Labour week is being celebrated all over the world but unfortunately very less intellectuals know this labour day traces its bloody origin from Kashmir where Massacre of ‘’First Labour Union of the world’ happened in 1865 .
“It was the first ever recorded agitation against the exploitative work system of capitalist. It was a big event in the global context as it took place much before the historic May Day of 1886.
The nature and character of the revolt implies that it was likely the first organized voice for freedom of the artisan classes of Kashmir against the deteriorated economic conditions.
British Sold Kashmiris with its land to Gulab Singh :
The British Government transferred and made over, forever in independent Possession, to Maharaja Gulab Singh and the heirs male of his body, all the hilly and mountainous country, with its dependencies, situated to the eastward of the river Indus and westward of the river Ravi,including Chamba and excluding Lahore, being of the territories ceded to the British Government by the Lahore state. In consideration of this transfer, Maharaja was to pay 75,00,00 lacks of rupees and “to present annually to the British Government one horse, twelve perfect shawl goat of approved breed (six male and six female) and three pairs of Kashmir shawls” (Robert A (1968) Kashmir as an Imperial Factor during the Reign of Gulab Singh (1846-1857). Journal of Asian History 2: 77-108.)
The agreement between British and Maharaja Gulab Singh; the peoples interest was not at all taken into consideration. In the words of the Chrispother Thomas “the people never asked for it, never wanted it, and never loved it” Thomas C(2000) Faultline Kashmir. Uxbridge Brunel AcademicPublishers p: 17.
Capitalist Pact between Gulab Singh , Khatri Diwan Jawala Sahai and Pandit Raj Kak Dogra :
Foreign occupational Dogra rule was actually an advanced capitalist pact between Gulab Singh , Khatri Diwan Jawala Sahai and Pandit Raj Kak Dogra to extract money from poor Kashmiris and must be understood in the backdrop of few important events. In order to understand it, I will summarise it in few points :
- i) According to book by MriduRai,( Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects 2004). Kashmir’s native Hindu Pandits dominated the revenue department which collected taxes from Muslim cultivators. Due to their dominance in the revenue department, the Pandit community came to hold large land holdings. Despite being a small percentage of the Valley’s population, the Pandit community possessed 30 percent of land in the Valley.
- ii) When Gulab Singh occupied Kashmir with treachery he was supposed to pay 75 lac to Britian and this amount was not possible for him to pay at that time .A Khatri capitalist came to rescue of Gulab Singh , according to Pandit Jai Lal Kilam , (History of Kashmiri Pandits ,pp 274) ‘’ Gulab Singh was greatly assisted Khatri Diwan Jawala Sahai. He arranged money for him ( to be paid to Britian) .
And according to pact , Gulab Singh made him first Prime Minster of Kashmir and Gulab Singh aimed creation of Punjabi Hindu ruling class in Kashmir ,besides this the commerce also goes into hands of Khatris. Almost all the shops of only commercial hub of Kashmir (present Maharajjung) were taken over by Khatris and Pandits.
According to Kilam pp.277 Gulab Singh raised pandit Raj Kak as governor of Kashmir .
iii) When Gulab Singh occupied Kashmir in 1846 with the help of British army, soon he realised that he must leave Kashmir as it will not fetch him any monetary benefit in terms of taxes from poor Kashmiris who were already screwed by foreign occupation of Mughals, Afghan and Sikhs .
It was Pandit Raj Kak Dhar who persuaded him to stay back and assured him that revenues will come if he let handle the Taxation and revenue departments and full military back up even if he goes to any extent in screwing the poor ‘Kashmiri peasants’. These peasants were mostly Sunni Muslims according to ( Pandit P.N.K. Bamzai,History of Kashmir ,pp.691).
Salary of shawl weavers:
Before 1833 A.D, the duty of shawl was levied at 3 Annas per rupeesof value. Afterwards, Gulab Singh was to fall upon the artisans especially. He imposed heavy taxes on this industry and imposed other duties such as poll tax of Rs 47 per annum on each shawl weavers and he also charged an Ad valorem duty of 25 percent on each shawl. A tax of Rs.96 per annum per shop was fixed and extended to 1000 shops. In the face of such oppression, the workers started fleeing from the Valley.
Gulab Singh imposed tax on every shop at Rs. 120 per shop and Rs. 60 per annum for new shops { Ahmad B (1999) Gazetteer of India. Govt of Jammu and Kashmir State, Kashmir Region.}
Commenting upon the decline of the shawl industry in Kashmir the great son of soil Prem Nath Bazaz says, ‘it is a sad commentary on the economic progress of Kashmir during the reign of the Dogras that such a gigantic industry which supported lakhs of poor people and supplemented the meagre income of a large part of the peasantry by keeping them employed during idle months of winter, became almost extinct in 1925. The charkha which was a prominent part of the household property in Kashmir lost its vigor and importance too.’(Bazaz, Inside Kashmir, pp. 7-8.)
Evolution of labour mass movement :
Though the origin of the shawl goes to much earlier times, but it was not until the Mughal period that the industry achieved its full potential.
Bernier who visited Kashmir in 1665 with Aurangzeb says, ‘what may be considered peculiar to Kashmir, and the staple commodity which particularly promotes the trade of the country and fills it wealth is the prodigious quantity of shawls which they manufacture and which gives occupation even to the little children travelers—A. Mitra, Notes On the Arts and Industries in Kashmir, Honorary Curator, Sri Pratap Singh Museum,Srinagar, 1906.
The value of shawls exported in 1862 was £171,709 to £491,44128 – Census of India, 1921, vol. xxii, 1921, pp. 180-2.
The shawl industry occupied a key position in the non-agrarian economic setup of Kashmir, and that its condition was relatively better during the Sikh period than during the subsequent years when the Dogras ascended the throne. That the shawl industry and its decline had a direct bearing on the people of Kashmir whose financial backbone was broken down by Pandit Raj KakDhar. During Gulab Singh’s rule (1846-1857) there were 27,000 weavers working at 11,000 looms but the wages paid to the workmen were miserably low.
As mentioned earlier Government gave Shawl industry to the Raj Kak Dhar on contract; he paid to the state Rs 12 lakh. The weavers had thus to pay Rs 49 each and they were again kept under the charge of Kharkandars.
Almost all the households in the city of Srinagar and other areas were fully or partially, directly or indirectly, involved in this industry and derived some kind of economic advantage. Of course, the industry formedthe considerable source of revenue to the government, but it went beyond limits in taxingthe industry.The Afghans had no taxation policy; they devastated Kashmir without any rules of the game. The Sikhs did have a taxation policy, which was tough and harsh in nature. The Afghan governor Karim Dad Khan, introduced the institution of Dagshawl; yet it were the Sikhs and Dogras who firmly rooted this institution in the soil of Kashmir and enjoyed its fruits at the cost of the weaver (with the help of local Kashmiri Capitalist ,Pandit Raj KAK) Dhar, Kashmir A Kaleidoscopic view, p. 41.
Von Schonberg, a traveler to Kashmir, has given a comparative description of the conditions of the people associated with shawl-making.
He notes that ‘They will never allow the workmen the ready money, the government provides clothes, firing and other household necessities, charging as usual a 100 % profit. This is managed very skilfully and so arranged that the poor artisan is always in debt and I will add that the shawl weavers seem to be most unfortunate…the childhood of the weavers children ceased abruptly at the age of five, when they were considered old enough to work on the looms and contribute to the family’s merger budget and thus another human being enters on a career of wretchedness and rears children, who in turn, become heirs to his misery… Later under Maharaja Gulab Singh their lives became even more intolerable. Shawl weavers were required to pay still more tax and a new law was introduced forbidding any weaver whether ill or half blind or old and tired, to abandon his loom unless he could find someone to replace him. They were also forbidden to leave the valley…and those who succeeded joined other expatriate weavers in the Punjab.’( Keenan, Travels in Kashmir, p. 197. John Irwin, The Kashmir Shawl, London, 1955, p. 9.)
Subsequently, the duty was raised to rupees 120 per shop. The shawl weavers were greatly underpaid. On 6th June 1847, they struck work, and about 4,000 shawl weavers set out for Lahore (A Handbook of Jammu and Kashmir State, 1927, NAI, p. 23).
CONDITION OF SHAWL WEAVERS :-
About the shawl weavers called Khandawao Dr.Elmslie says, ‘there were 23,013 shawl weavers in the valley of Kashmir, all Mohammedans, and are most miserable portion of the population, both physically and morally. Crowded together in small and badly ventilated workshops, earning a mere pittance, and insufficiently nourished, they suffer from chest infection, rheumatism and scrofula. When a woman wishes her neighbour ill, she says may you get a shawl weaver for a husband!’( Charles E. Bates, A Gazetteer of Kashmir, p. 33.)
First recorded Labour revolt of the world against against capitalist :
The labour class of Kashmir associated with the shawl weaving manifested a spirit of revolt against the intolerable conditions. Faced with starvation, the shawl weavers of Srinagar chose to fight.Their historic revolt on 29thApril 1865was an event of far reaching significance. In 1865, shawls worth 254,000 British pounds were exported from Kashmir, but weavers got peanuts. Most of them made around Rs 5 to Rs 7 a month and that too after working 16 -18 hours a day. The tax had come to be known as the Dag Shawl and Pandit Raj Kak Dhar was appointed as its inspector by the Dogras as per pact mentioned earlier ,Pandit Raj Dhar tried to achieve the target with utmost brutality. He wooed the factory owners and the burden of taxes was put on the poor weavers. The weavers were also directed to remain faithful to their respective factory owners. They could not change profession or migrate from Kashmir.
Dhar started his office in the centre of Srinagar city, at Saraf-Kadal and in his first order announced a tax of Rs 49 annually for every shawl weaver. Pandit Raj Kak enjoyed full support from the Dogra Government for his anti-people activities and used the military might of the Dogras to collect the imposed tax from the poor weavers. At First, Shawl weavers had decided to meet Dogra minister Wazir Nipoon and apprised him of the hardships and miseries meted out to them. But the Dogra minister did not pay any heed to their problems. The weavers’ delegation then met Governor Kashmir Diwan Kripa Ram. Shawl weavers were represented by Ali Pal, Sona Shah, Kadalala and Rasul Shiekh. Governor was already briefed by Wazir Nipoon and Raj Kak not to hear anything from the delegation. The shawl weavers’ delegation was denied entry to meet The Governor and came back, now they decided to organize a rally to project their problems and miseries in which common people also participated in good numbers. The protests were held after Fajr Prayers of April 29 outside the house of Pandit Raj Kak Dhar, in the city’s Zaldgar locality
Historians say Dhar misinformed the Dogra army that he was being attacked. As the protesters reached Zaldagar, the Dogra troops (400-500 in number) led by Colonel Bijoy Singh rounded off the demonstrators and asked them to disperse. When the unarmed protesters refused to do so, the troops fired at them and later charged them with spears; the troopers stormed the protesters and herded them towards a narrow bridge on KutKul. During the ensuing stampede several Shalbafs were drowned in Zaldagar Kanal. There are some reports which suggests that about 40 shalbafs died in this stampede but according to Thorpe the number is six. The bridge, Hajj Rathar Sum, collapsed; twenty-eight protesters were drowned and over 100 sustained wounds (Saraf, Kashmiris Fight for freedom, p. 291. Khan, Freedom Movement in Kashmir, pp. 79-80.)
First custodial killing of Kashmir :
The Maharaja also desired that as directedearlier, punitive fines be imposed on workers Patwaris and others, who hadtaken part in the agitation, he further desired that punitive fines be realised from all the agitators and their leaders be arrested and punished. The agitation was suppressed ruthlessly.
First custodial killing of Kashmir Its leaders that is Sheikh Rasool, Abli Baba, Quda-Lala and Sona Shah ,Paul were arrested and bought to the Shergarhi Palace and beaten mercilessly and strapped . They were thrown in a Dungeon. Shaikh Rasool and Abli Baba died of these atrocities. In the meanwhile, a heavy fine of Rs 50,000/ each was imposed on all leaders. And when it came to light that they were poor , it was proposed to reduce to Rs 25,000 in each case . But the Maharaja did not agree to this remission, for he wanted to make it a test case and example for his subjects .The other two leaders were sent to Jammu to be imprisoned in the Bahu Fort. Besides, the above, hundreds of agitators were arrested and imprisoned in the prison of Habak. Most of them died of cold and starvation.
Pt. Raj KakDhar was the main conspirator, instigator and supporter of Maharaja in ruthless dealing with the shawlbafs. Some Pandits helped government in the arrest of Muslim shawl workers and their relatives. The government of British India deputed some officers to enquire into these atrocities, but could not sympathise with the miseries of the people. After all they had themselves suppressed an uprising of 1857 mutiny, in which the Dogras had whole heartedly supported Britishers, and they could in no case encourage such movements in the native state.
The Shalbafs also carried a mock coffin of Raj Kak who died within few months of this mock funeral.
Pandit Raj kak’s Sectarian politics card :
The majority of the weavers at that time belonged to the one sunni, while the manufacturers and owners were from other Noor Bakshi Shia sect . Raj Kak was very cunning and played the card of sectarian politics to his advantage. He created an air of confusion between the weavers and the manufacturers and divided them which later resulted in the clashes between the two sects. Huge loss of life and property was witnessed and the city of Srinagar was put under the control of Dogra army who resorted to many barbaric and heinous crimes against the people including extortion, looting and gang rapes and Raj Kak Dhar named it “Raefizz Looth” just to hide own barbarism.
Raj Kak knew that lava against them was building up among the masses. So they wanted to divert this anger and break this newly established unity of Kashmiri Musalmans. And the card they used and played at that time was Shia-Sunni “strife”. About this “plan”, Justice Saraf writes, “This tragic incident was soon followed by a clash between weavers and their employers. It was a coincidence that the employers happened, mostly, to be Shias while the weavers were Sunnis. Pandit Raj kak and his associates successfully channelled it into a ‘sectarian’ strife to divide Muslims into two hostile religious camps so that instead of directing their joint efforts and energies against his excesses, these could fritter away in mutual recriminations. Unfortunately they did, in some measure, succeed for a short time but ultimately the Muslims were able to see through the game”. (Kashmiris fight for freedom-P 291-292
Who was Pandit Raj Kak Dhar?
Raj Kak Dhar was the son of Pandit Birbal Dhar, who had instigated Ranjit Singh to attack Kashmir. Birbal had assured Ranjit Singh of bearing the expenses of the war. He sent his son Raj Kak to Ranjit Singh as a surety forbearing the expenses and later when Sikh general Hari Singh Nilwa and Kharak Singh took control of Kashmir, Birbal Dhar himself went to Lahore to congratulate Ranjit Singh for his victory in Kashmir.Ranjit Singh hearing the news sent his son free along with expensive gifts.
In A.D 1867 Taylor sahib came to Kashmir to inquiry into the conditions in Kashmir and to suggest reforms in the Maharaja’s administration. For some time he studied the local laws and revenue regulation. He called a general darbar in the Maisuma grounds (at Srinagar), and in a very loud voice he inquired “O you, the people of Kashmir, are you happy with the Maharaja’s rule or not.’ Some of the people who had been tutored by the Pandit Raj DharKak (a high government official) shouted back, “yes, we are.” When Taylor sahib heard this and he felt disgusted with the character of the people of Kashmir and went back to (British) India.
(Hassnain FM. British Policy towards Kashmir (1846-1921). Sterling Publication, Pvt Ltd New Delhi p: 32.)
When Gulab Singh occupied Kashmir 1846 with the help of British army but soon he realised that must leave Kashmir as it will not fetch him any monetary benefit in terms of taxes from poor Kashmiris who were already screwed by foreign occupation of Mughals, Afghan and Sikhs .
It was Pandit Raj Kak Dhar who persuaded him to stay back and assured him that revenues will come if he let handle the Taxation and revenue departments and full military back up even if he goes to any extent in screwing the poor ‘Kashmiri peasants’.These peasants were mostly Sunni muslim according to ( Pandit P.N.K. Bamzai, History of Kashmir ,pp.691).
Mass exodus of Kashmiri muslim :
The decline of world famous shawl industry reduced the urban artisan class to the lowest ebb of poverty and starvation. This also led mass exodus of Kashmiri muslim artisans to the various parts of Hindustan. These migrated Kashmiri artisans particularly shawl weavers played significant role in making the outsiders, especially, Punjabi Muslims aware of agony and distress of Kashmiris. This is endorsed by the support, Kashmiris received from Punjabi Muslims during their freedom struggle against the autocratic Dogra rule. There is a definite route through which these kashmiri shawl weavers moved out. They moved via Kishtwar and Bhaderwah to hilly kingdoms of Basholi, Chamba,Nurpur and Kangra etc. They also moved to Punjab primarily to Amritsar, Ludhiana and Lahore. They were also instrumental in establishing shawl industry in Amritsar and Ludhiana. Many kashmiri shawl weavers had settled in Basholi. .So were they employed by hilly kingdoms of Chamba, Nurpur, Kangra etc. you have a Pashmina shawl weaving tradition to this day in Basholi, Nurpur, Chamba and adjoining areas. The Phulkari of Punjab has some designs that are starkly kashmirian. And Amritsar was a second home of kashmiri shawl weavers. The tallest kashmiri sufi poet Shamas Faqir practiced shawl weaving for some time in Amritsar before his return to Kashmir. And then M.J Akbar ( Journalist , writer and Politician ) , Saif-Ud-Din Kitchloo (The great Nationalist leader from Punjab ) and Agha Hashr Kashmiri ( Urdu Playwright connected with Parsi Theatre ) belong to the families of shawl Makers/ Traders that had moved out from Kashmir.
This is the first strike observed by workmen anywhere in the world. Soon after, thousands of weavers migrated to Lahore via Shopian. A British officer, Lt. Reynell Taylor rushed to Shopian and persuaded the weavers to refrain from migrating to Lahore. Some grievances were taken note of.
Unfortunately this important date of our history has been forgotten or rather we have been made to forget it by Fidayeen cooperate commercial media. Our leadership which boasts about leading us from the front has failed to document the saga of these sacrifices. Whatever efforts have been made for documenting this important event have been on the part of some individuals while as leadership has shown cold response towards all such efforts. It’s time for them to stand up and move beyond rhetoric and their “normal” routines. Need is to record every single event of our glorious resistance movement. And this particular event is no less than a shining star of our resistance against autocratic Dogras. It’s our May Day. It’s the day on which Kashmiri Working class started its struggle against the atrocities of Dogras with new vigour and energy. It’s the day on which Kashmiri Muslims made their tryst with destiny. Let every effort be made to document our sacrifices so that in this struggle of hegemony against oppression.
