Hoisted on my parents shoulders I have seen leaders after their release being greeted with waiving hands overhead by surging crowds.  I have seen    young men on seeing their leaders bubbling with emotions. I have seen them tossing their shirts in the air. I have seen the have-nots- laborers, tumbrel pullers, bus drivers and tangawalas in excitement throwing their caps in the air.  I have seen women in exhilaration singing in chorus songs of freedom. I have seen men whooping with delight on seeing their leader in an open bedecked car waiving his wand like a magician and making people frenzy. 
The release of a leader used to be more than a political event. It used to be grand pageant, a mega spectacle – the red, green, blue and yellow buntings, the green cloth archways and the earthenware lamps illuminations at night added a royal aura to the release of the leaders. I have very vivid impression: I accompanied my uncle to a nearby bridge for watching the illuminations on the banks of the river Jhelum. It was remarkable sight- it looked like molten gold passing underneath the fourth bridge that often reminds me of the golden period of our history- the period when my birth burg was cascading with knowledge and wisdom, when mellifluent poetry echoed in its every lane and by lane and when scholars with their robes touching their knees passed through its streets.
I have seen leaders arrested. I have seen people protesting against their arrests. Men in thousands pouring into the streets raising slogans; women pounding their chests and cursing the men in power and children with white chalks stolen from the class covering walls with graffiti demanding release of the leaders. I have seen people being shot by men in uniform like wild ducks. I have seen blood dripping bodies being put to rest in the martyrs’ graveyard- that is now officially recognized as a place of pilgrimage- a place of national heritage and pride.
I like many in my age group were brought up in this bizarre atmosphere of ecstasy and agony- ecstasy that accompanied release of the leaders and agony that would be in trail of their arrests. Many a time I feel that with all moments of childhood mirth ours has been a life of ‘sobbing streams’.  Five and half decades I have been living and reliving the same life- that cannot be ‘divided by seasons’. ‘It seems circle round one centre of pain’. To borrow a phrase from Oscar Wilde ‘I can only record its mood and chronicle its return.’ And I am no statesman- to bridge the gap between the experience and the vision or to figure out future out of the past.
I have not maintained a count. How many times I have seen leaders - tall and dwarf being set free and jailed.  But I do remember every incident was momentous and some of the incidents have left an indelible imprint on my mind. It was not wrong that people of my age group had their real political baptism in 1964. The 1964, Holy Relic Movement was a kind of introduction to us in Kashmir politics. This movement was led by frail man. By all stretch of imagination a man of austerity, draped in homespun woolen long coat, homespun woolen trousers and a cheap black astrakhan cap. I  had not heard his name- but my childhood guru in politics a coppersmith in our Mohalla told me that he was Molvi Syed- a “Gandhian to his core.” He and his tailor friend did not like him for his political beliefs but admired him for his eloquence. Of all the leaders in my childhood, he was most eloquent. He articulated his point of view with a magic spell and mesmerized even the hostile crowds. The coppersmith and tailor often forewarned me and many other students in my age group about being led astray by gullible tongue of this “Gandhian.”  They blamed him of driving the Holy Relic Movement towards yet another abyss. I loved hearing his speeches- they never used to rhetoric but logic and reason woven in good Urdu prose. In my wildest dreams I had never imagined that the men in uniform would smash teeth   of Gandhi’s last disciple in Kashmir.
It was May 8, 1965; I was in my first year in college. On  my way to college- there was rumor that the leaders of the Plebiscite Front, Sheikh Abdullah, Mirza Afzal Beg after their return from Saudi Arabia had been detained at New Delhi airport. The news spread like a wild fire- it was reenactment of the incidents that I had seen many times in the past. The Plebiscite Front workers: the tailor, the willow basket weaver, the blacksmith, the fruit vendor and famous slogan raiser Abdul Rehman Sodagar appeared on the scene in our locality. Shutters were pulled down. The roads those days by and large remained desolate – with only few city and rural buses passing through it after regular intervals. Crowds started swelling on the roads- black flags that I had become so familiar after the 27 December 1963, were hoisted on lampposts and rain-shades of shops. The much trumpeted policy of liberalization was torn to shreds- publication of ten newspapers under Defense of India Rules (DIR) was banned. My birth burg was again epicenter of politics- on 9th May 1965, all roads led towards the grand mosque. People in thousands had gathered inside and outside the mosque- they were waiting for Molvi Muhammad Farooq and other Front leaders to arrive.
The scenes roll before my eyes as if they had happened just today, Molvi Muhammad Syed accompanied by other leaders- perhaps Ghulam Mohu-Din Qara arrived at the scene in a jeep.  No sooner they reached near the gate of the Jamie Masjid, the Punjab Police (PP) pounced on them smashing the teeth of the last “last Gandhian’- of Kashmir. I saw him bleeding profusely- and people running helter-skelter.
 He was admitted to the hospital… after his discharge from the Nursing Home; he took command of the political struggle with a new resolve and started civilian disobedience movement. The political workers courted arrests as a part of civil disobedience. I don’t know why people who courted arrest were called as ‘dictators’. And the first ‘dictator’ was none but a chemists in our Mohalla- Ghulam Ahmed Mir.

(Feedback at zahidgm@greaterkashmir.com) 

Lastupdate on : Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
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