Red Shirts

(Persian and Pashto, surkhpush; their name for themselves was khuda khidmatgar, “servants of God”), volunteer detachments created in the autumn of 1929 in the Northwest Frontier Province of British India by the Pashto national-liberation organization Pakhtun Jirga (the Pashto Conference, Pashto League). The members of the detachments colored their shirts red. The commander in chief of the Red Shirt detachments was Abd-al Ghaffar khan. The detachments were formed mostly from the urban petite bourgeoisie, young students, the intelligentsia, and the peasantry. They were active in the struggle against British colonial rule. After the formation of Pakistan (1947), the Red Shirts became the leading organization of the Pashto national movement. In 1955–56 they came out against the unification of West Pakistan into a single province. In the fall of 1956 they joined the National Party of Pakistan.