Kashmir Before The Accession and After

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Rattan Lal Hangloo is Honorary Chancellor, Nobel International University at Toronto, Canada. He was Vice-Chancellor, University of Allahabad and Kalyani University, and previously Professor and Head of the Department of History at University of Hyderabad. He is the author of Agrarian System of Kashmir, 1846-1900 (1995) and State in Medieval Kashmir (2000), and has edited the volumes Situating Medieval Indian State (1995); Approaching Islam (2005) New Themes in Indian Politics: Gender, Environment and Culture (2007): History of Science and Technology in India: Exploring New Themes (2011); and Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean: History, Culture, and Identity (2012).

SEVERAL INDIVIDUALS HAVE contributed their time and suggestions in the completion of this work. I would like to acknowledge all those individuals who have been a constant source of encouragement and help. I would like to express my gratitude to my great guru, Professor Harbans Mukhia, who patiently encouraged me and has been my great teacher, friend, and mentor. I could ask for no better contribution to my academic development at every stage. With his astute capacity for logical thinking, he often extended my arguments and made sense of them.

I am abo grateful to my friends Mr Surinder Nath Pandita and his wife Veena Bhat Pandita for their valuable suggestions and wonderful ideas.

Mr Pare Lal Pandita and Mr Bhushan Lai Dhar, who tirelessly and cheerfully searched out and acquired many sources necessary for this study, also deserve my gratitude. I have also learnt from many of my friends who have personally experienced the trauma of state repression and terrorism in Kashmir. I thank them for sharing with me the painful realities they have bravely faced. Some of these are Mr Vijay Kumar Raina, Mr Veer ji Saraf, Mr Rajesh Raina, Mr K.K. Bhat, Mr Ashok Kumar Bhat, Ms Urmilla Bhat, Mr Sudesh Kumar Bhat, Ms Vijay Bhat, Mr Anil Bhat, Mr Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, Dr Parvez Ahmad, Dr Fayaz Ahmad, Dr Javid Wanı, and Mr Maqbool Choudhry.

Aaj Kashmir kee who dilfareebi hai kanha, Dast-qudrat ney banaya thaa jitry janat nihan Baog marghayaa giyaa hai ujdaa huwa hai aachiyaan Ghat main sayad hain mam noon hai asho fugaan Bulbulon main howsla bagi nahey tameer ka Is nowaab adiriyasat main haidilee ka nizam Juke bhi shaba banaaya apney matlah ka gulam Markazi haathon main hain kaaray hakoomat ka qiyam Bandayee bay dam hain majboor Kashmiri auum Ha sasalut hartaraf es desh main andheyr kaa Eak anse yok bhi hai Kashmir key taqdeer kaa.

-HAFEEZ JALANDHARI

THE REGION OF KASHMIR, which has contributed significantly to the fields of politics, philosophy, history, literature, medicine, tourism, and craft making throughout human history, is today distraught and devastated because of the problems that confronted the process of the settlement of its political future after it became free from the Dogra rule in 1947. Today in the twenty-first century, when the world is on the path of social, economic, political, and technological transformation, Kashmir has been taken over by terrorism. There are critical questions that emerge when we try to look at the developments that have brought the Kashmiri society to this pass.

Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union in 1947 after India became independent, but before the relationship between the Centre (New Delhi) and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) could be restructured in viable political and administrative terms, the arrangement landed in a complexity of the worst sort. With independence came the partition of the country into two nation states-India and Pakistan. In this division millions of people lost their lives, and property worth billions was destroyed in both the countries because the partition happened along religious lines, resulting in communal violence between Hindus and Muslims. While the process of integrating various princely states into the Indian Union was going on, a large section of Muslims, including Kashmiris, refused to integrate with Pakistan in order to preserve their centuries old secular and multicultural tradition. Pakistan was quick to exploit the disturbances in Poonch (J&K) and sent raiders on 2 October 1947 to grab a large portion of Kashmir on its periphery, which today is referred to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The regional ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, acceded to India' and soon this accession was ratified by Kashmir's most popular leader, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who was the champion of anti- feudal struggle in Kashmir and also one of the tallest votaries of secularism in South Asia.