Heritage: Kashmir, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow – pl.d.parimoo Approximately 6000 years ago, a civilization thrived in a region that included sections of modern-day Iraq and the Levant, which includes Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. The Mesopotamian culture, which was once thought to be extinct, is amazingly still alive and has left behind a legacy that the Kurds and the Levant have maintained. Aram Abdul Rahman, a youthful metallurgist, finds himself ensnared in the brutal battlefields of Syria. When he proudly introduced me to his daughter as a new father, I found it impossible to contain my amazement! Sensing my discomfort, he quickly corrected me to say that while inana might be the name of a primitive Sumerian goddess, she was a part of their heritage and had no unusual meaning in the Levantine Muslim society. Of course, this would not be accepted in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which had no civilization at all prior to the great prophet (pbuh) giving them a semblance of civilization that was greatly enhanced by the contributions of Egyptians, Iraqis, Iranians, and many other societies, including those from India. About 1500 years ago, a magnificent civilization rose to prominence, and today’s Muslim world fiercely protects its legacy. Some ignorant individuals would want to limit its definition to just saying that it is a Muslim civilization, leaving out the historical significance that it has accrued over the ages. Tourism brochures often utilize the term “heritage” to open up new travel opportunities and investigate untapped markets. Many people, including some non-governmental organizations, believe that the word “heritage” was created only to draw in visitors and is a marketing gimmick. Heritage is defined by the dictionary as inherited possessions or situations. Heritage may refer to a group of people who have more things in common than differences, such as a family, a town, or the whole human race. Richer and more distinguished inheritances are those that have been handed down through the generations and are older in vintage. These inheritances not only boost the self-esteem of the inheritors but also command respect from others who do not fall within their sphere of influence. Our architectural legacy as Kashmiris is shown by the remains of the magnificent Martand, the serene glow emanating from the exquisite Nur-ul-Alam durgah, or the stunning reflection of the Hazratbal Mosque over the Dal Lake. Our unique music, whether it be folk or sufiana, the traditional kaandar waan, or the waazwaan, are all parts of our legacy, but our unique language, Kashmiri, is the most important! The language of our forefathers was never encouraged or supported, not even in the pre-14th century, when sanskrit and farsi took precedence. Perhaps some of the people who swear by the ancient language sharda these days will find offense in this assertion. For those who fall into this category, I would suggest reading what pandit historian Kalhan wrote a millennium ago, which makes it abundantly evident that the locals spoke an impolite language and even recited a few phrases in Kashmiri. The language of Kashmir was never given any favoritism by the sultans, despite the fact that prominent figures such as Lal Ded, Hazrat Nur ul Alam, and even Habba Khatun had a significant impact on the ruling class and elevated the language to unprecedented levels of cultural significance. Sheikh Mohammed Ali made it one of his top priorities to establish the solid core requirements of a language, which is its script, which gave the official indifference towards the very cornerstone of our society and its legacy, our language, its first breath of fresh air. It is certain that the sharda script, with its twenty-three vowels, would have been a better representation of spoken Kashmiri language; yet, the fact that so few people could read this script contributed to the issue. Sheikh Abdullah had to tread carefully in order to appease the many distinct ethnic and religious groups in his quest to build a great country out of an ignorant, hungry mass that could be proud of its history. at order to neutralize the mullas and moulvis—whom even Mr. Jinnah deemed unqualified to lead the Kashmiri people—and appeal to the orthodox Muslims, he would always begin his remarks at mosques or on public property with a passage from the holy quran. But the majority of Kashmiris who adhered to the mainstream, nonviolent, and tolerant strain of Islam were his true supporters. It is well known that the Islam practiced in Kashmir differs greatly from the wahabi interpretation of the religion, and the Muslim League’s ideology—which combines an extreme form of feudalism with religious fundamentalism—could never find widespread acceptance in Kashmir. People in Kashmir who contest the fact that Sheikh Abdullah made a significant effort to advance the causes of the Muslim community in particular and Kashmiris in general are exhibiting symptoms of self-delusions. Long before anybody could understand, he had the vision that would later become clear: Pakistan will ultimately turn into a dangerous concoction of feudal punjabi cultural dominance and wahabi islam. a development that can spell the end for Kashmiri culture! It is now widely known that wahhabi states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are allies of the United States, have been funding and organizing armed jamaats, or militias, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and distant Syria. These groups are brainwashed into adhering to an extreme form of wahhabi fundamentalism. To obliterate both the memory of Sheikh Abdullah and the heritage of Kashmir, those who are spared are sent eastward to Kashmir. For those of us who live in combat zones, the events in the Muslim nation of Syria, which is now in very poor condition, may open our eyes. Bullets, explosions, and lack of basic necessities are killing people there. One of the most stunning nations in the Arab world has devolved into a nation of living dead. Are they the mujahadeen of the Alqaeeda brand, have the firangs started a fight against them, or a mix of the two? It remains to be seen whether the people of Kashmir will be able to resist this attack or if they would allow Kashmir to become a kabristan. Understanding how the same ideological organizations using firearms to destroy Syrian society are attempting to undermine Kashmir’s tolerant culture—which has been reinforced recently by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah—is both fascinating and crucial. After building a wall to block any opposition to their fantastic interpretations of modern history, the neo-intellectual class in Kashmir launches a diatribe with the express purpose of discrediting a man who came to represent a secular, multireligious society that was popular among the local populace. A recent accusation of fascist governance against Sheikh Abdullah was made by a gentleman citing a correspondence between Sardar Patel and Mehar Chand Mahajan. With the agitation of Praja Parished, an offshoot of Jansangh, in Jammu, shri Mahajan, the former prime minister of J&K state, had every cause to be dissatisfied with the status of law and order. Aside from the disorderly leaders of the Praja Parishad, the only notable person arrested in Kashmir during that time was Ghulam Nabibi Gilkar, a former associate of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah from the days of the Muslim Conference. The reason for his arrest is as follows: according to a plot hatched by Pakistan, a so-called “azad kashmir” government was formed on October 3, 1947, and it was housed in a hotel in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. During the same conference, a few leaders in Pakistan and anti-Sheikh Abdullah groups involved in the invasion made the decision to depose the maharaja of J&K and banish him. The establishment of this government in exile was proclaimed by radio Pakistan, with Mr. Anwar serving as its president. Later on, however, it was discovered that anwar was really Ghulam Nabhi Gilkar, an old comrade of Sheikh Sahib and a member of the Muslim Conference’s working committee. The president may have chosen to conceal his identity because, shortly after the new government was announced on the radio, he secretly traveled to Srinagar to apprehend Maharaja Harish Singh. In the meantime, the war between the tribesmen had broken out, Gilkar Sahib had cut off his supporters, and Pakistani resources were unable to return to their homeland. He was finally taken into custody by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah’s regime. One Christopher Sneda novel, “Kashmir,” is mentioned as criticizing the Indian Army’s arrival in Srinagar (see:Kashmir and Sher e Kashmir). Nobody disputes that the Indian army landed in Srinagar, therefore it’s unclear why intellectual reactionaries have brought up the subject. In any case, I would want to discuss this incident with a Pakistani source. AGHa Humayun Kabir, a Pakistani major (retd), had this to say about those tragic days: “On October 27, 1947, two companies of one Sikh were flown to Srinagar from Willington Airport, which is close to New Delhi. The Indians had gathered thirty Dakotas for the airlift.” The Indian situation was dire at this point; only forty troops held a tenuous defensive position five kilometers east of Baramula. Throughout this crisis, all of the commanding officers held the view that one should lead from the front; one such individual was Lieutenant Colonel Dewan Ranjit Rai, the commanding officer of one Sikh, by the second. In November, the Indians sent a formidable infantry brigade (161 brigade), with around four battalions, to Srinagar. Currently, several news daily writers falsely attribute the closure of the negotiating window with Mr. Jinnah to Sheikh Abdullah. When considering the incident from Sheikh Abdullah’s wider viewpoint, the narrative takes on a new tone. It is important to remember how fiercely Sheikh Sahib opposed to accepting the authority of an authoritarian state, believing that Kashmiris alone should make the option to join. Sensing that the national conference’s working committee was evenly split on the subject of accession, Sheikh Shah sent a delegation of prominent Kashmiri figures, including Kh. Ghulam Mohd. Shadiq, Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad, and Chaudhry Mohd. Shafi, to deliberate on the matter and gauge the leadership’s perspective in Pakistan. To their great dismay, the sheikh’s representatives were cold-shouldered by Pakistan’s leading lawmakers. Nevertheless, when the Kashmiri envoys met with Feroz Khan Noon, Mian Mamtaz Daulatna, and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, a secondary leadership of the Muslim League in Pakistan, they were able to deliver the message of Sheikh Sahib. A prominent figure in Pakistan has written about the unreported debacle of Sheikh Abdullah’s endeavor to maintain avenues of communication while facing severe rejection from the country’s leadership. The author, Amman Allah of Pakistan, wrote about the visit of the Kashmiri leaders to Pakistan, detailing all the events that transpired, about which neither their leader nor any of the delegates ever spoke: “The three Kashmiri leaders were not even permitted to meet the Qaid Azam (Mr. Jinnah).” In private talks, some Pakistani officials even went so far as to call the state of Kashmir their “bearer cheque,” which they might cash at any moment. After Ch. Mohammed Shafi was attacked in Lahore, several Pakistani newspapers even called for the delegation from Kashmir to be taken into custody. Rather of trying to patch things up with Sheikh Sahib, the state-run Pakistani media launched a vicious campaign disparaging his persona, even depicting him as a dog or an ass in cartoons. Sheikh Sahib was further drawn into India’s warm arms by Pakistanis’ very impolite and undiplomatic actions. Sheikh Shahib’s insistence on including the right of self-determination clause in the treaty of accession with India, despite the despicable treatment he received from Pakistan, is further evidence of his foresight and lack of prejudice. Goebles has faced competition from many other writers for his infamously false accounts, but some Kashmiri scribes easily outperform him. One even attempts to argue that the 1947 raiders from Pakistan were messengers of goodwill. I don’t want to argue this point, but I will cite sources from Pakistan that discuss the raiders’ invasion of Kashmir: Sardar Shuukat Khan, a well-known leader of the Muslim League at the time and a minister in the Pakistani government, acknowledges in his book “The Nation That Lost Its Soul” that “for three days they did not move (after invading the important town of baramulla).” Rather of moving ahead and seizing control of Srinagar Airport, these Pathans began plundering bazaars and wasting valuable time. They also began stealing lockets and earrings belonging to nuns who were operating a monastery in Baramulla. We lost Kashmir due to our own mistakes and mishandling. By that point, Indian reinforcement had flown into Srinagar. Pakistan lost Kashmir not because of Sheikh Abdullah but rather due to the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of its leaders. In her book “halfway to freedom,” American photojournalist Margaret Burke White, who was based in Pakistan at the time, describes the invasion of Kashmir as follows: “their buses and trucks, loaded with booty, arrived every other day and took more pathans (the tribals) from the adjoining areas of pakistan to kashmir. After losing kashmir, they had to find a scapegoat, and they blamed him.” Although their main goal was to riot and plunder, they had gone to free their brothers who were Muslims in Kashmir. They did not distinguish between Muslims, Sikhs, or Hindus in this. The raiders moved closer to Srinagar—just one hour away—by advancing into Baramulla, the largest business hub in the area at the time, home to 11,000 people. They were involved in widespread looting, rape, and rioting over the next three days. No one was spared, not even the staff of St. Joseph’s Mission Hospital, which was ruthlessly killed. It is undeniable that our state has always had a mainly Muslim population, so using demographic statistics to support our position seems pointless, but it is definitely not the decisive factor. It would be fascinating to see how Sheikh Sahib handled this matter in his state legislative assembly inauguration speech. The strongest argument in support of Pakistan is that it is a Muslim state, and as the vast majority of its citizens are Muslims, the state ought to recognize Pakistan. Naturally, this assertion that the state is Muslim is really a front. It is a ruse to mislead the general public into believing that Pakistan is a feudal state where a small group of people is attempting to hold onto power via various means. Furthermore, the use of religion as a justification is emotive and incorrect in its approach to the issue. Though feeling has a role in life, it often results in unreasonable behavior. Some contend that joining Pakistan would either guarantee our life or our destruction, as if this were a logical conclusion. Reasonable folks would point out that Pakistan is not an organic unity of all the Muslims in this subcontinent, proving that the facts refute this. Conversely, it has led to the dispersal of Indian Muslims, whose advantage it was purportedly intended for. Two Pakistans are located at least a thousand miles distant from one another. Just over 15 million people live in western Pakistan, which borders our state. There are around 40 million Muslims living in India as a whole. Since all Muslims are equal, Kashmiri Muslims should prioritize the forty million Muslims who live in India. One Kashmiri writer even suggests that Indian leaders sent the army to Kashmir because they thought that if Pakistan started a war, it would bankrupt the country. The greatest writing regarding Pakistan’s military or economic might at that point may be found in the book “The State of Martial Law: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defense (1990)” by renowned Pakistani scholar Yesha Jalal. “It is inevitable to draw the conclusion that the Pakistani government, together with the Frontier Ministry, intentionally fostered the attitudes that had prompted the tribesmen to invade Kashmir. Admittedly, the Pakistani leadership chose not to send the troops into Kashmir on formal business. But rather than because it was the right thing to do, they took this action due to the acute lack of weapons and ammunition. With the approval of Jinnah, the leaders of the Muslim League would have supported the tribal struggle with the army if they had been able to. The leader of the Azad forces was colonel Muhammad Akbar, a Pakistani army officer who went by the alias “general tariq,” a legendary 8th-century conqueror of Spain, and was well-known for having close ties to Qayum Khan, and through him, to Jinnah and the leaders of the League in Karachi. The same journalist also brought up Sheikh Abdullah’s alleged indifference to the horrors inflicted upon the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir. Journalists, in my opinion, should do their research thoroughly. Those who level such accusations are unsure about the events’ chronological order. It is well knowledge that when Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah was imprisoned in August 1947, the sectarian fervor of the whole subcontinent, which included Jammu, reached its peak. In order to secure Sheikh Abdullah’s release, Nehru had to go quickly to Kashmir; however, the Dogra dictatorship detained him as well. Subsequently, Lord Mountbatten traveled to Kashmir to encourage the Maharaja to make a decision about accession; if this failed, Gandhi Ji visited the region. When he was in Kashmir, he was keeping the mom vrat. covering his October 25, London Times visit. Regarding Gandhi’s trip to Kashmir in 1947, it was written: “What precisely did Gandhi tell the maharaja? Though the sequence of events that followed his arrival points to what must have occurred, we will never know. Following his visit, the non-Indian prime minister of Kashmir, Ram Chandar Khan, was succeeded by Janak Singh and then by Mehr Chand Mahajan, an Indian loyalist. The British officials in the army and police of Kashmir were then fired. They included the chairman of the general staff and the inspector general of police. Since sheikh Shahib was freed due to Gandhi Ji’s request, how could he have stopped the attack on Jammu Muslims while he was imprisoned? However, it is well forgotten that Sheikh Abdullah really brought an end to the misery of the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir by pressuring the Indian government to achieve Maharaja Harish Singh’s voluntary abdication or else expose him to criminal charges. Only one of the roughly 500 princely kingdoms, maharaja hari singh, was forced to relinquish his throne! Email this article to a friend! (The writer can be reached at peejip@yahoo.co.in) Related articles include Mesopotamia, Shaivism, Parvati, Ashtar, Enana, and Kashmir. The writer has been writing columns for Kashmiri papers and is the author of Kashmiryat at Cross Roads, Passion, Power, Perfidy, Tales from Kalhan, and the recently published book, Kashmir and Sher e Kashmir.get posts like this one sent straight to your inbox!Get a free subscription now!
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