Once upon a time in Kashmir
After a struggle of about two decades, Qurban Ali admitted that neither his party nor the people were ready for the socialist revolution (p 47). This had something serious to do with both the party and its leadership
“Shaoor ki sargoshi” is the eleventh book of a Kashmiri comrade, Barrister Qurban Ali, who founded the first Marxist-Leninist party—Jammu Kashmir People’s National Party (JKPNP)—in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir in 1985 and after a revolutionary struggle of over three decades passed away in the same city in July 2012. This anthology containing fifty essays on issues related to Pakistan, India, the Middle East, American imperialism, etc, with primary focus on Kashmir has been published posthumously by his party.In the past several decades, we have heard and read in print and electronic media the viewpoint of only the religious and political organisations struggling in the two Kashmirs controlled by Pakistan and India whereas this collection provides an opportunity to understand the perspective of Kashmiri communists active in the Pakistan controlled Kashmir as JKPNP has no roots in the Indian-held Kashmir (IHK).
The first progressive party in pre-partitioned princely state of Kashmir called “Kashmir Socialist Party” was established by Prem Nath Bozaz and Kanhaiyya Lal Kaul in March 1942 and another Marxist organisation known as the “Young Socialist League” was also formed in the middle of the same year but both could gain popularity only among the educated youth in the valley of Kashmir with no outreach to the rural areas where the majority lived. To rally the working class Kashmiris on one platform, Prem Nath Bozaz organised a three-day conference of peasants and workers in a village near Anantnag in May 1946 in which was raised for the first time the banner of “Azad Kashmir.”Abdus Salam Yatu, who presided over this conference said that the most important question of the time was whether Kashmir would be ruled by the representatives of the working classes or the upper class, in view of the coming collapse of the British Raj in the subcontinent? The conference failed in its objective because post-partition, the divided Kashmir came under the control of Pakistan and India. In the next two decades, no communist organisation could be set in Azad Kashmir because “communism” had become a “curse word” in the Cold War years nonetheless when the author returned after completing education in the UK, he first set an underground communist cell in Mirpur in 1979 but over time realised that mass awareness could be best created through a political party and thus established the JKPNP in 1985 with the objective to bring a national democratic revolution in Azad Kashmir by ending the jagirdari system and evicting the non-Kashmiris that had “usurped” political power. After partition, the “progressive” elements could not establish themselves because the communists were witch-hunted and therefore the liberation struggle gradually turned into a bourgeois national movement in which the organisations in Azad Kashmir only talked about liberating the IHK from India whereas the Kashmiri political parties in IHK protested over the Pakistani control in Azad Kashmir. Later on, the Kashmiri nationalists in Azad Kashmir lost control of this movement to the religio-political organisations, who, after the successful culmination of the Islamic revolution in Iran were upbeat that just as the Afghan mujahideen had defeated Soviet Russia in Afghanistan, the Kashmiri mujahideen could defeat the Indian forces in IHK. Incidentally, this religious touch was based on idealism that was devoid of the ground realities in Kashmir whereas JKPNP was the party, which, for the first time, not only raised the status of Kashmiris as a nation but also linked the question of national liberation movement with the issue of class conflict. Although JKPNP did want to form an alliance with the liberation-minded parties, the author alleged that some of them acted as the “puppets” of the “foreign” powers in the garb of nationalism.
Qurban Ali thought that the Kashmir issue in nutshell was the realisation of the national and democratic rights of the people of Kashmir which should had been granted to them through the right of self-determination. He alleged that both Pakistan and India wanted to divide Kashmir between themselves and suspected once they would reach an agreement, they would seal the pact with the approval of the“puppet” Kashmiri parties, who had already declared that they would accept whatever agreement on Kashmir would be reached between India and Pakistan. He pointed out that the parties that were the real representatives of the Kashmiris were never involved in the process of dialogue on Kashmir by India and Pakistan and warned that if the division of Kashmir was finalisedby these “foreign powers”, it would be rejected by the Kashmiris.
The author was a bit confused about the role of the US. On one hand, he argued that the US would prevail upon Pakistan and India to reach an agreement on the Kashmir issue so that he could bring the two antagonists closer to pit them against China (p 62). The launching of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has brought the two nations as close as never before whereas the growing violations across the LoC have dimmed the prospect of resumption of Pakistan-India peace process in near future. On the other hand, he self-contradicted by stating that America did not want the resolution of the Kashmir issue because its intention was to occupy Kashmir, itself (p 83). That was a long shot with no detailed explanation as to how the US could occupy it.
After a struggle of about two decades, Qurban Ali admitted that neither his party nor the people were ready for the socialist revolution (p 47). This had something serious to do with both the party and its leadership. For example, even in the most important party meetings, it was normal for the central party leaders to report late. How could those who did not realise the importance of time change the fate of the Kashmiri nation? Moreover, whenever a party meeting was convened at whatever level, about one-third members did not bother to attend it. Furthermore, the membership fee of the party in Azad Kashmir was a paltry amount and many members did not care to pay which clearly showed their level of commitment to the party and its program. In addition, many members were afraid to make any sacrifice for the party. This was straight talk which indicates that at the fag end of his political journey, the author had begun to feel frustration and bitterness, which is aptly summed up in a couplet by one of his admirers:
Ab rahein chaiyn say bey dard zamany waley
So gaye khawb say logo ko jaganey waley
.
.
Mer kebhi martey hein kab ‘Qurban Ali’ ki terha
Shama tareek fizaon may jalaney waley
Shaoor ki sargoshi [muntakhabmazameen] by Qurban Ali, published by Jammu Kashmir People’s National Party, Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, pages 287, price Rs 400/- hardbound