Talk:Naya Kashmir

About B P L Bedi
BPL Bedi(Baba Pyare Lal Bedi) was a punjabi sikh belonging to the Bedi sect the same sect to which Guru Nanak whom the Sikhs consider as the founder of their religion belonged.He received his initial education at Govt College Lahore and subsequently University of Punjab.In 1931 he joined Hertford College Oxford and obtained his B.A. degree with honours in economics,politics and philosophy.He was an Alexander Humboldt Scholar at Berlin University but had to leave the University without completing his doctorate following the rise of Hitler to power.He married his fellow student Freda Houlston Freda Bedi an Englishwoman in June 1933.BPL Bedi had also during his youth met the great civil engineer, agriculturist and philanthrope Sir Ganga Ram and later wrote his biography "Harvest From The Desert".This book has recently been republished in Lahore where the people of the city still remember Sir Ganga Ram with gratitude for his civil works.

In 1934 Bedi came back to India and settled at Lahore.His socialist views led him to join politics and he bacame joint secretary of a peasants party "All India Kissan Sabha" in 1936-37.He was jailed from 1940-1942 under Defence of India rules.He was the editor of Contemporary India(1935-1938) and the weekly "Monday Morning"(1938-1939).He also edited a book on Economics of India titled India Analyzed which is  available on the web.He  also edited books on religious poetry and spiritual subjects after he moved from communism to religion in later life.

Ever a friend of the revolutionaries he became a close friend of Sheikh Abdullah who entrusted him with the drafting of the Naya Kashmir memorandum. BPL Bedi also named a cross road in centre Srinagar as Lal Chowk (Red Square). Lal Chowk remains the hub of political activity in Srinagar even today. Very recently it was again in the headlines when the right wing B.J.P threatened to hoist the Tricolour there on Republic Day which the residents felt was a signal to them that  BJP would oppose their quest to be masters of their destiny as was promised by Nehru in 1947.This led the State Government to put the whole of Lal Chowk under curfew.

In the disturbances following Partition of India in 1947 BPL Bedi fled from Lahore to Kashmir where he according to his son Ranga was an advisor to Sheikh Abdullah.He then moved on from Kashmir to Delhi.The marriage between BPL Bedi and Freda apparently did not endure and they went travelling on their own separate spiritual ways.BPL Bedi migrated to Italy where he married an Italian woman. In Italy Bedi turned from Marxism to spritualism and died there in 2001.

Preamble
The following lines from the preamble of Naya Kashmir(Quoted by Sheikh Abdullah in his speech to the Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir in1951) are missing from theUrdu Version of Naya Kashmir reprinted in the book by Rasheed Taseer:

"We the people of Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh and the Frontier regions, including Poonch and Chenani Illaqas commonly known as Jammu and Kashmir State in order to perfect our union in the fullest equality and self-determination to raise ourselves and our children forever from the abyss of oppression and poverty, degradation and superstition, from medieval darkness and ignorance, into the sunlit valleys of plenty, ruled by freedom, science and honest toil, in worthy participation of the historic resurgence of the peoples of East, and the working masses of the world, and in determination to make this our country a dazzling gem on the snowy bosom of Asia, propose and propound the following constitution of our State."

taffazull (talk) 08:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Pandit Gwash Lal’s Clarion Call
The 13th of July uprising in Srinagar is just what the Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) leader Pandit Gwash Lal had demanded from his community six years earlier.The Hindus and Muslims lived cheek by jowl in Srinagar and had close social relations but the problems the two communities faced were very different. For Muslims government employment under the Maharaja was almost forbidden fruit while for the Pandits(Hindus) of Srinagar it was the main source of livelihood, so much so that they called it bread or “Roti”. However what irritated the Pandits was that the Dogra Maharaja preferred to get officers of outstanding ability from British India for the highest posts as he wanted his State to have the best possible talent at the helm of affairs. The Maharaja owed his throne to the British Resident and he wanted the most efficient persons at the top of whom there was no dearth in British India. This exclusion of Pandits from the highest posts was strongly resented by the Pandit community as they felt that their highly educated youth whose number was increasing day by day were being excluded from government jobs for which they were amply qualified and thus literally deprived of their “Roti” or daily bread.

Pandit Gwash Lal Koul a Pandit leader and vice-president of the Sanatan Dharam Youngman’s association wrote an article in 1925 titled “Unemployment in Kashmir” which was published in the Punjabi newspaper “Akhbar-i-Am”. According to Ravinderjit Kour who has made an extensive study of the State Archives of that period  he appealed to the Kashmiris to raise the sort of agitation that the student community had raised in China. He also sent a representation to all the members of the State Council making a reference to the French Revolution.

In the above mentioned article he alleged that people appointed from outside fed on the (local) people who were ”tottering and hastening into the jaws of death”. He further wrote : “ No representation without agitation is the rule of modern democracy; unless some pressure is brought to bear upon the authorities there cannot be redress of wrongs.”

In a prescient appeal Gwash Lal Koul asked the educated people to organize themselves into an association and to solve the problem of bread ( bread was an euphemism for government jobs on which the Pandit community was totally dependent for their livelihood).He pointed out that it was the educated class in Europe which led the movement for administrative reforms. Giving a clarion call to the youth of his community he wrote: “The whole world is a struggle for existence in which the strongest survive, while the weakest go to the wall. Now or never is the time to solve the problem. Those alone who are prepared to die at the altar of their motherland will wear a martyrs crown… So arise O lions and come forward, happen what may.” (Reference: Political Awakening in Kashmir By Ravinderjit Kour. (1996) page32-33, A.P.H . Publishing Corporation New Delhi)

It would be naïve to think that the Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits living cheek by jowl in Srinagar and having close social relations were not influenced by each other’s ideas. Gwash Lal Koul must have been aware of the lectures being delivered by Molvi Abdullah in Fateh Kadal a stone's throw away from the Pandit locality of Habbakadal and likewise the Muslim leaders  too must have been influenced by the brave words of Pandit Gwash Lal.

It would not be an exaggeration to consider Gwash Lal Koul as one of the important influences that led to the 1931 agitation.

taffazull (talk) 15:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

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