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| Last days challenges of Dogra dynasty in J & K | | |
Dr. Rajkumar Singh
Hari Singh of Dogra Dynasty became the king of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1925. His period witnessed both the partition of the subcontinent in August 1947 and accession of the State to the Union of India in October that year. It had little to do with the partition of the country in two dominions but a moment of great importance came after the lapse of British paramountcy when the State was to choose between a secular India and an Islamic Pakistan. Needless to say its importance for the newly created dominions. If for India it is a matter of having a successful secular state and national prestige, for Pakistan Kashmir is near, dear and vital : near in geography; dear in religion ; vital in strategy.
Overall condition of the masses
The rule of Dogra dynasty in Jammu and Kashmir was, in general, an oppressive one. It was authoritarian and had no democratic content. The settlement of the Kashmir Valley was commenced in 1887 and again it was took up in 1889. For the first time permanent hereditary occupancy rights were bestowed on those who agreed to pay the assessment fixed and entered in his or her name. As a result of this people lost proprietorship of their own land. The new system provided payment of land revenue partly in cash and partly in kind. The economic conditions of the people were far from satisfactory. Even the extension of British control to Kashmir also alienated the Kashmiris in administration. The imperial design began to reorganise civil departments to fill important posts in which administrators were brought into the State from the Punjab. The reason given was the absence of adequately educated and trained personnel in Kashmir for various branches of the administration. Thus employment which could have given a new lease of life to the sagging economy of the land was given to outsiders whose interests lay not in the State but elsewhere. The hue and cry which the measure raised led in due course to a distinction which was made between resident and non-resident subjects. The new definition helped the resident of the province of Jammu rather than those of the Valley, Ladakh or Northern areas. The distinction was based not on religion but on clan. But with the exception of the Dogras all the other communities were discontented.
Awakening against the misrule
Under British Imperialism, the national awakening which came to British India by the turn of the century spread in the late twenties to the State as well. The waves of modern ideas and thoughts began to make their impact on the people. The fight for independence in India also aroused consciousness amongst the people of Kashmir who from time to time, rose against the autocracy of the rulers. In this they had all the sympathies of the leaders of Indian national. However, the first popular reaction to the State Government’s policy was communal. It was totally against the genius of the people who had suffered from time to time at the hands of bigoted kings and counsellors but who had not fallen out amongst themselves as religious communities. For the first time the majority community attempted to organise itself on religious lines for the attainment of political objectives. It was an ugly development because it showed that the young Muslim leaders educated at Lahore and Aligarh had been infected by the virus of communal politics which the British were busy developing in British India. In Jammu and Kashmir its proof came on 13 July 1931 when a Muslim mob looted Hindu houses and shops, killed three Hindus and wounded scores. This led to some retaliation on the part of the Hindus.
This tragic development was a much more serious threat to the people’s hunger for secular democracy for which their genius and long history had fitted them and under which alone they could create conditions for helping the flowering of their innate respect for all faiths, intellectual, independence, traditional tolerance, and cooperation with fellow citizens of various races, creeds and languages. The struggle for India’s freedom deeply influenced the Kashmiris who staged, in July 1931, a rebellion to liberate themselves from ancient slavery by demanding basic human and political rights and removal of innumerable grievances in social, political and economic fields.
New waves and insufficient reforms
A new generation of university - educated Kashmiri Muslim youth including Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah an M. Sc. from Aligarh University, with his colleagues and supporters, formed a political organisation in 1932 named the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference. Initially as the Party had no carefully worked out programme except perhaps for more jobs for Muslims in the administration. It therefore tried to rouse the Muslims from their slumbar and make them aware of their rights and responsibilities. In the absence of a sound political programme, this inevitably tended to inflame religious passions with their inevitable eruption into disorder, loot and harassment of non-Muslim. In public meetings, Abdullah recited verses from the Holy Quran in a sonorous and melodious voice with which he was gifted. He aroused passions of the Muslim and stirred their emotions against the atrocities perpetrated by the Hindu Monarchy. This brought him much popularity among the backward, ignorant and religion-ridden masses. Within weeks he became a hero of the Kashmiris, cynosure of less fortunate public men and rival of the old guard. The two main elements which brought Abdullah into prominance in public life were the arousal of religious passions of the Kashmir Muslims against Dogra rule and Hindu-dominated administration and application of rowdyism against his rivals.
As a result of the popular agitation Maharaja Hari Singh was forced in 1932 to appoint the Glancy Commission which recommended a limited franchise, covering the ten per cent of the population, together with a legislative assembly consisting of nominated and elected members. As the agitation for responsible government grew, the ruler issued Regulation 1 of 1934. The regulation declared the intention of the Maharaja to provide for the association of his subjects in the matters of legislation and the administration of the State. This Regulation consisted of 46 sections which dealt with the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the rulers. It referred to the subjects which should be reserved from the operation of the Regulation, made provisions for the constitution of the legislature of the State, conferred authority on the Council to make rules for specified purposes, but operating directly under the control of the ruler. |
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