Chapter 2: Jammu and Kashmir - The Background

It is a fact of history that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists have lived in peace and amity in the State for centuries. When the rest of the subcontinent was up in flames, lit by the communal torch, it was Kashmir which stood out of the circle of holocaust, a "shining example", in Mahatma Gandhi's words of "secularism". Not a drop of blood was shed in Kashmir while thousands perished in communal fury all around.

The State had been ruled by the Mughals, followed by Afghans, Sikhs and finally the Hindu Dogras. The Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh entrusted the principality of Jammu and adjacent areas to Gulab Singh, his Dogra General. Gulab Singh brought large areas including Ladakh, Zanskar, Gilgit and Baltistan under his control. The latter was succeeded as Maharaja by Ranbir Singh. And Ranbir Singh was succeeded by Maharaja Pratap Singh whose reign opened a new chapter in the history of modern Kashmir. The British wanted a strong government to tackle the socio-economic problems of the frontier State. In 1889, Maharaja Pratap Singh was deprived of his administrative authority which was to be handled by a Council of Regency under the control of a British Resident. The Maharaja undertook a tour of the frontier post up to Gurez and beyond and issued orders for immediate redress of the grievances of the people inhabiting these areas. With improvement on all the fronts, the British again restored full powers to the Maharaja in 1921.

The consolidation of Dogra rule in Jammu and Kashmir coincided with the strengthening of the Indian freedom movement under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership. The freedom struggle was soon to find an echo in several princely States and nowhere with more ardor than in Kashmir. By 1931, anti-Dogra sentiment in the State had struck solid roots with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and some others, including the Mirwaiz Maulvi Yusuf Shah, the Muslim high priest of the Valley, in the lead. The Maulvi, it soon transpired, was accepting a monthly stipend from the Maharaja and this, among many other factors, forced Sheikh Abdullah to steer away from Muslim communal politics as symbolized by the then Muslim Conference. By the mid-1930s Sheikh Abdullah had moved to a secular base and formed the National Conference, comprising Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The National Conference inevitably found itself drawn towards the Indian National Congress and thus was the foundation laid of an abiding friendship between Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, tried hard to woo the Sheikh and indeed visited Srinagar on a couple of occasions only to be rebuffed by the National Conference. Jinnah's known arrogance did not help him either. He dismissed his best bet in the Valley, Maulvi Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah, as a "rotten egg", as Sheikh Abdullah recalls in his autobiography "Aatish-e-Chinar". The Sheikh again recalls the supreme contempt which Jinnah had for the Kashmiri people. According to Sheikh Abdullah, when a National Conference activist, Ali Mohammad Tariq, asked Jinnah soon after the partition of the sub-continent whether the future of Kashmir would be decided by the people of Kashmir, he was stunned by Jinnah's riposte: "Let the people go to hell." The people of the so-called Azad Kashmir have known ever since how much their Pakistani benefactors have cared for them.

At the dawn of independence when the great see-saw about the future of the princely states was on, Sheikh Abdullah was still in jail and was released only when the Dogra Maharaja saw himself slipping into a mire. With Pakistani tribals, aided and abetted by the Pakistani army, commanded by Major General Akbar Khan, invaded the Valley, Sheikh Abdullah had just been out of the Maharaja's jail. The Pakistan Army's active involvement in and following the tribal raids of 1947 and infiltration of raiders supported by the Pakistan army into Kashmir before the outbreak of the 1965 conflict is acknowledged by one of the highly regarded Pakistani Generals, Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan Khan, in his memoirs and by Altaf Gohar in his biography of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. With the Maharaja still undecided about his future course of action, Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference organized a volunteer corps, unarmed for the most part, to defend the Valley. The volunteers, drawn from all communities, were asked to protect the life, property, honor and dignity of the Kashmiri people. Luckily for Kashmir, the tribal invaders did not move as fast as they could have. They accorded a higher priority to rape, arson and loot. Of this later.

Contrary to what Pakistan has been saying about its role then, it had sent a special emissary to Kashmir to try and persuade the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan. The emissary failed in his mission. Consequently, Pakistan, in total disregard of the Standstill Agreement it had signed with the Maharaja, cut off its supplies of essential commodities such as salt and petrol; it also stopped its supply of currency notes and small coins to the Imperial Bank in Kashmir. Since the roads joining Kashmir to the rest of India ran through Pakistan, things became more critical despite the protest lodged by the Maharaja. That was only the beginning.

Pakistan now sent tribal hordes from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to browbeat the Kashmiris. Muzaffarabad, now capital of the so-called Azad Kashmir, was over-run in a day or so. But the tribals were more interested in rape and loot and that is perhaps what saved Kashmir in the end. The situation in Srinagar became tense. The Maharaja rallied his small army in an attempt to defend the State. In her book, "Halfway to Freedom", Margaret Bourke-White describes the plunder by the raiders:

'Their buses and trucks, loaded with booty, arrived every other day and took more Pathans to Kashmir. Ostensibly they went to liberate their Kashmiri Muslim brothers, but their primary objective was riot and loot. In this they made no distinction between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims."

"The raiders advanced into Baramulla, the biggest commercial center of the region with a population then of 11,000, until they were only an hour away from Srinagar. For the next three days they were engaged in massive plunder, rioting and rape. No one was spared. Even members of the St. Joseph's Mission Hospital were brutally massacred." This tribal invasion was no accident, according to Sheikh Abdullah. It was a diversionary tactic created by the newly formed State of Pakistan. "The withdrawal of British forces from the tribal belt had left these people without any livelihood. The ruler of Pakistan feared that these lawless people may proceed to plunder Peshawar and other big cities of Pakistan. They were, therefore, asked to proceed to Kashmir, having been assured of their bounty through plunder of the countryside. Pakistani leaders were hoping to reap a double benefit: getting rid of the tribals and bringing Kashmiris to their knees.

When the tribals refused to budge from Baramulla, Abdul Qayyum Khan, an NWFP Pathan leader, sent their religious leader, Pir Manti, to persuade them to advance towards Srinagar," the Sheikh wrote. According to confirmed reports as described by Sheikh Abdullah in his autobiography, Pakistan agents in Srinagar city decided to destroy all the bridges so that if the Indian Army was despatched, its movement could be sabotaged. National Conference volunteers were posted at the bridges and Hindus and Muslims alike were prepared to guard their national honor, having heard about the atrocities inflicted on innocents by the rival people. The ruler's appeals to Pakistan were of no avail. The raiders caused havoc in different parts of Kashmir. The Kashmir state troops were incapable of offering effective resistance to the raiders and the threat to the Valley became grave. Unable to prevent the raiders from committing large-scale killings, loot and arson, the Maharaja requested the Government of India on October 26, 1947 that the State of Jammu and Kashmir be allowed to accede to India.

An appeal for help was also simultaneously received by the Government of India from the National Conference which was the largest popular organization in Kashmir and which had fought for the people's rights and agitated for the freedom of Kashmir from the Maharaja's rule. The National Conference also supported the request for the State's accession to India. To those who question Sheikh Abdullah's credentials one need only quote President Ayub Khan of Pakistan who had just then received the Kashmiri leader in May 1964. He had this to say: "Sheikh Abdullah is a lion hearted leader." And Allama Iqbal, whom Pakistan hails as its philosopher poet, said: "Sheikh Abdullah wiped the fear of the tyrant from the hearts of the people of Kashmir." The Instrument of Accession was accepted the next day by the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten. The first contingent of the Indian Army flew into Srinagar on October 27, to repulse the invaders.