Milli (National
College), Delhi, a Muslim religious institution founded in 1920 for the study of the traditional
disciplines of Islamic learning. On the outbreak of the insurgence against the liberal-minded and
progressive Amanullah khan, Amir (1919-1929) of Afghanistan, at the instance of the
conservative elements led by the Ulema (clergy), Ghani was recalled by his father from the
Jamia to Utmanzai in 1928. He was to be a part of the medical mission proposed to be
despatched to Afghanistan for the medical cover of Amanullah Khan's troops. It was to be led by
Dr. Khan Sahib, (1882-1956), the elder brother of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and was organized by
the Afghan Red Crescent Society of the N-W.F.P.-the Committee established to collect
subscriptions and donations to help the Afghan government. The Mission, however, was not
allowed by the British Government in India to enter Afghanistan. Discourse
3.1. Discourse
Discourse is not a grammatical construction rather it always carries an ideology, including
sociopolitical and cultural values. Schirffrin et al (2003) identify three main components of the
discourse:
• Anything beyond the sentence
• Language in use
• A broader range of social practice that includes non-linguistic and non- specific instances of
language.
Discourse is a set of meaningful statements about a topic which is conceptually introduced by the
French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984). He has linked knowledge and power and his
logical argument is that powerful people have the ability to exploit and keep suppressed the
feeble nations and impose their point of view upon them. Ashcroft et al (2007) while quoting
Foucault state that colonial discourse is a bonded area of social knowledge, a system of statement
within which the world can be known. Powerful people have the ability to push us to impose
their point of view about a reality. Thus discourse has its intrinsic links with language factors,
operating through dialogues of the characters and narrators, which do occur in different textual
and contextual senses.
3.2.Colonial Discourse
The ulterior motives of the Europeans are shrouded in the colonial discourse. Colonial discourse
is, in fact, the social practices and attitudes associated with colonialism. This discourse reflects
the strategies, cruelties, jealousies, rivalries, avarice and view point of the colonizers. The basis
of the colonial project is that the colonizers are superior and the colonized are inferior. The
arrogance of the colonizers creates a gulf between them and the native (indigenous) peoples.
Some salient features of the colonial discourse are given below:
• The colonizers consider that the culture of their ancestors was extremely civilized and superior.
• They represent native people as savage and uncivilized, inferior and with a primitive culture.
• They think that they set up examples for the colonial people.
• The colonized people are considered ‘other’ and them.
• The European countries controlled the colonies for economic exploitation.
Bhabha (1994) indicates that the main purpose of colonial discourse is to depict the colonized as
inferior and degenerate types on the basis of racial origin. Thus the arrogances of the colonizers
create a gap between them and the native (indigenous) peoples. Colonial discourses discuss the
relationship between a colonial or imperial power, and the colonized nation.
3.3.Colonialism
The etymology of the term ‘colony’, according to Verma (2004) is ‘colonus’ a Latin word which
means to cultivate. The colonizers (Europeans) cultivated (settled) themselves in the colonies.
The origin of the term colonialism, according to Oxford English Dictionary, is Roman and it has
been derived from ‘Colonia’ which means ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’. The word referred to the
Romans who had settled in other lands; however, they had to retain their Roman citizenship as
well. In the words of Ashcraft, Gariffiths and Tiffin (2007) the settlers are always the Europeans
who moved from their countries of origin to European colonies with the intension of permanent
living. The settlers then adopt a policy of colonialism, the policy or practice of acquiring full or
partial political control over another country, occupying the defeated nation and exploiting its
economic resources. Boehmer (1995) indicates the key points about colonialism:
• The settlement in another territory
• The exploitation of resources and people of that country
• The controlling of the colonized with brutal force and policies.
Said (1994) argues that colonialism is chiefly about political and economic relationships, some
of which may or may not continue after a state gains independence. Khrisat (2013) considers
colonialism as a practice of domination which involves the subjugation of one nation to another.
Thus the main logic behind colonialism is the lust for resources; however, it has far sighted
linguistic, cultural and psychological repercussions. Césaire (1955) considers colonialism as the
dehumanization of the dominating, colonizing country. Colonization works to de-civilize,
brutalize and degrade the colonized. Guven (2013) states that colonialism is a relationship
between colonized and their colonizers. Ahsan (2016) observes that colonialism is a strategy for
exploitation in which a strong nation extends its rule over the territory of another nation beyond
its borders. The subjugated population is then kept in control for exploitation.
3.4. Anti-colonial resistance
Anti-colonial resistance refers to protest against the colonial rulers by the colonized and
suppressed nations. Anti-colonial struggle gets its momentum during the twentieth century
due to the rise of nationalism and nationalist feelings. The nationalist ideas have very strong
impact on the colonies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Decolonization is understood as an
open process which prompted structural transformations of the colonies as well as of the
imperial nations after the end of formal colonial rule. As a result of this the scope for anti-
colonial movement became wider and stronger. Anti-colonialism denotes opposition to
empire and reflects an opposition to formal colonial rule in the British colonized India. This
resistance to empire emerged in the colonies and writer rose against the colonial policies of
the colonizers through arm and political strategies.
3.5.Ghani Khan and Anti-colonial Discourse
Ghani Khan has challenged the colonial system through his prose and poetry. The anticolonial
discourse speaks itself in a portion of his works. A brief discussion about the anticolonial
discourse in his works is given below:
3.6.The Pathans
The Pathans is written in English language, published in 1947 and is dedicated to Khan Abdul
Ghafar Khan (Bacha Khan), a great anti-colonialist and reformer. The tone and style of the book
indicate that it is addressed to the colonial rulers as in the very introductory chapter, Ghani Khan
informs them that the Pathans are living on the most unfortunate side of India which is adjacent
to a great power Russia (USSR). He warns that Russia would play a dominant role in the
political matters in the coming time. However, owing to the strategic locations they would lock
horns with the Pathans before they come to the then British rulers of India. The last chapter of
the book is ‘Politics’ which tells us about the political struggle of the Pakhtuns against the British
Raj. Ghani Khan informs the British rulers that Pakhtuns love freedom and history is witness to
it that they never tolerated the foreign aggression. He challenges the policies of the Raj and
argues that during the two hundred years rule, the British raj tried to introduce the practice of
bribery and corruption in the Pakhtun society. The most vulnerable section among the Pakhtuns,
according Ghani Khan, is the priests, Khans, pseudo religious leaders and intellectuals who
supported the colonial policies for the titles and vested interests. However, among the Pukhtuns,
there exist great freedom fighters like Bacha Khan. He has discussed in great details the struggle
and rise of the Pukhuns against the colonial rulers. He informs the readers that the first Khudai
Khidmatgar and reformer Bacha Khan came forward for the reformation of the Pakhtuns and
offered his resistance against the British rulers. He refused to accept a commission in the British
army and settled the score with the foreign aggressors who had taken the Pakhtuns into their
clutches. He was aware of the talent and strength of his people; however, the local
representatives of the rulers could not sense the respect of the human rights. The first violation
was the raid of the assistant commissioner at the village of Utmanzai and the arrest of the
innocent and respectable people of the village including Behram Khan, (father of Bacha Khan),
Bacha Khan and other notables. A heavy fine of sixty-five thousand rupees was imposed upon
them and they were treated inhumanly during the custody. However, they decided to accept the
challenge of the English rulers. They thought about various strategies to get rid of the cruel rulers
and their savage policies.
As a first step, to respond to colonial power, Bacha Khan decided to educate the Pakhtuns. He
opened educational institutions and organized an association for reforming the Pukhtuns. The
British raj could not tolerate it and he was again arrested and sentenced to three year hard labour.
He pleaded to the rulers that establishment of educational institutions and reforming the people
was not a crime. But the plea of the rulers was that the education and socialization could unite
the Pathans and was asked to give a guarantee that his struggle for education and reforms would
not be used against the Government and its interests. The claim of the government was that his
preaching for reforms was not a service; it was a rebellion and revolt. The three long years of
punishment made the determination of Bacha Khan as strong as steel. His people, friends and
relatives warmly welcomed him and the young boys looked at him with admiration and girls
sang songs of appreciation. For the Pathans he became a hero, a freedom fighter, an outlaw and a
visionary. The British masters could not tolerate all this and decided to remove this tall man at
once. The arrest of Bacha Khan was quite easy as he was preacher of non-violence, a reformer
and aspirant of education for his people. The British colonizers shut him up in a prison again
where he suffered the tortures of the damned-solitary confinement, heavy chains on his hands
and feet. He was inhumanly treated by the masters who claimed that they were the civilized
people in the world. He faced dirt, filth, lice, hunger, insults, kicks, jeers and sneers in the prison
and used to grind his forty pounds of corns daily with the handmill. However, as model prisoner
he never complained of the worms in his meals (vegetables) and hardships in the jail. When
hecame out from the clutches he started his first political agitation, a demand for full reforms and
freedom for the Pakhtuns. He went from village to village talking and addressing to the Pathans.
People used to leave their ploughs in the fields and came to have a look at him and his
companions (Kbudai Khidmatgars). Their aim was freedom, their motto was service, preaching,
love, peace and kindness. He argued such factors could not be imprisoned in an English prison
and love can create more in a second than the atom bombs can destroy in a century.
3.7.Gaday- Waday (Stuff and Nonsense)
This is in fact, a collection of essays and columns which used to be published in Pakhtun, a
monthly. Journal launched in May 1928 by Great freedom fighter Bacha Khan. Ghani Khan
remained a regular contributor from September 1928 to 1947, both in prose and poetry. Ghani
Khan’s poem Wasiat (The Will), which is considered as an anthem and slogan against
colonialism used to be appeared on the title page of the monthly Pakhtoon (Pakhtun).
‫وصيت‬
‫که خازې شنې مې په قبر وي والړې‬
‫که غالم مړ وم راځئ توکړئ پرې الرې‬
‫که په خپلو وينو نٔە يم لمبېدلے‬
‫په ما مٔە پليتوئ د جمات غاړې‬
‫چې قطرې قطرې مې فوځ د دښمن نٔە کا‬
‫مورې ما پسې په کوم مخ به تٔە ژاړې‬
ِ ‫عدن کړم‬
‫يا به دا بې ننګه ملک باغ‬
‫يا به کړم د پښتنو کوڅې ويجاړې‬
In his columns sometimes a segment of a poem has been put whenever relevant with the topic.
The first column is without a title. It is a conversation between Raja Abdullah and the narrator.
Raja Abdullah informs him about the inhuman attitudes and behaviour he has experienced in the
prison and the narrator comments on them in an ironical tone. On one hand, they criticize the
savagery and cruelties of the colonial rulers and on the other the differences among the Indian
leaders. The weaknesses of the Indian leaders are targeted in a poem at the end. The style, tone
and context of the poem reveal that Ghani khan was disappointed by the then leaders. The poem
is translated by Dr Qaisar Abbas in his research article, Poetic discourses in Pakistan. The poem
exposes the intellectual level of the hollow politicians and their political unawareness. Some of
these politicians remained in contact with the rulers for their vested interests and political
survival.
Take a crow’s beak,
a snake’s tongue,
a chicken’s brain,
a dog’s throat
that barks well,
a mule’s stubbornness,
and deck its pride,
with mud from the village, and the city’s dunghill,
then approach
a blind potter,
who will prepare,
a new leader for you!
‫د کارغٔە خوله کړه‬
‫ژبه د مار کړه‬
‫د چرګې عقل کړه‬
‫زړٔە د سيار کړه‬
‫مرۍ د سپي کړه‬
‫چې ښٔە غپار که‬
‫ضد د کچر کړه‬
‫غرور پرې بار کړه‬
‫خټه د کلي‬
‫ډېران د ښار کړه‬
‫بيا چرته روند‬
‫کوالل يو يار کړه‬
‫د کارغٔە خوله کړه‬
‫ژبه د مار کړه‬
‫د چرګې عقل کړه‬
‫زړٔە د سيار کړه‬
‫مرۍ د سپي کړه‬
‫چې ښٔە غپار که‬
‫ضد د کچر کړه‬
‫غرور پرې بار کړه‬
‫خټه د کلي‬
‫ډېران د ښار کړه‬
and the city’s dunghill,
then approach
a blind potter,
who will prepare,
a new leader for you!
‫د کارغٔە خوله کړه‬
‫ژبه د مار کړه‬
‫د چرګې عقل کړه‬
‫زړٔە د سيار کړه‬
‫مرۍ د سپي کړه‬
‫چې ښٔە غپار که‬
‫ضد د کچر کړه‬
‫غرور پرې بار کړه‬
‫خټه د کلي‬
‫ډېران د ښار کړه‬
‫بيا چرته روند‬
‫کوالل يو يار کړه‬
‫د کارغٔە خوله کړه‬
‫ژبه د مار کړه‬
‫د چرګې عقل کړه‬
‫زړٔە د سيار کړه‬
‫مرۍ د سپي کړه‬
‫چې ښٔە غپار که‬
‫ضد د کچر کړه‬
‫غرور پرې بار کړه‬
‫خټه د کلي‬
‫ډېران د ښار کړه‬
The poem, Shaheed Dr Khan Saib, is in fact an elegy about his uncle Dr Khan Saib, elder brother
of Bacha Khan and the former chief minister of NWFP (Khyber Pakhunkhawa). Ghani Khan has
paid a tribute to his struggle against colonialism.
 The poems like The Beloveds of London, (The so called) Civilized, Mr (Sahib), Europe,
It might be agood omen, Heart Broken, Tamasha, A visit, Non Violence, A Pukhtun
without honour, The Children’s Anthem, Gaday- Waday (Stuff and Nonsense) are the
examples of a critique of the attitudes of the Occidentals and Orientals, their systems,
culture and civilizations and, history. Their critical discourse analysis the merits and
flaws of their ways of life and every poem has a specific textual and contextual
approaches.
 3.8.Ghani khan as Romantic poet
There was a naughty boy And a naughty boy was he, For nothing would he do But scribble
poetry---- That was John Keats singing. Keats would forever be remembered as an unequalled
romanticist in English poetry. He was born in 1795 and died in the prime of his youth in 1821. A
little less than a century after this sad event another naughty boy was born to Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan and his wife in a village in Charsadda in 1914. The boy was named Ghani Khan
who made his intentions known from the word ‘go’ when he scribbled:
Kha da us da Ghani wawrai Pa safe sada Pukhtu ke Ma la na razi khabare Pa chal pa isharu ke
(Now listen to Ghani in plain and simple Pashto; neither do I speak in double entendre nor in
symbols) Ghani Khan’s poetry seems to be the most enduring of the glorious legacies of his
family; non violence, which his father Ghaffar Khan practiced, preached and craved for all his
life, has taken leave of the soil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. After having catapulted singers like
Sardar Ali Thakkar to phenomenal heights of fame, Ghani’s poetry, by turns romantic,
humourous and satirical makes the most bandied about of the text messages. ‘Ghani’s poetry
alone has kept his family’s name afloat in the choppy waters,’ so believes Khushdil Khan, a bank
executive and a longtime staunch supporter of ANP. Khushdil could these days be found greatly
disillusioned with the party that has been at the helm of affairs in the province for the past four
and a half years.
One could hardly dare disagree with the plump bank executive who comes from the fearsome
little town suitably named ‘Prang’ (tiger) in Charsadda district. There is thus all that more reason
to strive for something tender and benign and where else to fend for that other than Pashto
poetry. Dr Shazia Babar, professor of English in Jinnah College for Women Peshawar, has done
exactly the same in her fascinating thesis titled ‘Strains of Romanticism in Abdul Ghani Khan
and John Keats Poetry’ (A Comparative Study).
Although a lady of exaggeratedly quiet disposition, Dr Shazia is a forceful defender of her thesis
that she appears to have assiduously prepared. ‘Pashto poetry is nothing if it is not romantic and
Nature and Beauty that stimulate imagination and stir human emotions form the crux of
romanticism, she takes pains to emphasise. ‘Romanticism defies a standard definition, and F. L.
Lucas in the ‘Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal’ has counted as many as 11, 396
definitions,’ argues Ms. Babar. She undertakes a job not quite dissimilar to Lucas as she
succeeds in bringing out numerous points of confluence between Keats and Ghani Khan in her
beautiful work. She ends up calling Ghani Khan the Pakhtun John Keats.
The message of the romantic poets is one of love and beauty, a message that all human beings
can identify with irrespective of age, culture, time and language. ‘It is, therefore, least surprising
to find romanticism to be such an important feature of not only English poetry but also Pashto,’
Dr. Shazia concludes.
Keats whose guiding star was beauty in Nature, in Mankind, and in Art, and who to the world
was a lover of sensuousness, coined timeless phrases such as: ‘A thing of beauty is a joy
forever,’ and ‘O for a life of sensations rather than of thought.’ The poet who in ‘Ode to a
Grecian Urn,’ showed us that to love beauty was to love truth was not a dreamer but a proponent
of sound moral values,’ so opines Ms Babar. Ghani, like Keats, was a lover of beauty who
believed that beauty was the essence of civilisation and culture that encompassed all human
activities. Ghani too would be struck by the intrinsic beauty in nature. At one point he versed:
Khaist da gulistan vi, Ghani warta hamesh, heraan shan walar vi (The beauty of the rose garden
is such that Ghani is always found in a state of stupor).
Other than his age -- he lived to be eighty-two -- Ghani had much in common with Keats in their
respective lives. The works of the two poets were little admired during their lifetimes. Keats on
account of his youthfulness was severely censured after he wrote Endymion; Ghani was branded
an infidel and a traitor and had to suffer the pangs of incarceration for six long years forcing him
to write: da yawa garai zhwandun za; pa jhagaru na sham therawaley, ma la rakra su guluna, yo
niazbeen shane janan (This transient life I cannot waste in strife. Grant me a few flowers and a
pampered darling).
Both Ghani and Keats were loving and affectionate to their families and friends. Keats was
studying to be a doctor whereas Ghani Khan passed out as a chemical engineer and a
consummate painter and sculptor. Neither of them compartmentalised knowledge into tiny
pigeonholes of science and humanities as for them all knowledge was universal. Of death, Keats
wrote:
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain is to die.
Ghani’s challenge to death was brusque: margay de rashi; che kala e was vi Gul ba me las ke
wai; O ya ba us vi (Death is welcome to knock when it has the power to do so; I will welcome it
with flowers or a horse to mount).
Although the two poets living a century apart had vast repertoire, Keats genius, considering his
brief lifespan and the share length and depth of his work, was most admirable. They both played
around with animals and insects in their unbridled imagination. Keats wrote about Mrs
Reynolds’s cat:
Cat! Who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy’d
–how many tits bits stolen? Gaze Ghani Khan spared neither frog nor a mouse and a housefly he
addressed thus: da har cha kara melma e; na balaley be izata, na Keats and Ghani Khan: two
naughty boys pa shrap bande jaru ze; na pa sook o na pa lata (You are to be found in every
household, uninvited and dishonoured. Neither a slap nor a kick can force you disappear).
Both Keats and Ghani fancied women and wine and wrote passionately and indeed longingly
about the two. Wine for them had magical powers as it stimulated thought beyond thought as
Keats said:
Give me women, wine and snuff Until I cry out ‘hold, enough’ An unrestrained Ghani lamented
thus: zahar, zahar, zahar di; sharab che khumar na lari (wine without intoxication is poison), and
to the mullah whom he spanked left, right and centre, he wrote: rasha rasha saqi rasha; dare dare
mullah dare, pa ma bande bade lagi; sta pakhe pakhe khabare (Come hither O wine-bearer,
vanish thou from my sight O mullah for I cannot stand your stale rhetoric).
Ghani Khan is at the height of his witticism in his poem ‘Kharay,’ in which he has made light
pun at the casual hospitality of the native Hindko speaking Peshawarites: starey mashe, starey
mashe; kher sara raghley’ dor do paise de kulchey la the do paise di cha (May you not get tired
Khan sahib, go, young boy! Bring tea and cookies for two paisa each).
4. Aim of research
The aim of this research is to identify
 The contribution of ghani khan in literature as a revolutionary poet.
  The impact of ghani khan’s poetry on the colonialism.
 How Ghani khan’s poetry portrayed the existence of Mulla on islamic society.
5. Research Design
Materials and Methods
A variety of methods were used to pursue the objectives of the study. The data was gathered by
the review of the literature review of many articles that are about the works ,contributions and
efforts of Ghani khan poetry and its influences on his own time and as well as on the present
time.

6. Research Questions
 What are the contributions of Ghani khan’s poetry in pashto literature as a revolutionary
poet ?
 How Ghani's poetry portrayed the Mulla in islamic society ?
 How Ghani khan’s poetry presented the colonialism ?
7. Significance of the study
This study on the life of the great poet Ghani khan as a Romantic, Revolutionary poet .He served
a lot to his society .his love with Almighty Allah was such type of amazing love that inspires his
readers a lot .He had written alots of religious poems which clearly shows his affection with
Almighty. This study awares us the bonding of creatures with their creator.
8. Definition of terms
8.1.Colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas,
often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process
of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural
practices.
8.2 Colonial discourse
In short, 'colonial discourse' can be defined as a discourse (in Foucault's sense) that produces
knowledge about colonized people in order to legitimate colonial domination. This discourse
constitutes a particular kind of symbolic power which serves to legitimate a hegemonic and
colonialist point of view.
8.3. Revolutionary poet:
Poets have played direct roles in revolutionary struggles, and their poems have expressed protest
against harsh realities as well as dreams of liberation across a wide range of styles and genres.
8.4. Romanticism
Romanticism is a cultured movement focused on emotion and mystical feeling insted of reason
and science to develop nationalist sentiment. They helped create a sence of collective heritage
and cultural past as part of nation bilding through use of folk songs, dances & music.
9. References
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2020/05/19/5ec44b7ae87be.pdf
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 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Liaqat-Iqbal/publication/
320004216_Ghani_Khan's_Poetry_A_Modernist_Perspective/links/
59c698850f7e9bd2c00f45a4/Ghani-Khans-Poetry-A-Modernist-Perspective.pdf