The following is third part of series of articles , in response to article “Truth about the martyrs of Kashmir’s July 13 carnage” by Sushil Pandit published by “Daily O” on 14-07-2015.According to Mr.Pandit “The state’s non-Muslim population suffers the humiliation of ‘commemorating’ their own tormentors as heroes every year on this day”. In other words Sushil Pandit is suggesting that ,those Kashmiri Muslims and other secular Indian who celebrate martyrs of 1931 uprising as heroes are actually celebrating tormentors of his community, well a proud Hindustani Muslim from Kashmir like me take strong exception to this allegation and propaganda academically . For first part, you may refer to following link : Kashmir Through Ages –V(a) 13 July,1931 –Martyr Day http://www.kashmirpen.com/kashmir-through-ages-va-13-july1931-martyr-day/.
For second part you may refer to , Kashmir Through Ages –V(b) 13 July,1931 –Martyr Day https://www.kashmirpen.com/kashmir-through-ages-vb-13-july1931-martyr-day/
30) CHAKDARI SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION BY PANDITS:- In 1862 Ranbir Singh introduced Chakdari System (Narniaz Chak )under which the waste or uncultivated land was allotted on easy terms for ten years. When lands fell uncultivated during the famine of 1877-79 during which lakhs of Muslim cultivators migrated to Punjab, Pandits took over huge areas of land claiming it as waste and uncultivated land. According to Mridu Rai, Hindu rulers and Muslim subjects,pp.157,
“On returning from Punjab Muslim cultivators found themselves ousted from their own land which they had cultivated for generations….The Kashmiri Pandits thereby made large profits vis-à-vis both the state and the cultivators .” At the start of this Chakdari System, the land was allotted through deeds or agreements issued directly by the Dogra durbar. With due course of time, this formality gradually lapsed and diwaans or revenue ministers who happened to be Pandits made such grants and allotted land under their own authority. This resulted in the consolidation of large land estates in Kashmir in favour of Kashmiri Pandits. Pandits devised new methods to increase their land holdings. With the help of the local tehsildar who happened to be a pandit, they used to acquire cultivated lands adjoining their wasteland. Many a time imaginary boundary disputes were raised with the tehsildar which would compel the cultivator to abandon the land which was then declared as waste or chak land and then transferred to a chakdari who always happened to be a Pandit. As Lawrence, the settlement commissioner pointed out: ‘it is remarkable that despite the misgivings by the Pandits that should have made the Dogra durbar more vigilant, Pandit officials were still able to transfer lands to themselves with astonishing ease and impunity.
TYPES OF CHAKS :
According to Wingate, op. cit p . 28,”Gave his consent to the allotment of Chakshanudi in favour of Hindus (Pandits and another caste Hindus ), which they could keep so long as they remained Hindus, and were in the state services and brought waste-land under cultivation. From 1880 Ishtihari Chaks were granted on easier terms. In the same year, Halkari Chaks were granted and the land was granted in lieu of wages and on a lump-sum basis. When all these checks were granted the grantee first of all ousted all the old cultivators so that he could destroy any proof of the land ever having been under cultivation before he entered it. They laid their hands on any land which was in their neighborhood. Wingate, cit. pp. 29— 30. The Report mentions the instances of land held by Pandit Badri Nath in excess of the grant as under,”Diwan Badri Nath got a grant of a deserted government garden and with it was included some land he had brought from a woman and which was staffed, on what authority does not appear, to be assessment free.
For the lot, he was to pay Rs. 48/- per annum. A few Tears later# he brought some more land for Rs. 100/- imperial), which he included with the first lot but although in the position of the governor at the time did not think it necessary to add anything to his assessment. That, however, is a trifling omission far from first to last he has never paid even the Rs. 48/- and his agent says the item is adjusted in his masters pay. This, however, seems hardly likely as there is no entry in the accounts that this money is due. The land measures nearly eight kharwars, or nearly 32 acres, the end is gradually converting itself by lapse of time into a muafi tenure-
31) MUSLIM MORTGAGED TO PANDIT SAHUKARS
: -Gawasha Nath Kaul described the poor conditions of the Valley’s Muslim population in his book “Kashmir Then And Now” and in it, he wrote that 90 percent of Muslim households were mortgaged to Hindu money lenders.
According to, Bose, Sumantra (2013), Transforming India. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674728202. “Indeed, in a book titled Kashmir Then and Now, published in 1924, Gawasha Nath Kaul, a Kashmiri Pandit, painted a Dickensian picture of Srinagar Gawasha Lal Koul, Kashmir Through the Ages, p.122., beggars, thieves, and prostitutes abounded along with disease and filth, and 90 per cent of Muslim houses [were] mortgaged to Hindu sahukars [moneylenders]….local Muslims were barred from becoming officers in the princely state’s military forces and were almost non-existent in the civil administration. In 1941 Prem Nath Bazaz, one of a handful of Kashmiri Pandits who joined the popular movement for change that emerged during the 1930s and swept the Valley in the 1940s, wrote: the poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. Dressed in rags and barefoot, a Muslim peasant presents the appearance of a starving beggar…Most are landless labourer’s, working as serfs for absentee landlords…”
32) TORMENTOR OF KASHMIRI MUSLIM “PANDIT RAJ KAK AND PANDIT WAZIRPANNU’’ :
When Gulab Singh got the power in 1846 A .D., he stayed in Kashmir for some time and in 1905 B(1849) left Pandit Raj Kak Dhar in charge of Kashmir and himself went to Jammu .This practice was always continued; whenever the Dogra Maharajas remained outside Kashmir the administration was mainly conducted by the Governors (Khanyari, Waiiz-ut-Tawarlkh, op. cit . f . 195).
Although, I have mentioned, the barbarism of Pandit Raj Kak Dhar in my previous articles , but I would like to bring few important about him here as well( Refer to http://www.kashmirpen.com/international-labour-day-revisiting-massacre-of-first-labour-union-of-the-world/#).Like his father Pandit Birbal Kak ,Pandit Raj Kak ,was the person who stabilise the Dogra occupation and brought us lot of miseries .
a) According to Pandit Prithvi Nath Koul, History of Kashmir, pp.670,: “The Maharaja is said to have remarked as his first visit to the valley, that he got nothing in return for 75 lac of rupees …with the help of Raj Kak Dhar his advisor, he organized the revenue administration.’’. Thus we can it was Raj Kak Dhar who Stabilized Dogra occupation in Kashmir which led to persecution of Kashmiri muslim. So it was Pandit Raj Kak who requested Gulab Singh to stay and promised surplus money by taxing poor innocent Muslim peasants aforementioned in my article .
b) Pandit Raj Kak Dhar used to pay peanut salaries to Muslim shawl peasants ,but if they refuse to work for his handlooms he used to torcher them and to save themselves from Pandit Raj Kak, muslim Peasants used to cut their thumbs so that they will be handicapped to work for kharkhandars, let me quote Pandit P N K Bamzai,pp..673, “The weavers might or might not work but he had to pay (taxes) no wonder , 22 shawl weavers are said to have cut off their thumbs in order to be disabled to pursue the profession of shawl weaving’’ .
c) PRIME MINISTER PANDITWAZIRPANNU STARVED 60 PERCENT MUSLIM OF KASHMIR TO DEATH:
The oppressive, barbarian policies of Dogras reached its heights during the Premiership of Islamophobe Pandit Wazir Pannu. It was during his time that another famine broke out end he left the people to die and did not work for their redemption or to get them out of this.
i)The great revenue expert of his time, Walter Lawrence approved that when he started settlement of the land everything save air and water was under taxation. Even the office of the gravedigger was taxed,Walter Lawrence, The Valley of Kashmir, p. 5.
ii)Interestingly, according to reports received by Lawrence, not a Pundit died of starvation during these annihilated years for the Muslim cultivator as they had the right to food, mentioned earlier in point number.
d)Let’s understand the issue with its full context, among all the famine of 1877-79 was most destructive. There occurred the scarcity of food and resulted in the famine. According to Mirza Saif-ud-Din, Akbarrat, Vol. I, ff.52-53, (Persian Source, Research Library University of Kashmir,”The hungry people, “when dying from scarcity found a substitute for their usual food in fish, and was punished for eating it for the simple reason that the soul of late Maharaja Gulab Singh had transmigrated into the body of a fish according to the Hindu theory of the transmigration of soul” .
According to, Gamar-ud-Din Mirza, Roznamcha, Vol. XII, f . 5, dated 10 January 1860,” Similarly, some people, who, due to hunger, ate fish, were punished severely, some were cleaned, their faces rubbed black and then kept standing on Zaina Kadal bridge to serve as a warning for others.’’
e) Starving Muslim peasants drowned in the Wular lake to save food:- According to A. Neve, Thirty Years in Kashmir, Lippincott, London, 1913. p. 30-31.”Pandit Wazir Pannu to punish the Mohammedans, who had the previous year sent a deputation to complain to his highness of the exactions of one or two of his chief officials…..And there were gruesome stories of the rapacity of many of the officials in buying up rice and retailing at huge profits, through other contributed to relief funds. There was even a rumour that some hundreds of starving people had been purposely drowned in the Wular Lake, to which colour was lent by the student death of an eye-witness and informer within a few hours of making the report”
f) According to, Pandit P. N. Bazaz relates the somewhat same, The History of the Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir, p. 132,” In 1877 ‘some unknown Kashmiris’ had submitted a memorandum to the Viceroy. The accusations of maladministration levied in it were of gravest character the most serious charge made was that ‘in order to save the expanse of feeding his people’ the Maharaja, Ranbir Singh, had preferred to drown boat-loads of Muslims in the Wular Lake.”
g)Pandit P.N.Koul Bamzai in, History of Kashmir, pp.685, states,” he( Pandit Raj Kak Dhar) was accused of having drowned people by boatloads in the Wullar lake during the famine so as to be saved of the expenses of feeding them,’’
h)According to Tyndale Biscoe (Kashmir in Sunlight and Shade) the Hindus survived because many of them were fed out of Government warehouses (TyndaleBiscoe, Kashmir in the sun light and shade, op.cit., p.90)
i)Hiding genocide of Muslim “Saal e Gadder”: Somehow another pundit tried his best to hide the forced starvation and oppression of Kashmiri muslim from rest of world, according to Thorpe Robert, Kashmir Misgovernment (E & R) F. M Hassnain, Gulshan Books Srinagar, 1980.p. 45. ,” Pandit Har Gopal, who was a pleader informed the British Government in order to stop them to migrate one hundred famine-stricken people were got drowned in the Wular Lake ‘’.
During Pandit Wazir Pannu governorship, according to Hassan, Tarikh-i-Hassan, Vol, II, p. 550, “wazirPannu deliberately destroyed available food grains and the conditions of peasants (note peasants were Muslims) were deteriorated by the famine. The Wazir ordered that searching of houses be made, and wherever paddy is available, be taken forcibly. As a result, the country reeled under famine. The price of paddy at once soared to sixteen rupees per kharwar. The date of this famine was acknowledged as “Saal Gadder”. It means that unhappiness of Wazir and his subordinates were responsible for damages of State”.
According to Letter from Walter Lawrence, Settlement Officer, to Colonel R. P. Nesbit, Resident in Kashmir, dated 2nd December 1889, Foreign Department (Secret E) Pros. February 1891/nos. 295-326, National Archives of India (NAI),” Yet, more surprisingly, Wazir Punnu, Pundit Prime Minister during these famine years is said to have declared that there ‘was not real distress and that he wished that no Musalman might be left alive from Srinagar to Ramban (in Jammu); It justified incidents of extreme cruelty towards Muslim cultivators.”
j)Stripping Naked: Pandit Wazir Pannu used to strip down the clothes of Muslim peasants and make them naked, According to Letter from Walter Lawrence, Settlement Officer, to Colonel R. P. Nesbit, Resident in Kashmir, dated 2nd December 1889, Foreign Department (Secret E) Pros. February 1891/nos. 295-326, National Archives of India (NAI),” the humiliation of stripping them naked for their failure to pay revenue(ibid).” The Muslims of valley especially the villagers were dealt within such were dealt with within such an inexpressible, inhuman and unjust manner as was unimaginable, unspeakable manner. Hassan narrates one such incident, “ (However, a tehsildar of Zainagir named Thakur Koth stripped naked the Mukadam named Lasi Mir, tied his penis with the rope and the end of the rope was put in the hands of his daughter to parade through the city. The Mukadam of Butango and his wife were also stripped naked.
An instrument, pencil was brought from the blacksmith put into the hand of the Mukadam and was asked to insert it in the womb of his wife and pull it, A lighting stick was lit and inserted into the womb of the wife of Sabir Bhaf Zamindar of Lolab, A person who was Nazir was raided by Ram Chand and urine was poured into his mouth. In this way the people were subjected -to various tyrannies and difficulties, even the tongue has not the courage to explain them.
k)Rahdari:- According to, Mridu Rai, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects, permanent Black, 2004, p. 151,” and Pandit PNK Bamzai, History of Kashmir, pp.685, Many attempted to escape Punjab, but at the barriers troops were stationed to prevent the migration of the people’’. These things are not easily forgotten and the Kashmiri proverb, “Drag tsalih dag tsalihna,” which means that “the famine goes but its stains remain,” is full of truth in all senses and the country has not yet recovered from the awful visitation of 1877.
Lawrence recalls that “ harrowing tales are told of fathers of families getting past the barrier by bribing the guardians of the passes while wives and children’s were left in Kashmir to die ”(Lawrence, The valley of Kashmir, pp.213)
l) Forced exodus of Kashmiri Muslim by Pandit Raj KakDhar and PanditWazirPannu:- Harassed, tortured and murdered by barbarian like Raj Rak Dhar, Pandit Wazir Pannu , Kashmir Muslim start to migrate from their motherland.
According to, Lawrence Walter, Valley of Kashmir, Kesar Publ. Srinagar, 1967, p.215,’’At the end of A.D. 1878, however, the old system of Rahdari under which no man could leave the valley without the permission, was given up, and some of the weak survivors tottered over the passes to the Punjab, many dying in the way’’.According to, Mohammad Yousuf Saraf’s Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, op.cit., p. 297,’’Harrowing tales were told of the fathers of families getting past the barrier by bribing the guardians of the passes, while the wives and children’s were left to die in Kashmir ‘’.
Ghulam Ahmad Mehjoor, who is considered a national poet of Kashmir, has critically summed up the nature of their periodical migration by versifying.
Gare hyeud aaseh may ane bachnek mayane hyeuda asehai kanh intizam
Faerhan ma wandeh rachen darbadar bekar maen
Had there been opportunities of my survival within my home;
My unemployment would have not been roaming during the dread nights of winter.
According to, Imperial Gazette of India ,1909, J&K,. The enormity of migration was such that in 1891 AD,’’The Punjab Census Report enumerated about 111,775 Muslim born in Kashmir as having settled in the Punjab ‘’.This was equivalent to the entire population of Srinagar.
Against this scenario, the Kashmiri Pandits the pressure of scarcity to migrate, for they were a privileged class, whose official power enabled them to seize all the available grain, Lawrence, The valley of Kashmir, pp.213.
i) Economical Suppression of Muslim:- To suppress Muslim, Wazir Punnu ordered that the central market be shifted to Khatri Hindus and pandit dominated Maharaj-Ganj instead of Jamie Masjid, Nowhatta bazar which was the central market right from the Muslim rule in Kashmir and dominated by Muslim businessman ).
m) British condemnation intervention and end of Pandit Wazir’s Muslimophobe barbarism :
i) According to, Henvey, Report on Famine in Kashmir. Foreign Dept, Feb. 1883 File No. 86, NAI, New Delhi,” The Government of India deputed Hon’ble Cunningham, President of Indian Famine Committee, and Anderson Assistant Commissioner from Sialkot to enquire into the famine conditions in the State. He was accompanied by F. Henvey, the officer on special duty in Kashmir. They met the Maharaja Ranbir Singh on 20th October 1878. After obtaining full information about the famine in Kashmir and decided the steps so far taken to meet the situation. The effect of the famine lasted long, and for years after the valley did not recover from this awful visitation. Lawrence quoted in his book, Valley of Kashmir., op.cit., p. 216 “when I commenced the work of inspecting villages in A.D 1889, there was hardly a village where I did not see deserted houses and abandoned fields, the owners of which had perished in the great famine of A.D.1878” .
Afterward, a complaint was received by Dogra ruler from English government about mismanagement of affairs in the State during the famine. In this context, the written documents and printed magazine about the condition and destruction by famine and presented to Maharaja Ranbir Singh. His contemporary historian, Peer Ghulam Hassan Khuihami, “prepared a memorandum in Persian verse and submitted the same to Maharaja Ranbir Singh. It had the desired effect and the people were delivered of the tyranny of Wazir Pannu and relief measures were ordered by the Maharaja [Ghulam Hassan Khuikami, Tarikh-i-Hassan, Vol. I, p. 464]. After reading this papers Maharaja was deeply pained and at the same time he deputed Dewan Anant Ram for making arrangements during the famine. At the same time, the roads were also opened. Pandit Wazir Pannu after seven years rule was dismissed under the order of English government [Ghulam Hassan Khuihami, Tarikh-i-Hassan, Vol. I, p. 464].
ii)Residents in Kashmir:- In 1884 the Viceroy, Lord Ripon, argued that the appointment of a Resident in Kashmir was called for’ both ‘by the need for assisting and supervising administrative reforms’ but also to obviate disturbance on the Afghan frontier. source: Letter from the Government of India to the Secretary of States for India, dated 7 April, 1884, Foreign Department (Secret E)/Pros. May 1884/nos. 354-57, National Archives of India, NAI )
At the same time, the Govt, of India, impressed on the Maharaja “the necessity for consulting (Resident) at all times, and following …. (his) advice.47 Hence, Sir Olivier St. John was appointed as the first Resident with enormous powers. The powers of the Residency were further enhanced after Pratap Singh was divested by the British government of his powers to govern on 17 April 1889, after he was allegedly accused of conducting treasonable correspondence with Tsarist Russia and of plotting the assassination of the resident in Kashmir, as also of his own brothers, the Rajas Ram Singh and Ammar Singh. He was forced to abdicate his powers in favor of ‘State Council’, whose members were to be appointed by the Government of India. However, he was allowed to continue as a titular chief of the state and it was only in 1905 that he was again restored with full authority.(source: Letter for Sec. Of Government o f India Dated 1 August 1884, as cited above.
Foreign Department (Secret E)/Pros. August 1889/nos. 162-203 National Archive of India; Foreign Department notes (Secret l)/P ros . November 1 9 0 5 /nos. 37-40, NAI)
Pandit Har Gopal about the dismissal of Pandit Wazir Pannu: Pandit Har Gopal Koul Khasta defined the barbarian Islamophobe Pandit Wazir Pannu as follows,Koul, Guldast-i-Kashmir, Part I I, p. 224. ,” This man was industrious, experienced and good administrator, but was arrogant, vindictive, merciless, miserly, and defiant.
The people of Kashmir were sick of his cruel rule. This time he has gone to the mountains of Jammu but it is on the lips of everybody that after destroying the people of Kashmir he has gone to destroy the people of mountains.’’
He further says, the same Wazir Punnu exercised tyranny on the people and was removed from his office in 1865 (ibid). He was followed by another Islamophobe governor, Deewan Kripa Ram who wrote a propaganda book in criticism of Islam, Radd-i-Islam.
(Note : You can Download the PDF of “The Valley of Kashmir ‘’ by Walter R. Lawrence by following the following link : https://archive.org/details/valleyofkashmir00lawruoft via@internetarchive
Dr. Eshraf Zainulabideen can be reached at zainlala69@gmail.com
