Part I: Chapter 19

REGENERATION OF KASHMIR UNDER THE SULTANS - A MERE FABRICATION

Invested with the superficial views serving his a priori model based on his instinct of identification with the aggressor, P.N. Bazaz strongly feels that the Sultans gaining political power and hegemony in Kashmir meant a qualitative change from that what was old to that what seemingly had a ring of being new and novel and the change, to him, had a regenerative impact in Kashmir. Very recently the votaries of secessionism in Kashmir have re-cycled the same idea and have characterized the advent of Islam in the region of Kashmir as a ray that dispels darkness from all corners, thus establishing the obliteration of the racial memory of the converts. What Bazaz has put and what, votaries of Islam have to say in this behalf do not seem to stand the acid-test of history, which gives a thorough exposure to the verbiage that has been lavishly utilised to invest a non-tact with the raiment of a fact.

Historically, Lalitaditya and Avantivarman built up and consolidated gargantuan empires with well laid-out political and economic structures. These periods of Kashmir history are of great significance as there was a tremendous economic and political regeneration in Kashmir with their impact and imprint on the growth and development of arts and crafts, architecture and sculpture, aesthetics and to cap them all, philosophy touching a new apogee. The achievements in their totality registered during the Hindu period of history instilled cynical inferiority among the Muslims who brutally levelled and destroyed them and the ravaged

ruins ever in their muteness relate the epochal saga of' grandeur and glory. To negate and belittle the past of' Kashmir there has been a colonial tendency to attribute everything that Kashmir has to Zain-ul-abidin and other Muslim rulers who might have introduced certain new arts and crabs of Persian origins in Kashmir. But, Zain-ul-abidin and other Muslim monarchs were not ruling over Africa, which has wallowed in absolute darkness in terms of' human history and civilization. That Kashmir was steeped in the mire of backwardness and primitivty with no history and culture prior to the advent of Islam in Kashmir and Islam civilised it is a pale and futile version of the Christian idea of' 'White-man's burden'. That the Muslims like Shakespeare's Prospero in the Tempest had the magical powers to civilise and humanise the calibans and Ariels is preposterous. Puts D.N Dhar, "The change of reign from Hindu kings to Muslim Sultans has only a shift of the Kaleidoscope on the same scene from one colour to another. It was only a change in nomenclature and not in essence.

Had Bazaz deeply and carefully studied the history of Kashmir, especially the, Muslim period, he would not have fudged facts and unnecessarily waxed eloquent on the so called regeneration of Kashmir during the Sultanate period.

When Fateh Shah was occupying the throne of Kashmir, his Minister, Usman, divided the entire kingdom of Kashmir into three parts, one he kept for himself, and the other two parts were doled out to Shankar Raina and Nusrat Raina, two neo-converts to Islam. During the reign of Nazuk Shah, Abdul Magrey, his Minister, distributed huge tracts of land among his close relations. When Mohammad Shah was the ruler, Kazi Chak divided the entire valley of Kashmir into three parts, he gave one part to Sayyid Ibrahim Baihaqi to rule and kept the other part for himself and the third part he gave as a gift to the Sultan. Sultan Sikandar had allotted lands and Jagirs to the Muslim proselytisers seeking refuge in Kashmir when they were fleeing Persia due to Timur's persecution. The Sayyid nobles and their collaborators captured the seat of power in Kashmir and shared the power pie and looted the people and public exchequer with all vengeance and the neo-converts as entirely subservient to them were meted out the humiliating and abysmal treatment and in the words of Srivar were regarded as low as dust. And, to Bazaz, it was regeneration and great impact of Islam in Kashmir.