REJOINDER BY GHULAM NABI KHAYAL
Only Kashmir Exclusive
Z G Mohammad's “Review” (?) on my book!
Rejoinder by Ghulam Nabi Khayal
For any scribe or a columnist, it is imperative that he should have ample knowledge of any subject he intends dealing with.
Z G Moham
mad has done a very cursorily written review on my latest English publication titled Progressive Literary Movement in Kashmir, reflecting his 
utter ignorance of this epoch making movement that laid down new foundations of Kashmiri literature about sixty years ago.
First of all, this so called review run by a local newspaper, where he is an employee, on 5 September 2011 begins with a very distasteful note that progressive writers in Kashmir were nicknamed as pongas an trying to bind together broken strings he connects this slangy term with Poga Mogul meaning inauspicious Mughals, though he is not sure about it. This assertion is not based on any kind of research but is an outcome of his own imagination. Similarly, pro-establishment workers were called gogas, a term coined locally without any historical or linguistic etymology. According to the reviewer, “communists occupied the intellectual space of the State for about two decades.” Can he cite one simple example of any progressive writer holding the party card? Even the patron of the Movement, G M Sadiq was not a card-holder communist. The reviewer is also not happy about progressive writers’ role when Sheikh Abdullah was arrested in 1953. This is one’s own outlook as to what was in his mind about Abdullah regime when the skin of political opponents of the time was peeled off from their naked bodies with hot irons and boiling potatoes were thrust into their mouths. When scores of people were forced to go into exile, flee Indian Kashmir and take refuge in other part of Kashmir.
Unfortunately, the reviewer has failed to understand vast difference between a communist and a progressive writer. The patrons of progressivism have been great religious personalities like Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali. Communism is a way of life and Marxism rallies around the philosophy of economic awareness among the common masses against their exploiters. No doubt, Marx did write the manifesto of Communist Party in 1848 but by religion, he was a Germany-born Jew.
Zahid talks about his interviews with K A Abbas and BPL Bedi without substantial evidence whether there have been any such interviews or not, for, there is no reference to authenticate this claim.
He also talks about Mohammad Ali Jinnah deputing Mian Iftikharuddin, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Dr Mohammad Din Taseer to pursue Sheikh Abdullah to come to Karachi for parleys with Jinnah. As a researcher of Faiz, I have nowhere found this imaginary happening, about which the reviewer has been told by some body who is no more to accept or reject this version.
The reviewer has not understood many observations made in the book. Therefore he stumbles at places from one misnomer to another about his own assertions. According to him, BPL Bedi drafted Naya Kashmir. This is not correct. In fact, it was K M Ashraf, a staunch communist quite close to Sheikh Abdullah, who wrote this manifesto of National Conference and not Bedi.
He also gives out his own imaginary and falsified notion that Kashmiri Sufi poets were impressed by Progressive writers’ movement, forgetting that with the beginning of this movement in mid fifties of the 20th century, almost all the Sufi poets had already passed away. Only Ahad Zargar and Samad Mir were living and that too had never associated themselves, even indirectly, with the Movement.
In this hurriedly done exercise, the reviewer has also not adhered to the niceties of language and begins one of his sentences with unheard words like “But instead.”
By all means, the reviewer has not done any justice to this publication, the first of its kind, in his review done probably in haste to coincide its publication with the date of its formal release. This could be described an inadvertent mischievous effort to create confusion among the readers or those more than 200 eminent persons who attended this grand function presided by HE the State Governor.
However, I forget about the reviewer’s error of wrongly spelling my name.
The review of Z.G. MUHAMMAD was published in Daily Greater Kashmir on 05/09/2011 and can be read by visiting following link: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Sep/5/communists-and-kashmir-33.asp
Rejoinder by Ghulam Nabi Khayal
For any scribe or a columnist, it is imperative that he should have ample knowledge of any subject he intends dealing with.
Z G Moham
mad has done a very cursorily written review on my latest English publication titled Progressive Literary Movement in Kashmir, reflecting his 
utter ignorance of this epoch making movement that laid down new foundations of Kashmiri literature about sixty years ago.First of all, this so called review run by a local newspaper, where he is an employee, on 5 September 2011 begins with a very distasteful note that progressive writers in Kashmir were nicknamed as pongas an trying to bind together broken strings he connects this slangy term with Poga Mogul meaning inauspicious Mughals, though he is not sure about it. This assertion is not based on any kind of research but is an outcome of his own imagination. Similarly, pro-establishment workers were called gogas, a term coined locally without any historical or linguistic etymology. According to the reviewer, “communists occupied the intellectual space of the State for about two decades.” Can he cite one simple example of any progressive writer holding the party card? Even the patron of the Movement, G M Sadiq was not a card-holder communist. The reviewer is also not happy about progressive writers’ role when Sheikh Abdullah was arrested in 1953. This is one’s own outlook as to what was in his mind about Abdullah regime when the skin of political opponents of the time was peeled off from their naked bodies with hot irons and boiling potatoes were thrust into their mouths. When scores of people were forced to go into exile, flee Indian Kashmir and take refuge in other part of Kashmir.
Unfortunately, the reviewer has failed to understand vast difference between a communist and a progressive writer. The patrons of progressivism have been great religious personalities like Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali. Communism is a way of life and Marxism rallies around the philosophy of economic awareness among the common masses against their exploiters. No doubt, Marx did write the manifesto of Communist Party in 1848 but by religion, he was a Germany-born Jew.
Zahid talks about his interviews with K A Abbas and BPL Bedi without substantial evidence whether there have been any such interviews or not, for, there is no reference to authenticate this claim.
He also talks about Mohammad Ali Jinnah deputing Mian Iftikharuddin, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Dr Mohammad Din Taseer to pursue Sheikh Abdullah to come to Karachi for parleys with Jinnah. As a researcher of Faiz, I have nowhere found this imaginary happening, about which the reviewer has been told by some body who is no more to accept or reject this version.
The reviewer has not understood many observations made in the book. Therefore he stumbles at places from one misnomer to another about his own assertions. According to him, BPL Bedi drafted Naya Kashmir. This is not correct. In fact, it was K M Ashraf, a staunch communist quite close to Sheikh Abdullah, who wrote this manifesto of National Conference and not Bedi.
He also gives out his own imaginary and falsified notion that Kashmiri Sufi poets were impressed by Progressive writers’ movement, forgetting that with the beginning of this movement in mid fifties of the 20th century, almost all the Sufi poets had already passed away. Only Ahad Zargar and Samad Mir were living and that too had never associated themselves, even indirectly, with the Movement.
In this hurriedly done exercise, the reviewer has also not adhered to the niceties of language and begins one of his sentences with unheard words like “But instead.”
By all means, the reviewer has not done any justice to this publication, the first of its kind, in his review done probably in haste to coincide its publication with the date of its formal release. This could be described an inadvertent mischievous effort to create confusion among the readers or those more than 200 eminent persons who attended this grand function presided by HE the State Governor.
However, I forget about the reviewer’s error of wrongly spelling my name.
The review of Z.G. MUHAMMAD was published in Daily Greater Kashmir on 05/09/2011 and can be read by visiting following link: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Sep/5/communists-and-kashmir-33.asp
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