God Knows Better

God Knows Better

Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani

Ashraf Qureshi was around 17 on 30th January 1971 when he left Kashmir and landed at Lahore airport. He died on 2 February 2012 at the age of 60 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. It is not clear whether he had any close friend around him in whose ear he could have whispered “The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.” (Socrates). He was one of the two most important passengers on the hijacked Indian Airline plane “Ganga”. Hashim Qureshi another important passenger was in his late twenties. He may also have wished to tell someone how a Geologist became a teacher (scholar) of Kashmiri language at the University of Punjab.

Around 3 to 4 lakhs of people surged to swarm the airport in 1971. They came from remote corners of Pakistan (then West Pakistan) to see the two Kashmiri youth who had hijacked an Indian airplane. Over the years the number thinned in many ways and one could see that they were very few at his first Nimaze Jinaza in Rawalpindi and encouragingly many more at the second Nimaze Jinaza held at Mirpur in Azad Kashmir. It was his last wish that he should be laid to rest on the State soil. It was his wish to be buried in Mirpur. It is heart breaking that he could not return to see his parents in Srinagar since January 1971.

I first met Ashraf Qureshi at the University of Punjab in April 1980 when the Kashmiri students studying at the university invited me for a talk arranged on the campus and after the talk I was quickly frisked away to avoid a possible arrest. Ashraf Qureshi, Ishfaq Hashmi and many other Kashmiris had gathered in the High Court of Lahore on 1 April 1980 to hear Dr. Abdul Basit to argue my bail application before the chief justice of Lahore High Court in a case/s registered against me for writing an article titled “Kashmir, Maslay Kashmir aur Kashmiri Zuban” and a booklet titled “Kashmir Ka Waris”. My love and defence of Kashmiri language and political opinions were regarded as serious offences.

My bail was granted by the chief justice on 1 April 1980. It was a difficult relief because all the cases were registered under Martial Law Regulations and the civil courts as an order of the day did not have a heart to annoy the military government. Chief Justice Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain in reply to government opposition to my bail made a scathing remark and said “If this court could sentence a Prime Minister to death, why does it not have the jurisdiction to grant bail to this young Kashmiri, who is likely to appear in his Law examination at the S M Law College, in Karachi”.

Our last meeting was in August 1982 when I took him along to see Hashim Qureshi who lived in Satellite Town, Rawalpindi. In fact I had put in place all my plans to leave Pakistan and wanted to say a final good bye to Hashim without revealing that I was likely to leave Pakistan in a few days. Ashraf knew about my plans but I decided to keep it a secret from Hashim at that point. There were not that many people who knew that I was leaving Pakistan.

My article “Kashmir, Maslay Kashmir aur Kashmiri Zuban” which was published in Weekly Alfatah Karachi in its issue of 20-27 January 1978, registration of cases against me by the government and debates in the High Court of Lahore sensitized the case of Kashmiri language in Pakistan. The first generation of Kashmiri speaking refugees had thinned (natural deaths) and the language faced a serious crisis of extinction. I had remained in charge of the important Kashmiri External Service broadcast from Radio Pakistan in Rawalpindi and knew that we had problems in finding Kashmiri speakers for the programme. Kashmiri programmes at Radio Pakistan, usually named as, Pindi III also faced a crisis and non Kashmiris had to be given Kashmiri script to deliver or perform. It hurt me to see non Kashmiris using Kashmiri language as a means of living and with little or no regard for the future benefit of the language itself. It was in this context that I wrote a controversial article “Radio Trarkhal Benikahee Auratoon Kee Raj Dahani”, (Radio Trarkhal the capital of unwedded women).

There was some moral support but no direct support for the cause of Kashmiri language in those days. A very well known editor (late) of a Weekly in Rawalpindi in fact tendered a written apology to military government for reproducing my article published in Alfatah, Karachi. At the same time some sections in the community and in the government had no answer to the fact that if Kashmiri language died in Azad Kashmir or in Pakistan there would be no broadcast in Kashmiri from Radio Pakistan and no link with the people on the other side of cease fire line. Pakistan had only one TV channel PTV run by the government.

Ashraf Qureshi after his release and acquittal in “Ganga” hijack case studied Geology at Punjab University. Azad Kashmir a place full of natural resources desperately needed geologists. Shame as it has been, he was blacklisted by the secret agencies and the secret script of agencies haunted him all along his life until 2 February 2012. Azad Kashmir where a common official of a secret agency has the habit of breathing down the neck of the highest person in office (including the President and the Prime Minister) remained obedient to the secret dictate of Pakistani agencies and did not accept Ashraf Qureshi as a geologist in the area or capable of any other employment in his home land. He had committed no sin against the territory of AJK except that he had left his own home to realize a dream.

The campaign in support of Kashmiri language started unnerving the colonial mind set in Pakistan. The fact that Kashmiri language was regarded as one of the 14 Indian national languages and appeared on Indian currency notes came up as a strong argument in the High Court as well. Vice Chancellor of Punjab University a Kashmiri muhajar assembled courage and started the Department of Kashmiri language at the university. It was a noble decision to service the cause of language and to find a way to accommodate Ashraf Qureshi, who was being haunted (an unlawful act) by secret agencies and had fallen on bad days.

Ashraf Qureshi became the first Kashmiri teacher in the department of Kashmiri at the University of Punjab. Over the years he acquired a Ph.D in the language and became a scholar in Kashmiri language. The individual and the language gave a lot to each other. When the State failed him it was Kashmiri language, which came to change him from a geologist to a scholar (linguist). May be he did not have time to tell to his children, how important it is to defend your mother tongue, these lines may go some way to encourage them to defend the constituency of Kashmiri language.

It is in this context that his death has been reported as “Renowned Kashmiri scholar Professor Dr. Muhammad Ashraf Qureshi passed away in Rawalpindi on Thursday after a protracted illness. He was 60. He was laid to rest at a graveyard in lake view city of Mirpur in Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK).”

Author is London based Secretary General of JKCHR – NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations. He can be mailed at dr-nazirgilani@jkchr.com