Dear Imran and others It is a matter of shame that not a single post appeared on the yahoogroup to commemorate Maqbool Bhats matyrdom on February 11,1984.Pioneer of the Kashmiri armed struggle and a great Kashmiri nationalist,Maqbool perhaps lives on the margins of our historical memories.I can bet that a majority of educated Kashmiris have vague ideas about Maqbool Bhats personality and his struggle.Our younger ones are even more ignorant of our national hereoes and the history of the national liberation movement.It is our national duty to help each other and other young Kashmiri compatriots to grow as an informed generation with a critical thinking that can be the envy of the most brilliant nations of the world. It is disappointing a group that boasts of 70 educated Kashmiri youth didnt find the Maqbool Bhat day important enough for a debate. The battle of history is about memory against forgetting. I am sending two articles on Maqbool Bhat to make amends for my failure to do the duty. Article 1. Source: maqboolbutt Maqbool Butt -- The architect of modern Kashmiri nation who lived and died for Kashmiris By Shams Rehman Charged as a Pakistani agent by the Indian and an Indian agent by the Pakistan rulers, he spent three years in Pakistani prisons and ten in the Indian prisons. In his own words he was an agent but only of Kashmiri peoples and his crime he confessed in a Pakistani court was rebellion against slavery, exploitation, oppression, nepotism, hypocrisy, greed and ignorance. While Indian and Pakistani rulers and those historians, intellectuals, academic and analysts who perhaps conveniently see Kashmir through the official lenses of the two occupying neighbours of Kashmir completely ignore or pay little attention to the contribution made by this pioneer of the modern struggle for unification and independence in Kashmir, he is revered amongst the peoples of Kashmir and the freedom loving peoples of worldover and the founding father of national liberation struggle in the post-division Kashmir. Born to a peasant family in the village of Trehgam in Kupwara district in Baramulla constituency of the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) on 18th February 1938, Maqbool Bhatt childhood was shaped by feudalism that at this point was fiercely challenged by the peasants, workers and middle classes across the State. Along with other children of Trehgam he confronted the rural lord (feudal lord) at the age of eight. He achieved his first victory against class divide in junior school soon after the division of Kashmir in 1948. The occasion, according to Shoukat Maqbool, the younger son of Maqbool Bhatt, was annual awards ceremony at local village school where Maqbool Bhatt was amongst the high achievers. It was a norm on such occasions that children and parents of wealthy families sat in a row on one side of the hall and those from poor families on the other. On this day when Maqbool was called over to the stage for his prize he stunned everyone by refusing to take award until all the school children were brought to one side and parents to the other. In the years to come Maqbool Bhatt took this fight for equality and justice out of his local school to the wider IOK society and then across the division line into Pakistani Occupied Kashmir. As a student at St Joseph College he organized strings of demonstrations against the illegitimate removal from premiership chair and imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah by the Indian government of Jawaharlal Nehru. Subsequently he went underground to escape crackdowns by the local police and secretly crossed over to Azad Kashmir with his uncle. After wondering around for a couple of years Maqbool Bhatt enrolled on post graduation course in Urdu at Peshawar University (there was no University in `Azad Kashmir then) and also joined a local daily paper Injaam(Conclusion or The End) as sub-editor. At Peshawar he had many progressive Pakistani students as his class and university fellows including Ahmed Faraaz, the living legend of Urdu poetry. A few weeks ago on his visit to Bradford as the chief guest in a poetry reciting evening organized by local poets to celebrate the literary joint of Pakistan, Asad Zia, a British Kashmiri who was conducting the event requested Faraaz to talk about his time with Maqbool Bhatt at Peshawar. Coincidently the function was presided over by another Bhatt, Shoukat, the younger son of Maqbool Bhatt. Ahmed Fraaz briefly recalled some of his memories that I noted down and are reproduced below: He was my class fellow. We were together. He was different from other boys. He used to say that the fire (currant) that should be essential ingredient in this age is missing in the Pakistani youth. He often asked me to go Kashmir with him. His was a very handsome personality. He had beard and beautiful hairs. He looked very much like Hazrat Issa (Jesus Christ). Girls adored his beard and we the boys were equally jealous of it. On one occasion a disagreement developed between us on the wordings of a couplet. After some arguments I said if I lost I will grow beard and if you lost you will shave your beard. After consulting the original source it was concluded that Maqbool was wrong. In the evening we got together in a café for tea. We said Maqbool you have lost. He said yes let us go to the barber. We went to the barber shop nearby and Maqbool told the barber to shave off his beard. Barber who knew us well said you are joking. Maqbool said no I am serious, shave it off. Such true to his words was Maqbool. I am not sure of growing beard had I lost the bet. But he was such an honest person. Without beard he looked completely different person. He looked strange. I always regretted this. After completion of education we all went for different careers. I joined lectureship and he became a news editor. We continued meeting in the evenings. He was a beautiful man both from out and within. His sacrifice has no parallel. He participated in the local democracies elections in `Azad Kashmir under Ayub Khans Martial Law and offered his services to Pakistan Army in 1965. However, the Tashqant agreement between India and Pakistan where Kashmir was pushed on the back burner disappointed Maqbool Bhatt like thousands of other Kashmiris. He became connected with a small network of middle class Kashmiri pro independence activists consisting of migrants from Valley, Jammu, AzadKashmir and Gilgit- Baltistan in Plebiscite Front. In Plebiscite Front, Maqbool Bhatt along with Amanullah Khan initiated debates on the national liberation struggle on the linesof Algeria. Subsequently NLF {National Liberation Front} was formed on 13th August 1965. In June 1966 Maqbool Bhatt along with Aurangzeb originally from Gilgit and Subedar kala Khan from Muzaffarabad crossed back to IOK and during three months stay they recruited several Kashmiris to NLF in various towns across the Valley including Srinagar, Sopur, Baramulla, Bandipura and Anantnag or Islamabad. On their way back to `Azad Kashmir they were intercepted by the Indian security patrol and the shootout that followed left NLF member Aurangzeb and Security inspector Amarchand dead. Maqbool Bhatt and Kala Khan were arrested. Interestingly two FIRs were registered against Maqbool Bhatt with different charges. In one numbered 38 of 1966 at Sopore police station Maqbool Bhatt was accused of illegally crossing the ceasefire line with a criminal conspiracy to overthrow a lawfully established government. In the other, also numbered 38 of 1966 at Panzulla police station he was charged for killing a CID inspector Amar Chand. While the defence pleaded that Amarchand was killed in a cross fire between inspector and Aurangzeb, the special court found Maqbool Bhatt guilty and sentenced him to death. However, after about two years in prison Maqbool Bhatt in a dramatic move escaped from Srinagar prison through a tunnel he secretly dug in for months along with two other prisoners, Amir Ahmed and Choudhary Yasin. After hiding in and walking through the forests and over the snow covered hills and mountains for sixteen days they managed to cross back to `Azad Kashmir. Here they were arrested by Pakistan army and were released after three months of interrogation only after consistent protests by pro independence groups including National Students Federation (NSF), Plebiscite Front andNLF. The events between 1966 and 1968 had profoundimpact on the younger generation of Kashmiris across the division line and made Maqbool Bhatt a popular leader of the National Liberation Movement. His pictures started appearing on the walls across Azad Kashmir with the following couplets by Nazir Anjum, a college lecturer who was also later arrested and kept in Dulahee camp, a notorious prison on the shores of Neelam near Pakistans border with Kashmir. Kitna piyara nahara hey azadi ke matwaloon kaKashmir ka zarra zarra hain Kashmir ke rehney waloon ka How lovely is the slogan of freedom lovers Each and every inch of Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris Zulam ko Aman Adawat ko wafa kehtey hein Kitney nadaan hein sar sar ko saba kehtey hein Mere Kashmir zara jaag keh kuch jaha tallab Gheir ko tere muqadar ka khuda kehtey hein To oppression they call peace and to resentment the loyalty How naive are they who call mere hissing sounds as morning breeze Wake up O My Kashmir! as some status hungry amongst us Say that the occupiers are the masters of your destiny By 1970s the politics of independence grew into a significant force in `Azad Kashmir. In 1970 Maqbool Bhatt led week long activities as part of the Gilgit Baltistan Awareness Week, including a visit to these areas of the Kashmir State directly controlled by Pakistan without even basic democratic and civil rights. Pakistani authorities reacted quickly and forced Maqbool Bhatt and his comrades including Amanullah Khan (JKLF fame) and Abdul Khaliq Ansari (Plebiscite Front Founder) out of the birth place of Amanullah Khan. In 1971 another unprecedented event took place in Kashmir. Two Kashmiris Hashim Qureshi and Ashraf Qureshi hijacked an Indian Fokker Ganga and brought it to Lahore. The incident forced the whole world to stop for a moment and look towards Kashmir, a forgotten legacy of colonial blunders and disregard for the people rights. Hijacking was a widely used tactic amongst the national liberation movements in 1960s to highlight the plight of subjugated and enslaved peoples and nations. The incident stunned all of the Kashmiri leaders especially on the Pakistani occupied side of Kashmir. Sardar Abdul Qayuum who at that time had formed a militant group Al Mujahid according to hijackers, came to see them and made very attractive offer if they announce him as the mastermind of hijacking. However, the Quershis refused to put themselves for sale and revealed that they are NLF members and their leader is Maqbool Bhatt. With many twists and turns Maqbool Bhatt along with Hashim, Ashraf, GM Mir, GM Lone and scores of other NLF activists and pro independence Kashmiris were rounded and bundled away to various Pakistani prisons. (For the details on Ganga Hijacking and the court case that followed see Maqbool Bhatts court statement and letter from Camp prison Lahore to Azra Mir). In 1970s Pakistan saw its first elected government but in the process lost its Eastern wing. The change of Ceasefire Line (CFL) into Line of Control (LoC) by Indira and Bhutto at Shimla and subsequent launch of Pakistan Peoples Party in Azad Kashmir followed by a visit to Mirpur to declare Azad Kashmir as fifth province of Pakistan indicates that he(Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) agreed with his Indian counterpart(Indira Gandhi) on division as the solution of Kashmir. National consensus on any particular solution for Kashmir has not been a particular strength of Kashmiri politics, but one thing they always agreed, and agree, on is that the State must not be divided. Therefore, Bhuttos province move was met with overwhelming rejection. The pro accession (Kashmirs accession with Pakistan) Muslim Conference stood side by side with the pro independence groups to oppose the move. In 1976 Maqbool Bhat once again crossed back to the Indian occupied Kashmir despite the death sentence hanging on him. His move has been criticised by Amanulah Khan and many other pro independence Kashmiris as suicidal. However, it seems that Maqbool Bhatt in his analysis of the situation was convinced beyond any doubt that underground work in IOK was imperative for the development of NLF and that perhaps he was the most qualified amongst the NLF leadership to build on what was initiated during his previous trip in 1966. Within weeks of his entrance to IOK, the security agencies there became aware of Maqbool Bhats move and arrested him. His death sentence was revoked and he spent next ten years in various Kashmiri and Indian prisons with most of the time in Tihar prison,Delhi. In the first week of February 1984, a diplomat Rovindra Mhatre was kidnapped from the Indian consulate Birmingham by `Kashmir Liberation Army. The demands by KLA also included the release of Maqbool Bhatt who was at this point waiting optimistically for response to his legal teams application for judicial review of his case. However, within a space of two days Mhatre was found dead and on 11th February 1984 at 7.00am Kalu, the hangman at Tihar pulled the lever and hooded in black, the Trehgam boy who lied down before the motorcade of village feudal lord to win concessions for the village and the school boy who revolutionized the class divide in his junior school, the Christ look -a -like, dropped down and within minutes was declared dead by the prison doctor. At Srinagar airport local police refused Mehmooda, Maqbool Bhats sister and other family members to get on the flight to Delhi for the last meeting with their rebel boy and forced them to go back to Trehgam. In City Abdul Ghani Lone, Azam Inqlabi and several other Kashmiris brought out processions to protest the hanging of Maqbool Bhatt. In Peshawar his sons Shoukat, Javed daughter Lubna and wife Zakira sat in disbelief for hours. In London where many JKLF activists were taken in on the suspicion of being behind the kidnapping found accusing each other as responsible for the hanging of their leader. Over ten thousand Kashmiris from across Britain went down to Hide Park London in one of the biggest demonstrations of Kashmiris in Britain. In Mirpur, Kotli, Muzaffarabad, Poonch, Rawalakot and other towns across Azad Kashmir angry crowds of Kashmiri youth were expressing their feelings by indulging in various activities at random from shouting slogans to burning Indian and Pakistani flags to clashing with police and making public speeches against the Indian government of Indira Gandhi. I was at Karachi University and before this day never ever participated in any political activity apart from a jalsa (public meeting) of Muslim Conference head Sardar Qayuum in Akalgarh when we were loaded in a bus and brought to the Jalsa, Coming from a Muslim Conference family I strongly opposed the independence ideology and politics. But such compelling were the emotions amongst Kashmiri students in Karachi University that I do not know any student of Kashmiri background regardless of political affiliations who did not go to that protest outside of the Indian embassy in Karachi. It is widely believed amongst pro independence Kashmiris across the globe that last words of Maqbool Bhatt were Kashmir the day of your freedom will come. What is the source of this saying is not known. However, he is on record as saying that if Indian rulers think that by hanging me they will be able to crush the national liberation aspirations and struggle in Kashmir, they are wrong. For in fact the movement will start after my execution. How true he was. At Tihar according to Yasin Bhat who spent there a decade as political prisoner and collected wealth of information from prison staff and inmates about Maqbool Bhatt, the horrified eyes of prisoners were watching through their cells and the lower rank staff for whose employment rights and working conditions Maqbool Bhatt fought many successful legal battles, were silently moving about to do their duties. The body was brought out of the execution spot and silently buried in the prison courtyard where it remains till this day. In fact Maqbool Bhatt has literally been kept prisoner even twenty one years after the execution. The only other example of such disregard of human rights and legal proceedings come to mind is that of Baghat Singh and his comrades who according to a recently made Indian film were refused to see their relatives before execution and were cremated with their ashes thrown in river around 1930s by the British colonial rulers in India. Yasin Bhatt, who has recently been released, wrote from Tihar prison in 1990s, that the prisoners have since turned the grave of Maqbool Bhatt into that of a saint. Every year on 11th February prisoners of all faiths and backgrounds from across India and Kashmir clean the grave spray it with whatever fragrance available to them, light candles and pray for the legend of modern Kashmir history according to their own faiths. This they do because during his time at Tihar Maqbool Bhatt made it his business to fight for the rights of prisoners. In fact he initiated and led a successful campaign for the right to leave and uniforms for the lower rank prison staff. Maqbool Bhatt must have written about his life and struggle during his long time in Tihar but as niece Mobina told to rediff reporter on his visit to Trehgam four years ago, nothing of his possessions has been returned to his family as yet. From his statement before Lahore High Court and his letters from prison recently compiled by Saeed Asad in Azad Kashmir (this book called Shaoor e Farda; a vision of tomorrow is banned in this Azad Kashmir) he appears a very well read revolutionary whose analysis of national liberation struggle in Kashmir but also of other South Asian nations and those of world would prove a great addition into the modern literature on nationalism and neo-colonialism in South Asia. While the Indian official sources would like the world to believe that Maqbool Bhatt was nothing but a murderer who was hanged according to law of the land for his crime, the one big question Indian rulers have to answer sooner or later is why then was he buried in prison? Is this the law of the land of the largest democracy on earth? Why is he in prison twenty one years after his execution? Is this legal in the country created through the national liberation struggle led by such leaders as Gandhi and Nehru and that is now making its way to sit on the UN security council seat as permanent member? Twenty one years on Maqbool Bhatt has grown into an undisputed leader of the pro independence struggle and architect of the modern Kashmiri nation and Kashmiriyat. Which other leader brings Kashmiris of all political opinions together across the division line and in the world? For Maqbool Bhatt the old saying fits perfectly well that revolutionary may die but never the revolution. Maqbool Bhatt lives on in the hearts and minds of hundred thousands of Kashmiris across globe and his 21st anniversary is being commemorated in USA, UK, Europe, IOK, POK and in Pakistan by Kashmiris. That is what Maqbool Bhatt meant when before a Pakistani court he said that I am an agent of Kashmiri people and to them I leave the decision about my role in the struggle for independence. ENDS HERE.The author is originally from Mirpur, `Azad Kashmir, settled in Britain since 1988. Article No. 2 The Story of Maqbool Bhat Feb 11.2001 The Rediff Special/ Chindu Sreedharan February 11. Maqbool Bhat Day. rediff visited Trehgam, the village where the author of Kashmirs armed struggle hailed from... Up two flights of narrow wooden steps into this battered double-storeyed building, you find a small latched door on your right. Open it and you are in what was once Mohammed Maqbool Bhats world: A small low-ceilinged room, wooden-floored, dark, except for the dash of sunlight the partially open bird-window admits. This was Tothas room, Bhats sister, Mehmooda, says. Totha in Kashmiri means dearest. Trehgam is moderately large, a few kilometres along an excuse of a road from the border town of Kupwara. Piles of straw spell its rural culture. February 11, the 17th anniversary of Bhats execution in New Delhis Tihar jail, evoked a strike call from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference -- one that has received less than complete response. The first Kashmiri to pick up the gun, Bhat is known as Shaheed-e-Kashmir or the Martyr of Kashmir. In Trehgam this year, there are no VIPs from Srinagar visiting his family. No APHC leader, nor any of his followers in the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. If that bothers Mehmooda, she does not show it. The family quietly goes about observing the anniversary of Maqbools death. They had sat with 27 students of the darul-ul-aloom (school for Islamic education) in the morning, reading the Quran for the peace of their heros soul. Now, it is time for a small feast. The cease-fire seems to have given the family some respite -- the army has not come knocking on their door this year, which, says Mehmooda, is otherwise normal every February 11. Last year they came four, five times, asking who all had come here. They tried to take Mansoors (Bhats youngest brother, a militant killed in an encounter) photograph, the only one we have... I fought with the officer. I told him that, whatever he does, we would observe this day. Seventeen years have passed since Bhat was hanged and his body refused to his family. But his memory lives, larger than life, in the minds of the Kashmiris. There is no photograph of Bhat in this house, no personal belonging. His family says most of whatever they had has been destroyed/taken away by the army. There were albums and his letters... we had hidden those, sewed them inside cushions, Mehmooda says. But they found it during a search operation (in the early 1990s). On the rusted ramshackle gate opening to her late brother Ghulam Nabis house, there is a drawing: A young moustached face looks at you gravely through powerful eyes. Thats Mansoors work, a family friend tells you. To Kashmiris, Maqbool Bhat symbolises the spirit of freedom. He is revered, a sort of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh rolled into one, his image second only to that of Sheikhsaab (Sheikh Abdullah). Perhaps thats an unfair comparison. As a keen Kashmir watcher points out, Sheikh Abdullah lived a much longer life, while Maqbool Bhat was in the public eye for less than 20 years. Bhat authored the armed Kashmir movement in 1965 -- insurgency as New Delhi would have it, freedom struggle as Kashmiris call it. He was the first to demand independence for Kashmir. In his small room in Trehgam, as his family tells you, he used to gather his friends and teach them about Kashmir. Sometimes, remembers Abdul Ahmad Shah, Mansoors friend, he used to talk to the people at the Pandits shamshan ghat (cremation ground). A five-minute walk from his house, it had -- still has -- a spring running through, whereon is a thin, longish island. His audience comprised of his friends and the illiterate people of the village, continues Shah. Maqbool used to make them all sit in a line there. He had a small blackboard on which he used draw Kashmir and explain how we were all slaves. Mansoor and I, we were small children then, but we used to watch him. A little later, in 1958, Bhat, aged 20, crossed over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. That was the fifth time he was trying (to cross over), says Abdul Rashid Parray, who was with him on a failed attempt. On his fourth attempt, we managed to reach the Line of Control in Kupwara. There were three of us. We put up in a house at the border. The next morning, we packed some provisions and were just about start when my uncle, who was the village head, reached there on a horse. He handed us over to the police. We were all beaten up... After that Maqbools family sent him to Baramulla (some 60 km away) for studies. But that didnt stop him from crossing over. He was an intelligent man, a man of great thoughts. He knew what he wanted. He was not for Pakistan or India, but for Kashmir. He was a true freedom fighter, is how Hashim Querishi, Bhats protégé, who later came into the limelight when he masterminded Independent Indias first hijacking, puts it. Bhat spent the next few years in Muzaffarabad. In 1962, he formed the Kashmir Independence Committee, which he later merged with the Plebiscite Front. It was in 1965 that he formed the National Liberation Front. And with that started the armed struggle of Kashmir. The next year, Bhat returned to India with a group of NLF activists. But they were spotted. In the encounter that followed, an army officer was killed and Maqbool Bhat arrested. He was tried for murder and sentenced to death in Srinagar. Two weeks later, he escaped and returned to PoK -- only to be arrested there. He was dubbed an Indian agent and tortured. Later, he was released on the orders of Pakistans supreme court. But that incident, as he wrote in a letter to a friend, made him see the other side of Pakistan. I was happy to be safe in my home but this happiness was short-lived... What happened in the Black Fort had shaken me and forced me to rethink on who was a friend and who was a foe. Bhat returned to India and was arrested. He was shifted to Tihar jail, where he remained till his execution on February 11, 1984. That hasty move was brought about by the killing of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in Birmingham, UK, who had been kidnapped by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front militants to secure Bhats release. I was then in London to organise a hijack to free Maqbool, says Hashim Querishi, who had by then been released from a Pakistan jail where he was imprisoned for the 1971 hijacking. When I came to know about the kidnapping I fought with Amanullah (Khan, JKLF leader, now in Pakistan). I told him it was wrong. And when they hanged Maqbool Bhat, I slapped him. Mhatres murder cost Bhat his life. But, in his death, he acquired a place in Kashmiri hearts that can perhaps never be usurped. Sensitive. Quiet. Intellectual. Secular... Those who knew Bhat do not have enough adjectives to describe him. His first and last love was Kashmir, says one such person. He fired the romantic spirit of the Kashmiris, especially the younger generation. I met him twice in jail, says Mehmooda. The first time I was a child of about 10. The second was when he was in Tihar. I was 16 then. He was in chains, I remember, but he looked hale and hearty. When I wept, he told me, Be brave. I have taken a step for the nation... I am in chains, but I dont feel chained. I prefer the other world. None of Bhats family -- not his stepmother, not his siblings -- got to see him before he was hanged. We went to Srinagar airport, says Mehmooda, but the police stopped us from leaving for Delhi. The execution saw Kashmiris take to the streets, demanding his body be released to his family. The authorities refused and buried him in Tihar. There were processions, protests galore, but to no avail. Today, as both Bhats family and Querishi point out, there are many who try to capitalise on his name. They claim Bhat as their own, as did a Pakistani colonel whom Mehmooda met in PoK on a recent visit there. He tried to tell me that Maqbool was for accession to Pakistan, she says. But I told him no, he was for an independent Kashmir. Mubina, Bhats niece, has another point to make. They never returned any of his personal belongings from Tihar, she says. I hope they will at least allow us some soil from where he is buried. We have reserved some space for him here. So they have. Between the graves of Ghulam Nabi and Mansoor in Trehgams small graveyard, home to many of Bhats followers.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 06:15:12 +0000