Politicalnarratives are stories that purport to grow out of history, but are not usuallyhistorically accurate. They weave facts with imagination to create and sustainan emotional bond with ideas that may not be historically relevant, and withevents not fully known. Kashmir’s narrative (hereafter called the Narrative) isthe subject of this article. It is inextricably linked with the life and timesof Sheikh Abdullah; what he did, and allegedly, what he should have done butfailed to do.
In September 1982when Sheikh Abdullah died having dominated Kashmir’s landscape for 50 years,Kashmiris gave him a send-off befitting his epic status. In 1986 the movie Lion of the desert Omar Mukhtar wasscreened at the Regal theatre in Srinagar. The power of the medium is such thatthe film undid in mere weeks the reputation of Kashmir’s first authentic heroin 700 years. Kashmiris revised their opinion of the great man and embarked ona search for new definitions of a hero, and for a new narrative.
The Sheikh has fallen so far in public esteemthat the site of his final resting place needed protection. What happenedbetween 1982 and 1990 that required guards around his grave? For the answer wemust look to the development of the Narrative, one that he himself had a partin creating.
According to the Narrative Sheikh Abdullah wasresponsible for betraying the political movement for freedom that began in1931, first by aligning with Nehru to convert the Muslim Conference into thesecular National Conference, and later by leading Kashmir into an unwantedaccession to India. Kashmir is supposed to have lost its independence whenAkbar invaded the Valley in 1586. Instead of leading Kashmir to the freedomenvisaged by the political struggle started with the National Conference,Sheikh Abdullah delivered Kashmir into the hands of India.
The good that the Sheikh did lies buried withhis bones, the evil he is supposed to have done lives on to haunt his memoryand to mislead us all.
Misrepresentinghistorical facts is essential to narratives, which is what we see in theNarrative. The political movement that began in 1931when the Maharaja’s troopsfired upon and killed 22 Kashmiri Muslims protesting outside Central JailSrinagar, had three main goals. Primarily it was about Muslim representation,particularly that of Kashmir’s Muslims, in State employment. Second, it soughtadequate Muslim representation in running State affairs through responsiblegovernment, and lastly it was about the rights of Kashmiri cultivators. Themovement was about employment and about social and political rights.Independence, or Azaadi, for Kashmir or J&K was neither an objective of themovement, spearheaded by the Muslim Conference set up under the leadership ofSheikh Abdullah in 1932, nor did anyone envisage what shape an independentIndia would take if the British left.
Some commentatorsrevile Sheikh Abdullah for adorning what was primarily a Muslim struggle withsecular garb as a result of Nehru’smalign influence that steered the National Conference into channels it wasnever intended to take. Nonsense! National Conference never lost sight of itsoriginal goals. But opening its membership to all faiths enabled the party tobroaden the movement and draw upon support from secular Hindus and Sikhs aswell.
Though a fewKashmiri Pandits joined the movement it was generally opposed by the communitybecause more jobs for Muslims meant fewer of them to go around for Pandits. Theruling Dogra classes for whom the programme meant loss of privilege andentitlement stayed away with only some progressive types joining when theMuslim Conference mutated, under Nehru’s advice into the National Conference, anon- denominational platform for the rights of all deprived communities.
Critics of thechanges deliberately obscure the fact that the Muslim League, with which there-born Muslim Conference aligned itself had no sympathy for the demands ofKashmir’s Muslims. The League stood for the feudal order and the privileges ofthe Princes. On the other hand, Nehru and Congress gave full and vocal supportto the demands of Kashmir’s Muslims against the inclinations of a HinduMaharaja and the inclinations of his mainly Hindu administration. It was theleft bias of young Congressmen under Nehru that attracted Sheikh Abdullah. Hehad an aggressive agenda of agrarian reform and freedom from feudal dominationthat Congress supported, and to which the Muslim League was at best,indifferent. It was natural ideological compatibility that linked the twoleaders.
As far as theoriginal goals of the Muslim/National Conference are concerned it is noexaggeration to say that no other leader in the history of democratic rule hasso completely fulfilled the agenda of the party he led than Sheikh Abdullah didin the five years that he was Prime Minister. The Sheikh did more for Kashmirand Kashmiris between 1948 and 1953 than anyone did before him or has done since.The change were truly revolutionary.
Within six monthsof taking over Sheikh Abdullah had rid Kashmir of Dogra hegemony. In March 1948when the Sheikh became Prime Minister, Maharaja Hari Singh was still thesovereign; in August he was forced into exile. A Kashmiri Muslim now headed thegovernment assisted by a cabinet of ministers in which Kashmiris dominated. In1947 the Maharaja’s government was still dominated by Punjabis, Pandits andDogras with Kashmiri Muslims few and far between. Under the National Conferencegovernment Kashmiri Muslims took over the important positions. Recruitment togovernment jobs took on a pronounced bias towards Kashmiri Muslims and theybegan to be employed in numbers that their percentage of the populationwarranted. The substitution of Dogra hegemony by that of Kashmiris was neithernatural nor easy.
Under the Maharaja Dogras feudals dominated,even in the valley, ruling through land grants, entitlements and appointmentsgiven by the Maharaja. The agrarian reform programme swept away those rightsmaking the Kashmiri peasant owner of the land he cultivated. But SheikhAbdullah did more than restore Kashmir to the Kashmiris, he set the stage forKashmir’s present dominance over Jammu as well. In a sense he was the first Kashmiriafter a thousand years to establish Kashmiri rule outside the borders ofKashmir. Before Sheikh Abdullah the elites of Jammu patronized Kashmiriclients. After him ambitious Dogras sought Kashmiri patronage.
Kashmiri domination in J&K is nowadays takenfor granted; as a fact of life as if it were, and in the natural order ofthings. Nothing could have been more difficult to achieve. It could never havehappened but for Sheikh Abdullah and his special relationship with Nehru. In noother scenario would Kashmir or Kashmiri Muslims become the power they becameshortly after the Sheikh took over. He introduced a system of Kashmiripreference that operates even today. It is no exaggeration to say that no otherleader in the history of democratic rule has so completely fulfilled the agendaof the party he led than Sheikh Abdullah did in the five years that he wasPrime Minister. He did more for Kashmir and Kashmiris between 1948 and 1953than anyone did before him, or since. He fulfilled every scrap of the agendaKashmir’s Muslims had set before themselves in the 1930s. And he did this inthe face of violent agitations in Jammu.
Why then do many Kashmiris revile SheikhAbdullah and accuse him of betraying the movement that started in 1931. TheNarrative is to blame. It has transmuted from being a story of Kashmiristruggle for political and economic rights into a story of a struggle forIndependence, ignoring the vital battles the Sheikh won for Kashmir. It focuseson matters that were sub-liminal and peripheral, but which have now acquired animmediacy not warranted by the historical record.
According to theNarrative, the movement of 1931 was started to restore the freedom Kashmir lostwith the disposal of Yusuf Shah Chak, and the dire straits Kashmiri findthemselves in today is a consequence of Sheikh Abdullah’s betrayal of themovement by joining India. This is a travesty of the historical record. In1931, and through the years leading to the Pakistan resolution there was nomention of independence in the Kashmiri discourse – nor was the MuslimConference set up in 1932 to establish an independent state of Jammu andKashmir. In fact, there was no intention even to rid Kashmir of Dogra rule, letalone disassociate from India.
The Narrative is a work of the imagination andstarts with a bit of fiction. It relates that the last native ruler ofindependent Kashmir was Yusuf Shah Chak, displaced by the Mughal Emperor Akbarin 1586; after that Kashmir has never been free. It is one of the manyinaccuracies with which the Narrative is riddled. The Chaks were not Kashmiri,being migrants from the area around Gilgit. Their rule followed that of theShahmiri descendants of Shah Mir who is said to have been an adventurer fromSuwat, and not a native of Kashmir either. The last genuine Kashmiri to ruleKashmiri was in fact Kota Rani, daughter of Ramchand, who married first RinchanShah and then Shah Mir. The Shahmiris were as authentically Kashmiri as werethe Dogras.
It is not generally known that Akbar was invitedto Kashmir by the Sunni religious leaders of the valley because of theintolerable impositions of the Shia Chaks, or that before the Mughal invasionYusuf Shah Chak had visited Akbar’s court and reached an understanding withhim. It was the violation of that understanding that made Akbar send hisforces.
(To be concluded)