Pandit Kashyap Bandhu - Some
Reminiscences
R. K. Kak, Jammu
[Reproduced from Martand dated 10th Jan. 1986]
[Shri R. K. Kak is the doyen of journalist fraternity in Kashmir. He
is the living monument of the history of Kashmir since 1931, and has had close
contacts with all Kashmir leaders, including Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Bakshi
Ghulam Mohammad, Mirza Azal Beg, Maulana Masoodi, Mir-Waiz Maulana Yustif Saha,
Pandit Prem Nath Bazaaz, Pandit Prem Nath Dogra, Pandit Kashyap Bandhu, Sardar
Budh Singh, and Pt. Jia Lal Kilam. He personally knew and covered Mahatma
Gandhi, Pandit Nehni, Maulana Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Mr. M. A. Jinnah,
and Pandit Ram Chandra Kak, who was Prime Minister of J & K during a very
crucial period of Kashmir History-Editor.]
In the morning of December 18 last, I sent a
letter to Pandit Kashyap Bandhu on his village home address-Noorpur (Geru) Tral-
in which I had sought some information from him on one or two points regarding
his role in State politics. But late at night when a common friend
telephoned me that Bandhuji had breathed his last, I was stunned. I felt
that another stalwart of the political movement in Kashmir had passed away to
the dismay of many. The entire picture of the eventful career of the khadi-clad,
bespectacled Bandhuji came before my mind's eye and I felt sad that another
distinguished freedom fighter, who represented the composite culture of Kashmir,
had departed.
In September last when I met him at Noorpur, he could not at first recognize
me even though I had revealed my identity on entering his room. He was
resting on his cot after lunch. "Come nearer", he told me in
Kashmiri. And when I did so, he embraced and kissed me and said, "My
eyesight has become verv weak; it is, therefore, that I did not at first
recognize you. I had consulted Dr. Manzoor, but he advised me against
undergoing another eye operation at this advanced age lest I should lose my
eyesight altogether".
After these remarks, Bandhuji suddenly had a hearty laugh and said in English
"I am now aged 87". There was a short pause and he again burst
into laughter. "I am going to live a hundred years". he said
humorously. But I could sense "that in this remark" of his there
was a subtle satire on himself. His companions were his books and newspapers
which he occasionally read in spite of his very weak eyesight. He felt
some sort of loneliness in his old age though his relatives and Muslim and Hindu
neighbours tried to give him company and make him feel as comfortable as
possible.
Bandhuji's Muslim neighbours, who lived with one another in leading me to his
house, were also sitting in the room on the ground floor where he (Bandhuji) was
chatting with me. Turning to them, he said, "A dear friend has come
to see me after a long time. Bring some cold water from the well and some
walnuts for him." In a twinkling of the eye, three young men stood up and
in a few minutes they brought a tumbler of ice-cold water for me. This was
followed by fresh walnuts on a plate. Then came a hot cup of tea.
"It is good that you have come", Bandhuji said looking towards me.
"The credit for it goes to the late Sheikh Sahib (Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah)". I replied. Bandhuji felt a little surprised and
asked me the how and why of it.
I explained to him that a few months before his death when Sheikh Sahib and I
were engaged in a lively conversation at his residence, I asked him about your
first meeting with him (Sheikh Sahib). Sheikh Sahib told me in reply that
I could meet you and get detailed information.
On hearing this, Bandhuji first fell into a reflective mood and then said:
"I was greatly upset when I read in the newspapers at Lahore about the
firing in Central Jail, Srinagar, on July 13, 1931, and the events that had
followed it. I decided to come back to Kashmir, but it took me a few days
to pack up as I had several engagements and commitments in Lahore. I
reached Srinagar early in August, 1931. I was very sad at what had
happened in the land of Lal Ded and Sheikh Noorud-Din, the two great saint-poets
who had shown the correct path to the people of Kashmir. I wanted to meet
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in order to discuss things with him. But since I
had not till then known Sheikh Sahib personally, the meeting could not take
place in 1931. Eventually, I contacted the late Khwaja Ghulam Ahmed Ashai
who was a friend of mine, it was through Ashai Sahib that Sheikh Sahib and I met
in 1932 in the house of late Pandit Hara Koul at Ali Kadal. We had a long
discussion on forming a joint front. Towards the end of our discussions,
Sheikh Sahib, who agreed with the proposal, told me to wait for some time since
he (Sheikh Sahib) faced certain difficulties.
After hearing this from Bandhu I asked him what sort of a leader according to
him, Sheikh Sahib was. Pat came the reply in English; "His conscience
was Muslim, his heart was Kashmiri and his brain was secular". After
saying this, Bandhuji became silent and closed his eyes for a minute or so.
I, therefore, asked him in a loud voice as to why he had become so quiet
suddenly. He replied in a voice filled with remorse; You have talked of
Sheikh Sahib whom I loved very much. I was just recollecting the days I
had spent with him inside and outside the jails in Jammu and Kashmir".
Pandit Kashap Bandhu resigned from the Yuvak Sabha, of which he was a leading
light, in 1935. Before resigning from the Sabha, he told a public meeting
: "The Yuvak Sabha has either shrunk so much that I cannot be accommodated
in it, or I have swollen so much that I cannot find a place in this
organization. I am, therefore, bidding good-bye to the Sabha."
Pandit Kashap Bandhu was an orator par excellence. He could build
rapport with his audience in no time. He spoke fluently in Kashmiri and
Hindi. Once when he developed differences with some leaders of the Yuvak
Sabha, he appeared on the platform and began his speech with the words :
"Today, I am standing before you as an accused................"
Thousands of people, who had gathered to hear him immediately shouted "No,
No you are not an accused..........." I was witnessing the scene at some
distance and felt surprised that this man could move an audience like that and
so quickly.
In the communal riot of 1932 in Srinagar, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
played a conspicuous role in controlling the situation. And when he and
Pandit Kashap Bandhu addressed a joint public meeting in the city, the latter
began his speech in Kashmiri by saying: "My head hangs in shame when I see
that in this land of Lal Ded and Nund Rishi, Hindus and Muslims, who live under
one sun and on one soil, should quarrel with or kill, each other........."
There was a hush and at the end of his moving speech, loud shouts of
"Hindu-Muslim Bhai, Bhai" rent the sky. Complete peace returned
to Srinagar after Sheikh Sahib, Bandhuji and other leaders had spoken at several
places in the city. I was, however, a personal witness to the sad
spectacle of the state administration under Col. Colvin laying the role of
a mere spectator in that commumal riot. The leaders alone brought the
situation under control.
Pandit Kashap Bandhu had migrated to Lahore in the late twenties of this
century. His original name was Pandit Tara Chand and he wrote Urdu poems
under the pseudonym of "Bulbul". As a villager, he had enough
opportunities to see the pitiable condition of the people in rural areas.
He therefore, imbibed revolutionary ideas. There was neither a free press
nor a free platform in Kashmir those days. So he made good his escape from
Kashmir to serve his homeland from Punjab. He established contacts with
the Punjab revolutionaries. His association with the Arya Samaj proved
useful to him but he was trying to start a revolutionary movement in Kashmir
also.
By nature, Bandhuji was very emotional and the developments which had shaken
Kashmir in 1931, forced him to come back to Kashmir. He had assumed name
of Kashyap Bandhu. In this change of his name, he kept in his view his
homeland since Kashmir is named after Kashyapa Rishi as the Neelmat Puran gives
us to understand. While in Punjab, Bandhuji worked hard for the welfare of
Kashmiri labourers. He would pick up a quarrel with anybody who derisively
called them "Hatos". And he was a well built man who had
confidence in himself.
Bandhuji was fully conversant with Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu, Hindi and
Kashmiri. The flow of his pen in Urdu and Hindi was as swift as the water
of the Jhelum in spate. His "Challant" column in the daily
Martand of Srinagar in the early thirties, can even now serve as a model for any
writer in Urdu or Hindi who wants to try his hand at satire. His satire
was quite subtle and polished, so much so that even the victim of this satire,
who tore his hair in desperation, would like to read the column for its artistic
value and absence of any crudeness.
During my meeting with him in September last, he told me in reply to a
question, that he had written his memoirs. "But who knows if these
memoirs, which I am trying to bring up-to-date, will at all be published after
my death?" he said in a low voice looking towards the window on his left.
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