Fateh Muhammad Malik
Kashmir freedom movement was launched as an integral part of the movement for the creation of Pakistan. The leading light of the Kashmir struggle is none other than the spiritual father of Pakistan, Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938). In his last public speech Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah recalled: “Iqbal at the beginning of this century visited Kashmir, when ignorance and poverty was everywhere. He prayed to God to ignite the flame of revolution and it was this time in my life that my mind changed into a fire of sacrifice and struggle.” 1
The prayer to which a mention has been made here is contained in the following concluding lines of Saqi Nama, composed by Iqbal in Nishat Bagh, during his first visit to the valley in 1921:
“The Kashmiri is imprisoned by bonds of servitude,
Chisels the gravestone for his own grave,
Is without inspiration of ideals,
Has no self-respect,
His master wears silken robes through the labour of his slave,
Whose own body is clothed in tattered rage,
He sees no future for himself,
In his heart he nurses no ambition,
But the time will come when a spark will ignite
And he will burst forth into revolt within him”2
Iqbal’s active concern for the miserable plight of the Kashmiris under Dogra despotism dates back to his student days in Lahore. He became the General-Secretary of the Anjuman-e-Kashmiri Musalmanan-e-Lahore and contributed regularly his signed as well as anonymous writings to the Kashmir Magazine. In one of his poems he called upon the Kashmiris to unite themselves “like the letters (k, sh, m, and r) of the word Kashmir”, and in another he observed:
“The clutches of tyranny and ignorance has humbled us,
By clipping our wings and pinions, like a pair of scissors,
O Lord! break the hand of tyranny
That has crushed the spirit of freedom in Kashmir.”
The diction of the poem may be faulty because of the juxtaposition of dast-e-sitamkaish and paamaal, but the insight of the young poet-philosopher into the socio-economic and politico-spiritual ailments of the Kashmiri society is very deep. The slavery of a heartless slave dynasty had degenerated the average Kashmiri into passive sufferer of dehumanizing poverty and indignity. Pointing out some of the factors which have contributed to this degeneration a British Settlement Commissioner of the State had observed in 1895: “A man who can be beaten and robbed by anyone with a vestige of authority soon ceases to respect himself and his fellow-men and it is useless to look for the virtues of a free people among the Kashmiris. The Kashmiri is what his rulers have made him.”3
Today it may sound incredible that during the rule of Maharaja Pratap Singh (September 1885-December 1925), the penalty of killing a cow was death by burning; an old Muslim and seventeen members of his family, including children, were burnt alive in the presence of the Governor for being suspected of cow killing. In 1924 in a village in Tehsil Pulwama a child broke one branch from a mulberry tree and thus became the cause of his father’s death by severe beating and head injuries. 4
Iqbal’s poetry ignited the fire of resistance to revolt against this soulless despotism. Commenting upon the role of Iqbal in the awakening and the transformation of Kashmir, Maulana Abdullah Qureshi stated in an interview: “It was because of Iqbal’s emotional involvement in the movement for the uplift of the Muslims of Kashmir and because he had written special progressive poems to be recited at the meetings of the Kashmiri Anjumans which he attended that had made a great impression on Sheikh Abdullah, from the first time of meeting Iqbal in Lahore in 1925, as a student of Islamia College. Iqbal used to address the annual sessions of the Anjuman-e-Himayat-i-Islam and Sheikh Abdullah attended all the meetings and used to meet Iqbal in Lahore at that time.”5
Highlighting the dynamic world-view of Iqbal, Sheikh Abdullah wrote in a personal letter to Khawaja Ghulam-ud-Din Wani: “I am very much attached to him spiritually and he impresses me very much because as a Poet of the East all his predictions have proved correct.”6 Iqbal inspired Kashmir freedom movement as a creative genius as well as a political activist. After the July 1931 uprising when curfew and martial law was imposed in Srinagar, Iqbal became the spear-head of Kashmir struggle. Only a few months before the beginning of this popular revolt, Iqbal had formally presented the ideal of separate Muslim homelands based on the ideology of a separate Muslim nationhood in British India. He immediately took the initiative from the All India Kashmir Committee and was elected its Secretary General. According to Abdullah Qureshi: “Iqbal supported the Kashmir movement not only politically but financially and morally. He wrote many letters to affluent people in India to help the cause of the Kashmiris. This is the only time in his life that he asked for money for the Kashmir cause. There are many letters in his book in which he has made this appeal. He arranged for advocates from Punjab, Bihar and Patna to help conduct the cases of political prisoners in the Kashmir movement of 1931-33.”7