Mohammed Abdullah
Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah (born December 5, 1905 in Sura near Srinagar , † September 8, 1982 in Srinagar) was an Indian Muslim politician from Kashmir and head of government of the state of Jammu and Kashmir .
Born in 1905 as the son of a shawl weaver in relatively poor circumstances, Abdullah first studied in Lahore after completing his schooling and obtained a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University in 1930 .
Abdullah advocated social reform as early as the 1920s . The Muslim, later to be praised as “Sher-i Kashmir” - ( “Lion of Kashmir” ), founded the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference very early , which was supposed to unite all Muslim and non-Muslim Kashmiri people. However, it never achieved the effect intended by its founder, as the religiously traditional Muslims soon abandoned the union and in turn founded the All India Kashmir Committee .
This secession of the fundamentalists , however, already in the 1930s favored rapprochement with Jawaharlal Nehru , the leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), whom Abdullah had previously attacked, as did the British colonial pretender, Lord Mountbatten . However, the Sheikh promised his followers to break away from Dogra-Hindu rule as well as freedom, democracy and social reforms, while Nehru primarily had a free, united and independent India in his sights. While Nehru was still of the opinion in 1935 that the Indian National Congress recognized as valid "that the peoples of the Indian princely states have no less right to Swaraj (independence) than the people of British India ," he emphasized four years later that a sovereign Kashmir was coming out of the question for him, since India must achieve its freedom through unity.
In the following decade, neither the hard break between the pragmatic partners nor the clarification of the Kashmir question failed to materialize, so that Abdullah acted as head of Kashmiri government from 1947 to 1953. However, since he opposed the complete annexation to India, he was first sent into exile and then imprisoned until April 8, 1964 for ten years. After an interruption, he was arrested again until January 1968, after which he was sent back into exile .
In 1972 he was allowed to return home. Officially he was excluded from all political influence. Behind the scenes, however, Abdullah was actively involved in political events. Even after the meeting between Zulifikar Ali Khan Bhutto and Indira Gandhi , the Kashmir issue, which remained unresolved, remained within his sphere of influence. As a concession, Abdullah dropped his call for a referendum on the future of Kashmir in February 1975 in order to come to an agreement with the Indian central government.
On February 25, 1975, the "Lion of Kashmir" was appointed Chief Minister of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. He died on September 8, 1982 in Srinagar at the age of 76.
Individual evidence
- ↑ VSGopalakrishnan: KASHMIR'S ABDULLAH DYNASTY - A PARALLEL TO INDIA'S NEHRU-GANDHI DYNASTY. sulekha.com, accessed April 19, 2014 .
- ↑ Armin Wertz : Page no longer available , search in web archives: An "open wound" heals some ailments - the conflict over Kashmir determines the history of India and Pakistan . WG Peace Research, accessed on September 28, 2012.
- ↑ Wolf-Rüdiger Baumann, Gustav Fochler-Hauke: Biographies for Contemporary History 1945–1983, Fischer: Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 26.
literature
- Jagat Jit, Singh: Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. What has he done? , New Delhi: Oxford Printing Works 1967
- Kapoor, O. P: Kashmir convictions betrayed: legacies of Abdullah-Nehru nexus , Chandigarh: Arun Pub. House 1995
Web links
- Literature list on Kashmir (English) ( Memento from August 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- http://www.jammukashmir.eclipse.co.uk/EK.htm
- Mohammed Abdullah in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abdullah, Mohammed |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sher-i Kashmir, Kashmiri Lion |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indian politician of Muslim origin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 5, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sura , India |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 8, 1982 |
| Place of death | Srinagar , India |