by NYLA ALI KHAN
(The following is an excerpt from the biography Professor Nyla Ali Khan is currently writing about her grandmother Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah, the wife of Kashmiri leader Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. Dr. Nyla Ali Khan teaches at the University of Oklahoma. Part IV of V. Ed.)
The Sheikh’s daughter, my mother, Suraiya Ali Matto, poignantly recalls the period of her father’s political externment:
I was asked by my parents to join them in Kodaikanal, a place hitherto unknown to me, in 1965. My father had been externed to this South Indian hill station soon after his return from the Haj pilgrimage along with my mother. Kodaikanal is in Tamil Nadu, and back then it was known not just for being a tourist resort but also for its good missionary schools to which children from elite families were sent. We were lodged in an old, well-preserved mansion of an erstwhile nawab, called Koh-i-Noor. My parents and I were given the uppermost apartment; the basement and the ground floor were occupied by security officials and guards. My father was grudgingly allowed mobility within the small hill station, which had a golf course, a lake, and a shopping mall. The luxurious touristy hotels were situated around the lake, and every evening we would go out for long walks either around the lake or on the golf course. My father was a strict disciplinarian who stuck to his regimen—studying Tamil in the mornings; indulging in his favorite pastime, cooking, in which he was assisted by my mother, Begum Akbar Jehan, and at times by me. Reading newspapers regularly, listening to the radio or television news, and reading good books became his daily routine. A deeply religious man, he said his prayers five times a day and recited the Quran, which became his routine. His punctuality, discipline, and regularity saved him from either going insane or being afflicted by depression, except once. All three of us had more or less adjusted ourselves in our God forsaken prison where anyone who was cordial towards us was regarded as a suspect by the security personnel who followed us like shadows wherever we went. None of us had access to the single telephone installed for the security officials; letters addressed to us were censored. We were on the verge of giving up hope of papa ever being released from Kodaikanal. Then suddenly one morning he complained of severe thirst and weakness. Lately, he had started eating candies and mangoes. He would be depressed and fatigued especially when feelings of persecution set in and he expressed that he was being subjected to slow poisoning. His condition was reported to the Government of India by the District Collector, T. N. Seshan, who later became the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India. Various tests were conducted on my father by the doctors. The results absolutely shocked the doctors—his blood sugar had crossed the danger mark. That is when he was shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, where he was kept for nearly three months. Subsequently, he was moved to 3 Kotla Lane in New Delhi. Eventually, the Government of India led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi initiated diplomatic negotiations with him, supposedly, for a viable resolution to the Kashmir conflict. The rest is history. My father remained clear headed about his political ideology during his time in externment and even until he breathed his last. All that while my mother stood like a rock beside him. Not once did she buckle under pressure or try to weaken his resolve. (Conversation with author, 21 November 2009)
The Sheikh’s youngest son and my younger maternal uncle, Mustafa Kamal, remembers that period with clarity:
Mother spent every day of the two years that father was externed in Kodai Kanal by his side. I spent a few weeks with them there. They had been incarcerated in a bungalow, and my younger sister Suraiya was with them. They would take regular walks from the house to the small lake and even take a ride in the row boat with an officer in civilian clothes, a LMP doctor (Licentiate Medical Practitioner) in attendance.
One evening, while offering the evening praying (Magrib), one of the five prayers a day that Mother and Father would do together, Father did not get up and lay prostrate. The registered medical practitioner was called immediately. It was discovered that Father had high blood sugar, enough to cause a comatose condition. He was flown to Delhi with the doctor giving him insulin every five minutes. At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, his condition was stabilized, but he remained, for the rest of his life, a case of Diabetes Mellitus type II.
Father had developed osteoarthritis of both knees, in which condition pain and swelling of knees occurs. The licensed medical practitioner at Kodai Kanal had put him on the front line pain killer of the time combined with prednisolone, a corticosteroid drug, “Delta- Butazolidine.” The Delta part, i.e., steroid, triggered diabetes for which father was pre-disposed due to weight and heavy meals. It was during that secluded, lonely, and traumatic period that Father dictated his political narratives and the trajectory of his life to Suraiya, which later became part of his autobiography, Atish-e-Chinar or Flames of the Chinar. All through the pain, persecution, psychological lacerations, and imprisonment, Mother held her head high and never kowtowed to those who were responsible for our plight.(E-mail to author, 6 February 2012)
Akbar Jehan again found herself in the vanguard soon after her husband’s release from jail in 1968, which was greeted with overwhelming jubilation in the Valley. Soon after his release Abdullah addressed a mammoth gathering in Anantnag in which he unhesitatingly voiced his dissident ideology. He made it clear that India’s undemocratic and oppressive tactics would not inhibit the passionate desire of the Kashmiri people to be free. He also reminded India of its unfulfilled promise to hold a referendum in Kashmir and enable the people to exercise their right of self-determination. On 26 January 1968, Sheikh Abdullah’s disillusionment with Indian democracy created political and personal acrimony:
Respect for the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the integrity of the electoral process—are all sought to be guaranteed by the Indian constitution. It is not surprising that many other countries have drawn upon this constitution, particularly the chapter on fundamental rights. Yet it must at all times be remembered that the constitution provides the framework, and it is for the men who work it to give it life and meaning. In many ways the provisions of the constitution have been flagrantly violated [in Kashmir] and the ideals it enshrines completely forgotten. Forces have arisen which threaten to carry this saddening and destructive process further still. (Speeches and Interviews of Sher-e-Kashmir 15-16; quoted in Bose 46)
In the wake of armed insurrection, genocide, extortions, exoduses, and state-sponsored atrocities, Abdullah’s prediction proved frighteningly accurate. Abdullah’s sharply drawn delineation of Indian anti-democratic strategies has proved to be the prognosis of a far-sighted populist leader.
But even this overwhelmingly popular response to Abdullah’s politics did not discourage the Congress government at the center, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, from employing strategies that stifled moves toward greater autonomy for J & K. In the subsequent years, some interesting political developments occurred in J & K. The Plebiscite Front, which had maintained its oppositional and dissident stance, proclaimed its intention to contest Parliamentary elections scheduled in 1971 and elections to the Legislative Assembly scheduled in 1972.
Dr. Nyla Ali Khan can be reached at nylakhan@aol.com
Read Part I, Part II, & Part III. Concluding part of this excerpt will appear in Monday’s edition of Globeistan.