{"id":4156,"date":"2019-06-28T15:18:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T09:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4156"},"modified":"2019-06-28T15:32:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T10:02:37","slug":"defending-the-indefensible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/defending-the-indefensible\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending The Indefensible"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

On the SMA debate between B R Singh and Ajaz-ul-Haque <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Z G Muhammad <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 13 and 14 April 2019, GK published a two-part\narticle, \u2018In Defence of Sheikh Abdullah\u2019 by  B.R. Singh a former Indian Administrative\nService (IAS) officer. Besides having served as Principal Secretary to former\nChief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah for about six years, in the bureaucratic\ncircles, he is known for his nearness with his former boss? Timing chosen for\nwriting three thousand four words long article in defence of Sheikh Sahib\nintrigued a more significant section of the readers of the newspaper.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheikh Sahib is a past phenomenon relegated\nto the pages of history. Nonetheless, history has judged his \u2018Faustian\ncontracts\u2019. And the verdict is markedly manifest in the political uncertainty\nthat the state has been passing through for past seventy years. More than half\na million people have been consumed during the period. It has been but for one\nafter another wrong decision at the right moments since 1937, that in the eyes\nof comity nations Kashmir has become \u2018most dangerous place in the world\u2019 and a\n\u2018nuclear flashpoint in South Asia.   Despite, some friends on social media\nprompting me to respond to the article of the former bureaucrat, I chose to\nignore it; a write-up or two cannot demolish the stark historical realities.\nDid BG Verghese\u2019s widely circulated press council report on Kunan-Posh Pora\ntitled \u2018Crisis and Credibility\u2019 dissolve the story? It did not. Thirty years\nafter, it more powerfully haunts the public discourse than it did at the time\nof gruesome happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, like many other \u2018statist\nnarratives\u2019 orchestrated for perpetuating the hegemonic discourse, the\noverwhelming majority was not ready to accept cock and bull story of the former\naide of Farooq Abdullah in defence of SMA. It was more than evident on popular\nsocial media sites when Ajaz-ul-Haque take on the former bureaucrat\u2019s article\nwas published in the newspaper. Scores of people on Facebook shared the column.\nHundreds commented on it on the microblog Twitter and the social network\nFacebook. Except for a few scions of the family and some beneficiaries, Ajaz\u2019s\ncolumn received an overwhelming approbation. On June 14 2019, the newspaper\ncarried another article, \u2018Refuting the Narrativists\u201d by ex-Principal Secretary\nto Dr Farooq Abdullah in response to Ajaz-ul-Haque\u2019s column. In his response to\nAjaz\u2019s piece, he has made yet another attempt to defend the former chief\nminister of the state and blame the columnist\u2019 of distorting history.  Ajaz\u2019s column is thoroughly grounded in\nhistory, and it needs no defence, in six hundred words write up, no author\ncould produce exact quotes from the archives to substantiate his point of view.\n Equally, he was not writing an academic\npaper that draws its strength from footnotes or endnotes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this column, it may not be possible to\nanswer in detail to question raised by the about Ajaz\u2019s take by reverting to the\nvarious source material. Nonetheless, I will briefly mention some historical\nfacts that debunk takes of the former bureaucrat.  He questions Ajaz take on inexcusable silence\nobserved by Sheikh Abdullah on the massacre of Muslims. In defence of Sheikh,\nhe writes that he complained to Nehru about Meher Chand Mahajan. On 30 October\n1947, SMA took over as Emergency Administrator on October 6, 1947, thirty\ntrucks loaded with Muslims instead of Suchetgarh were taken to Samba, and asked\nto disembark from the vehicles. They were fired at close range, killing\nhundreds of them. And these organised gruesome killings continued for many days\nwhen SMA was in the saddle.  Besides, Ian\nStephens, many European historians have documented the Jammu holocaust. Authors\nhave documented many eyewitness accounts that tell terrifying stories. Abdullah\ntaking pride in his appointment as Chief Emergency Administrator in his\nautobiography writes, \u201cSince 1846, the state had 28 Prime Ministers, but I was\nthe first Kashmiri Muslim to have been appointed to the position\u201d. While\nMuslims were being butchered in Jammu, the Emergency Administration was\nrejoicing, and a department had been created for arranging theatrical shows and\nother celebrations.\u2019 (The Blazing Chinar p 301).   Sheikh\nAbdullah had no love for Jammu Muslims; instead, he nursed a grouse against them,\nand he had no interest in protecting their lives. Krishan Dev Sethi, then a\nsenior leader of the National Conference from Jammu (living on date) in his\nmemoirs, recalls it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThat Pandit Moti Ram Baghra and I visited\nSheikh Abdullah and requested him to stop sending leftover Muslims of Jammu to\nPakistan, to maintain demography and secular fabric of the city.  Sheikh Sahib lost his temper at our request\nand questioned us when did Jammu Muslims recognise me as their leader, why\nshould I bother about them. His answer left us to shell shocked\u201d. Sethi also\nmentions how he ensured exile of Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas and Allah Rakha Sagar.\u2019\n(Yad-i-Rafta p 36-37).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author of the column, \u2018In defence of SMA\u2019\nquestions Ajaz take on the conversions of the Muslim Conference into the\nNational Conference. That it was a unanimous decision of the Muslim Conference\nis a blatant lie, how and why cannot be explained in a paragraph. History\ntestifies that it was not an indigenous decision, but a game plane Jawaharlal\nNehru executed through Sheikh Abdullah. In 1937 Nehru deputed K.M. Ashraf, a\nMarxist historian to Kashmir and asked him to campaign for the Indian National\nCongress. On the instruction\nof Nehru, he stayed back in Kashmir for mass contact and \u2018delivered several speeches\nin favour of nationalism and joint action by Hindu Muslims.\u2019  \u201cThat the movement in Kashmir would be\n\u201cpatterned after the Indian National Congress,  \nNehru and Abdullah reached an agreement at Peshawar in January 1938. Nehru\nused the services of Prime Minister Sir\n  Gopalaswami Ayyanger to translate the\nagreement into reality. Ayyanger suppressed all opposing voices, (Rashid Taseer,\nProf. Khan and Bazaz have documented it in detail).  Munshi Muhammad Ishaq, one of the closest\nassociates of Sheikh Abdullah in his memoirs published posthumously admits\n\u2018that Ayyanger was involved behind the scene in the creation of the National\nConference and he was a supporter of the Congress. (Nidaa-e-Haque p 124). In\nconvincing   Chaudhary Abbas and other\nMuslim Conference leaders Abdullah kept his colleagues dark about his agreement\nwith Nehru and other Congress leaders. C \nIn the words of Chitralekha Zutshi, \u201cTrue to his word, Abdullah remained\npro-Congress in ideology and politics for the remainder of his political career\nin pre-1947 Kashmir. (Language p 250)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History is replete with instances about SMA\n  keeping his senior party in the dark about his\nactivities. On September 29, 1947, when he was released from Jail, he feigned\nignorance about reasons behind his release, when he was fully aware of it, that\nit had happened after another Faustian agreement with the Indian National\nCongress. He did not inform people about his correspondence and meetings with\nthe Congress leaders. He did not inform them about his meetings with Dr Chapara,\nSecretary to the Maharaja and two letters he had written to Hari Singh,\nexpressing his allegiance to the Dogra ruler, ironically against whom he had\nstarted Quit Kashmir movement.  Nehru\u2019s\nletter dated 27 September 1947 to Sardar Patel about the release of Abdullah\nbesides explaining reasons about his release also exposes the hidden agenda\nthat unfolded on October 27, 1947. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

History reveals itself; it is not subservient to expediencies and whims and fancies of the individuals.\u00a0 \u00a0 Published in Greater Kashmir on 24 June 2019<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the SMA debate between B R Singh and Ajaz-ul-Haque <\/p>\n

By Z G Muhammad <\/p>\n

On 13 and 14 April 2019, GK published a two-part
\narticle, \u2018In Defence of Sheikh Abdullah\u2019 by  B.R. Singh a former Indian Administrative
\nService (IAS) officer. Besides having served as Principal Secretary to former
\nChief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah for about six years, in the bureaucratic
\ncircles, he is known for his nearness with his former boss? Timing chosen for
\nwriting three thousand four words long article in defence of Sheikh Sahib
\nintrigued a more significant section of the readers of the newspaper.   <\/p>\n

Sheikh Sahib is a past phenomenon relegated
\nto the pages of history. Nonetheless, history has judged his \u2018Faustian
\ncontracts\u2019. And the verdict is markedly manifest in the political uncertainty
\nthat the state has been passing through for past seventy years. More than half
\na million people have been consumed during the period. It has been but for one
\nafter another wrong decision at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[377,75],"class_list":["post-4156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take","category-kashmir-talk","tag-b-r-singh","tag-sheikh-abdullah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156"}],"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=4156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4158,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions\/4158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}