The Sheikhs OF Ganderbal

 

 

This is the valley that the ‘Lion of Kashmir’ once walked, free and fearless. That was when, in the 1930s, Sheikh Abdullah, the ‘Sher-e-Kashmir’, fought for Kashmiris then under Dogra rule. Ganderbal was his lair.

Sheikh Abdullah, the venerated father of Farooq Abdullah, and Omar Abdullah’s grandfather, found his following leading his people against Maharaja Hari Singh during the ‘Quit Kashmir’ movement, a cause for which he founded the Muslim Conference, later converted to National Conference (NC), to give it a more liberal, cosmopolitan face. Ganderbal continues to be the Abdullahs' stronghold for over 35 years now.

“I have seen the cruelty of Dogra rule,” says 85-year-old Peer Noor ud din, a staunch follower of the Abdullahs. “Muslims were not just denied political and religious rights, they were subjected to begaar, a forced labour system that reduced them to a starved lot.” For people such as Noor ud din, Sheikh Abdullah was the saviour. “He was a great leader and the people of Kashmir remember that. And that is why they still vote for the Sheikh’s heirs,” he says.

History, though, was to take its twists and turns before the people were to once again find their leaders in the Abdullahs. At the end of Dogra rule, Sheikh Abdullah initially became Emergency Administrator, and later prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Things hit an abysmal low when he was arrested for demanding an independent Kashmir. The political incarceration lasted 11 long years. “An independent Kashmir was his dream; the politico-economic programme of the Sheikh Abdullah, known as the document of 'Naya Kashmir' was adopted by him in 1944, but could not be implemented entirely in Sheikh’s lifetime,” says Noor ud din.

The lion's roar was to be heard only 22 years later when Sheikh Abdullah returned to electoral politics in 1975. The political terrain of Kashmir had by then changed, and new trails had been trekked by leaders of the valley. The sitting Congress legislator of Ganderbal, Muhammad Maqbool Bhat, left his seat to make way for the Sheikh. He won the bypoll and became chief minister with Congress support. Two years later, at the end of his tenure in 1977, he again chose Ganderbal to contest the polls and won. The lion was to be chief minister till his passing away in 1982.

Power was then passed on to his eldest son Farooq Abdullah—a medical doctor. He contested from Ganderbal in 1983, 1987 and 1996 and won each time. The seat had earlier been represented by NC candidates in 1957 and 1962.

“People still remember the sacrifices of Sheikh Abdullah. They vote for NC as a tribute to him 27 years after his death,” says Shabir Masoodi, lawyer and son of Moulana Masoodi, NC's founder general secretary.

Kashmir’s voters, though, can be unsparing. In 2002, for the first time in the family's history, the Abdullahs were shaken when the NC’s chief ministerial candidate and Farooq's son, Omar Abdullah, faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of a little-known candidate of the newly formed People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Qazi Muhammad Afzal. Observers believed that this was the voters’ way of punishing the Abdullahs for having taken their constituency too much for granted. Kashmir’s history had turned bloody by then and militants ruled the valley but the Abdullahs, it seemed, had not cared enough for the people. “Rather than look into the grievances and sufferings of this area, Farooq Abdullah, who was elected from Ganderbal in 1996, spent most of his time abroad during his six-year tenure,” says Abdul Rashid Lone. Rashid’s father Haji Gulam Rasool Lone, a block president of the National Conference, had been killed by militants in September 2001. “Nobody except some local leaders visited our home after the horrifying incident,” says Rashid.

Yet from somewhere in the wilderness, Sheikh Abdullah’s voice still called and people were behind his heirs. Among the many things that he did for his people was pass the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, commonly known as “Land to Tiller Act” in 1950. It gave land rights to farmers who tilled the land for landowners. “The new law ended landlordism in the state,” says M. Y. Teng, scholar and Sheikh Abdullah’s biographer.

Yet holding on to the lion’s lair can be a difficult proposition. “The new generation does not know who Sheikh Sahib was. They want development, employment wand better educational facilities. They ask why we still have just 52 per cent literacy in Ganderbal and why we have only one degree college in the area,” says trader Gulam Rasool Ganaie. During his election campaign in 2008, Omar Abdullah, currently the state’s youngest chief minister, apologised for his party's mistakes during 1996-2002 and promised his voters that NC, if voted to power, would bring about a revolution in the development of Ganderbal and the rest of of the state.

“Omar Abdullah is praised for his honesty. People have faith in him. They only hope he will not repeat the mistakes that his father committed after winning the 1996 elections. Now it’s up to him to keep his word,” Ayobe Sabir, a local journalist tells TSI. And of course, Omar Abdullah has a lineage to live up to. And in Ganderbal, lineage does matter.