Dogirath is a Sanskrit word meaning two Lakes. As the plains of Punjab rise towards highlands in North, we encounter a Rajput settlement around the two lakes - Mansar and Siroinsar, which give the people their name - the Dogras. They are believed to have moved here from Delhi and Awadh to defend India against the Greek invader, Alexander, and their town came to be known as Jammu, the Capital of Dogra Rulers. During the thirty one years of Raja Ranjit Dev, who came to power in 1750, they nurtured their fortunes through any alliance that served their interests. In 1779, Ranjit Dev sent an army into Kashmir, but it was ambushed and defeated.

Ranjit Dev’s son, Brij Raj was unable to hold on to his father’s achievements, and chose Sikhs as their master. Thus, the Dogras entered Ranjit Singh’s service - and real dividends came in the time of Gulab Singh, grandson of Ranjit Dev’s younger brother born in 1792. Gulab Singh joined Ranjit Singh’s army in 1809 and his abilities took him quickly up the ladder, with Maharaja rewarding him with Jammu, with the hereditary title of Raja, under over lordship of Lahore of course. Later, Gulab Singh was the only person to carve a state out of the ruins of the Sikh empire, and he did it by investing in British rather than his countrymen.

Gulab Singh supported the British at two critical moments when their power could have been checked. First was at the battle of Sobraon on 10 February 1846 and the second was in 1857. At Sabraon, Gulab Singh’s neutrality tilted the balance decisively in favour of the British. When the Valley fell to the Lahore durbar of the Sikhs, British interest quickened. British eventually imposed their will through the treaty of Amritsar in 1846. The boundary of Tibet was marked as the border of Lahore’s ambitions. This treaty also rewarded Gulab Singh’s support to the English cause by conforming him as the ruler of the new state of J&K along with Ladakh and Baltistan. Gulab Singh was rewarded by his fair friends as he had refused the honour of leading the Sikh forces into battle against the British.

Of the hill regions obtained from the Sikhs, the British kept only Kullu, Mandi, Nurpur and Kangra. They sold the rest. The Valley of Kashmir was sold to Gulab Singh for just seventy-five lakh rupees. Gulab Singh thought that he was overcharged, and his aim was to clearly recover the amount from the people within his own lifetime. Gulab Singh’s decisive support to the British when his troops fought against Indians in the siege of Delhi, made the Dogra’s a favourite of the British.

Map and Flag of Dogra Empire

Though there was some reform and creeping progress, the injustice and oppression which the people of Valley had to bear in these hundred years far outweighed any marginal compensation. As the demand for freedom and self rule rose in the twentieth century, Kashmir too began to rise against insensitive mon-archs. The tide of growing anger threw up a young man destined to dominate the mood and politics of his land for half a century: Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. He would become in October 1947, the first Kashmiri to rule in Srinagar since the conquest of the Mughals in 1589 - after 358 years to be precise.

Gulab Singh was well - rewarded for his betrayal of the Sikhs. According to treaty of 16 March 1846, he was allowed to “purchase” 2.5 million people spread over 84,471 square miles for sum of rupees seventy five lakhs. Gulab Singh’s son Ranbir Singh, who inherited the throne in 1856, only intensified Dogra discrimination against the Kashmiris, Baltis and Ladakhis. Though the treaty specifically allowed the Dogras complete freedom of rule, Ranbir Singh was pressurised into accepting an officer on Special Duty in 1870, to tend to the needs of Europeans holidaying in the Valley. Since the British would not allow their breed of conquerors to be tried by natives, a mixed court of British and Dogra officials was created in 1872 to try civil suits. By 1877, the officer on Special Duty was placed under the orders of Delhi. The next step was that Raj wanted a AResident, which was how it kept control of the other Princely States. But at last, Ranbir Singh protested and a surprised Raj realised that it may have overplayed its hand. British decided that so long as Maharaja Ranbir Singh is alive, the Government of India will not propose to make any change in their existing policy.

It became a different matter of course once he was dead. Pratap Singh the new Maharaja was still in mourning when the first Resident Sir Oliver St John, reached Srinagar.

By 1888, the British were dictating a new Constitution; by 1889, the ruler’s authority had been clipped by a council. The British wanted two things in the main. The first was to bring Kashmir in line with the other Princely States and establish their unquestioned supremacy. The second was to obtain Gilgit to firm up the Empire’s defences against Russia. They got both.

It was inevitable that the confrontation between the Muslim masses and an oppressive Hindu government would acquire a communal tinge. Muslims yearned for liberation from Dogra rule. In December 1930, a group of young men launched an agitation in Jammu on their return from the annual session of All India Muslim Conference held in Lahore. The government got ‘tough’ and arrests were made. A maulvi was prevented from reciting the Khutba in a Jammu mosque. This welled up into a slogan on the streets of Jammu-“Islam in danger”. The spirit of protest travelled to Srinagar. However, the fire of a mass upsurge was lit not by a Kashmiri intellectual but by a Punjabi cook.

Abdul Qadir was a cook with a European posted in Srinagar. On 21 June 1931, Abdul Qadir made a speech at the Khanqah of Sheikh Hamadani which sent passions soaring. His arrest was the match to the tinder-box.

About four to five thousand people collected at gates of Srinagar Central Jail on the day of the hearing, and made a rush for the gates to free their hero. The police stopped them. The crowd replied with stones. Authorities responded with bullets. Twenty one people died and many more were wounded. An enraged crowd paraded the corpses through the main markets; shops were looted and Hindus attacked. It was a day of many firsts: the first popular street challenge to the Maharaja’s despotism; the first mass communal violence; the first instance of police firing on an unarmed crowd.

Kashmir had changed. The movement for self-rule had now acquired a momentum which was difficult to contain. That anger flowed into a great movement only when it was harnessed to Kashmiriyat, and ploughed the trans-religious culture and identity of a country where a Sheikh could proudly call a Pandit his blood-brother and make common cause against both Islamic fanaticism and Hindu fascism.