Archival Note: This article by Kashmir Times founding editor, Ved Bhasin, is reproduced from the Kashmir Times, 29 September 1986. It was published under the regular column Jammu Jottings - offering commentary on political, cultural, and literary affairs.
Sheikh Abdullah's autobiography "Atish-e-Chinar" contains several inaccuracies and distortions, some of which may be due to the Kashmir leader's fading memory at an advanced age. But a few incidents mentioned and personalities discussed by Sheikh Saheb in his book, cannot escape the accusation that some facts were deliberately distorted to distinguish Sheikh Abdullah from some of his other equally famous compatriots.
The most glaring of these distortions that amount to an attempt at character assassination is the one relating to the late Majlis-e-Ahrar leader of Punjab, Shorish Kashmiri. Sheikh Abdullah would like us to believe that Shorish had vehemently supported the Muslim League’s demand for the division of India and the creation of Pakistan.
Nothing can be further from the truth than this accusation against a leader who was more outspoken and outright in his opposition to the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his theory of Pakistan, than any other nationalist Muslim leader of the pre-partition days. Like other Ahrar leaders, Shorish had the courage of conviction to stand up boldly against the Muslim League and its politics as they were advocating the cause of freedom.
I had the good fortune of personally meeting Shorish Kashmiri twice before the partition of the country and was impressed as much by his powerful writings as his oratory. He had not only a very powerful pen but was also a firebrand orator, his speeches inter-woven with choicest couplets of Urdu poetry.
The first time I had the privilege to meet Shorish at Bradlaugh Hall in Lahore which was the centre of Punjab progressive politics and an abode of revolutionaries. The office of the Punjab Socialist Party was situated in this very building which was frequented by the National Conference leaders like Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed and G.M. Sadiq, who were then leading the "Quit Kashmir" movement from Lahore where they were in exile. Incidentally, my first meeting with these two stalwarts of the National Conference also took place in Lahore at the Kashmir Muslim Hotel.
Shorish impressed me with his conversation during which he would unsparingly attack the Muslim League and its politics. He was forthright in his condemnation of the demand for Pakistan and the British policy of "divide and rule." In fact, he condemned Muslim League more vehemently than any of the Congress leaders had done.
The second time I met Shorish Saheb was at R.S. Pura in early 1947 when he accompanied Aruna Asif Ali on her visit to Jammu in support of the NC struggle against autocracy. At the instance of Right-wing R.S. Pura groups, Choudhary Bharat Bhushan, had organised demonstrations against Aruna Asif Ali. A group of boozers mobilised for this purpose raised slogans against Asif Ali and NC and attempted to disturb the meeting with drum beating. As someone from the demonstrators tried to snatch the Congress flag from the stage, Aruna, who was a terror for the British empire, came forward and shouted: "Hai koi mai ka lal jo yeh jhanda mere hath se chhin sake." (Is there any son of a mother who could snatch this flag from my hand).
She went on to say that the Britishers, with all their gun power, could not do it, how could the native agents of the Britishers (a reference to princely states) could do it. A lathi hit Syed Nazir Samnani* who, along with me, was standing by the side of Aruna Asif Ali on the dais.
At this juncture an enraged Shorish came forward, took the mike from Aruna's hands and started reciting couplets condemning the British empire, native rulers (monarch), the Muslim League and Hindu Sabha for playing "the role of toadies**".
When Choudhary Bharat Bhushan interrupted him to describe the NC leaders and nationalist Muslim leaders as "goondas", Shorish roared: "Zahid-e-Tang nazar ne kafir jana aur kafir yeh samjhata hai ke Musalmaan hoon mein***."
In condemning Britishers and their Indian allies, he repeatedly ridiculed the demand for "Pakistan."
* Samnani was the then provincial General Secretary of the National Conference
**Toadies was a term many Indian freedom fighters used for those Indians who used to curry favour with colonial authorities.
***This couplet is often attributed to Allama Iqbal. Though its authorship remains contested, the full couplet reads as:
Zahid-e-tangnazar ne mujhe kafir jaana
Aur kafir ye samajhta hai ke Musalmaan hoon main
Ae chashme-udoo mujh ko hiqarat se na dekh
Jis pe qudrat ko hai naaz woh insaan hoon main
(The narrow-minded ascetic called me an infidel,
and the infidel believes me to be a Muslim.
O hostile eye, do not look upon me with contempt
I am the human in whom Nature herself takes pride)
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