Someone has rightly said: ‘history isn't always made by great armies colliding or by great civilizations rising or falling. Sometimes it's made when a chauffeur takes a wrong turn, a scientist forgets to clean up his lab, or a drunken soldier gets a bit rowdy.’  It is never told in full. Many stories remain buried under its debris never to be told. 

I had an advantage of being born at the most momentous juncture of our history in a part of city that has been a cauldron of many uprisings against tyranny and for the rights of people. My story runs parallel to the stories of hope, optimism, triumph, bewilder and disappointments of the people and courage and cowardice of men who led us. Many times, I feel sad for not having maintained a journal- to tell stories as they happened- the heroic tales of men who will never make even to the footnotes of history.  

Like Heda Kovely the author of ‘Under Cruel Star’ who died a few days back ‘I also carry the past inside me like an accordion, like a book of picture postcards that people bring home as souvenirs from foreign cities, small and neat and all it takes is to lift one corner of the top card for an endless snake to escape, zigzag joined to zigzag, the sign of the viper, and instantly all the pictures line up before my eyes.’ It was an Urdu poster,   as pale as eyes of a jaundice patient, covered with a film of dust as thin as smut and torn at corners that brought to life my days at the University campus. I found the poster in a book on literature I have not opened for decades.

The poster started with an Urdu couplet ‘Where sword is judge, sleuths and cops are witnesses; who could be innocent in this city other than the murderer’. The poster in chaste urdu had been written by my classmate and friend Shafi Shouq’.  The poster called upon students to rise against maladministration, corruption, favoritism nepotism and unemployment. It also announced a protest rally from Polo Ground to historic Lal Chowk. The poster carried names of about forty students who had supported the rally- some known   student leaders heading student and youth organizations, some known   for their activism in Kashmir University, Medical College and some involved in literary, cultural and sports activities in the University.  From Hindu Sangarash Samatit to Young Men’s and Students League every organization had supported the rally.  Hindu Sangrash Samati ironically was a supporter of the Plebiscite Front. This poster was pasted by some of my friends all over the University campus, in the then Regional College, Medical College and three colleges in the city.

The idea of organizing a rally had originated on the lawns in front of the first building of Kashmir University then known as the Arts Block.  The date coincided with the visit of Prime Minster, Mrs. Gandhi to Srinagar. I do not remember who mooted the idea of organizing a rally on these issues. Despite some students connected with NSUI (National Student Union of India) patronized by then Education Minister attributing it to be inspired by the Plebiscite Front leadership, students spontaneously and overwhelmingly supported the idea. It perhaps had a reason; the postgraduate batches that had passed during past two years had no jobs. They had resorted to unique protests; squatting in the middle of the roads, polishing   shoes of people on footpaths on the Residency Road and putting temporary kiosks on main roads  for selling tea-as a mark of protest. 

There was also a reason for some students believing that rally was inspired by the Plebiscite Front leaders more particularly Afzal Beg. It were the news slogans in the poster than those that resonated in the streets and colleges compounds; we want plebiscite, our demand plebiscite, that had created doubts in the minds of many other students.

The Plebiscite Front leadership immediately after dismemberment of Pakistan had changed its political narrative. It now mostly talked outside the realm of the party constitution. It no more hoarsely raised slogans demanding plebiscite that it had been doing after the birth of the Front more particularly after 1964. It instead targeted the government led by Syed Mir Qasim for its bad governance and inefficiency.   Rumors were set afloat from Mujahid Manzil  PF headquarter that the government was bankrupt and it had even mortgaged the civil secretariat. Today as I look back at students deciding to protest over issues of immediate concern, I see it as paradigm shift in the post 1972 student politics of the state that virtually saw end of student activism in Kashmir.

Syed Mir Qasim had taken over as Chief Minister on December 12, 1971.  Three or four months after his taking over, he released hundreds of students detained under Preventive Detention Act. Those not released were allowed to appear in examinations and some science students were taken for practical work to laboratories in S.P. College. He was also liberal towards student activities. He allowed the first direct elections to the Kashmir University Students Union.

I vividly remember the day the rally was to be organized. It had to start from the Polo Ground and move through Residency Road to Lal Chowk where a public meeting was to be held.  Two students, Syed Arshad Hussain, Pervez Ahmed my contemporaries went around the city in a taxi fitted with megaphone raising slogans and making announcement about the rally. The three along with the car were arrested by   by a Deputy Superintendent Police outside Zaina Kadal Police Station. The police officer was known for his leftist leanings and proximity to the government in power. No moment Chief Minister was informed by police officer about the arrest of the boys making announcement he asked him for their immediate release- “I don’t want to make leaders of them” he had told the police officer on phone.” The three were immediately released.

Notwithstanding Mir Qasim being liberal towards the student activism large contingents of police had been deployed to the polo ground and students were not allowed to gather.  Some dozens of students making a human chain started a march from outside the grounds. And as it moved on, raising slogans against unemployment and corruption it swelled to a thousand or so. There was a rally of about fifteen hundred students and passersby’s outside the Palladium cinema. I still remember the names of some student leaders who addressed the rally these included Bal Krishan Handoo, a law student and leader of Hindu Sangarash Samati, Abdul Rasheed Shaheen, A. R. Wani, Abdul Hamid Shah, Muhammad Saleem Beg, Abdul Hamid Bhat, Sheikh Manzoor Ahmed, Mohammad Yusuf Gilkar, Tej Krishen,   Shakil Ahmed and few others.
The rally despite failing to be a grand success had aroused curiosity in the political leadership. I still remember top Plebiscite Front leadership watched the rally from nearby hotel windows and the Congress leadership from the Palladium… Why the rally had aroused curiosity in political leadership was a then a puzzle to me…
It was the last rally I participated as a student…

(Feedback at zahidgm@greaterkashmir.com)

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