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Gandhis and Abdullahs: a PM, two CMs, three MPs

9/1/2024

This marvellous photograph shows two of India's leading political dynasties together. It was taken in Kashmir in 1986 and is a wonderful counterblast to the photo taken in Kashmir some forty years earlier of five future Prime Ministers.

Rajiv Gandhi was at the time India's Prime Minister and Farooq Abdullah had recently resumed the post of Chief Minister of (what was then) the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Both also feature in the earlier photo!

The full line-up of the 1986 photo is, from the left (so to speak):

+ Farooq Abdullah
+ Priyanka Gandhi
+ Rahul Gandhi
+ Sonia Gandhi, and in front of her
+ Sara Abdullah
+ Rajiv Gandhi, and in front of him
+ Hinna Abdullah
+ Molly Abdullah
+ Safia Abdullah
+ Omar Abdullah

Omar Abdullah, of course, followed in his father's footsteps in becoming Chief Minister - and both have served as ministers in India's national government. Omar is contesting the coming assembly elections in J&K.

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi became leaders of the Congress Party: Sonia was an MP for many years and now sits in the Rajya Sabha; Rahul is the current leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. His sister, Priyanka, is likely to enter Parliament when she contests a by-election for one of the two seats won by Rahul in this year's general election.

This photograph was recently posted on X by Safia Abdullah Khan and is reposted here with her permission. 'It was taken on 19th December 1986 in Tangmarg', she recalls. 'We were supposed to go up to Gulmarg but due to a heavy bout of snow the road was closed.'

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The devils' invasion: Tyndale-Biscoe's farewell to Kashmir

8/31/2024

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C.E. Tyndale-Biscoe, after whom the downtown Srinagar school is named, wasn't in Kashmir at the time of the lashkar's invasion in late October-November 1947. But he had a strong view on the 'Afridi tribesmen and other devils' whom he held responsible - as this document attests.

The educationalist Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1863-1949) first came to Kashmir in 1891 and spent more than half-a-century in the Valley. The school that came to bear his name had been established on a modest scale a decade earlier. Tyndale-Biscoe was a product of his time - an old school Christian and a stalwart of Empire; he came to have a deep affection for Kashmir. His final departure was in early October 1947, just a couple of weeks before the invasion by forces from Pakistan which instigated what we would now call, in geopolitical terms, the Kashmir conflict.

Tyndale-Biscoe moved to what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he died in 1949. His memoir, Tyndale-Biscoe of Kashmir: An Autobiography, was published posthumously, with forewords from, among others, the Kashmiri nationalist leader (and at various times Kashmir's Prime Minister and Chief Minister) Sheikh Abdullah, who sent his son, Farooq, to Tyndale Biscoe School.

This two-page account of Tyndale-Biscoe's departure from Kashmir, and his reflections on the invasion, has just come to light. It is almost word-for-word the same as in his published memoir. But this appears to have been issued earlier, as indicated by the jotted note 'To Mr. L.P. Richards with kind regards from CETB'. It was perhaps circulated to friends who were concerned about Kashmir and the fate of the school and of medical and other facilities in the Valley which had been established by Christian missionaries.

Richards served with the Royal Air Force in India during the Second World War. He spent some rest-and-recreation time in Kashmir and described it to his family as one of the most magical places he had ever visited. One must assume that he struck up a friendship with Tyndale-Biscoe at that time. His son, Bill Richards, has passed on this document and we're very grateful for his permission to post it here.

By the way, the second line of the document which is largely hidden by a crease reads 'closed the Residency, and that ended protection of British'. The C.M.S. was the Church Missionary Society.

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The photo with five future Prime Ministers

3/3/2021

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The remarkable photo from 1945 includes five future prime ministers - three of India (Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi) and two of Jammu & Kashmir (Sheikh Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad). Although Jammu & Kashmir was part of India from late October 1947, the head of the administration there was styled as prime minister until 1965, when the post was redesignated as chief minister.

The full list, left to right, is: Mridula Sarabhai; Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai; Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad; Jawaharlal Nehru; Abdul Ghaffar Khan (also known as Badshah Khan and as the 'Frontier Gandhi') who is holding Rajiv Gandhi; Indira Gandhi; behind her, Sheikh Abdullah; an unidentified couple; B.P.L. Bedi; and Freda Bedi. More details about all of these below.

A poor quality copy of this photo (without the writing in Urdu) has been circulating on social media for a while and is included in Andrew Whitehead's 2019 biography of Freda Bedi, The Lives of Freda. This copy is courtesy of Ayaz Khan Achakzai, whose grandfather features in the photograph - his family in Quetta have a copy.

The inscription in Urdu reads: 'Dar Bangla Afzal Baig Srinagar 1945'. Mirza Afzal Beg was one of Sheikh Abdullah's closest political colleagues.

There is no precise date on the photo - but it can be dated within a few days with the help of details from Nehru's Selected Works.

Nehru was released from jail by the British on 15th June 1945, as the Second World War was drawing to a close. On 19th July, Nehru travelled to Kashmir where he was reuinted with Indira, his daughter, and they went trekking for twelve days. On 1st August he came to Srinagar for a reception and river procession - Badshah Khan was also in Srinagar at the time. On 4th August, Nehru addressed the annual session of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, Sheikh Abdullah's political party, at Sopore near Srinagar. On about 9th August, Nehru left Srinagar for the Kashmiri resort town of Gulmarg with Indira and her baby son, Rajiv - and a week or so later, he went to Murree and on to visit the North West Frontier Province.

So this photo was taken in early August 1945, almost exactly two years before Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India.

So - the cast list:

Mridula Sarabhai (1911-1974) was from a wealthy Gujarati family and was a close friend of both Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah. In 1946, the year after this photo was taken, she became a general secretary of Congress. She's perhaps best kowon for her work seeking to retrieve women abducted during the Partition mayhem. When Sheikh Abdullah was removed from office and imprisoned in 1953, she actively supported him and was detained herself for a while because of her involvement in Kashmiri politics.

Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai (1907-1973) was also known as Khan Shaheed and as the Baloch Gandhi. He was a Pashtun nationalist leader in Baluchistan. The movement he founded, Anjuman-i-Watan, was at the time of this photograph allied with Congress. Achakzai served several periods of imprisonment both during the colonial and independence eras. He was a member of the Balochistan Provincial Assembly in Pakistan at the time of his assassination in Quetta in 1973.

Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1907-1972) was, at the time of this photo, one of Sheikh Abdullah's leading lieutenants. When Abdullah came to power in Kashmir, Bakshi was his deputy. But when Abdullah was arrested in August 1953, Bakshi succeeded him as prime minister of Jammu & Kashmir and retained office for a decade.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was, with Mahatma Gandhi, one of the commanding figures in India's independence movement. In August 1947, he became India's prime minister - a post he held for seventeen years until his death. His family were, by descent, Kashmiri Pandits and he paid close to attention to politics in Kashmir and became a friend and ally of Sheikh Abdullah. In 1953, however, Nehru was complicit in Abdullah's removal from office and detention.

Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991) was born on 20th August 1944 - the son of Indira Gandhi and grandson of Nehru - and so would have been approaching a year old when this photo was taken. He spent five years as India's prime minister and was one of three figures in this photo to have been assassinated.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) - also known as Badshah Khan or the Frontier Gandhi - was one of the most prominent figures in the North West Frontier Province - a nationalist, an advocate of non-violence and founder of the 'red shirt' Khudai Khitmagar resistance movement. He was a strong opponent of Partition - though he pledged allegiance to Pakistan once the new nation had been created. He was in 1945 a close ally of Congress and of Nehru.

Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was Nehru's daughter and the second member of the dynasty to serve as India's prime minister - in her case, for fifteen years in total. She married Feroz Gandhi in 1942 - not a happy or successful union - and Rajiv was the older of her two sons. She was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the bloody attempt to evict Sikh separatist hardliners from the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (1905-1982) was the commanding Kashmiri nationalist politician of the twentieth century. He supported the princely state's accession to India and became the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, before earning Delhi's displeasure by suggesting that accession to India was not irrevocable.

This unidentified couple are something of a mystery - if anyone has any thoughts about who they may be, then please do get in touch. Someone, somewhere, must have thoughts on who this man and woman could be. They do not seem to be prominent Kashmiri political figures nor members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Perhaps they came to the National Conference session from Lahore ...

Freda Bedi (1911-1977) and - partly hidden behind her - her husband B.P.L. Bedi (1909-1993) were influential left-wing supporters of Sheikh Abdullah. B.P.L. Bedi was from Punjab and at this time a leading communist; he took the lead in drafting the National Conference's radical New Kashmir programme. Freda Bedi was English by birth. She appears to be pregnant - Kabir Bedi was born in Lahore on 16th January 1946. The family moved to Srinagar at the close of 1947 and Freda and B.P.L. both spent five years in Kashmir working closely with Sheikh Abdullah. Freda Bedi later became a prominent Tibetan Buddhist nun.

And by the way, there's another photograph of Nehru, Achakzai and Abdullah together which seems to have been taken in Srinagar at much the same time as the 'five prime ministers' photo. Could the woman in profile who appears between Achakzai and Abdullah be the woman who is unidentified in the group photo?

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An 1889 Address from 'Dogras and Kashmiris' to Charles Bradlaugh

10/1/2020

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In December 1889, Charles Bradlaugh - a sitting Member of Parliament in the UK - visited Bombay to address the annual session there of the Indian National Congress. It was rare indeed for an MP to speak at the main gathering of Indian nationalism. And Bradlaugh received addresses of welcome and appeals for his intervention from across India.

This wonderful - and sizable - printed document (there's a full transcript below) is an address from 'Dogras and Kashmiris' on behalf of their maharaja, Pratap Singh, the penultimate Dogra princely ruler of the state whose reign began in 1885.

Pratap Singh was seen by many of his subjects as tyrannical and was reported to be addicted to opium, though it was his alleged contacts with the Russians which prompted the British to divest him of all but nominal powers in April 1889. This unprecedented British interference in one of the larger princely-ruled Indian States caused consternation among the many hereditary rulers

Bradlaugh was a deeply controversial figure - a Liberal radical, but more than that an atheist and a republican and inveterate campaigner and orator. He was described as the 'Member for India' because of his interest in Indian affairs and was critical of the consequences of Empire, whether in India or Ireland or elsewhere.

He seems to have taken notice of the address - and on his return to London asked a question in Parliament about Pratap Singh and the state of affairs in Kashmir. It curious that an arch republican should have taken up the cause of a hereditary despot but Bradlaugh's interest in the issue is credited with being at least in part responsible for the partial restoration of Pratap Singh to at least a measure of authority in 1891, and to a fuller role as Kashmir's ruler in 1905.

This address is among the Charles Bradlaugh papers kept at the wonderful Bishopsgate Institute in London - my thanks for their permission to post the document here.

ANDREW WHITEHEAD

The Honorable
Charles Bradlaugh, M.P.

Hon'ble Sir,

We, Dogras and Kashmiris, subjects of His Highness the Maha-
raja of Jammu and Kashmir, beg to accord you a cordial welcome on your
arrival in India.

The subjects of His Highness throughout his Highness' territo-
ries are deeply beholden to you for the efforts you have now and again
made on behalf of their Prince and his State. They sincerely regret that
His Highness should have been painted in very dark colours before the
British public. He has been described as a tyrant given to drunken de-
bauchery and as a slave of the vilest passions. The fact, however, is that
he is and has always been a perfect tee totaler, abhors sensuality and loves
his subjects as his children. Far from being tyrannical, he is exceedingly
good natured and gentle, and is universally loved and respected by his
people. They are greatly grieved at his unjust deprivation of power, and
anxiously long for the day when his rightful authority may be restored
to him. This they do, not as a mere matter of sentiment, but because they
find themselves faring very much worse under the present condition of
things. The Maharaja tried his best to introduce reforms and improve his
administration, but he was thwarted and opposed, and so gravely misrepre-
sented as to induce the Government of India to sanction his practical de-
position. But His Highness' subjects have full confidence in the good
faith and sense of justice of the British Government, and hope it will ere
long repair the injury done to them by rendering back to their beloved
Ruler those privileges which he never abused and to which he is en-
titled by birth right and by TREATY ENGAGEMENTS WITH HIS FOREFATHERS.
We trust, Hon'ble Sir, when you return to England, you will not, amidst
your multifarious duties, forget the poor people of Jammu and Kashmir,
now tyrannised over by a British Officer and an obsequious Council; but
will do your best, should necessity arise, to regain for them that peace,
happiness and independence which they enjoyed under the government of
Maharaja Pratap Singh.

We also beg to express our feelings of gratitude for the interest
you have always manifested in Indian questions generally. The process
of solidarity is fast gaining ground under the benign auspices of British
rule, and we have now begun to realise that the prosperity and advance-
ment of British India cannot fail to exercise a reflex action on the progress
of the Indian States. We hope the rule of Great Britain in this country
will be sufficiently prolonged to allow of this process attaining the full
measure of anticipated good.

In conclusion, we thank you for your courtesy in having condes-
cended to receive this address and pray that you may be able to return to
your Native land. with renovated health and renewed vigour to fight for
the political regeneration and advancement of this ancient country whose
affairs, we are happy to observe, have been receiving gradually increased
affection from the English Nation.

We Subscribe Ourselves,
Hon'ble Sir,
Your most Obedient Servants,

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'New Kashmir' - the English text in full

10/26/2019

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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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Chittaprosad's 'Quit Kashmir'

8/20/2019

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This powerful depiction of the National Conference's 1946 'Quit Kashmir' campaign against the ruling Dogra dynasty is the work of Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915-1978). As far as we can make out, the drawing appeared in the CPI's weekly publication, People's War. Chittaprosad was a communist who used his exceptional artistic gifts for political purposes and is best known for his powerful depictions of the 1943 Bengal famine.

Chittaprosad broke with the CPI in the late 1940s but continued to be acutely political in his art. Last year he was the subject of a retrospective exhibition in New York - a testament to his importance as an artist.

The work below dates from 1947 - the year India gained independence - and reflects communist disdain for the Congress model of nation building.

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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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Newsreels: the Kashmir militia and Nehru's visit in May 1948

1/10/2019

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YouTube hosts a wonderful array of newsreels from Kashmir in the late 1940s - some propaganda assemblages and others as made and broadcast at the time. There's a selection of these videos here.

This wonderful Pathe newsreel dates from 1948 andincludes shots of both the men's and women's militia (the latter more accurately the Women's Self Defence Corps) parading and being inspected by Nehru during a visit to Srinagar. This is likely to date from early May when there was a week of celebrations of Kashmir's 'independence', meaning the ending of princely rule. The commentary goes as follows:

'The people of Kashmir celebrate newly won independence. They are rejoicing at the cutting of the maharajah's oppressive powers, tempered by the realisation that Kashmir is the stumbling block to peace between India, represented here by prime minister Pandit Nehru, and Pakistan, who sent no representative. The frontier battles have been going on incessantly, and the war that has even put the women of their state under arms occupies the minds of all on this independence day.

'Addressing the crowd, Pandit Nehru speaks of the plebiscite by which Kashmir will be able to affirm its accession to the Indian Dominion, It was this provisional union that last year precipitated the frontier incidents. As in the world's trouble centres. it's the fanaticism which makes soldiers of women which defies solution by the peacemakers.

'A UNO commission is now on its way to the valley of Kashmir, the scenic beauty of which is world famous. Hopes of a settlement seem dim for in a country where even young boys are put in uniform and given arms, peace must remain remote.

'A river procession is the climax to the seven-day long celebration. The frontier war recedes as Pandit Nehru accompanied by Sheikh Abdullah, Kashmir's prime minister, says farewell to the people of India's youngest state. If the fighting spreads to this peaceful valley, Hopes of Indian unity will - '

The video that follows appears to be five minutes of mute out-takes (with some repetitions) filmed at the same time as the previous item - and including Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah, Indian troops, the men's and women's militia, and some brief shots of the maharajah and of Begum Abdullah.

These are wonderful images - but of course the individuals are not identified. With the help of veterans and historians, we have managed to name some of the featured members of the militia. Grabs from the newsreel are posted below. If you can help identify any others, or have information or observations, do please either comment on this post or get in touch using the contact form below:

Kaushalya Kaul

From the left: Freda Bedi, Krishna Misri, Indu Pandit

Vimla Atri

Sajjida Zameer Ahmed nee Malik talking to Nehru

Sajjida Zameer on the far left, others unidentified

A member of the militia with the symbol of the National Conference on his cap

Perhaps members of the Cultural Front

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The Palladium Cinema in Srinagar's Lal Chowk

7/20/2017

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The Palladium Cinema in downtown Srinagar is the subject of a new programme in the BBC radio series, The Museum of Lost Objects. The programme is presented by Kanishk Tharoor and produced by Maryam Maruf. It looks at the changing use of the building: cinema, political rallying point, interrogation centre, security forces bunker. Here's the link to the audio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058gh24