When President Hamid Karzai met President Pratibha Patil here on Monday,the visiting Afghan President got a rare glimpse of the close linkages between India and the Pashtun people living on either side of the Durand Line. President Patil told him the story of her personal association with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,the legendary associate of Mahatma Gandhi the story of the time when Patil,as Minister-in-waiting to Badshah Khan,had travelled Second Class by train with him,and even washed his shawl for him. Frontier Gandhi,a colossus of the Indian independence movement who opposed the Partition and worked for the unification of Pashtun peoples,visited India for the centenary celebrations of the Indian National Congress in 1985. In 1987,he became the first non-Indian to be decorated with the Bharat Ratna. He passed away under house arrest in Peshawar the next year,but was buried across the Khyber in Jalalabad,Afghanistan,with warring factions holding fire to pay their respects to the great leader. President Karzai,incidentally,inaugurated the renovation work on the mausoleum of Badshah Khan in Jalalabad on April 15,2010. At a time when New Delhi is reaching out to the second generation of Pashtuns in Afghanistan,President Patil reminded President Karzai about Indias historical ties with his people by invoking Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Government sources told The Indian Express that President Patil told President Karzai that she had escorted Badshah Khan on a visit to Sewagram in Wardha as Minister-in-Waiting in 1985. The Pashtun leader,who was a firm believer in non-violence,had lived at Sewagram with Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s. President Patil recounted that even though Badshah Khan was booked in a First Class carriage on the train to Wardha from the then Bombay,he wanted to travel Third Class,as he had done decades ago with the Mahatma and other leaders of the freedom movement. But the Indian Railways had abolished Third Class by then,and the two settled for Second Class. The journey was tiring for Frontier Gandhi then in his 90s and Patil helped him by washing his shawl,and took him around Wardha. Surprised and delighted by the story,President Karzai asked President Patil if she had shared her experience with the distinguished family of Badshah Khan. When President Patil replied in the negative,sources said,President Karzai assured her he would communicate this rare nugget of history to Asfayander Wali Khan,the grandson of Badshah Khan,and president of the Awami National Party in Pakistan. Karzai left for the SAARC meeting in Bhutan this morning. He was seen off at the Indira Gandhi International Airport by Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur.
