Let Kashmir be Independent

by Mark Nicholson

Alfred Williams 1820-1841

I was leaving my local country club one afternoon a few months ago, when I noticed a large pile of discarded library books on sale to members. Amongst the Danielle Steele novels, I spotted one entitled The Great Mutiny, which piqued my interest because I was certain some ancestor of mine was involved. When I got home, I went downstairs to look at a painting of some chap who, family history had it, was killed in the mutiny. Next to his picture was another one of the wrecked billiard room in the Lucknow residency after a cannon ball fired by mutinous sepoys had hit the building in 1857.

The Residency, Lucknow 1857

Unlike some of my friends, I have as much interest in ‘relatives/ ancestors’ born two or three centuries ago as they would have had in my transient existence. This is mainly on numerical grounds: a child born this year, based on a 25-year generation time, would have had 256 grandparents wandering round in 1825 (and while we are at it, 1,048,576 grandparents in 1533 when Henry married Anne Boleyn). Anyway, the young fellow of interest in the painting, who looks barely 15, was born in 1821 and killed 19 years later in the Siege of Kahun (Kahan). Google tells me that the siege occurred during the Ist Anglo-Afghan war of 1840, 27 years before the Mutiny. As in Europe, one can forget how easily borders change, as I fear we are about to see in Ukraine. Kahan has been variously part of Balochistan (sic.), Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. So no, the young man died in a seemingly fruitless war against the Afghans. Do we ever learn?

What do most of us really know about the East India Company (E.I.C.) at the time of the Mutiny? We’ve probably heard of the Black Hole of Calcutta and maybe Clive of India, but little else. The E.I.C. was founded in 1603 and the aim was trade, not conquest. Over the next 150 years, France, the Netherlands and Portugal all tried to get their oar in but British power prevailed based on Divide and Rule. India was still in a state of anarchy after the collapse of the Mughal empire and Indian adventurers, Princelings, Nabobs and Nizams sprang up to carve out new states for themselves. Indian borders never really existed. A bullying and arrogant English adventurer, Robert Clive, arrived in 1751 and within fifteen or twenty years became the richest man in the world. Clive reminds one very much of the current wealthiest man in the world, being an achiever but not a very pleasant one. But in 1774, he returned to England in disgrace, accused of corruption, and committed suicide.  For the next 80 years, India became a vast source of wealth for Britain.

By 1850, Victorian Christian values started to be forced on Hindus and Muslims alike. The last straw came when new Enfield rifles arrived for Anglo-Indian regiments which required bullets to be coated in tallow and for the ends to be bitten off before loading. Rumours spread that the tallow was either cow fat or pig fat, both abhorrent to Hindi and Muslim alike.   

The Great Mutiny of 1857 started in Meerat and terrible massacres ensued, even of women and children in Cawnpore. Around 15,000 British people and probably well over half a million Indians were killed. The atrocities on both sides were horrifying. If you think Israeli revenge on Gaza is a war crime, consider that British officers vowed to kill at least a hundred or 1000 Indians for every colonial killed. There were numerous accounts of rebellious sepoys cruelly executed, such as being tied to the front of cannons before being blown into pieces. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Although Indians outnumbered employees of the East India Company (EIC) by around 10,000 to one, the failure of the mutiny was essentially the result of two factors. First, the inability of Hindu and Muslim to come together against a common foe and second, the difficulty of communication over huge areas. The mutiny was concentrated around Oudh and Bengal, far from Punjab or the southern states which were scarcely involved, so simultaneous action was impossible.  If social media had been around, the British would have been destroyed or driven out of India in days.  Instead, the EIC was closed down and the British Raj took over. Amazingly, it was another 90 years before the Indian subcontinent got its independence only to be riven once more by the appalling partition which ended up with at least another two million fatalities. Yet out from the chaos, eventually three independent countries emerged and, by and large, have prospered.

In 2024 India held an election peacefully and successfully. BJP’s win was a foregone conclusion but the win was based on Hindu numbers, not rigging. I get regular updates about India from my car mechanic who is a Muslim Gujarati. He flew back last year for the election to vote[1] against Modi’s BJP but the outcome was obvious. What was remarkable though was the efficiency of the world’s largest election in which almost 650 million people voted peacefully and on the whole fairly over several weeks. 

This month India and Pakistan have been rattling sabres as they are inclined to do every decade or so. This time it followed the murder of 26 tourists in Pahalgam in Indian administered Kashmir, an attractive mountain resort I visited on various occasions in the safe years of the 1970s, 1990s and early 2000s in between flare-ups.

Kashmir (Gilgit) in green [Pakistan] ; Jammu & Kashmir in orange [India]

The north-west part of Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan) is in Pakistan. The whole area is part of the western Himalayas and one sometimes feels that India just wanted to claim one big mountain, Kanchenjunga, for themselves, which at over 8500m is the third highest mountain in the world.

As most of the tourists in the recent attack were Hindu men, the Indian government immediately blamed Pakistan, which I think is unfair and inaccurate. India has always been a dog in the manger over Jammu and Kashmir ever since Partition. India is a predominantly Hindu state and the Muslim Kashmiris have always felt like second class citizens.  Kashmir does not feel like India. Everybody I spoke to in Srinagar said they did not want to join Pakistan; they’re adamant in their wish to be independent from both countries. The terrorists were undoubtedly Kashmiri-born supporters of independence for the region but some support Pakistan’s claim just to annoy Delhi.

I have a particular affection for Kashmir not just because of the beauty of its mountainous terrain. I am also a great fan of the novels of Rumer Godden[2] who was brought up in Calcutta and what is now Bangladesh. She was brought up as a daughter of the Raj but later became very interested in and attached to Indian culture. In a semi-autobiographical novel, Kingfishers Catch Fire she evokes the wonderful landscapes around the Dal lake where she went to live with her young daughter after her divorce. She writes about the complexity of trying to immerse herself in Muslim Kashmiri culture having turned away forever from the Raj society. In her eighties she returned to the Calcutta and Kashmir of her youth, a trip which she found to have been a great mistake.

Do I believe that the two nuclear-armed countries will go to war over Kashmir? The answer is a definite "No". Both countries would have too much to lose and the ‘International Community’ would also do everything to prevent it. A few drone attacks and lobbed shells should finish the job but one always has to be careful about fake news. But the posturing will continue. If you want some entertainment watch the daily lowering of the flag at Wagah on the Pakistan/ Indian border[3].

India now has the fourth largest economy in the world ($4.187 trillion) against the UK’s at $3.8 trillion. It is an ever-growing economy and alongside it is one of the best health services in the world. It is the number one destination of choice for medical procedures among those in east Africa who can afford it, being modern, world-leading, efficient and under half the price of anywhere else.

The rivalry between the two countries will be as eternal as Flemish-Walloon or Anglo-Scots rivalry but in the meantime, I hope both India and Pakistan will one day cede independence for its predominantly Islamic state. 

[1] Indians overseas were not entitled to vote.

[2] Black Narcissus, The River & Kingfishers Catch Fire are among the most famous of her 80 works.

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvvwhBl1xWM