Kashmir in Conflict

India, Pakistan and the Unending War

Victoria Schofield

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780857730787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud

How has the valley of Kashmir, famed for its beauty and tranquility, become the focus of a dispute with the potential for nuclear conflict? How does the Kashmir separatist movement challenge the integrity of the Indian state and threaten the stability of a region of tremendous strategic importance? As Pakistan and India square up for what may become a major regional conflict, Victoria Schofield's timely book examines the Kashmir question, from the period when the valley was an independent kingdom to its current status as a battleground for two of the world's newest nuclear powers: India and Pakistan. Schofield now traces the origins of the conflict in the 19th century and explains the serious issues that divide India and Pakistan and assesses the military positions of both states as their troops mass along the border.

CHAPTER 1

Introducing Kashmir

Small indeed the country may seem by the side of the great plains that extend in the south, and confined the history of which it was the scene. And yet, just as the natural attractions of the valley have won it fame beyond the frontiers of India, thus too the interest attaching to its history far exceeds the narrow geographical limits.

Sir Aurel Stein, 1900¹

The valley of Kashmir, an irregular oval of land, is one of the most beautiful places in the world. On a map the valley appears remote and landlocked, extending for no more than ninety miles, isolated by successive ranges of the Himalayan mountains high above the plains of the sub-continent. Its apparent impregnability is, however, illusory. Over twenty passes provide points of entry, making the valley both a crossroads and a place of refuge. A unique record of the history of Kashmir, the Rajatarangini (Chronicle of Kings), written in the 12th century by the poet Kalhana, describes how, since legendary times, the valley’s rulers came into contact and conflict with their neighbours.² Sometimes the valley formed part of a great empire, at others it comprised a kingdom in its own right. At all times, its peoples have retained a strong attachment to their Kashmiriyat – their cultural identity – which transcends religion. The Kashmiri language is also distinct from the Hindi or Urdu spoken by the inhabitants of the plains.³

Ancient Kashmir

Kashmir’s first period of ‘imperial’ history begins in the third century BC with the rule of Asoka, whose empire extended from Bengal to the Deccan, Afghanistan to the Punjab, and included Kashmir. Originally a devout Hindu, Asoka turned to Buddhism and sent Buddhist missionaries to the valley. When he died, Kashmir once more regained its independence. In the first century AD, the valley was invaded by the Kushans from north-west China who had succeeded in conquering the whole of northern India. King Kanishka, who converted to Buddhism, also loved Kashmir and often held his court in the valley. The Kushan kings were renowned for their love of art, architecture and learning and the period was marked by intellectual resurgence. Traders, who traversed the famed Silk route, brought not only merchandise but also literary and artistic ideas. In the decades which followed, Kashmir is remembered as enjoying a ‘golden age’. The economic life of the people was simple. They worked the land, and were expected to pay a proportion of what they cultivated to the ruler. Kashmiris became famous throughout Asia as learned, cultured and humane and the intellectual contribution of writers, poets, musicians, scientists to the rest of India was comparable to that of ancient Greece to European civilisation.

Lalitaditya, who ruled in the early 8th century, is still regarded as one of the most celebrated Hindu kings. A predecessor of the European emperor, Charlemagne, he epitomised the type of conquering hero upon which Kashmiri pride in their ancient rulers is founded. He also made a significant contribution as an administrator. Avantivarman, who lived in the 9th century, is another of the great Hindu kings after whom the town of Avantipur is named, and who earned praise from Kalhana for his internal consolidation of the state. From the 10th century onwards, struggles for power in Kashmir intensified. The isolationist policy adopted by the later Hindu kings to counter emergent Islam in north India meant that the resources of the kingdom were insufficient to sustain the population.

The first great king of the Muslim period was Shahab-ud Din who came to the throne in 1354. With peace restored after the devastation of the Mongols, Shahab-ud Din devoted his attention to foreign expeditions, conquering Baltistan, Ladakh, Kishtwar and Jammu. Shahab-ud Din also loved learning and patronised art and architecture. He was married to a Hindu, Laxmi, and had great regard for the religious feelings of all his subjects. During the reign of his successor, Qutb-ud Din, the pace of conversion to Islam increased. Hinduism persisted, however, and the administration remained in the hands of learned men, the Brahmins⁴, who were recognised as the traditional official class; Sanskrit also remained the official court language. In 1420 another great king, popularly called Bud Shah (meaning ‘great king’) came to the throne. The grandson of Qutb-ud-Din, he took the name Sultan Zain-ul Abidin. During his long reign, which lasted until 1470, the valley prospered. Bud Shah’s court was full of poets and musicians. He also patronised scholars and intellectuals. He was tolerant towards the Brahmins and rebuilt the temples, which had been destroyed during his father’s reign. Many Hindus, who had left, returned. Persian became the new official language and those who learnt it were offered government appointments. Bud Shah also introduced the art of weaving and papier mâché making, which have made Kashmiri handicrafts famous to this day. His reign was not free from the usual power struggles. For the last eighteen years of his life, a war over the succession raged between his three sons.

In the years to come, the fame of Kashmir attracted the Mughals but they failed in their early attempts to dominate the valley of Kashmir. It was only a matter of time before the Mughal emperor, Akbar, who had succeeded to the throne of Delhi in 1558, sought to take advantage of yet another power struggle. In 1586 he sent an expedition to conquer the valley. Kashmir’s last king died in exile. With the incorporation of Kashmir into the Mughal Empire, the valley of Kashmir’s long history as a kingdom in its own right came to an end. When Kashmiris point to their political heritage, they remember with pride the Hindu dynasties and the Muslim Sultanates. Most importantly, although the lives of the people were undeniably harsh, none of their rulers was answerable to some alien power in Kabul, Lahore or Delhi; accordingly, their actions form part of a history which Kashmiris regard as undeniably their own.

Mughals and Afghans 1586–1819

The conquest of the valley by the Mughals is generally regarded as marking the beginning of Kashmir’s modern history. For nearly two centuries, Kashmir was the northernmost point of an empire whose power base was situated in Delhi. Once master of Kashmir, Akbar, adopted a policy of conciliation and entered into marriage alliances with the Kashmiri nobility. His rule, both throughout India and in the valley, was known for its liberalism. Of all the rulers of Kashmir, Akbar’s son and successor, Jehangir, who ascended the throne in 1605, is perhaps best remembered for his love of the valley. During his reign Jehangir beautified Kashmir with over 700 gardens. On his deathbed, he was reportedly asked if there was anything he wanted, to which he replied: ‘Nothing but Kashmir.’ His son, Shah Jehan, who succeeded him in 1624, also loved Kashmir and the valley became a popular place of refuge for the Mughal nobility away from the plains of India during the hot summers.

With Mughal rule, a pattern of government began, which was to become only too familiar to the Kashmiri people. A governor was sent to administer the province and demand taxes. Yet even though Kashmir was dominated by an outside power and once more comprised part of a great empire, early Mughal rule is generally remembered as a period of relative stability and prosperity. Poets and scholars came to Kashmir. Land reforms were also undertaken. Those who visited Kashmir in later years retained the belief that Mughal rule was also a golden age.

Aurangzeb, who came to the throne in 1658, was the last of the Mughal Emperors to make any impact on Kashmir’s history. When he made his first and only visit to Kashmir in 1665, he was accompanied by the French doctor, François Bernier, whose enthusiasm for Kashmir undoubtedly influenced future travellers. ‘I am charmed with Kachemire. In truth, the kingdom surpasses in beauty all that my warm imagination had anticipated.’ Bernier wrote favourably of people who ‘are celebrated for wit, and considered much more intelligent and ingenious than the Indians.’⁵ By this time the shawl industry, begun by Bud Shah, was coming into its own and Bernier took note of the great number of shawls which the local people manufactured.

Towards the end of Aurangzeb’s reign, an event occurred which had special significance for later generations of Kashmiri Muslims. In 1700 a strand of the beard of the Prophet Muhammad, the Mo-i Muqaddas, was brought by the servant of a wealthy Kashmiri merchant to Kashmir. It was originally displayed in a mosque in Srinagar, but the mosque was too small for the crowds who came to see it. The relic was therefore taken to another mosque on the banks of Upper Dal lake, which was known first as Asar-e-Sharif – shrine of the relic – and then Hazratbal – the lake of the Hazrat, or the Prophet. It has remained there ever since, with one brief interlude in 1963 when it mysteriously disappeared. Unlike Akbar, Aurangzeb was intolerant of other religions and the memory of his reign is tarnished by his persecution of Hindus and Shia Muslims. Brahmins were still widely retained within the administration and opportunities existed for both Muslims and Hindus to prosper on merit and learning. The end of Aurangzeb’s rule and the war of succession between his three sons after his death in 1707 led to a steady decline of Mughal rule in Kashmir.

In the early 18th century, the number of Hindus leaving the valley increased. Although it was believed this was due to persecution, it is also possible that the Brahmins left because of the opportunities presented by contacts made while Kashmir was part of the Mughal empire.⁶ When the Persian king, Nadir Shah, invaded Delhi in 1738, the Mughal hold on Kashmir was weakened still further. This in turn left Kashmir to the mercy of further invaders. In 1751, the Afghans, ruled by Ahmed Shah Durrani, absorbed Kashmir into their expanding empire. The names of the Afghan governors who ruled Kashmir are all but forgotten but not their cruelty, which was directed mainly towards the Hindus. Oppression took the form of extortion of money from the local people and brutality in the face of opposition. Both Kashmiri men and women lived in fear of their lives. Many were captured and sent as slaves to Afghanistan. After Ahmed Shah Duranni’s death in 1772, the Afghan kingdom never again reached the heights to which it had risen under his leadership but Afghan control of the valley of Kashmir lasted another 47 years. During Afghan dominance, the shawl industry declined, probably due to heavy taxes. By the 1780s there were 16,000 shawl looms in use compared with 40,000 in the time of the Mughals; by the beginning of the 19th century the demand for shawls in Europe meant that the number of looms rose to 24,000 by 1813.⁷ Despite the religious oppression, to which many Hindus were subjected, they were considered useful to the Afghans because of their administrative experience. Kashmiri Pandits were not prevented from entering into government service and there were some families whose names consistently appear in public service – the Dhars, Kauls, Tikkus and Saprus.⁸

To the south of Kashmir, the Sikh ruler, Ranjit Singh, son of Mahan Singh, head of one of the twelve Sikh confederacies, known as ‘misls’, was extending his empire in the Punjab at the expense of the declining Afghan empire. In 1799 he had acquired Lahore and the title of maharaja from Zaman Shah, King of Afghanistan. In 1802 Ranjit conquered Amritsar. In 1809, the British and Sikhs concluded a treaty of ‘Amity and Concord’ by which the Sikhs acknowledged British supremacy in Sindh and the British agreed that their territory would stop at the river Sutlej. In 1819, the ‘Lion of the Punjab’, as Ranjit Singh became known, finally succeeded in taking Kashmir, initially to the relief of the local people who had suffered under the Afghans.

Sikh rule

As was customary practice under the Mughals and Afghans, control of Kashmir was carried out by a series of governors. Several measures, which demonstrated the assertion of Hindu belief over that of the Muslims, were enacted. Cow slaughter was made punishable by death. The picture painted by the Europeans who began to visit the valley more frequently was one of deprivation and starvation. In 1823 William Moorcroft travelled throughout Kashmir on his way to Bokhara. His objective was to locate a better breed of horse from amongst the Turkman steeds for the East India Company’s military stud. Before becoming a veterinary surgeon, he had trained as a doctor and while in Srinagar, he treated the local people:

Everywhere the people were in the most abject condition, exorbitantly taxed by the Sikh Government and subjected to every kind of extortion and oppression by its officers. The consequences of this system are the gradual depopulation of the country.⁹

Moorcroft estimated that no more than one-sixteenth of the cultivable land surface was under cultivation; as a result, the starving people had fled in great numbers to India. Moorcroft’s mission was never completed because he died of fever in 1825 but his journals, edited by H.H. Wilson, provide a valuable insight into the condition of the people in the early years of Sikh rule. The Kashmiris, he said, were treated as ‘little better than cattle’.¹⁰ In 1831 Victor Jacquemont, a French botanist, arrived in the valley. The appearance of Srinagar, he said, was the ‘most miserable in the world ... nowhere else in India are the masses as poor and denuded as they are in Kashmir.’¹¹ Godfrey Vigne who travelled throughout Kashmir in the late 1830s had a similar story to tell. ‘Not a day passed whilst I was on the path to Kashmir, and even when travelling in the valley, that I did not see the bleached remains of some unfortunate wretch who had fallen a victim either to sickness or starvation.’¹² There were also some benefits arising from the contact with Europeans: detailed studies were made of the area and Captain Wade’s map, presented to Ranjit Singh, was the first up-to-date map of Kashmir. A rudimentary postal system was also set up.

Ranjit Singh never visited the valley of Kashmir; but there is a well-known story which relates how he once wrote to one of his governors, Colonel Mian Singh: ‘Would that I could only once in my life enjoy the delight of wandering through the gardens of Kashmir, fragrant with almond-blossoms, and sitting on the fresh green turf!’ To please the maharaja, the governor ordered a special Kashmiri carpet to be woven with a green background, dotted with little pink spots and interspersed with tiny little pearl-like dots. When he received it, Ranjit was delighted and rolled himself on it as though he were rolling in Kashmiri grass.¹³ A shawl was also prepared for Ranjit Singh depicting a map of the Kashmir valley; but by the time it was completed thirty-seven years later, the Lion of the Punjab was dead.

On the sidelines of Kashmir, in the neighbouring plains of Jammu, the Dogra Rajputs were keenly interested in events in the valley. They had settled around the lakes of Mansar and Surinsar in the tract of land rising from the plains of the Punjab to the mountains in the north and they took their name from Dogirath, which, in Sanskrit, means ‘two lakes’. In the 1820s, the ruler of Jammu, a feudatory of Ranjit Singh, was Raja Gulab Singh, born in 1792. With his two younger brothers, Dhyan and Suchet, Gulab had succeeded in making himself indispensable at the court of the Sikh ruler. As Ranjit Singh’s vassals, the three brothers succeeded in amassing land and wealth both in the plains and hill states to the north of the Punjab. Created Raja of Jammu by Ranjit Singh in 1822,¹⁴ Gulab Singh also expanded his lands in the name of the Sikh kingdom still further to include Ladakh which bordered China. When Ranjit Singh died in 1838, in the chaos of the Sikh succession, Gulab Singh was well-placed to control events not only in the heart of the Sikh empire in Lahore but also in Kashmir and its neighbouring states.

Until Ranjit Singh’s death, the East India Company had maintained cordial relations with the Sikhs; they in turn did not wish to upset the British. After his death, the relationship fell apart. On 11 December 1845, in the First Anglo-Sikh war, the Sikh army moved across the river Sutlej. Two encounters – at Mudki and Firuzshar – left the Sikhs defeated although not conclusively. The following year, on 10 February 1846, the Sikhs once more engaged the British in battle at Sobraon, a small village on the banks of the Sutlej. Gulab Singh remained on the sidelines, offering to help his overlords but failing to give it, at the same time as keeping in regular contact with the British. Without his support, Sikh defeat was inevitable. Representatives from both sides met at Kasur, where the two armies had halted, about thirty miles from Lahore. The British, recognising that Gulab Singh’s neutrality had tipped the balance of the war in their favour, treated him as a welcome ambassador.

The terms of the settlement embodied in the Treaty of Peace, ratified at Lahore on 9 March 1846, between the young Sikh Maharaja, Dulip Singh, and the British, were designed to reward Gulab Singh. Instead of paying an indemnity of one crore of rupees, the Sikhs were required to cede to the East India Company the provinces of Kashmir and Hazara. The Sikhs were also obliged to recognise the independent sovereignty of Gulab Singh in territories which were to be made over to him by a separate agreement. A week later, on 16 March, the British signed the Treaty of Amritsar with Gulab Singh. He was to pay the exact sum in lieu of which the British had taken possession of Kashmir one week earlier: one crore of rupees towards the indemnity. Twenty-five lakhs were later waived because the British retained some territory across the river Beas.¹⁵ By the terms of the Treaty of Amristar, Gulab Singh was able to sever his allegiance from the Sikhs; henceforward, he was no longer their feudatory but, as Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, a counterpoise against them. Gulab Singh’s estate included not only his native Jammu but also the Himalayan kingdom of Kashmir, Ladakh and Baltistan, which Gulab Singh’s famous general, Zorawar Singh, had conquered on behalf of the Sikhs in 1840.¹⁶

Dogras

Despite Gulab Singh’s status as a maharaja, he still came under sus...