{"id":271,"date":"2010-12-18T15:01:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T09:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=271"},"modified":"2026-05-15T06:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:57:39","slug":"white-swans-of-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=271","title":{"rendered":"White Swans of Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most westerners that figure in the history of Kashmir were either missionaries like <b>C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe<\/b> or employees of the Maharaja&#039;s like <b>W R Lawrence<\/b>. However a few like <b>Freda Bedi<\/b> were involved with Kashmir not as a career option, but because they chose to be. <\/p>\n<p><b>Freda Bedi<\/b> was an Englishwoman who met and married <b>B. P. L. (Baba) Bedi<\/b> at at Oxford University. During the struggle against the Maharaja, the Bedi&#039;s were closely associated with the National Conference, especially with <b>Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>Their communist leanings are believed by some to be the influence for the admittedly leftist slant of the 1944 <b>&#039;Naya Kashmir&#039;<\/b> manifesto. Freda Bedi delivering messages to jailed National Conference leaders wearing a <b>&#039;Burkha&#039;<\/b> is part of freedom struggle folklore.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/0\/0f\/Freda_Bedi_and_Baba_Pyare_Lal_Bedi%2C_at_Nishat_Bagh%2C_Srinagar%2C_1948.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My grandmother would sometimes talk about her &#8211; especially when <b>Kabir Bedi<\/b> was on TV. I don&#039;t remember the context now but I believe it had something to do with <b>Begum Abdullah<\/b>, with whom my grandmother had been closely associated. Kabir Bedi, the film actor, is Freda Bedi&#039;s younger son. The Bedi family used to own property in my neighbourhood (Shivpora) and I seem to remember that the elder son, <b>Ranga Bedi<\/b> was a friend of my eldest brother.<\/p>\n<p><b>Edna Bellafontaine<\/b> was more of a mystery. Unlike the other two, there is very little information on this Englishwoman, the self-confessed &#039;Mata Hari of Kashmir&#039;. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/bellafontaine.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Till I came across the news item I thought she was a mid-century painter. I have a painting signed &#039; Edna Bellafontaine 1949&#039; hanging in my living room, and have seen her works in the homes of certain old families in Kashmir.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/bellafontaine_news.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/bellafontaine_art.jpg\"  width=\"400\" \/> <\/p>\n<p><b>Nilla Cram Cook<\/b> is the most intriguing of the three. According to a 1933 <b>Time Magazine<\/b> article titled the &#039;<i>Runaway Disciple<\/i>&#039;, <\/p>\n<p><i>&#039;Of all his strange disciples the one who has caused Mahatma Gandhi the sharpest pangs of dismay is plump &amp; pleasing Nilla Cram Cook, 23-year-old daughter of the late George Cram Cook, Iowa poet. &#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&#8230;Her difficulty in adjusting her good intentions to her Iowa temperament caused sorrowing St. Gandhi to embark on a hunger strike seven months ago&#039; <\/i><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/cram.cook.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Besides being Mahatama Gandhi&#039;s most troublesome disciple, she apparently wrote and translated poetry, flirted with mysticism, reinvented dance in Iran, and worked as cultural ambassador for the United States.  <\/p>\n<p>Nilla Cram Cook&#039;s <b>Kashmir<\/b> connection is &#039;The Way of the Swan&#039;, her gem of a translation of the the works of Kashmiri mystics including the Lol&#039;s or love poems of <b>Habba Khatoon<\/b> \/ <b>Zooni<\/b>. This is the inscription on a copy of the book she presented to my father:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/cramcook.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/sign.jpg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most westerners that figure in the history of Kashmir were either missionaries like C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe or employees of the Maharaja&#039;s like W R Lawrence. However a few like Freda Bedi were involved with Kashmir not as a career option, but because they chose to be. Freda Bedi was an Englishwoman who met and married [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-kashmir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}