{"id":2265,"date":"2015-02-05T11:20:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T05:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2015-02-05T12:05:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T06:35:12","slug":"let-me-tell-children-their-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/let-me-tell-children-their-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell Children Their Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

\"Kashmiri\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h6>\n

Of all the stories we have, this one is for you<\/h3>\n

Z.G. MUHAMMAD<\/h4>\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Then hues of sky had a meaning. Every shade had its own connotation. Every colour had a story to tell- different tinges told different stories. Different shades of dawn and dusk had different meanings. It was not the aesthetics of the colours that filled people\u2019s hearts with joys – but it was the fear that had become part of their psyche for centuries that found a manifestation in different hues of sky. Carmine sky – did not make people agog but filled their hearts with awe – it was seen as harbinger of a blood bath, a mayhem, and murder. . Murky sky filled with darker clouds was seen as forerunner of bad days. It was seen as heralding of yet another bad rule- rule of oppression, intimidation, terror and subjugation. A gloomy morning was seen as presage of some one having died of exhaustion out of corvee while crossing over peaks leading to Gilgit.<\/p>\n

Then hovering of wild crows over the skyline dominated with pines would not augur well – it would never make people think of some wild bore having died but would instill fear in them about someone having starved to death. It reminded them of not being masters of their fields, toil and crop. It reminded them of idle pestles and sealed mortars – as no body could pound paddy without permission from rulers. And paying taxes to the cruel yellow turbaned patawari.
\nThe children\u2019s hearts would never be thrilled on seeing flocks of\u00a0 the birds returning to their nests in the evening instead it would remind them of some brutish alien ruler who had left indelible scars on the psyche of every\u00a0 Kashmiris. At the fall of dusk with flying of\u00a0 caravans of\u00a0 crows to their destination\u00a0 known as \u201ckawa yanwol\u2019\u00a0 made children cry \u201cKawa Yanwol Miradadun Bhol Hudian Gool\u201d. Mirdad Khan was an Afghan Subedar who had \u2018imposed unjust taxes on people.\u2019 Cursing and using invectives against the oppressors and rulers were the only weapons people had to fight with. It Mirdad Khan was not the only ruler cursed by children, Kashmiri language is full of phrases, idioms and proverb that bear testimony to the amount of hatred people had for the alien rulers…. there were nicknames for Mogul soldiers- who mostly remained inside the garrison of Nagar- Nagari- the first bunker built in Kashmir, there were nicknames for Sikh rulers – Kripa Shoran for Kripa Ram that lascivious and epicurean Sikh Governor…
\nAnd at the fall of night somberness would be stripped apart by melodious voices of damsels that used to gather in compounds and sing in chorus, songs of festivity on the eve of both the Eids – but many a songs would be punctured with laments. These choruses that echoed from the peaks of Zabarwan and Hurmukh were not songs of joy but tales of woe and sufferings at the hands of alien desperadoes. They were no belle of the ball who sang for rejoicing but they sang for catharsis. They songs would purge the damsels who were advised not to wash faces to save themselves from the prying eyes of lascivious alien soldiers from the awe and fear that had become part of their psyche during the centuries old alien rule. In looking shabbier lied their beauty – clumsiness was then seen as shield for saving the chastity.
\nThen in wee hours air would be filled with hymns in praise of Allah as taught by founder of our faith Mir Syed Ali Hamadani. The naits that would cascade with all cadence and fragrance from mosques contained notes of helplessness- speaking about the subjugation and suppression of people at the hands of alien desperadoes and rulers who ruled the state through proxies or directly. It is not that this suppressed tiny nation that had a glorious past spreading over thousands of years had accepted the brutal rulers as something in their stock but they revolted but for living in a well like vale where from their voices never traveled outside. There were no doubt many a poor in other faiths but the \u2018poverty of Muslims was appalling\u2019. Peasants looked like \u2018starving beggars\u2019. Many who traveled to make some meager living outside the borders of the paradise were consumed by\u00a0 the chill and cold of the Pirpanjal– their plight waxed many poets like Mirza Beg to write poems . The Muslims were \u2018synonymous with the hewers of wood and drawers of water\u2019. A Muslim for his faith was looked down upon as belonging to an \u2018inferior class.\u2019 All taxes were levied on these hapless people and the whole \u2018brunt of official corruption\u2019 had also to be borne by him. The constable and Patawari (revenue official) were not symbols of authority but emblems of tyranny and oppression.
\nTrue, they found a strong voice in an aborigine Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal who not only through the medium of his poetry made plight of people of this land known to the rest of the world but whose heart always bled after his visit to his native place in June 1921 played a pro-active more than that of politician to make world know plight of Kashmiris. Kashmir dominated his mind and thought much, before his having visited this place- it was just in 1909 that when he became the General Secretary of Anjuman Kashmir at Lahore now in Pakistan. Iqbal\u2019s love for the land of his ancestors or his feeling concerned about his brethren was expected but there have been many other Indians and Europeans who have emerged as stronger voices of Kashmir in East and West. Arthur Brinckman a missionary in Kashmir was deeply moved at the plight of Kashmiri Muslims. This man from Berkeley Square wrote a pamphlet in December 1984 – The Wrongs of Kashmir; yes, this slim pamphlet spreading over just fifty pages is not written in queen\u2019s English but it tells a tale of Kashmir- a horrifying tale of a subjugated nation. He gives five facts which he believes need to be informed to people in his country which he calls as \u2018ill-fated country.\u2019 No doubt he vehemently pleads to British Empire to take over this country from the Dogra rulers to save people from torture but between the lines the agonizing and painful story of Kashmir sends shivers down the spine. Through this pamphlet he wanted to arouse public opinion, as he believed that this could influence the ministers without \u2018any of the ranting clamour, abusive spouting, which is the fashion of some disturbers of peace\u2019. Calling Ranbir Singh as a \u2018weak ignorant prince \u2013 a puppet in the hands of his diwans, knowing not what was being done in his name and yet the state of things in Kashmir is the result of his apathy and weakness. The author is highly caustic of the British government of having sold Kashmir and Kashmiris to Dogras through a \u2018sale deed\u2019 against the wishes of people, \u2018who were allowed no choice in the matter.\"Mirwaiz<\/a>
\nIt was not Arthur Brinkman alone who protested against the oppression of Kashmir but there are many other names like Robert Throp and Albino Baneerjee who raised their voices against the cruelty that was being inflicted upon Muslims of Kashmir. Sir Albino Banerjee, a Bengali intellectual of Christen faith serving as Foreign and Political Minister of Kashmir of Maharaja was disgusted with the state of affairs and resigned on 15 March 1929. Immediately after his resignation he held a press conference and narrated awesome story of Kashmiri Muslims to the world. Calling it first voice in favour of Kashmiri Muslims Quaed-e\u2014Milat Chowdary Ghulam Abbas in his autobiography writes that Albino exposed the treatment given to Muslims by the feudal rulers.
\nThere can be no denying that Kashmir history of recent past has been suffering for expediency of our academicians and scholars and names of the will wishers of people are deliberately omitted but it is hard fact that history surfaces and resurfaces under many covers. Whether it has been Albion or Brinckman they were intellectually honest. Let my friends in campus before whom I have always been pleading for re-orientation of academics and setting up a chair say in the name of Muhammad Din Fauq – ace and honest journalist and historian of 2oth century for conducting research in our recent past realize that it was high time to tear apart expediency and be intellectually honest.
\nLet\u2019s tell our children about the recent past objectively and honestly enabling them to shape their thinking and future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From my book Kashmir in War and Diplomacy Published in 2007 by Gulashan Books Srinagar<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the stories we have, this one is for you
\nZ.G. MUHAMMAD<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then hues of sky had a meaning. Every shade had its own connotation. Every colour had a story to tell- different tinges told different stories. Different shades of dawn and dusk had different meanings. It was not the aesthetics of the colours that filled people\u2019s hearts with joys – but it was the fear that had become part of their psyche for centuries that found a manifestation in different hues of sky. Carmine sky – did not make people agog but filled their hearts with awe – it was seen as harbinger of a blood bath, a mayhem, and murder. . Murky sky filled with darker clouds was seen as forerunner of bad days. It was seen as heralding of yet another bad rule- rule of oppression, intimidation, terror and subjugation. A gloomy morning was seen as presage of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions\/2273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}