Biography Of Sheikh Abdullah – Free PDF Download

EARLY LIFE

• Abdullah Sheikh was born in Soura on 5 December 1905, a village on the outskirts of Srinagar, eleven days after the death of his father Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim.
• His father was a middle class manufacturer and trader of Kashmiri shawls. His immediate ancestor was a Kashmiri Brahmin Raghu Ram Koul, which the Sheikh mentions with pride in his autobiography.
• His mother was keen that her children should receive proper education and, so, as a child, he was first admitted to a traditional school or Maktab where he learnt the recitation of the Quran and some basic Persian.

EDUCATION

• Then in 1911 he was admitted to a primary school where he studied for about two years. He passed his Matriculation examination from Punjab University in 1922.
• After matriculation he obtained admission in Shri Pratap College, the leading college of Kashmir. He also went to the Prince of Wales College in Jammu. Then he took admission in Islamia College, Lahore and graduated from there.
• In 1930, he obtained an M.Sc. in Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University.

POLITICS

• Kashmir’s first political party the Kashmir Muslim Conference with Abdullah Sheikh as President, Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas as general secretary, and Molvi Abdul Rahim as Secretary was formed on 16 October 1932.
• Abdullah Sheikh campaigned to change the name of the Muslim Conference to National Conference, under the influence of among others Jawaharlal Nehru.
• After a prolonged and vigorous campaign a special session of the Muslim Conference held in June 1939 voted to change the name of the party to National Conference.

POLITICS

• A Praja Sabha with 33 elected and 42 nominated members elected on the basis of separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims was established in 1934.
• Even after the formation of Praja Sabha in 1934 as recommended by the Commission real power continued to remain in the hands of the Maharajah.
• Seventeen years later in 1951, the government of Kashmir with Sheikh Abdullah as Prime Minister held elections to a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal adult suffrage.

ARREST

• He introduced a resolution in the working committee of the Muslim Conference for changing its name to National Conference on 24 June 1938.
• Meanwhile, he along with his liberal progressive friends, the forerunner of the famous Naya Kashmir (New Kashmir) Manifesto
• He presented these demands to the Maharajah in a speech on 28 August 1938. The Maharajah was not willing to accept these demands and so he along with many of his companions was arrested for defying prohibitory orders and sentenced to six months imprisonment and a fine.

KASHMIR

• In May 1946 Sheikh Abdullah launched the Quit Kashmir agitation against the Maharajah Hari Singh and was arrested and sentenced to three years imprisonment but was released only sixteen months later on 29 September 1947.
• The Instrument of Accession duly signed by him on 26.As a consequence, Sheikh Abdullah was appointed head of an emergency administration by an order issued by the Maharaja which was undated except for the mention October 1947 in place of the date.
• He raised a force of local Kashmiri volunteers to patrol Srinagar and take control of administration.

PRIME MINISTER

• This group of volunteers would serve as the nucleus for the subsequent formation of Jammu and Kashmir Militia.
• The Militia (dubbed as Dagan Brigade) was converted from a State Militia to a regular unit of the Indian Army on 2 December 1972 and redesignated the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry).
• Sheikh Abdullah took oath as Prime Minister of Kashmir on 17 March 1948.
• On 8 August 1953 he was dismissed as Prime Minister by the then Sadr-i-Riyasat (Constitutional Head of State) Dr. Karan Singh, son of the erstwhile Maharajah Hari Singh.

BROKER OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN

• He was denied the opportunity to prove his majority on the floor of the house and his dissident cabinet minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was appointed as Prime Minister.
• Sheikh Abdullah was immediately arrested and later jailed for eleven years, accused of conspiracy against the State in the infamous “Kashmir Conspiracy Case”.
• On 8 April 1964 the State Government dropped all charges in the so-called “Kashmir Conspiracy Case”. Sheikh Abdullah was released.After his release he was reconciled with Nehru. Nehru requested Sheikh Abdullah to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan

EXILED

• Sheikh Abdullah went to Pakistan in spring of 1964. President Ayub Khan of Pakistan held extensive talks with him to explore various avenues for solving the Kashmir problem and agreed to come to Delhi in mid June for talks with.
• Even the date of his proposed visit was fixed and communicated to New Delhi. On 27 May news came of the sudden death of Nehru.
• After Nehru’s death in 1964, he was interned from 1965 to 1968 and exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. The Plebiscite Front was also banned.

CHIEF MINISTER

• Critics of Sheikh hold the view that he gave up the cherished goal of plebiscite for gaining Chief Minister’s chair.
• He started talks with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for normalising the situation in the region and came to an accord called 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord with Indira Gandhi, then India’s Prime Minister, by giving up the demand for a plebiscite in lieu of the people being given the right to self-rule by a democratically elected Government.
• He assumed the position of Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He remained as Chief Minister till his death in 1982.After his death his eldest son Dr. Farooq Abdullah was elected as the Chief Minister of the State.

Biography Free PDF

Sharing is caring!