{"id":4258,"date":"2021-06-23T18:59:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T13:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4258"},"modified":"2021-06-23T19:37:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T14:07:11","slug":"punch-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/punch-line\/","title":{"rendered":"PUNCH LINE"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

REVIEW OF TWO BIOGRAPHIES OF S M ABDULLAH<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Punch line By Z.G.\nMuhammad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 ‘Oh! It is a whopper\nsandwich.’It was my instantaneous reaction after finishing reading yet another\nbook on Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. It was the second book I read about him\nduring the past month. The first one that I mentioned in some previous column\nwas Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah- Tragic Hero of Kashmir by Ajit Bhattacharjea; an\noctogenarian journalist in Kashmir is generally counted amongst the\n‘sympathetic’ for his earlier book the Wounded Valley. His book on Sheikh\nAbdullah, though based on secondary sources, is readable and quite enjoyable.\nHe has beautifully built up Abdullah story from the memoirs of Sheikh Abdullah,\nB.N. Mullick, Syed Mir Qasim, Karan Singh and Nehru- Sardar Patil\ncorrespondence and other sources. He undoubtedly has blended extracts from his\nsource material and his analysis with deftness to present a holistic story of\nSheikh Abdullah. It tells how Sheikh was more sinned against by India than his\nsinning. The Abdullah story, when seen dispassionately, is the Kashmir story\nwith all its troughs and crests, less of triumphs more of tragedies.  The book, despite having a lucid style it is\nonly half-story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second book, titled My Years With Sheikh Abdullah\n(Kashmir 1971-1987), written by Ghulam Ahmed published by Gulshan Publishing\nHouse, Srinagar spreading over 161 pages, can be read as part two by Ajit\nBhattacharjee.  It starts where Ajit’s\nbook closes. The second book is incisive and authentic- it is the firsthand\naccount by an insider who has not only been witness to power politics in the\nstate but has been in the thick of things for more than sixteen years. Out of\neight Chief Ministers who ruled the state during the past sixty-one years, he,\ndirectly and indirectly, worked with six. The book tasted to me like a whopper\nsandwich for its content. Like the signature fast food product sold by the\ninternational fast-food restaurant chain Burger King globally, it has many\nuntold bitter and sweet stories between its glossy covers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As very well said by one Indian historian Ramchandra Guha,\nSheikh Muhammad Abdullah has been an “intriguing and charismatic\nfigure”. He dominated Kashmir political scene for fifty-one years and his\nghost continues to hover around the state’s political landscape. The book is\nrevealing not only about Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah but on many other counts. The\nauthor subtly suggests that New Delhi always looked for cronies in the saddle\nof the chief minister. Any disagreement was seen as defiance and counted as\nblasphemy. The Defiant was punished and penalized. While eulogizing Ghulam\nMuhammad Bakshi for his ‘tremendous organizing capacity, innate intelligence,\nsound judgment about men and matters, deft handling of the critical and\nexplosive situation and efficiency, he candidly tells why New Delhi wanted\n‘Goliath to be wiped out of the scene’. He writes, “The centre thought\nthat Bakshi had become too big for his boots so deeply he entrenched himself. He\ndid not fit in the scheme of things on Nehru’s table Delhi, and consequently,\nBakshi became inconvenient for the powers that be.” In the ‘unceremonious\nand disgraceful’ removal of Bakshi, who not only had protected but strengthened\nNew Delhi’s interests in Kashmir, one may see his nemesis. It holds about\nGhulam Muhammad Sadiq also. He played the most important role in depriving the\nstate of its autonomy. He translated the much-cherished dream of right-wing\nparties like Jan Sangh and other chauvinistic Hindu parties about integrating\nthe state with the Indian union into reality by extending most of the state’s\ncentral laws and changing the state nomenclature of Prime Minister to Chief\nMinister. No moment New Delhi saw streaks of defiance in Sadiq; he was made to\n‘pay his price.’ The author writes, “He (Sadiq) too was disenchanted and\ndisillusioned and thereby became inconvenient for the central government\nbecause he too dared to defy the Delhi establishment.” The author puts a\nnote of interrogation on the death of Chief Minister, Sadiq’. He writes,\n“Sadiq also had become defiant which was not liked by Delhi. He passed\naway in PGI Chandigarh in mysterious circumstances. His close circle of friends\nalleged that Sadiq might have been done to death by slow poisoning. Given the\nprevious history, this was a possibility, which could not be ruled out.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is pathbreaking because the author has not taken\ntrite and traditional viewpoints on certain important political developments.\nThe lifting of Moe-e-Muqaddas from the Hazratbal shrine in December 1963\ncontinues to be shrouded in mystery. B.N. In his book My Years with Nehru,\nMullick the then intelligence bureau chief, had given ‘an impression that\nSheikh Abdullah and his pro-Pakistan supporters had engineered the\ndisturbances. The populist view with most historians based on the theories\ncirculated during the early sixties has been that Bakshi was responsible for\nthe displacement of the relic. The book sufficiently suggests that this\n“diabolical plan” was conceived by “D.P. Dhar Machiavelli\nincarnate”   with twin purpose one\nto remove the centrality of the Hazratbal shrine and two to pave for\ninstallation of Ghulam Muhammad Sadiq as chief minister of the state. (details on\npage 99-100).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is highly caustic about New Delhi’s attitude\ntowards local bureaucracy and how it thought the local bureaucracy was not\n‘conducive to central interest and how it was out to demolish it.’ In an\nappendix to the book, he brings out in detail the war of attrition between\nlocal bureaucracy, which was known as a syndicate and outside bureaucracy known\npronounced as indicate and how it spoiled the work culture in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is not only about Sheikh Abdullah only but about\nAbullaha’s of Kashmir. The author has fully understood the family’s psyche and\nhas been this family psyche that has caused the 1975 Indira-Sheikh Accord.\n‘Mrs. Gandhi considered Abdullah as a thorn in her flesh. She wanted him to\njoin the national mainstream. Sheikh Abdullah was also tired, and the author\nhails Syed Mir Qasim then Chief Minister for his qualities and attributes\nwinning over Sheikh Abdullah’s to India. The family played a catalytic role in\nmaking Sheikh Abdullah bury the movement for the plebiscite. “Sheikh\nAbdullah”, writes Ahmed “, Came under tremendous pressure from the\nfamily to accept the office once again. For too long, they argued, he had\nremained in the wilderness, without comfort, power and authority.’ He writes\nnegotiations with Delhi were going on with Sheikh’s family members, and close\nrelations were itching for the authority they would wield on acceptance of\nGaddi by Sheikh Abdullah. The book unfolds the drama about the dissolution of\nthe Plebiscite Front, its agreed merger into the Pradesh Congress as part of the\ndeal, and the National Conference’s rebirth. It also tells about Shameem Ahmed\nShameem suffering an intrigue for influencing Sheikh to revive the National\nConference and preventing him from merging the PF with the Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author not only writes in detail about the working\nhabits of his boss. Sheikh was hard working even at seventy-five or seventy-three\nwhen he assumed office in 1975. He enumerates his good qualities as well as\ncounts his weaknesses.   Nonetheless,\nAhmad is venomously critical of  Sheikh\nAbdullah’s children, particularly Farooq Abdullah. Exposing Farooq Abdullah’s\nmisdeeds, he writes that his grey matter was less than that of a Dolphin. He\nhas analyzed the family feud that he believes affected his health and ultimately\ncaused his death. The book is informative and unveils many behind the scenes,\nand is a vital addition to the contemporary history of Kashmir. However, the\nforte of the book is the chapter titled Last Days. He was remorseful and\ndisillusioned in his last days. ‘”He was all the time pensive and heavily\noverwhelmed by the weight of his blunders he had committed. He knew the damage\nhad been done, and things were beyond redemption.” Sheikh towards of his\nlife lamented his trusting Nehru and “admitted he had been proved\nwrong.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of his life, Sheikh was worried about New\nDelhi’s machinations for changing the state’s demography. The author tells us\nabout the publication of twenty thousand copies of a booklet containing Sheikh\nAbduallh’s take on the nefarious designs about changing the state’s demography.\n He also tells how it mysteriously\ndisappeared from the press, leaving behind only two hundred copies. Ghulam\nAhmed believes that had he lived longer, he would have died in prison.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published on  14 March\n2015 , 5:11 am in Greater Kashmir<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REVIEW OF TWO BIOGRAPHIES OF S M ABDULLAH<\/p>\n

 Punch line By Z.G.
\nMuhammad<\/p>\n

 ‘Oh! It is a whopper
\nsandwich.’It was my instantaneous reaction after finishing reading yet another
\nbook on Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. It was the second book I read about him
\nduring the past month. The first one that I mentioned in some previous column
\nwas Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah- Tragic Hero of Kashmir by Ajit Bhattacharjea; an
\noctogenarian journalist in Kashmir is generally counted amongst the
\n‘sympathetic’ for his earlier book the Wounded Valley. His book on Sheikh
\nAbdullah, though based on secondary sources, is readable and quite enjoyable.
\nHe has beautifully built up Abdullah story from the memoirs of Sheikh Abdullah,
\nB.N. Mullick, Syed Mir Qasim, Karan Singh and Nehru- Sardar Patil
\ncorrespondence and other sources. He undoubtedly has blended extracts from his
\nsource material and his analysis with deftness to present a holistic story of
\nSheikh Abdullah. It tells how Sheikh was more sinned against by India than his
\nsinning. The Abdullah story, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5,388,389],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-take","category-kashmir-talk","category-punch-line","category-z-g-muhammad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258"}],"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=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4261,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions\/4261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}