Noor Ahmad Baba*
Four years ago, on August 7, 2020, Prof Agha Ashraf Ali (1922-2020), a multi-faceted personality, left this world after living an eventful 98 years.
He was an educationist, thinker, public speaker, and humanist, committed to his Muslim identity and Kashmiri roots. He was also privileged to have belonged to a socially and educationally reasonably empowered family at a time when common masses in Kashmir were generally dispossessed in all parameters of socio-political standing.
Born in 1922, he witnessed momentous times and the ripening of a revolutionary ferment in Kashmir and all across the Indian Subcontinent. Anti-colonial struggles were sweeping the whole colonised world in Asia and Africa until finally at the end of World War II the decolonisation gained momentum, leading to national emancipation and democratic assertions across the Afro-Asian region.
In 1947, when the British left the subcontinent leaving two independent states to manage their affairs, Agha Ashraf Ali was 25 years old with reasonably good exposure and education.
It was at this juncture that Kashmir saw the establishment of a responsible government committed to reforms and socio-economic empowerment of its dispossessed people under a 1944 New Kashmir manifesto. The massive task of social reconstruction that was being undertaken required the services of educated young people sharing the vision and committed to the change. Therefore, upon returning to the state in December 1951 after academic pursuits in Aligarh, Jamia, and England, he found a role waiting for him in the state’s educational administration.
Sheikh Abdullah, then the prime minister of the state, appointed him as the inspector of schools. Subsequently, he headed the school education board and established and headed the teachers’ training college. During 1960-64 he was in the US under the Fullbright programme for the pursuit of his Ph.D. After securing the degree, he was appointed professor in Kashmir University and played a pioneering role in establishing (1968) and consolidating the department of education in the University of Kashmir. He was also at a later stage appointed as commissioner of education in the state.
During 1971-1972, he even had a national role as a member of the Bhagwan Sahai Committee on Education. Thus, through all these positions, he played a vital role in strengthening and expanding the educational sector in the state and in drawing hitherto left-out Muslims including their women towards education.
From day one, Agha Ashraf played a vital role in reforming the education sector in J&K as an administrator, civil servant, teacher, professor and principal. According to Moosa Raza**, former chief secretary of J&K, “Major credit for encouraging and ensuring the education of Muslims, especially girls, goes to him.” He even encouraged socially weak students to find opportunities outside Kashmir and used his personal contacts to facilitate the process. His office in the education department at Kashmir University operated more like a dialogue chamber attended by a host of university colleagues under his sagacious presidency.
However, he gained greater significance as a popular speaker and public intellectual after his superannuation from the regular services in 1992. He began to be actively associated with various public initiatives and emerged as a popular public speaker at different academic and social functions within Kashmir. In addition to speaking in schools and colleges, he became almost a regular feature in academic functions at Kashmir University, and occasionally at the University of Jammu across various departments.
It is in this role that he gained public appreciation and committed following as a public intellectual focusing on social, political and academic concerns and issues. He would always encourage the youth for critical thinking.
In this role, he became widely respected, gained public appreciation, and developed a dedicated audience as a public intellectual. With a sense of commitment, he addressed social, political, and academic issues, consistently encouraging young people to think critically. In his style of conversation, he was more like a storyteller, revealing his remarkable memory and relating his personal experiences with anecdotes about some of the remarkable persons, who had left a deep imprint on his mind, and whom he had come across during his academic career (from within and outside India). He would quote or read passages from these individuals, often from his remarkable memory, and deliver them in the tone and manner of the original speakers.
He was also a man of literary taste. Ghalib. Iqbal and Faiz were among his favourite poets. He had great admiration for Iqbal as a thinker and his concern for the Muslim reform and renaissance. He would always stress cultivating reading habits and refer to a number of good books on religion, history and a variety of other disciplines. He often referred to Joseph Needham’s multi-volume monumental work on Science and Civilisation in China. During such lectures, he would also refer to and quote some important writings on Islam that seem to have influenced and inspired him. These included Marshal G. S. Hodgson’s Venture of Islam, (3 volumes) and various other contemporary writings on Islam.
He was particularly inspired by the life of Prophet of Islam. He would claim to have been exposed to Marxist thought and other ideological influences but insisted that; “the reality is that the love of Prophet (PBUH) never allowed anything or anybody to creep into my personality,” (quote from one of his interviews). In this regard, he would refer to Martin Lings’ Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources with admiration. He would urge the audience to read it. In addition, he would also refer to several other books on Islam and Sufism.
In his personal life, he identified himself with the mystic tradition of Islam. In this regard, he had tremendous admiration for Louis Massignon’s three volume monumental work on al-Hallaj, (The Passion of al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam). In the context of Kashmir, he particularly exhibited a lot of reverence towards the two pillars of its mystic tradition – Lala Ded and Sheikh-ul Alam. The two have had tremendous significance in shaping the social consciousness of Kashmiri society and had laid the basis of its composite tradition and identity.
His lectures were often unstructured and somewhat haphazard but full of pearls of wisdom and energy. Most often, his discourses would turn into an unending (rather continuing) dialogue. He spoke with equal proficiency in English, Urdu and Kashmiri, and seamlessly transitioned between these languages. That made his discourses effective and impactful on the audience.
His sense of humour, anecdotes with local flavour and sagacious wisdom added attraction and value for his speeches. He would encourage questions and quite often attempted long answers, digressing in the process. Even as an octogenarian, in later decades of his life, I have seen him speak and answer questions for up to three hours in one go.
He was, straightforward and spoke out of his conviction for the socio-political and economic emancipation of Kashmiri society and never hesitated to speak critical of the powers that would be. That included even Sheikh Abdullah for whom at one level he had a degree of admiration for his progressive policies that aimed at empowering Kashmiri people.
In his discourses he literally followed the Socratic tradition, who wrote little but spoke a lot in the propagating of his wisdom.
*Noor Ahmad Baba is a Professor of Political Science, and Former Dean, School of Social Sciences, Kashmir & Central University of Kashmir
(**This article has been updated with correction in name of Moosa Raza, former chief secretary of J&K in para eight. The name was wrongly published as Moonis Raza, who was an Indian academic and a close associate of Agha Ashraf Ali)
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