Category: Sheikh Abdullah

'New Kashmir' - the English text in full

10/26/2019

Here is the full text of Sheikh Abdullah's historic New Kashmir document of 1944 - which is manifesto, draft constitution, economic plan and charters of rights rolled into one. It's made available here as a help to researchers, activists and indeed anyone who is curious.

This is perhaps the most important political document in Kashmir's modern history - drafted by communists allied to Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference, and by any standards a radical and remarkable political statement. The detailed story of the compiling of the manifesto has been set down in an article by Andrew Whitehead - here's the link.

At the top of this page is the cover of the English version of New Kashmir, with its striking image of a politically assertive Kashmiri woman. I suspect the English version is the original and the Urdu text - the cover of which is also posted - is the translation. But it may well be that the version posted here, the only English text I have come across, was published some time after it was adopted by the National Conference in 1944.

The text below isn't searchable but it is legible and complete - and it's quite something!

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'Through Blood Sweat & Tears': Kashmir in 1947-1948

6/7/2019

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KashmirConnected has just come across a copy of this remarkable - and rare - publication - Through Blood Sweat & Tears, described as 'an account of the activities of the Emergency Administration of Jammu and Kashmir from October 31, 1947 to March 5, 1948'.

As the title and the cover - the National Conference flag - suggest, this is a propaganda account of Sheikh Abdullah's first few months in power. The content roams over the peace brigade, the militia, the women's self defence corps, refugee relief, the recovery of abducted women and many other issues which pre-occupied the National Conference administration at that time.

The document has sections devoted to Anantnag, Banihal, Bhadarwah, Baramulla, Uri and Jammu. It is a remarkable record, and includes photographs - we are posting the entire publication here:

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Sheikh Abdullah at the Palace

4/6/2019

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A few years back Omar Abdullah posted this photo of Sheikh Abdullah on Twitter. He said this was 'another one of my grandfather from 1947 or thereabouts' - but nothing about the location or the photographer.

It is a marvellously evocative image, apparently showing Kashmir's new ruler as the old order - the princely family, and its portraits - is being dismantled and moved out. It seems to be taken at one of the royal palaces.

Abeer, who was then working at the Amar Mahal Library in Jammu, got in touch to say that the portrait of the woman to the right of the chair if Maharani Tara Devi, the wife of the last maharajah and Karan Singh's mother, and that propped up in the corner is either a portrait or photograph of Raja Amar Singh, the father of Kashmir's last maharajah, Hari Singh. He believed the location to be Gulab Bhavan / Grand Palace, which is now a hotel.

But that still left the question of when this photograph was taken and who the photographer was - it's clearly much more than a snapshot. Now - with huge thanks to Jehangir Bakshi - we can answer those questions. Jehangir found this remarkable image below among a large number of photos taken in Kashmir for the news magazine Life which have been posted online.

And here's a close-up which demonstrates that this was taken as part of the same photo shoot as the image at the top of the page - who the other person in the photo is I haven't been able to work out. (If you have any ideas, do let me know!)

Curiously, the close-up of Sheikh Abdullah is not among the large batch of Life photos posted online - but there can't be any doubt that this was the work of the same photographer at the same moment. And the details of who took the wider shot are available - taken in Kashmir in November 1951 by Howard Sochurek.

Howard Sochurek in 1955

Sochurek worked for Life from 1950 for about twenty years and is particularly noted for his photo-journalism during the wars in Korea, Indochina and Vietnam.

It is particularly satisfying to be able to 'solve' this minor mystery. There are plenty more - above all, what happened to Margaret Bourke-White's photographs taken in Srinagar at the close of 1947. But one step at a time! (A.W.)

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Sheikh Abdullah: 'independence ... may be the only solution'

2/2/2016

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This is the report of the remarkable interview which Sheikh Abdullah gave to a British journalist in 1949 in which he spoke of the option of an independent Kashmir. According to H.L Saxena (in The Tragedy of Kashmir, published in 1975), the Times of India spotted the story and wrote it up, which in turn prompted an angry Sardar Patel to upbraid Sheikh Abdullah. But it's also an indication that Sheikh Abdullah's interest in independence had been germinating for some years prior to his dismissal as Jammu and Kashmir's prime minister and arrest in August 1953.

The interview was conducted by Michael Davidson, who worked mainly for the Observer - though this article appeared in the Scotsman of 14 April 1949. It is a hugely interesting interview - for Sheikh Abdullah's comments about independence, neutrality and communist influence.

The page lay-out means that a few lines have, in the image above, been missed off both columns. For the record, the first column concludes with these additional words:

'autocracy: our sympathies went to the Indian Congress, because Congress supported the struggle of the peoples of the States against Princely autocracy. Jinnah's Moslem League didn't - its leaders backed the rulers of Hyderabad and Bhopal against the people's democratic movement, because these Princes were communally-minded and, therefore, Pakistan's greatest supporters.'

The second column concludes:

'they do not say so publicly) are resigned to the principle of partition - so is India. A neutral Vale of Kashmir would remove the [illegible] of those leaders, like Nehru, with vision and genuine concern for the welfare of the common people, are likely to examine the plan objectively and without rancour.'

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'New Kashmir' - the English text in full

'Through Blood Sweat & Tears': Kashmir in 1947-1948

Sheikh Abdullah at the Palace

Sheikh Abdullah: 'independence ... may be the only solution'

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