The Prophet’s Hair and its theft – Kashmir 1963-1964
Though I recall seeing a glass hemisphere with an embedded strand of the prophet’s beard at the Topkapi palace in Istanbul, I was not aware of the huge furor created in 1963 when a similar strand of hair stored and worshipped at the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar, vanished. It was a case which hit the headlines of newspapers around the world and as you can imagine, faced intense world scrutiny, days of protests, riots and mass agitation as well as massive media coverage which followed. As one can imagine, it was the reason for a period of increasing anxiety in the mind of India’s Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It was a situation which required tact, diplomacy and the assistance of some good sleuthing to get to the root of the problem and find a solution. What did Nehru and his team do? A fascinating story, which not many will remember, so let me retell it.
1962 was a terrible year for India. The once friendly China
had turned foe and invaded its NE frontiers, proving to be cause for disastrously
negative morale and a decline to Prime minister Nehru’s standing as well as
Defense minister VK Krishna Menon’s future. Menon was sacrificed at the
political altar and faded away, and Nehru - no longer the colossus he once was
sans his right-hand man Menon, much weakened and fragile. 1963 did not open
well, the Colombo conference failed, as the armed forces of China and India
faced each other separated by a 20 km DMZ, from the MacMahon line. As they faced off at the frontiers, Pakistan cozied up to China,
making an already nervous India, wary. A potential Indian rapprochement and a
‘no war’ pact with Ayub suddenly soured when the Kashmir dispute was placed by
Ayub, on the same table. When Pakistan later signed off disputed Kashmir areas
to China, matters turned worse. Acharya Kriplanai, Nehru’s and Menon’s biggest
critic, finally found himself voted to parliament and Congress suddenly saw
factions within it plotting. Adding insult to injury, a no-confidence motion
was mooted against Nehru (it failed) by the acerbic Kriplani. Poverty, the
rising specter of communism (perhaps goaded on by China) and corruption
occupied the news headlines. India’s fortunes were quite definitely trending
south.
But the mists lifted towards the year end after a ‘syndicate
meeting’ at Tirupati, when the Kamaraj plan was formulated for the rebuilding
of the congress party from the grassroots. The situation corrected itself;
shakeups took effect and Nehru appeared to have shored the rising waters. But
at what personal cost? He was severely stressed, so much so that he had a minor
heart attack in Jan 1964 forcing Lal Bahadur Shastri to step in and lighten Nehru’s
administrative load. What could have led to it and what may have exacerbated his
stress? It was, in my opinion, the event in Kashmir, which was - as they say
proverbially, the one which broke the camel’s back, the Hazratbal case.
On many occasions, memories of my trip to Srinagar in the
late 70’s flash by, and I must admit that tourism notwithstanding, many people there
seemed wary about visitors from India, especially at the tourist locales.
Whether it was the steady dose of misinformation beamed to them across the
borders or whether they were overtly inconvenienced at that point was not clear
to my young mind, we just let it pass and enjoyed the stay. The beauty of the
hills at Gulmarg, our first sights and feel of real snow and our experience
with horses and snow sleds, the Dal lake, lovely lasses with rosy cheeks, the
Shalimar gardens as well as some fine food remained in our mind.
Ghanai tore through the doors and across the street, to the
chief trustee’s (AR Bande) home. Bande’s ancestors had been custodians of the
hair since its arrival in Kashmir many years ago. Sometime in the 17th
century (they say 1634), one Syed Abdullah fleeing Medina had brought this
relic along and settled down in Adil Shah’s Bijapur. His son, in financial
difficulties, sold it to a Kashmiri trader named Nooruddin Ashawari. At Lahore,
the relic was seized by Aurangzeb from the trader, and the autocrat moved it to
Ajmer while Ashawari succumbed to a broken heart (or TB), breathing his last
with a request that he be buried with the relic. Well, to cut the long story short, a chastened
Aurangzeb finally sent the exhumed body and the hair for safekeeping in 1700 to
the Bagh Sadiq Khan (later known as Hazratbal – prophets hair mosque) mosque
built by Shah Jahan, at Srinagar. This revered locale virtually became a second
Kaaba for the Kashmiri Mulims, after Mecca. The relic would be ceremoniously
shown to the ecstatic public on ten occasions (termed a deedar - showing) every
year. It was the most sacred object in the region and if news got out, there
would be chaos and perhaps mayhem.
Ghanai and now Bande were beyond consternation, and the
latter quickly collapsed in a swoon. In minutes the news hit the street and they
swelled with people headed to the shrine, moaning and wailing, braving the
terrible winter weather. Black flags came out, processions were organized and
the rumor mills got right into action. Hindus and Sikhs were considered to be
the cause by many of the illiterate, while others said it was all political.
Some said it was Pakistan fomenting their cause, others agreed that this was
becoming a tailormade situation for communal strife and disharmony, perhaps
even large doses of violence. Others hinted of dark plots against Islam, and
those against the ruling party swore it had to be the doing of ex Kashmir prime
minister Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad who, losing his position in the Kamaraj plan,
was trying to use the situation to come back to power. Just some months back he
had managed to send Sheikh Abdullah, the lion of Kashmir, to prison! Many added
that it could be the handiwork of Sheikh Abdullah, to come out of prison.
As mobs started to take revenge on Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed’s
(he was away in Delhi) properties and vehicles in the snowbound valley, the
police were heavy-handed in reaction, and the area went into a shutdown, a hartal.
Mourning processions could be seen every day and the populace became restless
all over the Kashmir valley, way beyond Srinagar and until Jammu. Confounding
all this was the fact that the authoritarian Defense of India rules were in
force, where the normal rules of the law were done away with, making it a
police state. Political leaders supportive of Sheikh Abdullah quickly set up a
Relic action committee, as Section 144 was imposed by the administration headed
by Khwaja Shamsuddin (who grandly offered to sacrifice his eyes and even his
own life if it could help in the recovery of the relic). Interestingly, the
Hindus and Sikhs stood united with the Muslims on this issue and marched with
them, holding Om flags while the Muslims carried green flags.
With the snowfall and fog preventing travel, Mullik and team managed to head out on an air force plane on the 31st December 1963, while Nehru announced on the radio that he was sending his top sleuth to Srinagar for the recovery of the relic. The low profile Mullik was aghast, worried about the unwelcome publicity, now he was both cornered and exposed. The Vickers Viscount found it impossible to penetrate the fog over Srinagar and instead landed at Jammu, but the local IAF station chief offered to take Mullik to Srinagar in a slower Dakota, managing the precarious landing with aplomb.Any investigation, usually centers around two or three main paths,
finding out a motive, analyzing the modus operandi and checking for clues. Mullik
and team found that this was not the first time the hair had been moved out
surreptitiously and that private deedars were a distinct possibility. So, was
it a case of it being taken out for such a reason? This could be a possibility,
but why break the doors? Possibly done to make it look like a theft at the last
movement when the capsule could not be returned in time?
Next to come were strident demands for the release of Sheikh Abdullah. Propaganda machines had started to work overtime and
anti-government undertones were obvious. Other Islamic countries started a
demand for UN intervention and internationalization of the event. Pakistan and
Azad Kashmir radio went on an overdrive, and Pakistan supporting groups in
Kashmir ramped up their activities. Neither the Shamzuddin government which was
paralyzed, nor the opposing Sadiq faction, were able to counter all this in any
fashion. Without the return of the vial, the Moi-e-Muqaddas, there would be
chaos.
Mullik was certain that this was a Pakistani ploy, and that
Pir Maqbool Ghulani had engineered the conspiracy with the connivance of one of
the custodians. But due to the rapidity of the discovery of the theft, the
weather and the public reaction, the vial, the relic was surely still nearby
and just had to be discovered. Reading the public demand, Mellick determined
that the clamor seemed to be demanding the recovery of the relic with the
supervision of Sheikh Abdullah, who should be released. He resolved that he
would allow for the pressure to build up and keep an opening for the
perpetrator to make amends by returning the relic stealthily, without fear of
capture. All guards in the Hazratbal were withdrawn.
Karan Singh arrived on the 4th, and Viswanathan
tried to persuade Sadiq to take over, but he would not till the relic was
found. Well, miraculously or not, at 5pm, the vial with the hair found its way
to the original location, the wooden box in the hujra-e-khas. Gleefully Mullik
and team took it to the terrace and showed it to the crowds. At 6PM, Nehru was
informed of the glad tidings.
Nehru intoned – ‘Mullik you have saved Kashmir for us’!!
Viswanathan took over and started the required counters, first contacts with the administrators and the radio station, the action committee, Shamsuddin etc. The timing could not have been better for the Pakistani meddling had started to bear fruit in distant East Pakistan. Khulna was witness to terrible sectarian violence and many Hindus were massacred. Thousands fled over the border to India. Being distant, it did not have any large impacts on Kashmir, which was still in the throes of rejoicing.
On the 6th, a stroke felled Nehru, the stress had
taken its toll. But slowly and surely, he came out of it, making slow progress
and the prognosis was not that bad.
The doors of the enclosure were sent for repair, the relic was locked up and sealed in a ‘Godrej’ safe, and after things had returned to a semblance of normalcy, Mullik and team returned to Delhi on the 14th to handle the related issues in East Bengal and Calcutta. Just imagine how tumultuous that fortnight had been! In the background, Pakistan tried to bring the subject up to the UN security council.
Peace returned to the valley.
Now my readers, what do you think really happened? Who stole
the relic and how was it returned? Was it for real or was it a clever sleight
of hand? It was a case which was debated extensively and analyzed by so many
vested and not vested interests, but stood the test of time and religious
scrutiny.
Nevertheless, was it a manipulation by the Sheikh and the
action committee headed by Maulana Masoodi (who opposed Bakshi)? Did Bakshi
Gulam Muhammad engineer it to prop himself or was there an independent foreign
hand at play? Was it to overthrow the Shamsuddin government? Was it a private
deedar gone wrong? All questions are still unanswered. On 17th Feb,
Gulzarilal Nanda announced that three culprits had been booked for the theft –
Abdul Rahim Bande - the relic’s keeper, Abdul Rashid a young fella who was seen
running away after the relic was returned and Qadir Bhat largely unknown, but
in some ways connected to Pakistan.
When Ved Mehta arrived at Srinagar a couple of years later to
write an investigate piece on the affair for the New Yorker, many members of the action committee were
behind bars, including Masoodi, though Abdul Rahim Bande was free but in the
grip of various police and legal formalities, but with no sight of an actual
case where he could fight to clear his name or ever hold a deeder. Anyway,
after a while the case against these three were dropped and all was forgotten,
signaling that legal formalities would have created more problems.
Many on the street believed that this was engineered by Bakshi
and that he had fled to Delhi before it was executed. Eventually, the Bakshi
coterie returned only to live in hiding for it was commonplace that they were
involved. Their plan was to create a commotion and strengthen their power with
autocratic rule. Sheik Abdulla clearly mentioned that he did not want to be
released in the middle of this commotion, it would not have been clever.
When Mehta talked to Nuruddin Bande who took over from AR Bande as the relics custodian, he was astonished to hear that there were actually many similar hair relics in Kashmir, in Kalshpur, Saoora, Andarwara, Islamabad and even one with a private collector. Mirak Shah, the virtually blind ascetic who identified the hair as authentic, told Mehta that the sample he identified generally looked fine and as he remembered it, but that his sureness was also based on a vision which came to him assuring him that it was an original.
A couple of months later, Sheikh Abdullah was released. Shamsuddin
was replaced by GM Sadiq, Bhola Nath Mullik continued on, created the RAW,
retired and became an ascetic, passing away in relative obscurity, mourned only
by his IB juniors. The ever popular Hazratbal relic changed locations and was
soon placed in a brand-new mosque, custom built for its purpose costing some 15
million rupees.
Dr Ryan Shaffer, an American researcher and expert who specializes
on intelligence related matters, provides a tantalizing lead, in his recent
paper on the subject, referring to the fiction “A mission to Pakistan” written by
one of one of India’s greatest sleuths, IB’s joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar,
Dhar wrote thus in Chapter 43 page 514 -
A veteran PIB hand, Jamanat was seconded to the ISI counter-intelligence
unit in 1962. His contribution to the staging of theft of the holy hair relic
of the Prophet (Hazrat Baal-pbuh) from a Srinagar shrine had led to a
spontaneous revolt in the Vale of Kashmir. What the Indian’s later claimed to
retrieve was a faked hair. New Delhi paid through its nose to make the ulemas
agree on the genuineness of the retrieved hair. His singularly important
services were recognized by a coveted national award. (Dhar adds in his acknowledgments that the book is based on research material collected painfully. Interestingly
India’s ace sleuth in his fictional account is one Balls - Balu Nampoothiri!)
It may have been a figment of Dhar’s imagination; we will never
know, for Dhar is no more, but it is a clear statement nonetheless, even if it
is stated in a work of fiction. We may also never know the answer to the
question - was Jamanat actually the elusive Qadir Bhat, the third culprit? Nevertheless,
this is not an explosive revelation, since most people in Kashmir thought as
much in those days and the story died a natural death as other news cycles took
over.
Some even thought that the relic had been auctioned off to a
buyer in the Middle East. Mullik added to the mystery and intrigue by writing –
I cannot describe the process which led to its replacement at the place from
which it had been removed on December 27. This was an intelligence operation,
never to be disclosed.
But logically, it looks like the original vial was replaced by
the thief and it does not look at all feasible for an identical vial, looking
at its construction, to be reproduced locally in 3 days (Mullik arrived on the
1st and the vial was recovered on the 4th). With no
travel or movement possible due to heavy snowfall on those 4 days, it looks implausible.
In theory, the incoming dignitaries on the 4th could have brought in
a copy manufactured by artisans in Delhi (but where did they get a sample to
copy?), but all those are far-flung theories just like a possibility that the
custodians had always kept a copy for exigencies, and it was used.
Regarding the special identification deedar, we can surmise
that Nehru wanted to be sure no chances were taken and deputed Shastri, pulled
out of his retirement, even if the competent combo of Viswanathan and Mullik
were up to it and did what they felt was sufficient. The action committee supportive
of Sheikh Abdullah certainly had to be persuaded and amply compensated and for
that the negotiation skills and authority of Shastri, were paramount, if only to
ensure that the action committee who had the control of the streets, did not
utilize the situation and simply state that the vial and the relic was a fake,
to embarrass both the central and state governments and spark of an
uncontrollable crisis with Pakistan on the sidelines taking advantage of it. That was certainly smart politics and a clever
gambit from the suave politician Nehru always was!
I think I should now formally introduce the hazy character,
Venkata Viswanathan. Born in Palghat, he was educated in Bangalore, London and
Oxford, and had been an ICS officer from 1931. He held many posts in his life
and was always firm, sometimes exceedingly so. Viswanathan’s aplomb in handling
the Hazratbal situation as the home secretary, and keeping it contained was
perhaps key during that critical phase. Ved Mehta gives examples with Venkat’s
crisp and clear replies, quoting from a press conference in 1964. He had to
contend not only with the political bigwigs but also machinations by Bhutto and
Ayub in Pakistan, who were taking advantage of the situation, and hold fort at
least until the last phase when Shastri arrived. Later on, in his political life,
he became Kerala’s governor 1967-73 (the only time an IAS/ICS officer was
appointed to his own state) and nearly precipitated a crisis, taking on EMS
Namboothiripad.
Sheikh Abdullah was later deputed to Pakistan in May, with
Nehru’s backing, to carry out discussions with Ayub Khan. The details of a
potential Kashmir settlement which they discussed is not entirely clear but the
talks collapsed when on the morning of 27th May, returning after a
few days holiday at Dehra Dun, Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru succumbed to a
massive heart attack and passed away.
After Nehru died, Bakshi Muhammad as the opposition leader was
briefly arrested, Sheikh Abdulla was again incarcerated, and soon, Kashmir’s
special status was removed. War clouds appeared, and in 1965, the pent-up
emotions in the region boiled over into a full-fledged Indo-Pak war.
That was all a long time ago, and life goes on, as troubled
as it always has, in the Vale of Kashmir, once heaven on earth, ever a bone of
contention.….
References
My years with Nehru Kashmir – BN Mullik
Indian Intelligence and the Mystery of Muhammad’s Hair – Ryan Shaffer (International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence – May 2020)
Mission to Pakistan: An Intelligence Agent in Pakistan – Maloy Krishna Dhar
My Life and Times - By Sayyid Mīr Qāsim
The 1964 Hazratbal Deedar on video
Notes:
Though relics have no official sanction in Islam, and
the Prophet himself preached against worshipping anyone other than Allah, many followers
folk to see an extensive collection of such items, including footprints and
other items associated with him and located world over, each year.
The seesawing interplays between Bakshi, Nehru, Sheikh
Abdullah, Shamsuddin and Sadiq is quite a bit of information and too difficult to
integrate into this already long article, but it has some bearing to the way
the theft was used by each party to gain political mileage, not to forget
Pakistan.
Salman Rushdie wrote a fictional short story around this
event, where the relic is discovered by Hashim, a moneylender, in the Dal lake.
What happens next forms the crux of the finely woven tale.
What was quite fascinating for me was the fact that one of
the better studies on this topic, is actually a section from a book written by
Ved Mehta, travelling to Kashmir and listening to people, not seeing but seeing
and observing India for all its beauty and sorrows, without the power of sight!
Pics – Hazratbal, VV, BNM & Relic Wiki and Google photos – acknowledged with thanks
