( 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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