Kashmiriyat Healing The Soul by Sushil Kumar Kaul Arazbegi - 6

 

Midnight child

15th of August 1947 was a landmark day in the history of India. On this day India achieved its independence from the British Empire after a long drawn out freedom struggle. This day was however preceded by the partition of India, on religious lines. 

I was born on this politically & nationally significant day at my ancestral home at Sathu Barbarshah, on the midnight of 15th of August 1947 1 was the second child of my parents. My elder brother Vijey "Bitu" was about 2 years senior to me. Pt. Hari Chand Kaul Arazbegi, my grandfather was still in active government service as Head Superintendent & Assistant. Director, Food & Supplies Department (Shali Store). My father Gopi Kishen Kaul, MA LLB, was a practicing advocate at the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir, at Srinagar My mother Sobhag Rani was a devoted housewife.

Pakistan was carved out as a new country with Islam as its state religion while India decided to continue with its state policy of secularism. As a consequence, hundreds & thousands of Hindus living in the territories now included in Pakistan had no option but to abandon their homes & properties & leave for India.

Many Muslims living in India similarly exercised their choice & left to be part of the Muslim Pakistan. It might be interesting to note that despite the creation of a country exclusively for the Muslims (as per their & wish plan to bifurcate the country) the number of Muslims who chose to stay back in secular India was much more than the number who migrated to Pakistan. The partition of India sadly led to a major communal conflagration & a human tragedy of humongous proportions in the Indian subcontinent.

The events of partition did impact the people of Jammu & Kashmir State as well. Hindus living in Muzaffarabad, Mirpur & Pooch districts of the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state were driven out of their homes & killed. This, in turn, led to killing of Muslims in the Jammu region. Besides the trauma of partition the people of the state had to bear the brunt of the war launched by the newly-created Pakistan on India. 

The tribal nomads, called "Kabailis"with the support of the Pak army, invaded Jammu & Kashmir (Kabaili-Raid) immediately after Independence in September-October 1947. They had hoped to get total support of the local Muslim population in the annexation of Kashmir & overthrow of the forces of Government of India. They partially succeeded by annexing a part of the state territory, now called "Pok", with Muzaffarabad as its Capital. In reality the Pakistani forces had entered deep into the Kashmir Valley-Baramulla via Muzaffarabad & came almost unchallenged to Shalteng & Qamar Wari on the outskirts of the Srinagar city.

Maharaja Hari Singh, the Dogra King who ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was an astute ruler and modern in his outlook. History tells us that Hari Singh had dreams of independence for his State and even dodged Lord Mountbatten who had advised him to be decisive about the accession issue before 15th August 1947.

The Maharaja with his limited armed forces was in no position to stop the onslaught of the invading army. He accordingly, as per the provisions of the Independence Act of India of 1947 acceded to India. It was on 26th October 1947 that Jammu and Kashmir as a princely State acceded to India and became a part of the Indian Federation

It was only after the armed forces, sent by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, at the specific request of the Maharaja, landed at Srinagar that the invaders were made to retreat & driven out of the Valley. The invaders had in their misplaced acts of adventurism committed heinous acts of loot, rape & murders which left deep scars on the psyche of the local Kashmiri inhabitants. Besides, a number of Kashmiri Muslims & Pandits were brutally killed in Muzaffarabad & neighbouring areas.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a local Kashmiri leader enjoyed tremendous support from the Muslims of Kashmir. He supported the accession of the State to India and played a vital role in organising resistance to the invasion of the State by Pakistan, before the State acceded to India. This was more due to his adverse relations with Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his Muslim league which was ideologically devoted to the cause of Pakistan as a separate State for the Indian Muslims. 

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was later, on 5th March, 1948, appointed as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir State and Dr. Karan Singh, the son of exiled Maharaja Hari Singh, as its Sadar-e Riyasat, constitutional head.

The people of Kashmir, I was told, had shown comparatively greater communal tolerance during those terrible times & had shown the "ray of hope" to other states in India. I later also read that the doyen of Kashmir politics Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in his address (at a later date in 1950's) to the Constituent Assembly of J&K had not only endorsed the accession of J&K state to the Indian Union but also justified it.

He is reported to have said that "since one Muslim is as good as another, it makes lot more sense for the people of Kashmir to become part of India than Pakistan, as the population of Muslims in India is far greater than that in Pakistan". I have always thought of Sheikh Abdullah as a very progressive nationalist leader, despite the many failings pointed out by some of his detractors.

The Pakistani aggression (or the first war on Kashmir) in 1947 in the aftermath of partition & Pakistan having illegally annexed a part of the state gave rise to a dispute before the United Nations. The Kashmir dispute as it existed in 1947 was essentially a political problem revolving around the legitimacy of the "Instrument of accession" signed by the late Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir & some promises made by India to the world body.

 

However over the last seven decades a lot has altered in terms of the ground situation, principally annexation & merger of part of the territories of the erstwhile state including Gilgit & handing over a part of the territory to China by Pakistan China, in addition, forcibly annexed & occupied Aksai Chin area in Ladakh, leading to a situation whereby it is unrealistic for anyone now to go back to the original ground situation or realities as they existed in 1947.

Hence there was no way over the last seven decades under which the resolutions or the directions of the world body could even be attempted. The two countries fought two more wars thereafter in 1965 & 1971 besides the continuing proxy war in Kashmir

The 1965 war was a conclusive victory for India & the war of 1971 led to dismemberment of Pakistan. The erstwhile East Pakistan emerged as a new country Bangladesh

The only way forward there ever was or will ever be, for the two countries is to bilaterally discuss, debate & look for a practical solution for dividing the erstwhile territories of the Jammu & Kashmir State in an amicable manner keeping in mind the ground realities.

Unfortunately, the truncated Pakistan as a nation over the years became more & more dictatorial & autocratic. The continuing political instability ushered in a new brand of Jihadi Muslim fundamentalism, which played a pivotal role in sponsoring & masterminding terrorism all over the globe. The involvement of Pakistan's in the events of 9/11 in USA & safe refuge given for years to Al-Qaeda chief (Osama Bin Laden) are the cases in point.

The major policy focus of the Pakistan state & its military over the last three decades has been to promote & resort to terrorist activities along the line of control (LOC) & foment unrest & communal trouble in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. As a direct consequence the local population of Kashmir valley over the years has suffered the most, which includes the members of my Kashmiri Pandit community.

The Jammu & Kashmir State, as it existed, had three administrative regions - Kashmir (Muslim majority), Jammu (Hindu majority) & Ladakh (Buddhist) which are totally different in terms of their climate, language, food habits, culture & religious preferences. It is only the leaders of Muslim majority region of Kashmir who have time & again been raising the bogey of Kashmir issue at periodic levels ever since 1948, initially to gain political leverage with the Government of India & later to blackmail or exploit it financially. 

The other two regions, Jammu & Ladakh, were & are happy to be part of the Indian Union & did not support or even remotely sympathise with the stand or posturing of the Kashmiri leaders on the accession issue. 

Therefore, the Kashmir problem as it is generally referred to, does not relate to the whole of Jammu & Kashmir state, but is essentially a "Kashmir Valley" centric & Kashmiri Muslim-dominated issue.

The events of post partition & the invasion of Kashmir by Pakistan sponsored Kabailis created a sense of fear & insecurity among the Kashmiri Pandit community. Many young educated members started leaving the state for other parts of the country, particularly Delhi, Mumbai & Kolkata for seeking gainful vocation or employment outside Jammu & Kashmir

My father was also disillusioned with the emerging scenario in Kashmir. The economy of the state was paralyzed & in tatters. He decided to leave for Delhi along with some friends & relations in the winter of 1947.

My father sold some of the family properties & assets much to the resentment of his father. My father gave all his Law books & library to one of his senior colleagues & a friend Janki Nath Bhan Sahab I was told also lived in our house at Sathu for some time.

My grandfather did try to counsel & convince my father to change his decision to migrate to Delhi, as he believed that such a decision would lead to severe disruption & hardships for the family. My grandfather & grandmother, both even till their end, had a grouse that their only son did not listen to them & went to Delhi against their wishes.

For most of these migrants it was almost a journey to nowhere, as they had no idea about the place they were headed to & the available avenues or options for their employment & survival. Besides, the Government at the Centre was just settling down & was confronted with a larger scale human tragedy of dealing with millions of migrants coming from its border with Pakistan.

Growing up in Delhi

In those early days, my mother & we two brothers also went briefly to Delhi to be with our father. Our entire family however shifted to Delhi in 1951, only after the birth of my younger brother Yogesh at Srinagar.

It was thereafter that I & my elder brother started our school education & journey of life from Delhi, our new adopted city. Interestingly much before we shifted to Delhi in 1951, my grandfather had admitted both of us brothers at that young age in a School at Srinagar

My grandfather would routinely get up at 5 O'clock in the morning & go to the "Hari Parbhat" shrine, a distance of about 5 miles on foot & at times on his return bring home some fresh vegetables. Before leaving he used to wake us up by reciting a Hindi rhyme "chal uth beta bahut sow chuke, Bahut Waqt bekar tum kar chuke" reminding us to get up now as we had already wasted a lot of our time sleeping.

The days following the partition of India & my birth must have been very difficult period for my family. The resultant communal conflict on one hand & the looming economic crisis on the other had left people with no option but to move out of the state for

job opportunities. My father's first accommodation was in the Sitaram Bazar area of old Delhi-the Haveli belonged to an old Kashmiri Pandit family "Zutshis". The family of Pt. Radha Kishen Kaul (Retd. Chief Justice) & his son Pt. Narendra Nath Kaul (Revenue Minister of J&K State) were our immediate neighbours at Sathu Barbarshah & close family friends. Pt. Narendra Nath Kaul was married to "Zutshi's" daughter (Alibi) & her son Satyendra Nath Kaul (Madanji) was one of closest friends of my father. This connection helped us get into the "Zutshi" haveli at Delhi & we all were treated with great love & care during our short stay there.

My father, during his early days in Delhi, got quite a few job offers in the Central Government but eventually settled for the job of a "Sub Editor" Kashmiri Unit, in All India Radio (AIR) located at Parliament Street. He along with his colleagues of the time-BN Kaul (Vesha Kak), Shyam Lal Dhar, Kappa Lal Zutshi, MN Kaul (Mahi Mandul, who left to join BBC at London), M N Kaul (Mana Katal) & Ali Mohammad Tariq (he became a minister in J&K State), was a pioneer in Kashmiri language news broadcasting & successfully operated the Kashmiri News Room in Delhi AIR for a number of years.

He later became part of the Central Information Service (CIS) & worked at AIR News Division. The news bulletins were issued twice a day from Delhi & had a huge listener base & popular both in the Valley & PoK These broadcasts were also meant to counter the negative propaganda coming from across our borders in PoK. My father had to go to office twice a day- first at 7 am in the morning for the morning bulletin & then at 4 pm for the evening bulletin. The AIR Staff car always used to pick him up & drop back every day at home.

Growing up for all of us in Delhi must have been very trying for the family, with severe summer heat & fairly crammed spaces. The famous Ramlila Ground was apparently very close to our house & many an evening those days were spent by us children there.

My grandparents also used to join us every year at Delhi during the September-March period to avoid severe winters in Srinagar. The inner lanes of the old city were always difficult for us to remember or negotiate. I once got lost in these lanes & my parents had to launch a big search operation for me. Incidentally, I vividly remember seeing & getting onto the "Tram" trains which those days used to play in the Chandani Chowk area.

Our next pit stop in Delhi, in 1951-52, was at Kotla Mubarakpur in South Delhi. It must have been a great change & relief for all of us, moving from a congested commercial hub of Delhi to a very quiet, peaceful & cooler semi-urban locale of Delhi Our house in Kotla was fairly big, with a terrace & open courtyard. I saw a peacock for the very first time in my life in the open fields nearby. The place was also full of Cow & Buffalo dairies, selling milk to locals. These experiences must have been closest to our living in an actual village.

We shifted from Kotla briefly to Sewa Nagar, a newly built government colony for class 3 & 4 staff, probably in the year 1953-54. The primary reason was that the colony was fully electrified & had separate flush toilets & bathrooms. Most of the houses were given on rent by the original allotters’ & the crowd was thus fairly cosmopolitan. The two room tenement was certainly small but in those early days of our family's settlement it obviously was ok.

 

Bobji would often take us to Connaught Place to see a movie at the Regal or Rivoli cinemas. We also used to go out & eat at India Gate. One of the huge lawns near India Gate those days had a big unorganised market operating from there, the shopkeepers chiefly being the Punjabi refugees from Pakistan

My father used to enjoy cycling & we children would take a ride with him for fun. During our stay in Sewa Nagar, in the year 1955, Bobji bought a Motorcycle (Jana Czech, later rebranded as Yezdi) Those days it was very rare for people of average middle class backgrounds to own Motorbikes, but my father always had a taste for all good things in life.

My mother was prone to accidents & suffered falls & fractured her limbs many a time in her life.. During that summer period I started assisting my mother with her kitchen responsibilities, cutting & washing vegetables, lighting up stove, handling utensils & cooking meals, an activity which I still indulge in & really love doing. Cooking in my later life became my passion & a stress buster.

Bobji used to employ very simple & unconventional methods to teach us about various important aspects of our daily life. My mother normally used to go every day in the evening to Kotla market for procuring vegetables. My mother during her recovery period had stopped going to the vegetable market. My father thought of a unique plan to overcome the problem. He proposed to Vijey & me that he would give us one rupee per day for buying vegetables. We were free to decide on what & how much to buy & interestingly we were also free to keep any saving from the day's budget of one rupee.

We did the job assignment for about a month & learnt a few important lessons for our future use. We learnt the process of budgeting, evaluating competing prices, art of negotiating with vendors & more importantly the value of money. We found that the prices of vegetables were almost 30% cheaper in the evening as compared to day prices. We would always check up for the cheapest price of a commodity & then only go for it .

The life definitely was simple & cheap. The expenditure essentially was on food related items. There was very little need for lifestyle related or aspirational expenses Simultaneously, the earnings of an average households were very meagre or just enough to sustain the survival level. Bobji who was at the time reportedly earning about rupees 500 per month was considered to be fairly well off among all our relations & friends.

We brothers shared an excellent rapport & most of the time Vijey as an elder brother would overlook my mischiefs or indiscretions. Vijey used to do all the small shopping errands for the family whereas I on the other hand would do in-house jobs, helping my mother with her domestic chores. 

The summers in Delhi were very severe particularly for us Kashmiris, with temperatures

hovering around 45 degrees Celsius. Living in these adverse tropical environs was a great challenge for people like us from the hills. Delhi was not fully electrified in early 50's; some houses were still lit up with oil Diya's or Kerosene hurricane lamps (called "Laiteen". Hand-fan (pankha) instead of present day electric fans was the norm. The food was usually cooked on a hearth called "Anghithi" which used slack coal or hard coke as a fuel. Lighting up the Anghithi was a tedious & an elaborate process. One had to put some charcoal or wood chips in the bottom layer to facilitate burning of coke & the Anghithi would be lighted up with a reusable wick soaked in kerosene.

As the Anghithi would emit a lot of smoke, it was kept in the open yard for about half an hour before being taken inside the kitchen for cooking.

There were no refrigerators, air conditioners or water coolers in that era. The table fan was a great luxury & a prized possession of the family - generally placed at a vintage point on a small table & covered with a nicely embroidered cloth covering. Terracotta round spherical vessel "Matka" (Pitcher) & a long necked terracotta vessel "Surahi" were commonly used for storage & serving of cool drinking water.

To avoid oppressive heat from entering the homes, all the door & window openings had to be covered with cloth lined Bamboo curtains called "Chickhs". Later an improved & a bit costlier version of "Chickhs" came in the market made of "Khas" & locally known as "Khas-Khas-Ki-Tatti", which when sprayed intermittently with water used to provide very cool & a fragrant air. To avoid heat or sun stroke in those summer months while on my way to school, I had to carry a raw onion in my nicker pocket, this was a popular belief & a remedy of the times.

The Kashmiri Pandit community in Delhi, though a fairly small one, had started organising a full day event for all the family members. One of the most memorable ones was an event, a full day picnic, organised at Lodhi Gardens. The events included singing, skits, dancing, besides various gaming activities for the children Food & snacks were served to all. The Delhi community had those days also organised an evening function at an auditorium where Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister was present besides many other Kashmiri Pandit stalwarts of the time.

Food is an obsession for Kashmiri families & organising provisions therefore becomes a necessity The Kashmiris consume a lot of rice & cooking oils besides masalas like lal mirch (chilli powder), badiyana (aniseed powder) & shonth (ginger powder). These are our major household procurements. People those days preferred to go to the wholesale market at Khari Baoli (near Chandani Chowk) for their bulk purchases as the rates there were competitive & cheap. The downside however was that one had to engage a small transport vehicle to carry back the provisions which entailed a substantial expense.

Chinese Aggression- I recollect that the year 1962 turned out to be a very traumatic year for India & for our national pride. The neighbouring country China invaded us, remembered as Chinese aggression, from across our northern frontiers & exposed our military unpreparedness & shortage of arms & ammunition for defending our nation. Every day hundreds of our soldiers were getting killed on the border. 

Not many will know or realise how difficult it was to travel to Srinagar those days. The train from Delhi, in an overnight journey, would take us to Pathankot railway station. It was a small town with few shacks & dhabas selling tea & food, near the railway station, the main town was quite a distance away .

 

On arrival at Pathankot, one had to apply for & procure a "Permit" for entering the State of J&K. Petition-Writers (Arjinavis) available at the station would draft the document with names & details of each member & get it approved by the J&K officials stationed at Pathankot. The process would take quite a few hours besides involving some expenditure.

In 1950's the Banihal Tunnel connecting the Jammu Province with the Kashmir province was right at the top of Pirpanchal range-it was a small tunnel (at a height of maybe 10,000 feet) in an extremely bad condition with water dripping everywhere from the tunnel roof top.

Travellers had to undergo transshipment at Banihal Tunnel. We had to alight from our buses with all the baggage. The baggage would first be sent across the tunnel in small vehicles. We would then follow in a small platform vehicle. Many accidents leading to death of travellers had taken place at the tunnel in the past. It was thus normal to see people praying to their Gods & reciting prayers while crossing it on the small open platform vehicles. After crossing the tunnel, we had to get into a new set of buses waiting at the other end of the tunnel. The total transshipment process used to take 2 to 3 hours.

Most of the travellers those days would not suffer any hunger pangs while travelling as it was near normal for everyone, particularly families with children, to carry their own eatables for journeys. However, over time few shacks selling boiled eggs & hot tea were set up by some locals on both sides of the tunnel.

A new tunnel (Jawahar Tunnel) was opened up in early sixties-about 2.75 kms in length & at a height of about 7,500 feet above sea level. With the opening up of the new tunnel the journey became much safer & shorter by about 18 kms.

Tullmulla - Our Kuldevi - We, like most other Kashmiri Pandit families, are a god-fearing family, but simultaneously we are more practical & liberal in our religious outlook, beliefs & practices. "Kheer Bhawani Temple at Tulamulla" a shrine of Goddess Ragyina Devi near Ganderbal is our Kuldevi.

We had an exclusive "Thokur Kuth" (Pooja room) in our house where the deities were put & worshipped on a daily basis. We also had a family priest "Ryadhboy" (short for his name Radha Krishen, father of later days famous priest Vennahboy) who would visit us fairly regularly to perform poojas on all special occasions like, birthdays, shraads etc. The Poojas at our home on our important festivals - Herath (Shivratri), Jaramsatam (Janamashtami) & Shravan-Poornima (Rakhi) used be very elaborate & big.

The Kashmiri Pandits in general follow three main temple traditions - Tulamulla (Kheer-Bhawani), Sharika-Devi (Hari Parbhat) & Jwalaji (Khrew) as their principal shrines or Kuldevis. Hindus must abstain from eating meat on the days when they visit Kheer Bhawani and their only offerings are sugar, milk, rice, and flowers. However, at Sharika Devi on Hari Parbat and at Jwalaji at Khrew, the non-vegetarian offerings of Tehar (yellow rice) & Charvan (liver) is customary. "Kheer Bhawani" temple is one of the most revered & famous temples for Kashmiri Pandits. It is located at a place called "Tulamulla" in Ganderbal district, along a stream connected to "Sindh" (Indus) river. The temple of Kheer Bhawani is situated at a distance of 14 miles east of Srinagar. This temple, made of marble stone, is located in the middle of a spring, around which there is a vast area whose floor has been covered with smooth stones. The colour of the spring water is believed to change and it is said that whenever any calamity or unfortunate event happens, the colour of its water becomes black.

The "Ragyina Goddess" is the presiding family deity (Kuldevi) for many Pandit families, including ours. A visit to the temple on all important festival days including the "Jyetha Ashtami", Mela Kheer Bhawani day - is almost mandatory. One of the prescribed & overriding rules for visiting this temple is that one should never ever go the temple after consuming any non-veg food. One is also forbidden to wear the apparel that one had put on when one had consumed any non-veg food, unless it was washed & cleaned again. On the appointed day, we had to get up early in the morning & put on our fresh clothes after a proper bath. A Tonga or two depending on the size of the family would then take us to Tulamulla, a journey of around two to three hours. The route was through Hawal, Soura & Ganderbal.

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Courtesy:-    Koshur Samachar 2022, July