Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad

Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1907–1972) was a politician belonging to the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference and second in command to the principal leader Sheikh Abdullah. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Jammu and Kashmir between 1947–1953. He fell out with Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 and engineered a coup, after which he served as the Prime Minister of the State for eleven years, from 1953 to 1964.

Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was born in 1907 in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. He was educated at C.M.S Tyndale Biscoe School. He started his career as a school teacher in far flung areas of Jammu and Kashmir like Skardu and Leh and later served in the Kashmir branch of the All India Spinners' Association.

In 1927 Bakshi joined Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah in the agitation for securing civic and political rights for the State's Muslim population, which was then under the autocratic rule of the Dogra rulers, culminating in the formation of the Muslim Conference in 1930. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad displayed a great talent for organization and capacity for sustained hard work during this period. He organised the students and workers and set up their unions. He was arrested several times during the freedom struggle including a sixteen-month term in Reasi sub-Jail. Within the National Conference party he earned the sobriquet "Khalid-e-Kashmir" after Khalid bin Walid, the great Muslim general.

By 1938, people of all communities had joined the demand for responsible government, which had spread all over the State and the Muslim Conference's name was altered to National Conference. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad worked underground during this period, keeping a step ahead of the State Police. In 1946, during the "Quit Kashmir" movement, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad escaped to British India when a warrant was issued for his arrest. He visited many places mobilizing public opinion in favour of the Kashmir agitation. After Mahatma Gandhi's visit to Kashmir the warrant against him was withdrawn and he returned home after seventeen months exile.

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