Fazle Umar
The Kashmir issue P ersecution of M uslims b y Sikh Rulers The British were in conflict with the Sikhs in the Punjab. Raja Ghulab Singh, the Dogra Chieftain of Jammu, deserted the Sikhs and helped the British in various ways. They finally established control over the Punjab in 1845. Raja Ghulab Singh demanded a substantial reward for his services from the British. Upon his suggestion the British gave him control of Kashmir by the Treaty of Amritsar of 1846 for a cash payment of two and a half million rupees. The people of Kashmir are part of the lost tribes of Israel. They are a handsome people and are given to artistic pursuits like woodcarving, silver-chasing, and woollen and silk manufactures of the finest type. Under Mughal and Pathan rule they had led happy and comparatively prosperous lives. The Mughal emperors, beginning with Akbar the Great, spent a portion of the summer in the valley as a relief from the blazing heat of the plains. The valley had been celebrated as paradise on earth. Raja Ghulab Singh assumed the title of a Hindu Maharajah. This was the beginning of a century of the most savage tyranny in which he suppressed the rights of the Muslim majority in Kashmir and reduced them in effect to a state of humiliating bondage. Over time these atrocities became unbearable. He taxed everything needed for the support of human life except water and air. Even grass, which people needed to pasture their cattle, was heavily taxed. Matters continued more or less in that condition till the 1920s when the signs of a certain degree of awakening and political consciousness began to appear in the valley. By the mid-1920s demonstrations were made and processions were taken out in protest against measures of the government which bore harshly upon the people. These demonstrations and processions were suppressed by severe police action in
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