Quayyum Raja's Unfolding Life : Chapter 01 :

Quayyum Raja’s Unfolding Life : Chapter 1
Early Life

I was born and brought up in Khajorullah, Khuiratta, Azad Kashmir. My date of birth according to my school record is 15 September 1956. I belong to SOLHAN Rajput clan, whose 3rd century forefathers clashed with Alexander in a battle of Hydapass. It was a town between the Pakistani Punjab city of Jhelum and Mir Pur Azad Kashmir. Battle of the Hydaspes, (326 BCE), fourth and last pitched battle fought by Alexander the Great during his campaign of conquest in Asia. The fight on the banks of the Hydaspes River was the closest Alexander the Great came to defeat. His feared Companion cavalry was unable to subdue fully the courageous King Porus. Hydaspes marked the limit of Alexander’s career of conquest; he died before he could launch another campaign. Our ancestors gradually converted to Islam.

Quayyum Raja's Unfolding Life : Chapter 01 : "Early Life"
Quayyum Raja with former Governor of Punjab General (r) Raja Saroop Khan

Khajorullah is about 3 km long village well above the city of Khuiratta. General Raja Saroop Khan who served in Pakistan army as well as the Governor of the Punjab province in Benazir Bhutto government belonged to our clan and had his maternal connection with our family. Raja Burhan Khan was another national personality in our family. He was an uncle of my grandfather. Raja Burhan Khan struggled for people’s right to property during the Dogra reign in Jammu Kashmir. He also filed a case against the jageer granted to Chib Rajput in our city. Raja Muhammad Afzal Khan, the father of former president of Azad Kashmir was the Governor of Jammu and close to the Mahraja. They conspired to rule against our SOLHAN Family. Strangely enough, the Chib Rajput who allied with the Mahraja of Jammu Kashmir, joined the pro-Pakistan Muslim Conference as soon as Mahraja lost power. The foes became friends just overnight. This is called opportunism.

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My father died when I was only 9 years old. My father and my eldest brother Nazir Raja also served in Pakistan army. My clan is described SOLHAN in Mir Pur region, Mir in Muzaffarabad region and Rana and Sulaharia in the Punjab.

Khuiratta was a business centre before the forced partition of Jammu Kashmir. Our largest market was Rajouri 20 km from Khuiratta but now we rely mainly on Rawalpindi and Lahore that are 150 and 350 km away respectively. Our higher academic centres were Jammu and Srinagar 104 and 109 km respectively. Srinagar was the main airport but invasion of Kashmir by Pakistan on 22 of October 1947 and India on 27 of October led to a ceasefire by the UN on 1st of January 1949 changed our whole life. Despite the fact that 40 percent of foreign exchange to Pakistan is from the people of Azad Kashmir, in addition to generated taxes, vast natural resources, half a dozen hydroelectric dams and $46 billions Chinese investment to CPEC, there is no airport and cardiac centres both in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan. The situation in Gilgit-Baltistan is much worse than Azad Kashmir. The latter’s living conditions have improved due to work abroad. The conditions of roads are very bad, yet the area is extremely attractive to international tourism. Such poor economic conditions and lack of development and a lack of high standard educational facilities oblige the people of Pakistani administered Jammu Kashmir to go to the Middle East and Europe. This is what led my oldest brother Nazir Raja to go to Holland in 1973, followed by me a few years later.

 

After the death of my father, Raja Molladad Khan, who had left the army before my birth, life was not easy. My father died at the age of 48. He climbed a mountain but fell and received serious injuries. He passed away two years later in 1966. Two younger brothers of my father passed away at the age of 27 and 18 long before my birth. My grandparents lost all interest in life in this world as a result of the death of all their three young sons. My mother Naseeba Begum stood like a rock in a stormy sea and gracefully brought us up. I was naturally a sociable and outgoing boy who hated corruption and a political hegemony. Therefore, as a youth, I was popular among the disadvantaged and deprived people of society but not among the exploiters and privileged ones. It earned me both respect and an identity of a person who would be avoided by people in power due to my instinctive habit to speak my mind.

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