Kashyap Bandhu - A Man Who Awoke A Somnolent Society

Dwarka Nath Munshi, New Delhi

The boy was destined to make a prominent mark in the history of Kashmir and especially in the life of Kashmiri Pandits.  Here I would take a minute to talk of our past history only as a backdrop of his work.  We have been relating that history on most occasions and I would desist from going into those off repeated details.  I will speak of it in the barest outline and as I have viewed if, and what broad lessons would be drawn from it, though not as self reghteous victims alone.

For a thousand years before him these meek citizens given to gentle pursuits of spiritual quest, philosophy, education, agriculture and other peaceful mundane activities had been driven to the edge of extinction by waves of brutish fanatical invaders as well as a cavalcade of rapacious local rulers.  At one time they had been reduced to no more than eleven families.  The rest of the entire Hindu population had been forcibl y converted to Islam or had gradually decayed by falling prey to destructive customs and rituals.  Divided by Varna or caste, they could never stand united or put up a joint front in any activity, least of all in their own security and defence.  All this had bred in them fatal urges for thinking or caring for nothing beyond the self at whatever price.

It was in a world of such background and atmosphere that Tara Chand appeared on the scene.  Little is known about his early years.  No authentic or reliable records, generally of those times, of the socioeconomic or political life of the people are available.  All that they would haveexperienced was that somewhere, far away resided, in the big palace, the great and all-powerful Maharaja popularly called the 'Sarkar' or the sovereign of the humble 'Riyaya'. If there was a 'madrassa' or 'maktab' or 'pathshala' (school), it must have been miles away, where the boys would go and sit under the shade of the trees, and the 'Ustad' or 'Panditji' (teacher) would  be taking his nap and a light massage from the boys. Then the bell would ring and the boys would run back home to lend a hand at domestic chores.

How the little Tara Chand must have been affected in that isolation, and what influences must have taken hold of his mind, can be anybody's guess. But as we view him as a grown up young man, he was all charm and decency. He
had left Kashmir for the Punjab plains to seek a career or pursue the ideals which lie appears to have developed from his early age. There is no doubt that he must have been deeply influenced and motivated by the freedom movement in India under Gandhiji's leadership. For, when he descended on the scene in Kashmir in the early thirties, he showed clear, unmistakable trace of that influence in each word and deed.

In the meantime, he had taken a wife who was a school teacher. Both husband and wife would be seen in Khadi apparel of Dhoti-kurta of the
husband and Sari-chola of the wife. Both looked screne, cute and, indeed, special.

Tara Chand had by now also assumed the name of Kashyap Bandhu meaning the brother and the servant of Kashmir, and had straightway plunged into the service of the people, to arouse them to the fast-changing times, to live and work, to think and act for people's emancipation, as India as a whole was striving to do.

TRAUMATIC TIMES

Kashmir had not, however, remained untouched but had undergone a deep and painful change of its own. A Muslim Conference had been established and Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah had emerged as the Supreme leader of the Muslim Community.  The whole atmosphere was surcharged with Muslim Communalism and against the Maharaja's 'autocratic' rule.  In 1931 it turned violent and inexplicably they attacked Kashmiri Pandits, who were in a negligible minority and yet were being represented as the Dogra Maharaja's own, and exploiters of the majority community.

The first large-scale violence occurred on July 13, 1931.  The Muslims, though only some sections of them, had been subjected to communal propaganda against the Hindus that is the Kashmir Pandits (KPs).  A protest march by the agitating Muslims was met by some excessive police action which exploded into a wide conflagration.  The marchers turned their wrath on the Kashmiri Pandits, especially in Srinagar's central market of Maharaj Gunj, indulging in loot, arson and wide-scale destruction and some deaths.

This was a wholly new and undreamt of experience for Kashmiris as a whole.  Earlier, the Pandits had suffered persecution and oppression for centuries under the alien Muslim invaders, as I said a while ago.  But now, for long years, the Kashmiri stock was enjoying an exemplary communal harmony.  Truly was it held that the Muslims and Pandits were two brothers, pursuing two  different faiths in perfect mutual affection, respect and trust which was the envy of many an outsider.

July 31 was thus the defining episode foreshadowing the State's trying times to come.  The wounds inflicted by the occurrence were not allowed to heal, but to rather fester and deepen.  For KPs the trauma was essentially of betrayal of trust which created a sense of insecurity and darkness.

THE POLE STAR PANDIT

It was at such a time that Kashyap Bandhu emerged as a pole star to work for the emancipation of the confused and depressed Kashmiri Pandit community.

To analyse a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he avoids to do, or purposely leaves alone or undone.  Thus, we see that he did not harp on the oppression and harm done to the community as much as he sought to strengthen it by infusing courage and confidence and self-reliance as positive action, which would be the right response for our long-term salvation.  His emphasis on social reform, on developing modern outlook in day-to-day living, on power and dignity of labor, on empowering the meek and the timid by collective voice and action, all flowed from these Gandhian principles and emphasis was directed to achieving this central purpose.

It is instructive and interesting to see that there was an aspect of subtlety and dual purpose to almost everything he undertook for the common people's welfare.  For instance, one of his first priorities was to develop a suitable place in Srinagar for the community to congregate every week, in a spiritual and joyous healthy seating.  He selected a splendid site for the purpose and went to work on it development.  This was at a toe of the sacred Hari Parbat, where all out Devis and Devtaas reside.  Atop the gentle slopes of the hillock at this point resides Goddess Hari, resplendent in glowing Vermillion and decked in fragrant marigold and rose.  On the opposite side, lay vast fields of almond orchards and enormous stretches of shimmering waters reaching to the foot of Mata Ragnya's abode at Khir Bhawani.

This glorious, environmentally refreshing and spiritually elevating point needed to be enlarged to accommodate the growing numbers that flocked there every Sunday morning.  So Bandhuji called upon the youths to cut a new pathway away and around it, which yielded the desired space.  This seemingly single objective carried in itself a few other significant ones.  It attracted the generally stay-at-home people, women in particular, to come out into the open, healthy environs for a long morning, Parikrama in communion with nature and the divine, and in step with others to establish a social closeness and to take up boldly some manual labour as a rewarding exercise.

Amazingly our women-folk were drawn powerfully to these Sunday prayers and social intermingling.  Here I would like to give you the example of my own mother who was a young widow of about 27 years and I as a little boy of four summers hung on to her most of the time.  But she would never leave the threshold of our sprawling house and garden, attired in the customary Pheran and Taranga (head-gear).  As if by divine interference, she one day decided to change to sari as Bandhuji had propounded.  She felt a new spirit surging within and would regularly attend the Sunday meeting at Hari Parbat, taking me along and returning with a light heart and step.

On one such morning.  Bandhuji hoisted out Community flag at the holy spot.  He then brought out a knife in the right hand and with it slashed his left arm.  As blood gushed out in thick drops, he poured it at the flag staff base to sanctify it, and bear it as witness to the vow of life-long service to the community.  The entire audience stood up in awe and solemnity to make a covenant with Ma Hari, looking from above, to abide by all-round social reform in the society as delineated by Bandhuji.  It was a unique and memorable event in our life, inscribing within us, with the resounding notes of the slogan 'Jai Kara-Jar Har Mahadev' the spirit of courage and selfless sacrifice.  The memory of that magnificent moment still shines in the heart of the lad of the four tender summers who lives to relate today the unforgettable experience.

The changes that followed were pleasantly spontaneous.  Men folk started taking to dhoti or Pyjama/Kurta and gradually to more manageable caps in place of the never-ending yards of the 'Dastaar'.  For women in particular, the Sari system of dress was a great liberating act, especially in the headgear.  The Taranga involved layers of the Kalpush (a cap) with taltchuk (an embroidered adornment), the Zuji, over the cap, then the taranga of several carefully laid out layers of cotton strip round the head, and on top of it all the 'Putch' a longer Zuji going from the crown of the head down to the ankles, and finally the wodapallav of fine cotton or Pashmina drapery over it all.

As you, the reader would have experienced even in following these complex intricate details, it was a tedious time-taking and tiring exercise and demanded assistance of a second person, expert in the process of placing these expensive items in proper place at each step. the sari had dispensed with it all, at one stroke, with just a flick covering the head with ease and elegance.  I guess in hindsight that, apart from acquiring a smart new visage, we integrated our identity with the Hindus in the plains as also shed the laze-inducing alien system of dress which was representing the remnants of the Muslim invaders' way of covering themselves whole.

THE WATCHWORD: SOCIAL REFORM

Social reform had now become the watchword after the collective vow was taken.  It came as a read answer to the numerous meaningless customs and sometimes ridiculous rituals such as at birth, weddings, festivals, birthdays, death, et all.  The dowry system was the most hateful of all.  It involved not only utter waste of scarce resources which often resulted in ruin.  It also created sulk and bitterness and long-drawn quarrels and disputes, where it should have been mutual love and regard and close relationship between the parties concerned.  The vow did produce a salutary effect, though only for a time before it started weakening and taking other alarming crude and proportions characteristics.  Even so, there are many young men and even girls- the centre of this ritual-who abhor and reject those customs and prefer to observe Social Reform.

Among Bandhuji's many social reforms, his persistent advocacy of widow remarriage was taken regrettably with little seriousness or acceptability by the community.  A pity it was, indeed, when we recall how numerous young widows, sometimes childless and helpless, sometimes with children but not enough means, would pass their lives in mortifying loneliness, Penury and social stigma or disdain, living from day to day at the mercy and sometimes cruelty of even 'their near relations, for no fault of theirs.  Where some remarriages were solemnised, these were generally wickedly referred to as having been out of utter desperation or mindless bravado and even other unmentionable reasons.  We hardly ever took it as emancipation.

The pathos of it all is heightened when we realise that, typical of the times and the negative influences we live in, we have now almost accepted with relative ease or resignation the trauma of divorce followed by remarriage, putting at stake the lives at least of their offspring, when we had resisted unthinkingly the ameliorative widow remarriage.

Times were, meanwhile, changing fast in political and even social fields and Kashmir was moving into the centre-stage.  All the same, Bandhuji had promoted some basic tools of response activities of long-term meaning and value.

THE RISE OF MARTAND

One was the launching of 'Martand' in Urdu, the mouthpiece of Kashmiri Pandits and practically the first daily newspaper of Kashmir.  Its popularity was instant and phenomenal.  Not only did it enter every KP household regularly every morning, it made a niche for itself in every mind and heart there.  Bandhuji poured his soul into it day after day and filled its columns with bold and fearless fight against injustice, with noble ideas and pointed comments, fiery patriotism and words of wisdom for one and all.  Martand rose to great heights not only in Kashmir but as a medium of dependable information and interpretation of event even outside the state.

It is painful to say that such a useful and influential institution should have been so callously and incompetently handled and allowed to decline and decay later.  Yet the name Martand continues to fire emotions, esteem, enthusiasm and pride in the hearts of us all, and we keep longing for it.

A HANDFUL OF RICE

To build institutions of physical or mental growth, to pave the way to enlightenment, to help those in need, to keep the community informed, enthused, involved or committed, to fight peaceful battles, all this and more simply needs money.  Where would it come from, placed and circumstanced as we were then?  Bandhuji had, therefore, to work out a magical novelty, the Mochchphol, translated literally into English, it means a 'handful of grain' say rice, our staple food.  But the main idea behind it was for every family to keep aside every morning at least this much of rice taken out of what was being taken to the kitchen to cook for the family, and that would hardly make any difference.  At the end of the month, a collector would come and receive this donation and deposit it at the central store.  It was from there that part of the collection would be distributed among the needy, and the remaining would be sold in the market fetching money for funding the diverse activities of the community Organisation, the Yuvak Sabha.

Mochchphol represented a lofty, yet easy and eminently affordable sacrifice equally from the haves and the less fortunate, on one hand, and promoting a social equality and consciousness of helping the needy and the community organisation, on the other.

THE POLITICAL PLAZA

Meanwhile, the natural flux of time brought fast political changes in the country and the State.  The social milieu could not be immune to it.  Kashmir in the late thirties was rapidly moving to the centre stage.

India's freedom struggle had created new aspirations and compulsions among the State people at large.  Even the miniscule Pandits were turning politically more conscious.  The small band of leaders who had collected under the Yuvak Sabha and around Kashyap Bandhu, started feeling different urges, thinking in different directions and tones, and developing varied political views, relating to the role and rights of the minority KPs.

The Muslim majority's leadership, on their part, also changed their strategy and stance, giving up the communal flag for a progressive nationalist and secular one.  Bandhuji, following his long held convictions and instincts, felt more at ease with this new stance, and soon lent them support in their newly adopted political assertions.  It bestowed significant credibility to the National Conference in replacing the Muslim Conference.  Nevertheless, he continued to work in the social and developmental sphere rather than directly in politics.  When Kashmir got people's popular government at Independence, he took up the important charge of rural reconstruction and resettlement of the uprooted and the weak.  This was much in tune with his life-long mission and he acquitted himself very well.
 

Unfortunately, his relationship with this new setup was not as enduring as he would have wished, and for sober reasons.  Working within the majority ruling establishment, and more particularly with the leader Sheikh Abdullah. he felt increasingly unhappy with the actualities vis-a-vis the promises and hopes that had been generated, especially among the minority sections.  An accompanying piece in this issue. which is a translation of the great leader's own article in the then Desh of Srinagar. throws more detailed and authentic light on it.  This was first published in the NAAD of AlKs in its March 1993 issue.  The more he strove for a proper balance, the more he got disillusioned.  He soon decided that it was now time to work for a just order from outside rather than stay fruitlessly within.  It did not take him long thereafter to say good-bye.

However, his creative faculties would not let him rest.  His love and leanings for mass communication led him to energise the famous 'Desh' and fill it with progressive and even revolutionary views and fearlessly and unceasingly.  His insight into the future was phenomenal and his style of expressing as forceful, subtle, ironic, as the occasion demanded . His feelings for the Pandits were always tender and concerned and sometimes foreboding would here mention an example of it which contained in the emotionally painful little piece about the last four Kashmiri Pandits that would have perished one by one by the new millennium, that is now.  Lamented he thus "one of them will die and three others will cremate him and so on till the last one has no one to carry his cortege.  The body would thereupon be buried by the neighbouring Muslims marking, the end of the KP community.  Only a ghost of the buried would roam and scream in the night." This was, of course, apocryphal, but a deeply piercing comment both on the majority Muslims for their callous and hostile attitude to the KPs, and, for us, to underline the need to be more alive to the situation and remain vigilant.  And how close a prophetic at vision it eventually furned out to be!

As Bandhuji's sensitive spirit watches us from above, let us prove that we are not the children of abyss, and we will do what we have to do to achieve our own renaissance.  We trust that what we will do will not only better our own condition but will make a contribution to the success of the nation's renaissance and towards identification of the century ahead of us as the Indian century.  That will bring his soul solace in heaven.

It may well be said that this polestar Pandit lighted out way out of the obstructive trivialities into bold emancipative action.

Having attempted to portray Kashyap Bandhu and his work dispassionately, I must confess that I may not have done full justice to the subject in the circumstances we are placed today in this regard.

How did he frame the agenda of his life and mission, what influences had shaped his simple but essentially powerful and charming personality, what were the factors that had given him the extraordinary vigour and virtue of persistence and persuasion, what had made him a seer who could see the future, and many more questions arise in the mind but remain unsatisfied.  For there are no records and references of his life and especially of his enormous work that one could find.  The priceless volumes he produced of Martand and Desh and Kesari and the countless public addresses he made are just not available.  The volumes of the papers, it they were filed properly and regularly, would yield a rich crop, but alas these are beyond our reach and may well have been destroyed.  The reader will, I am sure, take this in view in assessing the value of what has been offered here.

This is in essence an appreciation and interpretation of the work of a visionary who was much larger that what we could see.

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