Sharda Lal

Even prior to 1947, the Princely State of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh was very much in the Indian cauldron and the recipe contained politically reactive ingredients. By inflicting upon the cauldron, one of the world’s most inhuman operations, British ‘artisans’ succeeded in carving out a ‘Compartment’ for Pakistan, that soon turned out to be the India’s most envious neighbour. Pakistan conspired and succeeded in gobbling up around 35 percent of the J&K’s recipe, leaving the then Maharaja Hari Singh of the State with little choice, but to hand over the ladle of the cauldron to Government of Free India for protection.
Unmindful of the stature of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in whole of J&K State and his chronic opportunistic personality, the Government of India with Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru at the helm, felt prudent to transfer the ladle to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Happy with the new-found ladle and his saliva dripping at the sight of churnings in the cauldron, the Sheikh started garnishing the leftover recipe with the spices of his personal choice. Soon, Nehru sensed foul odours emanating from the churnings and snatched the ladle from the Sheikh in 1953 to hand it over to Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. Bakshi Sahib garnished the recipe with ‘Saffron of Kashmir’, but New Delhi realized soon that the saffron used was from the poor cultivators. Meanwhile, during obsession of Nehru Government with the ‘Kashmiri cauldron’, that was seriously impacting rest of the country as well, China sneaked in and stole away 17 percent of the J&K’s recipe in 1962.

In Lighter Vein

Since 1964, the ladle has been handled under different circumstances by S/Shri G.M. Sadiq, Sayyed Mir Qasim, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, G.M. Shah, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Omar Abdullah, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mehbooba Mufti and also by the others directly appointed for the job by Government of India like L.K. Jha, B.K. Nehru, Jag Mohan Malhotra, General K.V. Krishna Rao, G.C. Saxena, Gen. S.K. Sinha, N.N. Vohra, Satya Pal Malik, G.C. Murmu and Manoj Kumar Sinha. Since, 31 October, 2019, a separate cauldron and ladle have been arranged for Ladakh by the Government of India with R.K. Mathur as in-charge.
As the year 2022 draws closer to its end, the talk of early transfer of ladle is gaining momentum. Many chefs are now claiming foolproof expertise in handling the ladle to churn out a nutritious, aromatic and palatable dish for J&K’s citizens, albeit each one wants to use his or her own spices. Former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is the latest one to join the front runners aspiring to handle the cauldron in J&K. His morale got a big boost when almost all the prominent and known faces of Congress in J&K left the party and backed him, soon after his dropping the Congress ‘bakery’ tag on 26 August, 2022. It is a different matter that analysts of different shades of opinion have varied assessments.
Some believe that Azad might face the fate of former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, because all of them are spent horses. They feel that the Azad’s new party will only divide the Congress votes and the gainer would be anyone, but not from his bandwagon.
Zafar Coudhary, a political analyst has observed that the Centre (overwhelmingly the BJP at present) is not averse to elections, but they can’t afford a hostile legislature, executive under any circumstances when all surveys, assessments, and analyses offer adverse results for BJP and allies, but better chances for People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration.”
Choudhary says, “As seen from Delhi, a government led by Azad, or of which he is a potential part, is as good as BJP’s, from a strategic perspective.” Choudhary believes that chances of all Kashmiri prospective Chief Ministers or others from Jammu including Ranas (Davinder Singh Rana) and Rainas (Ravinder Raina) are over. “But it looks unlikely that the BJP wants to share power with anyone in Jammu and Kashmir as the party believes it can anyway sweep Jammu during the polls and can form a Government with some Kashmiri party playing second fiddle,” says Naseer Ganai in the Outlook.
All these speculations aside, it can be said with confidence that still there are months, if not years to go for the J&K Assembly Polls. In politics, no speculation is absolutely reliable. This has been amply demonstrated by the recent happenings in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Bihar. Anyone can turn a surprise anytime.
On 26 September, 2022, Ghulam Nabi Azad named his new party as Democratic Azad Party (DAP) by preferring it over almost 1,500 suggested Sanskrit, Hindi, and Urdu names, since it contains a Hindustani term – Azad. Now, linguists are in a fix whether Azad is a Hindi, Urdu or a Hindustani name. Since no committee is reported involved in the selection process, one can presume that the choice was his personal one and he must have considered his own name while naming the DAP. He could have been influenced by the name ‘Azad Samaj Party’ of the modern Chandrashekhar Azad also. Definitely, he must not have been influenced by the name of the Akhil Bharatiya Azad Hind Party that was ‘aborted’ by Election Commission of India. Only Ghulam Nabi Azad can say if the name of Azad Hind Fauj also flashed through his mind while selecting the Party name.
In the Indian History, there is a reference to one party that had Azad in its name. It was All India Azad Muslim Conference, commonly called the Azad Muslim Conference. Azad Muslim Conference was an organisation of nationalist Muslims in India. Its purpose was advocacy for composite nationalism and a united India, thus opposing the partition of India as well as its underlying Two-Nation Theory put forward by the pro-separatist All India Muslim League. The conference included representatives from various political parties and organizations such as Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, All India Momin Conference, All India Shia Political Conference, Khudai Khidmatgar, Krishak Praja Party, Anjuman-i-Watan Baluchistan, All India Muslim Majlis, and Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadis.
The Canadian orientalist Wilfred Cantwell Smith felt that the attendees at the Delhi session in 1940 represented the “majority of India’s Muslims”, as did the British press. The Bombay Chronicle documented on 18 April 1946 that “The attendance at the Nationalist meeting was about five times than the attendance at the League meeting.”
The Azad Muslim Conference was established in 1929 by Allah Bakhsh Soomro, a later Chief Minister of Sindh, who had founded the Sindh Ittehad Party (Sind United Party) a few years before. In the 20th century, many Muslims in British India “ferociously opposed the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan”. Allah Bakhsh Soomro stated, “Whatever our faiths we must live together in our country in an atmosphere of perfect amity and our relations should be the relations of the several brothers of a joint family, various members of which are free to profess their faith as they like without any let or hindrance and of whom enjoy equal benefits of their joint property.”
In the session of the Azad Muslim Conference held in Delhi, from April 27 to April 30, over 1400 nationalist Muslim delegates participated. Allah Baksh Soomro, the leader of the conference, stated “No power on earth can rob anyone of his faith and convictions, and no power on earth shall be permitted to rob Indian Muslims of their just rights as Indian nationals.” (Isn’t it that the people of other faiths too need to mark his words to develop interfaith trust, while remaining steadfast to their own?) The participants primarily belonged to the working class of Muslims in British India, unlike the All India Muslim League, whose membership was largely composed of the elite.
Meetings of the Azad Muslim Conference were frequent in the 1940s, especially in 1942, and continued in several cities, which worried the rival Muslim League. The Azad Muslim Conference concluded that the creation of Pakistan would be “impracticable and harmful to the country’s interest generally, and of Muslims in particular.” It called on Indian Muslims to work with Indians of other faiths to gain Indian independence from British rule. Jawahar Lal Nehru praised the Azad Muslim Conference as “very representative and very successful”. The Azad Muslim Conference had support from the Deobandi school of Islam and their Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.
The All India Azad Muslim Conference, despite its political strength, was sidelined by British officials, who referred to the organisation as “so-called” in their correspondences. Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow, had referred to the organisation as “stage managed” in 1942 and eventually, the British were only willing to recognize the pro-separatist All India Muslim League as being the sole representative of Indian Muslims-a development that led to the partition of India. The Azad Muslim Conference used several slogans, among them being: “Inquilab Zindabad”, “Hindustan Azad”, “Pakistan Murdabad”, “Freedom through National Unity”, and “We are Indian and India is our Home”.
Those were the days of the British Government and the British did to India in 1947, what they wanted. The times have changed and there is every reason to believe that under the India’s own Government, the patriotic people should responsibly handle the proverbial ladle to churn out a dish that is nutritious, aromatic and palatable, not only for the citizens of J&K, but for all Indians.

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