Cultural history of Kashmir is copiously embellished with the accomplished personalities who have in the past made their mark as merchants, poets, artists, craftsmen and mystics. It is these attributes that were immortalized by Allama Iqbal who, in a lament, defined these as ‘Qoum-e-Najeebo Charb Dasto Tar Dimag’ (English: the noble natured, with skillful hands and refreshingly high minded). History enables us to know our past that is important to understand our present and future. However, while modern historical processes, and knowledge systems were established as a discipline in other parts of the subcontinent, Kashmir was engulfed in an unending conflict. This conflict impacted the inherent strength of our social systems robbing us of our sense of worth and accomplishment. There is thus an urgent need to reflect upon this, and look at remedies and correctives still available that might not remain open ad-infinitum. These accomplishments are resting with our oral traditions and histories of families, or groups, who appreciate and value the contribution of their immediate or distant ancestors, or those who have obtained knowledge about such persons from others. This precious resource lies generally with elder members of the family whose memories are at risk of being lost to time.
History allows us to know our past that is needed to understand our present and future. The study of the past is essential for ‘rooting’ people in time, enhancing their dignity, self esteem and a sense of belonging. Attempts to deprive us of our identity cannot succeed if we take recourse to preserving our legacy and traditions that shall be encapsulated as ‘our history’.
Let us now look at the gaps in our memory that we need to bridge. I would like to illustrate this by way of examples. Kashmiri shawl has universally been acknowledged as the finest of products depicting human ingenuity and deftness of skill. While that is how the shawl is known, there is hardly any record of those who where responsible for delivering a unique identity to the geography called Kashmir. A case in point is the map shawl presently displayed at V&A Museum, London. The popular legend about the shawl is that it is of a pair commissioned by the Dogra Maharaja Ranbir Singh for presenting to the Prince of Wales. This author attempted tracking the journey of this shawl through the validated sources. and now based on this tracking this legend falls apart. This shawl was not a present from the Maharaja. The shawl was exhibited at the British Indian section of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878 by a private collector, Mrs Estelle Fuller. The museum records have an interesting and revealing description of the shawl; besides other details it states that the manufacturer’s name is ‘unknown’.
A product that figured in one of the world’s most prestigious art shows at Paris has no record of the artisan, no record of who was the merchant who got it to Paris, and not even the route or any part of its journey from the place of its origin.
Another reference that has recently surfaced is in a highly acclaimed book, The Anarchy by the eminent author and historian, William Dalrymple. The book is about ‘East India Company and pillage of an Empire’. The book contains some rare and nice paintings and portraits. One of the portraits is captioned as: ‘the cultured Patna based Kashmiri merchant prince Ashraf Ali Khan and his bibi experiment with European fashions’. How interesting it would have been to know who and how did someone, retaining his Kashmiri identity, rise in the hierarchy of the aristocracy of British India to qualify for being known as such. In all probability he must have migrated during the Sikh rule in early 19th Century when it became untenable for Kashmiri Muslim nobility to live in Kashmir, and therefore they migrated from the valley. This also included the family of Nawabs of Dhaka who left during this wave of migration, established themselves in the commerce of British India and were bestowed with the province of Dhaka. This family remained intimately involved in Kashmir. One of its descendants, Nawab Ahsanullah Khan was a frequent visitor to Kashmir during Dogra rule, and among other charities he contributed to the restoration of Muslim monuments like Jamia Masjid, Kahanqahhi Naqshbandia etc. Dhaka Nawabs have left an unpublished manuscript of their family history which is lying in the Library of Dhaka University. Some years back after some effort, I was able to get a xerox copy of this manuscript. It has interesting and intimate details about the family and their journey to power but unfortunately it doesn’t say much about their departure from Kashmir.
While Kashmiris were facing persecution at the hands of Afghan, Sikh and Dogra rulers back home, they achieved pre eminence in the societies outside. They also attained skills beyond commerce, and we know many of them excelling as diplomats. The historians document the eminence and importance of Kashmiris in Trans Himalayas. Matthew W Mosca’s essay, Kashmiri merchants and Qing Intelligence Networks in the Himalayas, details the wider role played by Kashmiri merchants in this region. Besides, there are also accounts provided by British administrators and explorers of the time, William Moorcroft and Brian Houghton Hodgson, that shed tangential information on this. They traded in wool, animal skin, silk, spices, and also opium. At a time when Persian was the main language in trade centers and routes across Central and West Asia, and in Mughal and later British India, the Kashmiris were also translators, interpreters and even diplomatic agents.
We also know during this period Yarkand, Eastern Turkistan, emerged as a major centre of trade on the silk route. During this period there were 300 Kashmiri merchants trading across continents as also retaining their base in Kashmir. We still have families in Kashmir whose immediate ancestors were silk route traders and whose elders would have family and business links with them.
Coming to the theme of this write up, we have heroes, known and unknown, who went around countries proudly displaying their Kashmir identity. It is high time we trace these lineages, their contribution in building the brand Kashmir with the force of their culture, diplomacy and trading skills.
Kashmir has made a significant contribution in furthering and promoting the Middle Asian artistic pursuits in calligraphy, temporal and sacred literature, besides other art forms. The indigenous families, local and naturalized, are repositories of knowledge and highly acclaimed skills that are an integral part of our community history. Our society is faced with the challenge of subjective constructs that are meant to rob us of our collective memory. We owe it to the future generations to rise to the occasion and do all that is required to protect our community history. This will result in preserving our stories in our own words, through our own understanding. The time tested method towards this end is to document, document and document – all that has survived in our oral histories and family memories.
Postscript:
We as a group and Greater Kashmir would extend all support to this movement by way of documenting and publishing these write ups. We are also ready to help in collecting and recording the family memories and transferring them into written form. We shall earnestly look forward to the response from the concerned members of the society to come forward and contribute in this onerous task.
M Saleem Beg is former Director General Tourism J&K and Chairman National Monuments Authority. He heads the J&K Chapter of INTACH.