Jammu and Kashmir in the Freedom Struggle

In our previous chapter, we saw how Subhas Chandra Bose took the fight for India's freedom beyond the country's borders, building an army to challenge the British Empire. But while the Indian National Congress and the INA were fighting the British directly, a parallel, equally intense struggle was brewing in a different setting: the Princely States.

India before 1947 was not a single political entity. There was "British India," ruled directly by the Crown, and there were over 560 "Princely States," ruled by local kings, nawabs, and maharajas who had accepted British paramountcy. The people in these princely states faced a double burden. They were indirectly subjects of the British Empire, but directly, they were subjects of autocratic, often feudal local rulers.

The freedom struggle in the princely states, therefore, looked different. It was not just about throwing out the British; it was about overthrowing local feudalism, demanding basic human rights, and establishing democracy. Nowhere was this struggle more complex, dramatic, and historically significant than in the largest of these states: Jammu and Kashmir.

If you want to understand modern Jammu and Kashmir, you have to understand the 1930s and 1940s. This chapter will walk you through exactly how a politically silenced population woke up, organized themselves in secret, faced bullets, built a secular mass movement, and ultimately demanded that their ruler "Quit Kashmir."

The Foundation: The Treaty of Amritsar and Dogra Rule

To understand why the people of Jammu and Kashmir revolted, we first have to understand how the state was formed and how it was ruled.

The modern state of Jammu and Kashmir was created in 1846. After the British defeated the Sikh Empire in the First Anglo-Sikh War, they demanded a massive war indemnity (penalty) that the Sikh Empire could not pay. To settle the debt, the British decided to sell the territory of Kashmir, which was then part of the Sikh Empire.

They sold it to Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, who had remained neutral during the Anglo-Sikh war. This transaction was formalized in a highly controversial document.

For the next century, the Dogra dynasty (Maharaja Gulab Singh, followed by Ranbir Singh, Pratap Singh, and finally Hari Singh) ruled the state.

The Socio-Economic Reality of the Masses

While the rulers built a unified state, the socio-economic conditions for the common masses—particularly the peasantry in the Kashmir Valley—were incredibly harsh. The administration was highly centralized and autocratic. There was no democracy, no freedom of the press, and no right to form political associations.

The most crushing burden on the common people was the taxation and land revenue system. The state claimed ownership of almost all land, and the peasants who tilled it were heavily taxed, often leaving them with barely enough to survive the harsh winters.

Worse still was the system of forced labor.

Education was scarce, poverty was rampant, and the administration was dominated by a small elite, leaving the majority population feeling entirely unrepresented in their own governance. This was a pressure cooker waiting to explode. All it needed was a spark.

The Seeds of Awakening: Education and the Reading Room Party

By the 1920s, the world was changing. The Indian national movement under Mahatma Gandhi was making headlines. The ideas of democracy, liberty, and socialism were spreading globally. But how do you spread these ideas in a state where political parties are strictly banned and the press is heavily censored?

The answer came through education.

In the early 20th century, a small number of young men from Jammu and Kashmir began traveling outside the state to pursue higher education. They went to institutions like the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and colleges in Lahore. There, they breathed the air of political freedom. They read about the Russian Revolution, they watched the Indian National Congress mobilize millions, and they debated human rights.

When these young graduates returned to Srinagar in the late 1920s, they were highly educated, politically conscious, and completely unemployable—the state administration had very few jobs for them.

Frustrated by the lack of opportunities and deeply moved by the poverty of their people, these young men wanted to organize. But because the Maharaja's government had banned all political organizations, they had to be creative.

In 1930, they rented a small room in the Fateh Kadal area of Srinagar and started a club. They called it the Reading Room Party.

The Reading Room became the underground headquarters for political awakening. Young graduates would gather there, ostensibly to read newspapers from British India, but actually to draft memorandums, plan protests, and discuss how to challenge the autocratic rule.

Among these young men was a tall, charismatic graduate from Aligarh Muslim University who had just returned with a Master's degree in Chemistry. His name was Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. He would soon become the towering figure of J&K's political history.

The Flashpoint: The 1931 Central Jail Incident

By the summer of 1931, the tension in the state was palpable. The Reading Room Party had been quietly mobilizing the masses. Small incidents of religious and economic friction were sparking protests. The Maharaja's government, sensing trouble, began cracking down on public gatherings.

The explosion finally happened in July 1931, triggered by a man who wasn't even a local Kashmiri.

Abdul Qadeer was an employee of a British army officer who was vacationing in Srinagar. Qadeer attended a public gathering at the Khanqah-e-Moula shrine. Moved by the grievances of the local people, he stood up and delivered a fiery, impassioned speech against the Maharaja's autocratic rule, urging the people to rise up and fight for their rights.

The state police immediately arrested Abdul Qadeer for sedition.

Because public anger was boiling over, the government decided it was too dangerous to hold his trial in a regular open court. Instead, they decided to hold the trial inside the premises of the Srinagar Central Jail.

July 13, 1931: The Day That Changed J&K's History

On July 13, 1931, the day of Qadeer's trial, thousands of people gathered outside the Srinagar Central Jail. They were unarmed, but they were angry, demanding to see the trial and demanding Qadeer's release.

As the crowd surged forward, the situation escalated. The state police, panicked by the sheer size of the mob, opened fire on the unarmed protesters.

Twenty-two people were killed in the firing. This brutal event sent shockwaves throughout the state and the rest of India.

July 13, 1931, is considered the watershed moment in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. It was the day the political struggle was baptized in blood. The fear of the autocratic state was broken. The people had faced bullets, and there was no going back. (For decades, July 13 was officially observed as Martyrs' Day in the state).

The Glancy Commission and the Praja Sabha

The 1931 massacre brought immense bad press to Maharaja Hari Singh. The British Indian government, watching the chaos, intervened. They advised the Maharaja to look into the grievances of the people before the state spiraled into total rebellion.

In response, the Maharaja appointed a commission of inquiry headed by a British officer, B.J. Glancy.

The Glancy Commission (appointed in 1931, reported in 1932) was tasked with investigating the socio-economic and religious grievances of the people. The commission's report was a damning indictment of the state's administration. It confirmed what the Reading Room Party had been saying all along: the masses were heavily overtaxed, underrepresented in government jobs, and denied basic educational facilities.

The Glancy Commission recommended sweeping reforms, including:

1. 1Better representation of locals in state services.
2. 2Protection of religious places.
3. 3The establishment of a legislative assembly to give people a voice in the government.

Forced by the circumstances, Maharaja Hari Singh accepted the recommendations. In 1934, he established the Praja Sabha (State Legislative Assembly).

Despite its severe limitations, the Praja Sabha was a crucial first step. It gave the emerging political leaders a formal platform to voice their demands.

Institutionalizing the Struggle: The Muslim Conference (1932)

Protests and reading rooms are good for sparking an awakening, but to sustain a long-term political struggle, you need a formal organization.

In October 1932, the leaders of the movement, primarily Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas from Jammu, came together to form the state's first major political party: the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference.

Sheikh Abdullah was elected as its first President.

In its early years, the Muslim Conference focused on the immediate grievances of the majority community, who were the most economically and educationally deprived under the Dogra rule. They demanded fair representation in government jobs, the return of confiscated lands, and the protection of basic rights.

However, a profound ideological shift was about to take place.

The Secular Shift: Birth of the National Conference (1939)

As Sheikh Abdullah and other leaders traveled across the state and engaged in the daily struggles of the people, they began to realize a fundamental truth about their fight.

They realized that the crushing poverty, the heavy taxation, and the lack of democratic rights were not just hurting Muslims—they were hurting the poor Hindus of Jammu, the Sikhs, and the Buddhists of Ladakh just as much. The real divide in the state was not between different religions; it was between the rich, feudal elite (the landlords and the courtiers) and the poor, oppressed masses (the peasants and the laborers).

Furthermore, the leaders of the Muslim Conference were increasingly coming into contact with the leaders of the Indian National Congress, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru and Abdullah developed a deep personal and political friendship. The secular, socialist, and democratic ideals of the Indian national movement began to heavily influence the Kashmiri leadership.

Prominent non-Muslim leaders within the state, such as the Kashmiri Pandit intellectual Prem Nath Bazaz and the Sikh leader Sardar Budh Singh, began working closely with Sheikh Abdullah. They argued that to truly defeat autocracy, the movement had to unite all the people of the state, regardless of their religion.

On June 11, 1939, a historic special session of the Muslim Conference was held. In a monumental decision, the party passed a resolution to change its name and open its doors to all citizens of Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of their caste, creed, or religion.

The party was reborn as the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.

This was a masterstroke. It transformed a communal grievance movement into a secular, progressive, and nationalist mass movement. The National Conference aligned its goals with the broader Indian freedom struggle: the end of feudalism, the establishment of a secular democracy, and the empowerment of the peasantry.

The Blueprint for the Future: 'Naya Kashmir' (1944)

By the 1940s, the National Conference was not just fighting against the Maharaja; it was fighting for a specific vision of the future. They didn't just want to remove the king; they wanted to completely restructure society.

In 1944, the National Conference adopted a comprehensive political and economic manifesto called Naya Kashmir (New Kashmir).

Drafted with the help of progressive left-wing intellectuals, the Naya Kashmir manifesto was incredibly radical and ahead of its time. It was essentially a blueprint for a socialist welfare state.

Key features of the Naya Kashmir manifesto included:

• Land to the Tiller: The absolute abolition of the feudal landlord system (Jagirdari). Land would be taken from the massive absentee landlords and given directly to the peasants who actually farmed it.
• Democratic Constitution: A demand for a fully elected democratic government with a constitutional head, stripping the Maharaja of his absolute powers.
• Women's Rights: It explicitly guaranteed equal rights for women in all spheres of life, including the right to equal pay and the right to vote—a highly progressive stance for 1944.
• Right to Work and Education: The state would guarantee employment, free education, and healthcare for all citizens.

The Naya Kashmir manifesto became the rallying cry for the masses. It gave the poorest peasant a concrete reason to join the political struggle: the promise that the land they bled on would one day belong to them.

The Climax: The 'Quit Kashmir' Movement (1946)

In 1942, Mahatma Gandhi had launched the famous "Quit India" movement, demanding that the British leave India immediately. Four years later, as it became clear that the British would soon be leaving, the political temperature in Jammu and Kashmir reached its boiling point.

In May 1946, Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference launched the 'Quit Kashmir' movement.

The core argument of the Quit Kashmir movement was a direct attack on the foundation of the Dogra rule: the Treaty of Amritsar. Sheikh Abdullah argued that the 1846 treaty was an illegal "sale deed" where the British had sold the land and its people like cattle. He demanded that the treaty be abrogated (canceled) and that the Maharaja hand over power to a democratically elected government.

The Maharaja's response was swift and brutal. The state government declared martial law in many areas. The military was called out, and a massive crackdown was launched against the National Conference.

Sheikh Abdullah was arrested on May 20, 1946, while trying to leave the state for Delhi to consult with Jawaharlal Nehru. He was tried for treason and sentenced to three years in prison. Thousands of National Conference workers were thrown into jails.

Nehru's Arrest at Kohala Bridge

The Quit Kashmir movement deeply intertwined the state's struggle with the national freedom movement. When Jawaharlal Nehru heard of Sheikh Abdullah's arrest and the brutal crackdown on the Kashmiri people, he immediately rushed toward Kashmir to defend his friend and support the movement.

However, the Maharaja's government banned Nehru from entering the state. When Nehru tried to cross the border into J&K at the Kohala Bridge in June 1946, he was arrested by the state forces.

The arrest of the man who was soon to be the first Prime Minister of independent India by a princely state's police caused an absolute uproar across the country. It cemented the ideological alliance between the Indian National Congress and the National Conference. Both were fighting the same enemy: imperialism and its local allies (the autocratic princes).

As 1946 drew to a close, Sheikh Abdullah was in prison, the state was under a severe crackdown, and the British were preparing to partition and leave the subcontinent. The stage was set for the dramatic and turbulent events of 1947, which would finally see the end of autocratic rule and the integration of Jammu and Kashmir into the democratic Republic of India.

Quick Revision

• Treaty of Amritsar (1846): The British sold Kashmir to Dogra ruler Gulab Singh for 75 lakh rupees, establishing the autocratic Dogra rule.
• Begar System: A cruel system of forced, unpaid labor imposed on the peasantry by the state.
• Reading Room Party (1930): The first organized political group in J&K, disguised as a reading room in Srinagar to bypass the ban on political parties.
• July 13, 1931: The turning point. 22 unarmed protesters were killed by state police outside Srinagar Central Jail during the trial of Abdul Qadeer.
• Glancy Commission (1931-32): Appointed by the Maharaja to look into public grievances; led to the creation of the Praja Sabha (the state's first legislative assembly) in 1934.
• Muslim Conference (1932): The first major political party, founded by Sheikh Abdullah and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas.
• National Conference (1939): The Muslim Conference renamed itself to become secular, opening membership to Hindus and Sikhs, aligning with the broader Indian freedom struggle.
• Naya Kashmir (1944): A radical, socialist manifesto adopted by the National Conference demanding land reforms (land to the tiller), democracy, and women's rights.
• Quit Kashmir (1946): Launched by Sheikh Abdullah against the Maharaja, demanding the cancellation of the Treaty of Amritsar and the establishment of a people's democracy.
• Nehru's Arrest: Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested at Kohala Bridge in 1946 by state forces when he tried to enter J&K to support the Quit Kashmir movement.