Crafting Peace in Kashmir: Through A Realist Lens - Verghese Koithara - Google Books
Pakistan would not have had ownership of what is Azad Kashmir if the
tribal Pakhtuns from FATA, in general, and of North and South
Waziristan, in particular, had not arrived in Kashmir in 1947 and
fought for Pakistan when the Pakistan Army did not even exist. These
Pakhtuns from Waziristan fought alongside the deserters from the
Pakistan Army units and the local lashkars(jathas) of Kashmiri people
from what is now Azad Kashmir. This is history. Those of you who may
not have known much about the 1947 War in Kashmir must read the book
“Raiders in Kashmir” written by Gen Akbar.
Google Groups
Jammu and Kashmir War, 1947-1948: Political and Military Perspective - Kuldip Singh Bajwa - Google Books
Azad or 'Azab' Kashmir? » Portmir Foundation
Snedden sees this as the major reason for the split of Kashmir. While India blames Pakistan's attempt to exert control on the area by sending Pakhtun raiders into the Kashmir Valley, Snedden argues that the Muslim population of Poonch revolted on its own and opted for accession to Pakistan.
Cover Story: The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir by Christopher Snedden - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
And nowhere it says anybody settled there... And why the raiders went there? Let me example that:
Though the targeted killing had already started in Jammu around mid July 1947, the operation got a fillip immediately after a fleeing Maharaja Hari Singh and his wife reached Jammu on 26 October 1947. An organised carnage was orchestrated to kill Muslims, wherever found or spotted in Jammu.
British daily The London Times quoting its special correspondent in India stated that the Maharaja, under his own supervision, got assassinated 2,37,000 Muslims, using military forces in the Jammu area. The editor of Statesman, Ian Stephen, in his book Horned Moon writes that till the end of autumn 1947, more than 200,000 Muslims were murdered in one go. Horace Alexander wrote in the Spectator (16 January 1948) that the killings had “the tacit consent of State authority” and put the figure at 2,00,000.
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’. Kathua district ‘lost’ almost fifty per cent of its Muslim population. Thousands of Gujars were massacred in mohalla Ramnagar. Village Raipur, within Jammu cantonment area was completely burnt down. 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.
The State administration had not only demobilised a large number of Muslim soldiers serving in the state army, but Muslim police officers had also been sent home. In the Jammu city, the Muslim military were disarmed and the Jammu cantonment Muslim Brigadier replaced by a Hindu Dogra officer. Muslims seeking refuge in police stations and Deputy Commissioners’ offices were openly handed over to RSS beasts by the Dogra officers themselves.
Meanwhile, Maharaja of Patiala was not only supplying weapons but also a Brigade of Patiala State troops were operating in Jammu and Kashmir, without whose help and assistance, the objective could not have been achieved with such precision. The Times of London reported the events in Jammu with such a front page headlines: “Elimination of Muslims from Jammu”, and pointed out that Maharaja Hari Singh was “in person commanding all the forces” which were ethnically cleansing the Muslims.
That there was a design to change the demographics is evidenced by another well-reported incident. Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehr Chand Mahajan, upon arrival in Jammu told a delegation of Hindus, which met him in the Palace, that now when the power was being transferred to the people they should better demand parity. When one of the delegation members wanted to know how that was possible, Mahajan, pointing to the Ramnagar natural reserve below, where Muslim corpses were still lying said, “the population ratio too can change” like that (“Elimination of Muslims from Jammu” II, The Times, London, 10 August 1948, page 5. See also Ved Bhasin’s interview to Kashmir Life).
Both documentary and oral sources suggest that the crime committed on the Muslims was nothing less than an organized holocaust. Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, who was appointed “Chief Emergency Administrator” on 30 October 1947 could not prevent the carnage. He writes in his autobiography Atish-e-Chinar (page 312) that the carnage got impetus after the arrival of Union Home Minster Sardar Patel, Union Defence Minster Baldev Singh along with the Maharaja of Patiala, a person known for his anti-Muslim bias, in Jammu. The trio met various Hindu organizations and delegations, after which the massacre attained a great momentum. Hindu fanatics, aided and abetted by government forces, started burning down village after village inhabited by Muslims. Women were raped at will. Weapons were distributed freely to marauders from the Kachi Chawni house of Pandith Prem Nath Dogra and motivated by Balraj Madhok.
On 6 November surviving Muslims were told to assemble in an open ground, to be sent to Pakistan, herded in trucks like cattle and killed mercilessly with machine gun fire between the Digiana and Samba belt. Women were abducted and raped. Even the daughter of the legendary Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas was not spared. Many women preferred death than falling prey to the cruel beasts who wouldn’t tire calling themselves as secular people.
On the ground, the killing operations were organized, directed and supervised by Maharani Tara Devi in league with her debauch Guru Sat Dev and the governor of Jammu, Chet Ram Chopra. At the politico-administrative level, Sheikh puts the blame solely on the Dogra ruler Hari Singh and Prime Minster Mahajan. At one point of time, Sheikh had even thought of initiating action against the duo for crimes against humanity (Atish-e-Chinar, page 331). But why didn’t he translate his thoughts into action remains shrouded in mystery. Did he surrender this right before Sardar Patel as quid pro quo for prime ministership, which came his way in March 1948? As is generally known, the government of India and the Dogra ruler were only interested in conceding him a limited role in a “Mysore type of government”. But later this plan was changed and Sheikh was offered full-fledged prime ministership. Or was it a result of coercive pressure applied by Patel on Abdullah to imprison his close relative caught red-handed of theft of valuable jewellery in Maharaja of Indore’s (known as Holkars) palace where he was employed?
The other aspect of the carnage was appropriation of properties of Muslims. The Muslim names were immediately erased to conform to new ownership. For instance Urdu Bazar became Rajinder Bazar and Islamia School became Hari Singh High School to conform to the new “ownership”. Almost 95 percent of left-over properties, which should have in the normal course been taken over by the State government were allowed appropriated by looters and rioters (Daily Telegraph of London dated 12 January 1948).
These properties continue to be under the illegal occupation of looters and their descendants and it is precisely for this reason that the Resettlement Bill faces a stiff opposition in Jammu fearing vacation of such properties under a due process of law. Even Indira Gandhi expressed such fears in Jammu in her 1983 election campaign.
Another incident needs a mention here. When Hindu refugees from Muzaffarabad and surrounding areas reaching Kashmir desired to be sent to Jammu or Punjab, local Muslims motivated Kashmiri tongawallas (horse-cart drivers) to transport them to Jammu against heavy odds. Initially 22 tongawallas were hired. They were later joined by many others from the Khannabal-Qazigund rural belt. On return all these poor tongawallas numbering around 90 were massacred near Nagrota. Their only fault was that they made Hindu refugees to reach their destinations safely. What makes this holocaust unique is the complicity of State on the one hand and the exemplary treatment of Kashmiri Muslims to its minorities on the other hand, given the grave provocation of Jammu genocide. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was so disgusted with the carnage that on two occasions (27 November and 25 December, 1947), he made mention of it in following words:
“The Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu and those who had gone there from outside (referring to RSS goons from Gurdaspur and surrounding areas) killed Muslims there. Their women have been dishonored. This has not been fully reported in the newspapers. The Maharaja of Kashmir is responsible for what has happened there” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, volume 90, page 115 and 298).
The Muslims numbered 158,630 and comprised 37 per cent of the total population of 428,719 in the year 1941, and in the year 1961, they numbered only 51,690 and comprised only 10 per cent of the total population of 516,932.
While the decrease in the number of Muslims in Jammu district alone was over 100,000. Thousands of Gujjars were massacred in local mohallas and the villages within Jammu cantonment area were completely burnt down. Kuthua almost ‘lost’ fifty per cent of its Muslim population.
Out of a total of 8 lakhs Muslims who tried to migrate, more than “237,000 were systematically exterminated by all the forces of the Dogra state, headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs.” (“The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947,” Ian Copland).
Then emergency administrator, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah too conceded genocide and ethnic cleansing in his speech two weeks later at Jammu. But he put the blame on victims and said: “Jammu Muslims are to be large extent themselves responsible for what has happened to them, because though in a minority, they had, by their words and deeds, let their tongues in favour of Pakistan.”(The Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir p. 332, P N Bazaz).
However, in Sheikh Abdullah’s autobiography, Atish-e-Chinar (page 312), he writes that the carnage received an impetus after the arrival of Union Home Minster Sardar Patel, Union Defence Minister Baldev Singh along with the Maharaja of Patiala, a person known for his anti-Muslim bias, in Jammu. The trio had met various Hindu organizations and delegations, after which the massacre attained a great momentum. Fanatics, aided and abetted by government forces, started burning down village after village inhabited by Muslims. Women were abducted, raped at will.
Even the daughter of the Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas, the front-runner political figure, was not spared. Many women preferred death than falling prey. “His family suffered in all possible ways during ethnic cleansing of Jammu. Several of his sisters and brother were killed. His family members were specifically targeted because of his proximity to Muslim League. His youngest daughter was recovered from an Indian Army camp after the massacre of Jammu Muslims.” (Sheikh Showkat Hussain, “19 Profiles”).
GK Reddy, an editor of the Kashmir Times in a statement published in the daily Nawa-i-Waqt wrote: “I saw the armed mob with the complicity of Dogra troops killing the Muslims ruthlessly. The state officials were openly giving out weapons to the mob.”
Ironically, explanations of the violence –both in India and Pakistan – always have portrayed the killing as erratic and spontaneous, many with the aim of ‘blame displacement’. Each country floated the subsequent course of violence as a ‘reaction’ to the ‘action’ and in many cases as ‘self-defence’. But the execution of Jammu Muslims breaks the meta-narrative created around the communal killings during partition.
I can post more if you want?
Thanks.
