True, it has happened; nobody talks about Bazam-E-Adab of Bandipur, the pioneering literary forum of its literary people. To remember it, means to open the lids of cultural, political and social repertoire of Kashmir, which at the moment is undercover of new times, in a state of fluidity.
To talk about it means to know that accumulative capital, which Kashmiri boats about and that has been partially passed on from one generation to another over the centuries, despite upheavals.
What was it; it was the blending tradition that neither non native kingdoms nor non native referent could finish. Lal Ded was its harbinger and Nund Reshi gave it the tradition, Bud Shah stabilization, common persons blended it without formalism of religion. Its apron changed with the loss of nativity at the close of sixteenth century.
And Zoon and Arinimal touched its canvas with pathos and estrangement. The non native referent after independence only convoluted it with mystified illusions.
Nevertheless, Quit Kashmir Movement had its influence; it created space for nativity to recapture the present. However, its structuration was different in the different regions.
The region of Khuohma is rich in its cultural history and full with the bounty of nature. In the past it was linked directly with ‘Sharda peeth’, (now across the border), which has its imprints directly on the soil and writ large in its evolving history.
It is why it has special standing to be the abode of many saints, who preferred to settle over here. They brought with them their own cultural and mystic ethos that Khuhoma accommodated in its blending traditions.
Be it, Naga Baje, Kasur sahib, Latif Saheb, Madhusudan or Govind Kaul, and many other, who endowed it with their rich mystic experiences. It remained merged in the essences of Khuohma in different shades.
While in day to day lived life, Khuohma’s central market, Bandipora was a corridor of trade from Srinagar in northern Kashmir and southern Gilgit-Baltistan through Gurez.
It is rich in wild life and amazing scenic Madhumati and on upper Kishanganga River flow through its valley. Above and beyond it, Khuohma had gained currency because English never wanted to restore Gilgit back to monarchy.
Essentially because of its strategic importance against the spread of communism. It had sensed much before 1940s its implication against then expanding Soviet Union. Bandipora had unusual rush of English men and women besides trading families from different places, Lala ji and Knawel Sigh’s families along with Samasarchand Sadhu of Ajar and Gulam Qadir and Ama Lal of Sumlar, Jans and Bhats of Ajas were traditional business families followed with new rich class after the independence, like Parreys of Putshey, Mirs and Khans of Bandipora and Bhats of watapora.
Since Maharaja Partap Singh’s restoration of power was with conditionality to open schools and colleges in the valley and also to make postal and transport effective, Khuohma too got its wash off share in getting some schools and post office and health centre and power generation plant. Srinagar to Gilgit via Bandipora became its thrust agenda.
Khuohma got unusual significance. The new churning of development and business generated transformative class in Bandipur, who were not rich but gained education and thereby had role in the subsequent decades.
The notable Pandit families, Kauls of Kalusa, Bhats of Ajar, Fazlis and Nazilis of Gurul and Mirs and Khans of Bandipur emerged a uniform literary class, possibly because of their ‘genealogical native strength’.
The father of great doctor Ali Jan supposed to belong to the family of Fazlis of Bandipora. Subsequently this class of people generated a new political and literary consciousness in the region, where Pandit families and some notable Muslim families took the advantage of the wash off effects of these developmental measures.
Bhats of Ajar in great numbers migrated to the plains of India and served there in education and administration. And by 1940, Khuohma had a well developed literary class from Gurul to Putshey. These families got connected with their counterparts in Srinagar and other towns to forge kinship and literary relationships.
Initially, there were efficient Pandit head masters and post masters from Srinagar in these newly established primary and middle schools, and other minor instructions, who proved the agencies of transformation for the entire region.
It prompted many reformers from valley and outside valley to visit Khuohma to meet the native literary class for reformation and generating new political consciousness. First time Gulam Qadir’s house near Jamia Masjid hosted these young educated youth in 1942 to form a literary school where some pandit head master Govind ji was also invited.
Gulam Rasool Khan (Lala) became its president and Pt Ved Lal Raz was nominated as its secretary. It gradually attracted other emerging youth for literary and discrete political discussions. German war information and normal meeting over cup of tea in private houses were held for rendering their poems and literary pieces.
Who wouldn’t love to listen to poets like Nazki senior, Khadim, Raz, Zar, Baetab, Tasir and other notable poets of Khuhoma. It produced an urge for nativity and a political consciousness against monarchy. However, it came through progressive line of thinking as well as from mystic poetry.
Abdul Ahad Nadim was recognized as its first mystic poet where as Gulam Hassan Khuohmae as main historian of Kashmir and Kh Wali Deen Wani as ‘first Hakeem’ of the region. Immediately after independence, political personalities of National Conference, like Abdul Kabeer Khan (Jai Bhaba) personally had liking for poetry and would love to have ‘Musharas’ at his place.
The ramifications of 1953 did divide National Conference but all the factions supported this literary renaissance of Khuohma. It was the reason during Ghulam Muhammed Bakhshi’s tenure, Jeshne Kashmir was celebrated in the Nishat Bagh of Bandipur with full fervor and zeal. It would end with the annual Musharia, where all the poets of the region, and the invited from other towns, and the city, would take part.
Bakshi Sahib would personally know these poets by name and he became the anchor of this literary renaissance until his removal from power under Kamraj Plan. After him, it was sheer coincidence and good luck that High School was converted into Nadim Memorial Higher Secondary School. It had two distinguished principals, who continued with the literary and intellectual tradition of Bandipur.
Principal Kazmi, whose tenure marks the holistic transformation of education system in this particular school, where extracurricular activism got moxed with curriculum of the courses.
The whole Khuohma was geographically divided into five zones and each zone was given a name. The dates from November 1st to December 20th, were marked in the school calendar a time period for the zonal competitions of extra curriculum activities that would include all possible literary and sports activities, indoors as well as outdoors. The zones were, Madhumati, Cananl, Nadim, Gulshan and Wullar.
It would be a dream like scene for public and audience to witness their heroes earning points for their zones in competition to the extent of sub nationalism at its lived experience. Nowhere in Kashmir such an experimentation of holistic development at such level was conceived which NM Higher Secondary School Bandipur had introduced.
The public would count months so that after their harvest they would be free to enjoy the joy and emotional engagements of these annual school zonal competitions. It developed institutional bonding between private public engagement and attachment to Kazmi Sahib.
The school had very special teachers mostly pandits, who were competent and dedicated to accomplish this mission of new Kashmir. To name a few, who would not know Sh. Som Nath Kaul of Safapora, Ved Lal Ji Raz, Mama Saheb Imam e Hye , Misri Saheb, Girdhari Lal, Nirajannath junior and Narjannath senior, Latif Saheb, Raghu Nath ji, Ahmadullah Sahib Afandhi, Kashinath ji, Mohammad Afzal Sahib, Kh Shamasudin Wani and Baskarnath ji, and many others.
Despite a little rupture, Principal Usman Fazli Saheb carried on the mission of transformative education in school where lived life would be intrinsic with morality, religion and education, a blended life world experiences. The education in the school was a process of generating holistic transformation of a student at his formative stage of life.
It was to include girls school of Bandipora, but before that a break came in early 1970s, when influences of new rich class from neighboring towns poured into this place to change the subjectivity of emerging youth and the landscape of the place. Even then Bandipora, now forgotten Khuohma, remains a torch bearer in the thick affluence and breaching institutions of the valley.
The author is Emeritus professor in sociology at Banaras Hindu university
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.