Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah
Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah (1916 – 11 July 2000) was an Indian politician.[1] The wife of Abdullah Sheikh, three-time Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, she twice served as a Member of Indian Parliament.[2]
Akbar Jehan was the daughter of Michael Henry Nedou aka Harry[3], the eldest son of the European owner of an Indian hotel chain that included Nedous Hotel in Srinagar, and his Kashmiri wife Mirjan. Nedou was himself the proprietor of a hotel at the tourist resort of Gulmarg.[4] The writer Tariq Ali claims that Akbar Jehan was previously married in 1928 to an Arab Karam Shah who disappeared after a Calcutta newspaper Liberty reported that he was actually T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)Mubashhir Hassan (2008) a British Intelligence officer. He claims that Akbar Jehan was divorced by her first husband in 1929. She married Abdullah in 1933.[1]
Political career
[edit]She served as a member of 6th[5] and 8th Lok Sabha,[6] from 1977 to 1979, and from 1984 to 1989, representing Kashmir's Srinagar and Anantnag constituencies, respectively.
She had the distinction of being the first President of Jammu and Kashmir Red Cross Society from 1947 to 1951. She also served as Chairman of State Level Committee of International Year of Women, 1975 and President of all India Family Welfare Association, State Branch, 1976 and All India Women's Conference, State Branch in 1977.
Later life and death
[edit]Jehan Abdullah died on 11 July 2000 in Srinagar at the age of 84.[1]
Personal
[edit]V. S. Naipaul in his travelogue An Area of Darkness mentions about the origins of Abdullah family. During his travels in Kashmir, Naipaul narrates the story of a European hotelier Michael Henry Nedou who got attracted to a Muslim woman of modest means named Mir Jan in the hill station of Gulmarg. Nedou expressed his desire to marry Mir Jan; however, she required his conversion to Islam as a condition for the marriage. He accepted and from this union was born Akbar Jehan, who would later marry Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a central figure in the political history of Jammu and Kashmir and the founder of the National Conference party.[7]
She is the mother of the Kashmiri politician Farooq Abdullah, who succeeded his father Abdullah Sheikh as J&K chief minister in 1982, and grandmother of Omar Abdullah.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Vajpayee invites CM for talks, Farooq's mother laid to rest". The Tribune (Chandigarh). 11 July 2000.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "The Nedous Clan That Popped-Up During Demolition Times In Kashmir". Outlook India. 2 February 2023. Retrieved 23 May 2025.
- ^ Sheikh Abdullah; M.Y.Taing (1985), p193
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 July 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 July 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Kashmir Terrorism History Part 2: Kashmir Terror Attack, Rise of Terror in Kashmir – India Today". indiatoday. Retrieved 23 May 2025.
External links
[edit]| International | |
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| National | |
- Abdullah family (politics)
- 20th-century Indian Muslims
- India MPs 1977–1979
- India MPs 1984–1989
- 1916 births
- 2000 deaths
- Jammu & Kashmir National Conference politicians
- Lok Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir
- Kashmiri politicians
- Women members of Parliament from Jammu and Kashmir
- 20th-century Indian women politicians
- Kashmiri women
- Kashmiri Muslims
- Women members of the Lok Sabha
- Jammu and Kashmir politician stubs