(DR KASHI NATH PANDITA )
( MAQBOOL SHERWANI )
‘TO
BARAMULLA TOWN , THE TRIBAL RAIDERS OF
1947 DID WHAT NADIR SHAH HAD
DONE TO DELHI ’ …..
DR KASHI NATH
PANDITA
"When you are just below the mountain, you
can't know how high the mountain is ; only when you move away, you realise its
loftiness . "…. Dr Kashi Nath Pandita
Padama-shri Kashi Nath Pandita
is an authority on the Central Asian culture, linguistics and history. A
renowned Persian scholar , author , translator , journalist and historian,
Kashi Nath Pandita is also connected with Human Rights Organization affiliated
to UNO. He hails from Baramulla , a town
completely devastated in 1947 by the
tribal raiders from across the border .
The footnotes to the pages of " Baharistaan e Shahi" that
he translated from Persian to English , are an ample proof of his knowledge,
scholarship and study. He lived in Iran for 4 years to complete his
Ph.D. from the University of
Teheran where he was a favourite student
of Prof Zabihollah Safa ( 1911-1999)
,a scholar of international repute. Dr Pandita. remained Director of Centre of Central Asian Studies,University of Kashmir,
Srinagar wherefrom he retired in 1987. He is held in highest esteem by
various Central Asian Academies / Universities. He has closely worked with many scholars from the Central Asia more
specifically from Tajikistan. His travelogue titled "My Tajik Friends" earned him the coveted Soviet Land Nehru Award 1987. Some prominent works of Dr. Pandita
are:-
1.
Baharistan-i-Shahi, A Chronicle of Mediaeval Kashmir (translated from Farsi)
2.
Avicenna – An Introduction
3.
Iran and Central Asia
4.
Ladakh, life and culture (edited)
5.
Hafiz of Shiraz (Urdu)
6.
Tohfatul Ahbab, ( English translation of a 17th century history of Kashmir )
7
Ten Studies In Kashmir …History And Politics
He has authored innumerable research articles
that have been published in many foreign journals . He has also attended many
international seminars and conferences at different places in the world. I have interviewed Dr Pandita three times extensively
for Radio Sharda , Jammu. This is what he told me about the devastation of
Baramulla town by the Pakistan sponsored Tribal Invasion of October 1947 .
" I belong to Baramulla. As a young boy of
19 years , I saw death, destruction and plunder of the Baramulla town in October 1947 . You can't
feed incorrect history to people who have lived the period and are privy to the
events .I wonder why some events have been presented wrongly with a factually
incorrect narrative . May be this narrative suits some but facts are facts. I
am referring to the events of the Pakistan sponsored ‘Tribal Raid’ in Kashmir. Lot
of wrong information has been fed to people.
As far as Maqbool
Sherwani is concerned . I need to clarify that he was a staunch follower of
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.That time
we would hear a slogan ( coined by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah ) from the National Conference cadres, " Hindu Muslim Sikh Ittehaad ".
Sherwani remained unshaken in this belief when most of his cadres shifted
loyalties and sided with the advancing
marauders sent by Pakistan . Sherwani
misguiding the tribal raiders on " the road to Srinagar city" is
untruth. The raiders had no dearth of local guides, accomplices, target
identifiers and active supporters who
were always seen with them . Many from the Muslim Conference cadres were
actively providing every type of support and help to the
marauders . Knowing the road to Srinagar
city was no issue. For the
raiders,locating Sherwani had a purpose .Through him , the tribal raiders
wanted to reach Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah whom they wanted to capture
and take along as per the plan and instructions from their Pakistani handlers .
They had instructions to bring Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah dead or alive as
Pakistani leadership at that time considered him an enemy and an obstacle in
the annexation of Kashmir with Pakistan . Sherwani's house was
searched but he could not be located. He was in touch with his party leadership
in Srinagar city . He would travel to Srinagar on his motorcycle during night
time . Finally , the raiders found him
when he was on his way to Srinagar riding his motorcycle . Unfortunately , he
was identified by his own men after he was caught .He was killed mercilessly by
the savage beasts.
In fact the delay
of two/ three crucial days in moving to Srinagar city was due to the internal fight that the tribal raiders had
with their Commander named Khursheed
Anwar. Khursheed Anwar had received a sum of rupees three lakh to be spent
on the tribal raiders . The raiders
asked Khurshid to distribute the money.
Khurshid refused and told them that the amount had been given for the whole
operation and not for distribution .
That made the tribal raiders angry and they suspended their operation for two
days. For two days , they shifted to looting, raping and killing people in
Baramulla town. However, this is also a
fact that in the afternoon of 27th October ,
1947, a delegation of known Muslim
personalities of Baramulla met the commander ( of Tribal Raiders ) Major Khurshid Anwar and welcomed him and for
next two/three days , the invaders didn’t
move from the town and indulged in
plunder , rapes and killings of Hindus and Sikhs of the town and the villages .
The Tribal Raiders entered Baramulla on 27th
of October 1947. They were welcomed by Chowdhary Faizullah , the then Deputy Commissioner of the district ,who was
,in turn , appointed Governor of the area by the invaders . The Tribal Raiders
were also joined by Major Aslam Khan , an ex-Kashmir State Force officer and an
MC of WW II. Aslam was the son of Brigadier Tor Gul who was a loyal subject of
the Dogra ruler of Kashmir before 1947.The Muslim companies of the State
Forces( 4 Jammu And Kashmir Battalion)
in Muzaffarabad played treachery
and joined the advancing raiders.
The tribal
raiders were fed with wrong information that Kashmiri Pandits had enough gold
with them .So, Initially they mistook brass for gold and took away many brass utensils
from the Pandit houses . All this we saw in the godown of the plundered goods
in Baramulla once the Indian Army
arrived and the raiders made their hasty
retreat in panic and fear . I saw them fleeing through Baramulla town in
trucks, lorries, Tongas and carts . In
Baramulla town, for two/ three days, they only looked for " Zar , Zewar and Zenana” ( cash , jewellery and women ).
To Baramulla they did what Nadir Shah had done to
Delhi. They looted jewellery, shops and houses and kidnapped and raped many
Hindu and Sikh women in groups. Baramulla
Tehsil office and the cinema building had
been made a raping centres by these marauders. Many women jumped into River
Jheum to save their honour. I saw this
naked dance of death and destruction personally . What they did with European nuns
, nurses, teachers and missionary doctors and their families in Baramulla is
very tragic, shameful and inhuman.
This nonstop killing ,plunder ,loot ,rape and
mayhem in Baramulla for two/ three days halted their advance and saved Srinagar
city and simplified the task of the
Indian army in kicking them out. When
the Indian Army finally drove away the killers , the population of this peaceful town had reduced to just 1000 or 1200 from something around 14 to 15 thousand
. Prior to that , like a true Kshatriya, Brigadier Rajinder Singh put a halt to
their march by engaging them in gunfight for four days with limited soldiers .
Under instructions from the Maharaja " Fight to the last man and the last
Bullet",with just 110 soldiers, Brigadier Rajinder Singh put a crucial
halt to the advancement of about
5000 heavily armed tribal raiders . He used guerrilla tactics to fight and
engage them that delayed their march towards the Srinagar city. He engaged them
in gun battle near Uri bridge, Mahura
and Rampur, inflicting heavy casualties. I have not found such a warrior
in the contemporary military history. I
mean an ‘Army Chief’ personally
leading his soldiers in the combat. He is the real saviour of the Srinagar city from the marauders. This
great soldier died of bullet wounds in
the battle field."
In his book ‘ Ten
studies In Kashmir ‘, Dr K N Pandita
writes this :-
“ For two or three days and nights the loot and rape of Hindu
and Sikh women continued in the Baramulla district. Locals became guides and
identified Hindu and Sikh houses to the
tribesmen in each and every village even if it existed in the farthest corner
of Kupwara or Tangmarg Tehsils which
stood poles apart. Hindu and Sikh women captured in Baramulla were huddled up
in two camps , one in the Tehsil office and the other in the cinema building. Not
a single house in the Baramulla district escaped plunder of the tribesmen and
the highland murderers .Many Hindu and Sikh families committed suicide . In
Handwara –Langet , six or seven members of a Hindu family took poison to escape
rape and molestation. In Baramulla town, the local Muslims of some substance gave
the armed tribesmen a list of prominent Pandits who were selectively gunned
down in their homes in presence of their children and relatives .The local
Muslims took away the cattle of Hindu and Sikhs , butchered them and supplied
beef to the Lashkar kitchen . Many Pandits and Sikhs of the Baramulla district saved themselves by
feigning conversion and changing their profile . This was under the coercion of
the locals .”
V
P Menon, an Indian civil servant, has written this about
Brigadier Rajinder Singh :-
"He and his colleagues will live in history
like gallant Leonidas and his 300 men who held the Persian invaders at Thermopylae.
It was but appropriate that when the Maha-Vira
Chakra decoration was instituted the first award should have been given
(posthumously) to this heroic soldier."
(Avtar
Mota)
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