'The Kashmir Conundrum: Can the US Be an Honest Broker between India and Pakistan?' | | - Dr. Ramesh N. Rao |
Old History - Tracing the Origins
Hindu legend describes how Rishi Kashyapa prayed to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva and had Jalodbhava, the demon, beheaded with a discus. Kashyapa settled in the Valley which is named after him. He is also credited for bringing the first Brahmins into the valley where they settled permanently (Schoefield, 1996). According to Schofield, the Nagas were the first inhabitants of the valley, but around 800 C.E. Aryans from modern Uttar Pradesh moved there and predominated the lesser tribes. However, the whole Aryan/non-Aryan chronology as well as differences are now a matter of much debate (Elst, 1999), and one should be careful to accept claims the likes of Schofield.
Kashmir's early history is best recorded by Kalhana in his Rajatarangini (River of Kings) written between 1148 and 1150, and gives a wonderful insight not only into the period of ancient Kashmir but also of social and economic conditions in the region from the eighth century onwards.
Gonanda was the first known king of Kashmir, a relation and friend of Jarasandha, to whose rescue he went and was killed by Krishna. Jarasandha's son Damodara next became king, and to avenge his father's death fought with Krishna and was also killed. Damodara's son, Gonanda II next took the throne, and was followed by forty three other kings, most of them weak and insignificant.
Kashmir's first imperial period begins in third century B.C.E. under Ashoka who encouraged Buddhism, and built stupas and viharas in the Buddhist tradition. Ashoka also encouraged the building of Hindu temples, and founded the ancient capital Srinagari, five kilometers away from the present Srinagar, capital of the State. After Ashoka's death, the Mauryan empire disintegrated, and three centuries later Kashmir came under Kushana rule. Buddhism became the state religion. The Kushans were followed by local rulers, and under them Hinduism regained popularity. Kashmiri Shaivism took birth, and one of the kings, Nana, is said to have destroyed Buddhist viharas and granted Buddhist villages to Brahmins.
Mihira-Kula, a Hun general, became king in the first half of the sixth century, and was known as a very cruel king. After him, the local rulers once again became prominent, and the second Gonanda dynasty began. Hiuen Tsang, who visited the Valley in 631 had a mixed report on the Kashmiris: "They are volatile and timid; they are good-looking but deceitful. They are fond of learning and follow both Buddhism and Hinduism". The Karkota dynasty was ruling at the time of Tsang's visit, and one of the most important kings in that dynasty was Lalitaditya, who is believed to have gone as far south as the banks of the river Cauvery in South India on his conquests. Lalitaditya constructed one of the most magnificent temples, the Martanda temple, at a site now called Matan. A Hindu king who did not discriminate against Buddhism, Lalitaditya's rule of almost forty years, is considered as the heyday of Kashmiri culture. The Karkota dynasty collapsed in the middle of the ninth century, and Kashmir's history was then influenced by two women, Jayadevi and Didda. In Jayadevi's time and influence the King Avantivarman ruled Kashmir for twenty-eight years. His rule (855-883) is considered the most benign and prosperous for Kashmir.
Avantivarman's successor, Samkaravarman undid all the good work, and his followers were no better, thus bringing the Uptala dynasty to an end in 939. Didda, the other prominent woman, was the wife of Kshema Gupta, and she dominated Kashmir for fifty years, first as queen, then as regent for her children and grandchildren, and then as a direct ruler. Didda was said to have been beautiful, intelligent, and wayward, and supposed to have survived the politics of intrigue, murder and debauchery for about fifty years. The Lohara dynasty (1003-1101) was the next to rule Kashmir, and the last king in that dynasty, Harsha became infamous for plundering the temples and desecrating the statues of gods. During the second Lohara dynasty Jaya Simha, who ruled for twenty-eight years is remembered as a great king who brought both morality and stability to the kingdom. Following Jaya Simha, Kashmir came under the rule of weak kings who, over a period of two hundred years, saw to the decline of the region.
The first fatal blow to the Hindu kingdom came in 1320 when Dulacha, a Mongol warrior descended on Kashmir and laid waste to the land. In the words of Jonaraja, "Kashmir became almost like a region before creation". The first Muslim king, Shah Mir (1339-42) was said to have had a benign influence on Kashmir. His grandson, Shihab-ud-Din (1354-73) followed his tradition, and his rule is considered the most glorious epoch in the history of the Muslim sultanate of Kashmir. He was said to have been a just ruler and that he was generally tolerant of Hindus.
However, Islamic zeal reached fanatical proportions under Sultan Sikandar (1389-1413) who came to be known as "But-Shikhan" (destroyer of idols). Hindus were subjected to "jizia" (special tax) and ordered not to wear any marks on their foreheads. Sikandar's newly converted minister, Malik Saif-ud-Din (formerly Suha Bhatta) unleashed a reign of terror in the region killing Hindus and plundering their holy places. Muslims and Muslim rule became predominant in the region from then on. But Sultan Sikandar's son was just the opposite of his father, and he tried to undo what his father did. Zai-ul-Abidin's (1420-70) reign was described as "the cooling sandal paste after the heat of summer in a desert had departed" (Jagmohan, p. 52). His sons in turn were profligate and weak, and Kashmir's fortunes declined again. Factions of courtiers fought with each other, and Shia and Sunni rivalry became bloody. To cap it all, an epidemic swept the Valley in 1515-16 and devastated the people. It was in this wasted state that Kashmir saw the first Mughal ruler enter the Valley.
Mirza Haider Dughlat, who was in the service of Humayun, moved into the Valley in 1540 with only 400 soldiers and met with no resistance. Following his rule, which was beneficial, Kashmir was on the downward swing of the yo-yo again, and the region was rescued when the Mughals, under Akbar, established their full control in 1589. Kashmir was ruled through a governor, and soon gained some stability and normality. Akbar himself visited the Valley thrice, and the Mughal institutions and administrative practices were brought to the region. Akbar's successor, Jehangir, visited the Valley six times, as did his son Shah Jahan (the Mughal king who built the Taj Mahal). It was in Jehangir and Shah Jahan's time that the famous Mughal gardens were built in Kashmir. After Aurangzeb's death, the Mughal influence on the Valley began to wane, and it was the turn of the Afghans to rule Kashmir.
Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded Kashmir, and Kashmiris suffered for sixty-seven years under the brutal Afghan rule. The rule of Lal Khan Khattak and Faqir Ullah was said to have been especially brutal. Under Haji Karim Dad Khan and Asad Khan the Afghan misrule in Kashmir reached its nadir. In 1783, George Forster, an officer of the East India Company, visited Kashmir, and initially he sympathized with the Kashmiris. Later he wrote that "Experience has driven me to the conclusion that I had never known a body of men more impregnated with the principles of vice than the natives of Kashmir". The last Afghan governor, Jabbar Khan was defeated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and Kashmir came under Sikh rule in 1819.
The Sikhs ruled Kashmir for only twenty seven years, and except for a brief period under Kirpa Ram's governorship, their rule was neither benign nor just. They were better than the Afghans, and Hindus were treated slightly better, and the Muslims less so. Kashmiris were taxed exorbitantly by the Sikhs and the land was neglected. Enter the Dogras into the picture.
Gulab Singh was the founder of the Dogra dynasty which traces its ancestry to Raja Ranjit Deo, the ruler of the Jammu region from 1742 to 1780. Jammu was attacked by Sikh forces, and the Gulab Singh, then sixteen, defended it courageously. Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler, granted a number of regions, including Jammu to Gulab Singh. The Dogras acquired a dominant position in the Jammu region as well as at the court of Ranjit Singh. Gulab Singh sent his brilliant general, Zorawar Singh to conquer Ladakh, a strategic area bordering China and Tibet, in 1834. It came under Dogra rule and subsequently became part of the Indian republic.
Following Ranjit Singh's death Sikh rule came to an end through the Anglo-Sikh conflicts. Gulab Singh, wise and sagacious, did not confront the British, and while the Sikhs did so and lost, Gulab Singh tactically accepted the position of "subordinate alliance" to the British and secured a vast princely state. After the defeat of the Sikhs, two treaties were executed, the Treaty of Lahore in 1846 between the British and the Sikhs, and the Treaty of Amritsar, a week later, between Gulab Singh and the British. Kashmir thus passed on to the Dogras. The Dogra dynasty lasted about a hundred years but was always under the mercy of the British, and Jagmohan calls those hundred years the period of Dogra-British rule.
India-Pakistan-Kashmir: Modern History of Conflict
The birth of Pakistan was bloody. The reasons for the creation of Pakistan are mired in the bloody history of more than a thousand years. The conflict between two groups of people in the subcontinent, Hindus and Muslims, stretching over more than a millennium, finally resulted in the creation of Pakistan. Gandhi said India could be dismembered only over his dead body, but his threat was not sufficient to stop the division of India into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Democratic, Secular, Socialist (The term "socialist" was added in a later amendment to the Indian Constitution) Republic of India. The physical divide did not end, and has not stopped the conflict between the two countries. Again, this is not the place to recount the details or even summarize the events of 1948-49 or 1965 or 1971 (the three wars that India and Pakistan have "officially" fought), or of the 1972 Simla Agreement or the 1999 Lahore Declaration. What is important to note, however, is that all these events have still not resolved the conflict.
Pakistan was created out of "Muslim majority" regions, and some argue that Kashmir therefore should have gone to Pakistan (Akbar, 1985). According to Akbar two Kashmiris kept Kashmir within India: Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah. Mountbatten, England's last viceroy to India, and the man who oversaw India's bloody partition, wanted Kashmir to go to Pakistan, and it is said that the Kashmiris themselves didn't want to do so. M. J. Akbar, himself a Muslim, paints a benign picture of the Muslims in the Valley and how they had withstood the misgovernance of Hari Singh, the last Dogra ruler, and the usury of the Brahmin pandits. Sheikh Abdullah organized the Muslim Conference, though hypocritically and paradoxically he claimed that in the conference "We stand for the rights of all communities". So, the name got changed to "National Conference" in 1939 but it was and still is predominantly Muslim. He challenged Hari Singh and proclaimed that Kashmiris would never allow the Maharaja to decide what the future of Kashmir would be. Abdullah was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of sedition but both Gandhi and Nehru supported his cause and brought pressure on Hari Singh to release him.
When Kashmir was not ceded to Pakistan, Jinnah encouraged Pathan tribals to seize Kashmir. Nehru sent Indian troops to Kashmir, and he made Hari Singh sign the accession of Kashmir to India. Sheikh Abdullah insisted that the accession was temporary and only the people of Kashmir could decide, and Nehru made public that proviso. Nehru promised that the accession would be confirmed by a "referendum under international auspices like the United Nations" (Akbar, p. 239). Sheikh Abdullah was sworn is as Prime Minister (not Chief Minister) of Kashmir on October 31st, 1947. Pakistan continued the proxy war in Kashmir, and the Indian soldiers were able to push back both the regulars of the Pakistani army as well as the Pathan tribals. Nehru, foolishly, took the Kashmir case to the United Nations to bring pressure on Pakistan to withdraw from the parts of Kashmir it had occupied. Pakistan now argued that both India and Pakistan should withdraw their troops from Kashmir if an "honest" plebiscite could be held.
The Indian Constitution, which came into effect on January 26th, 1950 gave special status to Kashmir through Article 370. Sheikh Abdullah by then had begun to think of Kashmir as a separate country and wanted it to forge its own Constitution. M. J. Akbar claims that Abdullah had begun to have doubts if India would remain always secular, and if Kashmir would therefore be safe in Indian hands. He asked both India and Pakistan to withdraw their troops from Kashmir but neither would. He proposed a confederation of Pakistan, Kashmir, and India but Nehru would not have it. The ambivalence of Abdullah was all right for Nehru but not for other political parties. The Jana Sangh, newly minted, along with other Hindu groups as well as the Akali Dal of the Sikhs launched an agitation to challenge Sheikh Abdullah. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, the head of the Jana Sangh, entered Jammu in 1953, was arrested, and died of a heart attack in jail (There are rumors that he died in mysterious circumstances.) Sheikh Abdullah made a speech in July 1953 wherein he was supposed to have said that it had come time for Kashmir to say goodbye to India. The Sheikh was arrested and removed from office, and thus began a whole new chapter in Kashmiri history.
The period from 1953 until now is too complicated to capture in a short paper like this, but it needs to be pointed out that after many stints in jail, and in the wilderness, Sheikh Abdullah became Chief Minister (not Prime Minister) of Kashmir again, and his son, Farooq Abdullah is the present Chief Minister of the state. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan fought two more wars, one in 1965 and the other in 1971. Bangladesh emerged as a new country from what was East Pakistan. The shearing off of its eastern wing gave Pakistan more reason to shear Kashmir off India. China joined hands with Pakistan to play its wily game in the region, and the United States worsened the situation in the sub-continent when it used Pakistan as a conduit for arms to support the Afghani mujahiddeen in their fight against the Russians. The Russians lost, Afghanistan was reduced to a rubble state governed by fundamentalist and militant Muslims, and the trafficking in guns, heroin, and religious ideology increased in the decade of the 1980s and 1990s. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi billionaire and exporter of terrorism is now lodged in Afghanistan training wild-eyed believers in the Muslim faith to go spread havoc around the world and especially in Kashmir. Pakistan has supported this both overtly and covertly, and its most bold attempt to wrest Kashmir from India came last year when its own regulars and well-supported mujahiddeen occupied the icy heights in the Kargil region of Kashmir and threatened to overrun the state. India prevailed both diplomatically and militarily, and the United States now sees the Kashmir problem a little differently because of what militant Islam can do in the U.S. (Like the bombing of the World Trade Center) and around the world (like the bombing of its embassies in Kenya and Uganda).
References
- Akbar, M. J. (1985). India: The Siege within. London: Penguin Books
- Ambedkar, Bhimrao. R. (1990, reprint). Pakistan or partition of India, Bombay: Government of Maharashtra Education Department
- Barry Buzan, Gerry Segal. (2000). Anticipating the Future. New York: Simon and Schuster
- William R. Cupach, & Daniel J. Canary, (1997). Competence in Interpersonal Conflict. New York: McGraw Hill
- Koenraad Elst, (1999). Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan
- "Panun Kashmir for dialogue between Centre and Kashmiri groups", Indian Express, May 24th, 2000
- Jagmohan (1992, 2nd Edition). My frozen turbulence in Kashmir. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Ltd.
- "Secret diplomacy for Kashmir deal", Jane's Defence Weekly, May 2000
- Kamath, M. V. (May 25, 2000). "Will division of Kashmir solve the lingering dispute?", Free Press Journal.
- Schofield, V. (1996). Kashmir in the Crossfire. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers
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