The founder of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Gulab Singh (left); and his son and heir Maharaja Ranbir Singh. (Shiv Kunal Verma/KaleidoIndia)
Gulab Singh got the tarnished reputation of a manipulator who ‘bought’ himself a kingdom. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth and the grant of de jure recognition as the master of Jammu and Kashmir can hardly be referred to as a ‘Sale Deed’. The fact is that Raja Gulab Singh was already in control of most of the area.
Bandrol, Kullu: The Treaty of Amritsar, between the East India Company and the Dogra ruler, Raja Gulab Singh on 16 March 1846 was a watershed, for it not only created the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir under the suzerainty of the British Indian Empire, it also virtually defined the southern, eastern and western boundaries of a new political creation that elevated the Dogras into being the key players controlling northern India. The war indemnity to be paid on behalf on the defeated Lahore Durbar was reduced from the original Rupees 1 crore to Rupees 75 lakh because the British wanted to retain strategic control on the territory between the Beas and the Ravi, which included the Kangra district of the Punjab because of the strategic value of Nurpur and Kangra forts. The territories over which Gulab Singh then had control as an independent ruler also included the area between the Jhelum and the Indus in which Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital of present day Pakistan, are situated. Since this area was too far removed from Jammu, Gulab Singh approached the British to exchange it for certain plain areas near Jammu. This resulted in the Jhelum instead of the Indus River becoming the western border of this kingdom. But the treaty left to further negotiation the actual boundaries of the state as well as the exact relationship J&K would have with British India. This ambiguity was every now and then exploited by both sides.
Lal Singh, the former commander of the Sikh army whose betrayal of the Khalsa had led to the Sikh defeat, had been rewarded by the British by being appointed the wazir to the post-war Henry Lawrence Lahore Durbar.An incredulous Lal Singh could hardly believe what was happening as Gulab Singh had emerged from the entire fiasco of the first Anglo-Sikh War like a cat that had swallowed the cream. In a desperate bid to thwart the Dogras, the Sikh Governor of Kashmir, Shaikh Imam-ud-Din, was asked by Lal Singh not to hand over the Kashmir Valley to Raja Gulab Singh. As the vanguard of the Dogra army reached the valley, it met with stiff armed resistance from the Sikhs, resulting in the death of one of Gulab Singh’s senior generals. Only after the British leaned on the Lahore Durbar, instituted a court of enquiry against Lal Singh and a new army was dispatched could Gulab Singh obtain possession of the Valley.
There was also a stipulation in this Treaty that catered for the British keeping a Resident or if necessary, an army in Jammu & Kashmir.The Maharaja however, recognised the suzerainty of the British Government in token of which he was to present annually to the British Government one horse, 12 hill goats and three pairs of Kashmiri shawls. Henceforth,the British Government of India concentrated on trying to reduce the Maharaja to the status of other princely rulers in British India, while the Dogra rulers of Jammu and Kashmir did their utmost to extend their territory, especially in the northwestern and northeastern regions of the state.
After the First Sikh War the British annexed Sikh lands east of the Sutlej and the areas in between it and the Beas; Jammu and Kashmir was detached and the size of the Sikh army limited. After the Second Sikh War, the boy-king, Maharaja Duleep Singh was dethroned by Lord Dalhousie and the Punjab was annexed to the British Empire. (Shiv Kunal Verma/KaleidoIndia)
After Shaikh Imam-ud-Din’s resistance fizzled out (he was arrested but exonerated after he produced letters from Lal Singh ordering him to resist the Dogras), Colonel Nathu Shah, who controlled Gilgit on behalf of the Lahore Durbar, also transferred his allegiance to the Dogras. By 1850, the Jammu and Kashmir kingdom included Jammu, the entire Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Baltistan and the Gilgit region. Gulab Singh’s carefully crafted boundaries now extended from the Punjab (British India) in the south to Tibet in the east, Sinkiang and Russia across the Karakorams and the Pamirs to the north while on the western flank the state bordered Afghanistan.
The confused state of affairs where the history of the Dogras and the Sikhs ran parallel, combined with the multiple machinations of the first Sikh War, Raja Gulab Singh’s role has been somewhat glossed over. Perhaps the very fact that Gulab Singh’s life was divided into two parts—the first in the shadow of the great Maharaja Ranjit Singh, while the second half blended with the expansion of the British Empire, has somehow given him the tarnished reputation of a manipulator who “bought” himself a kingdom. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth and the grant of de jure recognition as the master of Jammu and Kashmir can hardly be referred to as a “Sale Deed”. The fact is that Raja Gulab Singh was already in control of most of the area and would have in all probability fought for the territory if the British had tried to implement the Treaty of Lahore that preceded the Treaty of Amritsar. It is worth remembering that the British had actually approached him with the offer of granting him complete control of Jammu and Kashmir even before the negotiations had begun.
Gulab Singh’s stand of neutrality during the first Anglo-Sikh War has also cast a shadow over his reputation. Had he intervened militarily, there can be little or no doubt that the British would have lost the war, for despite various other cross-over artists, the Sikhs put up an extremely tough fight and it was touch and go for the British. Gulab Singh, however, as the Governor of Peshawar and the commandant of the Sikh forces in the first Anglo-Afghan War had seen the British operate at close quarters. Even though he militarily did not get involved, it was an open secret as we have noted earlier that he was advising the Lahore Durbar—advocating that the Sikhs do not get involved in a set piece ground battle but make a dash for Delhi itself. This advice was ignored by the other factions in the Lahore Durbar. Besides, the assassination of Gulab Singh’s brothers and family members just prior to the outbreak of hostilities was bound to embitter and distance the man himself from the Lahore Durbar.
The second Anglo-Sikh War took place in 1848 and 1849; beyond a point this had little impact on Jammu and Kashmir, even though Gulab Singh once again chose to remain neutral though he allowed his Sikh troops to fight for the Lahore Durbar. It resulted in the subjugation of the Sikh kingdom, for on 30 March 1849, Duleep Singh held his last court at Lahore, at which he signed away all claims to the rule of the Punjab. A proclamation by the Governor General of India, Lord Dalhousie, annexing the erstwhile remaining Sikh kingdom, was then read out. The annexation of the Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the East India Company was then complete.
Given the fractured state of affairs in the post-Ranjit Singh period, the Sikh defeat and disintegration of their empire was almost inevitable. Even Ranjit Singh had guessed that the British would strike after he was gone, and it is perhaps Gulab Singh’s abilities as both a military leader and a statesman that he managed to not only carve out a substantial amount of the area for himself but also created the foundation for it to remain free of the British yoke for the next hundred years. The immediate causes for the Sikh defeat, apart from the machinations of various vested parties in the Lahore Durbar, was the collapsing administrative system of the Sikhs, which resulted in large armies without proper logistical support. Also, the British played the Muslim card to perfection, especially in the frontier districts where they began their own recruitment, constantly playing on the fact that the Khalsa had subjugated them at the turn of the century. This led to a large number of Punjabi Muslims willingly fighting under British officers against the Sikhs. Finally, the British, having consolidated their hold over most of the country by then, also brought to bear overwhelming force against the Sikhs.
The Royal Dogra Coat of Arms.
Before we leave the Sikhs and move our focus back to Jammu and Kashmir, it is worth dwelling on the effects of the Sikh War for just a while longer. Within a short span of time, the sepoys of the Bengal Army, until then the iron fist of the East India Company’s armies in India, rebelled. The British called it a mutiny, the Indians the war of independence. For the Punjab, however, it was a chance to avenge the defeat inflicted by the sepoys on them during the Anglo-Sikh Wars and furthermore, the choice of Bahadur Shah Zafar as the symbolic leader, brought back painful memories of the earlier Mughal-Sikh clashes. The end result was that the Sikhs and the Gorkhas, perhaps the last two bastions to fall before the British held complete sway over most of India, ironically rallied to the rescue of their recent foe. Without the Sikhs and the Gorkhas on their side, it is unlikely that the British would have survived 1857 and then carried on for another 90 years.
Yet survive they did, and in the huge reorganisation that followed, not only did the British take Akbar’s land administrative methods and hone them into a new system under the Civil Service, they reorganised their army on Ranjit Singh’s methods as well, almost to the extent that even the colour scheme of uniforms for some regiments was taken from Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army. The loyalty and bravery of the Sikh and Gorkha troops who fought with the British in 1857 was rewarded by declaring these two regions as being “martial races”. The exalted status of the high caste Hindu troops of the Bengal army, recruited from what is now Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar, who had in reality captured and handed the British most of their Empire, was consigned to the dustbin of history.
The events of 1857 saw Raja Gulab Singh send his son Ranbir Singh with 2,000 foot soldiers, 200 cavalry and six heavy guns to help the British in the siege of Delhi. Even though Gulab Singh himself died in August 1857, Ranbir Singh kept the British appeased by sending a large amount of money to Punjab for the troops whose pay was in arrears. The “mutineers” were also forbidden to seek asylum in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. A grateful Queen Victoria conferred on Raja Ranbir Singh the title of the “Most Exalted Order of the Star of India” while at the same time his gun salute was raised from 19 to 21, thereby making him a Maharaja in every sense of the word.
Gulab Singh, having learned from the havoc that followed Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death, had personally handed power to his son and heir, Ranbir Singh, in 1856 while he himself decided to live out the rest of his years as the Governor of Kashmir.
From Gulab Singh’s point of view, Gilgit remained a problem area for him during his lifetime. In 1851, with the Rajas of Yasin, Hunza and Nagar, there was a major uprising in Gilgit, which resulted in the entire Dogra garrison stationed there being massacred, save a single survivor, a Gorkha woman, who swam across the Indus to tell the story of the disaster. This limited Gulab Singh’s frontier during his own lifetime to the Indus River, which flowed east to west in the region, after which it looped around the Nanga Parbat mastiff and entered the plains of the Punjab.
The equations were changing rapidly at all times. Having subjugated the Punjab by 1849, quite a few British officials now began to look at Kashmir with fresh eyes. The Governor General, Lord Henry Hardinge, considered to be the chief architect of the Treaty of Amritsar, was increasingly under attack from his own ilk for having “sold” Kashmir to the Dogra chief. Sir Charles Napier, who subsequently was to become the Commander in Chief, scathingly criticised the decision: “What a king to install! Rising from the lowest foulest sediment of debauchery to float on the highest surge of blood, he lifted his besmeared front and England adorned it with a crown? Cramming down the throats of the Cashmerian people a hated and hateful villain.” Others, equally scathing in their opinion, were also giving voice to the opposition to the treaty. Herbert Edwards, a British officer who served as an ADC to General Gough, wrote vis-à-vis Raja Gulab Singh: “He has the cunning of the Vulture. He sat apart in clear atmosphere of passionless distance, and with sleepless eye beheld the lion and the tiger contending for the deer, and when the combatants were dead, he spread his wings, sailed calmly down, and feasted where they fought.” The prose and sentiment, so typical of the British at that time, unfortunately seems to have been bought by most historians.
Pressure began to be put on Raja Gulab Singh to accept a British Resident as was the case with most other Indian princely states, but Gulab Singh held firm. The British once again decided to play the wait and watch game, hoping that like in the case of Ranjit Singh, Gulab Singh’s successors too would provide them to implode the state from within. But if Raja Gulab Singh had proved to be a tough “vulture” for the British to crack, Maharaja Ranbir Singh had further evolved into a “lammergeier”—the Dogras were there to stay.
After the First Sikh War the British annexed Sikh lands east of the Sutlej and the areas in between it and the Beas; Jammu and Kashmir was detached and the size of the Sikh army limited. After the Second Sikh War the boy-king, Maharaja Duleep Singh was dethroned by Lord Dalhousie and the Punjab was annexed to the British Empire.
------------------------------------------
Shiv Kunal Verma is the author of the highly acclaimed 1962: The War That Wasn’t and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why.
A TIMES NOW Exclusive, this documentary series gives an insight into the conflict-ridden region, showcasing facts as they are. The purely observational piece of storytelling is an honest attempt to showcase life in the Kashmir valley. Watch Kashmir The Story here. #Kashmir#KashmirTheStory#TimesNowWatch all videos here:
Post 1857 the British Empire reorganised itself, the Crown taking direct control from the East India Company. Unable to get a foothold within the state of Jammu and Kashmir during Maharaja Ranbir Singh’s reign, the British bided their time before moving in during the reign of Maharaja Pratap Singh (Shiv Kunal Verma/KaleidoIndia)
In 1905, it was decided to do away with the Dogra Dynasty completely, but the British machinations leaked it to the Calcutta-based Amrit Bazar Patrika, which took up Pratap Singh’s cause. The issue was raised by opposition leaders in the House of Commons, which resulted in Pratap Singh getting his powers as the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir back in 1905. However, for the Dogras, it had been touch and go.
Bandrol, Kullu:I first heard of the Gulabnama, written by Kripa Ram, from Tsering Angdu’s son, Rinchen, who said a copy written in Urdu and wrapped in red makhmal (velvet), had been with the Stakjing family for more than a hundred years if not more. Having already consumed a generous quantity of chang, the local Ladakhi brew made from barley, I was not sure if I had heard Rinchen correctly.
The last place I expected to find intimate details pertaining to the Dogra dynasty was in the village of Stok, situated on the other side of the Indus River from Leh. In the extreme winter, chang successfully does two thing—it makes you forget about the bitter cold, and secondly, it brings to the fore the philosophical side of men which until then was mostly latent, and so it was with Angdu who declared,
“our past is all around us. If we search, we will find the answers…and sometimes, even when we are not looking, some of those things will find us…”
Persian had been the official language of the Sikh Empire until 1837 after which Urdu and English came into vogue. Taking a cue from the Mughals, most North Indian states from the 16th century had adopted Persian as the court language and as a part of the prevailing culture, historical records, even if panegyric in nature, were maintained meticulously. Kripa Ram’s grandfather was Amir Chand, who had served under Gulab Singh as the madar-ul-maham (prime minister) and diwan and his father, Jwala Sahai also as the diwan had overseen the transition from the founder of the new state to Maharaja Ranbir Singh. Kripa Ram in turn had inherited the diwan’s position and also authored Gulzar-i-Kashmir. Subsequently, Gulabnama had been translated into English by Sukhdev Singh Charak and the details pertaining to the prevailing situation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir at the time are chronicled in great detail. Quite contrary to the picture painted by British writers of Gulab Singh who likened him to an opportunistic “vulture”, Kripa Ram establishes the Dogra ruler as a well-read man who particularly welcomed literary personalities in his court who is quoted to have said
“knowledge has no boundaries in terms of language, religion and ideology”.
Fortunately for the Dogra Dynasty, Ranbir Singh proved to be as astute as his father and also as much a survivor. In the immediate aftermath of the 1857 uprising and the brutal British backlash, he raised a large military force under Colonel Devi Singh, in which every Dogra family was asked to contribute at least one member. This military force also acted as a deterrent should the British decide to sweep into Jammu and Kashmir as a part of the reorganization of the British Empire. However, to keep the military force away from the British radar, the Dogras concentrated on bringing the recalcitrant Rajas of Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar into the fold of Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, when Chitral too accepted Ranbir Singh’s sovereignty in 1876, the north western boundaries of Kashmir were virtually sealed.
Ranbir Singh now turned his attention to internal reform and his reign was probably one of the most tranquil periods in Jammu and Kashmir’s history despite the British desperately trying to somehow get their foot into the door. His involvement in preparing the code of law, both civil and criminal, added immensely to his reputation. With equal care and with an eye for detail, he also organised the Kashmir Army on European lines, even though he retained the use of Sanskrit words of command. This only added to the frustration of the British, who could now only hope that the next in line to the Jammu and Kashmir throne would be more amiable to their interests. In 1873, the British made an attempt to force a British Regent on the state, but like his father, Ranbir Singh was equally firm in his refusal. However, during the second Afghan War, fought between 1878-1880, Dogra troops and artillery fought for the British, thereby keeping the show of loyalty to the crown. A note written by the Secretary of State for India, dated 19 October 1885 says: “So long as Maharaja Ranbir Singh is alive, the Government of India do not propose to make any change in their existing policy.”
After the annexation of Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar and Chitral, the state’s boundaries were more or less complete other than the northern extremities which were still in a state of flux. Geographically the state was now divided into the basins and catchment areas of three major rivers—from north to south, the Indus, the Jhelum and finally the Chenab rivers. The Indus drains the waters of Ladakh, Baltistan and the Gilgit regions before cutting south through the Himalayas into the plains of the Punjab. The Valley of Kashmir along with the districts of Mirpur, Poonch and Muzaffarabad formed the Jhelum basin, while the entire Kishtwar region and the Pir Panjal formed a part of the Chenab’s drainage system. Culturally and linguistically, the state could also be divided into six distinctly different zones, again running from the north to the south: Gilgit, Ladakh, Baltistan, the Kashmir Valley, Poonch and finally Jammu. Knitting all these diverse regions and cultures together was the Dogra administrative system.
Ranbir Singh died in 1885. The British were always at their dangerous best whenever any monarch died, for internal squabbling allowed them to exploit the situation to their advantage. Tales from the Panchtantra tell the tale of two people fighting over the division of a fish. The fox arrives at the scene, gives one of the opponents the head, the other the tail while it walks off with the main body of the fish. If the fox was dressed in the colours of the Union Jack, it would have given the tale an extremely realistic twist. True to form, mutual bickering between Ranbir Singh’s eldest son, Pratap Singh and his two younger brothers, Ram Singh and Amar Singh allowed the by now desperate British administration to imperiously step in and make the acceptance of a British Resident a pre-condition for giving recognition to Ranbir Singh’s successor. Even while the state was still in mourning, the British acted with amazing alacrity, with Sir Oliver St John, reaching Srinagar to take over as the first Resident.
As power politics played out between the Maharajas and the British Empire, the lot of the average man in Jammu and Kashmir as was the case in almost other parts of the country under colonial rule, remained pathetic. In the Kashmir Valley the Begar system further compounded the misery of the people. (Shiv Kunal Verma/KaleidoIndia)
With the Resident appointed and in place, Jammu and Kashmir was now at the same level as all the other Indian princely states. Among other things, the strategic implications of this move meant that there would be no troops in the subcontinent under the direct command of Indian officers. Already in the British Indian Army there were no Indian officers, those who did exist were only with the State Forces. Pre-1885, Jammu and Kashmir had been the only state in India which had an army that wasn’t under the control of the British.
Sensing an opportunity to now take over direct control of the state, and also reacting to Russian moves across the Parmirs (this period was when the Great Game reached its zenith) the Maharaja was formally charged with conspiring with the Tsar of Russia to overthrow the British from India. Pratap Singh was stripped of his powers and a five-member State Council was formed which ran the state’s administration, reporting to the British Resident. Chitral, Hunza and Gilgit now became frontline regions in British strategic thought and it was decided that direct control over these areas was a strategic necessity. A military campaign was conducted between 1889 and 1895 by the Jammu and Kashmir State Forces under the command of British officers. Subsequently, after the campaign ended, Chitral continued to remain under the British even though in theory it continued to be a feudatory of Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.
In 1891, London was literally taken by storm when Edward Frederick Knight’s book, Where Three Empires Meet, hit the stores. Paranoia about the Russians was always lurking under the surface, and the publication, which gave a graphic account of the campaign brought the strategic importance of Gilgit into the open. The immediate result of this was that the British now tried to get the entire region (what is now known as the Northern Areas under Pakistan’s control) under their own influence. A British political agent was stationed at Gilgit even though administrative control remained with the state government.
By then Maharaja Pratap Singh had all but completely lost the plot; however, he was lucky for the Political Department of the British Government of India overreached. In 1905, it was decided to do away with the Dogra Dynasty completely, but the British machinations leaked to the Calcutta-based Amrit Bazar Patrika, which took up Pratap Singh’s cause. The issue was raised by opposition leaders in the House of Commons, which resulted in Pratap Singh getting his powers as the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir back in 1905. However, for the Dogras, it had been touch and go.
The crisis having passed, the modernisation of the state under Pratap Singh had begun in right earnest—road links were established between the Valley and Rawalpindi, Abbottabad and Sialkot, and a host of educational institutions were started while a hydro-electric plant, one of the first of its kind, was set up in Mohra near Baramula. With the development of Gulmarg and Pahalgam as additional holiday destinations, Kashmir began to emerge as a major tourist destination. From a strategic and military point of view nothing much happened in Jammu and Kashmir during the next two decades. During this period, as World War I swept across Europe and other parts of the world, Maharaja Pratap Singh dispatched the 2nd Battalion of the Kashmir Rifles (a force of approximately 1,200 men) to fight for the British in East Africa.
Pratap Singh was succeeded by his nephew, Hari Singh in 1925. Having spent a fair number of his growing up years in England, the young maharaja speeded up the modernisation process in his state, particularly in the Kashmir Valley. Having watched the British play cat and mouse with his predecessor, distrust of the former was deeply ingrained in his mind. Unfortunately, today Hari Singh is remembered by most Indians and Pakistanis as a waffling, undecided maharaja who took too long to decide on the fate of his state in 1947, and hence contributed in a major way to the so-called Kashmir dispute. However, like Gulab Singh, he too has not got his rightful due from history; and is perhaps one of the most misunderstood personalities in the subcontinent’s history.
MISERY OF THE COMMON KASHMIRI
Until now, we have been looking at the Dogra and British perspective of the events as they unfolded hitherto the Amritsar Treaty. Reduced to a state of just being a statistic, the Kashmiris felt they were being bartered and sold in all directions. By all existing accounts, their economic condition was quite pathetic–a combination of an exorbitant taxation policy, the ban on land ownership and widespread corruption at the administrative level ensured that most people barely advanced beyond the survival level. Gulab Singh, determined to recover the Rupees 75 lakh to the British set the trend of exorbitant tax collection and his successors continued in much the same manner, with virtually every aspect of life being taxable—crops, fruit, grazing animals, handicrafts, carpet and shawl weaving, marriages, ceremonies and, according to some records, even prostitution! Yet in rural Kashmir, crime was virtually unheard of and the people rarely showed any signs of belligerence.
The state also introduced the begar system, whereby all subjects had to work on state projects such as road building when called upon. These created major problems for the local population at large for those drafted had no right to refuse and had to accept whatever little or no payment for their services. To make matters worse, most of this work could only be carried out during the summer months when the population most needed to tend to their crops. Begar had been officially abolished in accordance with the recommendations of Sir Walter Lawrence (Settlement Officer 1889-95), but in practice, the system had continued virtually unabated.
The grievances of the residents in the state were long standing. State ownership of all agricultural land, the forest administration, police severities, official control over the sale of silk cocoons, unequal taxation, and the partial payments of land revenue in kind instead of cash added to their poor economic condition. To make matters even more explosive, the majority of village schoolmasters, the civil and criminal courts judges, the revenue and forest officers, in fact, the local representation of every department was predominantly Hindu among a predominant Muslim population.
Most of the writers who chronicled the situation in Kashmir during the Gulab Singh/Ranbir Singh period were European, or as in the case of Diwan Kripa Ram, in the employ of the Dogra court. Without taking away from the credibility or observation powers of the westerners, it does seem that when it came to passing judgement on the governance of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the very same writers and observers became extremely critical. This despite the fact that the situation in most rural areas in the rest of northern India, under British administration, was equally grim! Had the rulers of Jammu and Kashmir resorted to the sort of barbaric acts that the British openly indulged in during the post 1857 uprising, they would have invited the wrath of the same British Raj which would have not thought twice before launching troops to annex the state to the British Empire. As we enter the last leg of the drama that led up to the subcontinent finally shaking off the yoke of colonialism, the British had to deal with an enigma called Hari Singh. In his own way, he would rock the Empire and leave a legacy which even today desperately seeks a solution.
----------------------
Shiv Kunal Verma is the author of the highly acclaimed “1962: The War That Wasn’t” and “The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why”.
