JAMMU and Kashmir was a princely state at the time of partition of the Sub-continent, having an overwhelming Muslim majority but the ruler was Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh. The people of Jammu and Kashmir were struggling against the tyrannical and oppressive rule of Maharaja. When the partition plan was announced it was clear that Kashmir would accede with Pakistan, but the ruler was under the influence of Congress and using delaying tactics. The people of Kashmir have been in the political struggle against Dogra since 1931. The Maharaja has changed its political officials rapidly in three months or so before accession to India. Prime Minister Kak, who was not in favour of the State’s accession with India, was changed within ten days after the visit of Gandhi. Mehr Chand Mahajan, a member of the Radcliff Commission from Congress was also appointed as Prime Minister. National Conference leader and Congress ally Sheikh Abdullah and his party leaders were released from jail in mid-September 1947, but the Muslim Conference leaders were not released. Indian leader’s correspondences also prove their interest in Kashmir. Sardar Patel’s own record and official papers indicate that India is concerned with the improvement of Kashmir’s transport, road and communication system and that by early October it was engaging in serious discussion with Srinagar over the supply of military stores. The letter of Patel to Baldev Singh dated October 07, 1947, Nehru’s letter to Patel dated 27 September and many other letters clearly show the Indian involvement in Kashmir before the tribal invasion.
According to Alastar Lamb “India’s direct military intervention in the State before the accession was a show that the Indian Government had in fact made up its mind weeks before the accession. In the state of Jammu & Kashmir, Indian forces were deployed in early October. A battalion of infantry and a battery of mountain arterly of Patiala have taken the positions in Srinagar airport at least by 17th October 1947”. The Maharaja was playing a dual role, he had signed a standstill agreement with Pakistan, but he was changing his political officials on demand of Gandhi and Nehru. Moreover, he had appointed the commander in chief of his army Colnol Kashmir Singh Katoch a serving officer of the Indian Army. Alex Von Tunzelemann, in her book Indian Summer:
The Secret History of the End of an Empire wrote, “Maharaja had ordered the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Kashmir. During September and October 1947, the Maharaja’s Dogra-led troops carried out a campaign of sustained harassment, arson, physical violence and genocide against in at least two areas Punch, right on the border with Pakistan and pockets of southern Jammu…….The Maharaja was meant to create a buffer zone of uninhabited land, approximately three miles wide, between Kashmir and Pakistan. Muslims were pushed into Pakistan or killed. Hindus were sent other way, deeper into Kashmir. India would deny that any holocaust had taken place, perhaps because it had secretly provided arms to the Dogra side.”In the Jammu region attacks against Muslims were started in mid-September 1947. The Dogra State troops were at the forefront of attacks on Muslims. The State authorities were also issuing arms not only to local volunteer organizations such as the RSS but also to those in surrounding East Punjab districts such as Gurdaspur.
Christopher Snedden in his book Kashmir-The Unwritten History, exposed some incidents of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Jammu. According to him in Katua district Hindus were in the majority with the highest preponderance in tehsil Basohli. The total Muslim population in the district was over 45,000 with the largest and the smallest minority in Kathua and Basohli tehsils, respectively where they suffered organized violence. Near Kathua town, as many as 8000 Muslims were massacred on October 20th 1947 and only 40 survived in the carnage. In Akhnoor tehsil, where the population of Hindus and Muslims stood at 55,325 and 32,611, respectively, as many as 15,000 Muslims were reportedly killed on October 20, 1947.In the Samba massacre on October 22, 1947, accounted for 14,000 Muslim victims. The Times of London, in its publication dated August 10, 1948, gave the number of exterminated Muslims as 237,000. An unspecified number of Muslim women were abducted from different parts of Jammu Province. Most of them were not returned to their families and in many cases, Hindus and Sikhs forcibly married them. The abducted women were raped and smuggled out to different parts of India. Although the number of such unfortunate victims will be never known there are some estimates which say that 25,000 women were abducted from Jammu Province. The Hindu Dogra ruler’s main aim was to change the demographic composition of the region by eliminating the Muslim population. Such was the intensity of carnage that in Jammu province about 123 villages were ‘completely depopulated’.
—The writer is Director Kashmir Policy Research Institute, Director JKLC.
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