Kashmir Under The Dogras - Transition to Peace, Progress & Modernity

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Collector of books and yon, Dr. SN Pandits loves to read and labours to write. Born in Srinagar, Kashanic, he, presently, lives in Gurugram, Haryana, with his wife Veena, daughter Apeksha and sister Sabita During his active professional career, he has kept his academic interests and love for books uninterrupted. For him, reading is a serious and difficult occupation. He follows his academic cravings that originate from the burden of the eminence of his ancestor who shone bright across the literary and scholarly firmament of Kashmir in the early 20th century.

Widely traveled in Europe and South-east Asia, the author is a keen researcher and writer on subjects that mainly deal with Kashmir's culture, history, heritage and literature. A Bodleian Reader, Oxford, he has delivered many lectures on topics of his specialization both in India and abroad including the prestigious British Library and the Nehru Centre, London. He has attended several scores of seminars and conferences including the international conference held at the De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K. and that of the South Asian Library Achieves Group of the British Library.

An alumnus of the universities of Jammu and Kurukshetra, S.N. Pandita decades later, joined IGNOU, New Delhi, to embark on his doctoral study, covered in the present book.

A sports enthusiast, Dr. Pandita also follows international football and cricket in all its formats. An inveterate and engaging conversationalist, he spends his leisure time with friends and scholar-companions discussing mostly about things and subjects related to culture, history, art, archaeology, heritage, literature and philosophy. While reading biographies interest him the most; talking and reading about politics disinterest him the most, rather he detests everything that surrounds politics. At heart a Kashmiri to the core, however, his intellectual interests gravitate more to 'old' Kashmir than to the 'present and 'future' Kashmir.

History unravels our past and thereby helps us in understanding the present day problems and in seeking their solutions in a better way "The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty says Emerson. It is from this consideration scholars often seek for authentic records. Based on some new historical data and materials about Kashmir, the present book has been prepared to place them in more accessible form at the disposal of all the students of the modem history of Jammu and Kashmir. The present book is the formal publication of the Ph D research study entitled 'Modern Education, Healthcare and Scholarship in Kashmir during the Dogra Period undertaken by me under the supervision of Prof (Dr) Nandini Sinha Kapur of the School of Inter-Disciplinary & Trans-Disciplinary Studies (SOITS) at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi The idea of preparing the book actually originated from several suggestions I received from time to time during the course of the progress of my work and also subsequent to its completion. The insistence for having searched some new information, unreported earlier, through the copious use of some rare cache of correspondence and having relocated unique Kashmiri numeral archival sources previously unknown and the common opinion of those who have perused this work, that it may be worthwhile to bring these important results to the attention of wider readership of contemporary history of Kashmir by way of a formal book, finally sealed the resolve to undertake this publication.

The materials discussed in the book have been acquired from many sources and after laborious research extending over several years. These have been sifted and examined with much care. However, it will be too much to claim freedom from error and, hence, the present writer makes no such claim. Those who have the experience of historical research will appreciate the difficulties that had to be encountered and overcome in accomplishing the task. A considerable.

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir owes its foundation to the formidable combination of diplomacy and military valour exhibited by the Dogras under Maharaja Gulab Singh Following the battle of Sobraon during the Anglo-Sikh War, Kashmir came under the "Pax Britannica" in 1846 when it was ceded to the British Government by the Sikhs in lieu of a war indemnity which the Dogra Raja, Gulab Singh, agreed to pay under the Lahore Treaty signed between him and the British Governor General on March 9, 1846. The obligation of indemnity was fulfilled by Gulab Singh and only a week later, the British transferred Kashmir to him on March 16, 1846 after receiving, in exchange, Rupees seventy five lakhs under the Amritsar Treaty. Thus Kashmir came under the Dogra rule and British influence.

Even during the Sikh rule in Kashmir, Gulab Singh had consolidated the Jammu region and started the Dogra advent in the Himalayas, It followed with the trans-Himalayan military expeditions in which Gulab Singh conquered Ladakh, Gilgit and Baltistan. To it, later, his son Maharaja Ranbir Singh added Hunza and Nagar as tributaries. Thus was founded the multi-regional, multi-linguistic, multi- religious and multi-cultural Dogra Empire.

With the accession of the Dogras dawned an era of peace and continuity of administration in Kashmir. The successive rule of the royal descendants in bloodline saw considerable progress upon the road to recovery from former sorrows and woes to which Kashmir had fallen into during the immediate preceding period of the Afghans. The accession of the Dogras thus led to much of Kashmir's subsequent progress under the organization and administrative work of the British.