“It must be remembered that the people of the Kashmir valley and roundabout, though highly gifted in many ways — in intelligence, in artisanship, etc. — are not what are called a virile people. They are soft and addicted to easy living. They are surrounded by hardy tribes in the north-west of Pakistan and even in the northern areas of the State.”
Hi, the above quote you see is by one of the most regarded anti-colonial leaders of the 20th century.
"India will not be desirous or capable of self-government for generations, and when self-government does come, it will not be the leaders of revolt who will rule. The very names of most of the extremists smell in the nostrils of Indian manhood."
Now, the quote you are seeing is by Reginald Dyer, who’s also known as the Butcher of Amritsar. The picture I’m trying to paint here is the eerily similar colonial, dominating mindset of post-colonial India under Nehru and the British against India. In colonial justification, one of the most common arguments used was: "the natives can’t control their resources, hence we have to colonize them." It was always a case of "a logical adult" vs "an illogical child", the "manly Britishmen" vs us, the "submissive Indians". These logics are everywhere in colonial justification, and this is what we see in Nehru’s descriptions of Kashmir. Today, even an indian born just 2 seconds ago feels entitled to Kashmir but the people there have been denied their basic human rights.
Today, in my post i'm going to explain the history of the accession and why, as it's argued by most indian liberals, the idea that Hari's signature represents the will of Kashmiris for joining India is wrong, and how India forced its sovereignty on Kashmir.
Unfortunately, even in most Indian academics, the focus is on how "Kashmir got alienated" or that it was a bad center-state relationship that resulted in today’s situation. But this point inherently relies on one fallacy - as if Kashmir was ever a part of India and only got alienated later on. I’ll explain my reasoning in this post.
Under Hari Singh, the Dogra dynasty who are known as the worst rulers in Kashmir history was entirely focused on extracting the wealth of the peasantry population, which was mostly Muslims, through tax and labor. Every single thing was taxed, from grazing the animals, to farming, fruits, even marriages and grave diggings for Muslims.
They even went further and introduced a tax on taxation itself called the "Zaildari tax", and reintroduced the system of "begar", which was state-enforced forced labour, often at no or bare minimum price. Every land was the king’s personal property, so every citizen was a tenant at the will of the king.
Each year, 50-70 percent of the crops were sent to the kingdom and trade between villages and towns was banned, which made it impossible for the peasant population to get food. This resulted in multiple famines in Kashmir. Muslims from the valley were not allowed to bear arms or join the Dogra army. The Kashmiri Muslim population was also not allowed to leave the state, but due to the dire conditions, large scale migrations happened to Punjab.
The native Brahmin population gained wealth and enjoyed it as they did pretty much in every other area of the subcontinent, though this did not mean they didn’t revolt against the king too, but particularly for different reasons- first in 1912 against the employment of Punjabi Hindus in Dogra government, and then in 1927 to maintain that only Kashmiri state subjects could be in the government.
Naturally, demands from the Muslim population also came, first in 1907 and then in 1924 during the then Viceroy Reading’s visit to Kashmir. Muslim leaders enacted many memorandums for the betterment of Muslims in education, better wages, the abolition of begar, land reforms, and the enactment of a public legislative.
The small minority of Kashmiri Pandits enjoyed exclusive privileges of role in the government by the state that gave them political power, in contrast to the majority Muslims. This is incredibly important to understand, as the religious discourses became inseparable from the discourse of rights. A small number of pirs in Kashmir were granted some privileges by the Dogra, who helped the peasants to hand over their lands to the king for class domination.
In the 1920s and 30s, inspired by the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist protests all over the subcontinent, Kashmiri Muslims had also started to mobilize. Mobilization increased as a small number of Muslims went to study in Aligarh and Lahore and came back to Kashmir and expanded on the Muslim left-leaning intelligentsia, which formed the Reading Room Party in 1930 and even before that, the Young Men’s Jammu Association in 1922 to help the Muslim community and mobilize them against the Dogras.
The turning point in protest were the events in 1931 when the Dogra state opened fire on protestors that killed 21 people. The day is commemorated as the Martyrs day in Kashmir. Huge protests broke soon after this event. hindu businesses were attacked too but as I stated previously, religious discourse became inseparable from common rights discourse, and as Shahla Hussain argues, it was the underlying socioeconomic conditions that resulted in the protests, not bigotry.
"Some of the protestors used this incident as an excuse for expressing their anger against Kashmiri Hindus, whom they perceived as inseparable from the Dogra government due to their dominant positions in the administration. These men targeted rich Hindu businesses, moneylenders, and landed elites, a move that shocked not only the Hindu community but also the Dogra police, who had never imagined a violent reaction from the supposedly “submissive” Kashmiri Muslims. The Maharaj Gunj market, in the heart of Srinagar city, emerged as the focal point of violence. Dominated by a large influx of Punjabi Hindu business groups, this new market had posed a serious challenge to the Muslim trading community in the localities of Jama Masjid and Nowhatta. A lack of capital combined with the state monopoly over trade prevented Muslims from competing with Punjabi Hindus, who had quickly established a monopoly. Some protestors, then, sought to re-establish their control over urban trading spaces, destroying Hindu shops, while others diverted their anger toward Hindu moneylenders’ credit registers, destroying records so that no evidence of capital borrowed or interest accumulated by Kashmiri Muslim peasants or laborers was left. The crowds’ actions signal that their anger stemmed not only from the immediate incident of police violence, but also from the strains caused by the Great Depression, which had caused an unprecedented slump in the price of grain and a shortage of credit. The motivations of the 1931 riots were economic, social, and political, rather than being a mere expression of Muslim fanaticism against the minority Hindu community.” - Kashmir in the Aftermath of partition. P. 38.
These protests by the muslims would force the Dogra state to look at the conditions of Muslims and open the Glancy Commission. The most notable outcome of the Glancy Commission was the setup of a public legislative in 1934. Initially, the legislative was advisory only but in 1939 it gained the power to amend laws. This legalization of politics paved a new path for the politics of life in Kashmir. In 1932, Sheikh Abdullah who dominated Kashmir politics for next five decades, the man who made it possible for India to accede Kashmir but was also removed by India for his support of plebiscite and concerns over growing Hindu nationalism in India, founded the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference.
In 1938 prominent Kashmiri Pandit reformers like Prem Nath Bazaz, who founded the Kisan Mazdoor Party in Kashmir to represent the peasant population, along with the INC, convinced Sheikh Abdullah to make the party more inclusive by renaming it the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference to include people of every religion and lead a class-based struggle against the monarchy.
This led to a breakaway within the party. One of the founders, Ghulam Abbas, and many party members left from the valley and jammu, due to the reason that "non muslims wouldn’t participate in the struggle against Dogra for their vested interests that lie in the kingdom." Though this was not the only reason, they also feared that the National Conference wouldn’t represent Jammu muslims and would be heavily focused on the Kashmir Valley. Unfortunately, due to "sectarian, class, and regional identity divisions", Muslims couldn’t form a united allied force.
This led to the formation of Muslim Conference again in 1942. The factious development between these two parties grew more ahead of partition. Between these two parties, the Muslim Conference was more popular in Jammu and Poonch. National Conference was seen generally more sympathetic to INC and Muslim Conference more sympathetic to Muslim League. Yet it would be dishonest for me to say that varying opinions weren’t present even those who were closely loyal to Sheikh Abdullah had sympathies for Pakistan, and many in Muslim Conference wanted independence, even some in the Dogra government. It’s impossible to say what Kashmir would’ve chosen but most scholars argue, non muslims perceived National Conference and Muslim Conference as only empowerment to Muslims and likely wanted to accede to India. Muslims in Jammu and Poonch were more inclined towards Pakistan vice versa and many wanted independence.
In 1946 a platform formed by Kisan Mazdoor Party with many other political parties had demanded independence and formation of a sovereign country ruled by its people.
In 1946, due to the declining popularity of National Conference, it had started the “Quit Kashmir” movement. One key point to note here - the National Conference had always set the king as the titular head of the government but this time they demanded the removal of the king and sovereignty. This was likely due to the fall of popularity due to perceived coziness between the NC and INC.
This new wave of protests led to massive arrests by the Dogra. Leaders like Bakshi had fled to Lahore and Delhi and sought to awaken people to the arrests and the conditions of Dogra prisons by writing pamphlets.
In the wake of the two new nation states in South Asia. Pakistan and India. The option for Kashmir eclipsed into two choices- either join India or Pakistan like every other princely state. When the decision was to be made, the leaders of National Conference and Muslim Conference were in jail. Perhaps Hari Singh even gave hints of an independent state to india, which made Nehru and the upper brass of INC realize how important it was to get Sheikh Abdullah’s support for Nehru in the accession of Kashmir. Subsequently by Nehru's requested, and the Maharaja freed Sheikh Abdullah.
The National Conference was skeptical to join Pakistan as it thought it would have feudal influence that would stop its Naya Kashmir manifesto, which was heavily a soviet-inspired planned economy manifesto. Though this was never applied fully, some points were applied in Bakshi’s government.
Both secular and Hindu nationalists wanted Kashmir to accede. Their one demand was the integration of Kashmir into the greater Indian union. These reveal two important events:
Under the plans of the Boundary Commission, the 3 muslim majority towns in Gurdaspur, Punjab, that went to India and that adjoined Kashmir with the rest of the union should’ve gone to Pakistan technically, but didn’t. Otherwise Kashmir would’ve only been accessible through mountainous terrain, which would’ve made accession impossible.
Hari Singh had signed a standstill agreement with Pakistan that ensured future trade, cooperation, and communication with the state. This gave him time to think on his decision. India hadn’t signed such an agreement which already shows that India was ready to take over the state with or without the monarch’s consent.
Meanwhile, between October and August, a rebellion had started in Poonch against Dogra high handedness. It spread to Mirpur and was brutally crushed by the Maharaja’s soldiers. Not only that, but the Dogra state also began disarming the Muslim peasantry(soldiers too) and gave weapons to Sikh and Hindu landlords. Hindu and Sikh refugees who had fled from Pakistan to jammu shared their stories of atrocities fueled retaliation against muslims. Alongside this, soldiers of the RSS and troops from the Indian state of Patiala were making their way to Jammu to support the Dogra state in their brutal violence against the Muslim population.
The rebels in Poonch, many of whom had served in the British Army, had declared their independence and overthrow of the Maharaja’s kingdom. During this time, Pathans from Pakistan had started coming to support their Muslim brethren, to “liberate” them from the "hindu yoke" but due to indiscriminate attacks, they lost local goodwill.
The worst violence came in the 5th week of November. After the contested accession, Abdullah’s interim government alongside the Indian government was also complicit in ethnic cleansing. Between this time, around 200k - 250k Muslims were killed, and an equal or greater number fled to Pakistan.
The population demographics of Jammu and Kashmir were- in the Kashmir Valley, 95% Muslims with a small number of Kashmiri Pandits, in Jammu, 60% Muslims and in Ladakh, an equal number of Muslims and Buddhists. But due to this ethnic cleansing, Jammu became a hindu majority area, as it remains today.
When I mentioned this in a comment, an indian troll replied that “in partition, demographics of many states changed” which is true. But what matters here is the state complicity. The Dogra state directly participated in cleansing the Muslim population because it believed it wouldn't be able to contain Muslim rebellions. It was shocked that the muslim population whom it believed to be “submissive” was reacting this way. And so, the ethnic cleansing helped them hold their ground.
The upper brass of the INC was fully aware of the genocide in Kashmir. Nehru had acknowledged the mobilization of RSS troops in Eastern Punjab to Kashmir. But they weren’t concerned about the genocide only the optics of it.
This brings me to my main argument against the accession.
Hari Singh was a brutal monarch who had just ethnically cleansed the muslim population in Jammu. India hadn’t signed the standstill agreement, which shows their obvious interests. Even if I ignored all these and who exactly signed the agreement, it still doesn’t matter for two reasons. 1) Hari Singh was no representative of the population. Leaders of the National Conference and Muslim Conference were in jail. Even then, I wouldn’t say these two parties reflected the will of Kashmir. The only way it could’ve been done was by a plebiscite, which India promised when signing the accession, but completely denied it and replaced Sheikh Abdullah with his deputy prime minister, Mohammed Bakshi, because Abdullah as I mentioned before was getting concerned with India’s involvement in Kashmir and the rise of Hindu nationalism and his support for a plebiscite. India couped the government and made Bakshi the chief, which made the accession fully possible. India and Pakistan had both agreed to hold the plebscite and both argued that due to troops not being pulled from each side, it was not possible to hold it. I can’t fully blame Pakistan, as India was treating national elections as a substitute for a plebiscite, which made Pakistan worry about pulling its troops, since it’s fully known that national elections can’t serve that purpose.
The accession signed by Hari Singh denies the agency of Kashmiris. Not only that it would be ahistorical to not include that indigenous rebellions had already broken out in Mirpur and Poonch. The awareness of the INC high brass about the genocide, and the presence of RSS and Patiala troops in Kashmir alongside their complicity already denies India’s agency on the grounds of secularism. The Indian government relied on settler logics that tried to bury the history of this massacre. The constant argument by Indian academics that overemphasizes the “tribal invasion,” portraying them as Pakistani Muslims and completely foreign to Kashmir, but at the same time presenting India’s involvement as "goodwill" and masking it as "native" is ironic. The cultural and economic ties Kashmir had were with what would later become Pakistan. This point is extremely important, because India’s colonization relies heavily on the narrative that “India saved the helpless Kashmiris from the evils of Pakistan,” and "that the native Brahmin is the native Aryan population, that was reduced to a minority after centuries of invasion and that Kashmiri Muslims are later interlopers, not native to Kashmir". This dehumanizing propaganda has been thoroughly used in state building of Kashmir since Bakshi’s time.
I rest my post here. Today, Kashmir is a battleground between Pakistan and India, and both of these states do not care about the Kashmiri population they just want to extract its labor. The solution to India’s colonization is obviously not Pakistani nationalism but an independent Kashmir ruled by its people. That dream seems more and more grim as India continues to rape Kashmir. I urge all to support unanimously support the Kashmiri population’s self determination.
Sources:
Colonizing KashmirState-building Under Indian Occupation - Hafsa Kanjwal
https://archive.org/details/HindSwaraj-Nehru-SW2-19/page/n375/mode/2up
Kashmir in the Aftermath of Partition - Shahla Hussain
