By Z.G.Muhammad
Sometimes a stanza or two of some great poem, like Ali Baba’s mantra opens the locks of one memory .And memories of the past start cascading. Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Still I Rise’ made me boisterously emotional- I read it louder and louder till it made me to enter onto alleys of the past, my days at Kashmir University- a campus of splendour and beauty.
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
From a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
Having lived through many years of uncertainties and turbulence during my days at college, and after having missed studies for almost two years, I landed on the University campus in October 1972 in English Department. Having convinced myself that political activism was not my cup of tea, I had resolved to focus on cultural and literary activities. My resolve caused birth of the University Koshur Cultural Forum.
After having remained centre of student activism and politics from 1964, the campus by the time had largely calmed down. Major students and youth organization born in 1964, suffering twin conspiracies had gone into limbo. Many students’ organizations with all their fussy and funny names that had mushroomed during the late sixties, were fast disappearing from the scene; these had no foothold in campus but were active in some colleges. They could make streets in uptown buzz with protests and processions at their will.
Those were the days; there was no student union and no pro-movement student activism in the campus. Surprisingly, the Pradesh Congress wanted to fill the available space in the campus.
Some ministers for winning over some students sponsored them hey for tours outside the state little realizing that by doing so they were planting landmines within the campus, which could explode anytime and disturb the academic atmosphere.
A few months after my admission in MA previous, one day as soon as our bus stopped in front of the Arts Block Building some hostel-boys and research scholars’ gheraoed the bus. Some of them burning with rage and batons in their hands entered into the bus. University had its fleet of buses. In the seventy-two seat bus, earmarked for our department there were over seventy percent girl students. The hostel boys asked us not to get down from the bus and ordered the driver to take us back to Lal Chowk. One of the boys in the lead was a nuclear physics research scholar Ayub Thakur, known for his ideology and religious zeal in the campus.
None of the boys told us that it was a protest against a sacrilegious book discovered. I entered into an argument with the researcher scholar against herding students into buses and asking us to gather at Lal Chowk without telling us the cause. Many of the hostel boys in their night clothes crying hoarse did not even know, what the hullabaloo was about but in wee hours, someone had broken the news about the discovery of the sacrilegious book.
On 17 May 1973, in the library of Government Degree College, Khanabal, a book titled ‘Book of Knowledge Children’s Encyclopaedia by Arthur Mee had been found by a student. The publication was blasphemous containing a drawing of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to whom Archangel Gabriel was reciting a portion of the Holy Quran. The boy shared the information with other students sparking protest rallies in the college and all over the Islamabad town.
The book was immediately banned but it failed to control the rising tiding of rage. Thousands of students from different colleges in the city took to streets. Shutters were pulled down all over the city and outskirts. The students carried placards demanding hanging of the author were joined by thousands of people and igniting a wave of anti-lndia demonstrations in the city and outskirts. The police opened fire on the protest rallies and there were number of deaths. Some of the students and youth in their rage attacked the car of two top leaders near Nowhatta; the echoes of this student agitation were heard across the border, with none else but Zulfikar Ali Bhutto raising his voice against police targeting the students. This agitation brought Jammat-e-lslamia supporting students into sharp focus. The group later on took the centre stage of the student politics in colleges and university. Some of the student from this group included Dr. Mohammad Ayub Thakur and Tajamul-Islam, later on emerged as major resistance leaders and were exiled from the State.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
