Agha Shorish Kashmiri (1917–1975; آغا شورش کاشمیری) was a Pakistani scholar, writer, debater, and a leader of the Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam party. He was a figure of the freedom movement in the British Raj, as well as the chief editor of the weekly Chattan magazine in Pakistan.
Kashmiri started his political career in 1935 when he delivered a historical speech at the Shaheed Ganj Mosque conference when Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was serving as the President of Ahrar Party, India. He was a student of Maulana Zafar Ali Khan but was disappointed by the violence at the Shaheed Ganj Mosque in 1935.
Kashmiri was impressed by Chaudhry Afzal Haq as well, who was a political leader of the Indian sub-continent, so he joined All-India Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam and the struggle for Ahrar Party. Kashmiri was also impressed by his religious and political teacher (teacher meaning murshad in the Urdu language) Ameer-e-Shariyyat Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari.
Kashmiri was elected as Secretary-General of All-India Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam in 1946. He played a role in Tehreek-e-Khatme Nabuwwat in 1974 during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s regime in Pakistan.In 2014, the Punjab governor in Pakistan,
Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar was speaking at a book-launching ceremony in Lahore. This book was written about the late Agha Shorish Kashmiri’s life. The Punjab governor said that he was a great journalist who had exposed oppression everywhere. Journalists today can learn a lot from him. The governor said that Maulana Zafar Ali Khan’s influence was reflected in Kashmiri’s writings and Attaullah Shah Bukhari’s influence in Kashmiri’s speech.
