The cultivators were , thus the key instruments for generating economic activity and accelerating productivity in the Lord’s dominions, As the real creators of the material wealth of the kingdom they worked assiduously for the comfort and pleasure of the Royalty , the nobility ,the Urbane Elite and the Priestly class and in return got too little to keep themselves and their families going. Strained as they were , barely could they eke out their own existence and survival .They had no power over the land they ploughed and cultivated and no entitlement to its periodic yield. Neither the physical possession of the land made them its owner;nor did their own tiring tasks and to toiling long hours in the fields-with no respite-enable them to benefit from its produce. They were denied both the ownership as well as the fruit of their inexorable labour. Very little was left with them to manage to survive for the ordeal and tribulation of the next season’s arable farm duties.
The relationship between the ruled and the ruler was in likelihood not much different from that of a serf to his lord. It was demanding, damning and arduous enough to make the villagers completely meek, timid, docile and subservient to the authority that had absolute control over the land and its pro-duce. Though required to intensify their output by working relentlessly in the King’s holdings from dawn to dusk and against all odds, they were left with too little provisions to subsist on. ‘The Monarchy had already made it abundantly and repeatedly known to the public that they would not be allowed to retain more food than they needed for bare sustenance and “nor more oxen than wanted for the tillage of their fields’.
The principal concern of Kashmir Monarchy was, thus, to make certain that the subject people remained diligently busy in promoting the fertility of the soil and agriculture fruitfulness and never thought about severing their connection with farming: the main source of the country’s economy and re-wires of the establishment. It was totally against their accumulating wealth which it regarded as an appetizer for poor man’s acquisitiveness; an intoxicant that made the villagers totally indifferent towards agriculture and whetted their greed for worldly comforts and lured them to an urban life style; a phenomenon fraught with the consequences of creating an intractable problem that was very difficult for the King to deal with.
Not allowing any such situation to impinge on the productivity of the State lands. The Monarchy, therefore, set in motion mach stricter curbs on the agriculturists to keep their interest in farming and allied works intact and growing without a halt and distraction. It suppressed completely the feelings of compassion and empathy wherever noticeable in the administration and reined inall such tendencies that were likely to hurt its interests and spoil its coffers deviously, and prevented the subjects from abandoning rural life; the life support of Monarchy.The people were reduced to such an abject penury that they could scarcely come above the starvation level to dream about a space outside their villages amidst the urban hustle and bustle. To throttle them furtherand scuttle their aspirations fully they were awarded unimaginable punishments even if they committed no offence. King Miharakula surpassed all world records of spitefulness and cruelty when he killed an inestimable number of Kashmiris (3 crores according to one estimate) for no fault of theirs and, thereby, earned the disrepute of the “destroyer of human beings”, He used to be surrounded by thousands of murdered human beings, He had neither pity for children nor any compassion for women, sick or old”, His approach was noticed by the appearance of vultures and crows soaring into the air impatient to feed on those slaughtered by him. He didn’t even hesitate to take out the foetus of pregnant women and annihilate completely the families whose womenfolk he didn’t consider righteous. Such an obnoxious treatment was bound to instill fear in Kashmiri people and coerce them to resort to lowliness and take recourse to dishonest means and make them too timid to bear insults, humiliation, degradation and even extermination; an attitude for which they have been constantly censured and condemned by all those who have come in contact with them at different periods of history.
To gear up its exploitative device and make it more ruthless in its manifestation the State issued yet another brawny dose of royal decree which came to be known as Kar-i beggar or corvee .lt resulted in forcibly dragging people out of their hearths to carry loads to distant places; in numerous requisitions for different products of daily use free of payments; and in the imposition of fines, on those who dared to defy the command, by the value of the load they were supposed to carry. On occasions people were fined even after carrying their fixed loads.
To be continued
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
