By Z.G.MUHAMMAD
The unlettered counted these for their pictures looked at these newspapers as a gifted possession tor pictorially documenting history of Kashmir struggle. Supporters of the Plebiscite Front and the Awami Action Committee persevered photographs published in these newspapers by putting them in beautiful papier-mâché or walnut wood carved frames. These newspapers because of their popularity were even sold by grocers in our locality. One fine morning, to my disappointment the hawker of the newspapers informed me that these two weeklies and with seven others had been banned. The newspapers brutally axed included the Mahafiz, the Rehbar and the Zamindari.
The editors of weekly Rebar, Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din and Zamindar, Muhammad Shafi Samnani were arrested. The much orchestrated façade of liberalism and freedom of expression by the government machinery crumbled under its weight like a decayed building. Denial of freedom of expression and holding public rallies, later on, found more brutal expression during the government of this pseudo-Trotskyite who championed state terror by denying space the voice of dissent, arresting student and sending hundreds of students to the interrogation centres-where they languished for years.
Those days people adorned the walls of their living rooms and shops with the pictures of the leaders; leaders of the Kashmir Freedom Struggle, leaders of the sub-continent and these pictures narrated to us stories about struggle of fathers and grandfathers and connected us to our immediate history. In this book, there is a separate chapter about my fascination for the pictures the leaders. Some shop owners also displayed pictures of some Muslim ideologues in their shops. I remember picture of a rotund face, black turbaned man, draped in long tunic akin to our pheran along with pictures of other on the walls of a tailor in our mohalla. The picture was of Sayyid Jamal al-Din Muhammad Afghani nineteenth century Islamic missionary. An architect of the modern Islamic intellectual revival, and an anti-imperialist thinker, Sayyid Jamaluddin Al-Afghani was noted for the middle path that he took that he took between traditionalism and modernism. The tailor, who was semiliterate, admired this sage of the East for him preferring to be simply called a Muslim and not putting tag sect to his name.
Magnificent picture of a robust man in astrakhan cap in a restaurant in a busy market of attracted my attention. It did not synchronize with the ambiance and settings of the restaurant.More keenly, I looked at the picture, more inquisitive I turned. The man, in a khaki shirt with khaki trousers, secured with a belt, heavy military boots and nicely trimmed beard looked like a well-decorated army general just returned from the battlefront. There was no revolver in his belt- the popular image of army generals.
Instead of a rifle slinging from his shoulder, a spade was distinctly visible up his right shoulder. In the backdrop was a red flag with crescent and star. The haunting details of the picture agitated me.
Questions after questions cropped up in my mind. My father told me that the name of the person was Inayatullah Khan popularly known as Allama Mashriqi, a great mathematician who founded the Khaksar Movement. Father introduced me the man and his mission in great detail. It was first discourse, I heard on the Pan-Islamist movement but what left an indelible imprint on my mind was the story about Allama Mashriqi involvement in Kashmir. He had marched to the ceasefire line along with his hundreds of thousands of supporters for liberation of Kashmir.
I came to know more about the person during my days at Islamia college. One of classmate Mohammad Altaf Khan nom de plume Azam Inqalibi, who later on in his life emerged as an important resistance leader was his great admirer. He would often talk about Allama Mashriqi role and mission. The owner of the food joint, my father told me lived in our neighbourhood . The pictures of Muslim ideologues of nineteenth and twentieth centuries generated curiosity amongst us and made us to read more about them, thus connected us to the Pan-Islamist movements.
……concluded
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
