Rajouri Massacres
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After the
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
, during October–November 1947 in the
Jammu region The Jammu division (; ) is a revenue and administrative division of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kash ...
of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, many Muslims were massacred and others driven away to West Punjab. The killings were carried out by extremist
Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
s and
Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...
s, aided and abetted by the forces of
Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...
Hari Singh Hari Singh Bahadur (September 1895 – 26 April 1961) was the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir of the Dogra dynasty. Hari Singh was the son of Amar Singh and Bhotiali Chib. In 1923, following his uncle's deat ...
. The activists of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,, ) is an Indian right-wing politics, right-wing, Hindutva, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar ( ...
(RSS) played a key role in planning and executing the riots. An estimated 20,000–100,000 Muslims were massacred. Subsequently, many non-Muslims were massacred by Pakistani tribesmen, in the Mirpur region of today's Pakistani administered Kashmir, and also in the
Rajouri Rajouri or Rajauri (; ; ) is a city in the Rajouri district in the Jammu division of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir. It is located about from Srinagar and from Jammu (city), Jammu city on ...
area of Jammu division.


Background

At the time of the
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
in 1947, the British abandoned their
suzerainty A suzerain (, from Old French "above" + "supreme, chief") is a person, state (polity)">state or polity who has supremacy and dominant influence over the foreign policy">polity.html" ;"title="state (polity)">state or polity">state (polity)">st ...
over the princely states, which were left with the options of joining India or Pakistan or remaining independent.
Hari Singh Hari Singh Bahadur (September 1895 – 26 April 1961) was the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir of the Dogra dynasty. Hari Singh was the son of Amar Singh and Bhotiali Chib. In 1923, following his uncle's deat ...
, the
Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...
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 The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party founded in 1906 in Dhaka, British India with the goal of securing Muslims, Muslim interests in South Asia. Although initially espousing a united India with interfaith unity, the Muslim L ...
, 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 Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...
against the Maharaja and demanding accession to Pakistan. Soon Pakistan got involved. On 12 September 1947, the Pakistani prime minister
Liaquat Ali Khan Liaquat Ali Khan (1 October 189516 October 1951) was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Pakistan The prime minister of Pakistan (, Roman Urdu, romanized: Wazīr ē Aʿẓam , ) is the he ...
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 Mohammed Zaman Kiani (Urdu:; c. 1 October 1910 – 4 June 1981) was a Pakistani Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician. He is known for commanding the Kashmir rebels during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, first Indo-Pak ...
(formerly of the
Indian National Army The Indian National Army (INA, sometimes Second INA; ''Azad Hind Fauj'' ; 'Free Indian Army') was a Empire of Japan, Japanese-allied and -supported armed force constituted in Southeast Asia during World War II and led by Indian Nationalism#An ...
) 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 Arya Samaj () is a monotheistic Indian Hindu reform movement that promotes values and practices based on the belief in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda Saraswati founded the samaj in the 1870s. Arya Samaj was the first Hindu ...
. 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 The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ) was a province of British India from 1901 to 1947, of the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955, and of the Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1970 to 2010. It was established on 9 November ...
) 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 Rawalpindi is the List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, third-largest city in the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is a commercial and industrial hub, being the list of cities in P ...
and
Sialkot Sialkot (Punjabi language, Punjabi, ) is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of the Sialkot District and the List of most populous cities in Pakistan, 12th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined ...
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 Jammu () is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary source ...
.


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. Scholar Ilyas Chattha and Jammu journalist Ved Bhasin blame the mishandling of law and order by Maharaja Hari Singh and his armed forces in Jammu, for the large scale communal violence in the region.


Massacres

On 14 October, the
RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...
activists and the Akalis attacked various villages of Jammu district—Amrey, Cheak, Atmapur and Kochpura—and after killing some Muslims, looted their possessions and set their houses on fire. There was mass killing of Muslims in and around Jammu city. The state troops led the attacks. The state officials provided arms and ammunition to the rioters. The administration had demobilised many Muslim soldiers in the state army and had discharged Muslim police officers. Most of the Muslims outside the Muslim dominated areas were killed by the communal rioters who moved in vehicles with arms and ammunition, though the city was officially put under curfew. Many
Gujjar The Gurjar (or Gujjar, Gujar, Gurjara) are an agricultural ethnic community, residing mainly in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were traditionally involved in agriculture, pastoral and nomadic ...
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. There were also reports of large-scale massacres of Muslims in Udhampur district, particularly in proper Udhampur, Chenani, Ramnagar,
Bhaderwah Bhaderwah or Bhadarwah (also ''Bhaderwah Valley'') is a town, tehsil, and sub-district in the Doda district of Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir, India. Bhaderwah Valley is famous for its beauty, nature. B ...
and Reasi areas. Killing of numerous Muslims was reported from Chhamb, Deva Batala, Manawsar and other parts of
Akhnoor Akhnoor is a town and municipal committee, near city of Jammu in Jammu district of Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It lies 28 km away from Jammu city. Akhnoor is on the bank of the Chenab River, just before it enters the ...
with many people fleeing to Pakistan or moving to Jammu. In Kathua district and Billawar area, there was extensive killing of Muslims with women being raped and abducted. On 16 November 1947,
Sheikh Abdullah Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (5 December 1905 – 8 September 1982) was an Indian politician who played a central role in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir. Abdullah was the founding leader and President of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Confer ...
arrived in Jammu and a refugee camp was set up in ''Mohalla Ustad''.


Observations

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
commented on the situation in Jammu on 25 December 1947 in his speech at a prayer meeting in New Delhi: "The Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu and those who had gone there from outside killed Muslims. The Maharaja of Kashmir is responsible for what is happening there…A large number of Muslims have been killed there and Muslim women have been dishonoured." According to Ved Bhasin and scholar Ilyas Chattha, the Jammu riots were executed by members of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,, ) is an Indian right-wing politics, right-wing, Hindutva, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar ( ...
(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. Observers have noted that the Akali Sikhs and some former members of the
Indian National Army The Indian National Army (INA, sometimes Second INA; ''Azad Hind Fauj'' ; 'Free Indian Army') was a Empire of Japan, Japanese-allied and -supported armed force constituted in Southeast Asia during World War II and led by Indian Nationalism#An ...
(INA) also participated in this violence along with the RSS and state forces. 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.


Estimates of people killed and displaced

An early official calculation made in Pakistan, using headcount data, estimated 50,000 Muslims killed. A team of two Englishmen jointly commissioned by the governments of India and Pakistan investigated seven major incidents of violence between 20 October – 9 November 1947, estimating 70,000 deaths. Scholar Ian Copland estimated total deaths to be around 80,000, while Ved Bhasin estimated them to be around 100,000. Scholar Christopher Snedden says, the number of Muslims killed were between 20,000 and 100,000. Justice Yusuf Saraf estimates them to be between 20,000 and 30,000. Much higher figures were reported by newspapers at that time. A report by a special correspondent of ''The Times'', published on 10 August 1948, stated that a total of 237,000 Muslims were either killed or migrated to Pakistan. The editor of '' The Statesman'' Ian Stephens claimed that 500,000 Muslims, "the entire Muslim element of the population", was eliminated and 200,000 "just disappeared". Scholar Ian Copland finds these figures dubious. The Pakistani newspaper '' Nawa-i-Waqt'' reported that more than 100,000 Jammu refugees had arrived in
Sialkot Sialkot (Punjabi language, Punjabi, ) is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of the Sialkot District and the List of most populous cities in Pakistan, 12th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined ...
by 20 November 1947. Snedden, on the other hand, cites a "comprehensive report" in ''
Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the diffuse sky radiation, appearance of indirect sunlight being Rayleigh scattering, scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc ha ...
'', which said that 200,000 Muslims went as refugees to Pakistan in October–November 1947. An unidentified organisation in Pakistan counted refugees from Jammu and Kashmir during May–July 1949, and found 333,964 refugees from the Indian-held parts of the state. Of these, an estimated 100,000 refugees returned to their homes in 1949–1950, leaving an estimated 233,964 refugees in Pakistan. Based on the electoral rolls of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in 1970, the number that remained in Pakistan is estimated to be in the range 219,718 – 259,047.


Violence against Hindus and Sikhs in Rajouri and Mirpur

Muslims in the western districts of
Poonch jagir Poonch jagir or Poonch district, was a former semi-autonomous region in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The territory was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947, represented by the present-day Poonch Division of Azad Kashmir and ...
began an agitation against taxes in mid-1947, which escalated into an armed rebellion against Hari Singh's government, and expanded to
Mirpur district Mirpur District () is a district of Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir region. The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary sources (a ...
. In October 1947, a force of Pathan tribesman crossed into Kashmir from Pakistan's
North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ) was a province of British India from 1901 to 1947, of the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955, and of the Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1970 to 2010. It was established on 9 November ...
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 Bhimber () is a town and the headquarters of the eponymous district in Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir. The town and district are between the Jammu region of Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistan proper, about by road southeast of M ...
(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 Srinagar (; ) is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary ...
on 25 November, the raiders turned to Mirpur, in present-day
Azad Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir ( ), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...
. 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.: "Towards the middle of 1949, a movement for return started on a small scale which gained momentum by the end of 1950. A fair estimate of the returnees is about a hundred thousand. Sheikh Abdullah's Government re-settled them on their abandoned properties, advanced taqqavi loans and appointed a special staff to look after their problems." 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 Azad Jammu and Kashmir (), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir ( ), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...
(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.Naseer Ganai
The Forgotten Refugees From West Pakistan In Jammu
''Outlook'', 18 January 2024.
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

*
Persecution of Muslims The persecution of Muslims has been recorded throughout the history of Islam, beginning with its founding by Muhammad in the 7th century. In the early days of Islam in Mecca, pre-Islamic Arabia, the new Muslims were frequently subjected t ...
* Violence against Muslims in India * Timeline of the Kashmir conflict *
Kashmir conflict The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, and also between China and India in the northeastern portion of the region. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1 ...
*
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * :*Since republished as * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * *


External links

* Khalid Bashir Ahmad
Jammu 1947: Tales of Bloodshed
Greater Kashmir, 5 November 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jammu massacres, 1947 Massacres in Jammu and Kashmir Massacres in Pakistan-administered Kashmir Massacres in 1947 Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948 Partition of India 20th century in Jammu and Kashmir 20th century in Azad Kashmir Riots and civil disorder in Jammu and Kashmir Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh October 1947 in Asia November 1947 in Asia 1947 murders in India Massacres of Muslims in India Massacres of Muslims in Kashmir Massacres of Hindus in Kashmir Massacres of Sikhs Crime in Azad Kashmir Wartime sexual violence in Asia Rape in India Rape in Pakistan Mass kidnappings Kidnapping in the 1940s Kidnappings in India Kidnappings in Pakistan