Kashmir has a long history of being conquered but Kashmir rises again & again after each & every battle. During the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni made two attempts to conquer Kashmir. However, both his campaigns failed because he could not siege the fortress at Lohkot. Rinchana, a Tibetan Buddhist refugee in Kashmir, established himself as the ruler after Zulju.Rinchana’s conversion to Islam is a subject of Kashmiri folklore. He was persuaded to accept Islam by his minister Shah Mir , probably for political reasons. Islam had penetrated into countries outside Kashmir and in absence of the support from Hindus, who were in a majority, Rinchana needed the support of the Kashmiri Muslims. Shah Mir’s coup on Rinchana’s successor secured Muslim rule and the rule of his dynasty in Kashmir.In the 14th century, Islam gradually became the dominant religion in Kashmir. Islamic preacher Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani, who is traditionally revered by Hindus as Nund Rishi.
Mughal general Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat , a member of ruling family in Kashgar , invaded Kashmir in c. 1540 CE on behalf of emperor Humayun . Persecution of Shias , Shafi’is and Sufis and instigation by Suri kings led to a revolt which overthrew Dughlat’s rule in Kashmir.
Kashmir did not witness direct Mughal rule till the reign of Mughal padshah (emperor) Akbar the Great , who visited the valley himself in 1589 CE. The kashmir was ruled by Yousuf Shah chak, He was successor of his father Ali Shah Chak and ruled Kashmir from 1579 to 1586 AD. The Hindu Chaks coming from Gurez converted mostly to the Shia sect of Islam . They were formidable fighters of huge structure and soundly defeated the great Mughal Emperor Akbar twice and that too with a much smaller army. Some disgrunted Kashmiri nobles were often pushing Akbar to annex Kashmir. Eventually, Akbar invited Yousuf Shah Chak to Delhi for talks and by treachery arrested Yousuf for the rest of his life. It is narrated that Habba Khatoon , Yousuf’s love interest and a well known poetess of Kashmir, had opposed Yousuf’s travel to Delhi, for she sensed Akbar’s offer as a bait. She later made mentions of this in her writings. Chaks originally were
Dards residents of Gilgit Huza area. They successfully resisted the attempts of Babur and Himayun to annex Kashmir.
After two attempts,the mighty Mughal army was defeated twice by defiant Kashmiris. Finally Akbar resorted to cheating and offered friendship to the Kashmir King Yusuf Shah Chak.
Chak was advised by his ministers and especially by his queen against going to Delhi. But he went ahead saying bloodshed had subjected his people to inconvenience and sufferings. Akbar arrested him and jailed him in Bihar. The king died in prison and was buried there.
Kashmir fate was sealed on October 16, 1586, when Mughal army invaded the independent country of Kashmir. Kashmir’s last independent ruler Yaqub Shah Chak couldn’t hold back the onslaught of Mughals under the command of Qasim Khan. However, it was not because of Kashmiris being cowards, as they had thwarted many attempts of warriors like Mahmud of Ghaznavi, but due to the cunning internal conflicts, which still makes this battle go on indecisively.
Those who couldn’t bear their motherland under foreign rule took up arms as at that there was no scope of political solution. Mughals came down heavily against these insurgents. Yaqub Shah Chek was arrested and finished off in exile, just like his father Yusuf Shah Chek.
The Mughal conquered Kashmir and added it in 1586 to his Afghan province Kabul Subah, but Shah Jahan carved it out as a separate subah (imperial top-level province), with seat at Srinagar.
In 1819, the Kashmir valley passed from the control of the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan , and four centuries of Muslim rule under the Mughals and the
Afghans, to the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Punjab . As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the new Sikh rulers. However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters.Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Ranjit Deo, the Raja of Jammu, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) was also captured by the Sikhs and afterwards, until 1846, became a tributary to the Sikh power. Ranjit Deo’s grandnephew, Gulab Singh , subsequently sought service at the court of Ranjit Singh, distinguished himself in later campaigns, especially the annexation of the Kashmir valley, and, for his services, was appointed governor of Jammu in 1820. With the help of his officer, Zorawar Singh , Gulab Singh soon captured for the Sikhs the lands of Ladakh and Baltistan to the east and north-east, respectively, of Jammu.
In 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out, and Gulab Singh “contrived to hold himself aloof till thebattle of Sobraon (1846), when he appeared as a useful mediator and the trusted advisor of Sir Henry Lawrence. Two treaties were concluded. By the first the State of Lahore ( i.e. West Punjab ) handed over to the British, as equivalent for ( rupees ) ten million of indemnity, the hill countries between Beas and Indus ; by the second [67] the British made over to Gulab Singh for ( Rupees ) 7.5 million all the hilly or mountainous country situated to the east of Indus and west of Ravi ” ( i.e. the Vale of Kashmir).The
Treaty of Amritsar freed Gulab Singh from obligations towards the Sikhs and made him the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was then called) was constituted between 1820 and 1858 and was “somewhat artificial in composition and it did not develop a fully coherent identity, partly as a result of its disparate origins and partly as a result of the autocratic rule which it experienced on the fringes of Empire.”It combined disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities: to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Tibetan and its inhabitants practised Buddhism; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; in the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the Kashmiri brahmins or pandits ; to the northeast, sparsely populated Baltistan had a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised Shi’a Islam ; to the north, also sparsely populated, Gilgit Agency , was an area of diverse, mostly Shi’a groups; and, to the west, Punch was Muslim, but of different ethnicity than the Kashmir valley.
When people call it 18 or a 60-year-old problem or say just 80,000 persons had laid their lives for it, they are making a gross injustice to millions of those who sacrificed their lives for the just cause during more than four centuries of foreign rule. The Indian people must be taught History and especially some Indian news anchors who keep crying on Kashmiris.
Despite being in a majority the Muslims were made to suffer severe oppression under Hindu rule in the form of high taxes, unpaid forced labor and discriminatory laws.In 1857 for the first time Kashmiris didn’t celebrate Eid ul Azha, as it was the year when Gulab Singh had died and there was a total ban on killing of any animal. Another dreaded punishment used in Dogra era to thwart any possible uprising was that of fleecing a Kashmiri thought to be against administration. Prostitution was also legalised during this time.
Many Kashmiri Muslims migrated from the Valley to Punjab due to famine and policies of Dogra rulers. The Muslim peasantry was vast, impoverished and ruled by a Hindu elite. The Muslim peasants lacked education, awareness of rights and were chronically in debt to landlords and moneylenders,and did not organize politically until the 1930s.
Ranbir Singh’s grandson Hari Singh , who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 at the conclusion of British rule of the subcontinent and the subsequent partition of the British Indian Empire into the newly independent Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan . An internal revolt began in the Poonch region against oppressive taxation by the Maharaja. In August, Maharaja’s forces fired upon demonstrations in favour of Kashmir joining Pakistan, burned whole villages and massacred innocent people. The Poonch rebels declared an independent government of “Azad” Kashmir on 24 October. Rulers of Princely States were encouraged to accede their States to either Dominion – India or Pakistan, taking into account factors such as geographical contiguity and the wishes of their people. In 1947, Kashmir’s population was “77% Muslim and 20% Hindu”. To postpone making a hurried decision, the Maharaja signed a standstill agreement with Pakistan, which ensured continuity of trade, travel, communication, and similar services between the two. Such an agreement was pending with India. Following huge riots in Jammu, in October 1947, Pashtuns from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province recruited by the Poonch rebels, invaded Kashmir , along with the Poonch rebels, allegedly incensed by the atrocities against fellow Muslims in Poonch and Jammu.
Before going to date when India entered Kashmir here are few :
▪April 1944: Sheikh Abdullah proposed a Naya Kashmir (New Kashmir) programme to the Maharaja, calling for a constitutional monarchy. [14]
▪1944: Mohammad Ali Jinnah visited Kashmir during the summer, supporting the Muslim Conference in preference to the National Conference
▪June 1946: Representatives of the Muslim Conference met Jinnah in Karachi and were told to capitalise on the failure of Sheikh Abdullah to unseat the Maharaja.
▪July 1946: The Muslim Conference complained that Prime Minister Ram Chandra Kak was oppressing Muslims. [15]
▪July 1946: The Maharaja declared that Kashmiris would decide their own destiny without outside interference.
▪November 1946: The British Resident in Kashmir observed that the Maharaja and Prime Minister Ram Chandra Kak intended to stay away from the Indian Union (the proposed independent Dominion, prior to the partition decision). The reason cited was “antagonism… displayed by a Congress Central Government” towards Kashmir.
▪January 1947: Elections were held for the State’s legislative assembly. The National Conference boycotted the elections, and the Muslim Conference won 16 of the 21 Muslim seats.
▪19 June 1947: Lord Mountbatten visited Kashmir for 5 days to persuade the Maharaja to accede to India or Pakistan. The Maharaja showed reluctance.
▪11 July 1947: Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared that if Kashmir opted for independence, Pakistan would have friendly relations with it. Liaquat Ali Khan endorsed this position.
In a letter sent to Maharaja Hari Singh on 27 October 1947, the then Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten accepted the accession with a remark, “it is my Government’s wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the State’s accession should be settled by a reference to the people.”Lord Mountbatten’s remark and the offer made by the Government of India to conduct a plebiscite or referendum to determine the future status of Kashmir led to a dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the legality of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. India claims that the accession is unconditional and final while Pakistan maintains that the accession is fraudulent.
When people call it 18 or a 60-year-old problem or say just 80,000 persons had laid their lives for it, they are making a gross injustice to millions of those who sacrificed their lives for the just cause during more than four centuries of foreign rule. The Indian people must be taught History and especially some Indian news anchors who keep crying on Kashmiris.
(The author a pass out of Government Polytechnic College Srinagar is regularly contributing for the Edit Page of “Kashmir Horizon”. The views of the author are exclusively his own)