Many communities e.g. Palestinians, Jews, Tibetans, Sindhis, Kashmiri Hindus, have been banished from their homeland through an act of religiouscleansing.

Invariably, the aggressor community resorts to cultural effacement in the aftermath of ethnic-cleansing to deny that the victimised community ever belonged to its homeland. Recording the story of this effacement is always a painful journey for the members of victimised communities.

Lahore Nama, a travelogue written by Shri Santosh Kumar Gurtoo, has with subtle sensitivity summed up the cultural cleansing Lahore has undergone in the wake of 1947 partition.

The travelogue also unwinds the social knots and depicts how the praetorian state is bulldozing the aspirations of its own people – writers, Trade Union leaders, political workers etc. Santosh Kumar is a scion of the well-known Gurtoo dynasty. His grandfather, Pt. Mukand Ram Gurtoo (1831-1897) had left Kashmir in mid-nineteenth century, to seek employment in Lahore. Pt. Mukand Ram was an institution builder. He went on to launch Akhbar-i-Aam (Urdu) and Mitra Vilasa (Hindi) papers and also established a printing press. Shri Santosh Kumar, a person of great integrity and depth, has carried forward the family legacy of fearless, truthful journalism. Joining Urdu daily Pratap in Lahore in 1945, he retired as its news editor in 1987. He subscribes to left views and has been actively associated with country’s trade union movement under the aegis of AITUC.

An ardent patriot, he was dismissed from service for organising a strike in a British Company, which he was serving, against the INA Trials in November, 1945.

Like other Hindus and Sikhs of Lahore, Shri Santosh Kumar had to abandon his place of birth in September, 1947 under helpless and humiliating conditions.

From June to August, 1947, the Muslim League National Guards, blinded by passion and hatred, succeeded in burning down street after street from Shah Alami gate area to Rang Mahal, finishing and driving out the surviving non-Muslims from the ancient city. The author has included in this travelogue the photographs, depicting this destruction and frenzy that Lahore underwent in 1947. The photographs were taken by Shri Govind Lal, a free-lance photographer of Lahore.

Hindus ethos

Pre-partition Lahore was a town with distinct Hindu ethos, where Hindus formed the substantial majority. It was home to Dr. Gopi Chand Bhargava (later Chief Minister of East Punjab), Mrs. Swaroop Rani Nehru-Thussu (mother of Pt. JL Nehru), Kedar Nath Sehgal, a legendary revolutionary leader etc. Sehgal braved British jails for many years and had worn black clothes on the death of Tilak. He vowed to remain in black till freedom was won. After he came to Delhi as a refugee, he refused to discard the black robes retorting, “Is this what you call freedom”.

Prof. Tirath Ram, who became famous later as Swami Ram Tirath, lived in“Telian di Khi”, near Sanatan Dharam Complex. Santani Swami Shraddhanand, who composed “Om Jaya Jagdeesh Harey”, resided in the Hari Gyan Mandir, situated on Mohan Lal Road, the famous text-book market of Lahore. Pt. Tota Ram Naqqash, a master-painter of Kashmiri School of Painting lived inHarcharan dia Pauriyan, near Wachhowli area. Some of his master paintings were retrieved by Shri Santosh Kumar from his burning house in July 1947 and form part of Lahore Nama.

Lahore had a good number of Kashmiri Pandit families. These lived in Wachhowali quarter of Lahore. Shri Santosh Kumar’s family used to live in the Kucha Badri Bhagat. Badri was a disciple of the famous Chhaju Bhagat of Lahore. Santosh Kumar’s other relations, including Prof. JP Gurtu, used to live in Kutcha Mehtian.

The famous scholar of Sanskrit, Pt. Laxmi Narain Ji used to teach Sanskrit in the temple complex of Ramdwara. This temple finds reference in the history of Lahore authored by Syed Muhammed Latif. Pt. Laxmi Narain’s brother, Pt. Paras Ram was a great Katha-Vachak, while his youngest brother Pt. Madan Gopal, culled the teachings of Bhagwat Gita and presented the results through the medium of a set of playing cards. Shri Santosh Kumar used to learn Sanskrit here. He has also managed to preserve a set of these cards, which are displayed in the book.

Maharaja Gulab Singh’s younger brother, Raja Dhyian Singh once served as Prime Minister to Maharaja Ranjeet Singh. It was in a house located in Haveli Dhyian Singh that Pt. Bal Krishna, father of Shri Santosh Kumar was born in 1880.

Another part of haveli housed Dyal Singh High School. Haveli belonged to J&K government. In 1864 Maharaja Ranbir Singh of J&K had allowed Lahore College to be established in another part of haveli. Sardar Dyal Singh, a Brahmo Samajist had established the school and the college. Prof. PN Pandit, a Kashmiri used to teach sciences in this college till 1947.

Another historic building was huge Sanatan Dharam Sabha Complex.Besides housing offices of SD Sabha, it had a school, a temple and a pathshala attached to it. Its vast enclosure was a venue of many social functions.

Leading Congress stalwarts, Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilk and others used to address meetings here. Vishnu Digamber, who established Gandharv Maha Vidyala in Ram Nagar, Lahore, had sung the popular arti “Om Jaya Jagdish Harey” in the courtyard of this complex.

Nationalist bastion

Lahore has also remained the bastion of nationalist and left movements. ItsBrad-Laugh Hall, once the headquarters of the Punjab Congress Committee had seen such veteran leaders -  CR Das, Moti Lal Nehru, Mrs Sarojini Naidu, Bi-Amma (mother of Ali Brothers of Khilafat movement), Mahatma Gandhi, JL Nehru, Hiren Mukerjee, Dr. Kunwar Mohd. Ashraf, Mian Iftikhar Uddin, Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew etc. addressing Lahoris. Dedicated to the great British libertarian Charles Brad-laugh, its foundation stone was laid by Shri Surendra Nath Banerji, the Congress President (1895-1902). Shri Santosh Kumar recalls with nostalgia his association with Brad-laugh Hall during his student years. Following Gandhi’s call to boycott Govt/Govt. aided educational institutions, the National College was established in a part of this complex. Bhagat Singh, the Indian revolutionary used to be a student of this college when Prof. Chabil Das was its Principal.

Gandhi had once presided over this college’s convocation. The Pakistan Govt. to erase this historical memory, has converted it into a technical institute.

‘Pratap Building’, which used to be the head office of Daily Pratap, is another link to Lahore’s past. Shops of Umrao Singh and Megh Raj were famous sweets shops. Gul-Bahist (Flower of Heaven) was innovation of Megh Raj. Lahore has also produced great singers -  Nur Jehan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Shamshad Begum etc. who lived in Hiramandi quarter of the city.

Cultural Effacement

Shri Santosh Kumar does not feel shy in telling the readers how Lahore has undergone cultural effacement since 1947, to erase its Hindu past. During his recent visit to Lahore when a young boy asked him to tell the difference between pre-partition Lahore and 1980 Lahore, Shri Santosh Kumar spontaneously reacted, “Pehle is mohalle vich mein wai Mahinder sunda sa, hun wai Sikandar sun reha aan”. (Earlier in this mohalla I used to hear Wai Mahinder and now can hear Wai Sikandar). What used be “Kutcha Kali Mata” (Gumti bazaar) has now become “Kutcha Aurangzeb”.

The temple of the goddess Kali Mata has been turned into a human habitation. Similarly, Grand Trunk Road has been renamed after another tyrant, Mahmud Ghaznavi, “Shahrah-e- Ghazanavi”. The author protested to Pakistanis, “who was Ghazanavi? For 16 long years, he did not annex Punjab lest he becomes responsible for the maintenance of law and order. He just carried out yearly raids.

A raider cannot be hailed as a hero

Before 1947, two shrines -  Sunehri Gurdwara (Baoli Sahib) and Sunehri Masjid stood near Dabbi bazaar. Sunehri Masjid still stands, but the Gurdwara is no more there. It was burnt down during communal violence in 1947. The famous Hanuman Mandir is also not there. In its place an embroidery shop has come up.

A massive statue of Goddess Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, gave name to the chowk which housed it. The statue was burnt after the partition. Gita Bhavan on Nisbet Road was a huge building constructed by Sewak Ram, son of famous philonthropist-engineer Sir Ganga Ram. The message of Gita in Devnagri script was engraved on its outer wall. With the initiation of Zia’s Islamisation in early 1980′s, this engraving was removed.

According to historians Multan town’s historical name was Mool Sthan (original place).

On a maund here stood a temple dedicated to Prehlad, son of King Harnakashyap. Its story commemorates the celebration of Holi. The spire of the pre-historic shrine is still visible. The temple has been closed since 1947. Instead, a hostel has been built within the old boundary wall. Of and on, attempts were made to pull down the old temple, but saner sections voiced strong protests. Finally, the temple was pulled down in 1992.

A photograph of this demolished town has been included in the travelogue. In the past many Indian rulers tried a number of times to liberate the temple but the Arabs threatened to demolish the shrine if Indians advanced towards Multan. The offerings at the shrine had to be deposited in Bait-ul-Maal (Islamic treasury) of the Khalifa.

The believers of two-nation theory have not spared even anti-colonialist symbols. The prison where Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev went to the gallows has been demolished and a fountain erected. Santosh Kumar notes with pain that this has been done “not to commemorate their martyrdom but to erase the memory of the martyrs of India”.

In Golbagh, near the famous Anarkali bazaar, there used to be the statue of Sher-e-Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai. Santosh Kumar refers to its demolition, “After partition, one finger of this statue of a Kafir (infidel) was broken by the bigots”. On the intervention of Dr. GC Bhargava, the erstwhile Chief Minister of East  Punjab, the statue was brought to Simla and after repairs installed on the famous ridge there.

Punjab Library was inaugurated in December 1885. It used to preserve the old files of the Lahore press. On a visit to the Library, Santosh Kumar found that all the newspapers published before independence had been removed or deliberately destroyed.

The objective was to keep the new generation of Lahoris ignorant about the glorious role played by the Lahore press in the anti-colonial movement.

Kissa Jag Maaye Kya

In 1947, in Gumti Bazaar, one old Hindu lady had continued to live in her house, while all non-Muslims of the area, including her son, a goldsmith shifted out. The Muslim refugees from East Punjab were occupying Hindu houses. One day, the refugees advised the old lady to move to the refugee camp at Lajpat Bhawan (run by Lala Achint Ram, a prominent social worker of Punjab and father of Late Krishan Kant, former Vice- President of India), and leave the house. She flared up and shouted back,” I shall not leave. It is my house and I shall continue to dwell here”. Weeks passed by.

She still had some rations left and continued to cook her food herself. On the Diwali night of November, 1947, the old lady celebrated Diwali by lighting earthen lamps outside main door. Her house was the lone house that was lit up. She herself prepared sweets and distributed these to her new neighbours. Gradually, human feelings took over as baser passions subsided.

The new neighbours started talking to her. Whenever anybody in the neighborhood fell sick, she would visit the family and nurse the sick. It so happened that the family she would visit would receive good tidings. This deepened the affection of new neighbours for her. Her fame spread from Gumti to Syad Mitha and she came to be hailed as Jagmayee (the revered lady of the earth). They took full care of her food. She passed away in 1962. Her neighbours decided to bury her in the Muslim cemetery, as the ancient Hindu crematorium, Ramu da Bagh, had been closed down. Maulvi of the local mosque intervened and advised the neighbours to perform her last rites as per Hindu custom as she died a Hindu. The body of the old lady was carried to the banks of Ravi and neighbours lit the pyre. On the third day, her ashes were collected and consigned to the river. In late 1970s the house collapsed and was auctioned.

Shri Santosh Kumar, on his visit to Lahore met a Lahori Muslim, who used to run a shop in the Mochi gate area. Before 1947 his association with Hindu neighbours had turned him into a vegetarian. He was admirer of Sufi Lachhman Parshad and his monthly Mastana Jogi, the popular magazine of Lahore.

This gentleman belonged to the clan of Bhatti Rajputs, who centuries ago had converted to Islam. Bhatti gate, named after these Rajputs, is the oldest gate of the walled city.

The first edition of Lahore Nama made such an impact on Mrs. Indira Gandhi that she got it translated into English for her perusal.

Title: LAHORE NAMA

Author: Santosh Kumar

Price: Rs 150

Published By: Vibha Publications, J-22, BK Dutt Colony Jor Bagh Road, New Delhi- 110003.

Frustrated aspirations:

David Devdas tries to locate Kashmiri alienation (read Muslim alienation) in ‘Frustrated aspirations’ of new groups of educated youth aspiring for jobs. He attributes‘historical socio-economic resentment’ against Kashmiri Pandits and their disproportionate share’ in professional trainings and jobs as the basis of so-called ‘thwarted aspirations’. At times the author makes confused and contradictory statements. For example at one place he says ‘Selfish aspirations have run amok’.The ‘frustrated’ and ‘selfish’ expressions have two conflicting connotations. What can be the basis for study of share of different communities in land, trade, manufacturing, jobs and trainings and even demography other than historically verifiable data? Devdas does not provide any statistics at all. Anecdotal tales do history.

‘Frustrated aspirations’ thesis has been directly lifted up from ‘Frustrated Middle Class’, a hackneyed expression used by Prem Shankar Jha in 1990. Jha’s sympathies, if his writings and public stances are any indication, lie with exclusivist Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism. His contribution to distortion of facts to render legitimacy to this regressive sub-nationalism has been legion. As terrorist movement unfolded in Kashmir a self-righteous section of Indian Civil Society, rooted in left-liberal politics, sought to rake up ‘economic reasons’ behind the armed revolt.. The objective was to obfuscate the theo-fascist character of the movement. How could the religious-based separatist campaign build the emotive pitch for the terrorist movement without raking up extreme religiosity? For this identifying a religious minority as‘the other’ was a compulsion. It has been true of all communal movements in history. Inventing imaginary wrongs committed by Pandits against the majority community became a necessity – both to build a ‘socio-economic rationale’ for the theo-fascist movement as well as to unleash religious-cleansing against Kashmiri Hindus.

Communal view:

Devdas takes a communal view of history. He identifies religious communities as homogenous groups, ignoring class and social stratification. How do few members of the community, who may have held substantial jagirs, make up the whole community? More than 80% of Kashmiri Pandit population lived in the city of Srinagar at all times during the past 200 years. How many of them were landowning families? How many Pandit families were engaged in big shawl trade? Why should a historically persecuted minority be subjected to psychological retribution just because few Pandit families happened to be part of landed gentry? Is it not to build a rationale for permanent cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits for all times to come?

Land Reforms:

During the tribal invasion there were innumerable instances where Pandit families were saved by their Muslim tillers. How could this be possible if Pandit landlords had been harsh towards their tenants? During 1819-1947 one does not come across a single peasant revolt in Kashmir. Why has it been so? If peasant question was missing in National Conference campaign in pre-1947 period it was because landlordism was not a serious issue at all. Peasantry suffered because of low-yield of agriculture and occasionally because of excesses committed by revenue bureaucracy. Before 1931 Kashmiris were reluctant to take land because of difficulty in paying revenue. It was after 1931 when proprietary rights were granted in Kashmir that Kashmiris-both communities began investing in land. In 1948-1950 when new regime initiated land reforms Sheikh Abdullah and Bakshi Gh. Mohammad were cool to the idea. Mirza Afzal Beg, who himself was a landlord, and GM Sadiq supported land reforms for communal and communist reasons respectively. Sheikh Abdullah came to support land reforms at a later stage when threat of plebiscite was looming large and Pakistan was raking up religious emotions to clinch the issue. Pt Rish Dev, a communist leader and Director of ‘Debt Cancellation Board’  has authored a study on the land reforms in Kashmir, an English translation of which is now available. He has provided shocking details of how landlords of the majority community behaved towards their tenants and also circumvented land reforms through political patronage. Normally, the tenants should have had more resentment against their co-regionalists. Devdas takes a very superficial view of Kashmir’s rural scene, remaining contented in listening to ‘daleels’ rather than dissecting the problem deeper. If sections of landed gentry, shawl and other traders, educated youth from majority community were fuelling communal passions against Pandits it was because geo-political factors were in operation. The Britishers had been putting enough pressure on Dogra Maharajas over the issue of Gilgat. They were not happy with Maharaja Hari Singh, particularly over his role during Round Table Conference. There was also spillover of communal politics from Punjab.

Job Markets:

Even on the issue of jobs, the greater share of which is supposed to have gone to Pandits the boot is on the other leg. There have been two phases of separatist armed insurgency – 1960s and 1980s. 1960s was the age of plenty. Large-scale development and huge funds pushed by the Central government into Kashmir flooded Kashmir with jobs.. There was, infact, paucity of people to fill the vacancies. If Kashmiri Pandits could also gain entry into State government sector particularly as teachers, it was understandable. At the time of exodus in 1990 the number of Pandit employees was 13 thousand among 4 lakh state government employees. Out of this 6500 worked in education sector alone. So where was the question of resentment over jobs and trainings? Moreover, besides increased number of jobs available there was a revolution in agriculture and dairy, productions increased many fold. There was also boom in carpets/handicraft and horticulture sector. Even the poorest of the poor became beneficiaries of the expansion of Handlooms.

Communalism, Secessionism and Fundamentalism:

To look for economic reasons behind the eruption of armed revolt is to search for black spots on the sun. The origins of communal-separatist movement in Kashmir need to be looked into elsewhere. In 1947 the size of Kashmiri Muslim educated class was small. Due to free education and better economic opportunities it expanded manifold. Whether it was Land Reforms, Debt cancellation or expansion of development sector there were no politically meaningful campaigns to back these. These were implemented as part of ‘Correcting Historical Wrongs’. This strengthened communal political consciousness among the youth who grew up between 1947-1964. The threat of reopening of accession also  loomed large. This introduced an element of opportunism. And finally, the youth was exposed to communal-secessionist politics of Plebiscite Front since 1953.

Parallel with this campaign the fundamentalist organisations-Jamaat Islami, Ahli Hadith and Allawale were trying to bring religious consciousness in tune with Wahabi orientation. Since 1980 the Kashmiri youth were exposed to transnational jihad also. It was not ‘frustrated aspirations’ but heightened sense of communal identity and increasing proclivity to fundamentalist-secessionist ideas that was breeding alienation from India. Instead of countering this trend the mainstream politics tried to sail with it.

Bizarre Formulations:

The author makes some bizarre formulations. One that the areas which benefited from Land Reforms and Development were not pro-Pakistan. Secondly, the pockets where land reforms had been rolled back-by consolidating orchards which were exempt from land ceilings the Jamaat dominated. Thirdly, doctors and engineers came to be attracted by Jamaat Islami.

Jamaat Islami’s strongholds were Zaingir-Pohru belt and Sopore in north Kashmir, Kulgam-Shopian in South Kashmir and Mochow-Soibug-Wadawan in Central Kashmir. In Srinagar it was the Solina area which Jamaat considered its bastion. None of these areas had anything specific which was not common to rest of the Valley. There has always been a thin line between pro-Pak sentiment and local Muslim sub-nationalism. Infact, there has been inter-changing of roles. To locate pro-Pak sentiment in thwarted land reforms and non-development is to fly from facts. Lastly, it were not doctors and engineers as professional groups who were more enamoured by Jamaat Islami. The cadres from Jamaat came mostly amongst teachers (who had access to Jamaat literature), masons, Pir-Syed group who leaned towards Wahabism-Debandi ideology, some members of low social origin who needed a superstructure ideology for respectability.

Jamaat Islami’s top leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Saadudin, Qari Saifuddin etc. started their career as teachers. Geelani’s father was a casual night watchmen and not a member of ruined feudal class. Another section which identified itself with Jamaat Islami were corrupt members of bureaucracy and upstart elite. In this case cover of Jamaat Islami provided a smokescreen to camouflage their misdeeds. An excellent study of this phenomenon titled ‘Kashmiri Muslim Society-Changing Contours’ by Dr. K.N. Pandita was published in Kashmir Times, Jammu in 1991.

David Devdas wrongly singles out National Conference leadership for seeing Jamaat Islami only as a doctrinal grouping and not as a socio-economic force. None of the leaders-Bakshi, Sadiq or Sheikh Abdullah treated Jamaat Islami as a threat-either as a doctrinal threat or as a socio-political force. They maintained opportunistic relationship with Jamaat Islami. Mir Qasim even rewarded them with 5 assembly seats in 1972. In fact, emerging rural elite used Jamaat as a vehicle for getting share in administrative and political power. Qasim-Jamaat alliance was its manifestation.

David Devdas would like us to believe that ISI started training Kashmiris in subversion only after December 1987. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Not only a leading news agency but also government’s own sources had confirmed that by May 1984 hundreds of Kashmiri youth had undergone training in 13 camps set up by Pakistan and were paid Rs 20 thousand on return by ISI. Who were these people who underwent training if JKLF/Islamic Student League went for training only after December 1987? Devdas is silent on this.

Dev Das has a solution – Indo-Pak problem can be resolved only if Kashmir heals itself. He remarks, “That healing must be internal. Harmony within Kashmir is not possible without moral courage. It involves accommodation of others’ aspirations and that is only possible through non-attachment and discipline”.Will Kashmiris listen?

By P.N. Raina

Jeet (win) Ya (or) Haar (Defeat) is a novel based on the Tribal Raiders’ invasion of J&K State in 1947. Its author Prof. Balraj Madhok claims that the novel is based on the actual incidents, events he had recorded regularly in his daily diary. Actual names of some characters have been changed to protect their identity as the novel was first published in 1953. Real incidents have been dramatized to give it the shape of a novel. Many of the events narrated by the author have been corroborated by independent observers who were witness to the era. Sh. Meher Chand Mahajan took over as Prime Minister of J&K State on 15th October 1947. His shrewdness, administrative capability and political foresight were well acknowledged even by his adversaries. His appointment unnerved Pakistanis who felt that their game-plan to grab Kashmir may run into rough weather with Mahajan at the helm. The Pakistanis were working overtime to create vast subversion network in the J&K State to prepare the ground for external invasion. They were trying to buy the loyalties of their co-religionists in state forces, training a section of local population for subversion in Jammu province. They were also dumping arms and ammunition in selective areas of Jammu region. All this was being planned meticulously, keeping the strategic details and the D-Day a top secret. While all this was being done the senior officers of State forces were kept in good humour that everything was hunky dory. Prof. Balraj Madhok’s well-written novel throws light on all this. It also covers the actual invasion and the author’s escape in the aftermath of invasion. Many canards were spread by his political adversaries to distort his role and twist events to suit them politically. A dispassionate history detailing the patriotic role of all those forces who worked overtime to see the Kashmir remains with India during those, fateful days still eludes us. ‘Haar’ Ya ‘Jeet’ will obviously help in removing many cobwebs of confusion and facilitate in reconstructing the authentic history of that phase.

PROF. MADHOK’S ROLE:

Prof. Madhok was among the first 15 RSS workers of Undivided Punjab. He stood first in MA (History) inPunjab University. He came to Srinagar in 1944 and was appointed Vice-Principal of DAV College. Prof. Madhok was also chief of RSS organisation in Kashmir. A dynamic organiser Prof. Madhok was able to create a group of 250 cadres in Srinagar within a few years. During his stay in Lahore he had also been working in coordination with RSS workers in Rawalpindi district, Peshawar, Hazara, Abbotabad, Lahore etc. Due to his contacts with Sh. Meher Chand Mahajan from Lahore days Prof. Madhok had direct access to higher-ups in Maharaja’s administration. As per Prof. Madhok’s testimony he harnessed all his contacts to unearth the invasion conspiracy even as early as 9th October i.e. 12 days before the actual invasion. Had his information been acted upon much of the death and destruction could have been averted. The Maharaja’s administration would have been on a firmer wicket to face the Raiders (read Pakistanis). But then these are ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ of history.

DR. S.K. ATRI’S INFORMATION:

On October 8, 1947 Prof. Madhok got the first clue regarding the intended invasion from Dr. SK Atri. A medico from UP, Dr. Atri had been practicising medicine in Srinagar for over two decades. He was an influential and a renowned doctor in the city. Some of his elderly Muslim clients who had po-Pak views had visited him in the evening of 7th October and requested him to leave Srinagar along with his family at the earliest because Pakistan would be invading Kashmir soon and members of the minority community would be soft targets. A little scared Dr. Atri took Prof. Madhok into confidence the following day.

PUNJAB MUSLIM HOTEL:

During those days Punjab Muslim Hotel at Pratap Chowk (now called Lal Chowk) was known to be the rendezvous of Pak spies and agents. Prof. Madhok took a few of his top cadres into confidence and decided out a strategy to dig out more details about the Pak gameplan. He decided to utilize the services of some cadres who had come to Srinagar from Punjab and NWFP. Prof Madhok managed to infiltrate his confidents into Punjab Muslim Hotel. Within two days he was able to unearth major elements in the Pakistani conspiracy. He got precise details about how Pakistan was subverting loyalties of a section of the Maharaja’s forces. Many top officers at Civil and Military level were working for Pakistan. These included Col. Adalat Khan, Ch. Faizullah Khan, Wazir Wazarat Baramulla. Prof. Madhok also learnt that invasion was to come from the direction of Abottabad, the invaders were to include Pak army personnel in civies and Pathan tribesmen. The Maharaja was to be taken captive, and then Pakistan would make declaration about Kashmir’s accession with Pakistan. Prof. Madhok says that soon after collecting this vital information he managed to convey it to Maharaja and Brig. Kashmir Singh, the Chief of State Forces. Madhok made a suggestion to disarm the section of state forces whose loyalities had raised a question mark.

HARISH BHANOT:

Two days later Harish Bhanot, RSS Chief of Abbotabad reached Srinagar. After partition Bhanot had been working underground as a RSS activist in Abbotabad under the cover name of ‘Nawab of Boi’. He had links with top officials of Pakistan and had gathered vital information from them about the invasion. Before the cover could blow off Bhanot managed to reach Srinagar by Car. On 16th of October, Prof. Madhok apprised Sh. Meherchand Mahajan about the information brought by Bhanot. Prime Minister Mahajan in view of limited strength of state forces made a request to Prof. Madhok to lend his helping hand. On 17th October Brig. Kashmir Singh met Prof. Madhok and informed him that details supplied by the latter have been found to be true. The Brigadier also expressed helplessness of the government in acting upon the information in view of limited troops at its disposal. Srinagar had just one company, with loyalty of a good number of troops under doubt. Brig. Kashmir Singh also talked about non-availability of arms and ammunition (which used to come via Rawalpindi road) and petrol stocks. Three was no enough petrol for army trucks. Brig. Kashmir Singh’s another worry was that Col. Narayain Singh was refusing to accept the gravity of the situation as related by Headquarters. The Brigadier asked Prof. Madhok to send some of his own activists to Domel to convince Col. Narain Singh. Accordingly, Harish Bhanot was sent on

Col. Narain Singh

motorcycle to Domel on morning of 22nd October. At Uri he learnt about the raiders’ attack and returned to Srinagar in the evening. A few hours after Bhanot had left for Domel, Sh. Mangla Sein, a RSS Pracharak of Teetwal reached Srinagar. He informed Prof. Madhok about raiders’ attack on Muzaffarabad and told him that non-Muslims were fleeing towards Srinagar and Poonch to escape reprisals. Bhanot later joined Hindustan Times as a columnist and belonged to an influential family. He lives in Chandigarh. Mangal Sein later became leader of opposition in Haryana Assembly.

RSS HELP CALLED:

In the intervening night of 23/24 October, Maharaja’s ADC took Prof. Madhok to Maharaja’s palace in Srinagar. The Maharaja was closeted with his Prime Minister and Brig. Kashmir Singh. Sh. Meher Chand Mahajan talked about the grimness of the situation, aggravated by desertions in State forces. The Prime Minister said that his government expected Indian forces soon and asked Prof. Madhok to get his cadres so that they could be of help in maintaining order in Srinagar. At that time Brig. Rajender Singh was still holding on at Uri. While meeting was on the Maharaja telephonically ordered Brigadier to hold on to the last man and the last breath. On 24 October, Prof. Madhok collected 200 workers at the premises of Arya Samaj, most of them were college students. They were given two hours training in using 303 rifles at Badami Bagh. On 26th October, some groups of raiders had already positioned themselves around Shalteng. Prof. Madhok had gone to Badami Bagh Cantt to know whether Indian Army was coming in time or not. At 3 PM it was clear that Indian forces were expected any moment. Soon after this news NC and Communist Workers came out on streets of Srinagar for organising Civil Defence of the city. Same evening 200 RSS workers were put in 2-3 army trucks by Maharaja’s administration and despatched to Shalteng to hold back raiders till the time Indian forces landed in Srinagar. When the trucks reached Hari Singh High Street (Amirakadal) NC workers intercepted them. They searched the RSS cadres and found most of their rifle magazines empty. The NC workers thrashed them, telling them that raiders would lynch them within no time at Shalteng. The RSS workers were disarmed and asked to disperse. Later, a mischievous rumour was floated that RSS plan to create mischief in the city had been foiled. This mistrust later led to a bigger conflict, which paved way for Sheikh Abdullah’s dismissal in 1953. Prof. Madhok’s novel also makes a revelation that Maharaja cancelled his visit to Bhimbar on 20th October on the basis of information supplied by him. The Maharaja and his Prime Minister were on a tour of Jammu region to take stock of the latest situation. Pakistan, having come to know about it, had hatched a plan to attack Bhimber and take the Maharaja captive.

With the publication of the book titled The Ugly Kashmiri (Cameos in exile), which I view as a tour de force, the author has emerged as a forceful and persuasive writer, in fact a fine literary artist in the making. He deserves a word of praise for his technical accomplishment: the literary feat that he has performed in conveying what he wants to say about the Kashmir imbroglio and the resultant turmoil in the Valley through the short pieces of writing he calls ‘cameos’. The technique he has adopted speaks of his originality, that has suddenly made him into an innovative writer. That he is deeply and widely read, aware of the great masters of irony, satire and wit from among the British and continental writers (both  classical and modern), becomes immediately evident to the perceptive reader. The thoughtfully chosen title of the book (which, I am afraid, could mislead or alienate some readers) and the sprinkling of apt quotations on the two fly leaves of the book bear testimony to the author’s scholarship and sensitiveness as a writer. The 180 ‘cameos’ if clustered together, would have just made up a small booklet, but in terms of their desntiy of content – each cameo packed with different shades of meaning – they speak volumes. As a chronicler of events and a critic of the socio-political scene he is concerned with, the author is outstanding in his craft. His acute observations on the various dimensions of the Kashmir problem are very revealing, making the reader reflect and introspect if he is a Kashmiri in “exile”; those not displaced from the Valley I believe, will also look ‘within’ if they go through the ‘cameos’. These terse pieces remind me of the Jew of Malta’s “infinite riches in a title” – the phrase Marlowe employs in his play to describe the protagonist’s fabulous wealth stored in his room.

Prof. Gigoo has a mind of his own – a fact that is pervasively reflected in the ‘cameos’. He has naturally acquired an English prose style of his own too, evident from his excellent preface to the work in question. It is a fine piece of prose, crisp and immaculate. The author lays bare his heart, conveying his anger, anguish and disillusionment over the events that took place in Jammu and Kashmir with the outbreak of militancy in the Valley, and over the inevitable exodus of the Pandits. A discerning reader can see that he is unbiased in that he doesn’t blame any section of the inhabitants of the Valley outright, Hindus or Muslims. At this point I should like to quote these lines from the author’s preface:

“I have never had any political commitment and religious conviction. I go on changing my opinions. I dangle between an idea and its opposite. I am sure about my doubts, vacillations and uncertainties. I have  no answers and solutions to offer”.

The last two lines of the excerpt from the ‘preface’ quoted above remind me of what the English poet John Keats has said about the ‘negative capability’ of Shakespeare as a dramatist, through which he had achieved self-effacement in his works. Keats defines the quality of self-effacement as “–the ability to remain in uncertainties and doubts without any irritable reaching after facts”. To my mind – I have no hesitation in saying so – the author has largely succeeded in achieving self-effacement through the ‘cameos’ he has hit upon. He is ‘invisible’ throughout – an ‘outsider’.

Through the ‘cameos’ the author points his finger at what ails the collective psyche of the Kashmiris as a whole. He has no malice or ill-will against anyone and has no axe to grind in painting the Kashmiris ‘ugly’. He feels rooted in the Valley; hence his anguish and disgust. He targets everything unpleasant and doesn’t spare himself in the last ‘cameos’. As a neutral omniscient observer, he uses the ‘cameos’ as a medium for unburdening his heavy heart – the mental agony and suffering he has experienced in the Valley and later as a ‘migrant’ in Jammu. He is brutally frank too in conveying bitter and unpalatable things. While he points his finger at what pains and annoys him, he provides the healing touch of the physician too – in making the Kashmiri reader, Muslim or Pandit, to think hard and to introspect why things have gone wrong and how they could be remedied.

In some of the ‘cameos’ the author targets the Central Government for having bungled the Kashmir issue right from the start. The reader doesn’t find it difficult to identify the eminent personalities-political leaders and rulers-on whom aspersions are cast in this regard. As an imaginative writer, he makes statements (in the ‘cameos’) involving the interplay of wit and humour, irony and sarcasm, or paradoxes, ambiguities, innuendos, playing on words and the oblique manner of the English Metaphysicals to achieve his effects. Though the common reader can catch the general drift of the ‘cameos’, at many places he or she may get bogged down too – some ‘cameos’ seem nerve-racking as puzzles. The author will do well to provide helpful notes and clues in the form of an ‘appendix’ to the book.

Some specimens of the ‘cameos’ are given below to give the reader (of the present review) and idea of how the author employs them as his instruments:

Still

I still am; I am not still.

(The author probably has a displaced Pandit in his mind)

**

Strength

Divided we stand; united we fall.

(Applies again to the Pandits)

**

Aspirations

“What are your demands?”

“Only money and independence from you”.

(This seems an aspersion on those Kashmiris who talk of freedom)

**

The Slip

The old man saw “a ray of hope;”

his lieutenant said “those unfortunate people”; the bald bachelor felt the ‘ground slippery’.

(The old man can easily be identified as Mahatma Gandhi and his lieutenant as Nehru. Sardar Patel could be the third man who “felt the ground slippery”)

He wasn’t a bachelor.

**

Gulmarg and After

The dreamer closed his eyes when

the lion was caged; his daughter

opened hers when the cub roared;

and the young grandson played

in snow.

(Clues: The dreamer is Nehru and the grandson Rajiv Gandhi. The ‘lion’ and the ‘cub’ can easily be figured out).

**

“Nursing Orderly”

“Sir, the whole populace is on the road”

“Is it a welcome?”

“No sir, it is the beginning of a farewell”

(Clue: This obviously concerns Jagmohan’s second term as J&K Governor)

**

Introduction

“Please introduce yourself”.

“I am my own ancestor”.

(Probably reference to earlier migrations in history)

**

What Now?

“See you in Panun Kashmir”.

(Kashmiri Pandits’ disillusionment with the movement)

I congratulate the author heartily on his brilliant success in producing something that is original and novel. However, in view of its novelty and the inherent difficulties of a number of ‘cameos’, the book may not find favour with all sections
of readers.

The book is welcome in view of its rich content. I must compliment the Allied Publishers, New Delhi, on having brought out a shapely volume with an attractive get-up.

The cover-design by the author himself is another feather in his cap.

INDIA is on the threshold of becoming a major regional power. Its adversaries have been trying to thwart these ambitions by unleashing a proxy-war against it. What is intriguing  is that a section of our own people should facilitate these designs. These people need to be identified and isolated from the decision-making process. National security has emerged as India’s foremost concern. Assaults on social unity and ideological subversion by the Left-Liberal establishment have undermined the efforts to consolidate national security. ‘Indutva‘, the book under review, by Prof. MD Nalapat, a top Defence analyst answers all these concerns. Indutva is a vision of a strong India. Ideologically, it represents the fusion of the essential concepts of secularism and nationalism into a single coherent dialogue structure.

National Security

In India, in recent defence policies, there is not only absence of strategic thinking but even tactical thinking. Consequently, there has been lack of appreciation on having adequate defence systems on security. Pakistan’s proxy war and bullying attempts by global powers are the fall-out of our indecision to fashion effective nuclear and political deterrents. In the past also the defensive mindset of our rulers and the fragmentation of the social milieu led to India’s enslavement twice, first by the Turks and then by the British. Prof. Nalapat lucidly explains how blunders by the Congress leadership during the anti-colonial struggle strengthened Muslim communalism and delayed the freedom. Emotion was given precedence over reason and ground realities were ignored while working out strategies.

Prof. Nalapat criticises the current policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’. He remarks that the deterrent value of this policy would be effective only when joined to a vigorous programme of development of launch vehicles, creation of fissionable stock-piles and development towards miniaturization of war heads. He declares that the development of Agni and the deployment of Prithvi will improve the security environment significantly and act as a deterrent to Pak adventurism.

Who are the guilty men of India that are throttling India’s defence capability? A spineless political class has been ever-ready to barter away the national interests. Nalapat attributes this psyche to the result of the memory of a thousand and more years of servitude to Afghans, to Persians, to the European power. Despite the engulfing proxy-war, the successive Central governments are reluctant to mobilise popular support by elightening people about the nature of subversive threats from within and without. The same government has abandoned the frontline victims of the proxy-war and dumped the groups, who could be useful allies, to win the war against terrorism. Warmer references to a terrorist state and willingness for dialogue by the Central government and the political big-wigs only serve to demoralise the nation.

Bureaucracy, which used to be called the steel-frame, has become an instrument to undermine the national security. The Politician-Bureaucrat nexus has led to the neglect of security systems. This is what Nalapat seriously believes. This nexus wants to turn India into a lackey of Washington. Morarji Desai, Narsimha Rao etc. all created hurdles in India’s nuclear programme. Rao starved country’s strategic programmes by with holding funds. During his regime Prithvi was capped, Agni was rolled back and the nuclear deterrent made defunct. A powerful lobby even tried to hound out Dr Abdul Kalam from India’s missile programme.

A domestic lobby has been more concerned about the security interests of China and U.S. rather than India. This lobby has been encouraging the external backers of subversion. Nalapat says the way to expose the allies of this lobby in India would be to call their bluff and propose and implement policies “that will guarantee security rather than a continuation of the slow bleeding that has been inflicted on this country as a consequence of the timidity of its political leadership. India needs not only secularism but also security”. He also establishes a correlation between the declining effectiveness of Indian diplomacy and the increase in externally-backed insurgency within our borders. Doesn’t it warrant a parliamentary probe to fix the responsibility for negligence of our security?

An influential lobby, toeing the U.S. line justifies the capping of India’s nuclear programme, arguing U.S. would provide the security umbrella. It also pleads unilateral concessions to U.S on nuclear issue saying this would be reciprocated by economic concessions. There are also demands to slash down the expenditure on defence. Prof. Nalapat brilliantly exposes the contradictions in this fallacious approach.

U.S. Role

Entrusting the security of India to a power which has had a history of putting pressure on India to compromise its security concerns to accommodate a hostile Pakistan, would be an act of irresponsibility. U.S. is more a part of the problem. It has been creating security concerns for India in the form of fundamentalist terrorism. The network of Islamist mercenaries it created in the 1980s is a major security challenge to India to preserve its integrity. U.S. policies of bringing up Islamist mercenaries through ISI led to substantial sections of the Pak army coming under the spell of fundamentalism. U.S. drive to back up “moderate Islamists” to beat back “radical Islamists” has reinforced Pakistani assaults against India. An extension of this debate in U.S. establishment has led many think-tanks to propose a “moderate Islamic nation”, Kashmir. The entire Track-II diplomacy on Kashmir is sponsored and guided by this lobby. It is desirable to probe the motivations of Indian Track-II groups also. Nalapat rightly asks, “How else is one to interpret the fascination with the “Third option” for Kashmir (i.e. independence) on the part of those attending seminars on “conflict resolution” in South Asia? He adds that should the ‘Third option’ become a reality, the new state is likely to become as fundamentalist as Iran.

Stretching the argument further, Nalapat asks Americans if they are committed to the territorial integrity of India then why do they, dispute Kashmir’s accession. The truth remains that the agenda of U.S. on Kashmir is to internationalise the issue and hopefully secure a result in accordance with the wishes of the Pakistanis. Americans ignore the link between Kashmir and the very survival of the Indian state. Every expression of doubt on the finality of Kashmir’s accession provides oxygen to the terrorist movement in the state. American expressions of concern over “rights” of Kashmiris is the driving force in sustaining fundamentalist terrorism in Kashmir.

U.S. is also covertly backing ISI in training Islamist elements for fomenting trouble in Chinese Xinjiang. For these elements Karakoram highway is a vital route for supplies. Nalapat observes that U.S. pressure on India to withdraw from Siachen is to facilitate this subversion, away from the watchful eyes of Indians.

Nuclear Programme

The direction of the present American policy towards the sub-continent is to wipe out the tactical and strategic advantages that India has over Pakistani and ensure parity between the two. This can only be done if Indian technological advances and defence procurement are checked, while Pakistan’s is not. The Americans consciously allowed China to transfer its nuclear technology to Pakistan. It has taken no action against North Korea. On the contrary, the Americans are hyping up the Pakistan programme “to convince the Indian public that a capping of both would be an even-handed measure rather than directed against India, which is the factual position”. U.S. design is not only to curb nuclear and missile programmes but to roll back the all capabilities the country has achieved during the past four decades in this field.

U.S. is using three sticks to throttle India’s nuclear programme. One, it is dangling the carrot of economic concessions. Secondly, it is indulging in moralisation by its references to global disarmament. Lastly, it abets Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail against India. U.S. has been trying to persuade India to give up the deterrent using a rationalise of the ‘danger’ of Pakistan emerging as a nuclear power. Nalapat does not hesitate in pronouncing that those who endorse demands that crucial strategic programmers be aborted are encouraging fresh assaults on Indian sovereignty.

Even the argument that yielding on nuclear issue would placate U.S. in reciprocating through economic concessions, does not hold water. India’s unilateral concessions were reciprocate by renewed American pressure on sensitive issues like defence technology and Kashmir. Henry Kissinger, in his book Diplomacy, himself says that unilateral concessions are to be taken as signs of vulnerability and the effort should, therefore, be to squeeze out yet more concessions, rather than reward such naivete by positive gestures.

How do we deal with Americans? Nalapat is not opposed to economic and strategic links with U.S. but warns against conceding anything on strategic interests-Kashmir or nuclear issue. He wants India to give depth to its policy on CTBT by much more active development of nuclear and missile technology, despite the risk of U.S. retaliation. India’s strength as a secular democracy and its economic potential may change U.S. ultimately. As a pragmatist he asks Indians to explore Russia-India-China strategic relationship in case U.S. intransigence continues. Recently, there has been loud thinking on build an Asian NATO, where Indian would play its rightful role and would be less vulnerable.

Pakistan

India’s ham-handed approach to Pak provocations may encourage Pakistanis to extend the proxy-war to other states. Nalapat warns against making any strategic concessions to Army-dominated Pakistan. However, trade, cultural and other relationship may have positive impact on common Pakistani. In the ultimate, Pakistan may not be able to withstand rising economic burden. Popular anger may burst out and call for an end to unjust wars being waged by Pak state.

Kashmir

In Nalapat’s view no Kashmiri politician is a saint. NC patronised cross-border infiltration to seek leverage with New Delhi. After 1997 NC hampered counter-insurgency effort by getting terrorists released. All political groups in Kashmir have patronised religious extremists of fascist Jamaat Islami. State Congress too followed a policy of patronising Kashmiri Sunnis, the group most pampered and mainly involved in the separatist movement. Nalapat criticises Mufti for toeing pro-Hurriyat line, patronising religious extremists in VP Singh’s time and helping Pakistan get a foothold in Kashmir by his refusal to take preventive action against many who had been won over by ISI. On Rubiya episode, he quotes a senior state officer who said, “the situation got out of control in 1990, when VP Singh was the Prime Minister. The minister had two options. He could have acted as the custodian of the nation’s security and refused to deal with the abductors. Or he could have resigned and appealed as a father to the Kashmiri people to force the terrorists to release his daughter. He did neither. Instead, the government surrendered”. Since the credibility of a government is an important factor in controlling an insurgency the Kashmris thought  azaadiwas round the corner and the bulk of the population crossed over to the terrorists’ side.

There are no long-term solution in view so long as regional factors continue to destabilise Kashmir. Indian state has yet to send a message that terrorism will be fought whatever be the cost. There can be no discussions on the status of Kashmir. Nalapat wants this to be made explicit. On autonomy he says that Article 356, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, C AG and the Election Commissioner, in any internal dialogue, are non-negotiable. An important element in counter-insurgency war is that Indian state should also see that the nationalistic groups in J&K are not being penalised for being loyal to India.

Tolerance

Prof Nalapat belongs to a family, known for holding rationalist beliefs. Abrey Menon and Naryana Menon were his uncles. Nalapat has very strong views. He says respect for India will not flow from a repeat of past barbarity but from the rise of national income to a reasonable level. His other assessments are also scathing. Nehru is blamed for nourishing communalism. He finds much in common among Nehru school graduates, the Left and the religious exclusionists. He ardently believes that the anti-majoritarian definition of “secularism” has only led to Hindu anger. Mulayam Singh’s appeals to Muslim and Yadav groups are dubbed as communal. The other contributions of Mandalites to social disharmony include fanning insecurity among minorities and distancing them from BJP.

Nalapat has remarkable sense of humour. This pervades throughout the book. It is a book every Indian, who has good of his country at heart, should find time read.

INDUTVA

Author : M.D. Nalapat

Price : Rs 395

Publishers : Har-Anand Publishers

364-A Chirag

New Delhi-110017

The peaceful years of 1819-1947 came as a breather in which persecuted Pandit community rebuilt its social life, free from fear and discrimination. Many antiquarian works were recovered and lost traditions revived. Despite sharing broader ethnicity with other social groups in Kashmir the Pandit community maintained its distinct social order. This is reflected in dress, language, cuisine, life-style, architecture, socio-religious life and world-view.

Religious-cleansing campaign in 1990 had two dimensions-one, to throw Pandit community out of its homeland and secondly, to enact cultural effacement to show that the Pandit community never existed in Kashmir. Destruction of shrines/residential premises, personal libraries, change of name-places, distortion of history and culture has been an extension of the latter. Most of the families were not able to retrieve even family albums. A Photo-Portrait of Kashmiri Pandits-Enduring Images Frozen in Time by Messers SN Pandita and Ramesh Manwati, two distinguished members of the community is a valiant attempt to put spokes in the campaign of cultural effacement.

Linking to Kashmiri Ambience:

A new generation of Kashmiri Pandits has grown up in exile. They have neither memories nor  nostalgia of living Kashmiri way of life in the ambience of Kashmir. Yet, it is this generation that has to don the mantle of leadership sooner than later to carry forward the movement for retrieval of homeland to its logical culmination. If this group remains detached from the experience of rich Kashmiri way of life how would it get connectivity with the homeland movement.

The authors seem modest in stating objectives in bringing out the album - to show the past face of the community and preserve the photo heritage. The rich collection or rare photographs, published in the album not only reflect the social life of Pandits but also indicate the pattern of social change over years. It also shows how Kashmiri Pandits value their history.

Architecture and  Costumes:

The photo-album focuses on almost all aspects of Kashmiri Pandit social life. In the section on residential architecture one comes across peculiar wood-work reflected in Dab, Vurusi, Daeri Damdar, Panjaer Daer, Kathkar, exquisitively carved main gate-door etc. The photographs dealing with costumes show the extent of change in dress over a period of time. Pattu Coat-Pyjama, Dastaar, Grass Pulhour, Pheran, Thaz Khrav, etc. all come alive in pictures. There is a photograph showing bridegroom and bride in Gangvyas and Mekha Paizar respectively.

Rare Photographs:

The authors have laboured hard to procure photographs that look unique e.g. – Bridegroom on horse back with Pot Maharaza, child couples, Maharaza with Aelae Maal, Mekhala Maharaz with Zarbaf Lat etc. There was a reformist movement in 1925-1930, advocating strongly the case of widow-remarriage among Kashmiri Pandits. This was strongly resented by hidebound sections of Pandit community. The photo-album carries picture depicting solemnisation of one such widow-remarriage. Many old photographs dealing with Pandit marriage and Mekhala ceremony find space in the album. The authors have even managed to put in the album photographs on preparing PhakChai and Waer. There are photographs on performance of Mahayagna. A photograph that one rarely comes across - Performing Partheshwar Puja is also incorporated.

Social Life:

Photographs depicting social life include rural women washing untensils/clothes on Yarbal, Rich Fruit trader with his retinue of employees, Puja around a spring asthapan, Kashmiri Pandits with their family Guru, Group outing to a religious place, anniversary function at an asrama, visits to a festival place and enjoyment in an old style merry-go-round, sheen jung (snow fight), basking in autumn sun in the angun, open air classroom, playing of school band. There are innumerable group photographs of staff and students of schools and SP College. The authors have also included a photograph of Rajkiya Pathshala, one of the oldest Pathshalas of Srinagar city. The photographs on treks to Gangabal, Sheshnag, Harmukh and Amarnath Cave are also included but display poor quality. There are couple of photographs depicting rural Pandits at work in their fields.

1947 Tribal Raid:

The section dealing with photographs of 1947 Tribal invasion is a feast to students of history on contemporary Kashmir. The photographs show the relief work being carried on by members of Pandit community to provide succour to victims of Tribal raid. One photograph shows Pandit lady volunteers undergoing training as members of national militia. There are also few snaps on taking out of Vidh Bhagwan procession on the day of Zaramasatam.

There are three vintage photographs – Swami Vivekananda in Kashmir, Pioneer photographer Pt. Vish Nath Kampassi in his studio, two Pandit traders in 1875 (photograph taken by Geographer Frederick Drew). Three photographs taken recently recall nostalgia – Somyar Ghat, boat shop selling nadrus and a tonga raida carrying Monji (Kadam) for sale. These photographs are also remarkable for their quality. The albums carries Foreword by Sh. Jagmohan, former Governor of J&K and a useful Glossary at the end.

Drawbacks:

However, there are few glaring lapses. The authors have not provided captions, detailing the source, year and the personalities in the photograph. The photograph-Vivekananda in Kashmir as per circumstantial evidence could not have been taken by Pt. Vishnath Kampassi for two reasons. One, Swamiji had carried a photographer along. This is based on the premise that Swamiji’s troupe took a number of pictures in Kashmir – all of  very good quality. Secondly, Pt. Vishnath Kampassi was a novice at the time of Swamiji’s visit (1898)  with hardly 5 years experience. We do not have good quality photographs taken by Pt. Kampassi during the period 1893-1900 to substantiate a hypothesis that the photograph of Swamiji with Kashmiris could have been taken by Pt. Kampassi.

There is also strong possibility that this photograph was taken at Swami Ramji’s asrama at Fatehkadal. It is a matter for investigation. The authors in their desire to document everything pertaining to Pandits’ social life have stuffed the album with some extremely poor-quality photographs.

These blemishes apart, bringing out this excellent photo-album is a pioneering effort on the part of authors, guided purely by labour of love. Conscious of few drawbacks, the authors intend to rectify these in the enlarged second volume. They need fullest cooperation of the community.

Title:    Enduring Images

Frozen in Time – A Photo-Portrait of Kashmiri Pandits

Authors: S.N Pandita, Ramesh Manvati

Price:   Rs 3150 (Discounted Price)

Published by Authors.

So much has been said , written, discussed and debated about Kashmir over the last decade and more that one might mistake this volume as one more of the same. But it takes just a casual first glance over the anthology of poems to realise that nothing could be farther from the truth. And as one proceeds one gets hooked to the narration which is straight, sincere and intense, raising  poignant images before your eyes.

Dr. K. L. Chowdhury

Picture that night, dark and still, and cold as never before. That silence was eerie, piercing like in a graveyard in the wilderness. The air was filled with foreboding. The instinct was ill at ease fearing the unseen and the unknown like ghosts around breathing and whispering and whistling. Then all of a sudden, doom descended . Some eighty thousand loud speakers came alive at a single blaring across the valley the first message of doom in stern and steady tone. “Leave your  home O’ Kafir  leave your young women behind and run for your life’’.

That night changed the world.

Kashmir can never get over that night-like a house burnt, a garden uprooted, a virgin defiled, a limb sundered, a friend betrayed. It can never be the same again.

Time moves, mollifies, but the pain remains, and in a sensitive mind it grows. Dr. Chowdhary’s poems are the outpourings of that pain, that indelible impress which assails the author, from time to time, from place to place, and flows out through his pen. This has gone on for a whole ten years till he feels overwhelmed by nostalgia and is alternately hopeful and prayerful for return to his sacred loved soil of beauty and peace, brotherhood and cultural synthesis as it was and is no more

This is the essence of the Anthology, presented in three sections, each within its chronology. Thus you open with the Gathering Storm, move to the most heart rending and tragic phase of  Exodus and Exile and conclude with the deep longing, in the third section, for return from rootlessness to Mother Kasheer.

Within this compass are the poems that spread before the reader the beauty and enchantment of Kashmir and alongside powerfully moving dirges on the tempests which have shaken our age, the desolation and destruction wrought by the mindless ‘jehadis’ and ‘fidayeen’ the terrorists who ironically are deluded to believe they are working for bringing the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ down on earth.

The beauty and the pathos seize the reader from the very first poem. I quote:

‘’The mists dance around you lord Siva four seasons through……… ensconced on top of the Shankaracharya hill’’.

A few stanzas later ‘’The mists gently glide and slide as they deftly seek to hide the ravages ………. littering , Phelgam, excreta’’ and elsewhere again

‘’O where is the lingering mist that your feet did kiss where the cool breeze that fanned your brow’’.

Such quiet cries of anguish are eloquent in effect and even assume a shrillness by the nature of the trauma. Of bestiality at the Wandahama massacre of the whole Pandit population, the poet grieves with tearful irony: the occasion was the fanatics ‘ holy Shaba Qadar, of night long prayers for peace and piety. They marked it with butchering the entire 23 Pandit population-babies, men, women. Asks the poet with a bleeding heart- what drove the fanatics ‘’to pump eighteen bullets into the tender constitution of a tiny kid ………when a single would have done ‘’?

If it is pain and tears here, he gives vent to his deep anger in cutting satire are another place, when he describes the madness and misery of misanthropy and munificence in the inverse between the migrant and the militant in the following verses:

Here a migrant stands in a queue

in this blazing afternoon sun

for his monthly allocation-

three hundred and seventy five rupees

& kilo sugar……….

A few lines later:

And yonder in that prison

is detained a terrorist called militant

who receives four fifty a month,

milk mutton……..

overseen and monitored

by human rights groups……..

Asks his victim the migrant

why don’t I turn a Militant

If only for a better deal.

One can go on and on and find that the Anthology is not only scholastic but in the main it is a chronicle of human tragedy both on the part of the perpetrators and the victims. The human angle dominates at every point. It goes to the credit of the author who is an eminent physician and no poet by profession or training that he has written it all under an urge kindled within him, by the suddenly rapid and unforeseen transitions of human behaviour. It thus bears the stamp of spontaneity and freshness.

All through the Anthology he has sought and succeeded in avoiding the imitation of any style or language or versification. Whatever the quality of it, that is properly his own and is engaging. He has also not permitted the words to divert or diminish the attention of the reader from the original purpose or interest he has succeeded in creating. He has simply clothed his thoughts in what he thought was most appropriate language.

Having said that much about “Of Gods, Men and Militants’’ one feels like going beyond its limits with the hope that the excesses and insanity depicted in it are gradually yielding place to better sense and sanity.

The extreme madness which manifested itself on September 11 (2001) from the scene of the anthology, and on October 1 and December 13 last year, awoke the world at large to the barbarity of the demented soldiers of faith deluded by fundamentalists of fraud.

There appears a reflux of the tide. A ray of light is gaining ground and a feeling and belief is growing that whole generations of mankind ought not to be consigned to a hopeless inheritance of ignorance and misery and that a secure haven might emerge when  the storms are exhausted and past. A volume of verses dedicated to that hope and happening would be a memorable reward to Dr. Chowdhary.

A genocide is a terrible event.

Every member of the victimised community has his own experiences- horrific and non-horrific to relate to. Yet it needs Parineeta Khar to weave these experiences into pieces of great literature. She was not part of the great exodus the Kashmiri Pandit community had to resort to in early 1990. But as a socially responsible writer she had a keen ear to listen to the experiences her relations and the members of the community underwent during the turbulence of 1989 and 1990 that left the Pandit community totally uprooted with permanent rootlessness staring it in face.

Parineeta Khar has succeeded where others members of her writers’ tribe have failed the community. A genocide and a situation of exile is no dinner party. Jose Marti, the famed Latin American poet of 19th Century once said ‘Now is the time of furnaces, and only light should be seen’. Exile is no time for writing ‘nostalgic tracts’ or engaging in ‘devotional escapism’. The literature of exile should help link exile with consciousness of exile and raise the social awareness in the victimised community to facilitate reversal of genocide and exile. What distinguishes Khar from others is that she is courageous enough to depict social realism as it is, unmindful of whether it is part of the political correctness. Her deep insights into the sociology of Kashmiri Pandit society, the pride in Kashmiri ethnicity and its subset-battagi and the love for homeland has helped her produce a masterpiece-an anthology of short stories – “We were and We will be”. The title is taken from the first story.

About it she writes,” we are the children of legary eleven families who tenaciously refused to accept anything, other than battagi (being a Kashmiri Pandit).

I have an uncanny belief; the tyranny of bigots will abate, the contempt and conceit will sometime and somewhere.

The bruised and pulped up battagi will come out of the debris of ruined mansions, peep out of the heaped up rubble, and stand erect again. Hence, we were and we will be”. Parineeta Khar is not only a superb craftswoman in the art of short story writing, she brings new innovations as well. This is the hallmark of originality in a writer. Her earlier work ‘on the shores of the Vitasta’ (1994) reflects on the social milieu of Kashmir when terrorism was an alien concept among Kashmiris.

The stories in that collection emerged out of after-dinner sessions in Kashmir’s dreary winter.

The present book, the author writes, “is the manifestation of inundating currents of ferocious magnitude ebbing in my own psyche”. She is candid in saying, “I have not chronicled the history of atrocities meted out to Pandits, neither did I enumerate the gruesome killings of the people of my community at the hands of terrorists. My tales allude to circumstances of distinct nature, some strange and others intriguing. These stories are an attempt to depict how terrorism affected and influenced all of us, one or the other way…My stories depict a celebration of life – a continuation of life”. The author uses the setting of a society gripped by terrorism, fundamentalism and social conflict to explore the human psychology – its frailties as well as strengths. She does not construct a fictional scenario about a social milieu. The society, is depicted as it is, with no theorisation or building imaginary scenarios to tailor it to the needs of political correctness. The generational conflict in Kashmiri Muslim society where two generations hold varying views on pluralistic coexistence and toleration when terrorism enters into the social life of Kashmiris, is delineated beautifully. Urban stereotypes about rural Pandit society, ger exploitation in an exted family system, psychological state among Pandit exiles and their passing into regression by turning to Godmen and soothe sayers, the devastation suffered by Pandits in the wake fundamentalism and terrorism, the dilemma- roots or pragmatism and the essential goodness of human beings, all these themes touched by the writer have not been explored before by Kashmiri Pandit writers in exile with such sensitivity and freshness. With the publication of this excellent book, literature in exile among Pandits comes of age.

Exile haunts Parineeta Khar.

She says, “we had left Kashmir, for the betterment of our individual lives…She (ever pardoning mother: our Kashir) waited for long and then discarded us with the bitterness of a mother who disowns her children after being left to dereliction…Now, when I am alone…the treasure drove of the reminiscences is my haven. I close my eyes, delve deep and peep into the days of my childhood, my early youth and my bridal days – in Kashmir”.

The pain experienced by the author when her husband’s family decides to sell the house in Srinagar is described by her in ‘A Lost Paradise-Home’. She writes,” He and his siblings had the legal authority to liquidate their property, I felt helpless. The thought of having no home in Kashmir made me feel like an orphaned and lost child. Their pragmatism called the unfortunate house a helpless liability. To me, it was a natural bond with Kashmir for us and our posterity”. Parineeta is bitter not only against the brokers and the terrorists but also against her own community. In a tone of indictment, the author says”, The brokers, who traded in disposing of the matriarchal edifices, sought out my husband’s family and succeeded. The terrorists had vandalised it, but never could claim a genuine hold on our lovely home, but alas, we, the original inhabitants, sold it for a song. My moonlit glassroom smashed to smithereens; the homestead wept bruised and lacerated.

The phone call (from the broker) left me agonised and agitated.

The walnut tree, under which lay intertwined my children’s baby hair, was auctioned.

The Kalpavriksha marked wall that had supported the dreams of a young bride and seen me through an unripe youth to a mellowed womanhood, had slipped from behind me. My husband calls my sentimental attachment to Kashmir and home, an exaggerated romantic outlook. I ask him why his eyes catch the cool degrees of temperature in Srinagar first watching the weather report”.

Five stories in this tome under review deal with displacement and exile as its theme. The other two stories – Yati and the Apsaras, The Deity of the Chinar are meant for that generation of Kashmiri Pandits who never saw/or lived in Kashmir.

Kashmiri Folklore abounding in such supernatural characters – dyav, Sheen Mohniv etc. comes alive in these stories.

We were and we will be

The story is set in a migrant camp in Delhi. A young physician, Dr Raman Raina, scion of a millionaire Kashmiri Pandit family that had left Kashmir four decades ago, while on his visits to the migrant camp to provide medical help, falls in love with a refugee girl, called Tripora Sondari. This fructifies into matrimonial alliance between the two. This is not accepted by the boy’s mother, Khema. Through this conflict the author explores human psychology of characters.

It is not the class but the human frailty that is the cause of the conflict.

The Invincible

In Invincible the impact of terrorism is shown more directly.

The family of Poshkuj Kaul lives in a village, not far from Srinagar.

Poshkuj’s family lived in perfect harmony with their neighbours of the majority community.

This harmony is reflected through two chracters – Mala and her son Rasool. Terrorism raises its head in the village through the appearance of a character-a foreign mercenary who succeeds in brainwashing Rasool’s son. Mala resents the presence and behaviour of the alien – the bearded mercenary who had no respect for values and ethos of the land. Rasool shows helplessness when his son begins to trouble Poshkuj’s family. But Mala hurls curses on her grandson. One day this Pandit family’s cowshed and barn are set on fire by a frenzied mob, Shamboo and his wife go out to save poor cows. They never return.

Mala comes to her fri Poshkuj. She is accompanied by her son Rasool. He tells her that she should immediately leave the village alongwith two daughters of Shamboo. Rasool had been watching the misdemeanours of his son, first enthusiastically then with a disgust. He feared for the safety of Shamboo’s daughters, and advises Poshkuj to take the daughters to Mumbai.

Rasool arranges some space for ladies in a Jammu-bound truck carrying cattle. Subsequently, Rasool’s family contacts Kauls at Mumbai through a phone call and seek a bargain. Remains of Shamboo and his wife could be given back only if Kauls agree to give them the entire property they owned in the village.

Poshkuj wonders why had the fris turned predators.

Poshkuj tells them that remains of their son and daughter-in-law needed to be kept in Kashmir itself as they belonged to Kashmir’s earth. She reminds them that ‘selling their property in Kashmir was like selling one’s mother’. Poshkuj, unable to bear the phone call, passed away the same night.

Look who got Azadi

An exted (joint) family in traditional Kashmiri society was the norm rather than an exception.

It provided security-emotional and financial to the members of the family. With economic empowerment of the woman and their social emancipation the two major flaws of the exted family came to the fore-undemocratic atmosphere and social repression in the name of preserving ethos of the joint family.

‘Look who got Azadi’ is situated in this ambience.

Beg your Pardon

This is not only the finest story written in the collection, but also the best original story ever written by a Kashmiri writer.

In terrible times of 1989-90 some of the Kashmiri Pandit families adopted an ostrich-like mentality and decided to stay back despite threats and provocation.

They paid for it and lost their near and dear ones. The survivors overwhelmed by the guilt lapsed into severe reactive depression.

Parineeta Khar has presented the four case stories.

In one family a six year old girl is the only survivor. Her father had braved every provocation to stay put in Kashmir. This was taken as challenge by the predators on the prowl. He began receiving threatening mail.

One evening he was shot dead while returning from office. The little girl’s shrieks who was witness to the killing brought her mother out. With her mouth agape a bullet consumed her also. Neighbours, taking pity on the little girl, s her to Jammu.

The girl, who saw her parents dying, landed in severe depression.

The only word she spoke was “Khotsan” (I am scared). A migrant psychiatrist tries a strange remedy for her. He uses ‘auto-suggestion’ to cure her and through her the other members of displaced community suffering from the same syndrome. The Psychiatrist tells her that she was a goddess who had no business to fear men with pistols. He told her she was Sharika, the doom for the sinners and the messiah of sufferers. The girl slowly comes out of depression. She is then trained to help other guiltridden Kashmiris.

A hut temple with supernatural setting is built on the upper heights of Kud. The child goddess goes there on the first day of every dark fortnight in the dark hours of night. People turn up to seek child goddess’s “pardon” for atonement of their “sins”.

There are three bone-shaking case studies narrated in the story.

The girl’s therapy is simple. She asks them to narrate their “guilt”, and go for atonement and repentance.

This she says would rid them of their guilt. The child goddess prescribes treatment which is itself unique-helping the miserable ones in the Pandit refugee camps.

The Tumbaknari

It focusses on reconciliation.

Parineeta Khar’s narrative style is easy, reflecting command over vocabulary, usage of words and distinctively Kashmiri metaphors.

She profusely uses colloquial Kashmiri expressions. Her female characters bear names after Kashmiri goddesses – Tripora Sondari, Ragniya, Shri Chakri, Sharika etc. The plots in the stories are well constructed and the characters are full of life.

The ings culminate in reconciliation, rather than in conflict and uncertainty. With two anthologies already under her belt one wonders when would she bring out her first Historical Novel. We wish her goodluck.

Title: We were and We will be

Author: Parineeta Khar

Price: Rs 300 (Cloth Bound)

Published by: Utpal Publications R-2, Khaneja Complex Main Market, Shakarpur, Delhi-110092

Dashi-Haar is a 112-Page collection of Kashmiri Poems in 20″x30″x16″ size, published by the renowned Kashmiri poet Shri Arjan Dev Majboor, twenty three years ago in 1983. It comprises of about 38 poems, eight ghazals (lyric), besides a translation of Allama Iqbal’s poem:

Digar Goon Hai Jahan Taroon Ki Gardish

Tez Hai Saaqi”

Besides using mothertongue as an essential and forceful vehicle of creative thought Shri Majboor writes in Hindi and Dogri also. An octagenarian-our elder and a younger contemporary of Mirza Ghulam Hassan Beg Arif, Dina Nath Nadim, Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad Mehjoor, Abdul Ahad Azad and Fazil Kashmiri Shri AD Majboor has all along been associated with the movement for the cultural, social, economic and political justice of the downtrodden and common people of Kashmir.

The title ‘Dashahar” relates to the historic tirtha held every ten years at the confluence of Jehlum and Sindh at Sumbal. A Chinar stands in the middle of Jehlum at that place.

Majboor’s poetry in the anthology under review is certainly an embodiment of universal human love, brotherhood and social equality, irrespective of caste, colour and creed. Miseries of people, irrespective of nature, have kept him constantly restless and in melancholy as he himself comments in his forward to the book. He has all through remained a protagonist of eternal human and social values. At times, he feels quite nostalgic about the socio-cultural heritage of his motherland in the form of composite culture facing extinction in modern technical and cultural advancement.

Born in 1924 at Zanapur, a historic town, named after and built by the great Kashmiri King Zainul Abdin, Budshah (1420-70) as Kashmiri people call him with love and reverence. As a dependable and lovable neighbour, Shri Majboor is very well-known to me, with his traditional, simple and truthful lifestyle with human warmth and dedication. These are the qualities which make and shape him as a selfless and tireless human activist, as a progressive writer with a clear social commitment and vision:

A tale of thousands of years

of times and likes endless

having, just ended

He jumped into the Padamsar

(Wular Lake)

Whispering that the time has

no today, and no tomorrow

collect and collate

the memories

and adorn them with

celestial union

to create a new world”

(Kathu Gor: Tale-Teller)

Like his individual person bedecked with simplicity, his poetic diction is unambiguous, plain, refreshing nearest to the vernacular language, artistically fitted with local ethos, lore and legend:

Life with affectionate glances

tells them all

to sing the songs of

harmonious melodies

to lift the waves

above the celestial mansions

(Sovdru-Bathis Peth-On the Seashore)

I am a dauntless lover

My heart is like a dotless mirror

I have never hidden the truth.

and presented darkness as light

I could thus, never abandon eternal human love.

I have to nourish and nurture

the dew with eternal fir:

to keep up the human dignity intact.

and portray the spring of life in full bloom

(Yi-Myon Oond Pokh–My surroundings)

While going through the lines I can very well recall the distinct and effective style of recitation of poems by Majboor in poetic symposia conferences and other literary seminars. Throughout his career he has served as a dedicated, sincere and honest teacher. He is a successful orator too.

Recalling his story in Lahore prior to partition in 1947 he feels nostalgic while peeping through the memory window:

Yes! This is the same city,

Sky of steel bridges, for which

in haste, I left behind

The highest mountain peaks

The heavenly circles

of Devdaar woods

The snow silver

head gears and yearning for vast

blossoming flowers – aside

I passionately loved it

The peaceful and delightful environs

of Lahore-enchant me

Lahore-where Iqbal touched

heights of heavens

recollecting the memories

Make me restless

My footprints

Ragas of my musical waves

My buoyant youth

Human love and sincerity

Making a series of

Mountain peaks – into a garland of love –

{(Lohoor (Lahore)}

Kus Kari Bawath (who will communicate), Tsitr-Kar (The Painter), Kalpana (imagination), Shinu-Mohniv (The snow man), Padi (The Feet), Rqs. Jaari (The dance goes on), Wuliodur (Agony), Lekhi Kya (what will he write), Amar (Ambition,), Titsh Kath Chanu (That is not the truth), Kol (The stream), Harud (The autumn) and other shorter poems and gazals present in Dashahaar form an inseparable component of eternal, human love and brotherhood passionately advocated and dedicatedly represented by Shri AD Majboor, thus making it more relevant even for today.

Majboor aptly remembers Lal Ded saying:

You are the hidden treasure

of Kashmiri Language

You are the flying boat of

the Universe

Burning Vyeth (river) of

eternal misery

And morning breeze for

human civilisations!

[Lal-Dedi Nazranu (To Lal Ded)]

Dashi-haar undoubtedly is a plausible and lovely collection of poems of Majboor, requiring the attention of discernible connoisseurs of Kashmiri poetry. Strictly selected or restricted, single volume of Kashmiri poetry comprising of the representative poems.

*(The author was Editor Kashmiri, “Sheeraza” Academy of Art, Culture and Languages. He is a noted poet, essayist and well-known researcher. He has published Kashmiri monographs on Abdul Sattar Ranjoor, Chaman Lal Chaman, PN Pushp. His notable publications include Aabgeenay (2005) – Urdu: articles on and about Kashmiri Culture and Literature; Wony For Gatshu: Whither shall I go now (Short Stories 1986) etc. He has also been associated in compilation and editing of Dictionaries, Encyclopaedia etc. brought out by J&K Cultural Academy from time to time.

JAMMU, May 31, 2003: Smt. Chandra Dassi’s poetry collection “Chandra Vaakh” was released in an impressive function organised by “Nagrad Adbi Sangami” at Press Club Jammu here today. The book which belongs to the genre of mystic poetry was released by guest of honour Prof. O.P. Sharma, Dean Academic Affairs University of Jammu and the function was presided over by the renowned Shaivism scholar Dr. Balji Nath Pandit.

Chandra Dassi

In his welcome address, president of “Nagrad Adbi Sangam”, Sh. Mohan Lal Aash congratulated Chandra Dassi and described her book as a precious contribution to Kashmiri Literature. He said that “Vaakhs” do not form part of traditional poetry but these are ‘expressions of experiences with spirituality’.

Presenting his paper on the book, Dr. B.L. Koul gave an in-depth evaluation of the book, ranging from its literary value to technical aspects. Referring to the release of many other ‘Mystic Poetry’ books since 1990, he described it as the revival of the ‘Mystic Poetry’ era. Dr. Koul said that ‘Chander Vaakh’ has been written in both Nastalik and Devnagri scripts. Many other Kashmiri Hindus have also published their literary works in Nastalik as well to reach the Kashmiris on other side of the tunnel and wondered “if there is even feeling among those people to write in Devgnagri to reach the Kashmiris living on this side of the tunnel”.

Chandra Dassi, in her address, thanked the people for their participation and recited some new “Vaakhs” that are not included in the book. She said that she got the inspiration of composing Vaakhs from her Guru Swami Hari Krishna.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. O.P. Sharma said that he was just representing Vice-Chancellor University of Jammu, Prof. Amitab Mattoo, who could not make to the function because of his engagements regarding preparations for the coming convocation. He said that though he cannot understand Kashmiri, but from occasional Hindi descriptions by the speakers, he could gather that the book is the outcome of hard work and expressed satisfaction that more and more women are coming forward to contribute to the literary world.

Dr. Balji Nath Pandit, Dr. Roshan Saraf and Dr. R.L. Shant also spoke on the occasion Mrs. Kailash Mehra recited some “Vaakhs” from the book in her melodious voice. The function was attended by galaxy of writers, poets and artists.

The book titled “Mantoo Katha” authored by Dr. Brij Premi is another factual and well documented book on Sadat Hassan Mantoo. Backed up with minutest details, the author reveals in a lucid manner certain unexplored and lesser known facets of Mantoo’s life and works, hitherto unknown.

The very first section of the book is intelligible with detailed information regarding Mantoo’s family, home, his communist mentor Bari Aleeg and his deep emotional attachment with Kashmir. The migration of Mantoo’s ancestors from Kashmir to Lahore and then to Amritsar, where a mohalla of Mantoos existed in the Kocha Vakeelyan is thoroughly traced by the author. The author further reveals that Mantoo’s ancestors had abandoned their traditional shawl and Pashmina business and adopted lawyer’s profession.

The reader is delighted to know that Mantoo’s father Moulvi Ghulam Hassan, a sub-judge by profession had like his son, Mantoo an emotional allegiance not only to Kashmir, his separated ‘homeland’ but also with its centuries old cultural and historical traditions. Though being physically far away from Kashmir, Mantoo’s father did not lose memory of his Kashmiri origin.

Likewise, we also come to know about the Kashmiri origin of Mantoo’s wife Safia Begum, who even though a resident of Africa was thoroughly a Kashmiri. Mantoo’s limitless love for Kashmir and his assertive feelings about it are also detailed with clarity in the book. Dr. Brij Premi familiarizes the readers with Mantoo’s mentor and guide, Bari Aleeg, a committed Marxist, who was greatly influenced by the revolutionary and proletarian ideology of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

As per the author, Mantoo even in adolescence was given to youthful pranks and elements of sensationalism. The unrestrained chats laced with sensational remarks like : “Americans have purchased Taj Mahal and would transport it to America with the help of heavy machinery”, “Traffic police of Lahore have been provided with jackets of Ice,” “My (Mantoo’s) fountain pen nib is made of donkey’s horn”, would make people gasp in wonder and amazement.

Dr. Premi’s indepth research indicates that Saadat Hassan Mantoo had no lure of money but was given to simple living and high thinking. He had also no tendency to camouflage his dealings. The reader also gets to know as to how Mantoo was initiated to drinking by his childhood friend, Hari Singh Amritsari and the circumstances which increased his addiction to alcohol during his stay at Delhi, Bombay and lastly in Lahore. A vivid picture of Mantoo’s addiction to alcohol is potrayed by the author, when Mantoo on his death-bed feversighly pleads for a drop of liquor to be put in his mouth to overcome his overpowering thirst for whisky. But the reader gets convinced that Mantoo resorted to alcoholism only to comfort his lacerated heart, hurt by unending chain of misfortunes and unhappy incidents in his life.

Continuing in the same vein, the author in the second section of the book gives a comprehensive account of Mantoo under various headings such as Mantoo as a novelist, Glimpses of Ghalib in Mantoo’s work, Mantoo as a translator besides his association with the film industry etc. Detailed information about Mantoo’s first novel ‘Untitled’ and his next novel ‘Takhleeq’ is given in the book. Free use of Ghalib’s poetry by Mantoo in his writings is indicative of Ghalib’s influence on him. Though Mantoo was not personally acquainted with Shayir-e-Kashmir Mehjoor, yet he was successful in understanding Mehjoor through his inspiring poetry.

Similarly, the book carries letters written by Mantoo himself and the letters addressed to him, which are  reminder of the times when Mantoo was actively associated with journalism and film industry. These letters reveal numerous incidents of his literary and personal life and are  of lasting literary value. The detailed information provided by the author with regard to Mantoo’s translation work provides a valuable insight into his literary excellence.

The book “Mantoo Katha”, written by Dr. Brij Premi, is supplemented by graphic descriptions and valuable highlights of those aspects of Mantoo’s life and works most of which had remained hidden from the public gaze. Besides revealing Dr. Brij Premi’s scholarly hold on the Urdu language, the book also exhibits the amount of painstaking efforts undertaken by the author. The book is appropriately titled, thoroughly enjoyable and a hallmark contribution to the Urdu literary world.

Publisher: Ruchna Publications Naseeb Nagar, Jammu-1992

Reviewer: Prof. R.N. Kaul, Chinore, Jammu

Paying a tribute to his friend and patron, Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare wrote in one of his sonnets:

So long as men can breathe, have eyes to see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Though physically Brij Premi is no more with us, his soul still lives with us. This is due to his passionate and dedicated service to the cause and spread of Urdu in the J&K State. Urdu, being rich in subtle thought and possessing an equally rich vocabulary (especially in its poetry) it is bound to grow and prosper on the sub-continent of India and as such Brij Premi’s name shall always be associated with it.

Many an erudite scholar has written on the life and art of Brij Premi. These are Gulam Rasool Nazki, Qamar Jalalabadi, Rehman Rahi, Amin Kamil, Motilal Saqi, Nayeem Sidiqui (Pakistan) Shahid Budgami, Farida Kaul, Margoob Banahali and others. Possessing not even a smattering knowledge of Urdu, I am aware how audacious it is for me to attempt a review almost like the proverbial fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread. Yet I do let a wider public know about Urdu and about Brij Premi’s contribution to it; two, Premi himself wrote many articles on Urdu in English; three—I share with Brij Premi love for natural beauty of the Happy Valley, love for its rich heritage in terms of culture and literature and above all love for Kashmiriat; four—I have been a proud teacher of Premi in the college.

Before I proceed, let me quote from “The place where I live’ by Brij Premi:

“Where I live is known for centuries as the paradise-founded by Kashyap Rishi-where I live is the place which gave birth to mystics and poets like Lala Ded, Sheikh Noor-ul-Alam. Habba Khatoon, Rasul Mir, Paramanand, Mehjur….This is the place whose water and air flowed in the veins of Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Iqbal, Chakbast and Sadat Hassan Mantoo…’

But certainly Brij Premi loved Urdu and its literature more with a passion and dedication rarely found. Possessing the twin characteristics of creative artist and critic, he conducted research and study, so vast and detailed that in a short span of time he was able to present the remarkable book “Jammu-o-Kashmir main Urdu Adab Ki Nashu Numa”, that is, evolution of Urdu in Jammu and Kashmir. He covers the entire gamut right from the Dogra rule to the present day, thus not only making the common man familiar with the language and its rich literature but also provoking him to go to the originals. He gives evidence of a literary historian who approaches his subject with an objective, rational and scientific attitude.  He surely was opposed  to autarchic rule of the Dogra rulers, but he points out how grateful the lovers of Urdu in the state should be to Maharaja Ranbir Singh and Maharaja Pratap Singh who encouraged the growth and popularity of Urdu. Maharaja Ranbir Singh got Persian, Sanskrit and English classics and manuscripts translated into Urdu and without hesitation declared Urdu as the state language, of course, giving Kashmiri, Hindi and Dogri their due status. Brij Premi lauds the creative artists in Urdu but at the same time regrets that some of them made deliberate attempts to Persianize Urdu, thereby making it unintelligible for many readers.

No critical historian of any literature worth the name can be truly objective without relating the times to their creative products. That is what Brij Premi has done precisely. The times to which writers like Prem Chand Munshi and in our state like Prem Nath and Prem Nath Dhar and others younger to them belonged were indeed pre-independence and post-independence times-times exciting and stirring. Struggle for freedom from British imperialism in India and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir against the Dogra autocracy was in full swing. Epical in its quality the heroes and leaders of the freedom movement like Gandhi, Nehru, Abdul Gaffar Khan and Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah possessed epical dimensions. Naturally no young and sensitive artist could resist the impact of this struggle because for them it was the beginning of freedom from poverty and exploitation of the downtrodden:

Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive

But to be young was very heaven.

So sang young William Wordsworth about the French Revolution. And, so, as Brij Premi rightly points out, our short story writers mainly chose their themes to paint vividly the sufferings of the peasants and labourers of the state. It is clear how Premi connects the growth of Urdu short story to the social and political milieu of the times. And before we mention what critical remarks Brij Premi has made in detail about these writers it is important to know what role Urdu journalism played in the process. In fact, no literature has flourished especially in its infancy without the essential infrastructure of newspapers, journals and printing press. Maharaja Ranbir Singh provided the press while Mulk Raj Saraf gave the first Urdu newspaper Ranbir to the people of the state. In it and later on in Akhbari Aam, Vitasta, Martand, Hamdard etc. not only began the appearance of articles on political and social themes, but short stories and critical articles on literature made their appearance. The progressive movement and progressive literature began to be propagated through newspapers and in journals which soon followed the dailies and weeklies. Progressive cultural front was organised soon after attainment of independence. Brij Premi notes in the book under review that the short story in the state became the artistic mouthpiece for alleviating the sufferings of the exploited sections of the society.

In the field of the short story Brij Premi notes with gratitude the sources from which the writers who nourished this genre received their inspiration. Of Prem Chand, Sajad Hyder and then of the journalist-poet-scholar Munshi Mohammad-ud-Din Fouq he makes special mention. Naturally, Prem Nath Pardesi, and Prem Nath Dhar are discussed in greater detail. Pardesi’s “Duniya Hamari”, Dhar’s “Kagaz Ka Vasudev” and “Nilie Aankhen” are specially mentioned. Naturally after partition, the themes of bloodshed and exodus received greater attention and Ramanand Sagar’s “Insan Mar Gaya” became a national craze. Writing under the impact of the communist ideology, short story writers gave this art a new dimension as already said. On the literary firmament were seen new stars like Somnath Zutshi, Ali Mohammad Lone, Akhtar Mohi-ud-Din, Ved Rahi, Brij Premi, Hari Kishen Kaul and Gulam Rasool Santosh. This as Premi points out, the artistic and aesthetic side of the short story became subservient to what can be called a mission.

Premi notes, however, that after 1965, the content and technique of the short story in the state underwent a change. Impact of science and technology was felt and the writers went into themes psychological; the inner mind of man began to be explored; conflicts were discussed through the characters and man-woman relationship too received attention. Mention is made of a new generation of writers in the genre under discussion, prominent among them being Omar Majid, Kishori Manchanda, Shams-ud-Din Shamim, Virendra Patwari and others. Brij Premi pursues the study to the latest times. The evolution of Urdu literature and its forte the short story in our state, continued its march with yet a fresher content and a novel technique. Anand Lehar, Anis Hamdani, Somnath Dogra, Jan Mohd. Azad, Ashraf Ansari with others have blazed yet another trail.

Brij Premi succeeds in his purpose of critically outlining the evolution of the short story in the J&K State. Though aware of the limitations of space he nevertheless give a fairly adequate information about his subject. He talks about the political and social contexts, the role of newspapers and journals and educational institutions and especially of the J&K Cultural Academy in helping Urdu blossom into a noble and effective medium to satisfy the aesthetic tastes of the people in general. He creates interest for the original works by giving glimpses of personal lives of writers, their privations, their joys and sorrows and above all their love for Kashmiris and Kashmiriat, not ignoring the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Ladakh.

The novel in Urdu did not progress so well as the short story. Brij Premi attributes it to lack of newspapers prepared to publish novels in serials. He, however, fails to point out another reason: during the period of fast social and political changes, people would have no patience to sit long over a novel. Yet at a later stage, the craft of fiction started evolving itself to mature art, especially after 1960 where Pardesi’s aborted novel “Poti” and Ramanand Sagar’s classic “Insan Mar Gaye” provided the lead, the novel was to grow in the hands of Narsinghdas Nargis, Thakur Punchi, Sofi Mohi-ud-Din, Faroq Renzu, Jan Mohd. Azad etc. It however failed to attract attention because it focussed only on social problems, seldom going deep into human psychology.

Since drama in Urdu made a late appearance, having its origin in wandering groups of entertainers, Brij Premi does not justifiably devote too much space to its evolution. Though some troupes did perform in the state and dramas of Aga Hashar Kashmiri, Betab Benarasi, Talib Banarasi created interest in writing of drama, it were Mohd. Umar Noor Illahi and Dina Nath Warikoo who proved pioneers in the field. Finally the impetus to this genre came through Radio Stations in Srinagar and Jammu. The radio plays by Prem Nath Pardesi, Akhtar Mohi-ud-Din, Som Nath Zutshi, Ali Mohd. Lone. Thakur Punchi and Shabnam Qayum were well-written and equally well-presented. The coming of the TV too has helped the growth of drama in Urdu.

Naturally the growth of criticism in Urdu receives detailed attention of Brij Premi. This genre of literature helps the growth of a language and its literature in a country. It is critics who are the propagators of literature. In the columns of newspapers and journals and in the form of books critics offer appreciations of the works of art, thus making the wider public familiar with these; they offer guidelines for enjoying a piece of literary art. And when a critic happens to be a creative artist at the same time, criticism becomes much more helpful. Though rarely so in the western world, in the J&K state the two have co-alesced. In our state the pioneers in this field were Mohi-ud-Din Fouq, Mohd. Umer Noor-Illahi, Abdul Ahad Azad, Nandlal Talib, Prem Nath Bazaz etc. Yet critics like Salamullah, Shamim Ahmed Shamim, Dr. Aziz Ahmed Qureshi, Dr. Hamidi, Ali Mohd. Lone and a host of others have done equally well in making Urdu Literature read and enjoyed by a wider public.

In Jammu especially pioneering work was done by Dr. Shyam Lal Kalra by presenting to the people his book “Angrezi Rehjanat” outlining the influence of English criticism on Urdu criticism. Brij Premi also mentions and rightly so, the critical works on Urdu literature by eminent critics like Prithvi Nath Pushp, Mohi-ud-Din Qazi, Gulam Rasool Nazki, Moti Lal Saqi, Asad-Ullah Wani, Premi Romani, Yosuf Salim, Majid Mazmar etc.

Moti Lal Saqi in his brief foreword to the book under review notes that before this one on the evolution of Urdu in the J&K State, one by Dr Abdul Qadir Sarwari had already appeared. He writes, “The book written by Dr. Sarwari cannot be overlooked. But very few people will be acquainted with the truth that Premi rendered great help to Dr. Sarwari in preparation of the book and this help is creditable….I can speak on personal knowledge that Premi deserves appreciation for his dedicated and sympathetic care with which he collected material for Dr. Sarwari’s book”.

I need not repeat that Brij Premi has rendered a yeoman’s service to the cause of Urdu in the state. Let me conclude by quoting from Prof. Ale Ahmed Saroor:

“The remarkable work that Dr. Brij Premi has done for Urdu literature and Urdu criticism is creditable”.

*The author was Professor of English and also served as Controller Examinations, University of Kashmir. His published works include—Sheikh Abdullah, Lal Ded. He has also been involved in Literary Criticism.

By Upender Ambardar

Dr. Brij Premi, a noted Urdu scholar and a writer is a name familiar to a wide circle of Urdu readers. The wealth of written material he has left behind in the form of books, research articles, shot stories, essays, literary criticism, allegories besides translations and travelogues is a veritable treasure trove in the world of creative Urdu literature. His wider canvas and literary genius has resulted in remarkable and well-recognised literary works. Infact, his works have contributed immensely to the growth, development and enrichment of the Urdu literature.

“Sadat Hassan Mantoo-Hayat Aur Karnamay” (Life and Works) is one such highly acclaimed literary work of Dr. Brij Premi.

This master piece, which is based on incisive and in-depth research work, has won him the paeans of praise from all shades of the Urdu scholars all over the country. The said book of 375 pages thoughtfully structured in various sections and chapters reveals and shares various startling facts and facets of Mantoo’s life and literary works. The author at the very beginning enlightens the reader about Mantoo’s Kashmiri descent and his excessive  emotional affinity with Kashmir. This fact Mantoo himself proclaims time and again in his writings with a profound sense of pride : “I am a Kashmiri. Long back my ancestors migrated from Kashmir to Punjab, where they embraced Islam”.

Mantoo’s admiration and adoration for Kashmir is inherent and sentimental, which is collaborated by his revelation in an article: “I am also a Kashmiri…and I have endless love for fellow Kashmiris”.

The reader also comes to know that Krishan Chander, the legendary Urdu writer and Mantoo’s literary companion also endorses it by his assertions: “Mantoo like Nehru and Iqbal is a Kashmiri Pandit….By his disposition, temperament, features and spirits, Mantoo even today is a Kashmiri Pandit.” Mantoo’s Saraswat Brahman pedigree is also affirmed by his wife Safia Begum in one of her letters to the author. As investigated by the author Dr. Premi, the surname ‘Mantoo’ owes its origin to a Kashmiri word ‘Manut’, meaning one and a half seer (a Kashmiri weight measurement). Mantoo’s ancestors would take this weight of the produce as levy from the public as a part of the tax collection. As detailed in the book, one of the ancestors of Mantoo namely Khawaja Rehmat Ullah, who dealt in Pashmina and Shawl business is believed to have migrated from Kashmir to Lahore (Punjab) in the beginning of nineteenth century and thereafter to Amritsar where he finally settled down.

It was at Samrala, a place in district Ludhiana where Mantoo was born on 11th May 1912 and also had his initial education. His father Moulvi Ghulam Hassan had twelve issues by his two wives. During his student days,  Mantoo envisaged little interest in the studies but somehow managed to pass his matriculation examination from Amritsar. Influenced by progressive literary movement and the ideology of Marx and Lenin, Bari Aleeg, Mantoo’s mentor and preceptor was instrumental in moulding his thinking and character. It resulted in the stock piling of a large number of books on Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Gorky, Pushkin, Chekov, October Russian Revolution, Oscar Wilde, Maupassant and Victor Hugo in Mantoo’s room, named ‘Darul-Hamar’. The author further mentions that Mantoo’s youthful imagination was also fired by the revolutionary conviction of Bhagat Singh, whose photograph adorned Mantoo’s room shelf joined by his communist friends, Mantoo’s said room was the hub of animated discussions about the great October Russian Revolution and Marxist Ideology.

Though after matriculation, Mantoo enrolled himself for F.A. Studies at Aligarh Muslim University but impending economic constraints and failing health coerced him to discontinue his studies. After having been diagnosed to be suffering from T.B. disease, Mantoo decided to go to Batote (J&K State) sanatorium for convalescence, where he stayed for three months.

Batote’s spell binding natural grandeur, picturesque surroundings and Mantoo’s infatuation with a native shepherdess named, ‘Bego’ find their reflections in Mantoo’s well-known short stories entitled “Ek khat”, “Bego”, “Misri Ki Dali”, “Mausam Ki Shararat” and “Lalteen” etc.

Mantoo’s association with a progressive daily newspaper of Amritsar “Masawat” heralded his journalistic career. Subsequently due to the financial stringencies resulting from the death of his father and also out of his flawed relationships with some of his close relatives, forced young Mantoo to move to Lahore, where he joined Lala Karam Chand’s newspaper “Paras” on monthly wages of Rs forty.

It was during this time that besides compiling translated short stories of Gorky, Mantoo himself translated certain Russian short stories for a special number of ‘Alamgheer’ magazine.

Compelled by his economic constraints and indifferent health, the author Dr. Brij Premi lucidly traces Mantoo’s journey from Lahore to Bombay at the young age of twenty years. In order to satiate his literary hunger, Mantoo with renewed will and vigour associated himself with different cine periodicals and film companies of Bombay. In January 1936, he started as a columnist-cum-editor in Nazeer Ludhianavis’ cine weekly “Musavir”, on monthly wages of Rs forty only and later-on shifted to “Karwan”, another periodical at Bombay.

His subsequent association as a dialogue writer, with Bombay’s ‘Imperial Film Company’ and later on with ‘Film City’ and ‘Hindustan Cine Tune’ is also covered by the author.

During this period, Mantoo wrote the screen play of his first feature film ‘Apni Nagariya’, which was based on his own short story ‘Keechad’. The film turned out to be a box office hit.

Mantoo’s marriage in 1939 with Safya Begum who belonged to an old Kashmiri family of Lahore but settled in Africa, the birth of his first child Arif in 1940 and his mother’s demise in 1940 itself are well documented by the author, Dr. Brij Premi.

Manto’s disillusionment with life because of his mother’s death and his deteriorating health forced him to say good-bye to Bombay and seek employment as a script writer in the Drama section of All India Radio in 1941 on a salary of Rs 150 per month. Urdu legendaries like Krishna Chander, Upender Nath Ashq, Noom Meem Rashid, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Rajander Singh Bedi and Behnaz Lucknawi were his associates there. During his one and a half year’s stint at All India Radio Delhi, Manto wrote more than one hundred and fifty radio plays and features, the notable among them being “Jaeb Katra”, Neeli Ragen”, “Journalist”, besides “Intezar Ka Doosra Rukh”. All these details have been revealed with graphic description by the author.

The hurt caused by indifference of his colleagues due to professional jealousy and the death of his lone son Arif in July 1942 compelled Mantoo to quit the job at All India Radio and to shift to Bombay once again on 7th August 1942, where he subsequently joined ‘Filmistan’, the film company on a salary of Rs 300 per month. It was at the Filmistan that he scripted his first film under its banner by the name of ‘Chal Chal Rae Naujawan’. It was followed by the release of his two more films ‘Ghumand’ and ‘Mirza Ghalib’. As clearly indicated by the author, Mantoo was greatly influenced by the poetry of Ghalib, the fact which is collaborated by the frequent use of Ghalib’s poetry by Mantoo in his various writings.

His uneasy equation with the management of Filmistan and the rosy picture of better professional prospectus at Lahore (Pakistan) persuaded Mantoo to migrate to Pakistan in January 1948, where his family had already migrated after the partition of the country. There, he again associated himself with the film industry and his first film in Pakistan was ‘Beli’, which was followed by his another film ‘Doosri Kothi’.

As per the author Dr. Brij Premi, the enormous devastation, violence and bloodshed inflicted on the people of the subcontinent in the aftermath of the partition in 1947 forced Mantoo to pour-out his crying soul in his short stories. As reflected in them, he outrightly rejected the narrow minded religious and communal approach of the fundamentalist forces in both the countries. His daringly written post partition literary work in Pakistan is indicative of the view that Mantoo was deeply saddened by the events that followed the partition of the country.

The dreadful realities of the partition of the country are vividly reflected in Mantoo’s writings, in which the hard hitting denunciation of the communal forces is quite evident. Mantoo’s unorthodox look, coupled with  his pragmatic and rational approach is reflected in his short stories like ‘Kali Shalvar’, ‘Boo’, ‘Dhuvan’, ‘Thanda Goshat’, ‘Khol Doh’ and ‘Oopur Neechay Darmiyan’ etc. These creative writings infuriated and antagonized both the colonial English rulers before independence and the Pakistani authorities after partition.

Further, Mantoo’s short stories also have a word of sympathy for the downtrodden oppressed and those leading a life of squalor and misery. Mantoo examines the issues related with the common man with sentimental compassion and fearless assertion. His humanistic approach, championing of the cause of the proletariat and his socialist and leftist leanings are quite evident in his writings. Even after his migration to Pakistan, Mantoo did not discard and surrender his secular and progressive credentials. He remained committed to them to the last. As revealed by the author, a combination of successive setbacks, indifference of his close associates at Bombay, uncertainties and insecurities of life and fickleness of the ‘Dame Luck’ to favour him forced Mantoo to migrate to Lahore (Pakistan).

Undeniably, the book “Sadat Hassan Mantoo—Hayat Aur Karmay”, is an outstanding work of Dr. Brij Premi. It has rightly been acclaimed by the critics as a magnificent, comprehensive and in-depth research work on the life and works of Mantoo. The book is a valuable addition to the Urdu literature.

*(The author is a Keen student of Kashmir’s Culture and Tradition. His pioneering work on KASHMIRI PANDIT DIASPORA IN HIMACHAL PRADESH has been widely acclaimed. He has also translated many Kashmiri and Urdu writers into English.)

R.N. Koul’s book on Lalla Ded has in no manner thrown any new light on the historical times that provided background setting for the emergence of a personality like Lalla who by and large shaped a response to the challenge posed by the forces of religious intolerance and obscurantism. A mere superficial reference to the religious and political turbulence, that ravaged the Happy Valley does not explain it. The learned author could have taken a cue from Sir Richard Temple, who, despite his distortions and misinterpretations, has surveyed the total political and religious scenario to ensure a thorough comprehension of the shaping processes of Lalla’s mind and thought. ‘Orthodex’ ‘Brahmanism’ and ‘aggressive Islam’ (due to some fanatics) fall into a pattern of cliches in absence of a relevant exposition objective in approach and premise. ‘A tradition or cult engendered by Hindu mystics and Muslim Sufis’ needs a thorough and dispassionate discussion which the author has given a short shrift.

There are evidences galore to establish that Kashmir enjoyed a tremendous reputation for being an abode of rishis (rishi vatika) harbouring a strong and coherent indigenous tradition of rishi-cult with its root systems embedded in the vedic age. In terms of history, Sufism in its essence was absolutely foreign to Kashmir. It was introduced in the religious ambience of Kashmir by the Muslim proselytizers. Most of them sought protection in Kashmir when they were under persecution in their native lands for their indulgence in politics and affairs mundane. A Sufi owing affiliation to the Kubrawe sect of sufism imposed twenty humiliating conditions on Hindus. The learned author does not seem to be sure which Sufi-cult he is alluding to. Does he refer to the same sufis that have authorized the chapter of inconoclasm and religious strife in Kashmir’ He is perhaps led-into the belief of the existence of a mis-labelled Sufi-cult in Kashmir by the native rishis, are perpetuators of the mainstream native tradition bequeathed to them by Lalla and her galaxy of cultural progenitors having no linkages with the Islamic Sufisim of Central Asian vintage.

In the sub-title of the book the learned author has perhaps more wittingly than unwittingly re-introduced an Islamised name for Lalla Ded. A similar campaign was spearheaded at the inaugural function of Lalla Ded Hospital, which was initially christened as Lalla Arifa Hospital by the powers that be. A person sitting in the audience challenged. The far-fetched and unhistorical references to Lalla Ded. The function presided over by Sheikh Abdullah was literally disrupted by the vigorous intervention of an old man leaning against his scaff. The Sheikh dithered under a wave of protest by a number of genuine intellectuals including Pt Jaya Lal Koul and Pt PN Pusp (professors of classical vintage) and ordered formation of a committee to have a second look at the Lalla Arifa nomenclature. On the recommendations of the committee the Islamised nomenclature was dropped again to be picked up by the learned author for a new dress up a revival for wayward reasons, may, opportunist considerations.

Lack of thorough grounding in the basics of Kashmir Shaiva monism (paradvya) is the Achile’s heel of the whole work which in fact has impaired the critical evaluation and treatment of the pithy vakhs of Lalla. It is a misnomer to call Trika Shastra as Kashmir Shaivism. Trika is a strand of Kashmir Shaiva monism and understandably a part cannot represent the entire thought model. It is equally relevant to point out that Kashmir Shaivism is not an apt name for the system which has pristine non-dualism as its cardinal principle. The deceptive no-menclature gained currency with the publication of JC Chatterje’s first doctoral thesis on the subject. ‘The theory and practice of Kashmir Shaivism’ in which Lalla was initiated by her preceptor, Siddha Shri Kanth, was neither dualist nor dual-cum-non-dualist, but essentially monist in assumptions. Sir Richard Temple has expressed an amazing grasp of the over-riding spirit of Lalla when he chracterised her as ‘Shaiva Yogini’. Had the learned author heeded his appraisal, he would not have digressed to recount all forms of yoga that have little relevance in Kashmir Shaiva monist thought. Patanjali Yoga stresses the regression of human senses and other natural proclivities. But the monist thought recognised their positive role in the processes of higher ascension through their sublimation and satiation. The yogic terms have been absorbed in the system but stand ruminated with new nuances of meaning and semantics. The word ‘Bindu’ originally known as ‘Vindu’ denotes unidifferentiated condition of infinite luminous consciousness supreme. ‘The mystic moon and the mystic sun’ carry three shades of meanings in sync with Shaiva Yoga methodologies of Shambava, Shakta and Anava. In Shambava methodology the mystic moon and the sun are representative combination of supreme luminosity (Prakash) and I-consciousness (Vimarsa). In Shakta methodology they imply Jnana and Kriya and in Anava methodology they denote prana and apana. The mystic sun also symbolises an inflamable energy that burns out meshes of duality. The mystic moon also refers to ‘apana breath’ deemed as cool and invigorating and the mystic sun alludes to ‘prana breath’ which is suffused with warmth. Sahasrasar is the repertoire of infinite consciousness in the being supreme. ‘Hamsa’ is derivable to ‘ham’ and ‘sah’, the former indicates the divine will of the Lord and the latter divine knowledge. In Swacchand Tantra ‘Hamsah’ is explained in the sense of ‘I am That’ symbolising’ undifferentiated and indivisible being. ‘Sushumna’ is known by other variants like brahma-nadi, madhya nadi or madhya-dham. Buit as per Shaiva-yoga in tersm transcendental it is known as all pervading Samvit-Shakti penetrating the sentient and insentient objects.In the classic work of Ishwarpratybijjna utpaldev has explicitly explained five forms of prana-shakti as prana, apana, saman, udana, and vyana (Ishwarpratybijjna, 3,2,19).

A systematic study of Lalla’s Vakhs as is deftly made by BN Parimu in his book ‘Ascent of self ‘establishes that she had undergone all relevant processes of becoming to mature into the state of divine consciousness which in Shaivite parlance is known as ‘Shiva Samavesh’. When initiated she had to work out the practices recognised under Anava methodology like japa, vrata, niyam, dhyam, dharna for yoking the sensesinatured tendencies for entry into the Shakta grade for higher elevation. An initiate is certainly helped is under proper guidance he practises all the formulae which the learned author has huddled under, Hindu, ritealistic system’. After a seeker attains higher phases of consciousness, such methodologies become redundant and are of nouse. In sivastatravali, utpaldev has put:-

Na yoga nor tapo Nacharkrama koapi preniyate! 
Amaye Shivamarge asmin bhakti eka prashyaste !! 

Lalla was a witness to the turbulent times. She was honing up her thought and working out its actualisation by harnessing her body potentialities and inherent urges. She through her vakh “Shiva chuy thali thali rozan, mozan Heund ta musalman..” castigated the proselytisers not to differentiate between Hindus and Muslims and called upon them to take to the path of Trika (trial of para, parapara and apara) which would lead them to self-recognition (pratybijjna). As an initiated follower of Shiva monism she had learnt to rise above the distinctions of caste and religion and disseminated the message to proselytisors who advocated and practised conversions as cure to imaginary ills out of xenophobic considerations.

In his curious explanation of the Vakh ‘temple is built of stone as the stone he worships’ the learned author establishes her as a ‘trend-setter’ as he has decried the ‘false pantheon of Hindu’s and ‘their blind faith’ in finding God by ‘singing hymns to the stone lingam’. As Lalla was thoroughly grounded in the fundamental precepts and tenets of Shaiva monism planked on tantric assumptions, she could not subscribe to external forms of worship signifying duality notwithstanding their efficacy at initatory stages. ‘Shaiva Bakhti’ rejects daulism and focuses on Shiva pervading the worshipper, the worshipped and instruments of worship as the focal point of worship. Tantras have not accepted any form of external and ritual worship and as Kashmir Shaiva monism has tantric asumptions as its substatum, Lalla as an initiated practitioner of it could not but reject it in ultimate analysis. She has in no way rejected or decried the pantheon of Buddhist and Hindu Gods who as per her thought considered them as various manifestations of Citi (supreme consciousness).  Before coming to a far-fetched conclusions, the author should have considered the following vakh:-

Shiva of Keshava or Jina 
or Brahma, the lotus born Lord 
May be remove from me 
the sickness of the world! 
It may be He or He or He 
(For He is one though variously called) 
J.L. Koul’s rendering. 

That Lalla danced naked as put in an emotion-packed vakh and moved about naked as per a legend has evoked various responses from scholars who have written upon Lalla’s life and her poetical outpourings. Shanker Pandit, a scholar and practitioner, suggested to replace the word ‘nangaya’ (naked) by the word ‘nonguy’, said to be a flower growing wild on mountain slopes. The learned author, Koul, finds a lot of incompatibility in Lalla ‘moving about naked’ and ‘her incarnation as the ‘Muse of knowledge’ and more prcisely ‘as the Muse of poesy’. In his attempt at reconciliation he attributes it to her ‘miraculous powers’.

The fact about Lalla remains that she was initiated by her preceptor, a perfect soul, through the laconic metaphor of ‘turn your gaze within’ which like an alchemy metamorphosed her whole being. She became one with the Shiva consciousness in a manner of absolute synthesis. As freedom (swatnatrya) is an inherent attribute, call it nature, of absolute consciousness, Lalla in the same condition of consciousness cognised her self and true cognition lies in the realisation that pure undifferentiated consciousness is infinite freedom itself. It is the same stateof infinite freedom that is symbolised by Lalla singing that she danced naked in joyecstactic.

What is said above is corroborated by the statement about Shambhava, Upaya in Malinivijaya Tantra. That is said to be Shambhava-Samavesha which happens to one whohas attained freedom from all ideation by an awakening imparted by the guru (preceptor) or by an intense awakening of one’s own.

There are other inaccuracies and mis-statements littering over the book. Kashmir Shaiva monism does not consider ‘flesh’ i.e. human body as ‘dross’. It has given the body an utmost importance as it serves as a vehicle for purposes spiritual. Five bhutas have been stated as five senses. ‘Moha’ is translated as illusory pleasures. It should have been translated as delusory pleasurers as Kashmir monism does not subscribe tothe thesis of world as an illusion or chimmera. World as per its tenets is a manifestatino of Shiva. It,therefore, cannot be termed as illusory. Delusory implies all that which is taken for self, but falls withinthe ambit of ‘not’self’. Desires and other natural urges are not to be crushed to powerdish non-existence’ nor are these to be ‘burnt’. Kashmir Shiava monism advocates the sublimation and gratification of senses and desires which paves the wa to the final state of self-cognition.

The book is a good reading especially in the portions where inner themeof the Vaakhs has been elucidated. Such an attempt pioneers a new trend inthe exposition of Lallar Book: Kashmir’s Hermat Poetess Lalla Ded Alias Lalla Arifa by R.N. Koul Pages 101, Price 150.

Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe.

Anchor Books, 2001. Pages 115. $ 10.

Chinua Achebe has already established his rightful place in the world of letters. Apart from writing influential novels, poems, and short stories, Achebe has also written ground-breaking essays. Without being unduly loud, flashy, modish, or controversial, he has emerged as a critic of seminal importance, and has exercised considerable influence in shaping our response to post-colonial literature.

Home and Exile is his most recent book of essays, a published version of three lectures he delivered at Harvard University in 1998. They have a strong autobiographical flavour, because Achebe looks back on the significant moments of his literary journey right from his childhood days in his home in Nigeria to his present state of exile in the USA.

The volume begins with Achebe’s life with his parents in their village, where his father returned after doing missionary work at several places. Since the home was under “imperial fire,” his reflective gaze provides a clear picture of what it meant to live in a colonial setting. He contests misconceptions about Igbo people by calling them a nation and not a tribe. In pre-colonial times, Igbo villages and towns obeyed no king and no central authority; they were uniquely positioned to enjoy perfect autonomy, which was lost to them only after colonial powers imposed their ways on them  -  a clear rebuff to historians who wrote about their barbaric and undemocratic ways.

Achebe’s encounter with Joyce Carey’s work is well known by now. His re-telling of the incident, however, makes us understand that the likes of Carey exercised power over the minds of Africans because of their “absolute power over narrative.” Basing their work on the “tools of try scholarly fantasies and pseudo-sciences,” even the best of them created a shattering image of the inferiority of the African race, for which they deserve to be censured. This helped Achebe to understand that the innocence of literature is a myth, and one has to see its political implications with adult, mature eyes. However, he does not plead for any special theory of reading, certainly not the try post-colonial variety, though some of its proponents have used his writings in support of their views.

Achebe asserts that writers have not merely to write back to the Empire but also to fight it with spirit and conviction. He says that writers have to combat the “stereotypes of malice” contained in the writings of Europeans about Africa, which left people with a “badly damaged sense of the self.” The process of colonisation did not stop at exercising political control over people; it aimed at damaging their psyche by colonising their stories. The job of the post-colonial writer is to rescue narratives from the pernicious control of the colonials, by writing their versions, and thus asserting “the curative power of stories.” With loving care and a sense of satisfaction Achebe traces the rise of the new African writing, and expresses his warm appreciation of the writers’ attempt to use their skill and imagination for erasing the misrepresentation of their people and infusing a sense of pride and a spirit of confidence in them.

Achebe’s greatest strength lies in his being firmly rooted in his soil and with his people, even though he is not always among them. He disparages writers who uphold the idea of universalism in art, because it virtually implies accepting and imitating western culture and civilisation. Africa does not need “copycats but those able to bring hitherto untold stories, along with new ways of telling.”

Because of his concern for one’s place and clime, of pride in one’s cultural moorings, Achebe is critical of writers, even the ones with firm reputations, who do not respect this: of Buchi Emecheta, who self-avowedly minimises her “Africanness” to do well in the global market; of V. S. Naipaul, for writing dark and unwholesome books on India and Africa, which Achebe considers “pompous rubbish”; of Salman Rushdie, for saying that “literature has nothing to do with a writer’s home address.” Quite understandably, Achebe writes warmly and approvingly about R. K. Narayan, because he “invested in India; he did not take himself out.”

For the same reasons, Achebe does not approve of “expatriation and exile as intrinsically desirable goals.” These may be fashionable, but may not produce good writing. Implicitly, he also suggests that the Empire has not to be fought with mere words, with verbal pyrotechnics or flourishes of style, but with one’s strength, which derives from one’s place and culture.

To sum up, Home and Exile is a very readable, wise, and fruitful account of Achebe’s growth as a writer of uncommon sanity and exceptional clarity, which sets him apart from both European and non-European writers. He affirms the importance of the narrative as a powerful weapon of defiance, but stresses that it has to bear the imprint of a writer’s social and cultural bearings and not of spurious and fashionable ideologies of western supermarkets. He is particularly hard on deracinated intellectuals whose espousal of universal culture and values does not augur well for the future of less privileged societies, because it threatens them with new and subtler kinds of colonialism.

Crisis in Kashmir continues to defy solution, not due to complexity of the problem but because the Indian political leadership has allowed itself to become prisoner of myths, assiduously promoted by the vested interests inimical to Indian interests in Kashmir. Such expressions- ‘Maximum autonomy, short of secession’, ‘Sky is the limit’, ‘dialogue within the framework of Insaniyat‘, ‘borders are irrelevant’, ‘we have to give something to Kashmiris to address their alienation and accommodate their aspirations”, etc. indicate how the separatists and their apologists in Indian civil society continue to dictate the discourse on Kashmir.

Kashmir problem has three dimensions one, it is part of nonsecularisation of Indian Muslim Community. If in Kashmir it manifests as secessionism, elsewhere it presents as cultural separatism. Legacy of two-nation theory, pursuance of religious identity politics by the Valley’s political leadership, rise of Jamaat Islami as a significant force and the impact of global Pan-Islamism have not left Kashmiris untouched. These processes have acted as a brake on the process of secularisation in Kashmiri Muslim society. How a weak secular society be a willing partner in secular nation-building? Many solutions that are being flaunted would ultimately strengthen communal consciousness in Kashmir and further deepen alienation. Kashmiri alienation is actually the manifestation of a weak secular consciousness.

The second dimension is the issue of crossborder terrorism, directly sponsored by Pakistan. As long as Pakistani Military-Civil oligarchy continues to visualise Pak security in terms of bleeding India how can there be peace with Pakistan. Whatever may be the compulsions for the latter to remain engaged in ‘peace process’, there is as yet, no evidence about a paradigmal shift in Pakistan’s approach. Countering Pakistan’s proxy war adequately and building strong deterrents to immobilise internal support structures of subversion in Kashnmir remain India’s best options. Weak signals emanating from Delhi that India was willing to accommodate Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists ‘for the sake of eternal peace’ would convey that terrorism pays.

Lastly, it is the internal dimension that has received little attention, both by the scholars as well as the Indian political leadership. Kashmir has been projected as a problem between Kashmiri Muslims and the Indian state. Plurality of the state, where other communities strongly opposed to secessionism outnumber Kashmiris, is overlooked. J&K is treated as a homogenous entity and Kashmiris as a monolithic group. In the past the Central government would reach a settlement with a section of Kashmiri leadership and leave the people of state to their own fate. This only worsened the situation. By addressing the internal dimension the Centre can facilitate the return of peace but also help keep external interference at bay.

‘Demystifying Kashmir’, authored by Navneet Chadha Behera breaks new ground by dissenting from the myths woven around Kashmir imbroglio over the past two decades. The book’s main value lies in that it tries to grapple with the internal dimension in a way that has never been attempted before. The author makes two profound statements. One, ‘the deeply plural character of J&K society is at the heart of the secessionist movement in the state and helps to account for secessionist demands as well as failures’. Secondly, Chaddha warns that while addressing the alienation of Kashmiris, one should not lose sight of the political aspirations of other communities as well. She says, “They had a great deal to do with the failure of the Kashmiris’ secessionist agenda in the 1950s and the 1990s and are a critical factor in shaping the future peace process”. Since 1947 the Valley leadership has been successful in manipulating a political dispensation that has effectively marginalised non-Kashmiri regions of Jammu and Ladakh, besides Kashmiri Pandits and Gujjars. This has weakened the nationalist response in the state. The Centre has been more willing to listen and accommodate the interests of Valley’s political elite. Even today, be it the issues of delimitation of constituencies or the solutions that are being peddled the patriotic groups continue to receive the raw deal.

Navnita Behera has quoted extensively from history to show how Kashmiri leadership has been pursuing hegemonist and sectarian policies. She remarks that the National Conference had sought the status of an autonomous republic in the Indian Union to safeguard and nuture the interests of Kashmiris. But reversing the logic in J&K Kashmiris the majority community were reluctant to share political power with Jammu and Ladakh…“Sheikh Abdullah was not prepared to concede to Jammu and Ladakh those very rights and privileges that he himself had demanded from the Indian state, which were not to be interpreted as a step towards separatism but as a ‘mutual accommodation of each other’s viewpoint”.

The Constituent Assembly (dominated by NC) had created a unitary state with a clear concentration of powers in the Valley through disproportionate representation in both the constituent Assembly and the State Assembly. In 1951 in 45 out of 49 seats Praja Parishad contested the nomination papers were rejected on flimsy technical grounds, “thereby subverting the democratic process and denying Jammu a voice in shaping the future political system”.

Secondly, constitutionally and politically the state had no systems of checks and balances. The slogans of despotic regime – ‘one party,’ ‘one leader’, turned “Parliamentary democracy, resting on the principle of majority rule, into a ‘Kashmiri rule.’ Chadha remarks, “The Unitary state structures and parochial policies of the NC government favoured the Valley in political, economic and administrative matters, leaving Jammu and Ladakh feeling neglected and marginalised, and prepared to seek separation from the Valley”.

Breaking up the Hindu-majority district of Udhampur, Opposition to rehabilitation of refugees from PoK, imposition of Urdu in Jammu and Ladakh, closing down of Sanskrit Research Department etc. by the Sheikh Abdullah regime soon after 1947, have been quoted to show how NC pursued sectarian politics. Ladakh too bore the brunt of communal governance. Chadha records, “The studied indifference of the state government in transferring Zanskar to Leh tehsil was in marked contrast to its willingness to grant Doda the status of a separate Muslim-majority district in the Jammu region”. No allocation was made in the first budget for Ladakh’s development, the region had no separate plan until 1961. Sheikh Abdullah began differentiating between the “Muslims and non-Muslims of the State” – ‘It is the Muslims who have to decide accession with India and not the non-Muslims as the latter have no place in Pakistan and because their only choice is India…“Chadha observes,” His conception of the Kashmiri identity had changed from “the people of J&K state” to mainly the “Kashmiri Muslims”.

Institutionalised discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh forced these regions to raise demands for regional autonomy. Instead of responding to their legitimate grievances, the Valley leadership “sought to undercut the political base of groups demanding regional autonomy by creating alternative political alignments along communal lines”. The author indicts ‘secular, progressive’, GM Sadiq regime for sowing seeds of communalisation in Ladakh in 1960s. She says,” to scuttle this movement (for regional autonomy), Chief Minister GM Sadiq promoted a new leadership of lamas by favouring Kushak Thiksey over Kushak Bakula and at the same time promoting the Muslim leadership of Kargil over the Buddhist leadership of Leh…Sheikh Abdullah’s decision to divide Ladakh into 2 districts in 1979 – Leh and Kargil-created yet another communal faultline in Ladakh, between its Buddhist and Muslim identity” Chadha dismisses Hill Council, saying it has failed to adequately address local issues.

The author has situated political assertion of regional identities in a historical and sociological perspective. On the issue of Displaced Pandits she exposes the RAC (Regional Autonomy Committee) appointed by NC government in 1996 by arguing, “The committee simply disregarded the Pandit’s demand for Panun Kashmir without offering an alternative strategy or framework for redressing their grievances and securing their social, cultural, economic and political rights”.

Initially, though Gujjars gained political prominence when Sheikh Abdullah tried to rope in the Muslim majority districts of Rajouri and Poonch and the Kashmiri-speaking Muslims of Doda into a “Greater Kashmir” in the late 1970s. Patriotic Gujjar community was then given short shrift by Kashmir-dominated State governments. ST status was not given to them until 1991. As a result, Gujjars are now entitled to representation in proportion to their population in the legislature, local self-governing institutions, government services, and professional and technical institutions. Since Gujjars live in hilly areas, the community can be given effective representation only by carving out Gujjar dominated areas as Hill Constituencies. Their demand for reservation of constituencies, to which they are entitled, is also not being acceded to. The Gujjars fear threat to their interests from patronisation of Paharis by Valley leadership.

The author has done good homework to expose the designs behind the demand for Autonomous Hill Council for Chenab region. She remarks, “Critics view the demands for councils by the Muslim-majority districts of Rajouri, Poonch, and Doda as part of a larger plan to break Jammu’s plural identity and reinforce the communal faultline within the Jammu region. Their claims are in part driven by the desire to undermine the influence of the Gujjar and Bakkarwal leaders in the region..Perhaps that is why the Gujjars do not support the demand for an Autonomous Hill Council for Rajouri and Poonch”.

Chadha is scathing in its indictment of NC government appointed RAC – “the committee sought to protect only the “Muslim interests” to the total exclusion of other ethnocultural, ethnolinguistic and ethnoreligious minorities. While it was ready to lean backwards to accept the demand of Jammu region’s Muslim minority for separate provincial status, it did not even mention the demand of the Hindu minority in the Valley-Kashmiri Pandits- for a Panun Kashmir…Nor did it take notice of the Zanskar Buddhists long-standing demand for these areas to be brought under Leh’s administration. Likewise, it glossed over the fact that Doda district had a significant Hindu minority alongside its Muslim (58%) majority and made no provision for safeguarding the minority’s political interests”.

Arguing that attempts to superimpose communal boundaries would be divisive the author visualises solution ‘in providing a responsive government, rather than a sharpening the communal boundaries’. Strongly advocating that power sharing be inclusive, Navnita Chadha recommends that ‘It is imperative for the Central government to reach out to the minority communities in the peace process and ensure that their political interests are safeguarded in any final settlement”. It is too early to say whether Round Table Conference would deliver anything to non-Kashmiri groups and other minorities. Anyway, ‘Demystifying Kashmir’, is bound to provoke debate on strategic blunders the Indian political leadership continues to commit in Kashmir.

Title: Lucknow Ke Kashmiri Pandit.

Author: Dr. B.N. Sharga

Published by: Dr. Vasudev Sharan Agarwal, Sanskriti Sansthan, 13 Shivaji Marg, Lucknow.

Price: Rs. 50/-

Diversity of a region is its beauty. It enriches the cultural tapestry of the place and fosters toleration. Lucknow, a historic city, has been home to many communities which came from afar and made it their permanent abode. Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandit families, gifted with mastery over Persian and excellence in soldiery, settled here during the past two and a half centuries. No wonder, Lucknow emerged as the biggest diaspora of Kashmiri Pandits. The immense contribution made by these people in all walks of life, be it administration, judiciary, education, literature, culture etc., makes history of Lucknow incomplete without them.

Prof. Shailendra Nath Kapur, who teaches Ancient History at Lucknow University, has embarked on an ambitious project to sensitise Lucknow people to their pluralistic heritage. Through a series of publications on the different facets of the city, Dr. Kapur has introduced a new genre in popular historiography. The first publication deliberated on the contribution of ‘Banga (Bengali) Samaj of Lucknow’. The second one dealt with the ‘Lucknow mohallas and their glory,” Dr. BN Shargas ‘Lucknow Ke Kashmiri Pandit’, the publication under review, is the third in the series. Its beautifully laid cover carries the picture of Bada Shivala, the oldest shrine of Lucknow Kashmiri Pandits. This shrine, built by Pt. Zind Ram Tankha in 1780, is located at Rani Katra, Lucknow.

Dr. BN Sharga is a distinguished scion of one of those Pandit families who made Lucknow their home. Though age has taken toll of his health, yet he remains agile to pursue the forbidden terrain – digging out the buried past of the Pandit families, from their roots in Kashmir to the places of their new settlement. Dr. Sharga’s task has not been easy. Despite the ethnic pride which many of these old Pandit families display they are reluctant to get recorded the history of their clan. They do not come forward with clan details, the rare photographs and the documents which they have preserved over decades. Dr. Sharga has no institutional support to carry on such an arduous endeavour. At times, he feels bitter over the stark indifference of his fellow Kashmiris. Yet it does not dampen his enthusiasm. As a social historian Dr. Sharga may at times be short in methodology but his unique quality i.e. passion for history makes him an outstanding researcher. Not many Kashmiri Pandits can rival his immense contribution to Pandits’ social history.

A monograph puts many limitations on the author. Dr. Sharga has done his job well to provide an excellent resume of history of Lucknow Kashmiri Pandits. It would be enough stimulus for more ambitious researchers to bring out a comprehensive volume on this subject.

Kashmiri Pandits started entering Avadh at a time when this province of Mughal empire had its capital at Bangla, which subsequently attained fame as Faizabad. During Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula’s time Lucknow had remained his capital for some time. This brought some of the Kashmiri Pandits serving in Royal Army to Lucknow. They included Daya Ram Mattoo, Atma Ram Kitchlu, Chaturbuj Ganju, Daya Ram etc. Since the Royal Cavalry used to be stationed near Rani Katra, these Kashmiri Pandits started living at Rani Katra mohalla.

In 1775, the 4th Nawab-Asaf-ul-Daula shifted capital to Lucknow from Faizibad. Majority of Kashmiri Pandit families came to Lucknow during his reign. Since they formed a sizeable group and settled at a place, living together there as a community, the place came to be called Kashmiri Mohalla. Many of the havelis, built around 1775-1780, still stand, and bear distinct influence of Mughal/Iranian architecture. In those times Purdah system was in vogue among Pandit ladies. This too influenced the architecture. All these havelis were interconnected with one another to allow free movement of Pandit ladies through blind alleys, without the need to step outside their havelis. To keep alive the Kashmiri ambience in course of time these Pandits brought their family Purohits and cooks as well. Dr Sharga has served useful information on them.

Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula was a munificent patron. This attracted many Pandits to come directly from Kashmir to Lucknow. Pt. Bishan Nath Taimni (Kaul), a rich shawl trader from Sopore, came to Lucknow during his rule. He built a big haveli to run his flourishing trade. It came to be known as Reshamwali Kothi, and was located at Chauptiyon. Distinguished members of Taimni clan include Gulab Rai, Ganga Ram, Shri Ram, Kedar Nath, Kuldeep Prakash, Iqbal Nath, Jagdish Prakash. Shri Jagdeep Narain has not only excelled in soldiery Taimni from where he retired as Major General but is also an excellent scholar. He has one of the finest libraries and takes deep pride in his ethnic identity. The Taimni clan has produced as many as 11 IAS officers.

Nawab Asaf-ud-Dila appointed Kashmiri Pandits to high posts. Pt. Gauri Shankar Kochak was put incharge of Royal mint at Chauptiyon. Security and management of Jagir of Royal Queen Shamsul Nisa was entrusted to Shargas – Laxmi Narain Kaul and Niranjan Nath Kaul. These Sharga members served in Royal Cavalry and distinguished themselves in military skill, Chivarly and courage. Pt. Dila Ram Madan was a senior official in Asaf-ud-Daula’s army. His son Pt. Dina Nath Madan later served as Finance Minister of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Bhaskar Ram Tickoo was a wealthy shawl merchant in Lucknow. His nephew Dewan Nand Ram Tikoo subsequently became ruler of Kabul. Pt. Bhola Nath Kao was a high official in the reign of Asaf-ud-Daula. Such was his prestige that Nawab would himself visit Kao’s Kashmiri mohalla residence to meet him. Bhola Nath’s descendant Pt. Rameshwar Nath Kao became a legendary figure in national security in independent India.

Dr. BN Sharga has meticulously documented the story of Kashmiri Pandits who reached good positions in administration during the Nawabi rule. He claims that prestige enjoyed by Kashmiri Pandits was due to their fair complexion and resemblance in physique to members of Iranian nobility. A rough estimate puts the number of emigre Kashmiri Pandit families around this period of one thousand. They lived in various mohallas – Kashmiri Mohalla, Katra Bijan Beg, Toph Darwaza, Chaupatian, Rani Katra, Javai Tola etc.

A Pandit family – ‘Gogai’ came to settle in Lucknow from Gwalior. Pt. Shamboo Nath Pandit, the first Indian to be appointed as Judge hailed from this Gogai clan. Pt. Tika Ram Dar had his own printing press during the times of Nawabi rule. In Wajid Ali Shah’s time royal proclamations and other books used to be printed here. Tika Ram remained loyal to Wajid Ali Shah, even when Britishers put the Nawab under house-arrest in Calcutta. He ran an underground campaign against the British, but had to migrate to Benaras subsequently.

The Nawabi era (1775-1856) was a period when Persian and Urdu culture reached its Zenith. There was hardly any Kashmiri Pandit family which did not have one or two poets. Since many wrote compositions anonymously, their names have not come down to us. Prominent among the poets of this period were Pt. Daya Shankar Kaul ‘Naseem’. He was trained by  the greatest poet of the time – Kh. Haider Ali ‘Atish’. During Asaf-ud-Daula’s reign Firangi Mahal emerged as a centre of Islamic and Persian-Arabic learning. Pt. Beni Ram Mubai, a scholar of repute in Persian and Arabic, taught languages in this centre.

As a true researcher Dr. Sharga does not feel shy in projecting the dark side of his community members. Some Kashmiri Pandit officials had not only imbibed good nawabi culture but also fell on bad ways. They began frequenting Kothas. Two of them eloped with women from the Royal harem. Mehtab Rai Gurtu ran away to Calcutta, while Chaturbuj fled to Kabul.

British Rule:

In 1857 Avadh became part of British India. Kashmiri Pandits were among the first to take to study of English language and modern education. This opened up vast opportunities for them in the new administration. Any student who came out of the portals of canning college would get appointed as Deputy Collector, Munsif or sub-judge. The first Land settlement of Lucknow was carried out by the British soon after they took over Lucknow. Pt. Daya Nidhan Ganjoo was appointed as first Tehsildar. Kashmiri Pandits were quite upright. Pt. Har Sahay Bahadur was sub-judge in Farukhabad in 1878. One morning he had gone to see his superior judge, Saunders at his residence. The latter rebuked him for coming so early. Bahadur returned the compliment by giving him 3-4 slaps on his face. The sub-judge was dismissed by Lt. Governor. Bahadur filed a case against the government and went to Kashmir where Maharaja Pratap Singh made him a judge. Bahadur took the case to London Privy Council and won it. He also claimed damages. Pt. Jagat Narain Mulla resigned from council of ministers IN protest against Jallian Walla Bagh massacre.

Many Kashmiri Pandits joined the national movement against the British. Dr. Atal was a member of Kotnis Medical Mission to China. Prithvi Nath Chakbast was a disciple of Gandhi, while Triloki Nath Chakbast was closer to Subash Bose.

In the field of culture Pt. Shiv Narain Bahar took lead by establishing the first club ‘Jalsa-e-Tehzeeb’. He also launched ‘Mursala-e-Kashmir’ journal. Lucknow Kashmiri Pandits produced outstanding poets/men of literature – Ratan Nath Sarshar, Daya Shankar Kaul Naseem, Brij Narain Chakbast, Tribhuvan Nath Hijr. They attained global fame. Brij Krishan Kaul Bekhabar brought out two volume anthology on Kashmiri Pandit poets in Persian-Bahar-i-Gulshan Kashmir, which was published by Jagmohan Nath Raina Shauk and Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru. Rajnath Ragu, Ramchandra Narain, Yashodra Katju and Asha Tiku excelled in film world.

In medicine Dr. Shyam Nath Chak, who graduated from King George Medical College, Lucknow, broke records of all time. He was first cardiologist of India. The other well known medical practitioners from among Pandit community were – Dr. Tej Narain Bahadur and Dr. Hari Har Nath Hakku. Dr. Kishen Lal Nehru was Medical Supdt. of Lucknow Medical College.

Dr. Sharga has profiled the contribution of Lucknow Pandits after 1947.  This makes ‘Lucknow Ke Kashmiri Pandit’ a basic source material for any serious study of history of Kashmiri Pandits.

“As for the problems of translations, one can hardly set a more untranslatable example than Kalidasa. One says this a little more emphatically than may sound reasonable and considering the temper of Kashmiri language. This is partly one reason why Kalidasa has so far been left untouched in this language. During the year Arjun Dev Majboor came out with a translation in verse of Meghdoota as obreh Shechh. Majboor has made a valiant attempt to sustain the poem despite the occasional jarring notes. One problem here is to integrate the Sanskrit names into cadences of the language. But this would have been less of an impediment had the poet allowed the less constricting framework of free verse”.

*Overseas Sahitya Academy Indian Literature, Jan-Feb 1976 p. 65-66

‘Something like a war’, ‘seminar special’ on Kargil war engages the attention of readers in a serious way. For the last two decades the Indian state has been involved in fighting the proxy war imposed by Pakistan.  Today the Indian middle class is more concerned about the strategic aspects of Indian security, internal as well as external. It wants to know how the Indian state is countering this proxy war. What are its limitations and successes? This special issue of Seminar covers this gap to some extent. Disgraced Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat once talked about the advent of a ‘scholar-warrior’ in India.  Seminar carries as many as five in-depth analyses from former officers in the Indian Army.

Major Maroof Raza poses the problem, saying that India’s experiences are a part of the growing  international phenomenon, where contemporary warfare has begun to lean extensively towards the ‘low-intensity’ variety. Since 1945, the world has seen around 160 conflicts-of which three-fourths have been low in intensity. The message is, Raza adds, the military must ‘adapt’.

Gurmeet Kanwal holds the progressive decline in the defence budget, despite manifold increase in threats, responsible for the failure of the armed forces to keep pace with modernisation. He says it has compromised their security in the type of war they are now being called upon to fight. Kanwal questions the credibility of conducting a dialogue with a duplicitous state, Pakistan. His judgement that Benazir Bhutto reflects the moderate opinion will be contested by many. She is emerging as the new US trouble shooter on Kashmir.

What has gone amiss in the analyses of these experts is that they have not been able to focus core objectives in Pakistan’s Kargil game-plan. Instead collateral effects are described as the basic objectives. Gurmeet Kanwal does hint that Kargil intrusion could have been an attempt to physically occupy a chunk of real estate to use it as a bargaining counter subsequently, particularly in respect of negotiations for a mutual withdrawal from Siachen glacier. How Kargil escalation marks a qualitative change in proxy war, this perspective is also weak.

Major General Afsar Karim specialises on J&K and is former editor of the Indian defence review. He tackles the political perspective on secessionist war in J&K. In his assessment, rampant mis-governance, dishonest politics by National Conference and the rise of fundamentalist Islam are the main causes for Kashmiris drift towards secessionism. He treats the rise of fundamentalism as an isolated category and not in the context of power struggle within the ranks of Kashmiri’ Muslim elite, the rural urban divide and the peculiar mode of economic development. Also the rise of fundamentalist consciousness among Kashmiris cannot be simply attributed to a conspiracy. Upwardly mobile groups among Kashmiris have reacted independently as well as through Pakistan to the fundamentalist movements in the Muslim world.

Likewise, re-establishing the power symmetry within Kashmiri Muslim society also forms a subtle under current in the ongoing secessionist movement.

General Afsar Karim also gets carried away by the socalled Kashmiriat syndrome. This word has never been used by Kashmiris till 1980. With the rise of the secessionist movement, this expression is used more in a political sense. In a cultural sense, Kashmiris have been as secular or as sectarian as any other regional community of India.

Gen Karim says that the term azadi was deliberately left vague to deceive Kashmiri Muslims. Azadi in fact cannotes independence from India and merger with Pakistan.

Karim attributes indiscreet handling of public demonstrations and indiscriminate firing by armed forces for rise of alienation in the initial period. What were soft options left? He himself concedes that ISI agents had infiltrated all the vital organs of the state to paralyse the working of the government. Entire intelligence gathering system had collapsed. Terror and psychology manipulation had turned people indifferent.

It is said that 1995 marked a change in the situation in Kashmir. ‘Alien’ factor started gaining ascendency, while alienation of locals started vis-a-vis secessionist militancy. Karim, while acknowledging this neither quantifies nor qualifies it. How deep was this alienation and on what grounds? If alienation of locals crosses a particular threshold, no secessionist movement can go further on. That, “Kashmiriat was slowly winning and fundamentalists were losing ground,” is too general a statement.

The rise of counter-insurgent groups among Kashmiris was the major factor that led improvement in the situation between 1995 and 1996. Elections became possible and a section of people became vocal against militancy. The successful blows that counter-insurgents delivered to the secessionists made people realise that militants were not the sole power centre. Thus, people, who had joined secessionist movement in euphoria or under coercion distanced from it. There were others who had suffered at the hands of militants in criminal acts of extortion, rape, revenge killings, became more vocal with the ascendancy of counter-insurgent groups. General Karim has totally glossed over this factor and overemphasizes the ‘cultural encroachment’ dimension. Similarly on the role of village Defence Committees, General Karim is not abreast with the ground reality.

A common misconception, that Karim also laps up is that foreign mercenaries induction was the outcome of locals’ alienation. It was, infect, a definite phase in  Operation Topac for upgrading the proxy war.
Afsar Karim recommends two major initiatives for curbing the secessionist menace in J&K – promoting regional security agreements against terrorism to isolate Pakistan and retrieving the moral legitimacy of the state government in the eyes of the people. For this he recommends free and fair elections, a corruption free and competent administration and commitment of the government to protect the life and limb of people from terrorist onslaughts.

Manavendra Singh, in “The Soldier’s story” captures the Dilemmas of a army solder in the Coin-OPs (counter-insurgency operations). There is no front, no border, no forward operating base and no identifiable enemy. He identifies the camouflage of the insurgent and breach of faith by the local support structures as the enemies of the soldier involved in Coin-OPs, provoking a sense of frustration. Manavendra Singh remarks, “interweaving of the insurgent with the civil society at all levels results in the development of a terrible feeling of betrayal among the soldiers, ‘a breach of faith’ by the local political leadership or administrative machinery,” About camouflage, he says, “the camouflage in these jungle states is complete, so to say. A complete camouflage, a near perfect subversion/bonhomie, is a cocktail that proves too heady for the soldier to digest. The sense of honour that has been instilled in soldiering prevents him from walking and leaving the mess as it was”. Kargil in this situation comes as a relief-the desire to undertake Pakistan, identifiable instigator for his agony. Direct war also has no disabilities of a Coin-Ops, where a soldier bears “the loneliness, the strain and fatigue that accumulates from a constant 24-hour mental battle with the militants with the frequent taunts from the population whose lives he is supposed to protect. And all this while a polity and an administration does not discharge its duties”.

“In ‘Angels who bring God’s blessings’, Nayana bose says, while quoting a study by an Army psychiatrist that lure of power and quick money than religious zeal was the motivating factor for many Kashmiri militants. Bose attributes growing local alienation to fatigue, huge physical losses and a craving for normalcy. She is also critical of what she calls Dr Farooq Abdullah’s “impulsive style of governance,” and corruption. Bose sounds a pessimistic note saying “A fringe will always keep this cycle going with some help from Angles”.

In ‘moving away from real politik’ , Lt Gen VK Nayar details his experiences in North-East. He discounts negotiations with the insurgents, saying it is unlikely to lead to resolution, “as the people’s problem is deprivation and not insurgency.” Nayar argues that North-East insurgents were never strong on ideology and the insurgency survives there for parochial political, ethnic and material gains. The splintering and mushrooming of insurgent groups is attributed by him to the outcome of ‘fear and favour complex,’ perpetuated in the region. Nayar says over a period of time mutually beneficial patronage relationships have been evolved between North-East politicians and insurgents and the two have developed vested interests to continue the status quo. Nayar blames north-east politicians, and says, “extortion by regional bosses and denial of resources for development constitute the twin banks within which our policy gets articulated. The political leaders and the bureaucrats use their offices to siphon off development funds at the cost of real development.” Nayar proposes paradigms of ideal politic and cooperative approach as a way out.

In an excellent paper on ‘Small Weapons and National Security’, BVP Rao explains how the global proliferation of small arms and light weapons has resulted in serious ethnic, religious and linguistic conflicts. He recommends many measures based on international cooperation. These measures include a) retrieving and destruction of small arms and light weapons, unaccounted in Afghanistan b) curbing illicit arms trade c) data base on weapons licenses d) campaign over arms proliferation and spread of drugs.

‘Takling the Tigers’, by Maj Gen Ashok Mehta is the most thought provoking essay on IPKF mission. Its purpose, successes and failures are analysed so well and reflect on general’s keen insight. In ‘unconventional terror’, Rahul Roy Choudhary talks about the dangers of nuclear weapons reaching the terrorist groups.

This special issue also carries interesting book reviews on ‘Defending  India’ (Jaswant Singh), ‘The threat from within (VK Nayar), ‘Low Intensity conflicts’ (Maroof Raza) etc, besides a useful bibliography.

“Something like a war”
Seminar Special, July 1999
F-46, Malhotra Bldg. Janpatt, New Delhi-110001.
Price. Rs 15.

By A.N. Dhar

This short write-up is not meant to serve the purpose of a critical review of the book in question when, within the space of a year only, as many as 23 reviews on it have already appeared in various journals and newspapers published in the country’. They include the latest one by Ravinder Kaul published in the December 2003 issue of the Koshur Samachar (having earlier appeared in the Daily Excelsior, Jammu). What I am going to present briefly is a point of view on an important aspect of the book which, as far as I am aware, has not been specifically discussed or touched upon in any of the reviews so far. My stand-point has somehow a bearing on what the author himself has maintained in response to some of the observations on the book contained in the review that was carried by the Daily Excelsior; Tajnath Dhar rebutted these observations in a subsequent issue of the same daily. Most reviews on the book have been positive and some of them very favourable, including Ravinder Kaul’s. A thousand copies of the book, I am told, have been sold within a year of its publication. This indicates that the book has well-nigh turned out to be a best-seller.

During the past 13 years or so much has been written on the subject of militancy in the Valley of Kashmir and the resultant turmoil there. The displacement of our community from the land of our birth, almost en-masse, has been a pervasive theme in a number of literary works produced by our writers in Kashmiri, Hindi and English (prose as well as verse). The recently published work in Hindi titled Sahitya Aur Visthapan: Sandharb Kashmir, authored by the erudite scholar, Prof. Bhushan Lal Kaul, that is focussed on the literary works of Khema Kaul, Rattanlal Shant, Arjandev Majboor, Motilal Kemu and Prem Nath Shad, offers an interesting and intelligent appraisal of their contents. The volume, in fact, examines in depth and detail the displacement of about half a million Kashmiri Pandits, who got uprooted from the Valley.

Prof. Tejnath Dhar’s book is a welcome addition to the literature of exile that has steadily grown up in bulk in recent years and is now engaging the attention of many critics and literatures, especially those from among the Kashmiri Pandits. The author is a well-known scholar of English, a researcher of note an expert in English fiction. With the publication of the present book, he had made his debut as a creative writer. Through the literary device of the Diary, he means to present a fictionalised version of the ethnic cleansing of a large number of Kashmiri Pandits and the consequent exodus of the community from Kashmir. The targeting of the minuscule community is seen as a pre-planned conspiracy by the diarist; the fear of the fugitives, especially as it grips their psyche, comes alive in the pages of the Diary. The book immediately reminds us here of another creative volume – the well-known book of poems titled of Men, Militants and Gods authored by Dr KL Chowdhary.

The volume Under the Shadow of Militancy consists of two parts – a short Introduction by the author and the Diary written by the “unknown Kashmiri”. The Diary consists of 67 units; how the author came by it, is explained in some detail in the Introduction. Interspersed with anecdotes and intellectual analyses of happenings, the Diary records how, with the outbreak of militancy, turmoil grew up in the Valley during the initial period (1989-90). The account given broadly tallies with what was reported in the local and national newspapers. The contents of the Diary are, on the whole, readable and absorbing, in spite of the unpleasant and gruesome-happenings recorded. The narrative grips the reader’s attention enlivened as it is by the many anecdotes and some diverting incidents that are not necessarily centered on the theme of militancy.

The Diary lays bare the psyche of the sensitive and thoughtful narrator, who as well performs the role of the protagonist. Till he meets his end, he is haunted by the prospect of his leaving the Valley, his homeland. Yet he is aware throughout of the prevailing ethos of peace between the Kashmiri Muslims and the Pandits. Many nostalgic references are made by the protagonist to the mutual amity that existed traditionally between the two communities in the Valley. Nowhere does the diarist express any bitterness against his Muslim friends, whom he continues to hold in esteem in view of their human and moral qualities.

One important feature of the book that has escaped the critical attention of most reviewers is: the technical device of the author’s distancing himself from the narrative and bringing in the diarist. It is relevant to mention here that the reader is likely to raise questions such as these here: (i) Are the events narrated in the Diary to be taken as true and authentic? (ii) how far has the author succeeded in distancing himself from the events narrated in the Dairy? (iii) does the Dairy pass for a piece of fiction? Yet the reader cannot dispute the fact that the author has succeeded in investing the narrative with an aura of topicality and contemporary relevance. Ravinder Kaul observes in his review of the book that the “Dairy is an important chronicle of its time”. In my view, the diarist serves not only as the protagonist but also as the author’s mouthpiece. Significantly, the words of Andre Brook quoted in the Diary seem to specify the author’s own intention of writing about himself both as an individual and as a member of the community he belongs to. He has obviously attempted to distance himself from what is recorded in the Diary and, therefore, it is not fair on the part of a reviewer to question him for what is said about Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah or Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (based on hearsay). At the same time, the illusion of the author’s being distinct from the diarist has perhaps not been fully sustained. However, in no case can it be maintained that the book is in any way flawed on that account. It is very readable and has sold well as a creative piece and as a “chronicle” or our time.

The sad story of the displaced Kashmiris presented in the fictional garb – a welcome book.

Genocide and Exile are two terrible words. Those who experience it can never get it out of their minds so long as they are alive. Reliving these events through narratives, oral or historical, is more than recording history an attempt to come to terms with the self. ‘Rajouri Remembered’, a memoir penned down by Sh. Amar Nath Saraf to situate the carnage of 1947 in its socio-historical perspective belongs to this genre.

Sh. A.N. Saraf

Not many of us knew that Hindus of Rajouri do not celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights. Mohan Guruswamy’s bone-shaking write-up on Rajouri massacre (1947) in Indian Express a few years ago took many of us by surprise. On 13th November, 1947, the Pakistani marauders aided by a section of locals and defectors from State forces mercilessly put to death thousands of men, women and children at the maidaan, where presently the airfield is located. The marauders also plundered the town in lust of wealth and booty. Many survivors continued to live in camps put up by the forces of occupation. The town was liberated by the Indian Army on 13th April, 1948 the day of Baisakhi festival. ‘Rajouri Remembered’ relives these events. Sh. Amar Nath Saraf, a former Judge in State Judiciary, writes this account as an insider.Though he was away in Jammu many his close kith and kin were part among those people who became victims in the massacre.For Sh. Amar Nath Saraf and his co-citizens of Rajouri the massacre delineates history into two phases-shorish se pehle, shorish ke baad.

Shorish, to quote the editor-translator denotes-chaos, anguish, dislocation, separation, the violence, the massacres and the brutality of the riots.

Why Sh. Amar Nath Saraf waited for two decades after his retirement to put on record his memoir on an event which has great historical importance? This is particularly surprising in view of his great emotional attachment with his home place-Rajouri and the paucity of recorded material on it. On 25 November, 2006 Sh. Amar Nath Saraf was visited by a profound tragedy. He lost his wife, a companion of more than five decades and whose family had done so much to rehabilitate Sarafs in the immediate aftermath of massacre. The mourners, many of whom came from Rajouri refreshed his longings for his native Watan and sharpened his sense of loss. The occasion provided an opportunity for the author’s talented daughter-in-law, Babli Moitra, a Bengali by ethnicity and sociologist by training to record narratives about Rajouri, particularly about the carnage of 1947. She also translated the memoir written down by her father-in-law. He put at her disposal all the records-papers, newspapers and chronicles to put the events of 1947 Rajouri in proper perspective. Sh Amar Nath Saraf is deeply pained at the treatment meted out to the victims of Rajouri, who he says received neither ‘financial compensation’ nor ‘condolence’. He laments that such a horrendous massacre of contemporary times is being described vaguely by chroniclers as ‘a local uprising in Poonch area’ or ‘some excesses’ committed by marauding Pashtun tribesmen and victims are all reduced to statistics. Sh. Saraf regrets that Rajouri remained unique in the sense that it was not given even the distinction of being considered a statistical figure. He is bitter when he says ‘we as the survivors have consented to that erasure of memory’. He recalls in his Foreward that ‘the biggest misfortune is to have to leave one’s land, one’s people. The most miserable existence is that of an exile’. The loss of his wife heightened his sense of loss for his Watan, Rajouri. The memoir has been ably edited by Babli Moitra Saraf. The valuable historical material-’Jammu Kashmir State Ke Rajouri Nagar Ka Khooni Itihaas’ by Lala Pishori Lal Jhinjotia, ‘Kashmir Mein Chand Roz’ by Mirza Faqir Mohd. Rajorvi (1984), 5-part article by Sh. Narinder, editor of ‘Pratap’ (Delhi), Rajouri Reclaimed by Sh. K.D. Maini etc. has been consulted. The editor has focussed on the event using narrative voices as perspectives on it.

VALUABLE MEMOIR:

‘Rajouri Remembered’ is valuable on many counts. Through a personal memoir it tells us so much about the social life of Hindus of Rajouri and the intercommunal relations in pre-1947 period. The author has drawn good biographical sketches of two outstanding personalities of Rajouri – Lala Narsingh Dass Kaila and Dr. Malik Ram Gupta. We are also told about the custom – how Hindus of Rajouri would gave their babies in temporary adoption to Labhan as for ensuring their longevity. Such customs fostered good inter-communal relations. The memoir focuses on the events leading to massacre, the carnage and the displacement/survival trauma of the victims/refugees. There is a brief account of Rajouri’s history. Till 1194 Rajouri was governed by Hindu Kings. The Jarral dynasty came to power when a Punjabi Durbari, Noorddin led revolt against Raja Amna Pain and killed him. The Jarrals ruled till 1846, Rahimullah Khan being the last ruler. In 1847 Maharaja Gulab Singh appointed Mian Hathu as Governor. Previously a part of Bhimbar district, Rajouri was later clubbed with Reasi district (1904), Poonch district (1947) and became separate district in 1947.

EVENTS LEADING TO NOVEMBER 1947:

In 1932 in the wake of agitation by Muslim Conference the entire J&K State was rocked by communal violence. In Rajouri tehsil also many people died in the riots. Lala Pishori Lal’s family was uprooted from Jhinjot Kedi and trekked for three days to reach Rajouri town, which had preponderance of non-Muslims. Rajouri town was saved by the timely arrival of State forces. Though Rajouri was not affected much, the fear started lurking in the minds of people on what would be the condition of the minority in the days to come. Next event was partition of the Indian sub-continent. On 14th August, 1947 there was large-scale communal violence in J&K. In Rajouri Hindus poured into town from neighbouring areas, while town’s Muslims retreated into villages. The leaders of both the communities proposed to set up an Aman Committee. For some reasons this proposal was thwarted. Soon there was tribal invasion of the state. After capture of Sensa in Mirpur by Pakistan the Maharaja had sent forces under Col. Rehmatullah Khan to defend Rajouri. As part of the Pakistani conspiracy Rehmatullah and Major Nasrullah had joined the Raiders. They killed the Gorkha sepoys of their own companies, collected more deserters on the way and reached Chacchera jungles in the vicinity of Rajouri on 28th October, 1947. Rajouri had just 2 platoons to defend it self. Col. Rehmatullah, well familiar about the layout of the terrain and vulnerable defence of Rajouri, began to put pressure on the town. Two tehsils of Poonch had already come under the sway of raiders by 24th October. As Col. Rehmatullah Khan reached Chacchera, Sardar Ibrahim Khan sent another group of Pakistanis under Sakhi Diler to join him in first week of November. Mirza Faqir Mohd. writes that he and other prominent citizens of Rajouri were already in touch with raiders. He was President of the local Muslim Conference and was also active in interactions with the Rajouri’s Hindu minority.

A view of Rajouri Town.

DESPERATE SITUATION:

With Rajouri so vulnerable, local RSS volunteers asked the SHO to release ammunition to them for defence of Rajouri, a demand which was rejected by him. Many members of the minority community left for Jammu though RSS tried to hold them back thinking that ‘strength lay in numbers’. Thousands of members of the minority community began pouring into the town. The local minority population was 38 thousand at the time of attack. As situation turned grim many people of Rajouri met Sh. Meher Chand Mahajan, the Prime Minister in Jammu, making request for more troops. He did send some units towards Rajouri but Sheikh Abdullah, the head of the Emergency administration diverted these to Reasi to restore law and order there. On the evening prior to attack the members of the minority community learnt that no Indian army was coming to defend them. Some members managed to leave under cover of night. Those who remained in Rajouri included persons unable to move. There were yet others who were confident that their own status as prominent citizens would buy them immunity from attackers. They included Messers Dina Nath Kaila and Lala Narsingh Dass, maternal uncle of Sh. AN Saraf. Lala Narsingh Dass had been among the first members from the local minority community to join National Conference in 1941 at the instance of Sheikh Abdullah. Lala had progressive ideas and attacked usury in no uncertain terms.

SAFE PASSAGE NEGOTIATIONS:

In the few days preceding the attack Lala Dina Nath Kaila had been procuring deadly potassium cyanide from labs. of local school as an emergency measure. Before the carnage he and Lala Narsingh Dass were negotiating peace and safe passage, using their good contacts with prominent leaders of local Muslim Conference. This was on 8th November, with raiders stationed all around. Lala Narsingh Dass also moved a proposal to set up a Debt cancellation board to provide relief to Muslim peasants. This was conveyed to Mirza Faqir Ahmed and Mirza Mohammad Hussain, the local leaders of MC. Mirza Faqir corroborates in his memoir that Lala Narsingh Dass also agreed to pay Rs 3 crores to raiders along with Rajouri town besides wholesale conversion and allegiance to Pakistan to save the minority community. In case this proposal was not acceptable then the minority community be provided safe passage to Delhi, he had asked. The proposals were okayed by Muslim conference leaders of Rajouri, who took these to raiders’ camp at Karaiyan on 8th November. When Col. Rehmatullah Khan and Sakhi Diler rejected these proposals, Mirza Faqir Ahmed and other Muslim Conference leaders insisted on safe passage. On the strong insistence of Mirza Faqir Mohd. the raiders’ leaders sent a message to the minority community on 8th November, asking them to move to Maidaan of Baidka with their families in case they wanted safe passage to Delhi. The messenger delivered it to Tehsildar, Pt. Harji Lal. It is not known what he did with the message but he himself deserted Rajouri on the same night, leaving people of Rajouri to their own fate. He even carried state forces along for his protection. On 9th November Col. Rehmatullah Khan laid the seige of Rajouri and resorted to firing. This was replied to some extent by weakened Gurkha platoon and RSS volunteers. On 10th November there was no resistance to the raiders. The local minority community was desperate. It sounds intriguing why no messenger from local Muslim Conference leaders was willing to take the conditions of minority community in writing to raiders’ leaders on 10th November.

KILLINGS:

The minority community had decided that the moment the fall of the town became imminent a bugle would be sounded to call people to assemble at the maidaan. Committing suicides and resorting to brutal honour killings of women and children was, in the minds of the minority community, a fate better than falling into the hands of the raiders. Prominent members of the community in full public view were the first to consume poison. ‘Rajouri Remembered’ gives graphic details about the sad event of suicide and honour killings. All this was witnessed 2-3 weeks before in Muzaffarabad, Ningal (Sopore), Handwara etc. Even before the physical occupation of Rajouri the localities of the minority community were razed to the ground. Many women and children were abducted and sold in Kotli by raiders.

CARNAGE:

The men were rounded up from neighbouring areas, taken to the Maidaan and brutally massacred. The raiders had orders from their officers to use axes, daggers and swords in massacring the members of the minority community. More than 4 thousand members were killed in the carnage of 11th November. Massacre began on 10th of November and continued for three days. However, some people were lucky enough to run away and seek refuge in the surrounding villages with sympathetic families from the majority community. Some of them were however hunted down and killed. To escape riotous mobs many survivors even after escaping from Rajouri committed suicide by swallowing poison. There are chilling stories of killings, suicides etc. narrated by the author. The latter has also described stories of survivors how they were rescued by the saner elements and given shelter by them. Often these families of saner elements were threatened and humiliated by the riotous mobs and elements in league with raiders. Pishori Lal was one such survivor, who lived to write the chronicle which describes at length all that happened during those days and thereafter. Soon after Rajouri fell a message was sent to the survivors to report at a ‘relief camp’ in town. The survivors received the news with skepticism. Lala Narsingh Dass and Durga Dass went to the Raiders’ Camp in Gurdan to consult the raiders’ leader Aslam Khan about the move. His bodyguards in an act of treachery shot them dead. The author gives credit to Mirza Faqir Mohd. for reconciling many families who had got separated. He helped to locate the abducted and used his connections in the government to send these people back to India. ‘Rajouri Remembered’ is a welcome addition to the growing corpus of ‘partition literature’. Its publication coincides with 60th Anniversary of the raiders invasion of the state. What better tribute can be paid to the martyrs of Rajouri carnage than recounting their martyrdom?

A Kashmiri displaced from the Valley as a physician, Dr. Roshan Saraf didn’t take long here in being seen as a talented person, precisely as a man of letters. An artist by taste and temperament, he has a melodious voice, sings tunefully and composes verses both in Kashmiri and English. Just a few years back, he brought out his book of Kashmiri lyrics under the title Lola Osh and thus carved for himself a place among the contemporary Kashmiri poets. Now he has made his debut as a thoughtful writer of English verse with the publication of his book titled Rythmic Verses, that is being released at this function. In my view the book in question is welcome as a creative piece – attempted by an Indian aspirant writing in English. There is evidence in its contents of the author’s promise and potential accompanied by actual accomplishment. Before I go into the contents of the volume, I should like to caution the prospective readers not to expect rounded perfection and formal finish from a writer who has something original to convey in English as a second language and so chooses to forge his own instruments of communication under an inward compulsion. He has obviously not had any standard classic models in view.

Dr. Roshan Saraf has a sane and balanced outlook on life. He has a mind of his own; he presents his point of view on men and matters, and on situations- in fact on whatever happens around him in his day-to-day life. Rooted emotionally in his native Valley, he is aware of his rich cultural heritage as a Kashmiri and cherishes the age-old values associated with it. Nostalgic and anguished no doubt, all that he says is free from any rancour or bitterness. This is clearly reflected in the seventy-two pieces of written composition he prefers to call rhythmic verses rather than poems. He has written on a wide variety of topics; the titles of the individual poems are thoughtfully conceived and appropriately worded. As I have noticed, several titles occurring sequentially or otherwise have a thematic connection and can thus, as such, be studied as a group. As we discern this connection, we can list the broad themes touched upon in the volume. A major theme is that of the displacement of the Pandits from the Valley, the pain and agony it has caused them – what is forcefully articulated in some of the pieces.

I would now turn to a few poems and quote select lines from them for illustrative support to some of the observations I have made on the contents of the book. I find the poems titled ‘ Home sweet Home’, ‘Rustic Valley’ and ‘Retirement’ thematically related. The poet conveys his deep sense of pain in these lines from ‘Home Sweet Home’.

The Rome I built brick by brick was smashed and

dashed bit by bit,

within a jiffy carved nest dismantled and rubbled by

rough ruffians in a felonious fit.

*           *           *           *

There was a sudden drift in behaviour and attitude,/Friends of yore became foes rude, and crude,/love and affection was torn to shreds….

Similar feelings find expression in these line from the poem titled ‘Rustic Valley’:

There blew a hurricane and erupted a rock

‘Chinar’ turned rusty with a severe shock,

time turned violent and played mock,

the valley saffron became a market of cadaverous merchandise

This is further how the poet bewails the lot of the displaced Kashmiri Govt, employees who had to leave the Valley for fear of life, retire virtually from service and live on ‘relief here as migrants (lines quoted from the poem ‘Retirement’:

A dirty tag, a torn flag on his shabby tenement/an ethnic curse crushing every fragment, a native in his own land, labelled a migrant/still in service but Alas! in retirement.

Several poems are obviously religious in content. The poet himself is known to be deeply religious, in fact an ardent devotees of Bhagavaan Gopinath Ji. The very first poem of the volume is titled “His Majesty”. It is wholly devoted to Bhagavanji; the poem is, in fact, a successful portraiture of the Bhagvan as an embodiment of divine qualities, at-once an august, lovable and awe-inspiring figure. This becomes evident from the lines cited below:

An eternal flame erupting from everywhere,

descended from the Heavens to share,

touched this planet to absolve the miseries and to care.

I saw a shining sun with dazzling elegance

glittering on a face in its absolute glory.

*           *           *           *

I saw a fabulous lotus blooming in its excellence/glittering on a face in its absolute glory.

Dr. Saraf has devoted one piece titled “The Frozen Beauty” to the ice-lingam formed naturally in the holy cave of Amarnath.

Here are the lines in which he makes us visualize the upward march of the pilgrims and devotees come from far off places:

Devotees from far and wide

walk the treacherous paths on foot and ride,

pay humble obeisance and bash the pride

*            *           *           *

Saffron-clad devotees chant the hymns of Lord

with mace on their shoulders and head in rhythmic nod

young and old, week and strong on a compassionate prod.

These are the concluding lines of the poem:

“Shiv “ is creator, ultimate destroyer,

he in trinity is the universal saviour

he with “Shakti” is the sagacious governor.

Within the short space of this note, it is not possible for me to discuss, even briefly, the over-all content of the volume in question. What I have noticed on going through the poems is that Dr. Saraf has a fund of English vocabulary at his command including terms drawn from his professional vocabulary. I am sure he writes knowledgeably too when he describes or narrates experiences. What is important, however, is that he should be able to bend language to his needs; when he deviates from normal language use, it must strike us as really creative and not just violating the norms. He has, no doubt, performed a painstaking and praiseworthy job in producing and publishing the present volume. He should not, however, rest on his laurels. A sizeable number of poems contained in the volume are fine and all right. But there is a noticeable unevenness in the volume as far as the over-all quality of the poems or the flow of language is concerned. The author needs to refine his tools and hone his materials. I hope he doesn’t continue to be averse to adopting the free-verse form in vogue today and now onwards 1 believe he will aim at writing clean English as far as possible and desirable.

His book Rhythmic Verses is, of course, welcome.

*(This paper was read out by the author at the book release function in Jammu.)

For over twelve centuries Trika Shaivism has remained a dominant creed in Kashmir, influencing almost every aspect of social life of Hindu society of Kashmir. Its rich legacy reflected in philosophy, folklore, aesthetics, literature, art and architecture, rituals, place names, surnames, even food and dress etc. is a proof of it.

Philosopher Vasgupta was the first to enunciate principles of Kashmir Saivism to fashion an ideological response to Buddhism. The latter had held strong sway in post-Kushan Kashmir. Further contours were defined by Bhatta Kallata, Somananda and Utpaldeva. It was Abhnavupta who codified it as a complete world-view.

Such outstanding scholars – Kshemaraja, Jayaratha, Yograja, Madhuraja, Vardaraja etc. wrote exchaustive commentaries to make the tenets of Kashmir Saivism intelligible to the people. The last in this line was Sivopadhyaya, the author of commentary on Vijnan Bhairava. He lived in 18th century, in the times of Pathan Governor Sukhjiwan Mall.

The place of pride, however, goes to Lalla Yogeshwari, the great 14th Century Saintpoetess of Kashmir, who brought Saivite message down to the common man, from elitist discourse. She has been described as a Saivite Yogini, who used the native language and idiom to versify the Saiva ideals. For this remarkable contribution she has not only been hailed as a great Saiva scholar but also as one to whom Kashmiris feel indebted for giving life to Kashmiri language.

Her appeal transcended class and community.

How has Kashmir Saivism been able to maintain continuity, despite adverse conditions, with its appeal remaining all pervasive? The corpus of Saiva literature, both historical and contemporary, is silent about the institutions that perpetuated Saiva creed over centuries.

Unfortunately, philosophy of Saivism rather than its social dimensions have remained the main focus of the native as well as foreign scholarship.

However, there are stray references which indicate that Saivite tradition found its continuity through the institution of mathika, a Saivite asrama. Mathika maintained and established the traditions of a guru-sisya (guru-parampara).

As per Dr VN Drabu, the author of Saivagamas, the mathika accommodated the viewpoints of its different sisyas who came from all orders and varnas of society. These mathikas preserved the unbroken tradition of the guru and the disciple.

Madhuraja, the famous South Indian Saivite, who visited Abhinavgupta’s asrama, has left for us an interesting account of this in his Gurunath Pramarsa.

It is likely, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, that at no time in history the institutions that perpetuated the Saivite tradition faced collapse. It is safe to speculate that these institutions changed forms and methods of functioning from time to time, depending upon the exigencies required. Saint-poetess Lalleshwari did not turn to Saivism just because she was wronged by her in-laws. This hagiography has sought to suppress the well-organised gurusisya parampara which functioned so well, where even common woman had all the freedom to take to Sanskrit and philosophy.

Had guru-sisya parampara been dead during late medieval times how could social milieu give birth to Sivopadhyaya? Bhaskar Razdan, to whom we owe first written collection of Lalleshwari’s verses, lived in 17th Century. He was an ardent Shaivite and a good Sanskrit scholar. So was his grandson Manas Ram. Balak Bhat of Bulbul Lankar, who lived during Pathan rule, had written a commentary on Sivasutravali of Utpaldeva.

Anand Pandit, the great scholar of Grammar, Rhetoric, Sanskrit etc. was a direct descendant of Sivopadhyaya. He was a resident of Purushyar and lived in first half of 20th Century.

The intention in taking recourse to history is to emphasise that Saiva institutions of 19th and 20th Century Kashmir did not emerge all of a sudden.

They represented the organic continuity of Saiva Institutions through history. Some day researchers might be able to lay hand on the direct evidence regarding Saiva Institutions of turbulent medieval lines.

Gaash, the inaugural issue brought out by Shri Ram (Trika) Shaiv Ashram (Fatehkadal), Gole Gujral, Jammu to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of the great Saiva Saint-Scholar, Swami Ramjoo, has filled an important gap in historiography of Kashmir Shaivism. It is a pioneering effort on two counts. One, it shifts the focus from philosophical to social dimensions of Kashmir Saivism. Secondly, for the first time an attempt has been made to present rich biographical material about Saiva saints of 19th and 20th century. The editor, Shri Upender Ambardar, an ace researcher himself has done a commendable job to reach out to the families associated with these great saints.

Gaash carries four articles on Swami Ramji, two on Swami Govind Kaul Jalali, one each on Swami Vidyadhar Ji, Swami Gash Kaul Jalali and Late Kashi Nath Kaul. The other 4-5 write-ups deal with philosophical aspects about which there is no dearth of literature. There are also excellent photographs of the Saints in this magazine. The Ram Shaiv (Trika) Ashram was established in 1884.

The popularity of these Saiva Saints was partly due to their teaching of Saivism and partly because of Tantra Vidhya that they practised. The miracles attributed to these saints reflect their mastery over Tantra Vidhya. Common people felt relieved while bringing their tales of woe to these saints. Others flocked to the ashram saints in search of spiritual quest.

Swami Ram Ji was succeeded by Swami Mehtab Kak. After him Swami Govind Kaul Jalali took the responsibility of running Fatehkadal Ashram. He was succeeded by Late Kashi Nath Kaul.

Presently, it is headed by Mrs Chand Rani Wangnoo, the tradition of teaching of Shaivism continues under the guidance of Sh. Vishnath Jyotishi and Bansi Lal Wangnoo. Among illustrious disciples of Swami Ram Ji were Mehtab Kak, Swami Vidyadar Ji, Narayan Joo Jyotishi, the great Sanskrit scholar and Raj Purohit of Maharaja Pratap Singh, the three Jalali brothers – Aftab Kaul, Govind Kaul and Gash Kaul, Sudhamaji Miskeen, Lal Kaul, father of Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul, Thokur Kaul Bhan (Grandfather of Prof. TN Bhan). The latter had compiled biography of his Guru in Persian verse.

It was at Swami Ram Ji’s insistence that Pt. Narayan Das Raina named his son as Lakshman, the former initiated him into Saivism. His outstanding contribution to Kashmir Saivism has been in making Kashmir Saivism known internationally.

At Ramji’s advice Mehtab Kak was appointed his tutor. Swami Vidyadhar Ji took Saivism to rural masses through his extensive travels in the countryside.

His disciples included Mahadev Kak, Dr Srikanth, Anand Joo Hashia, Mrs.

Tarawati of Tral etc. His ashram is presently located at Paloura, in Srinagar it functioned from Karan Nagar.

The best read disciple of Swami Rami Ji was Swami Govind Kaul Jalali. His disciples were Tarachand, Kashi Nath Kaul, JN Bazaz, BN Nazir, Arzan Nath, Dr TN Ganjoo, Prem Nath Nehru, Nath Ji Dral, Ramchand Jalla. Dr.

Jaidev Singh, the renowned translator of Pratibhijna and Shaiva Sutra into English, enjoyed close relationship with Swami Govind Kaul Ji.

The essays in Gaash do not tell us much about Lala Joo Kokroo, Mansa Ram Monga, Ishwar Joo Shair, Ishwar Joo Handoo – the illustrious predecessors of Swami Ram Ji. All of them had played good role in grooming him up. There are no references to such great Saiva scholars of 20th Century – Ram Joo Saudagar, Janki Nath Bakshi, Moshar Razdan, Ramjoo Kokiloo, Pt. Shivji Bhat (fatherin- law of PN Bazaz) etc. Ramjoo Saudagar was trained in Saivism by Swami Ramjoo, Initially, Swami Ramji had asked Ramjoo Saudagar to teach Saivism to Swami Lakshman Joo. Somehow, Lakshman Joo felt more comfortable with Mehtab Kak. Since later was not good in teaching, the job was ultimately assigned to Pt. Moshar Razdan of Bana Mohalla. Late Moshar Razdan was a Saivite scholar par excellence.

JC Chatterji, the former Director Archeology and celebrated author of Kashmir Saivism learnt Saivism through Moshar Razdan. Moshar Razdan’s brother Pt. Mukand Ram Razdan too was a great scholar. Pt. Visheshwar Razdan, son of Pt. Mukand Razdan, died quite young, he too was a great scholar of Sanskrit and Shaivism.

Pt. Ramjoo Kokiloo and Pt. Janki Nath Bakshi were initiated into Saivism by Sh. Ramjoo Saudagar. Pt. JN Bakshi retired as DIG customs, his knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian and English was superb. Ramjoo Kokiloo taught Shaivism at his house in evening mehfils. These were attended by Har Lal Zutshi, Chief Accountant of Food and Supplies Deptt., Dam Kak, Mahadev Joo, Vish Kak etc.

In Gaash there are conflicting versions on how Swami Ram Joo’s wife and his son died. Sh SK Mam in his essay ‘Swami Ramjee – A Perfect Siddha’, says Swami Vivekananda met S w a m i Ramji at his Fatehkadal Ashram in 1892. As per Pt. Dina Nath Yaksha Swami Vivekananda did not meet Swami Ji. He quotes Vivekananda (In Eastern and Western description) ‘I missed to see Fatehkadal Saint. Swami Ramjoo did not go to meet anybody. He had free will, was Swantantra Vadak unlike Paramahans who addressed with emotions’.

Kashmir Saivism will continue to survive. Some of the best scholars of Europe are presently engaged in conducting research into its various aspects. Their better methodologies would lead to important breakthrough in Saiva research in near future. Gaash can play a good role if it can help in collection of local Saiva lore of 19th and 20th Century by reaching out to all those people whose families were connected with Saiva Ashram/Saiva Saints.

The book under review titled as ‘Kashmir Hindu  Sanskars’ (Rituals, Rites and Customs): A study is authored by Sh. S.N. Pandit. Before emarking upon the review of the said book, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of religion, culture, Sanskars, ritual rites and customs, which are altogether distinct and separate entities.

S.N. Pandit

Etymologically, the word religion comes close to the meaning of ‘dharma’, originating from the Sanskrit root word ‘Dhar’ meaning to garner, to consolidate, to integrate, to sustain, to blend, to guard, to shield, to preserve or to safeguard. Religion is also said to be the cosmic order of the entire reality, rather it is a triad of the body, soul and the spirit. In other words, religion upholds and sustains the people by blending one’s self with the divine supreme. In addition to it, religion also reaffirms the bond and link between the physical body, the soul which dwells in the body and the Divine Spirit. Religion is also supposed to cement our association with the entire humanity the universe in which we live and innumerable manifestations along with the associated unexplainable mysteries

Another term in vogue i.e ‘Sanatan Dharma’, which signifies an ancient revered tradition along with the accompanying spiritual pursuit, which encompasses the entire universe, the land in which we live, the country and the society in addition to the whole set of families and the relationships. The famous Sanskrit saying ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam i.e. the whole universe is my family and that all beings, are one bears testimony to this concept of ‘Sanatan Dharma’. All the religions have three aspects of philosophy, rituals and mythology, among which philosophy runs same in all the religions with rituals and mythology exhibiting variations. Next comes culture, which in my opinion is a face-up to the past, which prepares us for the future. Culture is a complex interplay of diverse components of customs, rituals, ceremonies, beliefs, taboos and codes of social habits and conduct along with the related institutions and methodological activities. It is the culture, which acts as a lever to enforce the people to adhere to the socially acceptable moral, ethical and principled norms. The expressive strategy is one of the aspects of culture, which includes music, dance, art, literature and above all the mother tongue. Lastly, culture encourages and inspire the people of a particular set-up to interpret the individual and social life meaningfully.

The quality of excellence of culture is determined by rituals, rites and customs, which enrich our lives by nourishing our souls and in the process give a purposeful meaning to our time-tested traditional values. The rituals, rites and customs are a set of rules and norms of conduct, which ensure the cultural welfare of a social group or a community by guiding our everyday actions. They are invaluable and helpful for our mental, physical, psychological and spiritual well-being. Having a strong emotional base, they are interwoven in the matrix of our social and cultural lives. As such, they provide socio-cultural directions that give strength and might to the community. Last but not the least are the Sanaskars, which are integrated acts of purification of the mind, which help in self-realisation. Sanskars leave a permanent and everlasting impression on the mind. They are acquired gradually and slowly either by scriptures but mostly by observations. They not only connect us with the past but also force us on the righteous path. Now coming to the book titled “Kashmir Hindu Sanskars”, authored by Sh SN Pandit is a whooping 461 pages tome, thoughtfully structured into seventeen chapters and is priced at Rs 475.

It covers a huge range of subjects ranging from ‘Garbadhana’ i.e. very conception for life to the last and final stage of life. The book under review is a recounting of religio-social cultural history of Kashmiri Pandits, enfolding a fascinating and detailed account of almost every aspect of our ritual, rite and custom.

Perhaps, it is for the first time that the said book gives a telling insight into everything connected with our customs and rituals, providing an in-depth chronicle of our daily lives. The book gives a clear understanding of the daily rituals and rites meant both for men and women, supposed to be performed from dawn to dusk. The author in introduction dwells on the past history by describing Kashmiri Pandits – the Saraswat Brahmins as the direct descendents of Kashyap Rishi. The introductory narrative also unfolds the point that at the onset of first Manvantra, the nine rishis namely Maricha, Atri, Angira, Pulastya, Vishvamitra, Bhardwaja, Gautama and Jamedagni  were the first to inhabit the drained-out land of Satidesha. The author also enlightens us that though sixteen Sanskars are in vogue among Hindus outside Kashmir but in contrast to it, Kashmiri Pandits have twenty four Sanaskars to guide them right from the conception and birth to death.

In the journey of life, these Sanskars are signboards that indicate directions to be followed at various stages of life. The chapter two covers almost all the rituals right from the pre-natal Sanaskars and rituals starting from ‘Bijwapan/Garbhadan to the post-birth rituals of ‘Truy’ (third day after birth, ‘Shransondar’ (ritualistic bathing), ‘Kaha-Nethir’ (Jatakarn), ‘Namkaran’, ‘Nishkraman or ‘Masi-Nyathir’, ‘Tsatjihim Shran’ (ritualistic bath for both mother and child after forty days), ‘Aniprashun’, ‘Kun-Chomban’, ‘Voharvod (birthday) and ‘Zarikasay’. In the chapter three of the said book, the author Sh. S.N. Pandit familiarises the reader with the philosophical, historical and religious background of all the rituals connected with ‘Yagnopavita” ceremony starting from the chopping of fire-wood (Zyun-Tsatun), the shopping on the auspicious day, ‘Dapun’ or the ritualistic invitation to the guests, ‘Gari-Navay’ or cleaning of the house, ‘Mehndiraat’, ‘Devgon’ (rites invoking blessings of God), ‘Hawan Shalla for the Yagnopavita and the actual thread ceremony ending with the ‘Koshalhom’ ceremony. In the subsequent chapters numbered fourth, fifth and sixth, a wide range of insightful information is also given by the author Sh SN Pandit – starting right from the ritual of matching of horoscopes or ‘Tekin-Milnavin’, engagement or ‘Kasam-driay’, ‘hair-dressing’ or ‘Mus-Muchravan, ‘Lagni Chir’ or intimation for marriage date and timings, the arrival and reception of ‘barat’, the significance of the decorative welcome sign of ‘Vyug’, feasting of the guests, the ritualistic pooja at the door of the bride’s house, ‘Kanya-dan function’, ‘Athavass’ or holding of the hands by the bride and the bride-grooms, ‘Saft-padi’ or seven steps undertaken by the groom and the bride jointly, ‘Dayi-bata’ or sharing of the food by the groom and the bride, ‘Posha-pooja’, and lastly departure of the barat. The author also gives a telling account of the post-marriage functions and ceremonies in the chapter six, which comprise of ‘Kadil-tar’ or crossing of the bridge on way to the bride-grooms’ home, ‘Zam-brandh’ or gratifications to the groom’s sister, ‘Maet-mohar’ or presents for the mother-in-law, ‘Trunk-Havun or display of the dowry, ‘Sutrath’, ‘Roth-Khabur’ or welfare information, ‘Phir-Sal’ or first invitation to the son-in-law and ‘Ghar-atchun’ or formal feasting at the the respective homes of the bride and the groom.

The festivals and occasisons during  the first year of marriage like birthday, ‘Netri-Vohravodh’ or the first marriage anniversary, ‘Shravni-punim’ or Raksha-bandhan, ‘Zarma-Satam’ or Janam-Ashtami, ‘Shishur-lagun’ or ritual at the advent of winter, ‘Shivratri’, ‘Navreh’, ‘Zangtrai’ i.e. third day of ‘Navreh’, inaddition to the functions of the occasion nature like ‘Nav-sheen’ i.e. first snowfall etc. have also been detailed by the author. Sh. S.N. Pandit, the author also gives good insight in the rituals and customs pertaining to death like ‘Anteshti’, ‘Dah-Sanaskar’ or cremation, collection of the mortal remains and subsequent immersion at ‘Sangam’, bathing and washing of clothes known as ‘Chalun’, tenth, eleventh and twelfth day rituals, the fortnightly and monthly rituals of ‘Pachvar’, ‘Maaswar’, rituals at the end of six months i.e. ‘Shudmos’, ‘Vaharvahar’ or rituals at the end of one year and lastly ‘Shradh’ or the death anniversary.

Th said book also successfully captures the entire gamut of the festivals and asupicious occasions of the year like ‘Shivratri, Navreh, Zang-trai, Durgaashtami, Ramnavami, Baisakhi, Nirjala-ekadashi, Mela Khir Bhawani, Ashad Navami, Ashad Chaturdash, Raksha-Bandhan, Janam Ashtmi , Vinayak Chaturthi, Veth Truvah, Navratra, Vijay Dashmi, Dipawali, Gada Batta, Kyhetchri-mavas, Shishar-Sankrath, Thal-Barun and Kaw-Punim etc.

The inclusion of the information regarding  the auspicious moments like ‘Saath-Vuchun’, superstitions, taboos, lunar and solar eclipses, ‘Malamas’ and ‘Banamas’ etc. reflects author’s social awareness and denotes his successful attempt to reach-out fully to his community members with his descriptive narration.  In the concluding chapter, the author familiarizes the reader with different planets and their consequent effect in various zodiac positions. Lastly coming to the cover of the book, I am reminded of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk’s assertion that book covers are like faces, the more attractive, colourful and captivating one’s are fast selling. The book under review has an appealing and alluring bright coloured cover displaying holy signs and diagrammatic representations of the Yagnya-Shalla, in addition to an abstract of the ‘Kalash’ etc.

In short, the book ‘Kashmir Hindu Sanskars’, written by Sh. S.N. Pandit is a valuable guide that tells us everything about our culture, heritage, traditions, rituals, customs and festivals. It is a book for all and everyone. It is packed with graphic details, fascinating facts and information rendered in sequential order. The relevant folk songs on the occasion and the rituals with accompanying english translation is its added charm.

Painstaking study and investigation has been undertaken by the author to prepare this cultural treatise, which makes the book to stand-out from the rest. Unarguably, the book will serve as a base material for further research about the rituals, rites and customs of Kashmiri Pandits.

Firoz Mookerjee, who lives in London, was born in undivided India. She graduated from Lucknow University and later got her Ph.D. from the University of London, where she worked on Ratan Nath Dar ‘Sarshar’ under the supervision of Ralph Russell, Emeritus Reader in Urdu. This book is a revised version of her thesis. All lovers of Urdu-Hindi literature in particular and Indian literature in general will welcome the publication of the first book on Sarshar in English. However, the importance of this book goes far beyond that. It is the first authoritative research work on the complete works of Sarshar.

The second half of the nineteenth century was a very important period in the history of Urdu, Hindi and Bengali prose. The ‘father of modern Hindi’, Bharatendu Harish Chandra (1850-1885), the great Bengali novelist, Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1838-1894), and Ratan NathSarshar (app. 1842-1902) -  lived and worked during this period. Though Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). also started writing in this period, his better known works belong to the twentieth century.

Bankim, Bharatendu and Sarshar were each distinct in his own way. What they had in common was their pioneering work in their own literature, their familiarity with English literature, which to some extent influenced their work, and the ‘didactic’ character of their literary work.

Ratan Nath Dar (‘Sarshar’ was his pen-name or takhallus) was born in 1842 in a Kashmiri Pandit family domiciled in Lucknow. His father, Baij Nath Dar, was a respected and influential citizen of Lucknow, but he died when Ratan Nath was barely four years old. The Dars lived in the neighbourhood of cultured Muslim families, and the young fatherless child learned his Urdu from the expressive and gracious speech spoken by Muslim ladies of his mohalla.

The Brahmins who had emigrated from Kashmir Valley in the eighteenth century ‘to seek fame and fortune in the rich plains below’ in Jawahar Lal Nehru’s words, had settled down mainly in Delhi and the United Provinces and had adopted Urdu as their language, producing a number of distinguished Urdu writers, scholars and poets, of whom Sarshar was undoubtedly one of the greatest. Unfortunately, not much is known about his personal life and even the year of his birth and the date of his death are matters of conjecture and dispute. (Contrast this with his Hindu contemporary, Bharatendu Harish Chandra. An obituary published after his death mourns that ‘his age was only 34 years, 3 months, 27 days, 17 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds’!)

Sarshar, after leaving school, went to Canning College, which had been established by the British in 1864, but he left without taking a degree. However, he came out of college with a  knowledge of English literature which stood him in good stead during his career as a writer. He started his working life in Kheri near Lucknow as a teacher. It was in this period that he started writing articles for various Urdu newspapers and magazines, the most notable of these being Avadh Punch. Some of his articles were on social themes. His articles in an Urdu periodical, Akhbar-I-Sarishta-i-Talim, published by the Department of Public Instruction, drew the attention of the Director of the Department, who noted in his annual report that Sarshar’s translations from English were the best he had seen.

In 1878 Sarshar was  invited by Munshi Naval Kishore, the biggest publisher of those days, to edit Avadh Akhbar, which became a rival and competitor of Avadh Punch. Sarshar edited this paper with distinction from 1878 to 1893 and many of his writings were first printed in it. These included his voluminous novel, Fasana Azad, which was serialised by the paper. Naval Kishore published it later in four volumes, the first being brought out in 1880. Fasana Azad made Sarshar famous; while it was being serialised in Avadh Akhbar, it was read and enjoyed by all sections of society. This is a huge work, comprising four volumes totalling about 3000 pages. It relates the adventures of its central hero, Azad, and his inseparable companion, ‘Khoji’ (a humorous diminutive for Khwaja) who provides cause for endless mirth with his antics. Sarshar was undoubtedly influenced by Don Quioxote in writing this story. Above all, it was Sarshar’s mastery of ‘the vivid, racy colloquial’ language of Lucknow that made his work so popular.

This command of language is nowhere more evident than in the passages of dialogue which form so large a part of the whole work. Sarshar knew how well he could write dialogue, and he uses this talent to the full…He knew exactly the forms of speech, the special vocabulary and the characteristic style and tone appropriate to each of the wide range of characters of different classes and different areas whom he introduces in his pages. The number of characters who appear in Fasana Azad is enormous, yet all seem quite distinctive…

Some idea of the scope and volume of Sarshar’s literary output can be gained from the following lines in Firoze Mookerjee’s book:

During his editorship of Avadh Akhbar Sarshar wrote many articles on political, social and literary subjects. In 1887 he published a translation of Donald Mackenzie Wallace’s History of Russia, a re-written version of an earlier novel, now entitled ‘Jam-i-Sarshar’. Two years later he translated Lord Dufferin’s Letters from High Latitudes. In 1890 his novel, Sair-i-Kuhsar, appeared, followed some time before 1893 by Kamini. About 1893 (Saksena) he started a series of short novels under the general title of Khim-Kada-i-Sarashar. Included in this series were Kururn Dhum, Bichhri Dulhan, Tufan-I-Betamizi, Pi Kahan, Hushsho and Rangile Siyar. Sometime during this period he translated a political pamphlet written by Dr Hunter, a history of Egypt entitled Shakh-i-Nabat and a slightly abridged version of the Arabian Nights. In 1894 came Khudai Faujdar, an adaption and free translation of Don Quixote.

HOWEVER, in all his work, Sarshar aimed at reforming Indian society, cleansing it of obscurantist ideas. This didactic approach was usual in the literature of those times and, indeed, it characterizes all classical literature to some extent. As he said, introducing Fasana Azad when he began serialising it in Avadh Akhbar :

Our real aim in this series is to enable the readers of Avadh Akbhar in the guise of humour to become fully conversant with education and culture and good taste, with correct conversational usage and the idioms appropriate to various occasions, with the atmosphere of every kind of gathering and with the manners of society as a whole..so that (knowledge of) the various states of human communities and the effect of the company one keeps and the climate of the age may bring substantial benefit to our country, so that men’s minds may be illumined by the radiance of good thoughts and excellent morals, and their mentality cleansed of the darkness of corrupting ideas and the unworthy traits of the ill-bred, and upright minds may receive the frill benefits that accrue from a sane training…Our aim is that from reading these articles they may at one and the same time derive pleasure and enjoyment and amusement on the one hand, and linguistic accomplishment and lofty ideas, on the other.

Towards the end of his life, Sarshar went to live in Hyderabad, which was in those days a great centre of Urdu language and literature. According to his own account, published in Kashmir Prakash of March 1899:

About four years ago I went to Madras as a member of the Congress (the Madras session of the Indian National Congress was held in 1894) and from there my good fortune brought me to Hyderahad, Deccan. Prominent Hindus and Muslims welcomed me enthusiastically as did the public at large. Maharaja Kishan Parshad, the Nizam’s Minister for the Army and a former Prime Minister, appointed me at a salary of Rs 200 a month to correct his poems and prose.

Sarshar spent the last few years of his life in Hyderabad as the literary mentor of Maharaja Kishan Parshad. He brought out a literary journal called Dabdaba-i-Asafia at the same time. A novel, Chanchal Nar, began to be serialised in this magazine, but was never finished. The Nizam also patronised Sarshar.

Apart from being a foremost prose writer of his days, Sarshar was also a distinguished poet. His poetic theme is love, but he has written on other subject as well. His best known poem  is his masnavi ‘Tohfa-I-Sarshar’ which he wrote to quell the outcry of orthodox Kashmiri Brahmins against the visit to England of his friend Bishan Naryan Dar, a barrister. In this long poem Sarshar makes fun of the Pandits who wanted to boycott Bishan Narayan Dar because he had dared to cross the seven-seas.

Sarshar died at the age of 55 or 56-his end being hastened by his addiction to drink. He had himself confessed:

Peene pe jab ate hain phir bas nahin karte,

Maikhana me sunte nahin Sarshar kiseeki.

(Once he strats drinking, he won’t stop. In the drinking house Sarshar doesn’t listen to anyone).

Firoze Mookerjee appropriately devotes considerable space in her book to Lucknow of Sarshar’s days, which had inspired most of his work. There is an informative chapter on the prose narrative tradition inherited by Sarshar, which he developed further, giving it a modern trend. All of his main works have been discussed by the author of the book, as also his minor novels and his role as a translator. In conclusion, Feroze Mookerjee says:

When we review the course of Sarshar’s development as a writer, we see at once that the key period extends from  1878 to 1890. In the course of these twelve years as he progresses from the stage of Fasana Azad,  a stage in which, though closely tied to the old tradition, he is grafting on to it the new modes of writing which characterise the moden novel, to the stage where in Jam-I-Sarshar and Sair-I-Kohsar, he has all but severed his ties with the old and practically completed a transition to the new. After that the trend is reversed, and already in Kamini, he is in many respects back behind the starting point which Fasana Azad represented. Yet, taken as a whole, his writing represents a great step forward in the development of Urdu prose and fiction.

Firoze Mookerjee draws pointed attention to Sarshar’s striking attitude to women:

Above all, he is a champion of women’s rights. More than any other Urdu writer of his time he pleaded passionately for justice to women. To illustrate the gross injustice done to them both by Hindus and Muslims, he created numerous women characters from every section of society, women who are beautiful, intelligent and possess a strength of characters which his men characters lack. Yet they are treated badly and are exploited by society.

Firoze Mookerjee rightly calls Prem Chand the true heir to Sarshar. In fact it was Prem Chand who introduced Sarshar to Hindi readers by producing an abridged version of’ Fasana Azad which in Hindi he called Azad ki Katha. This HindI version has run since into numerous editions. It should be remembered that Prem Chand started as an Urdu writer and turned to Hindi later as it ensured greater circulation to his writings. Prem Chand acknowledges his debt

“In my writing there is more influence of Sarshar and Sarat Chandra and less of Tagore.”

There is a detailed and very useful bibliography appended to the book. It is interesting that such a detailed treatment of an Indian writer who died a century ago should have been facilitated by the excellent literary records-books, newspapers and periodicals-in the India House Library and the British Museum Library in London. One wonders if the author could have found all this priceless material in India. The paucity of available biographical material on Sarshar himself is shown by the fact that only six such titles are listed-two books each by Prem Pal Ashk and Tabassum Kashmiri and one each by Sayyad Latif Adil and Qamar Rais. Three of these six titles were published in Pakistan. It is a sad commentary on Urdu in India today that though-like Sarshar-Firoze Mookerjee had her cultural roots in Lucknow, she had to find a publisher in Pakistan for her book on this distinguished Kashmiri Pandit writer.

One fervently hopes that this excellent study will find a place in most university and college libraries in India and on the shelves of many lovers of Urdu and Hindi literature and, indeed, Indian literature in other languages. An Indian edition of Firoze Mookerjee’s book is greatly to be desired, for books published in Pakistan are unfortunately not easily available in this country.

Lucknow and the world of Sarashar

Author: Firoze Mukerjee

Publishers: Saad Publications Karachi, 1992

pp. xv+242

Price: Rs 150

*The reviewer was formerly a Professor of Russian Studies at JNU. (Courtesy: Mainstream, June 19, 1993)