By Eric Vandenbroeck and
co-workers 7 August 2019
Pakistan has warned war
could break out with India after its neighbor announced plans to revoke the
semi-autonomous status of the disputed region of Kashmir. Pakistan's powerful
army chief said his troops stood by Kashmiris in their "just
struggle".
Neighbouring
China has also voiced opposition to the Indian move, describing it as
"unacceptable".
India's BJP-led
government in turn is hailing its decision to strip the state of Jammu and
Kashmir of autonomy after seven decades, characterizing it as the correction of
a "historical
blunder".
While several
opposition parties support Modi’s decision, there may yet be a challenge
from the country’s Supreme Court. And while the prime minister’s long-term plan
could be to populate Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindus from other parts of
the country, there will likely be resistance in the restive Kashmir Valley.
India has already moved
tens of thousands of new troops to the region.
The
now-canceled article 370 allowed the state a certain amount of autonomy -
its own constitution, a separate flag and freedom to make laws. Foreign
affairs, defence and communications remained the
preserve of the central government.
This means the
separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir ceases to be in operation in the
state. With state constitution rendered inoperative and Articles 1-2 applicable
to Jammu and Kashmir, the central government got the power to redraw the map of
the state.
The move fits in with
Narendra Modi's desire to show that the BJP is
tough on Kashmir, and Pakistan. The BJP has also been attempting to erase
India’s Mughal legacy both from the landscape and from the history
books.
The history of the
Kashmiri region, in particular, is extremely convoluted, and could, and indeed
has absorbed volumes of scholarship that is hardly relevant here. Buddhism was
introduced into the region in the 3rd century BCE, but by the 9th century CE,
it had evolved into a major center of Hindu worship and study. It was the
birthplace of Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hinduism, and a
center of Sanskrit scholarship. One can suppose that its extraordinary natural
beauty, mild climate, and ease of living made it a perfect place for religious
contemplation, and if one was searching for proof of divine bounty, one really
needs to look no further.
By the mid-14th
century, however, a new and pervasive religious order began to make its
presence felt in the region, as Muslim invaders began to arrive. Kashmir was
ruled by the Mughals from 1587 to 1752, which is a period generally regarded as
peaceful, tolerant and progressive, although, of course, in such a polarized
region, there would be many
like Narendra Modi 's BJP would profoundly disagree with this.
Is is generally accepted that Kashmir is a victim of the
disputed division of British India during the transfer of colonial power in
1947. A border was created on religious lines, and states with a Muslim
majority formed the newly created Pakistan alongside a predominantly Hindu
India. When India and Pakistan became independent, it was generally assumed
that Jammu and Kashmir, with its 80 percent Muslim population, would accede to
Pakistan, but Kashmir was one of 565 princely states whose rulers had given
their loyalty to Britain but preserved their royal titles. The partition plan,
negotiated by the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, excluded these princely
states, which were granted independence without the power to express it.
Initially the British
create the state of Jammu and Kashmir from a disparate group of territories
shorn from the Sikh kingdom placing it under the rule of a Dogra Raja, and
during the late nineteenth century, they directly intervened in the
administration of the state. The consequent land settlement of the region led
to the breakdown of the state monopoly on grain distribution, the emergence of
a class of grain dealers, the creation of a recognizable peasant class, and the
decline of the indigenous landed elite. Additionally, the slump in the shawl
trade beginning in the 1870s meant that shawl traders were in a state of
financial and social decline by the late nineteenth century. At the same time,
the Dogra state became more interventionist, centralized, and the
"Hindu" idiom of its rule became increasingly apparent.
But contrary to
popular belief, it was not the isolation of the Kashmir Valley that produced
narratives of regional and religious belonging; rather, it was the Valley's
links with the world outside that helped reinforce the poetic discourse on
identities in the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries.
Rather, the axiom of
Kashmir as the paradise on earth, which even then belied the reality of the
condition of the Valley and its inhabitants, was coined by the Mughal emperor
Jehangir.1
He builds some of the
more scenic architectural marvels of the region, such as the Mughal Gardens and
the Pari Mahal. And the emperor was so enamored of the Valley that he even took
an interest in the concerns and complaints of its people. He dismissed one of
his high-ranking officers, Qulich Khan, then governor
of the Valley (1606-9), on receipt of complaints against him: "O protector
of administration! complainants are many, your thanks givers few/Pour cloud
water on the lips of the thirsty or get away from the administration.” 2
The Mughal era was one of intense cultural
regeneration in Kashmir when Kashmiri poets and ideologues built on existing
cultural forms through contact with poets from the Delhi court and the court of
Persia. Persian became the medium of literary expression, not only for those
who migrated to Kashmir but also for native Kashmiris.
Even as the poets of
the Mughal period glorified the beauties of the Valley, their poetry did not
obscure the realities of the land and the lives of its people. Although clothed
in philosophical terms, the following verse articulates poignantly the curse
of the Valley and its inhabitants:
The path of poverty [fagr] is evident from the road leading to Kashmir: Its very
first step means the renunciation [tark] of the
world. How can one pass this path with ease:
For the very first
condition means relinquishing life? How can a traveler escape this calamity,
Except that a slip of the foot may become a cause of his rescue.3
The land of Kashmir,
as articulated in the works of Kashmiri poets of the Mughal period, may have
existed for the most part only in the imagination of the Mughal emperors and
their court poets, but it is undeniable that its cultural expression informed
later articulations of Kashmiri identities.
If the Mughal period
is seen as the beginning of the end of Kashmiri independence by Kashmiri
historians, the Afghan period is seen as its end. Most historians of Kashmir
agree on the capacity of the Afghan governors, a period unrelieved by even
brief respite devoted to good work and welfare for the people of Kashmir.
According to these histories, the Afghans were brutally repressive with all
Kashmiris, regardless of class or religion. Merchants and noblemen of all
communities were assembled and asked to surrender their wealth to the first
Afghan governor, on pain of death. Kashmiri peasants, Jagirdars,
nobles and merchants alike were buried under the burden of heavy taxation. The
Jizya or jizyah, or the poll tax on Hindus, was
revived and many Kashmiri merchant families fled the Valley for the plains
during this period. With the departure of merchants and with the peasantry
avoiding cultivating the land for fear of exactions, the Kashmiri economy was
effectively ruined.
Without detailing the
oppression of various Afghan governors, for there were many, suffice it to say that
the Kashmir Valley underwent a period of immense political and economic crisis
over sixty-seven years of Afghan rule. Despite its near accuracy, this tale of
plunder and woe needs to be qualified through mention of Kashmir's position at
the crossroads of trade routes from the north, north-west, and east during the
Afghan period. The axis of the Mughal empire-the Grand Trunk Road-was
completely redirected by the Afghans. The new route, in the eighteenth century,
circumvented the Punjab and Delhi and from Durrani
Kashmir, the caravans could now reach Peshawar and Kabul without touching Sikh
territory.4
This lament for the
just rulers of their land continued through a more explicit Kashmiri discourse
on regional belonging during the rule of the Sikhs, who followed the Afghans in
1819. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, entered into a treaty with the British in 1809
whereby the British agreed to abstain from interference in territories north
of the Sutlej if he gave up a claim on territories south of the river. After the
conclusion of the treaty, Ranjit Singh began his campaigns to conquer
principalities north of the Sutlej and expelled the Afghans from Multan, Dejarat and Kashmir. He valued the Kashmir province not
only for its revenues but also for its strategic position which facilitated his
numerous military campaigns. The Sikh governors deputed to administer Kashmir
on behalf of Maharaja Ranjit Singh were "hard and rough
masters,"(particularly as Kashmir was a considerable distance from Lahore.
More significantly, they consistently followed anti-Muslim policies in Kashmir,
thus subjecting the majority of the population of the Kashmir Valley to severe
hardship in relation to the practice of their religion. The second Sikh
governor, Deewan Moti Ram, ordered the closure of the Jama Masjid in Srinagar
to public prayer and forbade Muslims from saying the azan (call to prayer) from
mosques in the Valley. He also declared cow-slaughter a crime punishable by
death." Lands attached to several shrines were resumed on order of the
state. Sikh governors began the policy of declaring mosques, such as the Pathar Masjid, as the property of the state.
The continuation of
this policy under the Dogras in the late nineteenth
century would provide the fuel for the organization of Kashmiri Muslims as
their leadership took up as a cause the return of state-owned mosques to the
community. The Sikhs thus established a specifically "Hindu" tone to
their rule, setting the stage for the Dogra dynasty which began ruling Kashmir
in 1846. The Sikh rulers did not formulate these "Hindu" policies
specifically for the Kashmir Valley to harass Kashmiri Muslims; they tried hard
to ban the slaughter of sacred cattle in all the lands they conquered. Their
emphasis on asserting Hindu and Sikh beliefs was part of an attempt to
articulate a Sikh identity separate and distinct from that of the Mughals.5
While there is clear
evidence for oppressive conditions under a Sikh rule, it is also important to
remember that historians of Kashmir and European travelers had their own
reasons for presenting Sikh rule in a negative light. Historical evidence
points to the fact that, despite its anti-Muslim overtones, the Sikh rule also
stabilized the economy of Kashmir.
And Kashmiriyat rises to the foremost vociferously in the
historical narrative of the
Dogra period. The Kashmir Valley came under Dogra rule (1846-1947) with the
ominous terms of the
Treaty of Amritsar signed between Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu and the British
in 1846, whereby the British "transfer and makeover forever in independent
possession to Maharaja Gulab Singh and the heirs male of his body all the hilly
and mountainous country with its dependencies situated to the eastward of the
River Ravi including the Chamba and excluding Lahul, being part of the territories ceded to the British
Government by the Lahore State ..."6
Kashmiris, regardless
of their religious affiliations, launched a national movement against the Dogra
This narrative, of course, is prejudiced by its insistence on locating unified,
cohesive Kashmiri nationalist movement, untarnished by religious, regional, or
class distinctions within the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Furthermore,
it fails to point out that the Kashmin national
movement of the 1930s and 1940s was preceded by a Kashmiri discourse on
identities that focused primarily on defining the religious community, not the
Kashmiri nation. And finally, the narrative on Kashmiriyat
ignores the contradiction that forms the substance of the Kashmiri nationalist
movement: this movement, which supposedly rescued Kashmiriyat
from the jaws of the Dogra regime, based its demands squarely on the
socio-economic distinctions between the two main religious communities in
Kashmir, Pandits
and Muslims. This contradiction is rooted in the story of the political,
social and economic transformations introduced on to the Kashmiri landscape
during the Dogpra period. Although subjects of the
greater British Indian Empire, Kashmiris formulated their identities under the
rubric of the apparatus of legitimacy deployed by the Dogra state, which
continually attempted to balance its definition in terms of the idioms and
instruments of Hinduism and the ideal of non-interference with religions so
dear to the British.
To suggest that a
Kashmiri identity, Kashmiriyat, defined as a
harmonious blending of religious cultures, has somehow remained unchanged and
an integral part of Kashmiri history over the centuries as seen above, thus is
a historical fallacy.
Then, by the early
1930s, the worldwide economic depression had begun to have an impact on a wide
cross-section of Kashmiri society. The slump in trade beginning in 1930 and
fall in the price of agricultural produce led to increased rural-urban
migration. However, the urban factories that had provided jobs to the
immigrants in the 1920s were now in a state of collapse.' Newspaper editorials
from this period lamented the rise in unemployment, the decline of factories
such as the silk factory, and the acquisition by moneylenders
and mahajans of those lands that had been made
over to the peasants as part of the conferral of proprietary rights by the
government.
Although the
government had passed a Land Alienation Act in 1926 to control the transfer of
land by sale or mortgage, which disallowed the transfer of the newly acquired
rights to any but a member of the agricultural classes and prohibited an
alienation of more than 25 percent of any holding for a period of ten years,
the peasants exercised this right in full for the liquidation of debt. These
sales increased the fragmentation of holdings and transferred much of the land
to members of agricultural classes who were not cultivators. This, in turn,
resulted in the reduction of the state's aggregate food supply and difficulties
of feeding a rapidly increasing population. Additionally, it led to soaring land
prices, which the richer classes in the Valley, usually non-agriculturists,
were willing and able to pay.7
Also, events in Jammu
and Kashmir should be viewed in the all-India political context of the period.
Although Kashmir was far removed from the Purna
Swaraj resolution adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1929 and the Civil
Disobedience campaigns of the early 1930s, the people of Kashmir, particularly
their leadership, were greatly affected by the heated political atmosphere in
India. By far the most significant impact by 1931 was the entry of the term
communal into the Kashmiri political arena. From 1931 onwards, Kashmiri
politics and politicians, not unlike their Indian counterparts, would come to
be judged on the communal national gauge. The communal/national dichotomy had
been in use in British Indian provinces since the early twentieth century. In
Bengal, for instance, the gradual distancing of leading Muslim associations
headed by Abdul Latif and Syed Amir Ali from the Indian National Congress in
the 1890s prepared the ground for the use of these dichotomous terms by
"nationalist" politicians. However, their use became more widespread
and loaded during the time of the Swadeshi movement (1905-8). By the end of the
first decade of the twentieth century, Bengali Muslims had begun to discuss
defensive interpretations of communalism in the format of "good"
versus "bad" communalism.8
Finally, in 1931, The
state in general and the Maharaja, in particular, were caught between the
overwhelming upsurge of Kashmiri Muslim public opinion and the rancor of
Kashmiri Pandits at being the objects of sacrifice to placate Muslim demands.9
Apart from the two
communities, the pressure from the British to resolve the crisis was increasing
daily as the Ahrar jathabandi
continued in the Jammu province. The Government of India was sufficiently
concerned that the Viceroy wrote in his telegram to the Secretary of State for
India, "So long as active jathabandi continues,
there is cause for considerable anxiety ... The danger will remain that justly
or unjustly Kashmir will be made a pretext for Muslim organization when this
seems likely to serve the community's [Punjabi Muslims] purpose."10
British troops had
already entered the state and the Resident was pressing the Maharaja to accept
a deputation of outside Muslims to conduct an inquiry into the happenings of
1931. A ruler who had declared in his accession speech that "my religion
is justice" was faced with the prospect of keeping his word. The foremost
issue that the Maharaja ordered the Glancy Commission to investigate was the
"complaints ... in regard to any conditions or circumstances which might
tend in any way to obstruct free practice of any religion followed by any
community in my State."11
He did not, however,
accept the Government of India's view on allowing a deputation of outside
Muslims to conduct an inquiry in the state, so as to prevent demands of a
similar nature by Hindus.
The Maharaja's
attempts at keeping Kashmir isolated from the outside world had already failed.
Kashmiri Muslim politics continued to be played out as much inside as outside
the state. The leadership of the 1930s made full use of the financial and moral
support of organizations sympathetic to their cause in British India. Further
attesting to the imbrication of politics in British India and Kashmir, the
developments during 1931 and its aftermath, brought with it the language of
inclusionary Indian nationalism into the Valley. "Communal" became
the pejorative term with which to slander one's, political opponents. Although
not in widespread use yet, the term "national" would soon appear as
the foil of communalism.
The emergence of
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on the Kashmiri political landscape and the foundation
of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference illuminate the intricacies of this.But if Sheikh Abdullah had succeeded in introducing
the idea of a Kashmiri nation into the political discourse of the Valley, he
certainly failed in the 1940s to translate this into concrete politics. By the
way there are more than 400 works that wholly or in part examine the 1940s.
Some examples are: Hassnain, Freedom Struggle in
Kashmir, Sardar Mohammad Ibrahim, The Kashmir Saga, 2nd edn
(Mirpur: Verinag Publishers, 1990); Devendra Swarup
and Sushil Aggarwal, eds., The Roots of the Kashmir Problem: The Continuing
Battle between Secularism and Communal Separatism(Delhi: Manthan Prakashan, 1992); Verinder
Grover, ed., The Story of Kashmir, Yesterday and Today, 3 vols (Delhi: Deep and
Deep Publications, 1995); Hari Jaisingh,Kashmir: A
Tale of Shame (Delhi: UBS Publishers, 1996); and Prem Shankar Jha, Kashmir
1947: Rival Versions of History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).
However, it is
essential to debunk the view that the re-creation of the All Jammu and Kashmir
Muslim Conference in 1940-1 was a triumph for the forces of Muslim revivalism
in Kashmir, which would ultimately lead to the province's de facto partition
between India and Pakistan. This perspective is an integral aspect of the myth
that the National Conference represented the majority of Kashmiris, a myth that
was perpetuated by the organization itself in the face of increasing opposition
from various sectors of the population of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the
1940s. Furthermore, according to this view, the Muslim Conference stood for the
ideals of the Muslim League, which was in favor of the creation of a separate
state of Pakistan and the ultimate accession of Kashmir to this Muslim state,
while the National Conference supported the Indian National Congress and stood
for united nationalism. I believe that this is an exceedingly simplistic
reading of a very complicated and, more significantly, evolving relationship
between these four organizations through the 1940s, a subject that has to be
dealt with elsewhere, however.
Since 1947, the
region has been characterized by political repression and economic
underdevelopment plus since then have not been allowed the right to decide
their own future. Thus one could argue that the dispute and the more recent
insurgency that have riddled the region were neither inevitable nor the result
of the clash between a Muslim-majority region and a Hindu-majority
nation-state.
Of the 565 princely
states, 552 agreed to become part of India but the remainder posed problems:
Hyderabad and Junagadh had Muslim rulers but Hindu majorities and were surrounded
by Indian territory. Indian troops occupied the states and overthrew the Muslim
rulers. In Kashmir, a Hindu nobleman, Sir Hari Singh, was the Maharaja, or governor.
Two months after the independence of India and Pakistan, he was still unable to
make up his mind.
The formal accession
of Kashmir to India was announced on 27 October 1947 when Indian troops were
airlifted to Srinagar airport and waged a successful defense of the maharajah’s
forces that came under attack from invading Pashtun
fighters who were driven out into the
surrounding mountains with as the result
a war between Pakistan and India within
three months of their independence.
The United Nations
brokered a peace deal, which left Kashmir with an arbitrary ceasefire line
curling through its territory and divided between the Indian- and
Pakistani-controlled segments. A UN Resolution was passed on 5 January 1948
that agreed the accession of Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided
through a free impartial plebiscite. But this was not forthcoming.
In this dirty war
with no front line, Pakistan and India faced each through the people of
Kashmir. At least thirty thousand, perhaps as many as fifty thousand, have
perished since 1990. The involvement of Indian and Pakistani intelligence
agencies is widely assumed to extend to random bombings, which have killed
hundreds of civilians on both sides while mystery surrounds the carnage. No
group ever admits planting the bombs, rarely is anyone caught and rumors of
conspiracy and intrigue circulates. In August 2003, two coordinated blasts
rocked Bombay within minutes of each other. The first was at the stone arch of
the Gateway of India, the second in a crowded jewelry bazaar. At least fifty
people died and more than a hundred were injured. The Indian police said that
local Muslim militants had planted the bombs with the support of Pakistan's
ISI. There was speculation that the attacks were in retaliation for riots in
the neighboring state of Gujarat, which had left more than two thousand people
dead, mostly Muslims. Railways have been easy targets of this covert conflict,
apparently chosen randomly in a bloody tit-for-tat exchange. But in the end the
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) demand for independence didn't fit
with the ISI's desires; the agency wanted to absorb the state into Pakistan.
One of the more
pernicious consequences of the conflation of polemics and history in the case
of Kashmir has been the denial of citizenship rights to Kashmiris by the
postcolonial nation-states of South Asia. In an irony of history, the
successive postcolonial regimes of the Jammu and Kashmir state rode roughshod
over the political rights of the state's citizens to ensure loyalty and placate
the doubts of the Indian nation-state.
The citizenship
rights of Kashmiris, both Hindu, and Muslim, were thus obfuscated in the
narrative of united nationalism generated by the postcolonial nation-states,
alongside the policies of the regional governments of Kashmir as they strove to
establish their own legitimacy within the national framework.
When The National
Conference, with its avowedly secular and nationalist stance, resorted to the
homogenizing discourse of Kashmiriyat to paper over
the widespread discontent within Kashmiri society, they were much like its
Dogra predecessor. The National Conference, as much as its so-called
"fundamentalist" rivals in the Valley, seized upon the theft of the
strand of the Prophet's hair from the Hazratbal mosque in Srinagar in December
1963 to present themselves as protectors of Islam, in the process whipping up
communitarian antagonisms in the Valley.
It should also be
noted that the demonstrations against the theft provided Kashmiri Muslims with
a deep discontent against the regional and national governments.12
But the situation in
Pakistani Kashmir has not been much better, with the Pakistani delegation
making overtures to the organization while the Indian state decried this as an
act of sabotage, it is clear that Kashmiris were without representation.
The limited options
India had would come once more to the forefront in September 2016 after a
deadly raid on a Kashmir army base that killed
17 soldiers, with about 35 soldiers injured, some critically.
Violent demonstrations
and anti-India protests calling for an independent Kashmir continued with
hundreds of civilians, Indian security forces, and militants killed in attacks
and clashes. After months of heavy-handed Indian military operations targeting
both Kashmiri militants and demonstrations, India announced in May 2018 that it
would observe a cease-fire during the month of Ramadan for the first time in
nearly two decades; operations resumed in June 2018.
The current
revocation of special status was expected to trigger widespread protests, but
there is no word on how people have reacted to the news.
Prominent politicians
in Indian-administered Kashmir have been placed under house arrest, while
communications to Kashmir valley have been cut off following a security
crackdown and fears of unrest.
The Himalayan region of
Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, but they each
control only parts of it.
Apparently it was an
earlier statement by President Trump that triggered the current move.
But the measure also
caused a hefty debate in the Indian Parliament with Shashi Tharoor stating
that: You
have unleashed upon us the political equivalent of demonetization.
In an address to
Parliament on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said
he might approach the U.N. Security Council to oppose New Delhi’s move, fearing
that India may “initiate ethnic cleansing in Kashmir to wipe out the local
population.” He has already called
in a favor that Trump promised him during their meeting in the White House
last month: “President Trump offered to mediate on Kashmir. This is the time to
do so,” Khan said. We’ll see whether Trump takes the bait—and whether Pakistan
reacts in other ways.
China has called
India’s move to abolish Kashmir’s special status “not
acceptable” and said it was not binding.
Counting as a
"fear" barometer following the announcement that Pakistan this time
is willing to use atomic weapons in a new war with India Gold has gone up.
Meanwhile, Pakistan
downgrades diplomatic ties, suspends trade with India over Kashmir.
It is not clear yet
what the reactions will be once the lock down is lifted. The military, which
has a large presence in the state and leads the counter-insurgency
operations are trained to go after
terrorists, but they are not trained to deal with cases of civil disobedience.
If thousands of people suddenly come together and start marching in peaceful
protests, they will have no idea how to tackle that.
1. See G.M.D. Sufi, Kashir: Being a History of Kashmir From Earliest Times to
Our Own. 2 vols. New Delhi, 1974, vol. i, p. 295.
2. G.L. Tikku, Persian Poetry in Kashmir 1339-1846, University of
California Press, 1971.p.84.
3. G. L. Tikku: Persian poetry in Kashmir, 1339–1846: an introduction.
(University of California Publications. Occasional Papers. Literature, No. 4.)
xi, 98
4. For this period
see Jos J.L. Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan
Empire c. 1710-1780, 1994, p. 41-2.
5. C.A. Bayly, The New Cambridge History of lndia,
II. 1, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, Cambridge
University Press, 1990, p.22.
6. C.U. Aitchison, A
Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads
relating India and Neighboring Countries, revised and continued up to 1929, vol.xu: jams, Kashmir, Sikkim, Assam &Burma, (Calcutta:
Government of India Cent Publications Branch, 192 9, p. 21.).
7. Capt. R.G.
Wreford, Census of India, 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu and Kashmir (Jammu: Ranbir
Government Press, 1943), 14-15. The state passed a follow-up Land Alienation
Act in 1938, which allowed for the alienation of land only "where the
alienor is not a member of the agricultural class, or where the alienor and
alienee are members of an agricultural class." See Laws of Jammu and
Kashmir, vol. ui (3rd ed. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir
Government Press, 1972), 581.
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