Mughal rulers of India embarked on a military adventure to subjugate Kashmir in 1585; their sustained military campaign eventually crescendoed and culminated in their victory, notwithstanding the stiff militant resistance of Kashmiris. Thus with the advent of Mughal rule in 1586 the 250-year-old indigenous Muslim rule came to a logical end. Kashmiri freedom zealots, despite resistance resolve, changed their resistance strategy and manoeuvre; they, due to the authoritarian assertion of Mughal rulers, were compelled to adopt the passive mode of resistance. Mughals ruled over Kashmir for 166 years. Kashmiris, while feeling weary of and disgusted with Mughal rule, adroitly and dexterously facilitated the intervention of Afghan rulers who ruled over Kashmir for 69 years.
Afghan rule was followed by Sikh rule; so the Sikhs of Punjab ruled over Kashmir for 27 years. Jaama Masjid (Nowhatta, Srinagar) remained locked for 23 years due to the repressive and totalitarian Sikh sway which came to an end when British rulers of India defeated the assertive Sikh rulers of Punjab and facilitated the Dogra rule over Kashmir through Treaty of Amritsar of March 16, 1846. Dogras of Jammu ruled over Kashmir for 100 years with perfect dictatorial demeanour. They used some mosques as stables including the Pathar Masjid Srinagar. Autocratic Dogra rulers had castrated and devitalized Kashmiri Muslims through paralysing corvee (begaar); so an average Kashmiri Muslim was forced to acquiesce in and behave as a complaisant citizen relinquishing and waving his right to dissent.
Conscientious patriotic intellectuals and resolute freedom votaries did not reconcile to the humiliating situation of servitude and serfdom. They were, ostensibly, compliant, supple and docile but metaphysically they remained perpetually engrossed in introspection to look for the ways of deliverance from alien yoke. They acted as ideal ambiverts whose introversion would, in moments of solitude, teach them how to create communion with Allah through various modes of mysticism, sufism and intuitivism. Their introversion (murakabah) groomed them as self-possessed and self-taught ideologues of patriotic commitment; their equability and equanimity would become the cornerstone of their fortitude and stoicism. Their extroversion taught them how to assert with patriotic sentiments in a dispassionate mode of resistance manoeuvre.
Shrewd Kashmiris, due to their innate patriotic urge, remained consistently engaged in their passive resistance; they graduated themselves in it. And this was essentially their mystic mode of resilient resistance. In 1947 history provided an opportunity to Kashmiris to break the fetters of 362-year-old bondage, yoke and domination of the alien rulers. Alas! , Kashmiris due to the perfidious and treacherous politics, traitorous tergiversation and tantalization of local pseudo-nationalists fell a prey to Indian military onslaught and invasion. Reverie, tantivy and intellectual superficiality of these pseudo-nationalists made them hobnob with the secular chauvinists of Indian National Congress, thereby paving a way for military intrusion of Indian forces into Kashmir on Oct. 27-1947.
Present state of chaos, confusion and uncertainty can justifiably be attributed and imputed to the callousness of local pseudo-nationalists and imperialistic obtrusion of Congress chauvinists. Fascist Congress wreaked havoc in Kashmir through totalitarian and hubristic dispensation. Barbarian forces did everything obnoxious, abominable and disdainful at the behest of Delhi imperialists. These licentious forces purged Jammu province of Muslims through a vigorous campaign of ethnic cleansing. Two and a half lakh Muslims were mercilessly butchered; over four lakh Muslims were dislodged from their home and hearth; and they were exiled from Jammu. Kashmiris, under the banner of Plebiscite Front, asserted their right to self-determination with vehemence and characteristic patriotic subjectivity. PF leaders and activists were arrested and lodged in different jails where they remained languishing for years on end.
Pt. Nehru, the Indian Premier, released Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues including Mirza Afzal Beigh and Sofi Muhammad Akbar from captivity and facilitated Shiekhs visit to Pakistan just to take Pak President Gen. Ayub Khan into confidence for result-oriented tripartite discourse on Kashmir. Pt. Nehru wanted to make amends for his follies on Kashmir front. He had, by way of expiation, made up his mind to seek a peaceful and honourable settlement of Kashmir issue. Repentant and penitent Nehru was eager to atone for his blunder. Alas! , Pt. Nehrus dream did not get materialized and transmogrified into a reality owing to his death on May 27-1964 the day when Gen. Ayub and his confidents were busy in assessing and discussing the contours and prospects of the proposed summit meeting in New Delhi.
Kashmiris, for the present, feel entangled and entrenched in a situation which is analogous to and reminiscent of the situation which Muslims of India had to face during and after the independence war of 1857 A.D.
Hurriyat Conference, notwithstanding the unwarranted factionalism, is a force to be reckoned with. Resistance leaders of Hurriyat Conference, JKLF and UJC were psychologically united and unanimous in anti-election campaign. That is why the embarrassed, jittered and jolted imperialists of India swooped on them and confined them to jail dungeons.
The author in his article captioned Reign of Righteousness has already declared: If Kashmir freedom struggle becomes a protracted and long-drawn war of attrition because of the obduracy, intransigence and imperialistic arrogance of Delhi rulers, then every freedom zealot irrespective of his political ideas should, as a part of compulsive strategic manoeuvre for the interim period of stalemate, adopt the course of complete metaphysical solidarity with Pakistan; and Pakistani flag should necessarily flutter atop the coffin of every freedom activist when he says adieu to this mortal world. That will be low-profile and non-violent mode of resistance manoeuvre. It will incredibly work wonders and eventually facilitate a peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue.
Muhammad Azam Inqilabi
Patron JK Mahaz-e-Azadi
Nageen, Hazratbal, Srinagar
[email protected]
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