Dr. Abdul Ahad
Even though our historians have done us proud they are victims of our cold hearted attitude. We are oblivious to their astounding contributions to Kashmirs history, politics and culture and insensitive to what they have done for us by: unfolding the major black and white events of our lived life; unraveling various knots of our ethos; raising the level of collective conscience of the people of Kashmir. To venerate these insightful historians it would be ideal to christen after their names bazaars and institutions whose nomenclature is constantly reminding us of an era when even small children were conscripted for beggar; when damsels in distress were forced into white slave trade for augmenting State revenues; when calling for Nimaz and cow slaughter were crimes punishable by death; when Muslims had to pay Zar-i-Nikah (marriage tax) and tax on dried cow dung. That will also help us wash off lots of ghastly memories of despotic rulers whose names are strongly reminiscent of awful tales of oppression and exploitation of hapless Kashmiris of the last century.
The secrets of identity formation and history’s mysteries always catch the attention of historians to unravel these for public awareness and understanding. It is they who throw open the doors of priceless buried treasures of civilizational stocks to our scrutiny; giving us, thus, an urge, energy and a flash of insight to realize what is injurious to our collective health and good for our overall development as a nation. But alas, we fail to appreciate this and stay behind to recognize their role they have played in given us historical credence and validity as a nation with inimitable characteristics.
While doing us proud by unearthing our past they have undergone hardships so cruel that we can’t think today when technology has made research, compilation, journalistic bustle or any other academic activity easy for us to lay our hands on. They were not as fortunate as our generation who get information from places no matter how dstaqnt they are, for their projects instantaneously just at click of a button of their computer. They had to performa a herculean job; spending time, energy, money in searching out and collecting from far-away places with more or less unfriendly, non cooperative ambivalence. There were no funding agencies, no universities, no libraries and publishing houses to publish their hand written manuscripts in expensively beautiful calligraphic folios.
To bring out volumes after volumes on history of Kashmir after trekking into towns to knock the doors of those in possession of authentic information was undoubtedly an uphill task. Virtually they had to beg for the owners’ cooperation and seek permission for perusing and making use of material in their safekeeping. It is all due to their efforts that Kashmir can claim the distinction of being the only region…which possesses an uninterrupted series of written records of its history, going back beyond the period of the Muhammadan conquest, and deserving the name of real chronicles”, and, thus, proving wrong Mirza Haidar Dughlat who states:
“No one knows anything about Kashmir’s present state, nor can anyone of its features or history be learned from the books of former writers.”
Kalhana has really won great kudos for bringing to light what was obscure from our eyes. The way he treats the subject is indubitably quite unique, spectacular and more discerning. He deserves to be called the Father of history; the Herodotus of the East and Aristotle of Kashmir for his contributions and endeavours to give a connected account where the narrative of past events has become fragmentary in many respects.
His successors Jonaraja, Srivara, Prajabhatta, Suka and the Sanskirt Chroniclers of medieval times too contributed immensely to the historical literature of Kashmir but with the benevolence from people in power and under the official patronage of Sulhanat-i-Kashmir which fact they acknowledge frankly in their writings.
The Persian scholars too did not miss the opportunity of the Darbar benefaction; they compiled their narratives as the beneficiaries of their masters, the Sultans of Kashmir while others became the favourites of the Mughals, Mulls Shah Muhammad Shahabadi was the foremost among the stipendiary’s of the Mughal Darbar; he rendered Kalhana’s Rajalarangni into Persian at the behest of Emperor Akbar.
Likewise Haidar Malik Chadura accepted with pride the employment of Emperor Jahangir. As the superintendent of buildings he successfully accomplished the laying out a canal from the Sind River and the construction of the waterfall and the stream at Vernag. He was always in good books of Nur Jahan with whose recommendations the Emperor Jahangir bestowed upon him the coveted titles of Chaghatai and Rais-ul-Mulk. He spent his entire life basking in the adulation of his alien-heroes. Consequently, it was not at all thorny for him to compile his history which is a valuable document for the Mughal rule in Kashmir. As a resourceful and highly connected person he could easily manage to lay his hands on whatever he required for his project.
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
