Tag: 1947

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Kashmir War Speak, 1948

From ‘Kashmir Speaks’ by Prithvi Nath Kaula and Kanahaya Dhar (1950), these things, a reminder, wars make for sad quotes and sadder lives. It makes spartans out of apostles and apostles out of spartans.

Above is the only known photograph of Maqbool Sherwani. Or rather an illustration based on a photograph published in the book. The original photograph, published in a Kashmir war pamphlet from 1948, was shared by Andrew Whitehead sometime ago on his website [here]. When he did it became the only online available photograph of Maqbool Sherwani. Now above posted image is going to be the second, and more in focus, image of Maqbool Sherwani available online Wherein lies an interesting fact about the way history works. And even the way web works. Back in those days poems were penned in name of Sherwani in Kashmir, novels were written in India. Acclaimed as savior of Kashmir. And yet, because of the way history shaped over the years, and because of the way it in turn shaped the opinions of those who are online now, his image is only to be found old propaganda material.

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First Rambo in Kashmir, 1947

Life Magazine. 16 Feb, 1948.

An american construction company employed a 25 year old ex-G.I. from Brooklyn named Russell K. Haight Jr. who during World War 2 had been a non-combatant in France fighting for Canadian Army. After a fall from a cliff, he decided to head back home.But a chance encounter with officials operating the war in Kashmir took him to the Poonch front in southwestern Kashmir where he took part in fighting for two months. At that time all he knew was that Kashmir had a Dogra king and he didn’t like that.

With his american no-fuss attitude he was soon promoted to brigradier general in the tribal army, a rank he later claimed was given to him as a joke by British army officers. On the front he learnt to handle the maundering and looting tribals by playing upon their vanities and tribal rivalries.

But his big american dream of action-adventure did not last long. He got into a fight with Pathans over some machine guns recovered from a downed Indian Air Force place. He killed the guys and became a fugitive. After arriving back in America via Karachi, in an interview with  Robert Turnball for New York Times*,
he created a few ripples by claiming that the fighting in Kashmir was managed by Pakistan Army, that the land proclaimed as Azad Kashmir was managed by a puppet of Pakistan. That there had been assasination attempts on his life for criticizing the way the war was being handled. And yet he remained sympathetic to the “cause”.

After the news spread, a communist paper in India claimed him to be an american spy and proof of American meddling in internal affairs of other countries.Around the same time an american author from New York named Nicol Smith (Golden doorway to Tibet, 1949) claimed there was some pro-Russia activity happening in Leh, that the Yarkhandi traders in Leh may be Russian agents. He claimed that there was a chance that the king of Leh may seek help from Russia and seek a separate way out. The old great game just kept going on with old and new players.

In 1967, Russell K. Haight retired from U.S. army as a sergeant-major after a long career of fighting in Korea, Germany, Bolivia and Vietnam.

After he passed away in 2006, there was small news item in an Indian paper on the american man who fought for the other side.

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*The Limits of influence: America’s Role in Kashmir by Howard B. Schaffer (2009)

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Manto’s Kashmiri Coolie

When the smoke lessened, the policemen saw that their quarry was a Kashmiri coolie. He was lugging a heavy sack and running with admirable ease despite the weight on his back. The policemen’s throats ran dry with blowing their whistles, but the Kashmiri coolie’s pace didn’t slacken.
By now, the policemen were panting. Tired and fed up with the chase, one of them took out a gun anf fired. The bullet hit the man in his back. The sack slipped and rolled down. The man turned, and looked at the still-running policemen with frightened eyes. He also saw the blood seeping down his calf. But with a quick jerk, he bent bent, picked up the sack and began to limp away hurriedly. The policemen thought,”Let him go to hell.”
The Kashmiri coolie was limping badly when he staggered and fell heavily – the sack fell on top of him.
The policemen swooped down on him and took him away to the police station. The man kept pleading all the way,”Gentlemen, why are you arresting me? I am a poor man…I was only taking a sack of rice…to eat at home…why have you shot me…” But no one paid him any heed.
The Kashmiri coolie went on with his explanations at the police station, pleading and crying,”Sir, there were others in the bazaar…they were carrying away many big things…I have only taken one sack of rice…I am a poor man…I can only afford to eat plain rice.”
Till, finally, he gre tired and desperate. he took off his skull-cap, wiped the sweat streaming from his forehead, cast one last, lingering look at the sack of tempting rice, then stretched his palm before the Thanedar abd said,”All right, sir, you keep the sack with you…but pay me my labour charges – four annas.”

Extract from cameo titled ‘Payment’ from ‘Black Borders: A collection of 32 cameos’, Rakhshanda Jalil’s translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Siyah Hashiye (1947).
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Image: Kralkhod, Srinagar, 2008
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Previously: Pundit Manto’s First Letter to Pundit Nehru

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Kashmiri Refugees, 1947-48

 A news bureau photograph of Kashmiri refugees who had been driven from their homes by the turmoil of 1947.

A group of refugees from Kashmir, who arrived at the Pakistan border recently are shown as they moved down from the mountains. Group were reportedly fleeing “the invaders from India.” They were ill-clad and suffering from the effects of hunger and hardship after their long trek to the order.

via: Columbia.edu
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People who became refugees on this side of order. Stories of Dakotas and people carrying mothers on back were to become part of local folkfore.

“Air-evacuation of thousands of refugees to welfare centre was among the numerous tasks which the Transport-squadron of RIAF successfully carried cut during Kashmir Operations in 1948. An aged refugee couple from Poonch area, their sons killed and daughters abducted by the raiders, on their way on an airstrip in a forward area for air evacuation by an RIAF Dakota to a refugee welfare centre.” – April 1948. (Photodivison India)

    Air-evacuation of thousands of refugees to welfare centre was among the numerous tasks which the Transport-squadron of RIAF successfully carried cut during Kashmir Operations in 1948. A refugee family from Poonch area.
– April 1948. (Photodivison India)
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Thassu Saheb thinking out loud, 1947

Cross-posted at my other Blog.
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From  Baburao Patel’s Q/A section in FilmIndia, August 1947 issue. ( via a collection shared with me by Memsaab Greta)

Lot of thinking going on there (what’s that thing about J.P ji ) but I am amazed by question posed by O.N. Thassu of Srinagar, whose progenies probably now live in Bombay and would probably readily buy the answer from Baburao Patel of Bombay (we know who else bought that answer only a year later endorsing it in a Court trail about a murder). Baburao Patel was known not only for his biting wit  but ‘let’s bite some, any heads’ attitude towards what he considered blackheads on Bhart Mata’s beautiful face. He voiced opinions what would probably now be considered concerns of pragmatic-Hindu-middle-class. And he often did it in a very pragmatic Indian way, this particular (and many around that that) issue was in fact full of eulogies in praise of Gandhi. A pragmatic: He had Muslim friends, a fairly large readership (at least in the beginning) consisting of Muslims, naturally he was an expert at defining difference between ‘good nationalist Muslim’ and ‘bad Muslim’, he was a good Hindu, naturally he knew a thing or two about similarity between ‘good nationalist Hindu’ and ‘good Hindu’, he liked-dis-liked Nehru, liked-dis-liked Gandhi, liked, thought highly of Sardar Patel, liked Bose (as he believed ‘dead don’t disappoint’). One could say that naturally qualifies him for the modern ‘thinking Hindu’ type of our mundane times. But to his credit he was also open to criticism, and would often allow this criticism on his own platform. That certainly is not a modern trait. Still, it does not surprise that he was one of the first journalists to join politics and get elected to Lok Sabha on a ticket from Bhartiya Jan Sangh, the old avatar of ‘Bhartiya Janata Party’ – the platform, in its best form, advertised as a place for sensible Hindus with a burning love for the burning country.
Knowing Kashmiri attitude towards written word, and knowing the writings of Baburao, it should not surprise anyone that in early 50s, maybe to the much annoyance of Thassu Saheb, FilmIndia was banned in Kashmir. And it should not equally surprise anyone that the he actually thought of Kashmirs as lazy buggers, back-stabbers and that India would be lot better without Kashmir, and that his ‘Indian Muslim Brother’ would have (pose?) no problem. Now where have we heard that pragmatic solution and views before in recent times.

Time a quite a thing.

From being the pioneer of film journalism, by 1970s Baburao Patel, his FilmIndia run-over by Filmfare, was running a publication called ‘Mother India’ (a copy of which I have managed to get my hands on) and in it selling slogans like ‘Hindus of the world arise’, ‘Stop it mod-women’  and in between these slogans he was selling all kind of ayurvedic churans for every known human disease.

All said and done, I would not have been surprised if on any other day, in any other situation, to any other question, Baburao Patel would have simply told Thassu Saheb of Srinagar, ‘My friend, it is well-known advise, never take the advise of a man who at the end of the day is selling you a magic Churan of his own make.’

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a pamphlet, 1947

Cross posted at my other blog
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“The pamphlet cover displayed above is from a title published in 1948 by the Kashmir Bureau of Information in Delhi. The design is arresting, and clearly leftist in inspiration. The designer (the name is in the bottom left hand corner) was Sobha Singh, at the time a young progressive artist. In later years, he became better known for his religious paintings of the Sikh Gurus.

The woman in the foreground depicted lying on the ground and aiming a rifle is Zuni Gujjari, a woman from a milkman’s family who became renowned as a militant supporter of the National Conference, the main Kashmiri nationalist party. The black and white photograph is of members of the Women’s Self Defence Corps, a women’s militia set uplargely by Communist supporters of the National Conference in October-November 1947, when Srinagar was in danger of being overrun by an army of Pakistani tribesmen.”

Found it at the site of Andrew Whitehead author of A Mission in Kashmir.

Besides Zuni Gujjari, the other women featured in this incredible image include Krishna Misri (nee Zardoo),  her younger sister, Indu, Begum Zainab, Jai Kishori Bhan. Usha Kashyap – known now as Usha Khanna– wife of Indian freedom fighter Rajbans Khanna (associate of Director Bimal Roy) , niece of Balraj Sahni (one of the pioneers of left leaning IPTA or Indian People’s Theatre Association and the hero of 1972 bilingual film Shayar-e-Kashmir Mahjoor based on life of Kashmiri poet Mahjoor) and the founder of Samovar restaurant at the Jehangir art gallery in Mumbai.

Do check out Andrew Whitehead’s blog for more on these incredible women and stuff like this:

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Tip off- Autar Mota ji. Thanks!

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Update:  Got the name of one more woman (not in Andrew Whitehead’s article) in that pamphlet thanks to Vijay Kashkari Ji. He writes:
“My mother Shanta Kashkari is also in photograph. She was an active member of the peace brigade formed for voluntary works, when Kashmir was raided by the raiders.My mother is  2nd behind Jai Kishori Ji [woman under first ‘E’ of DEFENDS]. She is wearing white saree, head and arm is covered by the saree.”

Shanta Kashkari would be the woman under left edge of ‘D’ of DEFENDS.

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