Dear Follower,
Hello. I will take you to the social and political scenario that existed around the year I was born. Life was very tough. There was overall poverty. Money supply was very poor. There were no jobs. There were no factories also except silk factory. Hindu community members would mainly be in government departments doing minor clerical duties on a hand to mouth subsistence. There were money lenders in the community. Loans at exorbitant rates were available. There were a very few who were in business. Muslims would have shawl, handicraft business, and were also in farming. They were in construction. There was hardly any Hindu in these professions. Muslims were boatment, traders, wood cutters, cleaners, dhobis, Transport, both road and river was another activity that the muslims were engaged in.
The Government was basically running on collection of excise duty realized from people for a variety of goods. There was some sort of balance between the two main communities - Hindu and Muslim. We Hindus were completely dependant on the Muslims. Muslims would engage Hindus as teachers for their children and also engage them as accountants to keep a record of their finances. There used to be lot of borrowings and it would be necessary to keep a record. The communities would normally remain and live peacefully with each other. I was born when Kashmir was under the control of Dogra regime. Muslim leadership had developed to confront the Dogras. First it was Maulvi Farooq family. (I think it was Maulvi Yosuf Shah) ,There would be demonstrations but common Hindus were not affected much. Then Sheikh Abdullah after getting educated in Aligarh and obtaining a post graduate degree in Chemistry, came back to Kashmir started working as a teacher. In no time he assumed leadership of the Muslim community. He formed Muslim Conference party. The frequency of demonstrations against Dogra rulers got increased. But the two groups, one under Maulvi and the other under Abdullah were acting parallely. Maulvi's were from Shia sect of Islam whereas Abdullah's were mainly from Sunni sect of Islam. The shia sect group would be called Bakra and the Sunni group as Sher. There would be frequent fights between the two groups to gain supremacy and establish themselves as the sole leader to negotiate with the rulers. It is said that one Mr. Daya Krishen Koul or Hari Krishen Koul (He was a Kashmiri Pandit from Lahore) who was the Prime Minister of Kashmir on behalf of the Dogra ruler in around 1930, brought relief for the ruler from the menace of the muslim leadership. It is said that on one occasion he invited both the muslim leaders from the two groups for a meeting. First he called one group to his chamber. He told him that the Ruler wants to hand over a big estate to the leader of the muslim community. He told the leader to prove to him that he was stronger and had better following than the other one. He gave him a time frame. Next he called the other leader and repeated the same to him too. This caused daily fights between the two groups in the valley. Some areas of the valley were inhabited by Shia people and the other areas by Sunni people. Few areas included both the groups.
The Sher- Bakra conflict continued for quite some time. On a normal day, if people in any area found an unfamiliar face, they would ask him whether he was a sher or bakra. If he would say sher and the area residents were bakras, he would get a good thrashing. Same would be the treatment given to a bakra in sher area. It was interesting to observe that on one side of a bridge, bakras would live and sher on the other side. This would cause harm to lot of innocent people. A bakra or a sher might get beaten on one side of the bridge. He would cross the bridge not knowing that the area belonged to the other side. So he would change and not repeat his identity that he had disclosed earlier on the other side of the bridge. He would get thrashed again. That time there would be lot of stone throwing between bakras and shers across the bridges. Hindus called Bhattas were spared the thrashing. I have myself faced this crossing the fifth bridge (Ali Kadal) while going to my matamaal. Bhattas were called daali bhatta. We would never retaliate. We considered this as normal.
So this is for today. I will be there continuing with more of the same tomorrow. Till then byre.
Great start to your next innings Baijana.
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