Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:15, 31 December 2016

Kashmiris
کٲشُر لُکھ
कॉशुर लुख

Regions with significant populations
India	5,527,698 (2001)*
Pakistan	132,450 (1998)*
Languages
Kashmiri Hindi, Urdu, also spoken widely as second language
Religion
Predominantly: Islam Minorities: Hinduism Sikhism
Related ethnic groups
Other Dard people
*The population figures are only for the number of speakers of the Kashmiri language. May not include ethnic Kashmiris who no longer speak Kashmiri language.

The Kashmiris (Template:Lang-ks) are an Indo-Aryan Dardic ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley, located in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The bulk of Kashmiri people predominantly live in the Kashmir Valley-which is the real 'Kashmir' and does not include the other territories of the old princely state of Jammu and Kashmir such as Jammu, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir and Ladakh. Other ethnic groups living in the Jammu and Kashmir state include Gujjars, Dogras, Paharis, Baltis and Ladakhis. Although some residents of Azad Kashmir call themselves 'Kashmiri', most residents of that area are not actually ethnic Kashmiris.

Whilst Kashmiris are native to the Kashmir Valley, smaller populations of Kashmiris also live in the remaining districts of Jammu and Kashmir. Ethnic Kashmiris can be found in the Chenab region's Doda, Ramban and Kishtwar districts. There are also ethnic Kashmiri populations inhabiting the Neelam Valley and Leepa Valley of northern Azad Kashmir. Since 1947, many ethnic Kashmiris and their descendants are also found in Pakistan. Many ethnic Kashmiris from the Kashmir Valley also migrated to the Punjab region during Dogra and Sikh rule. Most Kashmiris today are Sunni Muslim but a sizable Hindu community also exists. Ethnic Kashmiri Muslims are descended from Kashmiri Hindus.

Origins

The archaeological and scientific evidence of life in Kashmir goes back to the Neolithic and the Pre-Historic times. The most important piece of evidence for this is the Burzahom archaeological site located on a 'karewa' between the banks of the Dal Lake and the Zabarvan hills, about five kilometers from the famous Mughal garden of Shalimar. After the discovery and excavation of Burzahom, other Neolithic sites were discovered in Kashmir at places such as Begagund, Brah, Gofkral, Hariparigom, etc. all located on karewas mainly in the south-east parts of the Kashmir valley. Burzahom translates as 'place of birch ' in Kashmiri. Burnt birch found in the excavations showed that birch trees must have been common in the area in the Stone Age. Plentiful food from the forests on the Himalayan foothills, an abundant water supply from the lake, and a raised location protected from seasonal inundation ensured that the Burzahom plateau remained continuously settled from the New Stone Age to the Early Historical period.

History

Religion and migration

Islam arrived in Kashmir starting with the conversion in 1323 of Rinchan, at the hands of the saint, Bulbul Sha. After conversion to Islam he called himself Malik Sadur-ud-Din and was the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir. He was subsequently killed by the Kashmiris. Since the arrival of invaders and the start of religious conflicts, before the Partition of India, many Kashmir Hindus and Buddhists migrated to other regions.

1800 Famine

In the year 1800 a severe drought swept across Kashmir and this caused many to migrate out of the Kashmir Valley, and south of the Jhelum River into Punjab. Those who migrated mainly entered into agriculture. When the drought passed in the 1820s many of the Kashmiri immigrants returned to the Kashmir Valley. However, many of the Kashmiri immigrants remained in the Punjab as they had settled comfortably in the Punjab.

Sikh Empire

In 1819 Kashmir came under Maharajah Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire and Sikh rule over Kashmir lasted for 27 years till 1846. These 27 years of Sikh rule saw 10 Governors in Kashmir. Of these 10 Governors five were Hindus, three were Sikhs and two were Muslims. Due to the fact that Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghan rulers, they initially welcomed the Sikh rule. However the Sikhs turned out to be hard taskmasters and their rule was generally considered oppressive. Scholar Christopher Snedden states that the Sikhs exploited Kashmiris regardless of religion.

The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim policies, subjecting the Muslim majority population of the Valley to a number of hardships in the practice of their religion. The central mosque, Jama Masjid, was closed for 20 years and Muslims were prohibited from issuing the azan (call to prayer). If a Sikh murdered a Hindu the compensation amount allowed was four rupees. However, if a Sikh murdered a Muslim the compensation amount allowed was only two rupees.

During the Sikh rule Kashmir had begun to attract European visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the Muslim peasantry and the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. According to some contemporary accounts, high taxes had depopulated large tracts of the countryside. Kashmiri histories emphasise the wretchedness of life for common Kashmiris during the Sikh rule. According to them, the peasantry became mired in poverty and migrations of Kashmiri peasants to the plains of Punjab reached high proportions. Several European travelers' accounts from the period testify to and provide evidence for such assertions.

The Sikhs lost their independence with the Battle of Subraon. In 1846 Kashmir came under the rule of Gulab Singh, a Hindu Dogra Maharajah under the British suzerainty.

Dogra Regime

The 100 year Dogra regime turned out to be a disaster for the Muslim peasantry of Kashmir Valley. Walter Lawrence described the conditions of the Valley's peasantry as being 'desperate' and noted that the Valley's peasantry attributed their miseries to the Maharajah's deputies rather than the rulers themselves. The state officials apparently kept the rulers from knowing the conditions of the Muslim peasantry in the Valley.

Lawrence in particular criticised the state officials who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community. Lawrence provided evidence that while many of the Kashmiri Pandit officials may have been ''individually gentle and intelligent, as a body they were cruel and oppressive.'' Scholar Ayesha Jalal states that the Maharajahs nurtured ties with Kashmiri Pandits and their Dogra kinsfolk in Jammu to trample on the rights of their subjects. Christopher Snedden also states that the Kashmiri Muslims were often exploited by the Kashmiri Pandit officials.

Wingate and Lawrence spent many months in the rural hinterland of Kashmir and in an unprecedented manner brought to the fore the tensions that underlay Kashmiri society between the interests of the Hindu Pandit community and the numerically preponderant Kashmiri Muslim cultivators. However, while both acknowledged the oppression of Kashmiri Muslims, the solutions offered by Lawrence and Wingate differed from each other. While both acknowledged the responsibility of the Kashmiri Pandit community in exacerbating the situation of the Muslim cultivating classes, Wingate was far more uncompromising in demanding that the privileges of the Pandit community be eliminated. However, Lawrence proposed to provide relief to Kashmir's cultivating class without eliminating the privileges of the Kashmiri Pandits.

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 moneylenders. Muslims were non-existent in the State's civil administration and were barred from officer positions in the military.

Prem Nath Bazaz, one of the few Kashmiri Pandits who joined the movement for change, described the poor conditions of the Valley's Muslim population as such:

The poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. Dressed in rags and barefoot, a Muslim peasant presents the appearance of a starved beggar...Most are landless laborers, working as serfs for absentee landlords.

There was a famine in Kashmir between 1877-9 and the death toll from this famine was overwhelming by any standards. Some authorities suggested that the population of Srinagar had been reduced by half while others estimated a diminution by three-fifths of the entire population of the Valley. During the famine of 1877-9 not a single Pandit died of starvation during these annihilative years for the Muslim cultivators, according to reports received by Lawrence. During the famine the office of Prime Minister was held by a Kashmiri Pandit, Wazir Punnu, who is said to have declared that there ''was no real distress and that he wished that no Musulman might be left alive from Srinagar to Rambhan (in Jammu).''

When lands fell fallow temporarily during the famine, Pandits took over substantial tracts of them claiming that they were uncultivated waste. Numerous Kashmiri Muslim cultivators who had left the Valley for Punjab to escape the devastation of those years found upon their return that they had been ousted from lands that they had cultivated over generations.

A large number of Muslim Kashmiris migrated from the Kashmir Valley to the Punjab due to conditions in the princely state such as famine, extreme poverty and harsh treatment by the Dogra Hindu regime (according to Prem Nath Bazaz the Kashmiri Muslims faced this harsh treatment because of their religion). According to the 1911 Census there were 177,549 Kashmiri Muslims in the Punjab. With the inclusion of Kashmiri settlements in NWFP this figure rose to 206,180.

Culture

Kashmiri cuisine and culture has been greatly influenced by Central Asian and Persian culture. Kashmiri culture is defined in terms of religious values, Kashmiri language, literature, cuisine and traditional values of mutual respect. The overwhelming majority of Kashmiris are Muslims and Islamic identity plays a very important role in the daily lives of people. Kashmiris across the religious divide have for centuries shared cordial and friendly ties. Kashmir has been noted for its fine arts for centuries, including poetry and handicrafts. Shikaras, traditional small wooden boats, and houseboats are a common feature in various lakes and rivers across the Valley.

Cuisine

Kashmiri cuisine holds a unique place among different world cuisines. Rice is the staple food of Kashmiris and has been so since ancient times. Meat, along with rice, is the most popular food item in Kashmir. Kashmiris consume meat voraciously. Salted tea or Noon Chai is the traditional drink and is cooked in a samavar, a Kashmiri tea-pot. Kehwa, traditional green tea with spices and almond, is served on special occasions and festivals. Kashmiri weddings are regarded incomplete without the Kashmiri traditional food known as wazwan, which is typically spicy food cooked by the traditional cooks (waz). Wazwan is a multi-course meal in which almost all the dishes are meat-based.

Language

Kashmiri (/kæʃˈmɪəri/) (कॉशुर, کأشُر), or Koshur, is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley and Chenab regions of Jammu and Kashmir. According to many linguists, the Kashmiri language is a northwestern Dardic language of the Indo-Aryan family, descending from Middle Indo-Aryan languages. The label "Dardic" indicates a geographical label for the languages spoken in the northwester mountain regions, not a linguistic label. UCLA estimates the number of speakers as being around 4.4 million, with a preponderance in the Kashmir Valley, whereas the 2001 census of India records over 5.5 million speakers. According to the 1998 Census there were 132,450 Kashmiri speakers in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. According to Professor Khawaja Abdul Rehman the Kashmiri language is on the verge of dying out in the Neelum Valley.

Kashmiri is believed to be the only one among the Dardic languages that has a written literature. Kashmiri literature dates back to over 750 years, comparable to that of most modern languages. Kashmiri poets and writers like Mehjoor, Abdul Ahad Azad, etc. enriched the literature with their poetry.

Characteristics

Physical features

According to French traveller Francois Bernier the Kashmiris are celebrated for their beauty. Kashmiris were considered 'well-made' like the Europeans. Marco Polo observed that the beauty of Kashmiris was superb. Fair complexion and prominent noses are the hallmarks of Kashmirs. The fair skin and long noses of Kashmiris suggest that they have a Semitic origin. One theory suggests that they are descended from the lost tribes of Israel however there is no actual evidence for this theory. Bhandari remarks that one is usually struck by the marked ethnic differences between Kashmiris from other races in India and Pakistan.

In 2011 a survey by Gilani Research Foundation/Gallup Pakistan found that 55 percent of Pakistanis considered Kashmiris and Pashtuns to be the best looking people in the country. 29 percent rated Kashmiris as the best looking people while 26 percent rated Pashtuns as the best looking people.

Behavioural features

After Mughal rule, Kashmiris came to be regarded as a 'non-martial' race by outsiders. However, Christopher Snedden also notes that "Kashmiris were well known for their fighting prowess" during Akbar's time.

Diaspora

Muslim

In the early twentieth century, famines and the policies of the Dogra rulers drove many Kashmiri Muslims to flee their native land to Punjab. Kashmiri Muslims constituted an important segment of several Punjabi cities such as Sialkot, Lahore, Amritsar and Ludhiana. Kashmiris who migrated from Amritsar in 1947 have had a big influence on Lahore's contemporary cuisine and culture. An exclusive research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” showed that the Kashmiri community had been involved in spearheading the power politics of Lahore district since 1947.

Notable members of the Kashmiri Muslim diaspora in Punjab include Pakistan's current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (paternal ancestry from Anantnag), Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and politician Khawaja Asif. Another notable member of the Kashmiri Muslim diaspora in Punjab was Muhammad Iqbal (who took pride in his Brahman ancestry and whose poetry displayed a keen sense of belonging to the Kashmir Valley). Another famous proud Kashmiri writer from Punjab was Saadat Hasan Manto.

According to the 1921 Census the total Kashmiri population in Punjab was 169,761. However, the Census report stated that only 3% of Kashmiris settled in Punjab retained their Kashmiri language. The number of people speaking Kashmiri in 1901 was 8,523 but had decreased to 7,190 in 1911. By 1921 the number of people speaking Kashmiri in Punjab had fallen to 4,690. The 1921 Census report stated that this fact showed that the Kashmiris who had settled in Punjab had adopted the Punjabi language of their neighbours. In contrast, the 1881 Census of Punjab had shown that there were 49,534 speakers of the Kashmiri language in the Punjab.

In the 1931 Census the number of Kashmiri Muslims in Punjab was 199,040 and the number of Kashmiri-speakers had increased to 22,000. Many who recorded Kashmiri as their mother-tongue also stated that Punjabi was their subsidiary language (8,269). Most of these were the Kashmiris who had been staying in large urban areas, particularly Amritsar. The number of persons who recorded Hindustani as their subsidiary language was 2,268. Of those people who stated that Punjabi was their mother-tongue 6,650 also recorded Kashmiri as their subsidiary language.

Since the 1990s approximately 35,000 Kashmiri Muslims from Indian administered Kashmir have fled to Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Hindu

Kashmiri Pandits have also fled to India and to other parts of Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. A number of Kashmiri organisations have been existence for over half a century in Delhi, including Kashmiri Pandit Sabha, Panun Kashmir, Vyeth Television, and N. S. Kashmir Research Institute. Notable members of the Kashmiri Pandit diaspora in India include former Indian Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

Krams (Surnames)

Kashmiri Hindus are all Saraswast Brahmins and are known by the exonym Pandit. Their surnames (kram) designate their original profession or their ancestors' nicknames. These include Hakim, Kaul, Dhar, Raina and Teng. The Muslims living in Kashmir are of the same stock as the Kashmiri Pandit community and are designated as Kashmiri Muslims.

After Kashmiri Hindus converted to Islam they largely retained their family names (kram) which indicated their original profession, locality or community. These included surnames such as Butt, Pandit (Brahmin), Dar (kshatriya), Tantre, Shaikh, Mantu, Ganai, Damar and Lone etc. A small number of Butts, Dar and Lone use the title Khawaja.

Common krams (surnames) found amongst the Kashmiri Muslims who migrated from the Valley to Punjab include Butt/Bhat, Dar, Lone, Wani/Wain, Mir and Shaikh.

The But/Butt of Punjab were originally Brahmin migrants from Kashmir during 1878 famine.

— The Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, Volume 52

See also

• Kashmiri language
• Kashmiri diaspora
• List of Kashmiris
• Theory of Kashmiri descent from lost tribes of Israel
• Kashmiri Muslim tribes from Hindu lineage
• Kashmiriyat
• Kashmir conflict
• 1931 Kashmir agitation
• All Parties Hurriyat Conference
• Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election, 2014
• Tibetan Muslims

References

1. ^ Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2000, Census of India, 2001
2. Mohsin Shakil, Languages of Erstwhile State of Jammu Kashmir (A Preliminary Study), Unpublished, 2012
3. ^ "Kashmiri: A language of India". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2 June 2007.
4. ^ Munshi, S. (2010), "Kashmiri", Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, Elsevier, pp. 582–, ISBN 978-0-08-087775-4
5. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 9781849043427. In 1947, Kashmir was a geographically identifiable region that was called the Vale of Kashmir or the Kashmir Valley...In 1947, the other regions of J&K were not as well known as Kashmir. Jammu and other non-Kashmiri areas of J&K, except possibly Ladakh, had never enjoyed the geo-political unity, regional existence or continuous rule that Kashmiris had experienced for long periods...Kashmir's acclaim is why J&K was popularly called 'Kashmir'.
6. http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/AGPC/doc/Publicat/TAPAFON/TAP_10.PDF
7. Minahan.J.B., (2012), Dogras, Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia
8. http://www.jktourism.org/index.php/cultural/ethnic-groups
9. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849046220. Confusingly, the term 'Kashmiri' also has wider connotations and uses. Some people in Azad Kashmir call themselves 'Kashmiris'. This is despite most Azad Kashmiris not being of Kashmiri ethnicity.
10. ^ Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849046220. Small numbers of ethnic Kashmiris also live in other parts of J&K. There are Kashmiris who live in areas that border the Kashmir Valley, including Kishtwar (Kishtawar), Bhadarwah, Doda and Ramban, in Jammu in Indian J&K, and in the Neelum and Leepa Valleys of northern Azad Kashmir. Since 1947, many ethnic Kashmiris and their descendants also can be found in Pakistan. Invariably, Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan are Muslims.
11. ^ Zutshi, Chitralekha (2004). Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 40. ISBN 9781850656944. Kashmiri histories emphasize the wretchedness of life for the common Kashmiri during Sikh rule. According to these, the peasantry became mired in poverty and migrations of Kashmiri peasants to the plains of the Punjab reached high proportions. Severeal European travelers' accounts from the period testify to and provide evidence for such assertions.
12. ^ Bose, Sumantra (2013). Transforming India. Harvard University Press. p. 211. ISBN 9780674728202. From the late nineteenth century, conditions in the princely state led to a significant migration of people from the Kashmir Valley to the neighboring Punjab province of British-as distinct from princely-India.
13. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 9781849046220. As in Pakistan, Sunni Muslims comprise the majority population of Kashmir, whereas they are a minority in Jammu, while almost all Muslims in Ladakh are Shias.
14. ^ Census of India, 1941. Vol. Volume XXII. p. 9. Retrieved 30 December 2016. The Muslims living in the southern part of the Kashmir Province are of the same stock as the Kashmiri Pandit community and are usually designated Kashmiri Muslims; those of the Muzaffarabad Distnct are partly Kashmiri Muslims, partly Gujjar and the rest are of the same stock as the tribes of the neighbouring Punjab and North \Vest Frontier Province districts. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
15. Kashmiri Pandits: Looking to the Future. APH Publishing. 2001. ISBN 9788176482363. The Kashmiri Pandits are the precursors of Kashmiri Muslims who now form a majority in the valley of Kashmir...Whereas Kashmiri Pandits are of the same ethnic stock as the Kashmiri Muslims, both sharing their habitat, language, dress, food and other habits, Kashmiri Pandits form a constituent part of the Hindu society of India on the religious plane.
16. Renfrew, Colin. The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge University Press. pp. 872–876. ISBN 1107647754.
17. Troll, C. (1982). Mahmud of Ghori never entered Kashmir he was defeated soundly by Hindu Kashmir. Islam in india: Studies and commentaries. Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division.
18. Gottschalk, P. (2012). Religion, science, and empire: Classifying hinduism and islam in british india. (pp. 400, 234-354). USA: Oxford University Press.
19. Hees, P. (2002). Indian religions: A historical reader of spiritual expression and experience. NYU Press
20. Bayly, S. (2001). Caste, society and politics in india from the eighteenth century to the modern age (The New Cambridge History of India). (1st & 4th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
21. Hauptman, Robert; V. Hartemann, Frederic (2016). Deadly Peaks: Mountaineering's Greatest Triumphs and Tragedies. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 149. ISBN 9781589798427. During the year 1800, a severe drought swept across Kashmir, which caused many in the region to migrate out of the Kashmir Valley, and south of the Jhelum River into Punjab. Those who migrated entered mainly into agriculture, and by the 1820s, after the drought passed, many of the Kashmiri immigrants returned to the Kashmir Valley. Many, however, remained in Punjab, as they had settled comfortably.
22. ^ Hauptman, Robert; V. Hartemann, Frederic (2016). Deadly Peaks: Mountaineering's Greatest Triumphs and Tragedies. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 149. ISBN 9781589798427. As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the new Sikh rulers. However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters and the local Sikh rule was generally considered oppressive, protected perhaps by the remoteness of Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh Empire in Lahore. The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws, which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter, closing down the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, and banning the azaan, the public Muslim call to prayer. Kashmir had also now begum to attract European visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the vast Muslim peasantry and of the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. High taxes, according to some contemporary accounts, had depopulated large tracts of the countryside, allowing only one-sixteenth of the cultivable land to be cultivated.
23. ^ Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849046220.
24. ^ Fahim, Farukh (2011). "Centuries' Subjugation Kicks off a Bitter Struggle". In Harsh Dobhal (ed.). Writings on Human Rights, Law, and Society in India: A Combat Law Anthology : Selections from Combat Law, 2002-2010. Socio Legal Information Cent. p. 259. ISBN 9788189479787. Sikh army entered Kashmir on 4th July, 1819, starting a new phase of tyranny and oppression...Describing the Sikh rule, Moorcraft, an English traveler reflected, 'Sikhs looked at Kashmiris 'a little better than the cattle. The murder of a native Sikh was punished with a fine to the government ranging from 16 to 20 rupees, of which four were paid to the family of the deceased if a Hindu, and two if he was a Mohammedan;. During this dark phase in Kashmir's history, people were in a most abject condition 'subjected to every kind of extortion and oppression'. Under Sikh rule Kashmir was ruled by 10 governors. Out of these, five were Hindus, three Sikhs, and two Muslims. Sikhs consistently followed anti-Muslim policies in Kashmir, subjecting the majority population of the Kashmir valley to severe hardship in relation to the practice of religion. It was also during this phase that the central mosque of Srinagar, the Jama Masjid was ordered to be closed and Muslims of Kashmir were not allowed to say azan (call to prayer). Sikhs tried to establish a 'Hindu' state where cow slaughter was declared a crime and a complete ban was passed against cow slaughter, lands attached to several shrines were also resumed on state orders...With the battle of Subraon, the Sikhs lost their independence. The treaty of Amritsar between British and Dogras signed on 16th of March 1846, gave way to Dogra rule in Kashmir.
25. ^ Bose, Sumantra (2013). Transforming India. Harvard University Press. pp. 233–4. ISBN 9780674728202. The hundred-year reign of the tinpot monarchy appointed as subcontractors of the Raj was an unmitigated disaster for the peasantry of Muslim faith who made up the overwhelming majority of the Valley's population. Walter Lawrence wrote: when I first came to Kashmir in 1889, I found the people sullen, desperate and suspicious. They had been taught for many years that they were serfs without any rights....Pages might be written by me on facts which have come under my personal observation, but it will suffice to say that the system of administration haddegraded the people and taken alll heart out of them. Lawrence...was careful to absolve the ruler of personal culpability: the peasants, one and all, attributed their miseries to the deputies through which the Maharajas ruled, and they have always recognised that their rulers were sympathetic and anxious to ensure their prosperity. But the officials of Kashmir would never allow their master to know the real condition of the people. Who were these venal officials? Lawrence was particularly critical of princely state officials belonging to the Kashmiri Pandit community...
26. Jalal, Ayesha (2002). Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge. p. 352. ISBN 9781134599387. A succession of maharajas, nurturing ties with a small group of Hindu pandits in the Kashmir valley and a more extensive network of Dogra kinsmen in Jammu, wilfully trampled on the rights of their subjects.
27. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. p. 29. ISBN 9781849043427. Incongruously, "Kashmiriness" did not deter rivalry and antipathy between Hindu Pandits, who were influential in government for long periods, and Muslim artisan and peasants, who invariably were poorer, iliterate and often exploited by Pandit officials.
28. Rai, Mridu (2004). Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. pp. 148–149. ISBN 9781850657019. Wingate and Lawrence had spent many months in the rural hinterland of Kashmir. They brought to the fore, in an unprecedented manner, the tensions that underlay Kashmiri society, pitting the interests of the Hindu Pandit community against thise of the numerically preponderant Kashmiri Muslim cultivators within the framework of the Dogra state. However, beyond agreeing about the nature and causesof the Kashmiri Muslims' oppression, the solutions offered by Wingate and Lawrence were at significant variance. While both acknowledged the responsibility of the Kashmiri Pandit community in exacerbating the situation of the Muslim cultivating classes, Wingate was far more uncompromising in demanding the elimination of the exemptins and privileges of the former. In contrast, while Lawrence's land settlement also sought to provide relief to the cultivating classes of Kashmir, it did so without entirely dismantling the privileges of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
29. ^ 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: beggars, thieves, and prostitutes abounded along with disease and filth, and 90 percent of Muslim houses mortgaged to Hindu sahukars ....local Muslims were barred from becoming officers in the princely state's military forces and were almost nonexistent 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 laborers, working as serfs for absentee landlords...
30. Rai, Mridu (2004). Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 149. ISBN 9781850657019. The death toll from the famine had been overwhelming by any standards. Some authorities had suggested that the population of Srinagar had been reduced by half (from 127,400 to 60,000) while others had estimated a diminution by three-fifths of the population of the entire valley.
31. Rai, Mridu (2004). Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 151. ISBN 9781850657019. The fatal results for Muslim agriculturists of this capacity for combination among the Hindu Kashmiris was demonstrated most clearly during the famine of 1877-9 when the office of prime minister was also held by a Kashmiri Pandit, Wazir Punnu. According to reports received by Lawrence, not a Pandit died of starvation during these annihilative years for the Muslim cultivators. Undoubtedly reflecting a selective Pandit view of the famine, Wazir Punnu is said to have declared that there 'was no real distress and that he wished that no Mussulman might be left alive from Srinagar to Rambhan .'
32. Rai, Mridu (2004). Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 157. ISBN 9781850657019. When lands fell fallow temporarily during the Kashmir famine of 1877-9, Pandits took over substantial tracts of them claiming that they constituted uncultivated waste. Numerous Kashmiri Muslim cultivators who had left the valley for Punjab, to escape the devastation of those years, found upon their return that they had been ousted from lands they had cultivated over generations.
33. Jalal, Ayesha (2002). Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge. p. 352. ISBN 9781134599387. Extreme poverty, exacerbated by a series of famines in the second half of the nineteenth century, had seen many Kashmiris fleeing to neighbouring Punjab.
34. Chowdhary, Rekha (2015). Jammu and Kashmir: Politics of Identity and Separatism. Routledge. p. 8. ISBN 9781317414056. Prem Nath Bazaz, for instance, noted that 'the Dogra rule has been Hindu. Muslims have not been treated fairly, by which I mean as fairly as Hindus'. In his opinion, the Muslims faced harsh treatment 'only because they were Muslims' (Bazaz, 1941: 250).
35. Jalal, Ayesha (2002). Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge. ISBN 9781134599387. According to the 1911 census there were 177, 549 Kashmiri Muslims in the Punjab; the figure went up to 206, 180 with the inclusion of settlements in the NWFP.
36. Bamzai, Prithivi Nath Kaul (1994). Culture and Political History of Kashmir. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 243. ISBN 9788185880310. Rice was, as now, the staple food of Kashmiris in ancient times.
37. Kaw, M.K. (2004). Kashmir and It's People: Studies in the Evolution of Kashmiri Society. APH Publishing. p. 98. ISBN 9788176485371. But perhaps the most popular items of the Kashmiri cuisine were meat and rice.
38. Press, Epilogue. Epilogue, Vol 3, issue 9. Epilogue -Jammu Kashmir. Since Kashmiris consume meat voraciously and statistics reveals that on an average 3.5 million sheep and goat are slaughtered annually for our consumption, the skin can be utilised for production.
39. "UCLA Languages Project: Kashmiri". UCLA International Institute. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
40. Shakil, Mohsin (2012). "Languages of Erstwhile State of Jammu Kashmir (A Preliminary Study)".
41. "Up north: Call for exploration of archaeological sites". 5 June 2015.
42. Ghulam Rasool Malik, Kashmiri Literature, Muse India, June 2006.
43. Poetry and renaissance: Kumaran Asan birth centenary volume. Sameeksha. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
44. Drace-Francis, Alex (2013). European Identity: A Historical Reader. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 57. ISBN 9781137368195. The people of Kashmir, says Bernier, are celebrated for beauty; they are as well-made as the Europeans; they have nothing of the Tartar visage; nor have they that flat nose, and those pig's eyes we meet with among their neighbours.
45. Bakshi, S.R. (1997). Kashmir Through Ages. Sarup & Sons. p. 102. ISBN 9788185431710. The fabulous beauty of Kashmiri women has been sung by many a traveller to the country. For instance, Marco Polo observed that the beauty of Kashmiri women was superb.
46. Durrani, Huma (2015). Wrapped in Blue. Partridge Publishing. ISBN 9781482856255. For one, both looked like Kashmiris thanks to their fair complexions and rather prominent noses, hallmarks of most Kashmiri men and women.
47. ^ Bhandari, Mohan C. (2006). Solving Kashmir. Lancer Publishers. p. 107. ISBN 9788170621256. One is usually struck by the marked ethnic differences of the Kashmiris from other Indian and Pakistani races. Fair skin and prominent noses suggest a Semitic origin. Historians write that there are no actual records based on facts, only speculations. The most interesting speculation is that the Kashmiris are descendents of one of the lost tribes of Israel.
48. Oberoi, Surinder Singh. "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". Vol. 52, no. 2. Retrieved 29 December 2016. First-time visitors are usually struck by the appearance of Kashmiris themselves. Fair skin and prominent noses sugest a Semitic origin, but there is no actual evidence for that, only speculation-one theory being that Kashmiris are descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel.
49. Ali, Zunair (23 March 2011). "55% Pakistanis believe Pathans, Kashmiris best looking". Express Tribune. Retrieved 29 December 2016. ISLAMABAD: A total of 55% of Pakistanis believe Kashmiris and Pathans have the best looks in the country, according to a recently released survey by Gilani Research Foundation/Gallup Pakistan. The survey asked a nationally representative sample of 2,666 men and women across the country the following question: In your opinion which people in Pakistan are the most good looking? Kashmiris and Pathans stood out as the best looking amongst all linguistic groups, with 29 per cent voting for Kashmiris and 26 per cent for Pathans.
50. Korbel, Josef (1966) , Danger in Kashmir (second ed.), Princeton University Press, pp. 9–11
51. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849046220.
52. Sevea, Iqbal Singh (2012). The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal: Islam and Nationalism in Late Colonial India. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. ISBN 9781139536394. In the early twentieth century, famine and the policies of the Dogra rulers drove many Kashmiri Muslims to flee their native land and further augment the number of their brethren already resident in the Punjab. Kashmiri Muslims constituted an important segment of the populace in a number of Punjabi cities, especially Sialkot, Lahore, Amritsar and Ludhiana.
53. "Lahore, Amritsar: Once sisters, now strangers". Rediff News. 26 October 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2016. The biggest influence on Lahore's contemporary culture and cuisine are the Kashmiris who migrated from Amritsar in 1947.
54. Shah, Sabir (12 October 2015). "Ayaz Sadiq: Yet another Arain legislator wins from Lahore". The News International. Retrieved 29 December 2016. An exclusive research conducted by the "Jang Group and Geo Television Network" shows that the Arain and Kashmiri communities have spearheaded the power politics in Lahore district since independence.
55. Jaleel, Muzamil (2013). "As Nawaz Sharif becomes PM, Kashmir gets voice in Pakistan power circuit". The Indian Express. Retrieved 29 December 2016. Kashmir may have been missing from the agenda of the elections in Pakistan, but the country's new government will have Kashmiris in vital positions — beginning with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself. Sharif, 63, who was sworn in for a historic third term on Wednesday, belongs to a family that migrated to Amritsar from South Kashmir's Anantnag district in the beginning of the last century. Sharif's close confidant Ishaq Dar, and influential PML (N) leader Khawaja Asif — both of whom are likely to get important positions in the new government — too have roots in Kashmir. 'My father would always tell me that we are from Anantnag. We had migrated to Amritsar from there for business', Sharif told this correspondent in his office in Lahore's Model Town last month where he sat with his key associates tracking the results of the election. 'And my mother's family came from Pulwama'.
56. Sevea, Iqbal Singh (2012). The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal: Islam and Nationalism in Late Colonial India. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. ISBN 9781139536394. Iqbal's attachment to his Kashmiri lineage is evident from his poetic references to himself as a descendant of Kashmiri Brahmins.
57. Jalal, Ayesha (2002). Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge. ISBN 9781134599370. As one of the most highly educated Kashmiris in the Punjab, Muhammad Iqbal supported the Kashmiri cause through the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam and the lesser known Anjuman-i-Kashmiri Musalman. His poetry demonstrates a keen sense of belonging to Kashmir, the magnificent valley which the cruel hands of fate had allowed men of bestial disposition to reduce to abject slavery and benightedness.
58. Reeck, Matt; Ahmad, Aftab (2012). Bombay Stories. Random House India. ISBN 9788184003611. He claimed allegiance not only to his native Punjab but also to his ancestors' home in Kashmir. While raised speaking Punjabi, he was also proud of the remnants of Kashmiri culture that his family maintained-food customs, as well as intermarriage with families of Kashmiri origin-and throughout his life he assigned special importance to others who had Kashmiri roots. In a tongue-in-cheek letter addressed to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, he went so far as to suggest that being beautiful was the second meaning of being Kashmiri
59. Pandita, Rahul (2013). Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. Random House India. ISBN 9788184003901. By virtue of his disposition, temperament, features and his spirit, Manto remains a Kashmiri Pandit.
60. "Chapter IX-Language". Census of India, 1921. Vol. Volume XV. p. 309. Retrieved 30 December 2016. The only language belonging to the non-sanskritic sub-branch of the Indian branch of the Aryan sub-family spoken in the provinces is Kashmiri. The number of persons speaking this language was 8,523 in 1901 and 7,190 in 1911; but has now fallen to 4,690, a fact which shows that Kashmiris who have settled in these provinces have adopted the Punjabi language of their neighbours. This is amply proved if we compare the strength of Kashmiris returned in the caste Table XIII with that shown by the language table. Kashmiri now appears in the return as the language of 4,690 persons though Kashmiris themselves have a strength of 169, 761; in other words only about 3 out of every 100 Kashmiris still retain their own language. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
61. Punjab Census Report 17 Feb 1881. 1883. p. 163. Retrieved 30 December 2016. Kashmiri is the language of the valley of Srinagar in Kashmir which nowhere touches our border. But famine and other causes, already fully discussed in the chapter on the Fluctuations of Famination, have driven a considerable number of immigrants at one time or another from Kashmir into the Panjab; and the language is now spoken by no fewer than 49,534 inhabitants of the Province.
62. "Chapter XII-Race, Tribe And Caste". Census of India, 1931. Vol. Volume XVII. p. 344. Retrieved 30 December 2016. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
63. "Chapter X.-Language". Census of India, 1931. Vol. Volume XVII. pp. 276–7. Retrieved 30 December 2016. Numerous persons with Kashmiri as mother-tongue have returned Punjabi as subsidiary language (8,269), and most of these are the Kashmiris, who have been staying for some years past in large urban areas, particularly Amritsar. Hindustani has been returned by 2,268 persons and other vernaculars of the Province by 855 as subsidiary languages. Kashmiri has been returned as a subsidiary language by 6,650 persons, who returned Punjabi as their mother-tongue. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
64. Ahmed, Issam (13 October 2010). "Thousands fled India-controlled Kashmir. Are they better off in Pakistan?". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 29 December 2016. Some 35,000 Kashmiris fled from Indian-controlled Kashmir during the 1990s to settle in Pakistan, a country that has not yet granted citizenship to up to 40 percent of the migrants....migrants speak the Kashmiri language whereas many of the locals speak a dialect of Punjabi.
65. ^ Brower, Barbara; Johnston, Barbara Rose (2016). Disappearing Peoples?: Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia. Routledge. ISBN 9781315430393. Kashmiri Hindus are all Saraswat brahmins, known by the exonym Pandit (the endonym being Batta), a term first reserved for emigrant Kashmiri brahmins in Mughal service. Their surnames (kram) designate their original professions or their ancestors' nicknames (e.g., Hakim, Kaul, Dhar, Raina, Teng).
66. ^ Explore Kashmiri Pandits. Dharma Publications. Retrieved 2 December 2010.
67. ^ Brower, Barbara; Johnston, Barbara Rose (2016). Disappearing Peoples?: Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia. Routledge. ISBN 9781315430393. Sheikh: local converts, subdivided into numerous subgroups. Most largely retain their family names, or patronyms (kram), indicating their original profession, locality or community-such as Khar (carpenter), Pampori (a place), Butt and Pandit (brahmin), Dar (kshatriya)-but with increasing Islamization, some have dropped these
68. Proceedings - Indian History Congress, Volume 63. Indian History Congress. 2003. p. 867. Retrieved 30 December 2016. ...the Muslims also retained their Hindu caste-names known as Krams e.g. Tantre, Nayak, Magre, Rather, Lone, Bat, Dar, Parry, Mantu, Yatoo.....
69. ^ The Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, Volume 52. The Survey. Retrieved 2 December 2010. The But/Butt of Punjab were originally Brahmin migrants from Kashmir during 1878 famine.
70. P.K. Kaul. Pahāṛi and other tribal dialects of Jammu, Volume 1. Eastern Book Linkers. Retrieved 2 December 2010. The But/Butt of Punjab were originally Brahmin migrants from Kashmir during 1878 famine.
71. A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province. Nirmal Publishers and Distributors. Retrieved 25 March 2007.
72. Punjab Census Report 17 Feb 1881. 1883. p. 303. Retrieved 30 December 2016.

External links

Template:Ethnic groups in India

• Dardic peoples
• Ethnic groups in India
• Social groups of Jammu and Kashmir
• Kashmiri people
• Ethnic groups divided by international borders