How an old Kashmiri woman established the first private museum in Sopore, J&K

The legacy

After her retirement from the government education department in 1998, Atiqa travelled to remote towns and villages of Kashmir collecting artefacts, manuscripts and other old items of daily use. She kept adding items to the museum collection from different areas of Kashmir till she fell ill in 2017. She would not hesitate to knock on people's doors, requesting them to handover any old item or manuscript of some value they wanted to be better preserved in a museum.

Muzamil Bashir, Atiqa’s nephew and current caretaker of the museum, says: “She always wanted the rich cultural heritage of Jammu Kashmir and even Ladakh to be preserved by people themselves instead of waiting for government efforts.”

Over the past three years, despite lockdowns and shutdowns, more artefacts have been added to the museum, says Muzamil. The museum is set to reopen soon after two years, with additional collections on display.

The collection

Muzamil remembers Atiqa started the museum in 2000 with a single earthen firepot called a Kondal in Kashmiri. Then she added some handwritten Quranic manuscripts she had collected from her grandparents.

Today, the two-storey museum has a collection of more than 5,000 artifacts and objects including old ornaments, headgears, dresses, wooden showpieces, manuscripts, calligraphy, old stones and coins and other ancient objects dating back to hundreds of years.

The museum also displays some old and rare manuscripts, handwritten copies of the Quran, and some Persian literature manuscripts Atiqa had collected from people from all over the valley. Various designs of Kashmiri pherans, old spectacles, radio sets, musical instruments, hand watches, Pashmina spinning wheels, old latticed windows, and even more than 100-year-old coffin cases are part of the collection showcased in the museum.

Among the prized collections in the museum is a floor mat that is thought to be 2,000 years old. Other rare collections include a 200-year-old milk pot and copper coins dating back to hundreds of years.

Born in 1940s, Atiqa did her Bachelor’s from Women’s College Srinagar followed by a Masters degree in Urdu and Economics, and later also completed her M.Ed from Rajasthan. She started her career as a teacher after joining the state’s education department in 1958. In her over four decades long career she held the charge of joint director of education and retired in 1998 as director Libraries and Research Jammu and Kashmir. She was also appointed the vice-president of cultural and literary organization Adbee Markaz Kamraz Jammu and Kashmir which works towards promoting Kashmiri culture, art and literature.

In addition to her museum work, Atiqa was a committed social worker and a women rights activist. She always worked for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden section of the society, especially orphans. In the 1970s, she had also established an organization called Majlis-un-Nisa that supported and worked for the welfare of poor and downtrodden women.

After Atiqa's death, there were some offers from the local government to handover the museum to the government. Some hotels also offered good money to handover the museum collection. “But we rejected all these offers as Atiqa ji always wanted the museum to remain in her home town and as an independent museum,” says Muzamil.