Intro
Akbar Jehan Abdullah (1907 – 11 July 2000) was an Indian Kashmiri politician. The wife of Abdullah Sheikh, three-time Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, she twice served as a Member of India Parliament. Akbar Jehan was the daughter of Michael Harry [Harry] Nedou aka Sheikh Ahmed Hussain, of Slovak and British descent, he was 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. She married Abdullah in 1933. In 1936, she became a Qadiani-Ahmadi as evidenced by the scan in the below from the AL-Fazl of Jan 21st, 1936. In the highlighted area of the scanned AL-Fazl, it says, it clearly says “wife of sheikh abdullah sahib riayasat (state) Kashmir. 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. In Akbar Jehan’s father’s lifetime, the Nedous’ hotels in Lahore, Gulmarg, and Srinagar retained their reputations as classy, plush, and magnificent havens in colonial India. Akbar Jehan’s father, the stoic looking, stocky, and thick-set, though not short, Michael Henry (Harry) Nedou took over the management of the restful hotel in Gulmarg, exquisitely and intimately described by MM Kaye in her whodunit novel, ‘Death in Kashmir’, from his father. Several people have testified to his proverbial philanthropy, beneficence, and kindness. Mother tells me that his advocacy of the nationalist movement in Kashmir, the stirrings of which began in the 1930s, encouraged Akbar Jehan to relinquish a life of affluence and repose to marry the rebel from Soura, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Michael Henry (Harry) Nedou “spent his time helping the poor, built houses for them, and saved people wrongly convicted from jail and twice from the gallows”
Her Mother
Akbar Jehan’s mother, Mir Jan, respectfully called Rani Jee by family, friends, and acquaintances was an indomitable Gujjar woman, who has an imperturbable expression in all the pictures I have seen of her. The impression that I get from her pictures is that she must have been a phlegmatic woman, secure in the knowledge that she was propertied and wealthy, not requiring anyone’s good offices to lead a comfortable life. She and her siblings were the proud owners of sprawling acres of magnificent land in Gulmarg, a resort which found a prominent place on the international map in that late 1800s and early 1900s through the endeavors of Michael Adam and Jessie Maria Nedou.
1900-1928
Akbar Jehan’s father’s family, the ‘Nedous’, had emigrated from Dubrovnik, Croatian city on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, to Lahore in the 1800s. Croatia is currently an independent country. From 1815 to 1918, it was part of the Austrian Empire, and from 1918 to 1991, it was part of Yugoslavia. I found the naturalisation certificate of Michael Adam Nedou, Akbar Jehan’s paternal grandfather, in the depleted family archive. According to the certificate, signed by CU Aitchinson, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab and its dependencies, on February 28, 1887, he conferred upon hotelier, Michael Adam Nedou, the rights and privileges of naturalisation. In the ‘memorial’ presented to CU Aitchinson, Michael Adam Nedou explained that he was born in Ragusa, Austria (Ragusa is the Italian and Latin name for Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast); he was of Slovak nationality, and had been in British India for the past 25 years. At the time of the presentation of the ‘memorial’, Michael Adam Nedou was 50 years old, settled in Lahore, and sought to be granted the rights and privileges of a British subject of Queen Victoria, “of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India, within her Majesty’s said Indian Territories,” in compliance with Act XXX of 1852 (‘Certificate of Naturalisation’).
The lithe, imaginative, and vivacious young woman who later became his wife, Jessie Maria, made his acquaintance while visiting her brother, George, who was a Sea Captain in the British Royal Navy. That acquaintance, rather enchantingly, metamorphosed into love, and the wedding was solemnised soon after their first meeting. Their older son, Michael Henry (Harry) Nedou, Akbar Jehan’s father, according to his birth and baptism certificate, was born in Pune, British India, in 1877. Michael Henry [Harry] Nedou was one of nine children. He was born to Jessie and Michael Adam Nedou after six daughters, an event that was celebrated with much gusto. The birth of the second son, William Arthur Nedou, in 1879, was soon followed by that of the third son and youngest child, Walter Douglas Nedou.
The then grandiose Nedous hotel in Srinagar, which was opened in 1900, boasted a confectionery that, for a long time, had no parallel. The thought of the delectable jams and jellies that we got from the Nedous’ bakery in my childhood makes me drool. Until the decade of the eighties, the Nedous hotel in Srinagar epitomised a rare and appealing excellence, and a flawless execution, which, over the years, deteriorated. It is now, sadly, in a dilapidated state.
In Akbar Jehan’s father’s lifetime, the Nedous’ hotels in Lahore, Gulmarg, and Srinagar retained their reputations as classy, plush, and magnificent havens in colonial India. Akbar Jehan’s father, the stoic looking, stocky, and thick-set, though not short, Michael Henry (Harry) Nedou took over the management of the restful hotel in Gulmarg, exquisitely and intimately described by MM Kaye in her whodunit novel, ‘Death in Kashmir’, from his father. Several people have testified to his proverbial philanthropy, beneficence, and kindness. Mother tells me that his advocacy of the nationalist movement in Kashmir, the stirrings of which began in the 1930s, encouraged Akbar Jehan to relinquish a life of affluence and repose to marry the rebel from Soura, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Michael Henry (Harry) Nedou “spent his time helping the poor, built houses for them, and saved people wrongly convicted from jail and twice from the gallows”
1928
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)[66] a British Intelligence officer. He claims that Akbar Jehan was divorced by her first husband in 1929.
1929
She gets officially divorced. (See Mubashir Hassan (18 July 2008), “The Nedous and Lawrence of Arabia”, The Nation (Pakistan), archived from the original on 9 January 2009, retrieved 22 July 2008)
1933
She marries Shaikh Abdullah.
1936
She becomes an Ahmadi.
Scan evidence
1947–1951
She had the distinction of being the first President of Jammu and Kashmir Red Cross Society.
1975-1977
She 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.
1977-1979
She served as a member of 6th and 8th Lok Sabha.
1984-1989
She represented Kashmir’s Srinagar and Anantnag constituencies, respectively.
2000
Jehan Abdullah died on 11 July 2000 in Srinagar at the age of 93.
Links and Related Essay’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Abdullah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Akbar_Jehan_Abdullah
Tariq Ali (2003): The Clash of Fundamentalism. Verso Books. London. ISBN 978 1 85984 457 1
https://ahmadiyyafactcheckblog.com/2018/06/14/was-an-ahmadi-made-the-1st-president-of-azad-kashmir/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Kashmir_agitation
Revisiting AATISH-E-CHINAR: The Biography of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Abdullah#CITEREFAbdullahTaing1985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaudhry_Ghulam_Abbas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naya_Kashmir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaudhry_Ghulam_Abbas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Kashmir_agitation
Mubashir Hassan (18 July 2008), “The Nedous and Lawrence of Arabia”, The Nation (Pakistan), archived from the original on 9 January 2009, retrieved 22 July 2008
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