1947 Jammu massacres

of Jammu and Kashmir At the time of the Partition of India in 1947, the British abandoned their suzerainty over the princely states, which were left with the options of joining India or Pakistan or remaining independent. Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, 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 among Muslims in the Jammu province of the state. It was closely allied with the All-India Muslim League, which was set to inherit Pakistan. Sardar Ibrahim, the Muslim Conference leader from Poonch used a raising head of unrest fuelled by economic grievances, turning it into a rebellion against the Maharaja and demanding accession to Pakistan. Soon Pakistan got involved. On 12 September 1947, the Pakistani prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan called a meeting in Lahore where it was decided to support the rebels and to launch an invasion from Pakistan. A 'GHQ Azad' was established under Major General Zaman Kiani (formerly of the Indian National Army) in Gujrat, which started conducting raids against the Jammu border. Communal situation in the State Maharaja Hari Singh was seen by informed observers as liberal and non-sectarian, even though, in the run-up to the Partition, he was believed to have come under the influence of the Arya Samaj. At least a third of the state army and over half of its police force was Muslim. Both the army and police were headed by British officers until 3 October (Major General Henry Lawrence Scott, Chief of Staff, and Richard Powell, Inspector General of Police). After they stepped down, they were replaced by 'Hindu officers', according to British reports. The Jammu Brigade and the Jammu police were still headed by Muslim officers (Brigadier Khuda Baksh, commanding the Jammu Brigade, and Mian Abdul Rashid, Senior Superintendent of Police). From June 1946 onwards, the Muslim Conference is reported to have tightened its connections with Pakistan's Muslim League, importing its leaders into the state and starting to train 'National Guards'. Its new leaders (Agha Shaukat Ali for general secretary and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas for president) were "working up anti-Hindu sentiments under the guise of uniting all Muslims", according to the British Resident in Kashmir. The Resident also reported that, in March 1947, Pir of Manki Sharif (from the North-West Frontier Province) sent his agents to prepare the people for a 'holy crusade' to be carried out by frontier tribes soon after the departure of the British. Also in March 1947, following the massacres in Rawalpindi, large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs from Rawalpindi and Sialkot started arriving in Jammu, bringing "harrowing stories of Muslim atrocities in West Punjab". According to scholar Ilyas Chattha, this eventually provoked counter-violence on Jammu Muslims, which had "many parallels with that in Sialkot". Scholar Prem Shankar Jha states that, though the arrival of refugees caused considerable unease in Jammu, the city remained free of communal disturbances till the end of September 1947. During August–September 1947, roughly 100,000 Muslims from East Punjab and an equal number of non-Muslims from West Punjab were safely escorted through Jammu by Jammu and Kashmir State Forces. == Violence against Jammu Muslims ==

According to scholar Ian Copland, the Jammu and Kashmir administration carried out a pogrom against its Muslim subjects in Jammu partly out of revenge for the Poonch rebellion that started earlier. Some observers state that a main aim of Hari Singh and his administration was to alter the demographics of the region by eliminating the Muslim population, in order to ensure a Hindu majority in the region. Many Gujjar men and women who used to supply milk to the city from the surrounding villages were reportedly massacred en route. It is said that the Ramnagar reserve in Jammu was littered with the dead bodies of Gujjar men, women and children. In the Muslim localities of Jammu city, Talab Khatikan and Mohalla Ustad, Muslims were surrounded and were denied water supply and food. The Muslims in Talab Khatikan area had joined to defend themselves with the arms they could gather, who later received support from the Muslim Conference. They were eventually asked to surrender and the administration asked them to go to Pakistan for their safety. These Muslims and others who wanted to go to Sialkot, in thousands, were loaded in numerous trucks and were escorted by the troops in the first week of November. When they reached the outskirts of the city, they were pulled out and killed by armed Sikhs and RSS men, while abducting the women. On 16 November 1947, Sheikh Abdullah arrived in Jammu and a refugee camp was set up in Mohalla Ustad. According to Ved Bhasin and scholar Ilyas Chattha, the Jammu riots were executed by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who were joined by the refugees from West Pakistan, and were supported strongly by Hari Singh and his administration with a main aim to change the demographic composition of Jammu region and ensure a non-Muslim majority. Bhasin states, the riots were "clearly" planned by the activists of RSS. Bhasin says that the massacres took place in the presence of the then Jammu and Kashmir's Prime Minister Mehr Chand Mahajan and the governor of Jammu, Lala Chet Ram Chopra, and that some of those who led these riots in Udhampur and Bhaderwah later joined the National Conference with some of them also serving as ministers. == Violence against Hindus and Sikhs in Rajouri and Mirpur ==

Muslims in the western districts of Poonch jagir began an agitation against taxes in mid-1947, which escalated into an armed rebellion against Hari Singh's government, and expanded to Mirpur district. In October 1947, a force of Pathan tribesman crossed into Kashmir from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and the adjoining princely states and tribal areas. The rebels took control of most of the countryside in these districts by the end of the month, driving non-Muslims to seek shelter in towns where the State troops were garrisoned. Beginning on 24 October, the towns themselves fell to the rebels: Bhimber (24 October), Rajauri (7 November), and Mirpur (25 November). Rajouri Rajouri was held by the "Azad Kashmir forces", or rebels from Poonch, and the raiders, until April 1948, when the town was taken by the Indian armed forces. The Hindus facing this persecution included the town's residents as well as those displaced from the surrounding countryside. Some Hindus were able to escape, while others were sheltered by sympathetic Muslims. Mass suicides and killings, including by beheading or poisoning, occurred among women, sometimes at the hands of men in their family. These were the result of fears that they would be sexually abused by the raiders. The capture of Rajouri from the raiders is commemorated on 13 April, and a monument was erected to honour the incident in the town. Mirpur After the Indian army repelled the Pashtun raiders from near Srinagar on 25 November, the raiders turned to Mirpur, in present-day Azad Kashmir. Political scientist Christopher Snedden writes of unverifiable allegations that 20,000 non-Muslims were killed on and shortly after 25 November in Mirpur, and a further 2500 were abducted. In the district of Mirpur and nearby regions of Poonch, Hindu and Sikh women were also raped and abducted. November 25 is now commemorated as "Mirpur Day" in Indian-administered Kashmir. == Population figures ==

The table below compares the 1941 percentage of Muslim population with the present percentage for the Indian-administered part of the Jammu province and gives figures for estimated 'loss' of Muslims, due to deaths as well as migration. Scholar Ian Copland tries to estimate how many Muslims might have been killed in the Jammu violence based on demographic data. If the headcount figure of 333,964 refugees from the Indian-administered parts of the state is used to calculate an estimate, one ends up with a surplus rather than a deficit. However, Justice Yusuf Saraf estimates that 100,000 Jammu refugees returned to their homes in 1949–1950. If we deduct this 100,000 from the original headcount figure, the estimate of Muslims killed would be a few tens of thousands. The table below compares the 1941 percentage of 'Hindu & Sikh' population (H/S population) with that in 1951 for the areas of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir (comprising 89 per cent of the Mirpur District, 60 per cent of the Poonch Jagir and 87 per cent of the Muzaffarabad District). The Government of Jammu and Kashmir rehabilitated 36,384 refugee families from Azad Kashmir territories. With an average household size of 4.95, that gives an estimated population of 180,100 people that were killed or displaced from these territories. It would not cover the families that might have been completely eliminated by the Azad rebels and tribal raiders. == See also ==