Rich tributes paid to veteran leader Pt.Kashyap Bandhu Ji

Jammu/Srinagar,November 19 (Scoop News) -A meeting of the Jammu and Kashmir Kashyap Bandhu committee held at Jammu to commemorate the 25th death anniversary of veteran leader Pundit Kashyap Bandhu Ji. The speakers paid rich tributes to late leader and recalled his great services to the people of the state and Kashmiri Pundit committee in particular.

Speakers recalled his monumental work in Kashmir. They said that he was selfless and devoted leader who worked for the betterment of the people.

It may be mentioned here that Pundit Kashyap Bandhu was born in March 1899. He came from a poor family of Garioo, Tral in South Kashmir. He passed his matriculation examination from Punjab University, Lahore. He left for Lahore in search for job. He joined Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform organisation infused with anti-imperialist and anti-British fervour. He initiated himself as a journalist by writing for highly circulated newspaper of Daily Milap and Partap. He joined the Arya Gazette, Lahore, which was the official organ of the Arya Samaj. 

In the 1930s, he returned back to Kashmir and joined in Martand, first Urdu daily of Jammu and Kashmir, as its founder editor. He was a journalist par excellence and wielded his facile pen in the service of the downtrodden and upliftment of the weaker segments of the society. He was solitary journalist in the state who devoted all the space of the two widely circulated Urdu weeklies which he published, namely Kesari and Desh, solely to the upliftment of down trodden people. Like Munshi Premchand, his journalistic pursuit revolved round rural problems and ills.

He worked for the Kashmir Pundit organisation as a dedicated and sincere worker and initiated ‘Khadi Parchar’ movement in the Pundit community. It was at his behest that Kashmiri Pundit women started wearing Khadi sarees. Through his columns, he ridiculed that outdated social customs and rituals of Pundits and propagated his ideas on social reform and widow remarriage. He courted imprisonment a number of times as a member of the Kashmiri Pundit Sabha. 

Later, with the conversion All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference into National Conference, he joined hands with Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. He was imprisoned in the National Demand agitation started by Sheikh Abdullah and was incarcerated along with his followers. In May 1946, he was again arrested in the historic Quit Kashmir movement. He was released along with Sheikh Abdullah in 1947.

It was in the movement that Sheikh Abdullah proscribed his Urdu weekly newspaper ‘Desh’ with the assumption of power. He became an emergency administrator for rural development and rehabilitation of tribal-raid hit refugees.

Expressing his views in an article published in his own Urdu weekly ‘Desh’ in 1940, Bandhuji said, “In communal battles journalism assumes a sharper edge than a fast – flying bullet. In reality, communal-shop sparkles through the idiom of journalism. Goods find an increased demand and the number of customers touches a new high. There is a corresponding increase in the lustre of journalism when communal fires blaze and sparkle. There is a regular spectacle of give and take between communalism and journalism. The twain have the same nexus as the body and soul have. In the existence of one lies sustenance of the other. If one dies, the other meets on imminent death.”

He wrote about Kashmiri leaders, about six decades ago, that these leaders wanted to reach the goal of nationalism via the path of religion. He said in one of his articles, “Minority community in Kashmir may do everything to promote nationalism, but unless the majority community fully inclines itself to it, nationalism will not succeed in Kashmir.” 

He writes, “You cannot bring people of different faiths together in the name of religion. But, on the other hand you can bring together in the name of nationalism. Nationalism does not prevent you from becoming a true Muslim, a true Hindu or a true disbeliever, but mix nationalism with religion and it will be the death of the former and its soul will be destroyed.”

Sheikh Abdullah, it is said, held Kashyap Bandhu in high esteem but he did not spare him either. He wrote, “He is Qaid-e-Azam. I admit it, but he wants to become Qaid-e-Millat too.” He wrote elsewhere, “I requested Sheikh Sahib several times that for God’s sake, give country the right lead. If even on our nationalist platform Mazhab-khawani (Religious preaching) continues, we will end up neither here nor there.”

www.scoopnews.in