Raja Amin ACA
It was a pleasant evening in March 1988 with cool breeze torrenting into the half-opened windows of the public bus. Loaded with passengers of all tastes and textures, the said bus was en route to Lahore from AJK, when it met a tragic bloodcurdling accident. Due to its over speeding, it collided with a tractor trolley. Of the many unfortunate death tolls identified was one specific mention, a mortal who had only thirty seven rupees recovered from his pockets was identified as the erstwhile president of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and before that he had been the private secretary to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah; who (M.A Jinnah) had once said that Pakistan was carved into being by him, his secretary and his typewriter. This towering personality, known as K. H Khurshid was an altruistic leader who fought for the rights of millions of Muslims of the subcontinent and then continued his struggle to liberate the strangled beings of Jammu and Kashmir. M.A Jinnah had visited Srinagar in 1944, when K. H Khurshid met him as a local stringer of the Orient Press, a Muslim-owned News Agency. Every day during the former’s stay in a houseboat in Dal lake, Khurshid supplied him with the news of the day. Impressed by his abilities, Khurshid was hired as the private secretary to Mr. Jinnah. Khurshid started working with Jinnah from those days till the latter’s death in 1948. During October 1947, he went to Srinagar to visit his parents and to analyze the situation in Kashmir. Maharaja Hari Singh had replaced Ram Chandra Kak by Mehr Chand Mahajan as his prime minister, who was a pro- Indian. Moreover, Sheikh Abdullah has been released from incarceration. During October 1947, the tribal invasion had deteriorated the situation in Kashmir by occupying Muzaffarabad and the adjoining areas and were advancing towards Srinagar. At that time, Khurshid was still in Srinagar. Accusing him of fomenting the political unrest in Kashmir, he was prisoned and later released in a prisoner exchange under Karachi agreement of 1949. K H Khurshid served as a lodestar to the people of Kashmir and so rightly called as “Khurshid e Millat” (the nation’s sun), a title that he very much deserved, as he had showered the rays of lights into the darkest ghettos of Kashmir, at a time when the people of Azad Kashmir were not aware of things like ‘voting and democracy’ and their leaders were selected and imposed by the dictators from Pakistan. In 1959, he was made as the president of AJK during Ayyub Khan regime. But he did not like that sort of power which is not authorized by the people whom he loved and respected and had only accepted that position at the insistence of Fatima Jinnah. He wanted a democratic system in AJK by which people can vote to select their fortune makers. In 1961, first elections were held in AJK and KH Khurshid became its first elected president. Coming into government, he worked on his agenda to liberate Kashmir. In 1962, he founded Jammu Kashmir Liberation League (JKLL), whose objective was to liberate the occupied Kashmir.It also demanded Pakistan’s recognition of the Azad Kashmir government as the legitimate authority representing the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, so it can raise its voice directly to the nations of the world. He worked for the development of AJK, raised his voice for the rights of the affectees of Mangla Dam and criticized Operation Gibraltar launched by Ayyub Khan. In a dictatorial regime, these actions warranted enough to force him to resign. Khurshid is considered as an icon of honesty, truthfulness and selflessness and possessed a stature with no one parallel seen in the history of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. His wife has narrated an anecdote in her book “Tareekhi Mushayadat o wakayaat”, that once when his daughter used the government flag bearing vehicle to get to her school, he became incensed and advised her wife that this should not happen again. This is the character of a true politician, an honest and devout icon of Kashmir cause. He had been incarcerated many times on both sides of Kashmir during his struggle, but nothing could stop him from his mission. He visited many foreign countries and made the international community aware of the Kashmir issue. During 1986, he attended the Summit of Non-Aligned Movement Countries in Harare covertly as the Zia ul Haq Government was not expected to allow him to attend. He presented a memorandum to the attendees including Rajeev Gandhi, who got so infuriated that he threw out the papers, as the memorandum has exposed the issue at international level showing the ugly face of so-called world’s largest democracy. After the Shimla Agreement, India has been trying to label Kashmir as a trifling border issue between the two countries. The memorandum presented served the much-needed spark to resuscitate the issue to the outside world. Zia Ul Haq was also surprised to see him there and said, “You could have told us if you wanted to come, we would have made the necessary arrangements”, to which the fearless leader replied, “Had I told you, I would not have been here now”. Sometimes comparing and remembering him, I wonder what wrong the people of Kashmir (AJK) have done whose retribution have resulted in bearing these dwarves of today so called leaders imposed on them who become millionaires after a tenure of their government by pocketing money through corruption, totally insouciant to the people and Kashmir cause. At his 33rd anniversary, it is the need of the hour to revive his struggle and accomplish his unfinished agenda that was obstructed by divine forces in the form of his sudden tragic death.