Kashmir and Neighbors @ whatisindia.com

When the new Maharaja in Kashmir ascended the Gaddi,[1] the newly-forming elite had gathered some experience in political agitation, and the local government had developed some apprehension on how to suppress it. The freedom struggle, led by the Indian Congress Party, found echoes in several princely states, including J&K where especially the youth was influenced by the anti-imperialist movement. The Non-Cooperation and the Salt Satyagraha movements (1930), launched by the Indian National Congress under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, had repercussions there too. Srinagar could not stay out of the team of leading cities in India where huge processions were organized when people heard of Gandhi’s arrest. The British encouraged such movements, provided they possessed a political to break up the country along communal lines. Stormy campaigns against the Maharaja’s rule, if supported by the Muslims, could help pay a dividend for the all-inclusive British interests in India. The All-Kashmir Muslim Conference, founded earlier, held (1930) its annual meeting in Lahore, one of the centers where the feeling that Islam was “in danger” could be indisputably felt. The anti-Dogra sentiment had struck solid roots with Kashmiri leaders such as Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah and the Mirwais (the chief Muslim preacher) in the Valley. The return home of Muslim young men, among them Sheikh Abdullah, educated at different Indian universities, was like a spark near explosive material. When the Mirwaiz died, his funeral was attended by the whole Muslim population of Srinagar.

As a young teacher who quit his post protesting Hindu resistance to the entry of Muslims into state service, Sheikh Abdullah organized one enormous meeting after another, one of which led the police to resort to arms and 21 dead. Muslim fury aimed at the Magaraja’s government as well as fellow Hindus, whose shops were looted. It was on 13 July 1931 that almost the entire Muslim population rose in rebellion against “Hindu rule”. The latter was now interwoven with shootings, imprisonments and public floggings. But it was under popular pressure that the Maharaja announced amnesties for all political prisoners, handed back the confiscated mosques, and promised the formation of a commission to explore the grievances of the people. When the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference came into existence in late 1932, Sheikh Abdullah was elected its first president. A Legislative Assembly, called Praja Sabha, was set up on a limited franchise and with powers of recommendation only. While it consisted of 75 members, 33 of whom were to be elected by a little more than 3% of the population, it could only ask questions, introduce bills, and discuss the budget. When the British Indian Government got (1935) Gilgit on a 60-year “lease”, the Resident let the Maharaja enjoy freedom in dealing with the political agitators.

Popular Kashmiri leadership drew closer to the Indian National Congress, Sheikh Abdullah and other moving to a secular base forming the National Conference, comprising Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. As soon as Sheikh Abdullah was released (28 February 1939) from the Muzaffarabad jail, he started to urge re-naming the organization as a non-communal united front.[2] was henceforth named the All-Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, and every adult person, man or woman, irrespective of religion, creed, caste, or colour, could become a member. The resolution was “ a landmark in the history of the freedom movement in Kashmir”.[3] Chaudri Ghulam Abbas Khan explained in the special session that whatever has been done since 1931 had been for the rights of the Muslims from a communal platform. The attitude of the Kashmiri Government towards the Muslims had been merciless, and during the past eight years the Muslim Conference had tried to relieve them of difficulties, but it was necessary now to bring all the communities onto a common platform. [4] The large majority of the Hindus and the Sikhs were also oppressed. Moreover, the majority should gain the confidence of the minority. Mirza Muhammad Afzal Beg added that, since one could name Muslim members of the Assembly who opposed laws designed to benefit the peasants or give Muslims due representation in services, the real division was “economic, not religious”[5] Maulana Muhammad Sayeed Masoodi argued that Islam permitted Muslims to enter into alliance with non-Muslims and that there was no way of success other than a united struggle under a common political organization.[6] Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz, the first non-Muslim leader to speak, stated that it had been his longing to bring all the communities onto a common platform.[7] The resolution was opposed by some delegates who stressed that the Muslim masses were backward and less organized and that there could be no unity between the weak and the strong. Some of the educated Muslims did not favour the national secular policies of the leadership. All seemed to feel that it would be harmful to bring the Kashmir freedom movement under the influence of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha. Pandit Jia Lal Kilam criticized both the Muslim League or the Hindu communal organizations on the grounds that they were detrimental to the causes of nationalism and the secularism, and that they should not accept assistance from the Muslim League which demanded the partition of India and the Hindu Mahasabha which sought to establish the Hindu Raj.[8] Of the 178 delegates who attended the meeting, only three voted against the change of the name of the organization. The first session of the newly-formed National Conference was held at Anantnag, and Sheikh Abdullah was elected President. The green flag with the crescent at the centre, which a plough in the middle.’

Some delegates wanted the new National Conference to be established without disbanding the parent organization. The old Muslim Conference continued to receive support from the Muslim League and its leader Jinnah, who had come back from England in 1935. With many members in its ranks (and Muslim Presidents in the Past), the Congress was the only “national” party. But when the Congress formed coalition governments in the provinces right after the elections of 1937, it created in the minds of some Muslim leaders that it ultimately aimed at monopoly of power. Disregarding some sensitivities, the Congress governments adopted Bande Mataram, a song taken from a Bengali novel (Anandamath), which the Muslims considered to be “anti-Muslim”, apart from discarding the Urdu script in favour of Hindu letters. [9] When the League met (1937) in conference at Lucknow, Jinnah declared that the Muslims could expect “neither justice, nor fair-play under Congress government”.[10] The old contention that the Muslims were unfairly treated, i3., under-represented on local bodies, starved of educational opportunities, restricted in their use of Urdu, and the like, gained new force. Every communal trouble was scrutinized, put on record and published as a formal indictment of the Congress governments.[11] While the Hindu Mahasabha, founded in 1915 as a cultural organization for the preservation of Hinduism, had now become primarily political, and its president, Veer V.D. Savarkar, previously sentenced for murderous terrorist crimes, attacked the Congress for pursuing a non-communal policy and thus betraying the cause of Hinduism, some Muslim minds had begun to comtemplate the division of India into Hindu and Muslim compartments. In the 1930s, they were talking about “Muslim self determination”. [12] Some Muslim intellectuals, not members of the Congress, also combated this downright policy of partition.[13] It was the drastic, not the moderate, policy that ultimately prevailed with Jinnah and the Muslim League. The Congress vehemently opposed the demand for Pakistan, and some Muslims suggested an alternative formula to resolve the conflict.[14] While Gandhi condemned the proceedings at Lahore, and an All-India Independent Muslim Conference, organized in Delhi with Khan Bahadur Allah Baksh, a past Premier of Sindh, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, just elected the Congress President in the background, denounced partition, Jinnah was now the most popular and powerful Muslim in India.

These occurrences affected Kashmir less than expected. While the Maharaja put all his resources at the disposal of the British Government for the purposes of the Second World War and was appointed to the Imperial Was Cabinet for such cooperation, the National Conference adopted (1944) a programme of social activity for the benefit of the whole people based on a more democratic platform. Of all the people’s movements in the various states in India, the Kashmir National Conference was far the most popular. The real background of this popularity and also that of its President, around whose name songs and legends grew up, was basically economic. Sheikh Abdullah, who contrasted the terrible poverty of the people with the enormous riches of the few and the potential resources of Kashmir, demanded political reforms and responsible government. [15] This movement allied itself with the All-India States People’s Conference, which was an independent body but working in line with the National Congress. Sheikh Abdullah became a Vice-President of the All-India body and was also elected its President while in prison.

While Jinnah’s visit to Kashmir (1944) to create sympathy for the two-nations theory won little following, [16] the National Conference moved closer to the Indian national Congress, led by Gandhi and Nehru, as may be gauged by the attendance of Maulana Azad, Khan Abdul Gaffar khan and other Congress leaders in the latter’s unique session (1945) in Srinagar. Sheikh Abdullah’s “Quit Kashmir” movement (1946) aiming to transfer power from the Maharaja to the people drew Nehru to Kashmir about a year later, seemed impressed by the low level of communal strife. The Muslim League there had no particular following. Sheikh Abdullah was so popular that even the communal Hindu and Sikh organizations demanded his release when he was put in prison. It was mainly on account of the policy of the national Conference and its President that Kashmir kept out of communal strife during the period when the rest of India had been engulfed in it. Sheikh Abdullah cut the image of a savior to his people.[17]

The Princely States

On 17 June 1947, the British Government announced the Indian Independence Act which stated that they would their authority over India on 15 of August of the same year. The territories with Muslim majorities were to be independent Pakistan, and the rest would constitute India. The question arose as to the future of the Princely States, which were not directly ruled by the Government of India. The British would cease to exercise the power of “Paramountcy” over 562 of them, [18] including Jammu and Kashmir, meaning that their rights flowing from their relationship to the Crown would no longer exist, and all rights surrendered by them to the paramount power would return to them. The Princely States could enter into a federal relationship with the successor governments in British India on the basis of the India Act of 1936 and the Indian Independence Act of 1947. Both of these Acts of the British Parliament provided that a state could join the Dominion of India by an Instrument of Accession. During the period between 17 June 1947, when the Government of India Act was passed, and 15 August 1947, when the Government of India Act was passed, and 15 August 1947, when India became independent, the ruler of a princely State could reach a Standstill Agreement with either or both of the independent Dominions with respect to customs, transit and communications, posts and telegraphs, or other like matters.

When Pandit Nehru sent (17 June 1947) a note on Kashmir [19] to Rear-Admiral Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, the Governor General of undivided India,[20] the state consisted of roughly three parts: Kashmire proper; Jammu; Ladakh, Baltistan, Skardu and Kargil. The Muslims, who formed 92% of the population in Kashmire proper, were 77.11% (3,101, 247) in the whole state. The Muslims of Jammu also constituted the others being chiefly Sikhs (65,903) and Buddhists (40,696). The total, then stood at 4,02,616.

The Maharaha, believed to envisage an independent Kashmir State, delayed his decision regarding accession and sought from both the Dominions a Standstill Agreement to come into effect on 15 August 1947. While the Muslims of Kashmir celebrated 15 August as “Pakistan Day”, the Maharaja, as V.P. Menon put it,

[1] Hindi term for the (low chshioned) seat of a ruler.

[2] Ram Krishan Kaul Bhatt, Political and Constitutional Development of the Jammu and Kashmir State, Delhi, Seema Publications,1984, pp. 82-87.

[3] Gulam Hasan Khan, Freedom Movement in Kashmir: 1931-40, New Delhi, Light and Life Publishers, 1980. p.385.

[4] Muhammed Yusuf Saraf, Kashmiri Fight for Freedom, Vol. I, Lahore, Feroze Sons Ltd., 1977, pp. 531-533.

[5] Lbid., p.534.

[6] Khan, op. cit., pp.378-379.

[7] Lbid., pp. 384-385; Saraf, op.cit., pp. 534-535. Four later books by Prem Nath Bazaz: Dispute about Kashmir, Delhi, Kashmir Democratic Union, 1950; Azad Kashmir: a Democratic Socialist Conception, Lahore, Feroze Sons, 1951; Inside Kashmir, Srinagar, Kashmir Publishing Company, 1941; Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir, New Delhi, Kashmir Publishing Company, 1954.

[8] Khan, op, cit., p.385.

[9] Indian Annual Register, ii (1937), p 143 in R. Coupland, Indian Politics; 1936-1942, Madras, Oxford University Press, 1944, p. 182; ----------------, the Indian Problem: Report on the Constitutional Problem in India, 1932-1942, Part II, London, 1944, pp. 103, 322-323.

[10] Lbid., p. 182.

[11] The “Pirpur Report” (Delhi. 1938), which argued the Muslim case, did not resort to sensational or provocative language. The “Shareef Report” (Patna, 1939), which gave repulsive details of “atrocities”, nevertheless, maintained the temperate style of the previous report. A third formal indictment (Fazl-ul Haq, Muslim Sufferings under Congress Rule, Calcutta, 1939) bitterly complained that, in some Hindu quarters, the azan (Muslim call to prayer) was forbidden, there were attacks on worshipers in mosques, noisy processions prevented prayers, pigs were thrown into mosques, Muslim shops were boycotted, and the like. The Bihar Government’s reasoned reply answered some of these charges point by point.

[12] A new phase in the history of the idea of a separate Muslim state started with Choudhary Rahmat Ali, who published on 28 January 1933 a four-page leaflet, entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish for Ever?, signed by some other Muslims and circulated from Cambridge, using the word “Pakstan” (spelled without an “i”) perhaps for the first time, the letter “k” standing for Kashmir. Although Rahmat Ali founded the Pakistan National Movement, his propaganda for “Pakistan” was confined to Britain. There is little evidence to prove that the Muslims showed any interest in the scheme before the 1936-37 elections. During 1938-39, however Majalis-e Pakistan (Pakistan Societies) were formed in a number of cities.

[13] Syed Abd-ul Latif from the Osmania University in Hyderabad, for instance, published three booklets (The Cultural Future of India, Bombay, 1938; A Federation of Cultural Zones for India, Secunderabad, 1938; The Muslim Problem in India, Bombay, 1939) in which he argued that India was not a single “composite nation” but partition was not desirable or necessary. The author’s chief criticism of the Pakistan proposals was that the creation of an independent Muslim state would not solve the communal problem since there would still be huge minorities on both sides. However, in 1939, Sayyid Zafarul Hassan and Muhammad Afzal Husai, both from the Aligarh Muslim University, published a scheme (The Problem of Indian Muslims) proposing three independent states. Mian Kifayat Ali suggested five different “countries” (The Confidence of India, Lahore, 1939), and Sir Skandar Hayat Khan seven “zones” (Thje Outlines of a Scheme of Indian Federation).

[14] B.R, Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India, Bombay, 1946, pp. 192-193.

[15] Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, New Kashmir, New Delhi, Kashmir Bureau of Information, 1950, Passin

[16] For Sheikh Abdullah’s rejoinder to Jinnah’s criticism of the J & K National Conference, see: A. Moin Zaidi, ed., Evolution of Muslim Political Thought in India: Vol. VI, Freedom at Last, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1975-79, pp. 613-615.

[17] Somnath Tikku, Sheikh Abdulla: the Saviour of Kashmir, Srinagar, Kashmir, Mercantile Press, 1947.

[18] On the rulers of the 562 states of Princely India: Charless Allen and Sharada Dwivedi, lives of the India Princes, London, Arena, 1986.

[19] Great Britian, The Transfer of Power, 1942-47: Constitutional Relations Between Britain and India, Vol. XI, London, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1982, pp, 442-448.

[20] P. Kodanda Rao, “Mountbatten and Kashmir”, Indian Review, Madras, 52/12 (December 1951), pp. 573-576. The first biographer to have access to the Mountbatten (1900-79) archive: Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: the Official Biography. London, Fontana; New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

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