10-29-2006, 07:28 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Abdullah takes a cosmopolitan bride </b>
K. Z. Islam
<b>Sheikh Abdullah married the daughter of Harry Nedou, the European proprietor of a chain of hotels in India including Nedou's hotel in Srinagar</b>. Harry had converted to Islam and took the name Sheikh Ahmed Hossain. He married a Kashmiri girl and they had a daughter called Akbar Jahan. Akbar Jahan completed her Senior Cambridge from the English Missionary Convent at Murree in the Punjab. Akbar Jahan was a Muslim, but it is unlikely that she, and her background, which included a previous marriage when she had lived in cosmopolitan Bombay, would have fitted in easily with the orthodoxy represented by Mirwaiz Mohammed Yusuf Shah. Mirwaiz, it will be recalled, was the title given to the Islamic religious leader in Kashmir.
 Mufti Ziauddin of Poonch played a significant role in arranging Abdullah's marriage. It must have been quite an unusual step taken by Abdullah to marry a girl of mixed parentage. Although Abdullah's political pre-occupations and stints in jail kept him pretty much busy yet he agreed to the persuasions of his friends. The financial advantages of the marriage were evident at that time and it marked a crucial early step in Sheikh Abdullah's progress towards becoming the richest man in the State.
 Despite her mixed origin and cosmopolitan upbringing Akbar Jahan became a devout Muslim. She was under the influence of Maulvi Mohiuddin who came from Kabul and was appointed Headmaster of the Islamia High School in Srinagar. Ultimately he resigned his post and spent the rest of his life as a dervish. He played a significant role in Akbar Jahan s spiritual training.
 Soon after Abdullah's engagement he was once again arrested and confined to Udahampur. He corresponded regularly with his fianc e. He was released at the end of a six-month period after which he married Akbar Jahan in October 1933. They moved into a rented house in Puchwara and later shifted to the residential quarter of his father-in-law located at the back of Nedou's hotel. Abdullah's brother helped him to construct a house near their ancestral home in Surak, where they finally settled down.
 During the winters Akbar Jahan and the family visited her parents and whenever possible Abdullah joined them. Evidently theirs was a very close and intimate relationship and Akbar Jahan proved to be a true friend and comrade to Abdullah. She introduced order in his turbulent life. Patiently facing all the trials she was Abdullah's source of strength and inspiration. In Abdullah's absence she ran the house single-handedly and never complained. It was her untiring effort that resulted in their children completing their education notwithstanding Abdullah's continued absence from the domestic scene. Akbar Jahan was a perfect home maker whose main concern was to look after her children's problems.
 Eventually, however, <b>she was dragged into national politics. It happened at a time when Abdullah was in prison and their movement was at the lowest ebb. During the 'Quit Kashmir' movement of 1946, Maharajah Hari Singh and his Prime Minister Kak launched an offensive against their movement. </b>Akbar Jahan promptly stepped out of the seclusion of her home and toured village after village kindling hope in the heart of the helpless.
 After the announcement of Independence on 2nd June 1947, Nehru was very keen to visit Kashmir. He was dissuaded by Mountbatten who preferred that the visit be made by Gandhi. During this visit Gandhi met Akbar Jahan as Abdullah was in jail. Gandhi advised Akbar Jahan to have courage. <b>She not only attended Gandhi's prayer meetings but also participated in them by reciting the Quran</b>. This was, no doubt, a remarkable move by a Kashmiri lady in a conservative society.
 In late 1947 when Kashmir was attacked by the tribals Akbar Jahan organized a Red Cross team and devoted herself to tending the afflicted. Her work in the recovery and rehabilitation of abducted women was greatly admired by the Mountbattens. After 1953 she was implicated in the Kashmir conspiracy case and soon she became the butt of slanderous attack. But she faced all these indignities with courage and fortitude.
 In 1971, when Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, who had been the Chief Minister of Kashmir for ten years, decided to contest elections for Lok Sabha, Akbar Jahan supported an unknown contestant Shameem Ahmed. In this election Bakshi suffered a crushing defeat.
 The Abdullahs had seven children. Two daughters died in infancy. Their eldest son Farooq Abdullah, who is a doctor, eventually became the Chief Minister of Kashmir. In the midterm poll held in 1977, Akbar Jahan was elected to the Parliament. Because of Abdullah's ill health and household pressures she decided not to contest in the next election. Instead she opened a centre for the education of the poor and destitute children. By all accounts Akbar Jahan remains a very outstanding Kashmiri lady.
 We now turn to some personal glimpses of Abdullah's character. Amin Pandit, who began working for the Sheikh's political machine as a sub-editor on the party's daily newspaper, Khidmat (meaning "service"), remembers the first time he was on the receiving end of Abdullah's terrible temper. "I turned on the radio to listen to the 1.30 pm news on All India Radio. We had no teleprinter or news agency service and this is how we gathered our information. I would write it down as fast as I could and reproduce it for the paper. Before the news came on, some music was playing. The Sheikh heard it and came up to me with his hand raised to slap me in the face. Luckily for me he restrained himself but he shouted: 'Do you think this is a ballroom?' He often slapped his subordinates. He slapped his children all over the house. Everybody in the family was scared of him. Even his wife was nervous of him when he went out of control. He was a very emotional man, very sentimental.
 The Sheikh's son and political heir, Farooq Abdullah, has talked of the thrashings he received from his father for ducking school, smoking and other offences. These punishments were so brutal that the Sheikh's homecomings from frequent bouts in jail could be more dreaded than joyful. "Sheikh Abdullah showed no affection or concern for his family," is how Aditya Sinha summed up the family relationship in his biography, Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir's Prodigal Son. When the Sheikh was due to come home Farooq and his siblings would drop at the feet of their mother, Begum Abdullah and beg forgiveness for their minor pranks and "entreat her not to tell their father and promise never to repeat their wild behaviour." Farooq Abdullah remembers a particularly savage beating when he was caught smoking, a habit his father liberally indulged in. Even the family servant, Amma, was permitted to dole out punishments during paternal absences.
 M. J. Akbar has recorded in his India The Siege Within a near-contemporary, D. N. Kaul, who rose to become Inspector-General of Police when Sheikh Abdullah was Chief Minister towards the end of his life, as describing those days: My elder brother whom he (Sheikh Abdullah) taught science used to recall how the tall, slenderly built, fez-capped master in science would render many a scientific term into everyday Kashmiri so as to ensure quick and easy comprehension by the young, captive audience before him. He exuded awe among the students, not only by his censorious and rigorous sense of discipline, but also by his stature, physical and academic, not only vis-a-vis the students but even in comparison to other members of the teaching establishment. Soon after, through the narrow lanes of Srinagar I used to see him lead processions of arm-swinging, vociferously gesticulating and slogan-shouting men. I can still recall his sonorous, mellifluous voice in his public speeches which invariably began with recitations from the Quran or Iqbal's verses. With his audience totally Muslim, and the influence of the university still dominant, Sheikh Abdullah organized the Muslim Conference to take up the cause of his community. But the strains of the future were visible even then: the true fight, he said, was against feudalism, and for self-rule and land reform.
 It may be recalled that the Maharajah had yielded to a sustained movement led by Abdullah and agreed to form an elected Assembly called Praja Sabha. The majority of the members in the Praja Sabh were nominated, only 28 per cent were elected. The Muslim Conference Parliamentary Party elected Mian Ahmed Yar Khan as leader and Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg as deputy leader. The first session of Praja Sabha was held on 17 October 1934. It was a strange assembly! All the legislative powers were in the hands of the Maharajah. He could also veto any act passed by the Assembly. The Assembly could not discuss matters pertaining to the Maharajah's personal expenses or the army. The Maharajah could nominate any one as a member of the Assembly. Despite these shortcomings, the experiment proved beneficial to Abdullah's movement. It brought the Muslim and the non-Muslim members of the Assembly closer to each other, and in 1936, the entire country saw all the elected members of Jammu and Kashmir staging a joint walk-out.
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K. Z. Islam
<b>Sheikh Abdullah married the daughter of Harry Nedou, the European proprietor of a chain of hotels in India including Nedou's hotel in Srinagar</b>. Harry had converted to Islam and took the name Sheikh Ahmed Hossain. He married a Kashmiri girl and they had a daughter called Akbar Jahan. Akbar Jahan completed her Senior Cambridge from the English Missionary Convent at Murree in the Punjab. Akbar Jahan was a Muslim, but it is unlikely that she, and her background, which included a previous marriage when she had lived in cosmopolitan Bombay, would have fitted in easily with the orthodoxy represented by Mirwaiz Mohammed Yusuf Shah. Mirwaiz, it will be recalled, was the title given to the Islamic religious leader in Kashmir.
 Mufti Ziauddin of Poonch played a significant role in arranging Abdullah's marriage. It must have been quite an unusual step taken by Abdullah to marry a girl of mixed parentage. Although Abdullah's political pre-occupations and stints in jail kept him pretty much busy yet he agreed to the persuasions of his friends. The financial advantages of the marriage were evident at that time and it marked a crucial early step in Sheikh Abdullah's progress towards becoming the richest man in the State.
 Despite her mixed origin and cosmopolitan upbringing Akbar Jahan became a devout Muslim. She was under the influence of Maulvi Mohiuddin who came from Kabul and was appointed Headmaster of the Islamia High School in Srinagar. Ultimately he resigned his post and spent the rest of his life as a dervish. He played a significant role in Akbar Jahan s spiritual training.
 Soon after Abdullah's engagement he was once again arrested and confined to Udahampur. He corresponded regularly with his fianc e. He was released at the end of a six-month period after which he married Akbar Jahan in October 1933. They moved into a rented house in Puchwara and later shifted to the residential quarter of his father-in-law located at the back of Nedou's hotel. Abdullah's brother helped him to construct a house near their ancestral home in Surak, where they finally settled down.
 During the winters Akbar Jahan and the family visited her parents and whenever possible Abdullah joined them. Evidently theirs was a very close and intimate relationship and Akbar Jahan proved to be a true friend and comrade to Abdullah. She introduced order in his turbulent life. Patiently facing all the trials she was Abdullah's source of strength and inspiration. In Abdullah's absence she ran the house single-handedly and never complained. It was her untiring effort that resulted in their children completing their education notwithstanding Abdullah's continued absence from the domestic scene. Akbar Jahan was a perfect home maker whose main concern was to look after her children's problems.
 Eventually, however, <b>she was dragged into national politics. It happened at a time when Abdullah was in prison and their movement was at the lowest ebb. During the 'Quit Kashmir' movement of 1946, Maharajah Hari Singh and his Prime Minister Kak launched an offensive against their movement. </b>Akbar Jahan promptly stepped out of the seclusion of her home and toured village after village kindling hope in the heart of the helpless.
 After the announcement of Independence on 2nd June 1947, Nehru was very keen to visit Kashmir. He was dissuaded by Mountbatten who preferred that the visit be made by Gandhi. During this visit Gandhi met Akbar Jahan as Abdullah was in jail. Gandhi advised Akbar Jahan to have courage. <b>She not only attended Gandhi's prayer meetings but also participated in them by reciting the Quran</b>. This was, no doubt, a remarkable move by a Kashmiri lady in a conservative society.
 In late 1947 when Kashmir was attacked by the tribals Akbar Jahan organized a Red Cross team and devoted herself to tending the afflicted. Her work in the recovery and rehabilitation of abducted women was greatly admired by the Mountbattens. After 1953 she was implicated in the Kashmir conspiracy case and soon she became the butt of slanderous attack. But she faced all these indignities with courage and fortitude.
 In 1971, when Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, who had been the Chief Minister of Kashmir for ten years, decided to contest elections for Lok Sabha, Akbar Jahan supported an unknown contestant Shameem Ahmed. In this election Bakshi suffered a crushing defeat.
 The Abdullahs had seven children. Two daughters died in infancy. Their eldest son Farooq Abdullah, who is a doctor, eventually became the Chief Minister of Kashmir. In the midterm poll held in 1977, Akbar Jahan was elected to the Parliament. Because of Abdullah's ill health and household pressures she decided not to contest in the next election. Instead she opened a centre for the education of the poor and destitute children. By all accounts Akbar Jahan remains a very outstanding Kashmiri lady.
 We now turn to some personal glimpses of Abdullah's character. Amin Pandit, who began working for the Sheikh's political machine as a sub-editor on the party's daily newspaper, Khidmat (meaning "service"), remembers the first time he was on the receiving end of Abdullah's terrible temper. "I turned on the radio to listen to the 1.30 pm news on All India Radio. We had no teleprinter or news agency service and this is how we gathered our information. I would write it down as fast as I could and reproduce it for the paper. Before the news came on, some music was playing. The Sheikh heard it and came up to me with his hand raised to slap me in the face. Luckily for me he restrained himself but he shouted: 'Do you think this is a ballroom?' He often slapped his subordinates. He slapped his children all over the house. Everybody in the family was scared of him. Even his wife was nervous of him when he went out of control. He was a very emotional man, very sentimental.
 The Sheikh's son and political heir, Farooq Abdullah, has talked of the thrashings he received from his father for ducking school, smoking and other offences. These punishments were so brutal that the Sheikh's homecomings from frequent bouts in jail could be more dreaded than joyful. "Sheikh Abdullah showed no affection or concern for his family," is how Aditya Sinha summed up the family relationship in his biography, Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir's Prodigal Son. When the Sheikh was due to come home Farooq and his siblings would drop at the feet of their mother, Begum Abdullah and beg forgiveness for their minor pranks and "entreat her not to tell their father and promise never to repeat their wild behaviour." Farooq Abdullah remembers a particularly savage beating when he was caught smoking, a habit his father liberally indulged in. Even the family servant, Amma, was permitted to dole out punishments during paternal absences.
 M. J. Akbar has recorded in his India The Siege Within a near-contemporary, D. N. Kaul, who rose to become Inspector-General of Police when Sheikh Abdullah was Chief Minister towards the end of his life, as describing those days: My elder brother whom he (Sheikh Abdullah) taught science used to recall how the tall, slenderly built, fez-capped master in science would render many a scientific term into everyday Kashmiri so as to ensure quick and easy comprehension by the young, captive audience before him. He exuded awe among the students, not only by his censorious and rigorous sense of discipline, but also by his stature, physical and academic, not only vis-a-vis the students but even in comparison to other members of the teaching establishment. Soon after, through the narrow lanes of Srinagar I used to see him lead processions of arm-swinging, vociferously gesticulating and slogan-shouting men. I can still recall his sonorous, mellifluous voice in his public speeches which invariably began with recitations from the Quran or Iqbal's verses. With his audience totally Muslim, and the influence of the university still dominant, Sheikh Abdullah organized the Muslim Conference to take up the cause of his community. But the strains of the future were visible even then: the true fight, he said, was against feudalism, and for self-rule and land reform.
 It may be recalled that the Maharajah had yielded to a sustained movement led by Abdullah and agreed to form an elected Assembly called Praja Sabha. The majority of the members in the Praja Sabh were nominated, only 28 per cent were elected. The Muslim Conference Parliamentary Party elected Mian Ahmed Yar Khan as leader and Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg as deputy leader. The first session of Praja Sabha was held on 17 October 1934. It was a strange assembly! All the legislative powers were in the hands of the Maharajah. He could also veto any act passed by the Assembly. The Assembly could not discuss matters pertaining to the Maharajah's personal expenses or the army. The Maharajah could nominate any one as a member of the Assembly. Despite these shortcomings, the experiment proved beneficial to Abdullah's movement. It brought the Muslim and the non-Muslim members of the Assembly closer to each other, and in 1936, the entire country saw all the elected members of Jammu and Kashmir staging a joint walk-out.
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