One glaring instance of ‘stealing’ Kashmir’s heritage is the transfer, on the pretext of safety, of the Gilgit Manuscripts from Srinagar to Delhi in 1948. As armed conflict was going on between India and Pakistan over the status of Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, convinced Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Emergency Administrator in Kashmir, that these manuscripts were in danger of being lost to arson and must be shifted to Delhi till the situation in Kashmir normalized. He sent a special plane to take the manuscripts out of Kashmir, only never to be returned. With a keen eye on history and culture, Nehru knew the importance of the treasure as much as he knew the cavity in his promise to return it. As in the case of the usurped autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir, Abdullah naively waited for his friend to fulfill his promise. After returning to power in 1975, he asked for these manuscripts from Delhi but beyond Prime Minister Indira Gandhi writing to him that she has “asked details from the Ministry of Culture”, the Government of India did not pay any heed. In fact, it feigned ignorance whenever the matter was raised. An RTI application seeking information from the National Archives of India on whether it would return the Gilgit Manuscripts is awaiting answer since 20 November 2017. Notwithstanding the silence maintained by the Government of India, a former Director of the National Museum admitted that the manuscripts were in the Museum. “They [National Museum] have exhibited Gilgit Manuscripts in exhibitions as their prized possession. I have seen these manuscripts in original form and they are still kept in the National Museum” [Taing, Kashmir Qalam].
Dating back to 5th-6th century AD, the Gilgit Manuscripts hold “the key to the exact evolution of Sanskrit, Buddhist, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Tibetan literatures”[SALT, April-June 2015] and deal with the teachings of Buddhism, philosophy and social customs. The texts throw light on the social life of Kashmir’s earliest people and Buddhism, and establishment of Buddhist Vihars in Kashmir [Daik, Sheeraza]. Some manuscripts provide information on flora of Kashmir, especially the Chinar establishing its indigenous status. Kashmir having been an important centre of Buddhist faith and literature for over a millennium underscores the importance of the Gilgit Manuscripts for the land. Written on birch bark, the Manuscripts were discovered per chance by a shepherd at Naupur, a village in Gilgit, in 1931. He was grazing his sheep when he stumbled over the treasure which lay in several half-buried wooden boxes. He informed his fellow shepherds who distributed the booty among themselves. When the Governor of Gilgit, a part of the undivided Jammu & Kashmir, now a Pakistan administered area, came to know about it he sent his men to recover the find. The officials seized many manuscripts; some were destroyed by people for the fear of reprisal by the Government and some they sold for peanuts. The seized manuscripts were brought to Srinagar where Maharaja Hari Singh ordered their preservation after a team of experts attested to their immense cultural value. The first news about the Gilgit Manuscripts was broken by the Statesman on 24 July 1931.
Not only the Gilgit Manuscripts, hundreds of other manuscripts sent to Delhi for repair or other purposes have not been returned. The record of the Research Library Hazratbal reveals that in 1948, as many as 212 Sanskrit manuscripts were sent to the National Archives, New Delhi which it has held back since. The manuscripts form the first 212 indexed items of the library established in 1904 as Research and Reference Department. The manuscripts mostly comprise Budhhist and Hindu religious and cultural literature and include titles like Bodha Taddhati, Hari Tattva Muktawali, Chanderaleka with commentary, Rasamanjan with commentary, Alankarodaharma, Upadesa Ratna Panchaka, Upanishads (1) Mundika (2) Prasana (3) Chchandogya (4) Kathavali (5) Aitareya (6) Isavasya (7) Mandukya and (8) Kena, Samptika Parvan of the Mahabharta with Bhavadipa, Ramaswamidha of the Padma Purana, Sisupala Vadha with commentary, Anarghareghava Nataka, Alankara Sarvasva, Alankara Vimarshini and Bhagvadgita with commentary.
Kashmir has witnessed pillage of its intellectual heritage also in the shape of valuable books that people have borrowed from libraries but never returned. A former teacher at the University of Kashmir tells about a retired colleague who “refuses” to return over one hundred books he had loaned from his friends over a period of time. In 2013, the Department of Libraries and Research ran a media campaign requesting borrowers to return the books which they were withholding for decades, after a stock audit in 2011 threw up shocking statistics. From public libraries across Jammu & Kashmir, 36,696 books were ‘outstanding with borrowers’ while another 33,200 were recorded as ‘missing’. Kashmir accounted for 24,819 and 9044 books in the two categories, respectively. A substantial number of these books included rare and reference titles. Srinagar’s SPS Library alone accounted for 2616 outstanding and 5365 missing titles. The Reference and Research Library located within the University of Kashmir campus, showed 153 outstanding and 867 missing books. The defaulters with various public libraries include, besides common borrowers and middle rung officials, former heads of the state bureaucracy, advisors, administrative secretaries, and heads of the Libraries & Research Department itself. On 6 December 1994, one former Advisor to the Head of the State borrowed from a public library Travels in the Mughal Empire, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini (Vol I & II) and The Gardens of Mughals in India which are still outstanding against him. A former boss of the state bureaucracy failed to return books like Alberuni’s India, Account of an Embassy to the Court of Tashoo Lama in Tibet and History of Hindustan (2 volumes) which he had borrowed in 1988 and 1996. One of his successors has The Warning of Kashmir, Things Seen in Kashmir, Zulfi Bhuttoo of Pakistan: His Life and Times and Prepare or Perish outstanding against him since 1993. Another retains with him History of Jammu & Kashmir and Kashmir Saivism since 1997. A former head of the Libraries and Research Department has not returned Valley of Kashmir, Kashmir: Past and Present, Civil Service Examinations and Complete Guide to PSC since 1998. Another senior officer of the department, who later rose to become a legislator, has 8 books outstanding against him since 1991 and 1993 which include Kashmir Crisis, Iqbal: An International Missionary of Islam, Preparae or Perish, Kashmir: Pakistan’s Proxy War, Kashmir Under the Sultans and With Pen and Rifle in Kashmir. The ‘worthy’ defaulters include quite a few who have since travelled to the other world.
Khalid Bashir Ahmad is the author of Kashmir-Exposing the myth behind the narrative