Badi saba agar-ba Geneva Guzar kuni,
Harfi Zama bi mujlisi akwam bazgo,
Dehqan o kisht o joae o bayaban farokhtand,
Quomay farokhtand o chi arzan farokhtand.
(O Morning Breeze, if thou passeth by Geneva, convey an appeal from
us to the League of Nations; they sold the farmer, the field, the rivulet and the.
vale; they sold a people and how cheaply!)
These couplets of Alama Iqbal embody the demeaning stigma and the blot in the shape of the sale of this land by the British along with its people, its rivers and its mountains, as a saleable commodity. This demeaning deal concerned downgraded great people with a glorious past, a land which had given birth to great and illustrious kings like Raja Lalitaditya Karkota and Sultan Zain-ul-ab-Din Shahmiri. It was the people of this soil that had once turned back the marauding armies of Akbar, the savage Mongols and martial Turks and Arabs. The same people were condemned to the extent that they were publicly auctioned through a sale deed. The people of Kashmir struggled for a century to wipe out this ugly blot, which hung over the minds of sensitive Kashmiris, whether they lived here or fled the land under duress. The legacy of tolerance inherited by the Kashmiris from their saintly ancestors received blow after blow after blow, when their beautiful valley became victim to foreign aggressors. These peace loving people suddenly felt their cherished ideals collapsing before their sullen eyes. It was at that time when a boy was born in Soura. It was this boy, who was to burst upon the political stage of Kashmir like a tornado. His mind began to think in terms of ameliorating the condition of his compatriots. He chose upon himself to remove this stigma, the people of Kashmir were living for ages. The people made efforts to erase the stain of slavery at various points of time.
Sheikh Muhammad,whose 116th birth anniversary we celebrate today across Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh started his long drawn battle for the restoration of people’s rights as a worker, a teacher and an agitator. Master Abdullah, as he was known all over, would every day come from Sowara to Srinagar and return late in the night. He wanted to hire a room at Srinagar but had no money. His elders were angry with him for they wanted him to obtain a Government job for himself. After all, he was an M.Sc, and it was a very high qualification for a Kashmiri in those days. His maiden stint as a teacher started in Imamia Middle School Zadibal and then at Islamia School, where his monthly salary did not exceed thirty rupees.
At that time Sheikh had already started opposing the then autocratic government. In later years, he got a job on a leave chance vacancy of Shamboo Nath Kaul as Second Master in the High School, Bagh-i-Dilawar Khan, Srinagar where he received his first monthly salary of Rupees eighty two. Late Pt. Shamboo Nath was promoted to the higher grade and Sheikh Abdullah was then permanently appointed as Second Master vide Government order No. 5090. He was asked to submit his State Subject Certificate to the Selection Board of the Jammu and Kashmir Government. He accepted this job, simply to be at Srinagar, the capital city of the State, so that he could continue his work in the Youngmen’s Muslim Association. He continued his political activities. With the result the Government transferred him to Muzaffarabad. Little did he know that a spontaneous mass revolution un-known in the history of Kashmir would take place very soon and he would be forced to lead it. It was in July 1931, that the Kashmiris rose from the years of slumber, the revolution was led by no other person than Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who had hitherto been unknown but had soon to play an important role in the political life of the valley and the princely state. Sheikh Abdullah took upon the mantle of 1931 martyrs and started making earnest efforts to remove the stagnation and inactivity of the general masses, who had long accepted their wretched condition as fate accompli. It was Master Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, who invoked the glory of their past and gave the political expression to the Rishism. He faced sufferings, paid punitive fines, suffered canes, imprisonments and externment but did not lose courage and continued the freedom struggle. In May and June, 1931, the very teacher Sheikh Abdullah started a lecture campaign to secure human rights for the Kashmiris. As the down trodden people, the people of Kashmir began to rally under his banner. His moving, and sole stirring lectures cracked years of despondency, and timidity from the hearts of people of Kashmir.
Muhammad Muzaffar Khan is a PhD Scholar, University of Kashmir
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.