Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Tagore with Tan Yun Shan and Abdul Gaffar Khan

Rabindranath came to Santiniketan and began to do some reformation in the internalmatter of Santiniketan.
In August (19 & 26), Tan Yun Shang met Rabindranath and proposed him to open a Chinese Bhavan in santiniketan which rabindranath agreed. Subsequently Chinese Bhavan was constructed.
On February 18 Tan wrote to Tagore advising him of the progress much to the delight of the Poet.

1934
Returned to Santiniketan in February to organize the India Chapter of the Sino-Indian Cultural Society. The Society was established in September with Tagore as its first President and Rathindranath as the General Secretary
(Tan Yun Shang presenting Chinese Books to Tagore)
Abdul Ghaffar Khan of North West frontier came to Santiniketan to see his son,Abdul Gani reading there, He was greeted cordially.Khān Abdul Ghaffār Khān (1890 – 20 January 1988)  also known as Fakhr-e Afghān (Pashto: فخر افغان‎, lit. "pride of Afghans"), and Bāchā Khān (Pashto: باچا خان‎, lit. "king of chiefs"), Pāchā Khān or Bādshāh Khān, was a Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition to the British Raj in British India, and a lifelong pacifist and devout Muslim. A close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, Bacha Khan has been called the "Frontier Gandhi" by the Indians. In 1910, Bacha Khan opened a mosque school at his hometown Utmanzai, and in 1911 joined the freedom movement of Haji Sahib of Turangzai, however in 1915, the British authorities banned his mosque school. Having witnessed the repeated failure of revolts against the British Raj, Bacha Khan decided that social activism and reform would be more beneficial for the Pashtuns. This lead to the formation of Anjuman-e Islāh al-Afghān ("Afghan Reform Society") in 1921, and the youth movement Pax̌tūn Jirga ("Pashtun Assembly") in 1927. After Bacha Khan's return from the Hajj in May 1928, he founded the Pashto language monthly political journal Pax̌tūn. Finally, in November 1929, Bacha Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar ("Servants of God") movement, whose success triggered a harsh crackdown by the British Empire against him and his supporters and they suffered some of the most severe repression of the Indian independence movement.[3] In 1962, Bacha Khan was named the Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience of the Year. In 1987, he became the first non-Indian to be awarded Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award. Bacha Khan was an important freedom fighter, and is a Pashtun national hero and a key figure of Pashtun nationalism.
Bacha Khan strongly opposed the All-India Muslim League's demand for the partition of India.