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Macabre Tales of Hakeem Sahib

Sketch of Human Anatomy from
Tashreaat Jism-i-Insani.
by Syed Hakeem Ahmad Shah. Urdu.
 Kashmir Library.

I have previously written down and dramatised a Hakeem Sahib story [Electric Fish, 2012]. The tale was narrated by an uncle of my father few years back. On that day he told me another story of a Hakeem, I left it to be written for some other day. A few months back, a relative of my wife told me another story of a Hakeem Sahib, a seemingly similar story and then it hit me that there is a genre of folktale told in Kashmir that has Hakeem and his bizarre “treatment” as the central motif. 


Thus I now narrate the two tales with some noon-mirch.


Tale 1

There was in Kashmir once a very famous Hakeem who could judge a disease merely by listening to the pulse of mareez. His fame had spread far and wide. Hakeem Sahib was once visiting Bombay for a personal matter. It so happened that the news of his stay in Bombay reached a rich Parsee who suffered from a condition that all the great medicine men of the great city had described incurable. Parsee man sought an appointment with Hakeem Sahib one morning but the request was turned down. Hakeem Sahib who was staying in a local hotel told him that he was visiting the city to settle some personal affairs and he was not in town to meet the incurables. The Parsee man was desperate and begged Hakim Sahib to stay with him for a night as a guest, enjoy his hospitality, finish his personal work and then perhaps if time permits, he could treat his host as a patient. Hakeem Sahib knew the moment he saw the man that this was a body in lot of pain. Hakeem Sahib relented and shook his hand. Parsee man took him to his house. Although rich and old, he lived a lonely life in a mansion all white. All he had for company was a Persian cat and a loyal Gujrati house help who had mastered Parsi cooking. The cook was underpaid and the cat was over-loved. Parsi man treated the cat like one would treat a child of his own. To the Hakeem all these things mattered. Hakeem Sahib thanked Parsi man for the hospitality and suggested that the night’s dinner be Kashmiri Chicken Korma. How could the Gujarati cook a Kashmiri meal? Hakeem Sahib insisted that he would instruct the cook. We must have Kashmiri food. What about the disease, the permanent pain in his stomach? After dinner, the matter will be looked into. Parsi Man found it queer but then accepted that greatness comes with a certain degree of madness. Both men had business to attend in the afternoon and agreed to meet at night. Hakeem Sahib decreed he would get the chicken on the way back in evening. And if possible some saffron for the special curry. The thought of saffron cheered up the Parsee. Perhaps that was the cure. Where will he find Saffron in this fish stinky town? “No worries, leave all that to me. Perhaps in an Irani tea shop”. Parsee man felt a knot untie in his stomach. He was already getting better. He looked forward to the meal cure at night. It was going to be stupendous affair even if the Parsee man was never hungry at night.

The two men met over dinner. The house smelt sweet with the aroma of strange spices. God knows what Hakeem Sahib put in the deg. The dish came out beautiful. However, when they sat down to eat, Hakeem Sahib excused himself, refused to eat and started walking out of the room. Why? “Why do you think I am in this port city. I am trying to catch a ship to Mecca, it was the month of Ramzaan, the month of fasting and one of the best times for Umrah. I can’t eat, it is not time yet. See me after you are finished.” Parsee Man couldn’t process it all but then it dawned on him, “Hakeem Sahib had cooked a special meal just for me. This is the cure. Bless this man!” With this thought, mustering courage to summon hunger, he dug his fingers into the dish, mixed it with some rice and with each morsel felt his life force returning.

After dinner, Parsee Man sought his Persian cat with a leftover morsel in his hand. “Here kitty-kitty! Here kitty-kitty!” He roamed around the house. “Here kitty-kitty! Here kitty-kitty!” Hearing the call, Hakeem Sahib appeared and asked him what he was doing. “I just want to feed this fine dish to my cat.” Hearing this Hakeem Sahib started laughing like a ghoul, “Hahaha…that would be quite a scene if it was possible!”

“If it is possible? What do you mean? What is so funny”

“My dear host, what you had today for dinner was a finely cooked degi Persian cat. The Kitty is inside your tummy!”

Hearing this the Parsee Man suffered a violent convulsion in the pit of his stomach. He started to vomit out the kitty. The kitty, the bits of it were all over the cook. Bitter and acidic. It went on for quite some time. He was crying and bent over. “There! There! Get it all out!” Hakeem Sahib held the Parsee man’s head back with the palms of his two hand for support. It was as if the Parsee Man wanted to vomit out a whole cat out of his body.  When it was over, exhausted, still crying but with a hint of anger, he screamed, “Why? Why the poor cat? That’s all I had.”

Handling a towel over to the Parsi Man, Hakeem Sahib explained, “That is the only cure for too much worldly love. If the love overpowers your pulse, it becomes poison, it binds your nafs… you have to sacrifice what you love the most. You are lucky the object of your affliction was a cat. What cured you was not what you ate but what you threw out. You my friend are now cured.”

Tale 2

A man once arrived at the gates of Hakeem Sahib with a disease that he was told could only be cured by the great Hakeem Sahib. With much expectation and hope he had knocked at this door. One look at the patient and Hakeem Sahib wanted to turn him away. The man was young but he was turning brittle, muscles dissolving, dark circles under the eyes, cheeks sunk-in till only a long beak was all that remained of his face, earlobes drooping under their own weight, his throat a small cage for a large Adam’s apple with taunt veins sticking out as if in anger. The man must have suffered all this transformation only in last few months. His cloths were misfit, they were still meant for his old healthy frame. One look and your could tell this man was dying. Hakeem Sahib knew he could not help this dying soul, but did not wish to leave the man hopeless. “Let him live a month in hope”. Hakeem Sahib pretended to check the man’s pulse, and asked him to come again next month with the excuse that it will take a month to prepare the medicine.  The man however was so frightened of eminent death and Hakeem Sahib seemed such a miracle cure that this man started to knock on Hakeem Sahib’s door everyday. A few times Hakeem Sahib entertained him but then started to find ways to evade the man. Every time the man turned up, Hakeem Sahib would watch him from his upper balcony window, duck and have his house help announce that he had gone out and his cure was getting prepared. Hakeem Sahib cursed himself for the torture he was enduring and the torture this dying man had to bear, walking everyday to this door only to be turned away. Hakeem Sahib expected the man to stop after a few weeks as the disease would be nearing its destination. But, the man persisted and kept coming. Hakeem Sahib perhaps had discounted a man’s will to live. As the month was about to end, Hakeem Sahib started worrying how he would now face the man. “How could I get the time of death wrong?” he wondered.

Finally, towards the end of the month, he decided to tell the man his truth. The door was opened and the man was let in. That day Hakeem Sahib observed the patient more clearly and not from the distance of balcony window. The cloths were still a misfit but the veins were gone, throat was all fine, there was semblance of cheeks taking shape on his face when he smiled and the dark circles were still there but a shade lighter. All this may have escaped a normal man’s eye but not those of Great Hakeem Sahib. Hakeem Sahib went straight for the patients wrist. “His pulse! His pulse is strong as a mule!” This was a man under a cure. Hakeem Sahib felt a pang of shock and shot at the man in anger, “Couldn’t you wait for the cure? Didn’t I tell you I was working on it? Who did you goto for cure and what did he give you to eat?” The patient was shocked at the time of questioning. “Hakeem Sahib, I am still waiting for your medicines to arrive. I haven’t been anywhere else. Why else would I come here every morning?” Regaining his composure,  Hakeem Sahib was now a bit embarrassed. He changed his tone and asked the question that really mattered, “You have partaken something that has set your body on correct path. Have you been eating anything new? “

Now it was patients turn to be shocked, “I am cured! Shukraan Hakeem Sahib! Just by knocking at your gate, I evaded sure death. You are great. Greatest of Great!” With that he started kissing Hakim Sahib’s hand.

“Foolish man! Stop this drama now and just tell me the truth. What have you eaten this whole month?”

“This month?  All the same that I have been having for the rest of my life. I tried nothing new. Nothing new…expect..”

“Except what?”

“Hakeem Sahib…every day on way to your house…I would stop at the chowk and have some Gostaba from that new Hawker. He is one fine Waza and makes the finest Gostaba meat balls I ever had – softest and the juiciest. He now has quite a following.”

“Gostaba you say. Makes sense. We will have to meet this great meat masher. Let’s go right now.”

On reaching the chowk, Hakeem Sahib grabbed the Waza by collar and making a fist with his hand, said, “Swear on Allah, I am going to make mince meat out of you if you don’t answer this question correctly: Where do you get your meat from?”

Hakeem Sahib squeezed Waza’s Adam apple as the man tried to squeal, “From the market.”

A gentle squeeze from the expert hand and out poured the truth: “From the market not….from the graveyard…from the graveyard…I am a poor man…where do I have the money…I do this for my family. From the dead bodies.”

Hearing this the former sick patient started to vomit. Hakeem Sahib started laughing like a hyena, “Hehehe… take your time. You ghoul of a man. Bring it all out. Had you died, this Waza would have made soup out of your feet and sold it in the market. Yes, bring it all out. The moment I saw you, I knew it was anger that was eating your inside. An anger that has not explanation, anger as if coming from pits of hell. Anger was eating up your soul, it was eating your body. Unchecked anger is a cannibalistic desire. The only cure for it is that it needs to be fed some other human body.  I could have never recommended that to you. So I was waiting for you to die. Your cure is not what you are throwing out, your cure is what you took in.”

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A brief origin of terror blasts

A brief origin of terror blasts

it was the 50s when terror first arrived
it came as blasts…
the plan was the same.
timed to a bomb
In Srinagar, the first target was a cinema hall.
“Sardar ji park your bag”
Then was blown a bridge here and a truck there.
A certain Kid “Parwana” crossed border
he was looking for a bride
returned with a bomb
got caught
he is listed in the “conspiracy case”
you can look it up
the grand plan for Kashmir
you can’t look up name of
Any of the victims
On it went
A blast near Maisuma mosque
In Jammu Residency Road was first
then a temple for balance
it was a bomb squad from Sialkot
Remember before all that
before those cities
the wave it all started in Dilli
At Jama Masjid there were
what the newspapers called “loud” explosions
Nehru was meeting Chinese
Embarrassed Nehru had no clue
Foreign Hand
Invisible Hands
Police worked, overworked
caught some Kashmiris
among them a pandit too
some non-communist communist tribe
nothing was proven
it was 1956 when terror first arrived
in Delhi at Jama Masjid
it came as blasts…
the plan was the same.
timed to a bomb
by 1957 reached Jammu and then Kashmir
back then the numbers were small, deaths less
yet this was probably the year Sahir wrote:
“ho rahi hai loot mar, phat rahey hai bum”

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Pt. Rughonath Vaishnavi and a dead Temple. 1960

Remains of Bhairav temple Chattabal
2009. Pic: Autar Mota

In 1951, the Food Control Department of Jammu and Kashmir State encroached upon and occupied the Bathing Ghat and other premises of Bhairav temple Chattabal. They started using the place for distributing rations. The temple was desecrated. I grew up hearing stories of the desecration. But, I assumed may be post 1990, my family was exaggerating. My family comes from the area, my grandfather used to take me to the Ghat and show me the lock on the temple and the ruins. I was eight. Over the decades my grandfather saw the temple of his ancestors desecrated multiple times, in 1973 a mob threw chappals into the Hawan kund and in 2008 we saw a glimpse of the burnt remains of the temple. He was eighty. I wrote about it. The story was still not clear to me.

I recently came across postscript to the story in a small footnote in the book “Crisis in Kashmir”(1991) by Pyarelal Kaul (who was with Praja Socialist Party).


“That Shri Bhokhatiashwar Bhairov Nath Asthapan, Chattabal, Srinagar is and continues to be, an ancient, holy shrine of the Hindus — That the said Asthapan Ghat is and has been with the Hindu Community in general, always used by the Hindus of Chattabal in particular, for the observance of religious rites and worship such as daily Sandhya, Kriya Karam, Shradhas, etc., for hundreds of years past. —
That the entire compound of the said shrine has been reduced to a public market place by the said illegal and unlawful encroachment by use and occupation of the said Bathing Ghat and other premises of the said shrine with night soil, urine, filth and rubbish of every kind.”

Notice dated April 2, 1960 under section 80 CPC to the Chief Secretary of State for removal of encroachment and payment of damages. The advocate for Pandits was Pt. Rughonath Vaishnavi, the man who Tahreeki propagandists now like to market as “Pakistani Pandit” ignoring the fact that during Bangladesh war he was one of the men who supported liberation of Bangladesh.

Why did Pandits chose Vaishnavi as a representative?

It is true, Vaishnavi was a man with political opinions and stood by his ideology. He believed in democracy. Resolution through non-violent means. Even if it all meant Kashmir becoming part of Pakistan. But, as this notice shows, he was concerned about what was happening to his community. It was something that concerned him directly. He was physically living in Kashmir. So, the meaning of it was clear to him. Perhaps he saw this act as an extension of Muslim ultra-nationalistic tendencies being fanned in the valley for all kind of political gains. Today, most KPs who remember the destruction of this temple, blame the ghat boatmen Hanjis, people of nearby locality Nalbandpora, which was hotbed of Plebiscite front politics (which back them was just another front for getting NC back in power) for the desecration of the temple with the motive of usurping the temple land. Few remember the politics behind it. 

This act of Vaishnavi  sets him apart from the new age “Pakistani Bhattas and Bhattanis” of present generation who are incapable of doing the same, [among them is Vaishnavi’s grand-daughter  Mona Bhan]. All they can do is push stories of “Kashmiri Muslims performing last rite of Kashmiri pandit” and then while living outside Kashmir write about dead pandits who loved Kashmir to be part of Pakistan. They can sell fear of Hindu India and at the same time sell the idea of peace with Muslim theoretic state of Pakistan and a Sharia compliant paradise Kashmir. Forgetting that from Bazaz to Vaishnavi, all of them have written about obvious growing religious fanaticism of Pakistan. It is they who are also enablers of the environment today in which a pandit writing a petition about desecration of a Hindu temple in Kashmir would be labeled “Sanghi Batta”. Vaishnavi today would have been labeled Sanghi Batta out to demonize Kashmiri Muslims. No matter what they say or write the true meaning of these events cannot be changed for the victims. The temple is dead.

It was this dispute from 1950s that foretold that my family would be forced to leave their ancestral place someday. In late 60s, some of the families from our extended clan started leaving the place. Some moved to Delhi and some to other localities. My grandfather stayed on but he did purchase a piece of land in Jammu in late 60s after selling a piece of land in Chattabal near Lakad Mandi. All of them knew what was coming, they didn’t know the date. All of them were preparing for the inevitable.

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Jagannath Sathu on Plight of Pandits, 1952

KP farmer women.
1895

Jagannath Sathu was a radical humanist inspired by thoughts of M.N. Roy. He organized Kissan Mazdoor Conference and later was vice-president of KDU (Kashmir Democratic Union), the first Pro-Pakistan political party of the state. Along with Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz he was one of the few Pandits who challenged Sheikh Abdullah reign by backing Pakistan. In 1950s, he was exiled to Delhi along with Bazaz by Sheikh. He was also one of the first Kashmiri to be rounded by police on terror charges in Delhi. He was devotedly anti-communist (his piece on “Red-Menace” is rather famous in academic circles) since communists kept changing the horse they were backing in the conflict. 

Here’s an extract from 1952 pamphlet published by Sathu on “Plight of Minorities” in Kashmir, about the pandits he writes:

Pandits Suppressed Everywhere

Kashmiri Pandits are as a community an intellectual class in the State. For centuries, may be thousands of years, they have led the Kashmiri masses in education and culture. By dint of their efficiency, faithfullness and diligence they have manned the administrative machinery of the State under the successive rules of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Mughals, Pathans, Sikhs and Dogras. But now for the first time under the secularism of the Kashmir nationalists, they were told that these qualities were of no use or value and it was the brute majority of the numbers that counted. Therefore not only were State Services refused to Kashmiri Pandits even when they were better qualified for these than the Muslims related to or acquainted with the nationalist leaders who were appointed; the Pandits already in Service were also superseded by their subordinates far junior to them in class and grade and inferior to them in academic qualifications. It becomes very poignant for a Pandit official to wok under an inefficient, less qualified, uninformed and inexperienced subordinate who promoted to a responsible job inly because he is muslim favoured by the nationalists. In many cases employees twenty or thirty steps junior have been pushed to the top.
Thus jobbery and favouritism is not confined to the sphere of Government services. It is applied everywhere. Government contracts in P.W.D., Forest, Panchayat, Revenue and other departments are also given to their own men by the nationalists. Relatives and friends of Ministers get the lion’s share. The dealers appointed by the Government to sell rationed goods are the favourites of the ruling clique. This also adversely affected the economic condition of the Kashmiri Pandits.
The agrarian reforms and the way they have been implemented by the Abdullah Government have hit the Kashmiri Pandits hard. We shall have to say a lot about these reforms at its proper place but here we would like to discuss their repercussions on the social life of the Pandits. More than thirty percent of the lands in the valley belonged to this community. A very insignificant fraction of the lands was bestowed upon the few members of the community as jagirs by the past rulers for some loyal services rendered. Most of the land in their possession was secured by Pandits either at the time of the first settlement of the land seven decades ago when not many people were coming forward to take the responsibility. of developing the barren regions of the valley. Land was then considered a great liability and only industrious people with some capital to invest could have land as a business proposition. A large slice of this land was also purchased by the Pandits after 1934 when propriety rights were granted to Kashmiris. Before that year the Maharaja was recognised, in law, as the sole proprietor of land in the valley. Pandits purchased agricultural land with their hard earned money in hope that it would yield good return to maintain them. When the agrarian reforms were introduced thousands of Kashmiri Pandits whose only source of income was land were thrown on the streets.
According to the Big Estates Abolition Act every landlord has the right to keep 182 Kanals of his land. But the nationalist leaders and workers have been touring far and wide in the valley advising Muslim peasants not to give any share of the produce to the Pandit landlords. When the guardians of Law and Order are themselves interested in preaching the defiance of law what redressal can be available to the poor Pandit. Thus the Act has practically taken away the whole land without compensation from the Pandits irrespective of their economic condition.

No remedy but exodus

With doors of Government services virtually closed on them; with government contracts almost totally denied to them; with trade and commerce in a chaotic condition in the State; with land snatched away from them; and above all, with insecurity and uncertainty all round in their home land, if Kashmiri Pandits found the demons of starvation, death and disrespect staring them in their face there in no wonder in it. Time and time again they approached the eminent Kashmiri Pandits such as Sapru, Kunzru, Katju in India, they even waited upon Sardar Patel, with their bucketful of woes. But evidently no body could help them so long as the Kashmiri Pandit Prime Minister of India was adamant on his policy about Kashmir. Having felt convinced that they could expect no sympathy from high political quarters at New Delhi and the unlimited power of the Kashmiri nationalists was in no way to be curtailed, having also realized that there could be no end to the abnormal conditions so long as the dispute over the accession issue between Indian and Pakistan continued Kashmiri Pandits decided to leave their motherland for good. What a wrench it must be to a Pandit to bid goodbye to his country of birth it is not difficult to imagine. Already about 20,000 Pandits, men, women, and children have come out and settled in different parts of India. If the present conditions continue for some time more there should be no doubt that the remaining members of the community will also leave their hearths and homes and they valley will be completely denuded of the Hindus.
From their bitter experience of the nationalist politics during the last two decades particularly since October 1947, the Kashmiri Pandits consider it quite risky and dangerous to remain in the valley; they are afraid of a flare up which might develop into a big conflagration, envelop the small microscopic minority, and reduce it to ashes. 

It is interesting that even such a partisan person, a pro-Pak person could back in 50s, could ( and indeed did) articulate Pandit concerns, their plight so clearly. Something the younger generation of Pro-Pak KPs, are now incapable of expressing publicly. The piece also makes it clear how Pandits came to acquire land post 1934. 

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Jokes from the Dead

This happened somewhere around early 1990s. Pandit Dina Kak still had a lot of friends in Srinagar. He would write letters to them. In his letters he would ask some of his friends to send him latest copies of local newspaper. Sometimes ask for newsletters of JKLF. Some of his dear friends would oblige him, so they would send him old copies Al-Safa, Aftaab…this is the best they could do for him. When the papers would arrive at home, he would have his cup of tea and could often be seen smiling reading the paper. Sometimes he would even laugh out loud. Dina Kak’s wife would get angry. She wondered why he still needed to read these papers published in Srinagar. After all these were the papers that just a few years ago had carried threat letters to pandits from militants. She wondered if he had become one of those self-hating pandits. Or, if he had become a sadist. Maybe a trip to Dr. Susheel Razdan was on needed. Then one day when she had had enough, she refused to serve him tea while he was reading one of the papers. Under duress Dina Kak finally explained:

When I read Hindustan Times or Times of India…there is no mention of Kashmiri Pandits anywhere. Occasionally there is a photograph of some migrant camp with a caption about how all pandits were originally elite class. All I can read is how militants are making the government dance and how government is claiming that things are going to be fine year. However, when I read these papers from Kashmir, it is the same story, but occasionally I find article by former friends about how Pandits are doing great outside Kashmir, how the government is pampering us silly, how money is dropping from the sky. I feel rich. I feel powerful. We run the congress, we run BJP, we run RSS and sometimes we are godless communists too. I read how we control the media, the government and the Army…even US and Israel. If you read them, if a few years we Pandits would be ruling the world. It makes me feel a whole lot better.

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This happened somewhere in the 90s. After it became clear that “Panun Kashmir” was not a possibility, the pandits, as usual, gathered in Vikram Park by the side of canal to deliberate upon the issue. It was in this meeting that Er. Shiban Ji The Great gave his famous solution to KP predicament. He was the last speaker for the day, it was late afternoon, much like the heat of the sun, the meeting was now ebbing. But, Er. Shiban Ji still had fire in him and his word smelt of embers from a fresh Kangri.

“Brothers, listen and listen carefully. What I am about to suggest may offend most of you but I have done all the calculation and this is the only way forward. It is a question of life and death. Rather a question of death. And only death can provide the answer. Our Muslim cousins are fighting this war using deaths and deaths it is we should fight back using. Things have to change. Our deaths have to change. I propose we change our death rituals. No KP in death should be burnt any more. Let’s start having burials for our dead. And those burial grounds be in Kashmir. Our living can live in clusters of choice, they won’t allow it, let our dead stay in clusters, in Kashmir. Dead pose not threat. If Afghan and Pakistani Mujahids can find burial place in Kashmir. If they can claim a piece of Kashmir, no reason why a KP should not find a little corner. After all how much space does a dead need. Don’t walk away, please listen. I have done the calculation. 4 feet by 2 feet. That is almost 3 square meter. That’s 0.0003 hectare. In 30 years, 50000 thousand of us would be dead, victims of heat, snake bites, old age, accidents, heartaches, nostalgia and homesickness . That’s 0.0003* 50000 hectares or almost 30 acres. That is almost 5 times the size of Melbourne cricket field. In 30 years, if our progenies chose to return, let this land be our Panun Kashmir, let the dead and the living find a piece of land in Kashmir. Till that time, let the dead find peace in Kashmir.”

Like always not many heard him that day too. Those who did, laughed. Then they too left. Er. Shiban Ji was alone. “Let them burn, I shall be buried,” Shiban Ji promised himself. A decade later Er. Shiban Ji moved to Germany, after the death of his wife, his son who was working as an Engineer with a famous automobile company, would not let him live alone in Jammu. Years raced to another decade. As Er. Shiban Ji aged, his brain got the maggots of alzheimer. It was then that he started begging his children that he be buried after death. “Let them burn, I shall be buried,” he would say all the time. When the time came, the son listened and left no stone untuned to have his father’s last wish fulfilled. Er. Shiban Ji now lies buried in Germany at a place near Dachau.

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This happened somewhere around 2010: in village Dupbal a rumor was going around that a dead body had been found. It was of a young woman. Clashes were imminent. Village elder prepared for the worst as young men had started gathering. However, authorities sent a policeman in civics who talked to the elder. Elder was jubilant. This was good news. He gathered the villagers and announced,”The body was of old Shanta ji who never left Kashmir. Let the villagers gather and celebrate Kashmiriyat. Set up a funeral pyre.”

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Many moons ago, radio presenter and expert of Asian affair Oral Stain asked great Kashmiri historian and Tikka Master Gundhlal Dolmut what is the one event in history that if undone would have changed the course of Indian history.

Gundhlal took a deep long drag from his hookah and closing his green eyes, in a deep sonorous voice replied:

“Spain should have remained under caliphate. Fall of Al-Andalus was a tragedy. Had the dream sustained, America would still have been discovered, ships would have still sailed, mountains of Gold moved, natives would have found one true god at the hand of soul catchers, they would have got rail roads and bathing soaps, civilisation would dawned but all the Red Indians would have been Muslim. It would have been real kal-doudas for Anglo Saxons. They would have been still busy trying to quieten their own middle-east… their own many Palestines and Kashmirs.”

Stain Sahib was irritated by the answer. Dolmut was not making much sense. Stain Sahib erupted, “What has that got to do with India?”

Gundhlal opened his eyes, as if from some deep slumber and calmly replied, “Oh..you want to know about real Indians and not the other Indians!” Gundhlal took another drag from his Gur-Gur, inhaling the Jahnami Tamookh, he continued:

“Lalitaditya should not have helped Chinese in their fight against Turks and Arabs over Tibet. Tibet should have fallen to caliphate. Kashmir would have been Muslim in any case, but Tibet would have been Muslim too. Today, China would have still busy handling Tibet issue. There would have been self-immolations of another kind.”

The comment brought a wry smile to Oral Stain’s face. In his leather bound private notebook, he wrote a note on the episode: Illustrious Kashmiri Pandits have lost their mind in exile.

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Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz on Article 370

“Was the special status and autonomy conferred on the State under Article 370 to pave way for integration of Kashmir with the rest of India by assuring State people of their political, social and cultural freedom or was it meant to allow the State politicians, especially Kashmir Muslim leaders, untrammelled opportunity for exploitation of the ignorant, gullible and backward massed? It was a moot point which probably never occurred to stalwarts of the Congress party in early days of independence when they evinced fullest confidence in the honesty, sincerity and love for teeming millions of National Conference leadership. Capture and enjoyment of power brought an awareness to the favorite leaders that the integration of the State with India, however desirable, was antagonistic to their private interest; no sooner than the objective was achieved, their own importance would cease and opinion of State people would grow in importance and weight.

Therefore, to keep people in darkness and not to make them politically conscious and socially awakened became a vested interest of Kashmir politicians. A policy was evolved to make Kashmir Muslims feel perpetually in terror of the hostile Hindu majority and depend upon the local coreligionist leaders for protection against it. Article 370 was frequently maligned and abused, and conditions were created not to allow it to outgrow its utility as originally intended but to make it a permanent feature of the Indian Constitution. In this atmosphere while the leaders thrived, the position of average Kashmiri worsened. The Central leadership of the Congress was caught in a web woven by the National Conference leaders before they could realize what was happening.

When this ugly aspect of the State politics came dimly to their notice or was forced on their attention by realities of the situation, National leaders could, in the beginning, hardly believe it; a little later they pooh-poohed it; and finally felt helpless to effectively deal with it. Consequently, in disregard of the growing resentment of the people, the State was handed over to the leaders as their fief with the result that it kept the problem of integration of Kashmir people with the rest of India alive for the past thirty years and till today.”

~ Democracy through Intimidation and Terror. The Untold Story of Kashmir Politics, Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz, 1978

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Census Numbers of Kashmiri Pandits, 1921-1931

Date to refute the propaganda that perpetuates the myth that Kashmiri Pandits were elite exploitative class of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Year 1921


Total KP population: 55055
30947 Male +24108 Female

Working Male: 17919
Working Female: 1389
Dependents: 35744





People whose primary means of income was cultivation:

Male: 4376
Female: 731

People who worked as Agents/Managers/Forest officers, their clerks, rent collectors:
Male: 294

Field Labourers/Woodcutters:

Male: 2

Herders/Milkmen/Livestock:


Male: 4

Artisan and other workmen:


Male: 272
Female: 339

Transport Owner/Manager:


Male: 10

Labourer/boatmen/palki carrier:

Male: 68

Traders:


Male: 2070
Female: 12

People whose Principal means of income was State Service:

Male: 3844
Female: 31

People who had State job as a means of additional income:


Male: 481
Female: 1

People who had some other means of income on top of State job:

Male: 208
Female:5

People holding Religious Posts:


Male: 74

Lawyer/Doctor/Teacher:


Male: 57

Other Jobs:


Male: 129
Female: 1

Living on their incomes from the funds:


Male: 98
Female: 4

Employed in Domestic service:


Male: 1742
Female: 46

Contractors/Clerks/ Cashiers:


Male: 51

Labourers:
Male: 47
Female: 4

Beggars/Criminals/in jail


Male: 80
Female: 3

People who earned from Land:


Male: 1025
Female: 214

Commissioned Gazetted Officer in Public Force:


Male: 1

Gazetted Officer in Public Administration:Male: 6

Other Public Administration:


Male: 2970
Female: 3
Literacy rates


Total KP population: 55055

Total Literate: 14,740
of them 14456 Male and 284 Female

Total Illiterate: 40,303
of them 16, 479 Male and Female 23824.

Literate in English: 5,154.
of them 5104 Male and 50 Female

That means 73.21 % of KPs were illiterate (53% of Males were illiterate).  That should puncture the myth (that even KPs like to boast): KPs were highly educated class.

However, the edge was only with the 9.36% English literate KPs among 55055 and 34.97 % among the KP literates. No other community had more number in this category.

To compare: There were only 5231 educated KMs in the state with their population of 796392. Of them only 340 knew English and among them only 5 woman knew English.

Things were to change from KPs and KMs in the next decade.

Year 1931

In 1931, Kashmiri Pandit population increased by 14.6 percent. Though it might sound high. The total increase in number was only 8056. From 55055 it moved to 63088. Number of educated people among KPs increased by 31.9 percent. 

It is claimed in myths that KMs were deliberately kept uneducated by the Maharaja (and some even claim by KPs), however, the reason for illiteracy among Muslims is explained in the 1931 report:
“The backwardness of Muslims is the result of their concentration on the soils which does not permit the agriculturist to devote sufficient time and energy for his personal education or the education of his children.”
Yet, efforts were made to get them educated. In the State, the number of schools doubled from 670 in 1921 to 1246 in 1931. [Shri Pratap College, Srinagar gave Rs 1500 scholarship for Muslims and Prince of Wales College, Jammu gave Rs 3000.]
The census report says on the progress among KMs.
“The community that has evinced the keenest interest in augmenting its ranks of literates in beyond doubt the Kashmiri Muslim. In population they have added only 70 persons to 100 of their strength but in literacy they have more than quadrupled the number. “
Their population increased by 69.7 % (this drastic increase partly because “Hajjams” started entering Kashmiri Muslim as their caste) to 1352822 from 796392. The number of literate increased by 313.4 percent. 
According to the report:
“When we look to absolute figures only without reference to the population of each caste the Kashmiri Muslims show the highest number of literates viz. 21,639, followed by Kashmiri Pandits with 18,915“
In 1921 there were only 5231 literate KMs while in 1931 the number grew to 18,915, the biggest absolute number in the state, 
In 1921 there were only 5 English literate KMs per 10000 of their population. In 1931, the number became 25. That’s an increase of 20%.
Yet, in case of Srinagar city (whose population increased by 22.5 % from 1921 to 1931) we read:


“The total number of literates in the city of Srinagar is 17,575 out of which 16,480 are males and 1,095 females. The proportion of literates per mille [1000] of the total population of the city is 101 being 174 for males and 14 for females. If we exclude population below 5 the proportions would rise to 117 for persons, 198 for males and 16 for females. Amongst Hindus, the proportion of literates works out to 344 while amongst Muslims it dwindles down to 39. The obvious reason is that the Hindus in the city are mostly Kashmiri Pandits or outsiders attracted by the prospects of trade to whom literacy is the one thing needful for conducting their business. The Kashmiri Pandits as already stated have a very high degree of literacy because of the traditions amongst them of following Government service as their calling in life. The Muslims on the other hand are devoted to indigenous arts and crafts which though more paying do not demand literacy as a pre-requisite.”
The KPs still had the advantage in English in the entire state. For KPs there was an increase of 50 percent.  From 1045 per 10000 in 1921 it grew to 1588 in 1931. 
The report records: “The Kashmiri Pandits hold an enviable position in the State in the matter of English literacy having 1588 literates per 10000 of the population. Their males have a much higher proportion viz 2, 789. The Kashmiri Pandit is by tradition a Government servant for which the requisite equipment is a knowledge of the English language to which he has turned in a greater measure than any other caste.”
Still, for every 1000 KP men 635 were literates and 365 illiterates. Over all the number stood at 369 per 1000. Other communities were of course worse than KPs, but Khatris (386/1000) were better than KPs in literary. Even in the field of female literacy they were better place. They had 178 literate females per thousand compared to (24 for KPs, 22 for Sheikhs , 21 for Brahmins, 1 for Kashmiri Muslims)
Now, let’s see what did this “tradition of Government service ” for KPs meant in numbers.
In 1931, there were 13133 total people in Public Administration and 12265 in State service
According to census, for every 1000 employees in State Service, about 305.9 were KP men and for every 100 woman employees in State Service, only 1 Female was KP woman. Overall, we can say 70% of State service comprised of other communities. 
This is the complete breakdown for KPs.
For every 1000 people employed in these fields, following were KPs:

State Service: 

305.9

Exploitation of animals and vegetation :

287.9
Industry: 
18.6

Transport 
4.8
 
Trade 
149.9

Public Force 
19.0
Public Administration 
1.5
Arts and Professions 
73.2

Persons living on their income 
20.1 

Domestic service 
98.7 

Insufficiently described occupations 
27.7 

Beggars, criminals and inmates of Jails
 2.7
The report noticed, “The Kashmiri Pandits are gradually relinquishing their ideal of Government service and turning to trade and even manual labour in increasing numbers.”
Then there is the question of unemployment. If KPs were spending so much effort getting education. was it rewarding? 
“The unemployed who possess a higher qualification than that of a matric are 289 only exclusive of 73 unemployed who are below 20 years of age. Of these 226 are Brahmans and 26 other Hindus. The Muslims number 37 only. It is very much in the fitness of things that the Brahman who inherits traditions of learning from the past should be most exposed to the uncertainty of employment. The Muslims and others who have a stake in the land naturally do not take to education keenly especially when the education provided in schools and colleges is of a purely literary nature and does not enable the bookish student to pursue any calling except that of a clerk in Government service without further training.”
This provides the backdrop form Roti agitation that city KPs launched in 1932 in response to Glancy commission that among other things sought to lower the requirement for Government jobs. This would have mean all the decade that KPs spent preparing for government job would have been wasted. KMs who by number were already most populous literate group with 21,639 would have been rightly seen as a threat by18,915 literate Kashmiri Pandits. It must have dawned on KPs that their future is at stake. 21,639 was a negligible number given the total population of KMs who were still into land and trade but for 18,915 KPs out of total 55055, the math looked fearful enough . How much of these fears were triggered by census itself is not hard to guess. Just like today Census becomes a political game, back then also in Kashmir, Census data was a political tool.
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Overall, if KPs were the exploitative class, there are probably the only exploitative class in the world in which majority of the people belonging to this class were not working in privileged positions. And KPs would be the only exploitative class whose population showed no drastic increase in population dues to all the “exploitation” they were doing.   

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Reference:
1. Census of India 1921 vol.22 Kashmir [Link] under by Chaudhari Khushi Muhammad, Governor of Kashmir.
2. Census of India 1931, Volume 14. Jammu & Kashmir State [Link] under Pandit Anant Ram Dogra, Census Commissioner and Director of Land Records and Pandit Hira Nand Raina, Assistan Census Commissioner.
3.  Census of India 1941, Jammu And Kashmir Parts I And II [Link] under Captain R.G. Wreford, Census Commissioner for the state

In 1941 census, the practice of giving data specific to KPs was put to an end. However, in the report we read, there were 76,868 Kashmiri Pandits in the state in 1941. And:

“Most of the Kashmiri Pandits are residents of Srinagar; over 62,000 live in the Anantnag District in which Srinagar City is situated. Another 11,000 were recorded in Baramulla District. The figures do not exceed a thousand in any other district except Jammu which has 1,367.”

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The oldest specimen of Kashmiri Painting

The oldest surviving specimen of Kashmiri
school of Painting

The figures of Buddha and Avalokitesvara on the wooden cover of birchbark manuscript discovered by Pandit Madhusudan Kaul Shastri in 1938 from Naupore in Gilgit where earlier the same spot had yielded in 1931 the now famous “Gilgit Manuscript”. The painting is dated between 7th-9th century and shows influence of Gandhara (the way physique is drawn), Ajanta (the way eyes are drawn) and Pala Bengal school (the way headdress and face is drawn). At the feet of the deities can be the patrons who look and dress like Central Asians.

[housed at SPS museum, Srinagar]

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Horse Rider of Ushkur

via: Penn Museum 

“The relief illustrated in Plate XII was found on the site of Huskapura (modern Ushkur), near Baramula in Kashmir, by Father de Ruyter of the Church Mission School at Baramula [around 1915]. The slab, which is on exhibition in the Fitler Pavilion, bears the equestrian portrait or effigy of a warrior armed with a bow carried on his left arm, a shield and sword on his right thigh, and a battle axe and a quiver full of arrows at his back; also apparently a mace is attached to the saddle. His costume consists of an under coat fastening on the proper right, and an over jacket fastened by straps in the centre; probably also of trousers and boots, but the feet are broken away. The horse is richly caparisoned and almost completely covered by a richly decorated cloth; it is guided by a bridle and bit. The incised inscription, in a late variety of Sārāda script known as Devāśeşa, is damaged; it is in corrupt Sanskrit and not quite intelligible. The date, however, is clearly legible and is ‘on Friday, the ninth, of the dark fortnight of Magha in the year 82.’ The era is not specified, but may be assumed to be the usual Saptarsi or Laukika era of other Kashmir Sārāda inscriptions, which era is usually recorded with omission of the centuries. The year 82 of the inscription would then correspond to the year 6 of one of the Christian centuries, and this century, to judge from the epigraphical peculiarities and the style of the relief was most likely the sixteenth, giving the date A.D. 1506. As to the epigraphy, it may be remarked that medial e is not represented by the stroke behind the consonant as was the case up to the time of Zainu’l-‘Abidīn, King of Kashmir from A.D. 1420-1470. The second line of the inscription which must have contained the name of some king or queen is unfortunately defective. The rest of the document records a gift of goods and animals (twenty khāris of paddy, two of wheat, eight oxen and five traks of coarse sugar); but the names of the donor and recipient are lost. The style of the sculpture is somewhat provincial, but it is of high interest as a rare and almost uniquely complete representation of contemporary military equipment. For much of the information given above I am indebted to Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, one of the most learned officers of the Archaeological Survey of India.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “A Relief and Inscription from Kashmir” Expedition Magazine 2.26 (1931). Expedition Magazine. 

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Five Yogis, Shankaracharya, Mughal Painting, 17th Century

One of the earliest instance of western art mixing up with Kashmir.

“Plate 231/ Harvard 1983. 620 recto Hindu Holy Men Artist: attributed to Govardhan Mughal school Circa 1630-1635 24,1 x 15,2 cm Watercolour on paper Private Collection, Courtesy of the Harvard University Art Museums. Govardhan’s miniature brings to life five Hindu holy men meditating beneath a neem tree near an early Kashmiri temple close to Srinagar, seen in the background. Each portrait represents a stage of life. In the foreground, a languid youth with a golden sea of curls reclines opposite the figure, a middle-aged sanyasi whose other-worldly gaze, self-grown shawl of long hair, and claw-like fingernails attest to his shedding of almost every mundane activity. To his left, sits an older devotee, whose expressive, disciplined face implies both intellectual power and spiritual grace. At the left of the miniature, momentarily distracted from his elevated state, a dark-bearded figure with a mala (rosary) and a turban wound from his own hair, looks out beyond the frame. Behind 124 the others reclines a holy man whose tense expression hints of troubled dreams. In the foreground, a fire smoulders, producing both warmth and the ashes worn instead of clothing by these aspiring saints. Nudes are rare in Mughal art, and most of those known to us depict holy men. Although the pose of the naked chela (apprentice) here was inspired by an engraving of Saint Chrysostom, interpreted as an Odalisque by the German printmaker Barthold Beham (1502-1540), Govardhan not only changed her sex but trimmed several years from her age. So convincing is the young sadhu that Govardhan’s adjustments to the western prototype must have been studied from life. Inasmuch as Prince Dārā Shikoh was so concerned with the varieties of religious personality, it is likely that this remarkable picture, one of Mughal art’s most serious investigations of the human spirits, was commissioned by him. Literature: we are grateful to Gauvin Bailey for discovering Barthold Beham’s prototype, for which see: Bartsch 1978, vol. XV [8], No. 43.”

~ Indian Paintings in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa by Stewart Cary Welch, 1996

The hill and temple depicted is probably Shankaracharya of Srinagar, the iconic symbol from the city. Although Welch identifies the tree as Neem, however, Neem is not that common in Kashmir and certainly not a common motif for art around Kashmir. It is possible the tree depicted is Brimji (celtis australis/Nettle Tree). Brimji is a common tree near holy sites of Kashmiri Pandits, this shade providing tree is considered holy by Kashmiris.

Asoka and Shankaracharya hill by Abanindranath Tagore, 20th century

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Govardhan was the son of Bhavani Das, a minor painter in the Mughal imperial atelier. Govardhan began his career during the reign of Akbar. Govardhan was a Khanazad (born in family), house born slaves, trained since birth for service to royal family.

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The Penance of Saint John Chrysostom by Barthel Beham, (1502–1540) was a German engraver, miniaturist and painter.

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On Khanazad


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