The pining chinars

In 1952, when Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was precariously placed between the newly independent India and Pakistan, both of which claim it in entirety, the Delhi Agreement between Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru brought the State formally into the Indian Union. The agreement granted J&K autonomy, limiting New Delhi’s authority to just three subjects: defence, foreign affairs and communications. Kashmir was allowed to have its own prime minister, president and flag, and the people from mainland India could only visit with a permit.

Curiously, the terms of the Nehru-Abdullah pact echo that of another signed between Delhi and Srinagar more than four centuries ago. In 1585, the then independent Kashmir was suddenly attacked by the Mughal empire. Emperor Akbar invaded the Valley, after its flamboyant ruler Yusuf Shah Chak refused to appear in his court to pay respects. Akbar’s commander Raja Bhagwan Das led a 5,000-strong Mughal army, and yet suffered reverses in the war. He was forced to open negotiations with Chak, who insisted on an autonomous status for the State.

That agreement went like this: Akbar granted Kashmir autonomy, allowing the state to conduct its internal affairs but under Mughal suzerainty. Besides, the coins were to be minted and the Khutba (Friday sermons) recited in the name of Emperor Akbar.

The two historical events mirror each other in another aspect too: in how Delhi dealt with the two Kashmiri leaders — one, democratically elected and the other, a popular king.

In a dramatic reversal in 1953, Sheikh, then J&K Prime Minister, was summarily dismissed from office and arrested for allegedly conspiring with the US to make Kashmir an independent country. Thereafter, a series of Presidential orders were issued which diluted J&K’s autonomous status, granted under Article 370, and made other provisions of the Indian Constitution applicable to the State: These included 94 of the 97 subjects in the Union List and 260 of the 395 Articles. This, in effect, eroded Article 370, reducing it to a husk without a seed.

Back in 1586, in a near-similar turn of events, Chak was invited to Delhi by Akbar and imprisoned. A year later, he was released and then exiled to Bihar, where he was granted a fief and a command of 500 horses. The fief spanned the modern villages of Qasim Pur, Khurram Pur, Haider Chak, Mohiudin Pur and others in Nalanda district.

The deposed king, some historical accounts say, died fighting alongside the Mughal army in Orissa in 1592. He was buried at Biswak, near his estate. Before Partition, the village was locally known as Kashmiri Chak, thanks to its royal Kashmiri connection. But after Partition all except one family migrated to Pakistan. This family has since acted as the caretaker of Chak’s tomb. The village, meanwhile, has been renamed Islampur.

“Our job has been the upkeep and protection of Yusuf Shah Chak’s mazaar,” says Yasir Rashid Khan, the mutawali (caretaker). “But I fear the tomb will be encroached on if the government does not step in to protect it.” On January 4 every year, Khan organises a urs in Chak’s memory. The villagers drape the grave with chadar and flowers. A langar serves devotees the local sweet bundiya and khichdi.

“I have written to every government agency concerned in Bihar and also the successive governments in J&K to take steps to secure the mazar, but to no avail,” says Khan, whose grandfather Abdur Rashid Khan had the tomb registered with Bihar Waqf Board. “But I am determined to continue the fight.”

In the ’70s, when Abdullah returned to the political mainstream following the 1975 Indira-Sheikh accord and became J&K chief minister, he visited Chak’s grave in Biswak and offered fatiha. He also funded the construction of an approach road, now named after him. A plaque near the tomb reads: “This memorial stone was installed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Chief Minister Jammu and Kashmir State on 19th January 1977 AD.”

Today, in the backdrop of J&K’s perennially tense relationship with New Delhi, the late king has resurfaced as the most relevant historical political figure in the State. So much so that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which rules the state in a coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been contemplating bringing back the remains of Chak to Kashmir from Bihar. The ministry of culture, headed by J&K finance minister Haseeb Drabu, has been working on a proposal to approach the Bihar government for assistance. In the past, the late PDP leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had compared his party’s agenda of self-rule for J&K to that of Chak’s. “We want 400-year-old era of Yusuf Shah Chak to return to Kashmir,” he had said in 2006.

However, the PDP is not alone in this. In 2013, the High Court Bar Association too had demanded the return of Chak’s remains, together with those of JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru, the JKLF militant hanged that year following his conviction in the Parliament attack case.

But while the confrontation with Akbar, loss of kingdom and subsequent exile may have served to resurrect Chak as a politically charged symbol of Kashmir’s lost autonomy and the struggle to restore it, the king — who ruled from 1579-86 — has also been an abiding part of Kashmir’s folklore. His name harks back to an era steeped in music and romance. It reminds Kashmiris of his beautiful wife Zoon (Kashmiri word for moon), a famous peasant-poetess, and her heart-tugging songs.

According to local legend, Chak is said to have met Zoon during one of his solitary horse rides among the hills surrounding Chandhor, a village on the outskirts of Srinagar. In typical Bollywood fashion, Zoon, with a mud pitcher on her head, was singing her poetry at the time. Chak instantly fell in love and wanted to marry her. But the hitch was that Zoon was already married, to an unlettered farmer who was impervious to her gift for poetry. As the folklore goes, the loveless marriage was made more torturous by a hostile mother-in-law, forcing Zoon to elope with Chak. As the queen of Kashmir, Zoon was conferred the title Habba Khatoon. Their fairytale romance became the talk of the Valley. But the good times didn’t last long.

Following the Mughal invasion and Chak’s exile to Bihar, his son from a previous marriage, Yakub, was briefly allowed to ascend the throne. Later, however, Akbar annexed the State to his vast empire.

Zoon was left alone. She is said to have abandoned the royal palace and spent the rest of her life singing songs of separation from her beloved. More than 400 years later, these songs still resound in the Valley, hummed by peasant women at home and in the fields, and by urban women in the middle of their daily chores. They are also a staple at weddings, and played regularly on Radio Kashmir. One such song, which is believed to have been written after Chak’s exile, goes: ‘ Naad ha laaye , Miyaan Yusufo walo (I am calling out for you, O my Yusuf, come home).

People imagine a love-stricken Zoon wandering the hills and villages of Kashmir, humming this haunting line for her beloved Yusuf.

It was this moving tale of romance between a king and a peasant-poetess, and its overarching political dimension, that had in 1989 persuaded the famous Bollywood filmmaker Muzaffar Ali to make a movie based on it. Dimple Kapadia was picked to play Zoon and Vinod Khanna for Chak. Some of the scenes for the film, supported by the then J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah, were shot in Srinagar. A heritage house in downtown Srinagar was one of the chosen locales for the shooting. But the movie was shelved after militancy broke out in the State around this time.

Ali speaks fondly about the project and explains why it was aborted. “We have waited endlessly for better days. Despite the tragic end, the film was a celebration of a culture, a recreation of history. I felt that it could not be made in an ambience of anxiety... Therefore, the wait is on.”

He had started in right earnest with a large team of designers, writers and photographers, working with international couturier Mary McFadden to create elaborate artworks and costumes for the film. They recreated a 16th-century village cluster at Barji, Harwan near Dachigam for Zoon’s home. They also worked with musicians from Kashmir and produced separate tracks for the English and Urdu versions, with Mohan Lal Aima, Khaiyyam and Riyuchi Sakamoto involved in it.

The camera rolled on January 5, 1989.

“Since the screenplay integrated the seasons, the shooting was spread over a year. It was not like making a normal film. It was living Kashmir and making it come alive in history for all times to come,” says Ali. Before long though, militancy broke out in the Valley. “We were threatened and stoned, and yet protected at times by the local populace. By the end of the year we had to quit the film half-done,” he adds.

The unfinished film’s fate will likely befall PDP’s quest to bring back the remains of Chak, given that it will potentially raise troubling political questions.

“Obviously, the occasional rhetorical demand by the PDP or the half-hearted government process to bring back the remains will be initiated with an eye on its beneficial political spin-offs,” says Naseer Ahmad, author of Kashmir Pending . “PDP can use the demand as a mainstream parallel to the separatist claim for the remains of Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru. This can further set off the party’s Kashmiri nationalist credentials.”

But while the newfound political dimension and its attendant controversies threaten to hijack the memory of the last independent ruler of Kashmir, it hasn’t quite overridden his image of a folk hero. In popular memory, Chak lives on as a music-loving romantic king, the husband of Zoon who met with a tragic end at the hands of Mughals.

Riyaz Wani is a journalist based in Srinagar

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