13 July 1931 : And Butler Changed Destiny of Slave Nation

And A Butler Change Destiny of A Slave Nation

Z. G .Muhammad

Some moments are important than epochs in the histories of nations. So holds valid about  July 13, 1931, in the history of Kashmir- the day when people of Kashmir scripted their history with scarlet blood. It was not the first day when people laid their lives for just cause- history of Kashmir after 1819 is replete with incidents when ruthless alien rulers brutally murdered people. The year 1865, is an essential milestone in our history when shawl makers were protesting against the brutal tax system were drowned alive in a tributary of the River Jhelum near Nawab Bazar. Notwithstanding, every day of our sacrifices is essential, but    July 13 for changing the course of history is more significant than many other dates.  On this day soldiers of Dogra ruler emptied magazines after magazines of their assault rifles on unarmed people that had gathered outside Srinagar Jail to know about the court proceedings about one detained Abdul Qadeer.  Twenty-two people were gunned down and scores others received gunshots.

It was not the arrest of a political leader of a stature that had made people gather outside the Srinagar Central jail and agitate.   The man who became the cause of the massacre was not a religious scholar of stature or political leader of consequences but an ‘unknown’ person – a butler with a British Sahib.

At the first major political public meeting at Khanqah Moula perhaps “the first” in our country, he had suddenly shot into prominence. His sudden appearance at a well thought out political rally that I see divine intervention shaped the contemporary Kashmir history. It also provided grist to the conspiracy theories that subsequently proved disastrous for the well-intended political movement of the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir State against the discriminatory rule of a Hindu king. In 1931, Muslims constituted 85 per cent of the population of this State surrounded by India, China, Afghanistan and China.

On June 21 first-ever political meeting had been organized by a group of Muslim intelligentsia to elect a representative body for presenting a charter of demands of Muslims of the State to Hindu ruler against his biased and discriminatory economic, social and political policy. The Hindu ruler’s soldiers had occupied major masjids and converted them into barracks and granaries. These included some historical mosques built by the  Mogul rulers and others.

The meeting elected representatives, and after the elections, the meeting was dispersed. The leaders had retired to a nearby house, “ostensibly to have some refreshment and plan out future strategy.”  The people were still on the lawns of the historic hospice of Shah- Hamdan that a young man Abdul Qadeer came on to the empty podium. He made an emotional speech calling upon to rise in revolt with one voice against the Hindu ruler whose officers had been showing disrespect towards Islam and had committed blasphemy by tearing apart the Holy Book. He asked the people to pull down the Maharaja’s palace brick by brick.  His speech touched the hearts of people and agitated their minds against the autocratic ruler. It was at the spur of the moment that he emerged as the people’s hero. His speech encouraged to rise in revolt. Many questions continue to remain unanswered about this British Sahib butler. Of these questions, one is if appeared on the stage and addressed the gathering suo moto, or he had the ‘tacit approval’ from the leaders if not all but at least from Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.   Sheikh writes in his autobiography about having met him before the public meeting couple of times on the lawns of Hazratabal Mosque.

The man whose arrest triggered the agitation and shaped the course of our history was chaste Urdu speaking ‘robustly built’ young man Abdul Qadeer.’ The vested interests amongst the minority community used the “inflammatory speech by Qadeer” to spread rumours in their community about some inevitable trouble against them. Some of them even Prem Nath Bazaz alerted the Congress leadership in India about the ‘resurgence of Muslim nationalism” in Kashmir and its consequences for the Hindu in the State more particularly Kashmir Pandits. Mirdu Rai writes about it. However, the Kashmiri Pandits and other Hindus, shaken by the expression of such hostile sentiments as those of Qadeer had disseminated their own set of rumours. One such spreading like wildfire and indicating the fear felt by a minority of possibly losing the ground in the State of the Muslims majority was that the Dogra ruler was about  to permit cow slaughter.”  How these rumours not only alerted the Congress leadership and made them play a role in changing the political discourse of Muslims leadership in the State seven years after the massacre outside the State is in itself a subject that needs a detailed study.

Qadeer, after his fiery speech, was arrested and tried. His one address had made him the darling of the Muslims masses of the State; who after some sacrilegious incidents both in Jammu and Srinagar had become worrisome about the intentions of the rulers. “The trial of Qadeer had started on July 6, 1931, at the Sessions Court, Srinagar. During the hearings, huge crowds of Muslim had gathered to hear the proceedings of the case. The presence of people had made the authorities nervous.’ The trial was transferred to Srinagar Jail to be held in camera on July 13 1931. On the day of trial, people gathered outside Srinagar Central jail, and it was on these people that Dogra soldiers had fired upon the innocent people. As very rightly written by Mirdu Rai, ‘the significance of the date drew from the fact that it was the first time that a gathering of Kashmiri Muslims openly challenged the authority  of Maharaja Hari Singh and his government.” The slogans raised by the agitated crowds were sufficient to tell the rulers that it was a tidal wave that was going to sweep away the rulers from their firmly entrenched pedestals.’

Stating that it was an accident of history does not mean that had not Qadeer appeared on the scene, there would have been no freedom movement. It would not be correct to say that the struggle against the tyrant and oppressive rule started in 1931. It was born on the same day when British sold  Kashmir for the paltry sum of Rs.7500000/ (Nankshahi).  People did not accept it as fait accompli but rose in revolt. The Dogra soldiers were defeated; it was with the help of the British army that they entered into Kashmir.

After that, there have been many an uprising which were suppressed through brute force by the Dogra rulers. The first major one was the revolt of the Shawl weavers against the brute tax system.  But what could be seen as an organized reassertion of the Kashmiri Muslims could be traced the birth of Anjuman Kashmir in Lahore- the heart of undivided Punjab. The role played by Kashmiri Muslims settled in Punjab including Muhammad Din Fauq and Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal later Allama Iqbal is golden pages of Kashmir struggle against the oppression of the Dogra ruler.   I have, in a few earlier write up mentioned in detail about the role played by Allama Iqbal in our freedom struggle.  There is hardly a historian of Kashmir Freedom struggle who has not endorsed of the Lahore Press in bringing in political awakening in the Muslims of the State or the newspapers started by Kashmiris in Lahore.

It would not be wrong to say Allama Muhammad Iqbal not only emerged as philosopher and guide of our struggle but its first advocate and ambassador in the world outside Kashmir. He had very successfully made the cause of Kashmiri Muslims as the cause of the  Muslims in British India by attracting  Muslim intelligentsia to join Kashmir Committee. Many joined Iqbal and worked with him day and night from the platform of All-India Muslim Kashmiri Conference, Lahore. These included Khan Bahadur Haji Rahim Bux   Mian Nizamuddin honorary magistrate, Haji Mir Shamsuddin, Maulana Syed Habib editor, Mian Amiruddin (lord mayor Lahore), Munshi Mohammad Din Fauq (Kashmiri historian), Mohammad Rafiq Ahmad bar-at-law, Khawaja Ghulam Mustafa advocate, Mian Hishammuddin (honorary magistrate), Nawab Habibullah, Sheikh Sadiq Hassan   Sheikh Mohammad Sadiq, Khawaja Mohammad Yousuf, Khan Bahadur Sheikh Din Mohammad (later chief justice and member boundary commission), Malik Abdur Rafi, Malik Abdul Qayyum bar-at-law and Col Mirza Qutubuddin. At the same time, Syed Mohsin Shah was appointed secretary of the committee.

The history of association of Kashmiri Muslims runs parallel to an association formed by the Muslim intelligentsia in Jammu.  In 1922 Chowdary Ghulam Abbass revived the Young Men’s Muslim Association an organization of Jammu Muslims that had become defunct after its birth in 1909. This organization that he headed from 1924 to 1929 played a prominent role in raising its voice against the discriminatory treatment meted out to the Muslims of the State. It is this organization that after bringing Kashmir within the ambit of its activities played a catalytic role in launching the movement that found its expression in June 1931. The meeting at Khanquah in fact besides electing the representatives had been organized to receive four members of the Young Men’s Muslim Association, Mistri Muhammad Yaqoob, Sardar Gauhar Rehman, Sheikh Abdul Hamid and Chaudary Ghulam Abbas.  The Muslim Association Jammu can be seen as a forerunner to the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference.  Nonethless, the Muslim Conference was the first-ever statewide political organization of the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir from Mirpur to Nobra and also the founder of the movement that found its first brave manifestation on July 13, 1931.

In making the world to know about the brutalities, the Muslims suffered at the hands of autocratic rulers, July 13 happening played a significant role. Five days after the happening the Muslim press of Lahore reported the incident, and it had sent shock waves not only in Kashmiri community living in Punjab but the entire Muslim population. And it was the Kashmir Committee that brought the plight of Kashmiris under focus in undivided India after launching mass movement at all India level.  There are records about Muslims in many parts of India taking out processions against the Dogra ruler in the State. And it, in fact, these protests in different parts of India that made The British to intervene in Kashmir affairs. And it appointed a commission to look into the grievances of the Muslims of the State. And it was because of this incident that Kashmir Freedom Struggle went from strength to strength. And seventeen the feudal and autocratic rule ended…..