Jammu and Kashmir has a fascinating history. Since 1846 the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which also included Ladakh in the northeast, bordering Tibet as well as Gilgit–Baltistan in the northwest bordering (now) China’s Xinxiang Province, was ruled by a Rajput Dogra dynasty. The composite state was partly clubbed together by the East India Company, who, after the First Anglo–Sikh War in 1845–1846, annexed Kashmir from the Sikh rulers and transferred the territory to Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu under a subsidiary alliance arrangement that included an indemnity payment of 7.5 million rupees. As the hereditary ruler of Jammu, Gulab Singh’s kingdom was a tributary of the Sikh Durbar, but after the East India Company transferred Kashmir to him, the maharaja as the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir acknowledged the paramountcy of the East India Company; and then after 1858, the British Crown.
The maharaja ruled over a vast and ruggedly beautiful region of valleys, lakes and mountains covering 85,806 square miles. From the southern plains and low hills of Jammu, there rises a range of mountains called the Pir Panjal that leads one to the Kashmir Valley drained by the Jhelum River. Through the uplands of Bhadarwah and Kishtwar runs the deeply gorged Chenab River. Further north and northwest are located Baltistan and Gilgit, while Ladakh sits on the eastern plateau between the Kunlun mountain range and the Himalayas. The Indus River originating from the Lake Mansarovar region in Tibet runs through Ladakh and onwards to Baltistan and Gilgit; and then to the south draining along with its tributaries the vast region of Pakistan before it merges with the Arabian Sea. Jammu and Kashmir sits under the awe-inspiring, majestic, protective shadow of the colossal mountain ranges from the Hindu Kush, the Palmir, the K2 (near the Godwin-Austen Glacier) and the Karakoram Range to the Kunlun Mountains and the Himalayas. ‘Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast’ (If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here!), said the awestruck Mughal Emperor Jahangir when he visited Kashmir in the seventeenth century. And the Mughals loved Jammu and Kashmir.
Until 1947, Jammu and Kashmir had better transportation links with the southwest region, what became Pakistan, than with India. One could travel from Kohala near Murree to Leh in Ladakh; and also from Rawalpindi via Kohala to Muzaffarabad and Baramulla to Srinagar in Kashmir. It was through these multiple routes that Pakistan’s tribal militias poured into the Kashmir Valley in October 1948.
In 1947, Jammu and Kashmir had a Muslim majority (more Sunnis than Shias) population of 76.4 per cent, Hindus 20.1 per cent, and Sikhs and Buddhists 3.49 per cent. Ethnically the population mix-up included Punjabis, Gujjars, Arains, Jats, Sudhans, Rajputs, Pandits, Tibetan-Mongolians and Dards. Over this motley population of disparate ethnicities, religions, languages and dialects, and cultures spread over the plains, the valleys and the mountains ruled the Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh who had led, by and large, a sheltered life under the tutelage of the British Crown.
Like the nizam of Hyderabad and the nawab of Junagadh, Maharaja Hari Singh toyed with the idea of wanting Jammu and Kashmir to become an independent country, the political status that the state did not have under the British Crown, the Sikh rulers or the Mughals. To keep trade, transportation and communication links open for the landlocked state and maintain the status quo, the maharaja offered Standby Agreements to both India and Pakistan. Pakistan accepted the Standby Agreement expecting that Jammu and Kashmir being a Muslim majority state, would accede to Pakistan. India, on the other hand, refused to accept the Standby Agreement. Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), a secular party in the image of the Indian National Conference, led by a popular leader Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, wanted the state to join India. The maharaja’s prime minister, Mehr Chand Mahajan, too advised the maharaja to accede to India.
In this environment of uncertainties and indecisiveness, Pakistan was hatching military plans to knock the state out of the royal hands of the maharaja. First of all, Pakistani irregulars called Gilgit Scouts, under the command of sympathetic British officers, staged a revolt in Gilgit and Baltistan, and the region was annexed by Pakistan. Soon after, Northwest Frontier tribals, mostly Pashtuns, Mehsuds and Afridis, from Pakistan’s badlands—the same tribals who since then have been subjecting Pakistan and Afghanistan to lethal doses of Jihad—were let loose like bloody hounds into the Kashmir Valley. The maharaja cried for help from India; but Lord Mountbatten wouldn’t budge unless the maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, which he did on 26 October 1947. With the formal acceptance of the state accession by the Governor General of India Lord Mountbatten on 27 October 1947, Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India, and the state’s defence became India’s obligation.
In a short time, India called forth the best of its military and organizational forces, and liberated most of the territory and pushed back Pakistani hoards to what became known as Azad Kashmir. Under coercive persuasion from India, the maharaja released Sheikh Abdullah from jail, where he had been locked up for his opposition to the maharaja’s rule, and appointed him as the state prime minister. Subsequently, the maharaja appointed his son Karan Singh as the prince regent until 1952, when the Constitution of India came into effect, and the Dominion of India became the Republic of India.
WAR AND THE DRAMA OF ACCESSION
Within weeks of gaining Independence, Pakistan hatched a plan to launch a seemingly clever scheme of invading and annexing Jammu and Kashmir. That was the time when Indian leaders were busy settling millions of brutalized, ravaged, sick and hungry refugees who were pouring into India from East and West Pakistan while at the same time protecting the left behind vulnerable Muslims. As the top-secret strategic plan Operation Gulmarg was getting ready to be rolled out, perchance the blueprint fell into the hands of Major Onkar Singh Kalkat of the Bannu Brigade, a military cantonment in Pakistan’s Northwest. Major Kalkat opened the envelope marked ‘top secret’ from Pakistan’s British Commander-in-Chief General Frank Messervy addressed to the Brigade Commanding Officer C.P. Murray, who at that time was away.
Being a non-Muslim military officer, who should have gone to India along with other military officers, Major Kalkat came under suspicion for having seen the top-secret plan and was jailed; but he escaped and reached Delhi on 18 October 1947. When he told the story to his military bosses in the defence ministry, no one believed him until after the invasion had actually begun on 24 October.
By the first week of September, as per Operation Gulmarg, 20 tribal militias, each with a strength of 1,000 tribesmen, were to be enlisted from various Pashtun tribes and made battle-ready at brigade headquarters at Bannu, Wanna, Peshawar, Kohat, Thall and Nowshera, with a timeline of reaching the launching pad at Abbottabad on 18 October and breaking into Jammu and Kashmir on 22 October 1947. With a pincer movement, ten militias were to attack through Muzaffarabad to advance to Kashmir Valley, a stronghold of Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference and another ten militias to advance to Poonch, a stronghold of the Muslim Conference, the town whose population was sympathetic with Pakistan, in order to advance to Jammu. The meticulously detailed plan of attack prepared by the British commanders of the Pakistan Army obviously had the approval and blessings of Pakistan’s leadership, including Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
By 1 October, the regiment, Prince Albert Victor’s Own (PAVO) Cavalry, in charge of executing the military plan, with the South Wing based in Gujarat (a military cantonment in Pakistan), the North Wing based in Abbottabad and the Central Wing based in Rawalpindi had completed the task of arming and training the tribals. With so much preparation going on in tribal areas for the recruitment, arming and mobilization of 20,000 militiamen, Pakistan’s streets must have been abuzz with stories of something momentous happening. But the grapevine scuttlebutt did not reach India. And when Major Kalkat, who had stumbled upon the attack plan and escaped to India, wanted to brief his superiors, there was no one who would listen to him. Poonch, a principality of Jammu and Kashmir, offered Pakistan the most encouraging prospects because its restive population, mostly Muslim, felt closer to the neighbouring state of Punjab (Pakistan) than to the Muslims of Kashmir Valley under the influence of Sheikh Abdullah’s secular National Conference Party. Poonch was also a major recruiting area for the British Army during World War II. When, after the war was over, Poonch soldiers returned home with their arms on their shoulders, the maharaja was alarmed and he ordered them to be disarmed. With fewer job prospects for thousands of discharged soldiers and high taxes, the discontent roiled the people of Poonch and turned them into a rebellious militia, which, though soon crushed by the state troops, nonetheless frightened the maharaja. He decided to reorganize his administration, and on 25 August 1947, he invited a pro-India jurist Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan of the Punjab High Court as prime minister. The Muslim Conference, the party that was committed to Pakistan, exploited the situation and accused the maharaja’s troops of committing indiscriminate atrocities on innocent people, and in a message to Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, urged him to take action before it was too late.
Pakistan wasted no time, and soon, essential supplies including petrol, sugar and salt for which Jammu and Kashmir depended upon Pakistan were cut off, apart from the suspension of train services to Jammu. In order to assess the political situation and the ground realities in Kashmir, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan sent Mian Iftikharudin to Srinagar. On his return in September, he reported to the prime minister that the National Conference, under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah, had an overwhelming following and influence in Kashmir and there was little prospect of fomenting a popular revolt in the Kashmir Valley. Nor was there any prospect of the maharaja succumbing to the economic and trade embargo and acceding to Pakistan. Armed invasion was the only choice. On 12 September, Pakistan prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan met with Mian Iftikharudin, Colonel Akbar Khan and another Punjabi politician, Major Shaukat Hayat Khan, to consider Pakistan tribal supported ‘popular uprising’ against the maharaja. Because of his unwillingness to join Pakistan, there was no other choice except to mobilize the frontier tribes as liberators of their brethren in Kashmir.
With the simmering rebellion in Poonch and economic blockades, the maharaja was in desperate straits and once again asked Mehr Chand Mahajan to hasten his decision to assume the state’s prime ministership, promising reforms and accession to India, which Prime Minister Nehru, however, would not accept unless the National Conference leader, Sheikh Abdullah, was released from prison and allowed to participate in the government. Consequently, upon further negotiations, Sheikh Abdullah, a friend and admirer of Nehru, was released and received a rousing welcome in Kashmir Valley, where he was hailed the Lion of Kashmir. With Sheikh Abdullah’s release, Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India became closer and war with Pakistan more imminent, even though Nehru declared, ‘wherever there is a dispute in regard to any territory, the matter should be decided by a referendum or plebiscite of the people concerned. We shall accept the result of this referendum, whatever it may be’.
The excerpt is from ‘India in a New Key: Nehru to Modi: 75 years of Freedom and Democracy’ (Rupa Publications).