It is not surprising that terrorists struck Bacha Khan University on the death anniversary of the Gandhian it is named after......
Gandhian is - related to mahatma ghandi
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Sign up to join this communityIt is not surprising that terrorists struck Bacha Khan University on the death anniversary of the Gandhian it is named after......
Gandhian is - related to mahatma ghandi
Gandhian, is actually an adjective. But it is used as a noun here.
Merriam-Webster editor Neil Serven gives us an explanation
For example, the words poor and sick are easily recognizable as adjectives:
We were too poor to afford a car.
He was sick with a head cold.
As with most adjectives, poor and sick can be used before a noun to modify that noun:
poor artists
a sick patient
But what happens when such an adjective is preceded by the but not followed by a noun?
She gives money to the poor.
Nurses care for the sick.
The words poor and sick here are used to refer to poor people and sick people, respectively, with the nouns they modify omitted.
While they function like nouns here, they are not defined as nouns because they do not meet any of the other criteria that typically distinguishes a word as a noun.
Bacha Khan was a Pakistani independence activist who followed the basic principles of Gandhiism. He was also a close friend of Gandhi
Also see Bacha Khan University, which was named after him.
Gandhian (adjective) is someone related to Gandhi or Gandhiism.
Gandhiism is a body of ideas and principles that describes the inspiration, vision and the life work of Mohandas Gandhi. It is particularly associated with his contributions to the idea of nonviolent resistance, sometimes also called civil resistance.
The journalist here is using Gandhian not in its usual adjectival sense, but as a noun meaning 'a member of the Gandhi clan'. Such terms were used in classical times, when an Alcmeonid or * the Atreides would be related to an important family but not necessarily bearing the family name; they are scarcely used nowadays (unless some Indian English speaker knows otherwise?) and the Gandhi it was named for would be more usual.
*No, in Aeschylus, not the Herbert tribute.