TeaHe saw the transit of the Sun, which brings the world’s hopes, into his house of honor in Aries on Friday. recorded emperor Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim Jahangir. Kashmir had blossomed in the light of spring. Fragrant buds clasped their stems, he wrote, “Like a black amulet on the arms of the beloved, [and] The awake, odd-singing nightingale heightened the desires of the drinkers. ,
“The fifteenth year of this priest’s reign on the throne of Allah began happily.”
Earlier that year, in 1620 AD, there was no possibility of a royal holiday in Kashmir. The Kingdom of Kishtwar—part of a wall of semi-independent mountain states on the rim of the Punjab that was crucial to Mughal defenses—had turned into a rebellion. led by Aiba Khan ChakiBrother of the deposed king of Kashmir, and Kishtwar ruler, Raja Gur Singh, the rebels fought against the Mughals for months.
Union Home Minister on a three-day visit to Kashmir this week Amit Shah announced That the central government will give job and educational reservation to the hill-speaking community in the hilly areas. The decision is meant to inject life into the exploited politics of Kashmir, by empowering a long-standing marginalized social group that cuts across religious and regional lines. However, there are reasons to worry that the decision could instead start savage new fire.
The rulers of Kashmir, from the Mughals to the Sikh emperor Ranjit Singh to the Dogra Rajput kings, learned to manipulate ethnic and religious affiliations to secure their thrones. The issue of hill reservation has evolved because of a similar craze over the decades.
Hill and Kashmir’s Power-Dynamics
From Muzaffarabad and Mirpur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the Pahari-speaking world lives in a large arc extending from Rajouri and Poonch to Kishtwar in the east and Uri in the north. Since the 1931 census, Pahari has been accepted as the third most widely spoken language in Jammu and Kashmir after Kashmiri and Dogri. At the beginning of the last century, scholar Vandana Sharma has recorded, a group of serious literature began to emerge from the Kisan language—marking the birth of a budding community.
New Kashmir ManifestoThe blueprint for the revolution, the first elected prime minister of Kashmir, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, promised recognition for all castes and languages of the region.
For the most part, however, both the geography and the Kashmir-centric elite conspired to ensure Rajouri and Poonch remained undeveloped. A Backward Area Development Plan was implemented – but by the end of 1968–1969 less than half of the villages in the region had any kind of road connectivity. Almost all rural areas lacked electricity. literacy levels were lowest in Kashmir,
Like their hill neighbours, Gujjar buffalo-herders and Bakarwal herders faced backwardness – but with an added burden, caste. Since the Mughal period, the Gurjar-Bakarwals had to face harsh taxes, but at the same time widespread social discrimination, The rise of a small educated elite in the mid-1960s prompted the Gurjar-Bakarwals to demand reservations, as given to tribals elsewhere in the country.
Scholar PN Pushpa from 1961 to 1981 and K Warikoo has noted In his official work on the language politics of Kashmir, consecutive census counts showed a sharp decline in the Gujjar population. Enumerators were manipulated by the political leadership to undermine Gurjar’s claims for political influence: in predominantly Kashmiri or Dogri-speaking regions, for example, Gujjars were given the only major linguistic identity.
The eruption of protracted jihad in 1990 eventually prompted the Indian state to reach out to the Gurjar community – in hopes of forming a coalition against the Kashmiri ethno-religious insurgency. The next year, Gujjars and Bakarwals were granted Scheduled Tribe status, unlocking access to education and government jobs.
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Withdraw caste privileges?
To its critics, the hill reservation is merely a means of taking back caste privileges. The Paharis, after all, include Muslim and Hindu Rajputs as well as elite castes such as Muslim Sayyids and Brahmins. “There have been cases of Gujjars becoming revenue officers in areas where their families used to till the land of Rajput landlords,” the commentator said. Zafar Choudhary’s argument, “Since the inclusion of the Gujjars in the Scheduled Tribes could not be reversed, they started a movement for their inclusion.”
“There are still many areas where Gujjars do not dare to sit at par with Rajputs or Brahmins,” Chowdhury said.
For their part, Pahari-reservation supporters argue that the bitter legacy of Partition – and the three Indo-Pakistani wars – devastated their community in a way that did not affect the Gujjars. Even if language binds Pahari people rather than an ethnicity, he argues that persistent economic backwardness is a compelling argument in itself.
Existing caste quotas, answer Gujjar advocates, may serve Dalits among the hills—about 70 percent of whom, according to scholar J.Aveda Bhat Estimation, belong to caste groups which are not entitled to reservation. The new policy will give reservation to poor and uneducated Pahari Muslims, but not to equally situated Kashmiri Muslims. The Paharis of the elite, similarly, would be entitled to caste quotas—but not the Pandits in Kashmir.
Political parties in Kashmir have, without exception, supported the Pahari case. Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti – who has now opposed Amit Shah’s proposal – pushed for hill reservation in 2019. The National Conference had also supported reservation in 2014. From the Gujjars point of view, the Pahari reservation shows that the new Kashmir that was promised in 2019 is very much the same. Old Kashmir dominated.
Conflict between Gujjars and Hindus in Jammu—conflicts over land as well as ideology—has increased contribute to stress, Rural Gujjars who fought in the front line Looking at the war against terrorism in Kashmir, it seems that he is being punished for being on India’s side.
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Language and identity boundaries
For Jahangir, the hills of Rajouri marked the end of Islamic civilization. The locals, he wrote bitterly, “were once a Hindu”. [but] They still have the marks of the times of ignorance. as the Hindus practiced satiMuslim women were “casted to the grave with their husbands”. “Also, when a daughter is born to a man without means, they strangle her to death.” “They associate themselves with Hindus, and both give and take girls.” “It’s good to take them,” wrote Manbhavati Bai’s husband, “but give them, God forbid!”
The boundaries between languages, as between faiths, are not always fixed by the ideologues of identity: Raja Sangram, the brother-in-law of Raja Gur Singh, an important ally who ensured the rebellion in Kishtwar, was a historian. Jigar Mohammed Records– Part of a network of Manhas-clan Rajputs, Hindus and Muslims, through which Mughal power spread in the hills of Jammu. Gur Singh himself was pardoned, and released to rule again.
Fieldwork has shown that Pahari and Gujjars are deeply connected, in a way that their political leadership does not accept. politician Kuljit Singh got that the Pahari-speaking respondents knew at least two other languages very well. Researchers Zahoor Bhat and Mahmood Khan draw similar conclusions Gojri speakers.
The residents of the single district of Doda can speak Kashmiri, Dogri, Himachali, Bhaderwahi, Pogli and Siraji – each intelligible, scholarly to the speakers of the other languages Balraj Puri has noted,
For Colonial Civil Servant Walter Lawrence, it appears that the Gujjars—”a fine tall race of men, with rather silly faces,” he called them, with the raging racism of their time—were no different from Pahari. Lawrence reported that the Gurjars spoke Parimu and Hindki—some languages also known as Parimi and Hindko, or Pahari and Gojri.
Linguists working on the 1941 census also saw no meaningful difference, Pushp and Wariku note. “Gujari includes the language of Gujars along with Rajasthani. Pahari which is shown separately in the plan is closely associated with Gujari and is spoken in almost the same region.
Like most nationalism, the hill-gujar struggle ultimately involved what Sigmund Freud said “The narrowness of small differences.” The smaller the differences between two communities, the more irreparable they seem. Electoral politics and competition for state resources have led caste and community elites to weaponize language and religion – just as the Mughal kings did in their quest for legitimacy.
For the intoxicated leaders of identity politics, Jahangir left behind a warning. He wrote, “I began to drink wine, increasing it day by day, until the wine made from grapes drank on me, and then I began to drink arrack.” Estimated results were “twenty cups of double distilled spirits, fourteen during the day and the rest at night”. “I could not drink from my cup because of the excessive trembling of my hand.”
Kashmir needs a genuine dialogue between communities fragmented by generations of toxic politics – not a new war over how to divide the spoils of power.
The author is ThePrint’s National Security Editor. He tweeted @praveenswami. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)