'There were few like him in Srinagar or anywhere. An extraordinary intellect, who could quote from Ibni Khaldun with as much ease as reciting verses from the Isho Upanishad!'

By Swati Joshi | Tooba Towfiq

WHEN Moosa Raza as chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir was trying to tackle the incipient militancy in Kashmir during nineties, he happened to ask Agha Ashraf Ali one day about Kashmir's relation with India.

The firebrand educationist known for having least tolerance for ignorance told Raza that every Indian politician and bureaucrat, every editor of an Indian newspaper, every judge of the high court or the Supreme Court, has come to Kashmir only to go around its valleys, enjoy its springs, its mountains and hills, its forests, and in the early days, to shoot its wildlife.

This conversation appeared in Moosa's 2019 published book, Kashmir: Land of Regrets.

“Why should the Kashmiri feel any loyalty or commitment to India,” Agha Ashraf tells Moosa,“when the Indian establishment has only treated Kashmir as a call girl - to be enjoyed for a brief while, to be thrown a few crumbs, a few rupees, in appreciation of that hospitality? Kashmir is soon forgotten. That is the reason why, in spite of the fact that you have spent four times more than PoK, Kashmiris are still not happy with you, still do not love you, still do not want to be with you, they still shout“azadi, azadi, azadi”.”

The man who had hushed the Indian emissary during the tumultuous time in Kashmir also finds a stirring mention in writer Amitav Ghosh's“The Ghat of the Only World”-the elegy for his poet friend-as an erudite man who“continued the family tradition of public service in education”.

“He taught at Jamia Millia University in New Delhi and went on to become the principal of the Teacher's College in Srinagar,” Ghosh writes.“In 1961, he enrolled at Ball State Teacher's College, in Muncie, Indiana, to do a PhD in Comparative Education.”

But in Kashmir, the outspoken Agha was more than his heavyweight academic stature.

“He was the Rishi of RajBagh, the Sufi of Srinagar – a truly Renaissance figure,” says Prof. Amitabh Mattoo.

“There were few like him in Srinagar or anywhere. An extraordinary intellect, who could quote from Ibni Khaldun with as much ease as reciting verses from the Isho Upanishad!”

A visit to Agha Ashraf's fairy tale home at Raj Bagh (rebuilt after the floods), the professor recalls, was an overwhelming experience.“A ranconteur par excellence, he would delight you with anecdotes drawn from history and personal experience; from his time in the United States to the special relationship he shared with Dr Zakir Hussain and Professor Mujib at Jamia – to the story of Kashmir and the Sheikh, as he knew it,” he says.

Agha Ashraf retained his encyclopedic memory till almost the last, as separatist and mainstream, the devotee and the atheist, all made way to Agha's Sahib's chambers to be enlightened, the professor continues.

“And he served the delicacies of Awadhi cuisine in Wedgewood with the same epicurean sensitivity as his beloved late wife Sufia,” Prof Matoo says.

“In his later years he became better known as Agha Shahid Ali's dad; it thrilled him to bits. But Agha Sahib was unmatched in his love and zest of for life in all its colours. In his passing away, Kashmir has lost amongst the last of its truly great souls.”

Agha Ashraf breathed his last at 11:45 pm on August 7 at his residence in Srinagar.

At a time when the young were chided and rarely entrusted with leadership roles, Sheikh Abdullah had identified in Agha Ashraf the potential to usher in new reforms in education. However, his merit and role were hardly surprising.

He belonged to a highly educated family in which everyone from his grandparents, mother and his brothers enjoyed very seminal positions of power. Such a background and an inspired legacy of education in his family ensured his initiation and integration into the world as a changemaker.

As his death triggered a tsunami of tributes, many recall how his work dramatically transformed the milieu of education in Kashmir.“The positions of administrative leadership in education that he occupied were in itself a statement at a time when Kashmiri Pandits dominated the education and literary landscape of Kashmir,” argues Tania Shafi, a Kashmiri scholar.

A Shia Muslim spearheading reforms in education, he was at once an instigator as well as an incentive to invite more Muslims towards education, Shafi continues.

“The impact of his work as a scholar, educationist and a philanthropist in Kashmir carries with it the distinction of being unparalleled and ephemeral.”

Back in the 2000s, journalist Gowhar Geelani recalls, when he went to a local hotel where Agha Ashraf Ali was invited as a speaker, everyone was excited to hear him speak.

“Before him many speakers came and bored the audiences to death,” Geelani recalls.“Visibly upset, Agha's turn came to speak as the chief guest. He cited an example of some American scholar. He said the American scholar was invited as the chief guest, but many spoke before him and spoke nonsense. When it was time for the chief guest to address the audience, he read out his home address instead: 'Street XYZ, House No ***, Zip *****, LA, USA...' This is what renowned Agha Ashraf Ali commented on the prolonged monologues which are off-putting for noted scholars. Bored, they don't address but read out their home address!”

“Called Dad to convey death of Prof. Agha Ashraf Ali,” a twitter user said ,“impromptu reply, 'He won't die but only fade away, as his light will continue to illuminate our generations.”

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