Adv Rameshwar Singh Jamwal
Prior to Gulab Singh’s treaty with the British, regions of Jammu and Kashmir had not much in common, even the suzerainty, except for brief periods. Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Raja Ranjit Deo of Jammu, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) had also been captured by the Sikhs and afterwards, it had become a tributary to the Sikh kingdom. Ranjit Deo’s relation Gulab Singh subsequently joined service in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was an able soldier and his distinguished display of bravery in later campaigns in present day Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas endeared him to Ranjit Singh and he was appointed as Raja of Jammu, at a place called Jia Pota, near Akhnoor town in Jammu and Maharaja Ranjit Singh himself came to anoint him as Raja of Jammu. Gulab Singh’s able General Jorawar Singh, also called as Napolean of the East, extended the boundaries of his kingdom by conquering Ladakh, Baltisatn, and large parts of Tibet as well. He was given important assignments by Raja Gulab Singh and conquered many areas in Reasi and was then made incharge of Kishtwar, where he founded the modern day Gulabgarh area, by annexing Chatrasaal as it was called then and from there he conquered in accessible Ladakh and many areas of Tibet, upto famous Mansarovar area of Tibet. He was killed in Tibet while fighting and still the Tibetans pray at his place of death to have brave children. In 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was one of the biggest Indian states, but had a status no other princely state had acquired and this all was due to the efforts of Dogra rulers. The state had many separate parts, all having distinct geographical, linguistic, religious and cultural identities but had been united politically by Dogra rulers in mid nineteenth century, under the leadership of Gulab Singh (Lyon,P.,1967). It may be mentioned that in 1845, after Anglo-Sikh war and the battle of Sobraon, a small village on the banks of river Satluj that was fought in Februray 1846, two treaties were concluded by the British with the defeated Sikh kingdom. Sikhs had fought fiercely with the British and in order to weaken them, British wanted to take away maximum areas from them. By the first the State of Lahore (i.e. West Punjab) was handed over to the British, as indemnity, equivalent to ten million rupees, while the area between Beas and Indus rivers, including entire Kashmir, Ladakh and Baltistan was sold to Raja Gulab Singh by the British for Rs. 7.5 million (Suri, SP & Singh Dr G,2016). This treaty with the British is called the Treaty of Amritsar, which was signed on 16th March 1846 and Gulab Singh then became a Maharaja of the state of Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 54, which had distinctive regions in terms of language, ethnicity, culture and even religion. Thereafter he started extending the boundaries of his kingdom. His able General, Jorawar Singh Kahluria conquered Ladakh, parts of Tibet, Baltistan etc and these areas became part of the Dogra Kingdom, which shared boundaries with Uzbekistan, China and Afghanistan. Soon after Gulab Singh’s death in 1857, his son, Maharaja Ranbir Singh, an able administrator, added the emirates of Nagar, Gilgit and Hunza to Dogra kingdom. Prior to Gulab Singh, the state of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was then called) was constituted between 1820 and 1858, was not a coherent entity and many small states existed. He conquered Reasi, Rajouri and Samarth, except Poonch, Jasrota and Ramnagar, which were the Jagirs of Dhian Singh, Hira Singh and Suchet Singh, and brought them under one kingdom. Chenani, Bhadarwah, Kishtwar and Basholi were also brought under control. Still it had disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities. Jammu had mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Buddhist having strong religious and cultural bonds with Tibet and in the heavily populated Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Muslim but there was also a small and influential Hindu minority, called Kashmiri Pandits. In the northeast, there was sparsely populated Baltistan, having a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which was mostly Shia and in the north was an area called Gilgit, which was also sparsely populated with Shia community. In the west there was Poonch dominated by Muslims but of different ethnicity than that of Kashmiri Muslims. After Ranbir Singh, Maharaja Partap Singh succeeded to the throne and he married a girl from Birpur village in present day Samba District, to which the author also belongs and it was due to this reason that the father of the author was picked up for sacred ‘Janue Mitri (friendship)’ with Dr Karan Singh. After Partap Singh, his nephew Maharaja Hari Singh became the ruler of Kashmir and he had studied from the best schools in India and was a very forward looking ruler. He ended many social evils in his kingdom, like female infanticide, which was very widespread, especially amongst Rajputs of Jammu. He made primary education compulsory for all his subjects, allowed the entry of lower castes in temples, started monetary help to encourage girl education, encouraged tree plantation, especially of mango trees at the birth of a girl child, encouraged cultivation in barren lands and was the first Indian Ruler who advocated for ‘All India Federation” of Indian Princely states, which sounded akin to freedom for India to the British, in a round table conference in the year 1930. This sounded an alarm bell for the British as it pointed to a British free India in future. The paragraph of Hari Singh’s speech, which showed his views about the future India are being quoted as “To my mind, there is today no alternative to Federation as a policy for India and in according my warmest support to the scheme of Federation before us. I am inspired by the hope that we are laying the foundation of a future for our country, more truly for our future in accord with its genius and traditions with great potentialities for future development than is possible under any other scheme that we can think of today, I bless this scheme of the Sankey Committee and that, so far as my state is concerned, I will be in the interest of greater India, be ready to join such a federation” (Suri, SP & Singh Dr G,2016 p-149). There was no indication that he wanted an independent Jammu and Kashmir, as is the biggest allegation against him. This led to the British conspiring against him and the mutiny in Kashmir against his rule was part of this big conspiracy, initiated at the instance of Political department of the British Indian government and their Resident Commissioner in Kashmir (Saxena H.L, 1975, P 113). Nehru was supporting Sheikh Abdullah’s fight against Hari Singh and it was because of this reason that Hari Singh was made to exile after partition to Delhi but even there he was not allowed to stay in peace and ultimately he shifted to Mumbai’s Padar road where he died in 1961.
(To be continued…..).
