History Of 5 Feb Kashmir Day

[Jesper Sahu]

The history of Kashmir is intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent in South Asia with influences from the surrounding regions of Central, and East Asia. Historically, Kashmir referred to only the Kashmir Valley of the western Himalayas.[1] Today, it denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administered union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (which consists of Jammu and the Kashmir Valley) and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered regions of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

In 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, inaugurating the Shah Mir dynasty. For the next five centuries, Muslim monarchs ruled Kashmir, including the Mughal Empire, who ruled from 1586 until 1751, and the Afghan Durrani Empire, which ruled from 1747 until 1819. That year, the Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, the Treaty of Lahore was signed and upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, became the new ruler of Kashmir. The rule of his descendants, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until 1947, when the former princely state became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and the People's Republic of China.

According to folk etymology, the name "Kashmir" means "desiccated land" (from the Sanskrit: ka = water and shimīra = desiccate).[2] In the Rajatarangini, a history of Kashmir written by Kalhana in the mid-12th century, it is stated that the valley of Kashmir was formerly a lake. According to Hindu mythology, the lake was drained by the great rishi or sage, Kashyapa, son of Marichi, son of Brahma, by cutting the gap in the hills at Baramulla (Varaha-mula). When Kashmir had been drained, Kashyapa asked Brahmins to settle there. This is still the local tradition, and in the existing physical condition of the country, there is some ground for the story which has taken this form. The name of Kashyapa is by history and tradition connected with the draining of the lake, and the chief town or collection of dwellings in the valley was called Kashyapa-pura, which has been identified with Kaspapyros of Hecataeus (apud Stephanus of Byzantium) and Kaspatyros of Herodotus (3.102, 4.44).[3][4] Kashmir is also believed to be the country meant by Ptolemy's Kaspeiria.[5] Cashmere is an archaic spelling of Kashmir, and in some countries it is still spelled this way.[citation needed]

In 326 BCE, Porus asked Abisares, the king of Kashmir,[b] to aid him against Alexander the Great in the Battle of Hydaspes. After Porus lost the battle, Abhisares submitted to Alexander by sending him treasure and elephants.[20][21]

Mughal general Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a member of ruling family in Kashgar, invaded Kashmir in c. 1540 CE on behalf of emperor Humayun.[40][52] Persecution of Shias, Shafi'is and Sufis and instigation by Suri kings led to a revolt which overthrew Dughlat's rule in Kashmir.[53][52]

Kashmir did not witness direct Mughal rule until the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar the Great, who took control of Kashmir and added it to his Kabul Subah in 1586. Shah Jahan carved it out as a separate subah (imperial top-level province), with seat at Srinagar. During successive Mughal emperors many celebrated gardens, mosques and palaces were constructed. Religious intolerance and discriminatory taxation reappeared when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ascended to the throne in 1658 CE. After his death, the influence of the Mughal Empire declined.[40][52]

In 1700 CE, a servant of a wealthy Kashmir merchant brought Mo-i Muqqadas (the hair of the Prophet), a relic of Muhammad, to the valley. The relic was housed in the Hazratbal Shrine on the banks of Dal Lake.[54] Nadir Shah's invasion of India in 1738 CE further weakened Mughal control over Kashmir.[54]

Taking advantage of the declining Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durrani Empire under Ahmad Shah Durrani took control of Kashmir in 1752.[55] In the mid-1750s the Afghan-appointed governor of Kashmir,[56] Sukh Jiwan Mal, rebelled against the Durrani Empire before being defeated in 1762.[56][57] After Mal's defeat, the Durrani engaged in the oppression of the remaining Hindu population through forced conversions, killings, and forced labor.[57] Repression by the Durrani extended to all classes, regardless of religion, and a heavy tax burden was levied on the Kashmiri populace.[58]

A number of Afghan governors administered the region on behalf of the Durrani Empire. During the Durrani rule in Kashmir, income from the region constituted a large part of the Durrani Empire's revenue.[59] The empire controlled Kashmir until 1819, after which the region was annexed by the Sikh Empire.[60]

After four centuries of Muslim rule, Kashmir fell to the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Punjab after the Battle of Shopian in 1819.[61] As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the new Sikh rulers.[62] However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters, and Sikh rule was generally considered oppressive,[63] protected perhaps by the remoteness of Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh Empire in Lahore.[64] The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws,[64] which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter,[62] closing down the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, and banning the azaan, the public Muslim call to prayer.[64] Kashmir had also now begun to attract European visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the vast Muslim peasantry and of the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. High taxes, according to some contemporary accounts, had depopulated large tracts of the countryside, allowing only one-sixteenth of the cultivable land to be cultivated.[62] However, after a famine in 1832, the Sikhs reduced the land tax to half the produce of the land and also began to offer interest-free loans to farmers; Kashmir became the second highest revenue earner for the Sikh empire. During this time Kashmiri shawls became known worldwide, attracting many buyers especially in the west.[64]

Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Ranjit Deo, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) was also captured by the Sikhs and made a tributary.[61] Ranjit Deo's grandnephew, Gulab Singh, subsequently sought service at the court of Ranjit Singh, distinguished himself in later campaigns and got appointed as the Raja 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.[61]

In 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out, and Gulab Singh "contrived to hold himself aloof until the battle 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[65] 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).[61] The Treaty of Amritsar freed Gulab Singh from obligations towards the Sikhs and made him the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir.[66] The Dogras' loyalty came in handy to the British during the revolt of 1857 which challenged British rule in India. Dogras refused to provide sanctuary to mutineers, allowed English women and children to seek asylum in Kashmir and sent Kashmiri troops to fight on behalf of the British. British in return rewarded them by securing the succession of Dogra rule in Kashmir.[67] Soon after Gulab Singh's death in 1857,[66] his son, Ranbir Singh, added the emirates of Hunza, Gilgit and Nagar to the kingdom.[68]

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."[69] 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.[69]

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.[70] Many Kashmiri Muslims migrated from the Valley to Punjab due to famine and policies of Dogra rulers.[71] The Muslim peasantry was vast, impoverished and ruled by a Hindu elite.[72][73] The Muslim peasants lacked education, awareness of rights and were chronically in debt to landlords and moneylenders,[72] and did not organize politically until the 1930s.[73]

In early 1948, India sought a resolution of the Kashmir conflict at the United Nations. Following the set-up of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), the UN Security Council passed Resolution 47 on 21 April 1948. The UN mission insisted that the opinion of people of J&K must be ascertained. The then Indian Prime Minister is reported to have himself urged U.N. to poll Kashmir and on the basis of results Kashmir's accession will be decided.[83] However, India insisted that no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared of irregulars.[77]

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