Daughters of the Vitasta: A History of Kashmiri Women from Early Times to the Present Day

Prem Nath Bazaz was born in July 1905 at Srinagar. Educated in S.P. College, he took his degree from Punjab University and entered public life in august 1930 by joining the Women's Welfare Trust. In 1931 he was elected President of the S.D. Yuvat Sabha that year the Maharaja nominated him as a nonofficial member of the Grievances Enquiry Commission and the Constitutional Reforms Conference. He started the daily Vitasta in 1932 to advocate the cause of Secularism, Democracy and Freedom. With the same aim, Bazaz, in collaboration with Sheikh Abdullah, founded the weekly Hamdard in 1935 which was converted into a dairy in 1943. For expressing radical views, he was imprisoned by the Maharaja's Government for six months in 1938. When the Muslim Conference was converted into National Conference in 19339, Bazaz joined it but finding it inadequate for his purpose he resigned in 1941 and formed the Kashmir Socialist Party to practice his ideals. He presided over the Press Conference in 1943, played a prominent role in the historic, Kabamarg Congress of the Kisan Mazdoor Conference in 1946; was shot and seriously wonded in April 1947 by a political opponent; arrested by the Kashmir Government in October 1947 and detained in Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur Jails without trial for three years. Immediately after release in 1950 he was exiled from the Kashmir State. In New Delhi he was elected President of the Kashmir Democratic Union. Here he founded and edited the monthly Wwce of Kashmir in 1954. Declaring some of his writing as objectionable the Government of India detained him for one year in Delhi Jail in 1955. Bazaz is the author of several books including Inside Kashmir (1942), Azad Kashmir (1951) and the History of Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir (1954). He has written a number of treatises and booklets in English and Urdu on economic, political, cultural and social problems of Kashmir. In June 1981 he underwent heart surgery in the states. His recovery was delayed by the news of fatal road accident of his bright and promising youngest son Kishore in August. Death of Badri, his wife in May 1962 left him utterly lonely. He passed away in July 1984, mourned by the National and International leaders intelectuals as a true fighter for freedom should.