Meeting Sheikh Nazir
Daanish Bin Nabi
Ideologue and stalwart of National Conference Sheikh Nazir Ahmad who breathed his last on 24 February was truly a Kashmiri by heart. I could feel his patriotic zeal of Kashmir while interviewing him, for 5 days from 16 July to 20 July 2014. While writing about Sheikh Abdullah I thought it will be appropriate to have a quote from his close aide Sheikh Nazir. I went to him to talk about 1975 Accord. And did not know that one quote was to change into a five day long interview.
I tried hard to get his interview, many shooed me off and said that he has never talked to media person and he will never give an interview to a journalist. Sheikh Nazir did not have a mobile phone and used his landline for conversing with workers. A colleague and a prominent member of National Conference said bool jao is interview ko, who tumse baat nahi karega (Forget about this interview, he will never talk to you). In a span of four to five months he repeated this sentence every time I asked him to arrange one.
However, it made me more determined and to persist for it. I still remember during the month of May and June I used to call every day at his residence at around 4pm for the interview but for two months I was discouraged by Sheikh Nazir’s aides, many a times they simply dropped the line when I said I was calling from a newspaper office.
On 14 July, I called the number, by then I had even forgotten the count. An angry voice on other side of the line responded with a hello. It was Sheikh Nazir himself. Such was the effect of his ‘hello’ that I could only say Sheikh Sahab, I want to meet you to talk about 1975 Accord. 16 ko gera bajey aana ghar pe (come to my house one 16th at 11 am) and he dropped the line. And so 16 July it was after being discouraged for long, I finally got an opportunity to sit with the man himself. On 16th exactly at 11 am I reported at his Nedoue residence in the heart of city center.
After hectic security checking I was allowed in his residence. The vast capacious lawn of this mesmerising old house was full of party workers and local men who had come to meet him. When I introduced myself as a journalist and asked for Sheikh Nazir I was taken to an attic where he had his own unique way of dealing with the day-to-day party issue. At first, Sheikh Nazir was skeptical and spoke reluctantly and in a ferocious voice but as the conversation went on he got relaxed and then wanted to talk more and more about his life, the NC and above all the politics of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.
Those 5 days were amazing and gave me a real insight of Kashmiri politics and Nehruvian policy about Kashmir. He was an amazing person, with unfathomable knowledge, real insight and a true Kashmiri nationalist by heart. If Nazir hated anything, that was India and its leaders because of their policy on Kashmir.
It’s true he never had an Indian passport (which Hurriyat leaders need to acknowledge and emulate). In the interview he talked about how he was brutally tortured by the Indian Army in 1965 which ultimately led to the failure of his kidneys and eyes. He talked in detail about Sheikh’s stint in various jails. When Sheikh Abdullah had to travel to Middle East countries in 1964, Nazir was asked to accompany him but he did not want to have an Indian passport and played hide and seek at home which ultimately paved way for Farooq to accompany his father.
During his entire lifetime he had travelled to New Delhi only four to five times, three times he had to meet Sheikh Abdullah when he was jailed and other two times he was forced by his close aide to visit a doctor for his ailing kidneys. His meeting with Sheikh Abdullah in various jails came up on third day of the interview and he almost wept for some minutes on remembering about the condition of Sheikh Abdullah in Indian jails.
In his sobbing voice Sheikh Nazir said such moments made him staunch believer that India state and its leaders can never be friends of anyone (giving reference of Nehru’s betrayal when he jailed Sheikh Abdullah). When I asked him about if he regretted anything in his life, he at once replied it was the Accord of 1975. He was of the view that New Delhi had betrayed the trust of Sheikh Abdullah. And it was these days also when he had stopped talking to his mentor Sheikh Abdullah for the signing the accord. This interview came at such a crucial juncture when NC, just a month back in May previous year, had lost all the three parliamentary seats in Kashmir. Most devastating truth for NC was the defeat of its patron Farooq Abdullah. And livid was Sheikh Nazir at the unripe politics of then CM Omar Abdullah.
He was very upset with both Farooq and Omar for not following the unfeigned vision of NC laid by Sheikh Abdullah. His vision and mind was set on the document written by Sheikh Abdullah in 1946—Naya Kashmir. He also gave me a remaining original copy of the document on second day of the interview while I was about to leave. But on fourth day he took the copy back for some reason.
Delegation after delegation of people from Doda, Kishtwar and south Kashmir used to interrupt our conversation in between with all saying, “Sani baba ye kamen treyet aes, em na chen scun kehene bozaan, aes bachav” (Oh our father to whom you have left us, they don’t listen to our pleas, save us from them), showing the increasing dissent between the party and its ground workers. Every delegation had such grievances clearly showing the reason behind the defeat of NC in that parliamentary election.
So much heartbroken was Sheikh Nazir that he said I wonder who is going to look after these people when I am no more (indicating towards the incapable leaders of NC now who have taken the high posts in the party). Exhausted of the party politics on fourth day of the interview he said Omar is responsible for all the mess NC was going through and loathed him for his political blunders. In his exquisite vocal style on fifth and final day of the interview he said we Kashmiris have a problem that is we take everything on face value. We do not do the research on any particular issue. Whatever one says we take it on face value. And said I humbly request one and all to read the original text of Naya Kashmir and the Sheikh-Indira Accord.
Soon after the interview was published, I went to National Conference's Nawai Subh headquarters but unfortunately found neither the original text of Naya Kashmir nor the copy of Sheikh Indira Accord was preserved but their revised copies which were not what Sheikh Abdullah had visioned for Kashmir in 1946.
He loved Kashmir and its people that was evident from the conversation I had with him. On final and last day of interview we discussed about the killing of innocent youth of Kashmir. And it was clearly evident that Sheikh Nazir blamed government of India for the killings of Kashmiri youth during 1990s and during the summer uprisings of 2008, 2009 and 2010.
He broke down twice while talking about these killings and was furious about the issue of Pandits when he furiously with tears rolling down his cheeks said, “If few Pandits were killed why there is so hue and cry about it. Does anyone have the count how many Kashmiris were killed?”
Ideological differences apart and many may question his association with NC which is responsible for many wrongs in Kashmir and its people, our leaders today need to learn from a true Kashmiri nationalist like Sheikh Nazir.
I firmly believe that Kashmir has lost a true visionary leader to its murky jinx. There is no match in the present hierarchy of NC who can equal such a towering personality as Sheikh Nazir.
On his funeral his caretaker for 45 years, Muhammad Ramzan said, “On his funeral, we will today offer the last funeral prayers of NC.” Was he the last nail in the coffin of NC remains to be seen? What I could get within those five days was despite him being in such a bad situation he had not comprised and did not carry any burden. In Sheikh Nazir, Kashmir has truly lost a son of the soil. May his soul rest in peace.
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