Jinnah in Jammu and Kashmir

B D Sharma
Jinnah would often proclaim that he had single-handedly with the help of a steno and a typewriter created Pakistan. There is no doubt that he made the singular most important contribution for the establishment of Pakistan and he deserved the highest gratitude and esteem from his countrymen. But he got a miserable treatment from his government and people during the last days of his life. Actually he had been taken to Quetta to avoid the humid and damp atmosphere of Karachi as he was suffering from tuberculosis, a deadly disease at that time. Finding the atmosphere not conducive enough even at Quetta, his doctors shifted him to Ziarat, the nearby hill station. But adequate medical facilities were not available there so it was decided to take Jinnah to Bahawalpur to be near to Karachi. But the palace of the Nawab where he had to stay, could not be arranged. High commission at London didn’t take keen interest to contact the Nawab who was on tour to England. So the founder of Pakistan had to be brought back under compulsion in the humid atmosphere of Karachi. His arrival at Karachi was handled in the most inept manner. Absence of any responsible official at the airport, breakdown of the worn out ambulance on the way and stranding him on the roadside in unfavourable conditions contributed to hasten his end and he breathed his last on the same day on 11th of September, 1948. His personal physician Dr Riaz Ali Shah and Fatima Jinnah found him muttering Kashmir intermittently during his last days. Some people take it as his lamentation for being unable to secure Kashmir for Pakistan while others interpret it as his desire to be taken to the valley of Kashmir which was the most suitable place -sanatorium for the recuperation of TB patients. But that was not possible as the valley was reeling under war initiated by the new country by pushing the tribesmen and her Armed Forces.
In fact even earlier during the peace time the Maharaja had refused Jinnah permission to visit and stay there for regaining his health. According to Lapierre and Collins, the illustrious authors of Freedom at Midnight, Jinnah had decided to spend some days in Kashmir in September, 1947 as he had got exhausted by his hectic engagements and weakened by the unforgiving disease in his lungs. For this purpose, he had sent his secretary, Col William Bernie to Kashmir on Friday, 24 August to arrange for him to spend two weeks there resting and relaxing. He had thought that he would be welcomed there with open arms as he had taken the State becoming shortly part of Pakistan for guaranteed because of its religious affinity, geographical location and economic connectivity. He always compared it to a cheque which was in his pocket and he could encash it whenever he wanted. He had no doubts that Kashmir was a ripe fruit which would fall into his lap only. The British officer, however, returned five days later with a reply that stunned Jinnah. The Maharaja didn’t want him to set foot on his soil, even as a tourist.
It may however not be taken that such restrictions were in force always against Mr Jinnah in the preceding years also. It is widely known that he visited the State thrice in the years, 1926, 1936 and 1944. Much is not known about his visit of 1926. In 1936 he had visited Kashmir for six weeks and even appeared in a case regarding a marital dispute on the request of Sheikh Abdullah and Mirza Afzal Beg. He had generated much waves in the legal circles on winning the intricate case. ” I am the authority, my Lord”, he famously replied on being asked for producing the same in support of his argument by the Judge. Recently it has come to knowledge that he had visited the State in 1927 also. According to Khalid Bashir, a Kashmiri author, Jinnah’s visit in 1927 came to light when he accessed an important official communication from the Minister-in-waiting of the Maharaja to Wakefield, Minister for Civil Works and
Police that “The Partap(an Urdu newspaper from Lahore) of 11th May 1927 contains an article to the effect that Mr Jinnah has gone to Kashmir for a period of six weeks. Will you please let me know, for the information of His Highness the Maharaja Bahadur, if this is a fact, and if so, why this was not reported by the Police?” Maharaja was at Jammu at the time when Jinnah had come to Srinagar with his pretty wife Ruttie with whom he had developed differences, for a patch-up perhaps.
His last visit in the year, 1944 assumes much significance because by that time he had emerged as a vocal votary for the separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent and he was consolidating the Muslims of all shades of opinion behind him. According to Iqbal Chand Malhotra and Maroof Raza (Kashmir’s Untold Story, Declassified), the 1944 visit was engineered by RC Kak, the then Prime Minister of the State to mediate between the Muslim Conference and the National Conference in an effort to unite the two parties who had started to work at cross purposes. Kak by this time had developed proximity with Jinnah and Muslim League and the split among the Muslims of the State, he found, would cause hindrance in the advancement of his designs. Jinnah’s visit to the State started on 8th of May, 1944 when he entered the State at Suchetgarh where a joint reception had been organized by the National Conference and the Muslim Conference lead by Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammed, Chowdhary Ghulam Abass and Allah Rakha Sagar etc. Chaudhary Ghulam Abass had large following in Jammu so it was his show here and in describing it in his autobiography ‘Kashmakash’ he becomes a bit hyperbolic. According to Abass the participation by the Muslims of Jammu was overwhelming and the route of the procession was decorated so elegantly that even the Hindus admitted that such beautification and a sea of people were not witnessed on any earlier occasion there. Jinnah addressed a public meeting and stayed at the Dak Bungalow. As an anecdote, we are told that Jinnah developed a kind of addiction to the hookah of a Muslim Conference leader, Abdullah Bhatti and almost forgot his favourite Craven A cigar.
Next day he left for Kashmir and had his night stay at Banihal. On the way to Srinagar he addressed people at Qazigund, Khannabal, Bijbehara, Awantipore, Letapore, Pampore, Athwajan, Batwara and Sonawar etc. In the valley the National Conference had an upper hand and it had ensured to show Jinnah that the Sheikh was the most popular leader of Kashmir. There was a large number of Muslim Conference workers also. So attempts were being made by both to snatch the show. Frequent clashes and exchange of fist blows between the followers of the two parties took place at almost all the places. These skirmishes sowed the seeds of Sher-Bakra fights which remained so popular a ‘pastime’ in Kashmir for many years afterwards. Jinnah was given a tumultuous welcome at Srinagar by large number of people lead by Sheikh Abdullah and other senior leaders of National Conference and the Mirwaiz of Kashmir, Moulvi Mohammed Yusuf Shah and other senior leaders of Muslim Conference
In the formal reception of National Conference, Sheikh Abdullah presented a picture of secularism where Iqbal’s “Saray Jahan se Achha Hindustan Hamara” was sung by Pran Nath Jalali and the welcome address was presented by Jia Lal Kilam. The Sheikh also alluded to the good relations between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir and their belief in secularism and in one nation. By this time Jinnah had transformed himself from a votary of Hindu-Muslim unity to be a champion of Muslims only and such words were no music to his ears. He, however, thanked the Sheikh and his party for the royal reception given to him but at the same time said that it was not a reception for his person but to the Muslim League, a party of ten crore Muslims of India of which he was President. These communal overtones of Jinnah’s speech annoyed the Hindu leaders so much that they left the stage in distress.
In the reception of Muslim Conference held separately at Dal Gate Jinnah poured his heart out and gave a clarion call “O ye Muslims, We have one God, one Quran, one Ka’aba, and one Prophet. Let us have one organization, one platform, one flag and one leader.” Later on in the annual session of Muslim Conference near Jamia Masjid he was more explicit. He warned the Muslims of Kashmir to be aware of the trap of secularism and nationalism of the Congress brand.
All these developments estranged National Conference and the Muslim Conference further instead of bringing them together. According to Khem Lata Wakhlu the simmering animus between Sheikh Abdullah and Jinnah also got worsened when in one of the public rallies Jinnah compared Sheikh Abdullah to a rotten egg, saying that ‘He can neither be kept nor can be thrown away because of the stink he’ll raise.’ Sheikh exercised restraint and merely pronounced sarcastically that the destiny of Kashmir would not be determined by a ‘popular leader of Muslims’ from Bombay. There was no love lost between the two thereafter.
Jinnah was not able to meet the Maharaja either as the latter knew very well the game plan and agenda of Jinnah. Despite his presence at Srinagar during the last week of Jinnah’s stay, the Maharaja feigned his prior engagements to avoid meeting Jinnah. On his way back in the last week of July, 1944 via Jhelum Valley Road he addressed public meetings at prominent places. At Baramulla Sherwani and Sant Singh Taig of National Conference organized protest in his meeting.
In this way visit of Jinnah ended up in failure. The Sheikh turned closer to the Congress Party. His association with Pt Nehru and other progressives and leftists like Baba Payare Lal Bedi, the sixteenth generation descendent of Guru Nanak Devji and his English wife Freda Bedi further repelled him from the communal party of Jinnah.
Jinnah’s visit to the State particularly his speech, “One God, one Quran —— and one leader” caused some tremors in rest of India also. As per Prof Ishtiaq Ahmed, the renowned authority on Jinnah, this statement had given rise to the confusion on the status of the Ahmedis. The Ahmedis were concerned about the statement because there was a clash of belief between them and the Sunnis over the issue of the finality of prophethood. Since Jinnah wanted the help of all Muslims so he told the Sunnis that he had only reiterated the provisions of the constitution of Muslim League. To Ahmedis he said “Who am I to declare as Non-Muslim a man who calls himself a Muslim?” Shaukat son of Sikander Hayat has stated that once when in 1945-46 he was going to Batala, Jinnah asked him to meet Hazarat Sahib of Qadian and request him on his behalf for his blessings and support for Pakistan’s cause. After this the Ahmedis extended support to Jinnah wholeheartedly. Shaukat later met Maulana Maududi at Pathankot with the same plea. Though the controversy which had erupted after this visit to Jammu and Kashmir got blown over yet Jinnah’s sitting in the lap of religious bigots after coming close to the Nawabs and big Zamindars proved disastrous to the people of the subcontinent as it gave birth and nursed the religious extremism there.