Suraya Abdullah in conversation with Nyla Ali Khan
Prelude
The
rustle of a traditional shalwar kameez; a well-ironed dupatta lightly
covering her head; a soft look on her face accentuated by a mellifluous voice;
an unflinching conviction in basic goodness and the potential of people to
redeem themselves even in the worst of situations; an uncritical filial
devotion; an enviable sense of contentment and calm, which remains unruffled
and a strength in the most trying circumstances; a staunch pride in her
cultural and territorial identity; a passionate devotion to Kashmir which
remains uneroded despite some hostile incursions into her sense of self; a
trooper dutifully trotting to Maulana Azad Government College for Women with
her stack of books, even in times of upheaval; a selfless desire to pursue
social activism while her health allows; a charming blend of tradition and
modernity, never trespassing the boundaries of decency; the youngest of
five children of Begum Akbar Jehan and Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, my mother
Suraiya Ali Matto née Abdullah.
Although
my Maji has the proverbial patience of the biblical Job, my political
opinions and brash criticism of the contemporary leadership of the National
Conference, the political organization founded by her father, irks her. She has
the magnanimity to respect my point of view for which I will be eternally
grateful. Maji has always had the magnanimity to accept and love me just
as I am, with my multiple flaws and strengths. My Aba, Mohammad Ali Matto, and my Maji,
Suraiya, mollycoddled me and protected me in my childhood and adolescence from
the difficult realities of the world, but they did not clip my wings when I
flew the nest. My parents might not always see eye to eye with my politics, but
they have never infringed on my right to express myself without fear of
reprisal. It was delightful and liberating to finally have a tête-à- tête with
my mother about her Papa, for which I am grateful to Ather Zia. Maji and
I talked as candidly as was possible about Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, not the
iconicized populist leader of Indian administered Jammu
and Kashmir, not the vilified and demonized traitor of Indian and
Pakistani mainstream discourse, not the tragic hero of Kashmir,
but her Papa, in moments of strength, vulnerability, heroism, sickness,
self-doubt, and poignant humanity. It wasn’t easy for my mother to talk about
her traumatic, politically distraught childhood and adolescence; it wasn’t easy
for her to articulate the pain that she has buried deep within her; it wasn’t
easy for her to expose the scars that, over the years, have healed, but she has
taken baby steps toward opening up. I have always respected Maji’s simplicity,
humility, and dignified silence when her siblings chose to wash their dirty
linen in public. It is those qualities that come through clearly in her concise
answers. I present to my readers not a devious politician, not a strategist,
not a manipulator, but a daughter who painfully witnessed her parents’ pain,
trauma, dislocation, dispossession, and internalized it all without a whimper.
Interview
Q:
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a formidable leader; a political stalwart; the tragic
hero of Kashmir; the astute strategist; the idealist who nurtured the dream of
independence; the visionary who resuscitated the Muslims of Kashmir valley; the
larger than life figure whom many seek to emulate while vilifying him. I would
like to know more about Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the father.
A:
My father, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, tall and imperious, inspired awe in my
siblings and I. The reason for this was his constant absence was our lives when
we needed him most and his iconic stature. It was only after 1965 that I saw
his human side when I had the chance of living with my parents in their exile
in Kodai Kanal, Tamil Nadu. He was brave and uncompromising as far as his
convictions were concerned and was deeply attached to Kashmir and the people of
Kashmir. He was not interested in seeing any
of his children joining politics, but destiny had willed otherwise. I am
reminded of an incident that made my father more human than iconic. Toward the
last months of his exile in Kodai, his blood sugar levels rose very high.
Doctors from Madurai
who were supposed to examine him every other week were not able to detect it.
The result was that he got weaker by the day and his throat would always be
parched. That is when he thought that he was being slow poisoned by the government
of India.
It was my mother and I who were there to boost his flagging morale. T. N.
Seshan was then the collector of Madurai
and was assigned to look my father up every fortnight. I vividly recall that
whenever he visited my father, Seshan rarely smiled, was aloof, and off-hand.
The cold and rather vicious attitude of the representatives of the government
of India
worsened my father’s sense of persecution. But the resilience of his spirit
enabled him to overcome the hostility and vindictiveness brazenly exhibited by
Indira Gandhi and her minions.
My
father died a sad man because of the rift in the family which was aggravated by
the succession battle between my oldest brother Farooq and my brother-in-law G.
M. Shah. His untimely death on September 8, 1982, left me shattered and
devastated. I had lost a very loving father. But unlike the rest of my
siblings, I maintained a dignified silence. My father’s corpse was transported
to the Polo Ground at 3:00 a.m to lie in state. When I asked why his corpse was
being taken from the house to a public venue, I was told that he belonged to
the nation, not to us.
It
was towards the last years of my father’s life that all of us got closer to
him. He cared for us and, in the latter part of his life, was religious about
spending his evenings with the family. He tried to compensate for the time that
he had lost with his family by forging a rapport with us in his later years. My
older sister, Khalida, and I were closer to him than my brothers. My brothers
could never overcome the fear that he inspired in them and would always be at a
loss to talk to their father freely.
Q:
Abdullah’s unsurpassed achievement during his years as Prime Minister of Indian
Administered Jammu and Kashmir (J & K)
from 1948 to 1953 was the abolition of the exploitative feudal system in the
agrarian economy. He was also responsible for the eradication of monarchical
rule. Can you talk about the impact that your father’s politics had on your
personally?
A:
The impact that my father’s politics had on me was to be guarded in my actions
and speech. We, the children, were expected to be perfect human beings. It was
not only he who was idolized by the people of Kashmir,
but we were loved and venerated by them as well. The trajectories that we
followed in life were of great interest to the people of Kashmir.
To this day we are known more by his stature than by our own achievements.
The
impact of his politics on me personally was that I wanted to his opponents
tooth and nail and admired his supporters. I became an ardent supporter of his
views and his stance vis-à-vis the right of self-determination for the people
of Kashmir. It is his ideology that makes me
proud to identify myself as a Kashmiri. My father had an entrenched pride in
the unique cultural ethos of Kashmir; the territorial integrity of Kashmir; the
right of the people of Kashmir to aspire high and to follow their dreams; the
right of the people of Kashmir to express their opinions at national and
international forums; the right of the people of Kashmir to demand the
redressal of their grievances; the right of the people of Kashmir to demand
socioeconomic and political equities. My father was a visionary and a stalwart
who, unfortunately, did not have the leisure to groom a successor that would
uphold the dignity of Sher-e-Kashmir’s legacy. It is primarily because of his
influence that I love Kashmir with a passion
and have an aversion toward military and political oppression.
Q: Abdullah
remained in office until he died on September 8, 1982. Shortly before he died,
in 1981 Abdullah, contrary to his socialist politics, presided over the
“coronation” of his oldest son, Farooq Abdullah, as president of the NC. This
act perpetuated the subcontinental tradition of dynastic politics. I think that
the trauma of incarceration, political persecution, ill-health, and age had
substantially reduced the magnificence of the Lion of Kashmir when he assumed
office in 1975. Do you think that twenty-two years of incarceration, political
marginalization, and political compromises had caused your father to become
disillusioned and cynical when he returned to Kashmir
in 1975?
A:
My father’s return to mainstream politics in 1975 had many reasons. One reason
was the creation of Bangladesh
in 1971; the other was the lackadaisical attitude of big powers toward the Kashmir issue. My father always nurtured the dream of an
independent Kashmir, the independence of which would be guaranteed by India, and Pakistan, and world powers. My
father was viciously stabbed in the back in 1953 by Jawaharlal Nehru’s
chameleon like politics. My father’s firm belief that the accession of Kashmir
was provisional and not a fait accompli made him an inveterate not just for New Delhi but for Islamabad
as well. For twenty-two years my father fought with all his strength for the
territorial, political, cultural, and social integrity of Kashmir.
Although New Delhi and Islamabad tried to break him through various
strategies, he maintained his unflinching faith in God and the courage of
Kashmiris to rise above despair and defeat. My father was always careful not to
buckle under the demeaning pressure put on him by the government of India. The
government of India deployed strategies, some seemingly legitimate and others
blatantly illegitimate, to coerce my father to toe the mainstream line; my
brother, Tariq, was declared a persona non grata when he foregrounded the
Kashmir issue at the United Nations General Assembly in the 1950s, accompanied
by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; my cousin, Nazir, was brutally interrogated and
tortured during Bakshi’s regime for being a committed member of the Plebiscite
Front; my brother-in-law, G. M. Shah, was incarcerated leaving my sister and
her oldest child almost destitute; but my father did not relent. My mother,
also, stood her ground and refused to accept any succor from Bakshi’s goonda
regime.
Choosing
his oldest son as his successor was influenced by the wishes of a powerful
coterie. The choice was between his son and son-in-law, Mr. G. M. Shah. The
former was likeable, affable, and the choice of the then electorate. My father
did not have much time to groom a successor, and then the main reason was my
oldest brother, Farooq Abdullah, to have been chosen as my father’s successor was
his acceptability to the then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and his
ilk. To Mrs. Gandhi and her ilk, Farooq seemed more gullible, malleable, and
certainly much less seasoned than Mr. G. M. Shah.
Q. Your
mother, Begum Akbar Jehan, established an institution, Jammu and Kashmir Markazi Behboodi Khwateen,
in 1975 for the purpose of providing women from the downtrodden sections of
society with functional literacy, training in arts and crafts, health care, and
social security. She stood by Sheikh sahib even in the most difficult of times.
Can you reminisce about your mother’s involvement with her husband’s mammoth
task, not just at a political level but at a personal level as well?
A:
My mother came from a very well to do family. Once she got married to my
father, she gave up all the luxuries of life that she had been accustomed to.
She stood by him through thick and thin. She faced the difficulties of every
day life single handedly while my father was in jail. I have seen her
campaigning for him and the National Conference during his illness when he was
confined to bed. In my opinion, the real hero of the 1977 elections was my
mother! I always admired her for taking my father’s mood swings genially. She
was the real force behind her husband’s success as a popular leader of
Kashmiris and she their kind mother!
Nyla Ali Khan is a professor of Literature
at University of Nebraska. She is Suraya Abdullah's
daughter and granddaughter of Shiekh Mohammad Abdullah.