How was Kashmir divided into two parts in 1947?
The Kashmir region between India and Pakistan was divided into two parts in 1947 by a tribal warlord campaign and the subsequent military conflict. The BBC’s Andrew Whitehead spoke to some of the victims of that conflict and Kashmiri politicians. This episode of BBC Bengal’s Witness to History talks about it.
It was October 1947. Warriors from tribal groups from the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan launched a campaign in the Kashmir Valley. They had a lot of weapons in their hands, but they were not a very disciplined force. The group of these warriors advanced towards Baramulla in trucks.
Baramulla was a strategically important town at one end of the Kashmir Valley. The warriors attacked a Catholic mission and a hospital here.
According to the BBC Radio report, these warriors caused extensive destruction in St. Joseph’s Convent, like other buildings in Baramulla. These tribal warriors follow their own unique fighting style, unaware of any rules of modern warfare.
Andrew Whitehead went to Kashmir in 2003 for the BBC to investigate and gather information about the events of 1947.
Two of the survivors of that incident were Angela Rarania and Tom Dykes. They were very young when the attack on St Joseph’s Convent took place.
Angela’s mother was a doctor. Tom Dykes was the son of a British family, whose mother had come to the hospital to give birth to another child.
Angela said, “I saw some terrible people coming over the wall. They had guns in their hands, beards on their faces. They were taking watches from the hands of the people who were dying in their hands.”
Tom Dykes also remembers the horrific experience of that day. “I could see the excited faces of the attackers through the crack in the door, and the terrified nurses huddled in a corner. I remember seeing some of them with their clothes torn. “I don’t know if they were raped or not.”
Angela said, ‘They were stabbing or shooting anyone they could find. They even attacked people lying in hospital beds.’
These attackers also caused widespread destruction in Baramulla town. The Balis were an influential Sikh family in that town. The Sikh community was a major target of the attackers.
One of the Balis said, ‘There was widespread panic in the town. Everyone was running away. Everyone had one thing on their lips – run away if you want to survive.’
A Sikh woman said that young girls were also being abducted at that time. She said, ‘Meanwhile, they were abducting young girls again. They were taking them to other villages. I had three sisters, they abducted them all in front of my eyes. We have not heard a word from them since.’
This attack took place two months after the British left India.
Three-quarters of Kashmir’s population is Muslim, but its ruler was Hari Singh—a Hindu Maharaja. He could not decide whether the Hindu majority would join India or the Muslim majority would join Pakistan.
The crown prince of that state was Hari Singh’s son, Karan Singh. According to Karan Singh, “After August 15, 1947, my father became a theoretically independent king. Because he did not join either India or Pakistan. He wanted to make agreements with both countries to maintain the status quo. That process was in progress when the tribal raids took place.”
The tribal groups had carried out the raids in the name of Pakistan and Islam. The Maharaja was attending a festival at the time and was completely unprepared for the attack.
Karan Singh said that he was in the palace in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, at the time. “A court was going on. It was a ceremony where my father sat on the throne and everyone paid him homage. The palace was completely empty, everyone was outside. Suddenly all the lights went out. A strange and eerie atmosphere was created. The lights went out because the attackers had captured the power plant at Mahura. It was just 30-35 miles away on the Srinagar-Uri road.’
This attack pushed the Maharaja of Kashmir to join India. He signed an agreement with Delhi to become part of India and sought Indian military assistance. He then fled with a convoy to Jammu city.
Karan Singh said, ‘It was a terrible journey. When we started the journey, it was dark. My father was naturally very sad and upset by these events. He did not say a word in the car the entire way. After reaching Jammu, he got out of the car and said, ‘We have lost Kashmir.’
However, the people of St. Joseph’s Convent, who were attacked by tribal fighters, had no chance of escape.
The attackers climbed the wall and entered, looted and assaulted the nuns. Within minutes, six people were killed. Among them were everyone from hospital patients to nurses.
Also present were Tom Dykes’ parents. They were buried in an open area behind the hospital.
Tom said, “After the shelling stopped, we actually went to look for my parents. In one place, I saw a pile of bodies. My brother Douglas was there, screaming and crying. A woman came forward. She said to me, ‘Your parents are dead.'” This woman was Angela Rarania
Karan Singh said, “Pakistan was behind this attack and funded it. We later learned that there were Pakistani soldiers and military officers in plain clothes among these tribes. Their goal was to capture Kashmir. There was no way to avoid it.”
But Pakistan’s attempt was not successful. Karan Singh was questioned.
Karan Singh replied, “No, the operation was not completely successful. But they succeeded in forcing my father to join India.”
However, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, a leading Kashmiri Muslim leader, disagreed. In 1947, he himself had declared a rebellion against the Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh.
Qayyum Khan said that the tribal campaign had actually thwarted his plans.
According to Qayyum Khan, “All the allegations that Pakistan was behind this are historically wrong. We started the armed rebellion in August 1947. At that time, it was like the state army was fighting against the people of the state. But gradually more people from the border areas started joining in. But the whole plan was thwarted by the tribal campaign.”
“If there had been coordination, they could have reached Srinagar airport without any hindrance. But these fighters were disorganized. There was no command from behind. So they started looting. When their hands were full, they went back,” said Qayyum Khan.
Karan Singh, the Maharaja’s son, agrees. He says that if the tribals had not been busy looting for a few days, the Pakistan-backed forces would have reached Baramulla, and the history of Kashmir might have changed.
Karan Singh added, “The situation had become very delicate. When the Indian forces started landing, the attackers were only four to five miles away from the Srinagar airport.”
Kashmir was then divided into two regions, one controlled by India and the other by Pakistan. Since then, the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir has been going on for more than seven decades. Since 1947, there have been several wars between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. For more than three decades, intense, violent and bloody insurgent separatist activities have been going on in Indian-administered Kashmir.
After 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was granted special status, its own constitution and a separate flag under a law known as Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. A few years ago, the Hindu nationalist BJP government in India, after coming to power, revoked Kashmir’s special constitutional status on August 5, 2019.
The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was completely abolished and converted into two separate union territories, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. To this day, the division of Kashmir that was created in 1947 has not been mended.
