CHAPTER TWELVE

Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq

Being essentially an arm-chair politician, G.M. Sadiq was absolutely lacking in dynamism and mobility, stamina and grit. Though proverbially honest, yet he failed to give the state an administration which could be termed as clean, free from corruption and communalism. Aware of the interference in governmental affairs by Miss Mahmooda Ahmad Ali Shah, said to be his wife, he allowed her to grow as a parallel centre of power. Even his sister, Zainab Begum, could not resist from interfering in administrative affairs.

G.M. Sadiq for his sterling qualities of head and heart enjoyed immense popularity with the Kashmirian Hindus, who supported him in his political wrangles against Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. That he would be soft and considerate to them was belied by his pursuit of discriminatory policies against them. There was no letup in the policy of harassment and economic squeeze of the Kashmirian Hindus. The Muslims continued to be his utmost concern and the Hindus were virtually consigned to backwaters with not even subservient role to play.

It was G.M. Sadiq who formalised the blatant discrimination of the Kashmirian Hindus by the issuance of an order reserving 30% of job slots, promotions and admissions to training and technical institutions for the Kashmirian Hindus and 70% for the Kashmirian Muslims. The said-order was not accepted by the Islamised bureaucracy, which consistently pursued the policy of putting the Kashmirian Hindus to an agonising economic squeeze. Discrimination went on trampling upon the rights of the minorities. No political leader except G.M. Sadiq dared resort to such a measure based on flagrant communal considerations and sectarianism.

The order proved a land-mark in the history of discrimination and relentless elimination of the Kashmirian Hindus. Violative of the constitutional provisions, the orders were outrageously communal making religion as a determining factor for entry into services and admissions into professional colleges. What was shocking that such orders were issued at the behest of G.M. Sadiq, who had pretensions to secular and progressive credentials. The Kashmirian Hindus did not take orders lying down, but opposed it tooth and nail. They termed the orders as black orders contravening the constitutional tenets and provisos. The Hindus upheld merit and academic achievements as the determining factors of recruitment in services and admissions to professional colleges and technical institutions.

Exposing the communal hue and underpinnings of the said order, the Kashmirian Hindus rammed it home to the National Conference leadership that it belied the promises held out to them in the blue print of 'Naya Kashmir', essentially a document of secularism upholding even-handed treatment to all communities without religious considerations. Thus, G.M. Sadiq was held guilty of axing and eroding the very ideals which he had cherished all through his political career. By the issuance of such an order, he appeared no different from Bakshi, who granted admission to the Muslim boys and girls without suffering any rigours of test and interview, from Sheikh Abdullah, who heralded the process of supersessions, from Mir Qasim, who grabbed small holdings of land from the Kashmirian Hindus, from Farooq Abdullah, who led to the hounding out of the minorities from their home-land by feeding and shielding communally tilted secessionist forces.

Let it be known that the Islamised bureaucracy never put 30% reservations for the Kashmirian Hindus into actual practice. It only threw crumbs and left-overs to them and hired and fired at will and whim.

The educational institutions and other departments in the state were starved of trained and qualitied teachers and staff. Appointments to various job-slots were not made or deferred only because most of the applicants happened to be the Kashmirian Hindus, who as a matter of state policy were to be sidelined. The crusade in Kashmir has been against merit, academic achievements, and scholarship. Impeccable academic credentials never formed a plank for entry into state services or admission in the professional colleges. Many a Hindu bright has lost careers. A Muslim boy or girl with very low percentage of marks finds admission in various professional colleges. What has been the travesty of justice is that many Muslims with no background knowledge of science were admitted to engineering and medical colleges. That admissions to various study programmes and entry into job slots are determined by the population ratio of a particular community has been the Muslim approach to the entire gamut of the problem. l G.M Sadiq proved the worst for the Kashmirian Hindus, not only that they were subjected to the atrocious discrimination on religious grounds but were also openly assaulted and hurt inflicted on them. On 11th September, 1964, a group of Muslim boatment dared construct a shed on a piece of land owned by a Kashmirian Hindu. Objecting to the illegal act of raising a shed on the piece of land, the Hindu family had to face an avalanche of hostility on part of Muslims got collected in hordes from the area only to launch a physical assault on the members of the family. Men were severly beaten and roughed up, women were dragged out of their houses suffering grievous injuries and their gold ornaments snatched. Taking it as a Jehad against the infidels, all Muslims losing cool and sanity stood as monolith to grab the piece of land owned by a Hindu.

The culprits were not arrested nor were they punished for the unlawful act. The Muslims as a matter of rule were beyond the purview of law. The whole atrocity was brought to the notice of the Chief Minister, G.M. Sadiq, who had full faith in rule of law but never moved in the direction of establishing rule of law in the state he ruled.

A representation was also submitted to the Prime Minister of India bringing the lawless conditions prevailing in the state to his notice. But nothing transpired. The boatmen with the support of their co-religionists proved a menance for the Kashmirian Hindus in the area subjecting them to a barrage of abuse, harassment and intimidation and the law enforcing agencies maintaining strong silence. The entire situation bordering on communal clashes were reported in a local Daily and the Government went to the extent of arresting three journalists and stopping the publication of a daily paper.

The policy of discrimination concertedly pursued by the Islamised bureaucracy of the state caused an immeasurable frustration and despair in the Hindu boys and girls of the Valley of Kashmir. Twenty Hindu boys and girls having been ignored for admissions to the professional colleges, despite their merit and achievements, declared their conversion to Islam as the state was not only pro-Muslim, but seemed to be pro-Muslim. A Sikh boy also expressed the same view and was ready to accept Islam.3 The policy of relentless persecution of non-Muslim ethnic groups was vigorously pursued to eliminate them or force them to get converted to Islam.

Such developments culminated in the regime of G.M. Sadiq, who perhaps contributed to the view-point of 'religion being opium for the masses', yet he pursued a policy based on religious discrimination investing it with legitimacy and sanctity.

G.M. Sadiq in the name of normalisation made a truce with the rabid Muslim forces working for discrimination and secessionism. He lent them a new lease by loosening the grip over their anti-national activities, thus emboldening them for waging a war on the minorities, who have all along been the soft targets of the Muslim bigotry. Allowing the rabid Muslims to creep into the state administration, Sadiq practically allowed the state machine to slip into the hands of anti-national and non-secular forces. The Jamaat-i-lslami had been in the process of spreading its tentacles by establishing its support-base in a number of pockets. The Madrasas run by the rabid organisation were getting government grants and thus were busy in vitiating the entire socio-political fabric of the state. Most of the government run schools were stafted by men and women owing allegiance to the Jamaat-i-Islami enjoying political patronage. The organisation spreading communal canker was working slowly, but surely. No positive and purposive steps were taken to meet the challenge and countcract the vicious propaganda of the Jammat-i-Islami, which was directly affiliated to the Jamaat-i-lslami of Pakistan. Jamaat-oriented cadre had been in the process ot sneaking into administration and police.

Pandit Rishi Dev,4 a veteran leader of the congress in Kashmir, posed the problem of a Kashmirian Hindu teacher to G.M. Sadiq holding the portfolio of Education. The paralysed parents of the teacher had been confined to bed for a long time. Being the only son, the unfortutlate couple needed his care and attention. Pandit Rishi Dev requested the Chief Minister to transfer the teacher to his native hamlet or a nearby village. What Sadiq did was to ask the Hindu leader to deposit the application with his secretary. The same was done. Meanwhile a Molvi flaunting long beard hailing from Rishi Dev's village was led into the Chief Minister's chambers. He was cordially received and requested the Chief Minister to appoint his daughter, a middle pass, to the post of a teacher. His application was taken. To Rishi Dev's consternation, within a week's time, the Molvi's daugllter was sent the appointment letter and the Hindu teacher was not transferred on humanitarian grounds. And this testifies to the instinctive hatred which the Muslims of all complexions harboured for the Kashmirian Hindus.

Miss Mahmooda Ahmad Ali Shah, the virtual ruler in the times of G.M. Sadiq, was out to destroy the service career of a Hindu professor when he stopped coaching a close relation of G.M. Sadiq in the college hostel.5 The girl hailing from Palhalan, district Baramulla, was below average with no learning capacities and the professor feared that he might be harassed for the below normal performance of the girl in exams. That was what led the professor to stop from going to the hostel for coaching the girl. He was persuaded to resume the coaching, but the professor stuck to his guns and showed his inability to resume it. It was sufficient to offend Miss Mahmooda, the principal of the college. Within days he was involved in a case of moral turpitude and suspension orders followed. Mr. Noor-ud-din, the vice-chancellor of the Kashmir University, was appointed as an enquiry officer to probe the whole affair. He paid a visit to the college and on preliminary enquiries dismissed the whole case as personal vendetta and gave a clean chit to the professor, who was transferred from women's college, Srinagar.

The tragedy of the Kashmirian Hindus is that they as a matter of state policy are to be discriminated and hounded out at every level, but are first coaxed and then ordered and coerced to teach the sons and daughters and very close relatives of the Muslims in corridors of power. Why they do not depend on the Muslims now manning all educational institutions in the state needs be researched.

G.M. Sadiq in pursuit of discriminatory policies virtually brought about the death of the educational institutions as vibrant, open and wholesome places shaping the maleable human material for higher achievements and healthy roles. The teachers moulding the human material were discriminated on religious grounds and their ambitions for career building stifled. The same discriminatory policy was pursued in the institutions of higher learning. And the State Public Service Commission came handy for serving the ends of divisive communalism.

The Commission has all along been staffed by men and women, who have risen to top echelons only through the policy of manipulation and discrimination. Objectively speaking, it appears that the Commission is under an oath to serve the Muslim ends and interests. It knows the alchemy to transform gold into dross and dross into gold. The Commission has a gory history of slaughtering the careers of brilliant young men and women, mostly Hindus. To serve the Muslims, it has established a permanent liaison with the professors of the Aligarh Muslim University, who are favourably inclined to uphold the Muslim interests at the expense of other ethnic groups. And Mr. Bakar is the only star in the firmament of the Indian Academics. He is an expert for all levels of appointments. The crux of the intent is that men of such hue are convenient to handle while scholars from other universities are too tough to be handled to meet sectarian ends.

Pursuing a policy of blatant discrimination the State Public Service Commission has set new records in the book of discrimination when a Muslim lecturer in physics with 5 years of total service was pushed over the head of Prof. T.N. Kilam on the verge of retirement. The criteria framed by the state government and the Commission were discriminatory and arbitrary. Rating scales were such as would benefit the Muslims only. Basic parameters of merit, academic achievements and experience were distorted and left out as redundant. The rumour mill had it that the professors recommended for promotion and subsequently promoted were of the 'chikan brand'. Chikan was a rabid Muslim, corrupt and communal, got rehabilitated by Sadiq under the policy of 'normalisation' and was placed on the Public Service Commission.

Not taking the tyranny lying down, the Kashmirian Hindus were in the vanguard of the battle for restoration of fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution. A writ petition was filed in the State High Court against the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. The case was fought by the State Government on the basis of the norms fixed by the government ignoring the genuine parameters. The Hon'ble Justice Murtaza Fazli Ali struck down the promotions stressing that he was yet to 'learn of an alchemy transmuting gold into dross and dross irto gold."' Such a policy of discrimination was consistently pursued in all departments of the government trampling upon the rights of the Hindus. The Muslim rulers conveying to the Muslims that they were fostering their interests and the Kashmirian Hindus banking only on constitutional remedies. In fact, in face of such tyranny, it were the constitutional guarantees only that had been sustaining the Kashmirian Hindus till they were forced to march out of their land of birth.

Kashmiri Pandit Agitation

It was only in the regime of G.M. Sadiq that a poor and destitute Hindu girl was abducled, converted to Islam and married to a Muslim boy. Living a life of extreme poverty, she was obliged to take up a petty job in the co-operative department. A Muslim boy worked in the same department and for one reason or the other, blackmailed her with the aid of other Muslims working in the same department. The Muslim boy got her pay stopped and put her on duty at odd hours. He having misappropriated some money from the department did not suffer suspension or enquiry, But his officer, also a Muslim, paid off the cash and abetted the boy in black-mailing the girl. The boy emboldened by the abettment of his Muslim colleagues made off with the girl. The mother of the girl reported the matter to the local police station. The abductor and the abducted girl were finally traced by the police to a house at Wazapora, a den of rabid Muslims owing allegiance to Pakistan.

The preliminary investigation was conducted by the Muslim officer at Maharaj Gunj, not at Rainawari, where the FIR was filed. Be it said that the police station at Rainawari was headed by a Hindu. The girl was later shifted to the Police Station at Khanyar, a Muslim dominated locality, where not a single Hindu lives. It was done only to facilitate the abductor to meet the girl quite frequently and finally the girl was handed over to the Muslim criminal illegally without completing all formalities including the radiological examination.

The-government was extremely cautious in not associating any Hindu with the investigation. The mother was allowed to see her daughter only under the police surveillance. No member of the Hindu community was allowed to meet the girl in camera. The police did not take the case to a court of law and assigning judicial powers unto itself decided to allow the abducted girl to live with the abductor. The age of the girl was not properly ascertained and rumour mill had it that the Muslim officer investigating the case accompanied the abductor and the abducted girl to the abductor's residence where he was treated to a delicious dinner. Agitated over the scandalous role of Islamised police machinery there was a spontaneous reaction and deep-seated resentment among the public.7

The Kashmiriian Pandit agitation exposed to the hilt the secular credentials of the Muslims in general and G.M. Sadiq in particular. The Muslims lost all elements of rationality and let loose a reign of terror only to silence the Hindu protest against the forcible conversion and subsequent marriage to a Muslim of a Hindu girl living in indigent conditions. G.M. Sadiq utterly failed to curb the Muslim bigotry, which he fuelled by aligning himself with the forces of obscurantism and medievalism.

The police forces already Islamised inflicted unprecedented brutalities on the Kashmirian Hindus, who were put to bullets, teargassed and lathi-charged. Indiscriminate arrests were made by passing all constitutional guarantees. The publication of newspapers was banned by the government including the official organ of the Hindu community. Their editors were unlawfully detained. Acid was thrown on women protesting against the severe onslaught launched against them violating their honour and dignity as members of a civilised polity. The police brutalities were harrowing and bone-chilling. The Report of the Kohli Commission in this behalf is revealing. The government for fear of reprisals and exposure suppressed the entire Report and never put it before the public gaze and constitutionally framed fora.

The two Ministers of the Sadiq Cabinet, Pir Giyas-ud-Din and Noor Mohammad, in complicity with Abdul Ahad Burza, a close relative of the Chief Minister, distributed money and liquor among the Muslim rabids only to organise a massive demonstration against the Kashmirian Hindus, who had been wronged and denied the right to live with honour and dignity. The procession comprising all hues of Muslim rabids raised Islamic war-cries, archaic and volatile only to coerce the Hindus into submission. The frenzied crowds yelled, "We are fighting infidels'.8 The Muslim crowds looted and plundered the properties of the Kashmirian Hindus and finally set them ablaze.9 Be it said that loot and plunder are an essential part of the Muslim ethos.

The Muslims losing traces of sanity stabbed two youngmen, H. N. Mattoo and Avtar Krishnan Khashoo to death. Gopi Nath Handoo was wounded and killed. In all nine Hindus were killed in police brutalities or in communal madness.l0 The funeral procession of Maharaj Krishan Razdan and Lassa Koul Badam, who fell to police bullets, was pelted at by the Muslims. A big contingent of the Kashmir Armed police in plain clothes also took part in pelting stones at the funeral procession at Karan Nagar in the city of Srinagar.11

Zainab Begum, the sister of G.M. Sadiq, was the person, who bitterly opposed the suggestion to hand over the abudcted girl to a third party as a prelude to the solution of the vexatious problem. 12 The close relatives of the Chief Minister were in the vanguard of the Muslim communalists, who had waged war on the Kashmirian Hindus, demanding stern action against the partisan role of the police machine and more than most protection of their women-folk. l3

The memorandum submitted to the then Home Minister, Y.B. Chavan, thoroughly exposed the bankruptcy and hollowness of the Muslim mind. The Kashmirian Hindus, who do not keep a knife in their homes and are universally known for non-violence, were accused of having piled up arms and arnmunition in temples and residential quarters. Who had sent the arms? Who had received the arms? Did the police authorities recover arms and ammunition from a single temple? If arms and ammunition were recovered from temples and residential quarters, did the police prepare their inventories and file FIRs? Were the cases filed against the accused? The Muslims through the memorandum also made a reference to the seizure of the truck-loads of armaments and the Hindus subjecting the Muslim crowds to atrocities.l4 The same propaganda spree was launched by the Plebiscite Fronters, who pioneered communalism, secessionism and separatism in the state.

The fact of the matter remains that the government circles in collaboration with the Muslim bigots launched a campaign of calumny, hatred and disinformation against the Kashmirian Hindus. The Muslims with low levels of rational analysis and prone to religious frenzy took the contents of the false propaganda for granted and rallied behind the forces of hatred and bigotry for waging war against the Kashmirian Hindus. The present day Muhta Khans resort to his strategy to exterminate infidelity from Kashmir. That the miniscule minority of Hindus had posed a threat of annihilation to the Muslim majority was nothing but ironical. All the same the Muslims believed that myth. What a naivity !

The Kashmiri Pandit Agitation ended leaving a trail of bitterness resulting in the segregation of the two communities of the Hindus and the Muslims. The credibility of the Congress as an organisation upholding secularism and democracy as cherished values suffered a nose-dive. Completely identifying itself with the forces of Muslim reaction, it sufficiently pointered to the ominous developments that were in store for the polity of Kashmir at large. Under the facade of 'normalisation' and 'democratisation', the forces of disruption, secession and communal hatred, though temporarily and half-heartedly put to leash by the Bakshi government, were allowed to get unleashed and given a long rope to resurge and re-generate a movement drawing support from the masses at an unprecedented scale.

Men of dubious character having forged links with elements from across the border were rehabilitated and placed at key-slots in the administrative setup. The process of anti-national elements sneaking into the administrative machine gained momentum. The Chief Minister shut up in his drawing room weaving political phantasies perceptibly allowed the entire state machine to slip into the lap of Plebiscite Fronters and pro-Pak elements leaving a deep-seated negative of impact on the nationalists and democrats working for unity, solidarity and comrnunal peace and amity.

The Congress pandering the Muslim frenzy that automatically touches immeasurable heights on an issue like the conversion and marriage of a Hindu girl to a Muslim resorted to the mean strategy of coercing the Hindu minority into subjugation and surrender by mobilising the frenzied Muslim hordes on the staple diet of jehad (religious war) against the infidels (kafirs). The rabid communal elements operating with absolute freedom with the entire Congress government at the fuelling end repeated history for the Kashmirian Hindus subjecting them to loot, murder and arson.

Notes and References

1. Plebiscite Front Resolution.  2. P. L. Koul, Crisis in Kashmir.  3. Report published in Daily Pratap.  4. Interview with Pt. Rishi Dev, a veteran Congress leader, whose entire structural property was set ablaze by the Muslim terrorists.  5. Interview with the Teachers Forum.  6. Judgment on writ petition filed by College Teachers in the J & K High Court.  7. Wail of the Vale, issued bv the Hindu Action Committee.  8. Ibid.  9. lbid.  10. lbid.  11. lbid  12. P.L. Koul, Crisis in Kashmir.  13. Wail of the Vale.  14. The Memorandum of 'Respectable (Muslim) citizens of Kashmir'. submitted to Home Minister of India, Y.B.  Chavan.