In the twi­light hours of the day to­day, the voice of Kash­mir in Delhi, a true friend of Sikhs, the de­fender of  hu­man rights of Kash­miris, Sikhs, Tamils and every­one else, teacher of Ara­bic at the Delhi Uni­ver­sity, Pro­fes­sor S A R Gee­lani passed away af­ter a mas­sive car­diac ar­rest, leav­ing be­hind a void which will take a long time to fill. 

CHEER­FUL WITH A LOVELY SMILE al­ways spring­ing forth from around his mous­tache and beard, bub­bling with en­ergy, a fighter at heart, a tow­er­ing per­son­al­ity, a close friend and Kash­miri hu­man rights de­fender, Pro­fes­sor Syed Ab­dul Rehman Gee­lani is no more.

In the twi­light hours of the day to­day, the voice of Kash­mir in Delhi, the friend of Sikhs, the de­fender of rights of Kash­miris, Sikhs, Tamils and every­one else, teacher of Ara­bic at the Delhi Uni­ver­sity Prof. S. A. R. Gee­lani passed away af­ter a mas­sive car­diac ar­rest.

Pro-free­dom Kash­miri and Sikh lead­ers and the hun­dreds for whom he fought sin­gle-hand­edly will miss him for­ever.  My heart goes out to his fam­ily, chil­dren and to the peo­ple of Kash­mir who have lost a brave son.

It makes us more sad and dis­traught that the peo­ple of Kash­mir, the lead­ers of the pro-free­dom strug­gle would not even know about his demise as Kash­mir con­tin­ues to be sep­a­rated by an iron cur­tain from the rest of the world, notwith­stand­ing hear­ings in the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil and the on-go­ing US house for­eign af­fairs sub­com­mit­tee on Asia and Pa­cific hear­ing on “Hu­man Rights in South Asia.” Many of his com­pa­tri­ots whose rights he de­fended are lan­guish­ing in the pris­ons of Pune and Mum­bai.

The in­de­pen­dence seek­ers of Kash­mir on the streets, the lead­ers of the Kash­mir strug­gle have sud­denly lost their voice when it was needed most.  Un­doubt­edly, God has his own ways, but to­day we needed him more than ever be­fore. Alas! Al­lah did not give him time and op­por­tu­nity even to fight back for which he was so well known.

The in­de­pen­dence seek­ers of Kash­mir on the streets, the lead­ers of the Kash­mir strug­gle have sud­denly lost their voice when it was needed most.  His shoul­ders will be missed by the hun­dreds of Kash­miri stu­dents in Delhi and be­yond which bur­dened their agony and needs in dire times.

Un­doubt­edly, God has his own ways, but to­day we needed him more than ever be­fore.  Alas! Al­lah did not give him time and op­por­tu­nity even to fight back for which he was so well known. With the civil lib­er­tar­i­ans of Delhi in deep slum­ber, some in self-im­posed qui­etude, oth­ers fear­ing the wrath of the state, some im­pris­oned, Delhi des­per­ately needed the likes of Gee­lani.

This writer be­friended him nearly ten years ago or more when we joined him to pro­tect the rights of pris­on­ers as part of the Com­mit­tee for Pro­tec­tion of Rights of Pris­on­ers. When I met him last just a few weeks ago, he was clear about the way the gov­ern­ment of In­dia was crush­ing the peo­ple of Kash­mir, in­car­cer­at­ing lead­ers, dis­senters and pro­tes­tors in far-away pris­ons of UP, Haryana and else­where. He said, “Dif­fi­cult times for Kash­miris, but they will fight back.”

Ap­par­ently, he died of car­diac ar­rest but he was un­der deep stress of how the state was over­aw­ing all Kash­miris, the Kash­miri lead­er­ship and him­self too. He had been placed un­der sus­pen­sion by the Delhi Uni­ver­sity, in com­pli­ance with state di­rec­tives since the last two years or so for his pro-Kash­mir ac­tiv­i­ties. From Au­gust 5, when Kash­mir was put un­der lock­down, for nearly a month or more he was un­der house ar­rest in Delhi and this writer is privy to the fact that Prof Gee­lani was con­stantly ha­rassed and pres­surised by var­i­ous state agen­cies since the last many months and par­tic­u­larly over the last many weeks. In­dia can­not es­cape re­spon­si­bil­ity for putting him in this con­di­tion.

“We have lost one of the best and valu­able friends of the Sikhs and an ad­mirer of the Sikh in­de­pen­dence strug­gle. Per­son­ally, I am at a loss of words to ex­press my feel­ings for my clos­est Kash­miri friend.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, leader Dal Khalsa

In­ter­act­ing with Sikhs, Kash­miris and Tamils at the protest meet in Delhi on 26 Sep­tem­ber, he walked step by step with all pro­tes­tors and en­cour­aged the young pro­tes­tors from Pun­jab and Tamil Nadu to con­tinue the fight for the le­git­i­mate right of Kash­miris and all other peo­ples and na­tion­al­i­ties.  Dal Khalsa leader Kan­warpal Singh, who can­not come to terms with the loss of Prof. Gee­lani told me, “We have lost one of the best and valu­able friends of the Sikhs and an ad­mirer of the Sikh in­de­pen­dence strug­gle. Per­son­ally, I am at a loss of words to ex­press my feel­ings for my clos­est Kash­miri friend.”

This au­thor rem­i­nisces the hours spent with him when he thrashed thread­bare the flimsy ev­i­dence, the lack of le­gal re­sources to Afzal Guru and the sur­rep­ti­tious man­ner in which Afzal Guru was hanged in prison. Prof. Gee­lani fought to the last for Afzal Guru de­spite all odds.  Pro­fes­sor Gee­lani was ar­rested for his al­leged com­plic­ity with Afzal Guru in the mil­i­tant at­tack case on the In­dian Par­lia­ment. He was ac­quit­ted for want of ev­i­dence but de­spite protes­ta­tions by his coun­sel Ram Jeth­malani, the In­dian Supreme Court at­tached a stigma to his life by putting the words “sus­pi­cious of his role” in the ac­quit­ting judge­ment.

For the record, he was ar­rested un­der POTA, con­victed for at­tempt to blow up the In­dian par­lia­ment, sen­tenced to death, tor­tured in po­lice cus­tody, at­tacked by hos­tile fel­low-pris­on­ers in Ti­har Jail, pro­nounced guilty in me­dia trial till the Supreme Court ac­quit­ted him. He was shot at out­side his lawyer’s res­i­dence with five bul­lets in his stom­ach, still, he sur­vived.

“Prof. Gee­lani spent his life just one shot away from death. In a strange pe­cu­liar way, at least he died a nat­ural death. More nat­ural than what some in this coun­try wished for him.” 

A jour­nal­ist friend re­marked on learn­ing about his death, “The man spent his life just one shot away from death. In a strange pe­cu­liar way, at least he died a nat­ural death. More nat­ural than what some in this coun­try wished for him.”

I joined Kan­warpal Singh and oth­ers to ob­serve the first death an­niver­sary of Afzal Guru in Delhi at a meet boldly or­gan­ised by Prof S A R Gee­lani.  De­spite all re­stric­tions and pres­sures, he was at his clas­sic best to ma­noeu­vre out of a cri­sis in his per­sonal life as well as protest demon­stra­tions and sol­i­dar­ity meet­ings.

In Delhi, when the pro-Sikh-free­dom leader Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann told him, “Prof. Gee­lani, it must be dif­fi­cult with­out a proper salary?” He replied, “It is dif­fi­cult, but we have to fight. No choice. We may be down for some time, but we are not out. Re­sis­tance and dis­sent are in our blood.” 

Dur­ing the run-up to the pre­sen­ta­tion of a mem­o­ran­dum to the UN of­fice in Delhi for the Kash­miri peo­ple, pro-Sikh-free­dom leader Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann told him, “Prof. Gee­lani, it must be dif­fi­cult with­out a proper salary?” He replied, “It is dif­fi­cult, but we have to fight. No choice. We may be down for some time, but we are not out. Re­sis­tance and dis­sent are in our blood.” Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann ex­pressed feel­ings about learn­ing Urdu and Ara­bic.

When this au­thor called Naam Tami­lar Katchi leader See­man to tell him about Gee­lani’s demise, he was shocked. He said, “Kash­mir has lost its un­sung hero. I know that for the last many years, he has been stead­fast in up­hold­ing the rights of the Kash­miri peo­ple. I am also aware of how he has been de­fend­ing the rights of pris­on­ers all around In­dia.”

With his an­ces­tral house near the Gur­d­wara Chevvin Pat­shahi (Gur­d­wara in the mem­ory of the sixth Guru-Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib) in Badgam, Kash­mir, Prof S A R Gee­lani was a true friend of the Sikhs. When­ever any hu­man rights or po­lit­i­cal group asked him to come to Pun­jab to speak for their rights, he was just a phone call away.  Not known to mince words, he laid his heart out when­ever he spoke, dis­pas­sion­ately but thor­oughly.  Many a time he sub­sti­tuted for Hur­riyat con­fer­ence Kash­miri leader oc­to­ge­nar­ian Syed Ali Shah Gee­lani, who could not at­tend sol­i­dar­ity meets as he was in­vari­ably un­der house ar­rest.

“Kash­mir has lost its un­sung hero. I know that for the last many years, he has been stead­fast in up­hold­ing the rights of the Kash­miri peo­ple. I am also aware of how he has been de­fend­ing the rights of pris­on­ers all around In­dia.”

See­man, leader Naam Tami­lar Katchi

I fondly re­mem­ber the peace I felt when along with Prof. Gee­lani, Dal Khalsa leader Kan­warpal Singh, I vis­ited in Kash­mir the an­ces­tral home of Mo­hammed Maq­bool Bhatt, who was hanged in Ti­har prison. Meet­ing his sib­lings and rel­a­tives, shar­ing their pain and pride was an un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence.  Our visit was a homage to the mar­tyr who was a pi­o­neer of the Kash­miri na­tion­al­ist move­ment in mod­ern times.

At the UN of­fice in Delhi, when the Delhi po­lice at­tempted to stop the del­e­ga­tion to meet UN of­fi­cials, he re­marked, “It seems not only at the United Na­tions in New York, but here in Delhi too, the UN is be­ing pres­surised by In­dia. The UN ter­ri­tory is an in­de­pen­dent ter­ri­tory, yet the Delhi po­lice are call­ing the shots.”

“Be the voice of Kash­miris, tell the world what is hap­pen­ing there.” “If the Sikhs can help in the med­ical treat­ment of kids and young Kash­miri vic­tims of pel­let wounds by bring­ing them to hos­pi­tals in Gur­daspur and Am­rit­sar, that would be a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion,” 

Prof S A R Gee­lani, a few weeks prior to his demise

For the Kash­miris, his un­par­al­leled con­tri­bu­tion will al­ways be a bea­con light. Hu­man rights de­fend­ers in In­dia have lost a com­rade.

Dur­ing the course of the prepa­ra­tion for the protest meet in Delhi, I had asked Prof. Gee­lani, ‘What can we do for the Kash­miris in this phase of their strug­gle?” He said, “Be their voice, tell the world what is hap­pen­ing there.” “If the Sikhs can help in the med­ical treat­ment of kids and young Kash­miri vic­tims of pel­let wounds by bring­ing them to hos­pi­tals in Gur­daspur and Am­rit­sar, that would be a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion,” he added. I had promised him that I will cer­tainly ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ties. If I and the Sikh com­mu­nity can ful­fil this, it would be a be­fit­ting trib­ute to a great friend of the Sikhs.