Mainstream Weeklyby Mohammad Sayeed Malik
[Editor’s note: Mohammed Syed Malik may well be the most senior journalist in Kashmir today. A long serving Special Correspondent in Srinagar of the now defunct Delhi-based national daily newspaper Patriot and Link Newsweekly, he also had a stint as Director, Information and Public relations in the government of the undivided state in the 1970s. Malik posted this on this Facebook page on 13 July, 2020. It recalls a turning point in the history of the region. It immediately evoked a massive response from people from all sides of the political divides in the valley. We publish his Facebook post, and some of the more relevant responses]
For the third time in the past 10 months, since August 5, 2019, Kashmiris in the Valley will today miss a heartbeat when, for the first time since 1947 the revered Mazar e Shuhda in downtown Srinagar would wear an officially enforced deserted look.
Even after a parallel ‘Mazare Shuhda’ came up at sprawling Eid Gah in 1990s in the wake of militancy the original one located in the downtown courtyard at Naqshband Saheb Shrine retained its undiminished emotional appeal as well as its mainstream political clout.
At the official level, the Martyrs’ day ceremony would be done with fanfare. Wreaths used to be placed and flower petals showered on the marked graves of the 22 ‘Shaheed’ who fell to the bullets of the Maharaja’s forces in 1931 outside Srinagar central jail.
Sheikh Abdullah’s autobiography, Blazing Chinar, is dedicated to the memory of ‘one of the 22 martyrs who was still alive and breathing and held my hand asking me to carry forward the mission’’
Significantly, this very sentence is invoked by Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad on the floor of the constituent assembly during the debate on having a separate flag for the J&K state along with the national flag. He said that having a separate flag would redeem our pledge to the 1931 martyrs. This fact is mentioned by Syed Mir Qasim in his biography, Dastan e Hayat (my life story) while elaborately quoting the house proceedings of the day, including recitation of an anthem to venerate the state’s own flag. The anthem was written by Maulana Mohammad Sayeed Masoodi.
This is perhaps the only occasion when someone in the leadership had sought to directly link the two events: Yom e shuhda and the state flag to underline their mutual significance
August 5 had set off the process for constitutional denudation of J&K, in crass disregard for the sentiment in Kashmir Valley, with abrogation of the J&K Constitution along with that of the Art 370. Valley remains under a suffocating tight leash since then.
Locally, the most visible symbol of Kashmir’s (largely notional) autonomy was the erstwhile State’s separate official flag fluttering atop the secretariat building along with the Tricolour.
That state flag was taken down in indecent haste early in September last year even as the federal constitutional steam roller was due to swing into action only by October end.
Unceremonious removal of the red colour state flag from the secretariat building came as a rude shock to the people in the Valley and social networks overflowed with injured sentiment.
Then came the order erasing Yom e Shuhda (martyrs’ day) from the official calendar and abolishing gazetted holiday on that day. Today, it would be the first time when the people in Kashmir would miss the elaborate sarkari and non-sarkari fanfare with which tributes used to be paid to 22 martyrs shot down near Srinagar Central Jail by the Maharaja’s forces.
The State’s constitutional denudation last year has brought in its wake a new charter that not only downgrades the official status of ’July 13’ but also specifically drops it out of the state holiday list.
This carefully calculated snub has a long history starting from 1930s when a popular movement was launched against Maharaja’s autocracy. Principal Kashmiri characters of this long drama are no more. But their recorded account makes an interesting case much of which is either not known or only partially known
As both, the flag and official status of ‘Yom e Shuhda’ are history now it would be appropriate to visit the history as recorded by dramatis personae. Accordingly, I have picked up two memoires, of Sheikh Abdullah and Syed Mir Qasim who in their lifetime belonged to two different shadows of Kashmir’s complex and complicated politics
Qasim, effectively a post-1947 political leader, his memoires, Dastan e Hayat, deals more with the history of the state flag issue while Sheikh’s autobiography, Blazing Chinar (Aatish e Chinar) , encompasses more than half a century of Kashmir politics of which he was the tallest symbol until his demise in 1982
Significantly, Sheikh has touched upon the insinuation that their agitation and its bloody aftermath on July 13, 1931 were tainted with communal violence. While acknowledging occurrence of ‘a few minor incidents of rioting in a downtown locality, the book described it as a minor incident being blown up falsely.
Only the time will tell whether the official eclipse of (1931) Mazar e Shuhda that commemorated popular struggle against the Maharaja’s autocracy would, among other things, inevitably boost the prestige of its parallel Mazar e Shuda that stands out as a living symbol of anti-India militancy. Ironically, two prominent leaders Mirwaiz Maulana Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone who were assassinated by ‘unidentified gunmen’ also lie buried in this very Shaheed Mazar.
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