FIDA IQBAL
I do not know what made the young spokesman and very active MLA of the National Conference describe our elders’ plight as that of a “trousers-less generation.”
At the outset, let me put things in the right perspective.
Most Kashmiris in much earlier days, after a certain age, would prefer a long robe (pheran) and a turban or skullcap over the usual attire. It provided easy mobility and less burden. The pheran was also eminently suited to Kashmir’s climate and way of life. Therefore, to interpret the wearing of a long robe as evidence of poverty, and then turn it into a symbol of humiliation, is historically questionable.
Our young MLA may have heard this “yazaar” episode from his elders and subsequently attributed it to poverty, perhaps referring to a particular class of people. But before making such a sweeping statement about an entire generation, it would have been worthwhile to look at the historical record.
Let us discuss this issue on a hypothetical premise: that we Kashmiris, prior to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s popular uprising, were kept poor, robbed of our basic rights and deprived of everything that was due to us as human beings.
But did all this change in proportion to the post-1947 era in the subcontinent?
Yes, it changed—as it changed almost everywhere in the erstwhile “Raj”, British India. The political and social transformation following the end of colonial and princely rule was part of a much wider change across the subcontinent. There was therefore nothing entirely unique in the fact that Kashmir, too, eventually experienced social and political change with the abolition of autocracy.
However, we cannot deny the contribution of Sheikh Abdullah in leading the people of Kashmir during the 1930s. His role in the political awakening of Kashmir is an important part of our modern history. But attributing to him changes that were otherwise destined to occur with the sweeping political and socio-economic transformation of the subcontinent is another matter.
Kashmir has a recorded history of several thousand years and a glorious past. One of the most frequently referred-to chronicles is Kalhana’s Rajatarangini. Kalhana’s descriptions, together with archaeological and sculptural evidence discussed by scholars such as P. N. K. Bamzai, provide a much older picture of Kashmiri society and clothing than the political narrative being invoked today.
Let me now refer to a few travelogues dating from before even the birth of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. These references help correct the concept of the earlier dress code of Kashmiri people and the poverty unnecessarily attributed to this supposed dress humiliation.
George Forster travelled to Kashmir in 1783 during Afghan rule, and his account was subsequently published as A Journey from Bengal to England, Through the Northern Part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia. In his description, Forster says that the higher classes wore a pirahun or shirt and drawers underneath their woollen outer garment.
No doubt, Forster mentions the higher classes, and his account also indicates differences between social classes. We should therefore not use his description to claim that every Kashmiri wore drawers. But the important point remains: a lower garment was already a recognised component of Kashmiri dress in the eighteenth century.
Let us go a little further.
More significant evidence comes from William Moorcroft, who visited and lived in Kashmir through 1822–23. He explicitly describes the dress of Kashmiri people in these words:
“The dress of the people, both male and female, commonly consists of a long loose wrapper and trowsers…”
Moorcroft does not restrict this statement to a particular class or social group. He uses the words “the people, both male and female” and says that their dress “commonly” consisted of a long loose wrapper and trousers.
This is important documentary evidence. More than a century before 1947, a British traveller was recording trousers as a common component of the dress of both Kashmiri men and women.
Then comes Wakefield’s description following his stay in Kashmir in 1875. He published his travelogue, The Happy Valley, in 1879.
His description is even stronger regarding the dress of ordinary Kashmiri men. He states that “the usual dress of the men is a pair of loose drawers” together with a long, loose-fitting shirt or smock-frock. He further says that this dress was “universally worn”, while making the qualification that richer Hindus wore somewhat different clothing.
Read in its complete context, Wakefield’s description provides strong evidence of the widespread prevalence of the lower garment among Kashmiri men in the nineteenth century.
Lastly, quoting Sir Walter Lawrence and his famous work The Valley of Kashmir, published in 1895, would not be out of place. It remains one of the most frequently consulted accounts of Kashmir and its people.
In his chapter on “Social Life”, Lawrence describes the ordinary Kashmiri garment as a long, loose gown reaching to the feet, worn by both men and women. He writes that there was “very little difference between the garb of a man and a woman” because both wore what he calls an “effeminate gown”.
He then provides several details regarding Kashmiri dress and footwear. Of particular relevance here is his statement that under the gown men wore drawers—woollen in winter and cotton in summer.
Lawrence further records that the ordinary Kashmiri cultivator wore a cotton skullcap while working and, on state occasions, a white pagri.
This evidence demonstrates that the long robe and a lower garment were well-established elements of Kashmiri dress throughout the nineteenth century.
Let us go still further, into the early twentieth century.
Ernest Frederic Neve, the British medical missionary who lived and worked in Kashmir for many years, described Kashmiri dress in his book Beyond the Pir Panjal: Life Among the Mountains and Valleys of Kashmir, first published in 1912.
He writes:
“The usual dress for both men and women consists of a pair of drawers and a long, loosely fitting robe called Pheran.”
This is particularly significant because Neve’s observation carries the documentary record into the twentieth century. It demonstrates continuity in the combination of the pheran and lower garment.
It is also of importance to mention his elder brother, Dr Arthur Neve’s Thirty Years in Kashmir, published in 1913. Arthur Neve was also a medical missionary in Kashmir. In his book he describes the dress of Gujars in the mountains, mentioning men wearing baggy trousers and women having even more baggy trousers.
Arthur Neve’s description should naturally be understood as a description of Gujar communities rather than as a universal description of all Kashmiris. Nevertheless, it provides another contemporary indication of the use of lower garments among communities inhabiting the Kashmir region.
Most of these references concerning Kashmiri dress, particularly the lower garment, predate the birth of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, to whom the young MLA refers while describing the supposed dress plight of the people of Kashmir before his leadership.
It is therefore unfortunate that when the concerned politician was asked to set the record straight, he refused, and his leader, Omar Abdullah, defended him.
Sheikh Abdullah rose as a leader during Dogra rule, and most of the above references belong to the extended period of Dogra rule. We accept that autocratic rule is full of exploitation and deprivation. There is no reason to romanticise that period or deny the political and economic hardships suffered by ordinary Kashmiris.
But it is also important to distinguish historical fact from political mythology.
Much of the exploitation and cruelty under the princely administration was carried out through its instruments of governance—zamindars, zaildars, small-time rajas and other local intermediaries, along with sections of influential landed and religious families. Many individuals and families associated with the old system subsequently adjusted themselves to changing political circumstances. For more than seven decades, people and families who had been part of different systems of influence have continued to appear in governance in one form or another.
So, calling Kashmiris a “trouser-less nation” prior to 1947 is not only a distortion of historical and societal facts; it is also demeaning to Kashmiris as a people.
There is no dispute that poverty existed in Kashmir. There is no justification for romanticising Dogra autocracy or denying the political deprivation suffered by ordinary Kashmiris. But poverty and dress are separate historical questions.
A long pheran cannot by itself be converted into evidence of poverty, just as the existence of poverty cannot be converted into evidence that Kashmiris did not wear lower garments.
The documentary record speaks for itself.
The political awakening of Kashmir in the twentieth century deserves its proper place in history, and so does Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s contribution to it. But that contribution does not require us to erase the history, dignity or agency of the Kashmiris who lived before him.
It is very unfortunate when a political legacy becomes an excuse for rewriting social history.
If the heirs of Sheikh Abdullah, particularly Omar Abdullah, wish to claim the inheritance of that political legacy, then they should also accept the responsibility of respecting the people whose history they claim to represent. They should, at the very least, correct a statement that humiliates the very generation that endured the hardships of the past.
And here I come to the larger point.
Those who make sweeping and unsubstantiated statements about the identity, dignity and condition of earlier Kashmiris should perhaps remember that history is capable of speaking in unexpected ways about every family—including political families.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah married Begum Akbar Jehan. Historical accounts identify her as the daughter of Michael Henry Nedou—also known as Harry Nedou—and his Kashmiri wife, Mir Jan. Michael Henry Nedou belonged to the European Nedou family whose name became closely associated with the famous Nedou hotels of Gulmarg and Srinagar.
Thus, Akbar Jehan’s family background itself represented a union of European and Kashmiri ancestry. That ancestry subsequently became part of the direct family line of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his descendants.
I make this observation not to question anybody’s Kashmiri identity. Identity is far larger than ancestry. Nor is this an argument about race, blood or superiority.
I make it for an entirely different reason.
If political arguments are going to be constructed by casually assigning labels to the ancestry, dress, dignity or historical condition of Kashmiri people, then the same historical record must be applied consistently to everyone—including those making the argument.
We Kashmiris do not need to prove our worth by claiming European ancestry, nor do we need to deny anybody else’s ancestry. Our history stands on its own.
But neither should anyone presume the authority to tell Kashmiris that their ancestors were somehow a “trouser-less generation” and then expect such an assertion to pass unchallenged.
History cuts both ways.
If unsupported political rhetoric is used to diminish the ancestors of ordinary Kashmiris, then the historical record has every right to remind the political heirs of Kashmir’s leadership that their own family history is neither as simple nor as exclusively indigenous as political mythology sometimes suggests.
The message is therefore not about race, blood or superiority. It is about intellectual honesty.
Do not make historical claims about our elders without evidence.
Do not turn the clothing of our ancestors into a metaphor for their supposed inferiority.
Do not appropriate the history of Kashmir for the glory of one political family.
And above all, do not mistake political inheritance for historical ownership.
We may not need to borrow an identity from Europe or Britain, but the documented European ancestry within the Sheikh Abdullah family itself makes one thing clear: no political family has a monopoly over what constitutes Kashmiri identity, dignity or belonging.
Kashmir belongs to its people. Its history belongs to its people. And the dignity of our ancestors belongs to its people.
Our elders wore the pheran. They wore drawers and trousers. They wore turbans and skullcaps. They lived through poverty, oppression and political upheaval. They also produced poets, scholars, craftsmen, administrators, farmers, saints and intellectuals and preserved a civilisation whose history goes back many centuries.
They deserve respect.
And if the heirs of Sheikh Abdullah seek to inherit his political legacy, perhaps they should also have the humility to acknowledge that the dignity of Kashmiris did not begin with Sheikh Abdullah—and neither did the history of Kashmir.
Our history is not anybody’s inheritance. It belongs to the people of Kashmir.
If someone chooses to speak of our past, let them speak with evidence.
Because when rhetoric makes claims without evidence, history has a way of answering back.
The author can be reached at mail@fidaiqbal.com
