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1947 Poonch rebellion

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1947 Poonch Rebellion
DateJune 1947 - October 1947
LocationPoonch
Result Hari Singh losing his control over the region. Formation of Azad Kashmir.
Belligerents

People of Poonch

backed by Pakistani troops		 Hari Singh and his Dogra forces
Poonch district, Pakistan in today's Azad Kashmir.
Location of Poonch district in today's Indian Jammu and Kashmir; with Azad Kashmir territory to its left.

In Spring 1947, an uprising against the Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir broke out in the Poonch jagir, an area bordering the Rawalpindi division of West Punjab. Starting as a local affair, it eventually led to the First Kashmir War fought between India and Pakistan, and the formation of Azad Kashmir. The Poonch jagir has since been divided across Azad Kashmir, administered by Pakistan and the state of Jammu and Kashmir, administered by India.

Background

Poonch was originally an internal jagir (autonomous principality), governed by an alternative family line of Maharaja Hari Singh. Despite being a 90% Muslim populated region, most of the administrative and police staff under Dogra's rule were Hindus and this was said to be a source of discontent among Poonchis. Also people were resentful towards the heavy and unfair taxation on agriculture and other economic activities. As a result, scholar Rakesh Ankit says, the Poonchis had pursued employment in the British Indian Army. The Muslims of Poonch, had long campaigned for the principality to be absorbed into the Punjab province of British India, and the campaign was also supported by Indian National Congress and Sheikh Abdullah's Jammu & Kashmir National Conference during 1937-47. In 1938, a notable disturbance occurred for religious reasons, but a settlement was reached. From then, Poonch remained garrisoned by a battalion of State troops.

Scholar Chrishtopher Snedden says, a ‘no tax’ campaign was occurring by June 1947. During the Second World War, over 60,000 men from Poonch and Mirpur districts enrolled in the British Indian Army. After the war, they were discharged with arms, which is said to have alarmed the Maharaja. In July, he ordered that they be disarmed. The absence of employment prospects coupled with high taxation drove the Poonchis to rebellion.

With the impending independence of India and Pakistan in August 1947, the Maharaja indicated his preference to remain independent of the new dominions. All the major political groups of the state supported the Maharaja's decision, except for the Muslim Conference, which declared in favour of accession to Pakistan on 19 July 1947. The Muslim Conference was popular in the Jammu province of the state, with especial strength in the Poonch and Mirpur districts. It was closely allied with the All-India Muslim League, which was set to inherit Pakistan.

By the time of the independence of the new dominions, many people in Poonch were identifying themselves with Pakistan. They raised Pakistan flags and supported the Muslim Conference's pro-Pakistan stance. Several Muslim officers of the State Army had conspired to overthrow the Maharaja's government on 14 August 1947. Chief among them was Captain Mirza Hassan Khan posted at Bhimber (Mirpur district), who claimed to have been elected as the chairman of a "revolutionary council". Major General Henry Lawrence Scott, the State's Army Chief, transferred the officers to new posts prior to that date, which foiled their attempts.

Sardar Ibrahim Khan has claimed that many arms deposited earlier were redistributed by the Maharaja’s police to Hindu and Sikh families for self-defence, raising communal fears and tensions.

Scholar Srinath Raghavan states that the "gathering head of steam" was utilised by the local Muslim Conference led by Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan to further their campaign for accession to Pakistan.

Stages of revolt

Unrest (August 1947)

Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir

Sometime around August 1947, the first signs of trouble broke out in Poonch, about which diverging views have been received.

According to state government sources, the demobilised soldiers were moved by the state government's failure to pay them remunerations promised by New Delhi. Rebellious militias gathered in the Naoshera–Palandri–Islamabad area, attacking the state troops and their supply trucks. The state troops were at this time thinly spread escorting refugees between India and Pakistan. A reserve battalion of Sikh troops was dispatched to Poonch, which cleared the roads and dispersed the militias. It also cut off Poonch from Pakistan by sealing the Jhelum river bridge for fear that the Pakistanis might come to aid the Poonch militias. The Army's Chief of Staff Henry Lawrence Scott also narrated an event towards the end of August, where a band of 30 Muslims from Pakistan entered Poonch and incited the Sattis to march to the capital demanding accession to Pakistan. About 10,000 Poonchies gathered mainly to air grievances regarding high prices, and wanted to pass through the town of Bagh. The local officials at Bagh barred them from entering the town. Then the protesters surrounded the town and made attempts to attack it. Reinforcements of State troops were sent from Srinagar, which dispersed the protesters. The total casualties would not have exceeded 20 Muslim protesters, about a dozen Hindus and Sikhs and a few state troopers, according to Scott.

The Muslim Conference sources narrate that hundreds of people were killed in Bagh during flag hoisting around 15 August and that the Maharaja unleased a 'reign of terror' on 24 August. Local Muslims also told Richard Symonds, a British Quaker relief worker, that the army fired on crowds, and burnt houses and villages indiscriminately. When a public meeting was held in August 1947 at Nila Bat, a village near Dhirkot, to support the demand for accession of the state to Pakistan, the Maharaja sent his forces to quell the unrest. The forces opened fire on the gathering. On August 27, Sardar Abdul Qayuum Khan, a local zamindar or landowner (who later became the President of the Azad Kashmir government), led an attack on a police-cum-military post in Dhirkot and captured it. It led the Maharaja to unleash the full force of his Dogra troops on the population. It is said that this created enmity between the Hindu ruler and the Muslim population. Villages were reportedly attacked and burned.

Poonchis purchased some weapons from the neighbouring NWFP arms bazaars. Towards the end of August, Muslim League activists from Pakistan joined to strengthen the protests. Scholar Srinath Raghavan states that, after the protests turned violent, Maharaja moved to brutally suppress them. The developing revolt was "snuffed out" inside a month. According to the Assistant British High Commissioner in northern Pakistan, H. S. Stephenson, "the Poonch affair... was greatly exaggerated". He stated that, on 13 September 1947, "the state in an uneasy quiet".

Scholar Prem Shankar Jha states that the Maharaja had decided, as early as April 1947, that he would accede to India if it was not possible to stay independent. The rebellion in Poonch possibly unnerved the Maharaja. Accordingly, early in August, he dismissed his pro-Pakistan Prime Minister, Ramachandra Kak, and appointed retired Major Janak Singh in his place. On 25 August, he sent an invitation to Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan of the Punjab High Court to come as the Prime Minister. On the same day, the Muslim Conference wrote to the Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan warning him that "if, God forbid, the Pakistan Government or the Muslim League do not act, Kashmir might be lost to them".

Preparations for armed revolt (September 1947)

Sardar Ibrahim (at 32), Leader of the Muslim Conference in Poonch.

Meanwhile, Sardar Ibrahim had escaped to West Punjab, along with dozens of rebels, and established a base in Murree across the border from Poonch in northern Punjab, which also served as a hill station for Punjab's civil and army officers. Ibrahim attracted a core group of supporters, including retired military officers and the former members of the Indian National Army (INA). From Murree, the rebels attempted to acquire arms and ammunition for the rebellion and smuggle them into Kashmir.

Colonel Akbar Khan, one of a handful of high-ranking Pakistani military officers in the Army, went to Murree towards the end of August. At some point, Sardar Ibrahim got introduced to Akbar Khan and requested arms from the military. According to Akbar Khan, Ibrahim "thought that the time for peaceful negotiations was gone because every protest was being met with repressions and, therefore, in certain areas the people were virtually in a state of revolt...if they were to protect themselves and to prevent the Maharaja from handing them over to India, they needed weapons." The amount of weapons requested was 500 rifles.

Around the same time, Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan sent a Punjab politician Mian Iftikharuddin to explore Pakistan's prospects in Kashmir. On his way to Srinagar, Iftikharuddin met Colonel Akbar Khan in Murree and asked him to prepare a plan for action by Pakistan in case he was to find the political situation in Kashmir unpromising. He told him, however, that the action had to be of an "unofficial" nature and not involve the senior British officers in the Army. Akbar Khan discussed the issues with Ibrahim and others, and returned to Rawalpindi to develop the plan.

Akbar Khan's plan, titled Armed Revolt inside Kashmir, involved diverting to the Poonch rebels, 4000 rifles which were being given by the Army to the Punjab police. Condemned ammunition, scheduled to be discarded, would be diverted to the rebels. Colonel Azam Khanzada, in charge of the Army stores, promised cooperation. The plan strategised for irregular warfare, assuming that 2000 Muslim troops of the state army (out of a total 9000) would join the rebels. It proposed that, in addition, former INA officers be used to provide military leadership to the rebels. The armed action was to focus on severing the road and air links between Kashmir and India (the road link near Jammu and the airport at Srinagar). Akbar Khan made 12 copies of his plan and gave it to Mian Iftikharuddin, who returned from Kashmir with the assessment that Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference, which did not support accession to Pakistan, had a firm hold in the Kashmir Valley.

On 12 September, the Pakistan Prime Minister held a meeting with Mian Iftikharuddin, Colonel Akbar Khan, a Punjab politician Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan and the chief of the Muslim League National Guard Khurshid Anwar. The finance minister Ghulam Muhammad and other officials were also present. Shaukat Hayat Khan had another plan involving the Muslim League National Guard (MLNG) and the former soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA). The Prime Minister approved both the plans, and allocated responsibilities. In the eventual shape of the action, two major forces from Pakistan were to be organised, a northern force led by Khurshid Anwar from Abbottabad, which would attack the Kashmir Valley via Muzaffarabad, and a southern force led by former INA officer Major Zaman Kiani operating from Gujrat, which would to attack Poonch and Nowshera valley. Whereas Akbar Khan's plan envisaged strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally, Shaukat Hayat Khan's plan gave prominence to Pakistan's covert operations.

Rebellion (October 1947)

The pro-Pakistan Muslim Conference leaders of the western districts of Muzaffarabad, Poonch and Mirpur proclaimed a provisional Azad Jammu and Kashmir government in Rawalpindi on 3 October 1947. The proclamation of a similar provisional government of Junagadh in Bombay is said to have provided the impetus. Khwaja Ghulam Nabi Gilkar took on the post of president under the assumed name "Mr. Anwar". Sardar Ibrahim Khan was chosen as the prime minister. Gilkar issued a proclamation in the name of the provisional government, whose headquarters was declared to be in Muzaffarabad. However, this government quickly fizzled out with the arrest of Gilkar in Srinagar.

Situation of territorial control in J&K by 26 October 1947.

On or around 6 October, an armed rebellion started in Poonch. Sardar Ibrahim Khan has claimed to have organized an armed Muslim force, which was eventually grown to a 50,000-strong 'Azad Army'. The rebels quickly gained control of almost the entire Poonch district. The State Forces garrison at Poonch came under heavy siege.

In the Mirpur district, the border posts at Saligram and Owen Pattan on Jhelum river were captured by rebels around 8 October. Sehnsa and Throchi were abandoned by State Forces after attack. Around 24 October, the State garrison at Bhimber was defeated. On 7 November, Rajouri was captured.

On 24 October, two days after the Pakistani tribal invasion of Kashmir via Muzaffarabad, a second provisional government of Azad Kashmir was established at Palandri under the leadership of Sardar Ibrahim Khan.

Commentary

Jammu political activist and journalist Ved Bhasin states that the harsh attempts of Maharaja Hari Singh and his armed forces to crush the rebellion in Poonch turned the political movement into a communal struggle.

Scholar Christopher Snedden remarked:

"The reaction of the ruler’s predominantly Hindu army to Poonch Muslims’ pro-Pakistan activities boosted the anti-Maharaja ‘cause’ in Poonch and incited Poonchis to take further action. In response to incidents around Poonch that invariably involved Muslims, the Maharaja’s army fired on crowds, burned houses and villages indiscriminately, plundered, arrested people, and imposed local martial law. Indeed, because ‘trouble continued … the State forces were compelled to deal with it with a heavy hand’. Until such oppressive actions, the anti-Maharaja cause probably had little backing. ‘Substantial men’ told Symonds that ‘they would never have joined such a rash enterprise’ opposing the Maharaja ‘but for the folly of the Dogras who burnt whole villages where only a single family was involved in the revolt’. Such ‘folly’ motivated some Poonch Muslims to organise a people’s resistance movement."

Referring to the events in Poonch, Sheikh Abdullah, according to a New Delhi report circulated by the Associated Press of India, on October 21 said:

The present troubles in Poonch, a feudatory of Kashmir, were because of the policy adopted by the State. The people of Poonch who suffered under the local ruler, and his overlord, the Kashmir durbar, had started a people’s movement to redress their grievances. It was not communal. The Kashmir State sent their troops and there was panic in Poonch. Most of the adult population in Poonch was ex-servicemen of the Indian Army, who had close connections with the people in Jhelum and Rawalpindi. They evacuated their women and children, crossed the frontier and returned with arms supplied to them by willing people. The Kashmir State forces were thus forced to withdraw from certain areas.

Aftermath

Meanwhile, several thousand Pashtun tribesmen from North-West Frontier Province, who had support from Pakistani administration, had been pouring into Jammu and Kashmir to liberate it from the Maharaja's rule. They were led by experienced military leaders and were equipped with modern arms. The Maharaja's crumbling forces were unable to withstand the onslaught. The raiders captured the towns of Muzaffarabad and Baramulla, the latter 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the state capital Srinagar. On October 24, the Maharaja requested military assistance from India, which responded that it was unable to help him unless he acceded to India. Accordingly, on October 26, 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh signed an Instrument of Accession, handing over control of defence, external affairs and communications to the Government of India in return for military aid. Indian troops were immediately airlifted into Srinagar. Pakistan officially intervened subsequently. Fighting ensued between the Indian and Pakistani armies, with the two areas of control more or less stabilized around what is now known as the "Line of Control".

Azad Jammu and Kashmir became a self-governing administrative division of Pakistan. Poonch District of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani part of Poonch District is part of its Azad Kashmir territory, whilst the Indian Poonch is part of the Jammu and Kashmir state.

According to scholar Ian Copland, the Jammu massacres were undertaken by the administration against the Muslims in Jammu, partly out of revenge for the Poonch uprising.

Many Hindus and Sikhs, on and after 25 November 1947 gathered in Mirpur for shelter and protection were killed by the Pakistani troops and tribesmen. A 'greatly shocked' Sardar Ibrahim painfully confirmed that Hindus were 'disposed of' in Mirpur in November 1947, although he does not mention any figures. Christopher Snedden stated this figure as, over 20,000.

Notes

  1. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Arms Act of 1940, the possession of all fire arms was prohibited in the state. The Dogra Rajputs were however exempted in practice.
  2. Other members of the provisional government were Ghulam Haider Jandalvi, the minister for defence; Nazir Hussain Shah, the minister for finance; and two other ministers for education and industry under assumed names.
  3. Other members of this government were Sayid Ali Ahmed Shah, Chaudhri Abdullah Khan Bhalli, Khwaja Ghulam Din Wani, Sayid Nazir Husain Shah and Sonna Ullah Shah. According to Sardar Ibrahim, he was woken up in the dead of night on 23 October by the Divisional Commissioner of Rawalpindi, Khawaja Abdul Rahim, and told that it had become necessary to reconstitute the government with himself as the president.

Citations

  1. ^ Snedden, Christopher. "The forgotten Poonch uprising of 1947". India-seminar.
  2. ^ Ankit, The Problem of Poonch 2010, p. 8.
  3. ^ Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict 2003, p. 41.
  4. Parashar, Parmanand (2004), Kashmir and the Freedom Movement, Sarup & Sons, pp. 178–179, ISBN 978-81-7625-514-1
  5. Puri, Balraj (November 2010), "The Question of Accession", Epilogue, 4 (11): 4–6, Eventually they agreed on a modified resolution which 'respectfully and fervently appealed to the Maharaja Bahadur to declare internal autonomy of the State... and accede to the Dominion of Pakistan... However, the General Council did not challenge the maharaja's right to take a decision on accession, and it acknowledged that his rights should be protected even after acceding to Pakistan.
  6. ^ Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 41.
  7. Dani, History of Northern Areas of Pakistan 2001, pp. 338, 366: "Hasan Khan and Major Mohammad Afzal Khan agreed that the Dogra regime should be toppled in Kashmir. Later they contacted Captain Mohammad Mansha Khan, Major Mohammad Sher Kiyani, Major Sayyid Ghazanfar Ali Shah and Major Mohammad Din in Srinagar. They all agreed to support the proposal. Later Major Mohammad Aslam Khan was also contacted and was entrusted to work in Jammu... Then a military council was set up and the members vowed to act simultaneously by attacking and occupying military cantonments on 14th August 1947."
  8. Dani, History of Northern Areas of Pakistan 2001, p. 366.
  9. ^ Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India 2010, p. 105.
  10. ^ Ankit, The Problem of Poonch 2010, p. 9.
  11. Ankit, Henry Scott 2010, p. 47.
  12. Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 42.
  13. Nawaz, The First Kashmir War Revisited 2008, p. 119.
  14. Jha, Prem Shankar (March 1998), "Response (to the reviews of The Origins of a Dispute: Kashmir 1947)", Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 36 (1): 113–123, doi:10.1080/14662049808447762 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
  15. Mahajan (1963). Looking Back: The Autobiography of Mehr Chand Mahajan, Former Chief Justice of India. Asia Publishing House. p. 123.
  16. Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India 2010, p. 103.
  17. ^ Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India 2010, pp. 105–106.
  18. ^ Nawaz, The First Kashmir War Revisited 2008, p. 119–120.
  19. Nawaz, The First Kashmir War Revisited 2008, p. 119, 120.
  20. ^ Nawaz, The First Kashmir War Revisited 2008, p. 120.
  21. Jha, The Origins of a Dispute 2003, p. 30.
  22. Effendi, Punjab Cavalry 2007, p. 152.
  23. Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 58.
  24. ^ Bose, Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace 2003, p. 100.
  25. Das Gupta, Jammu and Kashmir 2012, p. 233.
  26. Das Gupta, Jammu and Kashmir 2012.
  27. Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 59.
  28. ul-Hassan, Syed Minhaj (2015), "Qaiyum Khan and the War of Kashmir, 1947-48 AD." (PDF), FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 9 (1): 1–7
  29. Ganguly, Sumit (September 1995), "Wars without End: The Indo-Pakistani Conflict", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 541, Sage Publications: 167–178, JSTOR 1048283
  30. ^ Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 61.
  31. ^ Copland, State, Community and Neighbourhood in Princely North India 2005, p. 143.
  32. Cheema, Crimson Chinar 2015, p. 57.
  33. Palit, Jammu and Kashmir Arms 1972, p. 162.
  34. Suharwardy, Tragedy in Kashmir 1983, p. 143.
  35. V. K. Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army 2005, p. 160.
  36. ^ Das Gupta, Jammu and Kashmir 2012, p. 234.
  37. Choudhry, Shabir (2013), Kashmir Dispute: A Kashmiri perspective - Kashmiri struggle transformed in to Jihad, terrorism and a proxy war, AuthorHouse, p. 47, ISBN 978-1-4918-7788-3
  38. ^ Bhasin, Ved. "Jammu 1947". Kashmir Life.
  39. Jamwal, Anuradha Bhasin (January 2005), "Prejudice in Paradise", Communalism Combat, vol. 11{{citation}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  40. Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 56.

Bibliography

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