This article has been co-authored by Shanmukh, Saswati Sarkar and Dikgaj
Section 1: Introduction
In this article, we examine the partition related communal strife in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in the years 1947-48. We show that the riots on the Indian side were restricted, confined to the regions where the refugees arrived from West Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), whereas the war on the Hindus and Sikhs of PoJK was totally and exterminated them entirely. We show that this pattern is consistent with what is observed elsewhere in India, with the atrocities on Muslims occurring principally in the area where the refugees from East and West Pakistan arrived in big numbers. This pattern seems to militate against the thesis of a state sponsored war against the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, despite the propaganda built around it. The Indian part of Jammu retained approximately 70% of the total Muslim population (in proportional terms), while Pakistan exterminated its Hindu and Sikh population.
We first start with some human stories on the cruelty inflicted on the Hindus and Sikhs during this strife. In section 2, we shall briefly recount the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindus of Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir, with a focus on the accounts of eyewitnesses and other primary sources. We next conduct an investigation of the atrocities in both sides of the current border in numerical terms, utilising the census and other authoritative documents. We first show that the number of Hindus and Sikhs expelled from PoJK is roughly of the same magnitude as the number of Muslims expelled from Jammu. Towards this end, in section 3, we show that the numbers of Hindu and Sikh refugees that moved into Jammu, both from the PoJK and from West Pakistan were at least around 1 lakh, concentrated chiefly in the districts of Jammu and Kathua. Further, in Section 4, examining the census of 1941 and 1961, we show that the total number 1of Muslims that emigrated or were expelled from the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir due to the riots ranged between 1.16 lakhs and 1.9 lakhs.
Next, by utilising the figures of the census, we establish that the massacres and expulsions in the Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) were massive, and totally exterminated the Hindus and Sikhs of the region. Thus, there was a total war on the minorities in PoJK. In Section 5, we show that Hindus and Sikhs ceased to exist in the Pakistani part of Jammu and Kashmir, where they constituted a population of 1.22 lakh local residents and several thousands of refugees who had fled West Pakistan. Estimates have put the numbers of refugees at greater than 20 thousand in total in the current PoJK, as we shall show in section 5. In contrast, in section 4, we show that the riots in the Indian part of Jammu were restricted to the areas where the refugees fled in large numbers from West Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir, i.e., the districts of Jammu and Kathua, while there was little expulsion or loss of life in other parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Finally, in section 6, we observe the patterns of the expulsion of Muslims that occurred in other parts of India when Hindu and Sikh refugees arrived in large numbers. We show that the expulsion of Muslims was far worse in the border districts of Punjab, where Muslims were almost totally eliminated, in contrast to the far more limited expulsion of Muslims from even the worst affected areas of Indian Jammu.
In the final section 7 of this article, we shall analyse the propaganda built around the numbers, by examining the numbers claimed by the various sources alleging the massacres and the numbers, both those claimed by the Pakistanis and pro-Pakistani accounts mentioned in [21] and those claimed by the Indian authors [16], [24] who have alleged the numbers killed in the riots. We show that the number of Muslim dead and expelled have been hugely inflated by these authors.
Section 2: Atrocities on the Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir
The atrocities on the Hindus and Sikhs of PoJK began immediately after independence in 1947. The massive atrocities perpetrated on the Hindus and Sikhs, both by the invading Pakistani troops and their tribal allies, and the local Muslims who turned on the Hindus, have been recorded by multiple sources, including first hand accounts produced by survivors like Bal Gupta [4], and Krishna Mehta [12], who have left behind accounts of the terrible massacres they themselves witnessed at close quarters. These accounts have been 2further confirmed by the autobiography of the erstwhile Maharaja Dr. Karan Singh [20], the work of Harbans Singh [19], army witnesses like Lt. Gen. LP Sen [17], and civilian witnesses like Balraj Madhok [11]. These atrocities have also been confirmed by pro-Kashmiri sources like Shabir Chaudhary [2]. Without any claim of completeness in covering the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu and Kashmir, we shall cite a few accounts produced by the eye-witnesses and other material provided by those with access to primary sources, especially when the give an idea of the magnitude of the horrors perpetrated by the invading Pakistanis and their local allies.
• The erstwhile Maharaja, Dr. Karan Singh, in his autobiography recounts the horrors caused by the skirmishes caused before the actual invasion, p. 54, [6] “Intelligence reports from the frontier areas of Poonch and Mirpur as well as the Sialkot sector started coming in which spoke of large scale massacre, loot and rape of our villagers by aggressive hordes from across the borders. I recall the grim atmosphere that began to engulf us as it gradually became clear that we were losing control of the outer areas. My father occasionally handed some of these reports to me and asked me to explain them in Dogri to my mother, and I still recall the embarrassment in dealing with the word ‘rape’ for which I could find no acceptable equivalent.”
• Reinforcing the magnitude of the massacres perpetrated by the invading Pakistanis and their local Muslim allies, Jagmohan points out that when Baramulla fell to the invaders, the horrors were recounted by the New York Times correspondent, who wrote, “Surviving residents estimate that 3,000 of their fellow townsmen, including four Europeans and a retired British officer and his pregnant wife, were slain.” p. 87, [7].
• Shabir Chaudhary, a former JKLF leader, recounts his own memories. He states, “I have many horror stories from Mirpur and Bhimber where Muslims butchered non Muslims, and many were burnt alive; and this tragic incident happened about two miles away from my village in District Bhimber. Frightened non Muslims from various villages took shelter in a big Kothi (house) of an influential Hindu in a village called Naka Gura, about four miles towards north from Jatlan. Exact number is not known, but I was told that there must have been more than 100 people, which included men, women and children. All of them were deliberately burnt alive, not because they posed any threat to the majority population –Muslims or committed any crime against Islam, but because they were non Muslims.” Loc. 1913-1918, [2].
• We recount the memoirs of Bal Gupta, a man who survived the fall of Mirpur to narrate the tale. When most of the Hindu and Sikh civilian population of Mirpur was taken prisoner by the Pakistanis and their tribal and local allies, they were marched off to Thathal village. It is here that Bal Gupta narrates the following incident. “When we reached Thathal, there was a change of guard and new Pakistani soldiers and local Muslims took over command … The Pakistani commanders announced that soon, they would kill all the male Sikhs since Sikhs had opposed the creation of Pakistan and thus were Pakistan’s number one enemy … Upon hearing the the mass death sentence ordered for all Sikh males, the Sikh women and children started crying and begged for mercy from the Pakistani soldiers and local Muslims. Nevertheless, the bloodthirsty Pakistanis did not care about their pleas. They started pulling small groups of Sikh men to the fields and shot them dead. A few Sikhs had earlier gone to the nearby village to buy food and were returning with food for their families when the Pakistani soldiers stopped them, robbed them of their cash, and asked them to move towards an empty field. The Sikh men begged to be released so that they could take food to their children. Nevertheless, the Pakistanis hit them with rifle butts and shot them dead at point blank range. All this happened so quickly in front of my own eyes – all of their food lay strewn across their dead bodies. The Pakistanis kept shooting until there was no movement from the fallen bodies of the Sikhs. … For the rest of the day, the Pakistanis, Pathans and local Muslims continued killing Sikhs and abducting Hindu and Sikh women and girls.” pp. 30-31, [4]. Further on, he narrates another experience. “On November 28 at midnight, in the village of Thathal, the Pakistani soldiers woke us up and ordered us to march in the direction of Alibeg, which was about ten miles away. The Pakistanis had decided to march the Hindu and Sikh prisoners during the night to avoid detection by IAF airplanes. The caravan of prisoners walked all night under the surveillance of the Pakistani sokdiers. In the darkness, many local armed Muslims sporadically attacked the caravan. They randomly pulled Hindu and Sikh men, killed them with their swords and axes, and abducted Hindu and Sikh women. I saw Muslims kill my mother’s uncle, Khem Chand Bhagotra, because he was trying to save his daughter-in-law from being kidnapped. I also saw Muslims shoot dead another of my mother’s uncles, Mukund Lal Sootwala, when he tried to protect his daughter from being kidnapped” p. 33, [4].
• We recount the memoirs of Balraj Madhok, who was a leader of the Praja Parishad, in Jammu. He writes the following lines about Bhimber, a town in the current PoJK, “This town [Bhimber], with a normal population of three thousand which had swelled to about five thousand because of some refugees 4from Pakistan and Hindus from surrounding villages, lies just two miles within the State border. It was a tehsil headquarter within the Mirpur district. It fell to the armed Pakistani raiders who began shelling the town with heavy guns. Just at this time, the Indian Dakotas were carrying the first consignment of airborne troops to Srinagar. The people of the town who had assembled in the courtyard of the fort-like tehsil building found all their roads of escape blocked. Still some of them rushed out with the few State troops. But most of them could not. Finding that no hope was left, hundreds of Hindu ladies took poison which they had taken with them as a precaution and thus revived the practice of ’Jauhar’. Many others were kidnapped along with their children. The male population was put to the sword.” p. 49, [11].
• Harbans Singh, who has recorded the history of the troubled times in [19], records that, after the fall of Skardu, “There was panic and chaos all over as the women started committing suicide by jumping into the Indus and poisoning themselves in order to save their honour. There was an instance where a girl jumped thrice into the Indus to kill herself, but each time the waves carried her back to the shore. The forty non-Muslim refugees were the first to be killed and then began general murder and rape. Many
women in the garrison committed suicide. All the Sikhs were put to sword and that now infamous message, ‘All Sikhs killed, all women raped.’ was sent (This was the message sent on radio by the soldiers who took Skardu to their superiors in the Pakistan army). Capt. Ganga Singh, commander A Company, 6JAK [Jammu and Kashmir Rifles] was tied and shot. The only Sikh who escaped was Kalyan Singh, Lt. Col. Sher Jang Thapa’s orderly.” p. 213, [19].
• Bal Gupta, who has written the horrors of the fall of Mirpur, mentions that out of the 25, 000 residents of Mirpur (15, 000 residents and 10, 000 refugees), only around 2, 500 people reached India safely p. xviii, [4]. He has also written the mass executions of the Sikhs and Hindus, and the massacres of the prisoners in the Alibeg prison, which was really a Gurudwara converted to a prison p. xviii, [4]. The number of women violated and their mass suicides (or them being killed by their men to avoid them being raped and sold in the markets in Pakistan) has also been recorded by him, and he puts the number at 5,000 p. xviii, [4].
• Krishna Mehta, who was an eye-witness in Muzaffarabad, has recounted how the entire hospital of Muzaffarabad was burnt down, along with a lot of the patients and doctors inside pp. 10-11, [12].
The abduction of the women in large numbers, to be raped and sold in markets in Pakistan has been recounted by Shabir Chaudhary [2], Balraj Madhok [11] and Harbans Singh [19]. The latter, in particular, gives a very harrowing account of what the refugees, who numbered in thousands, and who had escaped from Rawalkot and the rural areas of Poonch went through [19]. In fact, even a hardened soldier like Lt. Gen. LP Sen gives a horrified account of the horrors perpetrated on schools and hospitals in the Kashmir valley [17].
These accounts show that the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindus and Sikhs, which essentially wiped them out of Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir, were thorough, and executed on a massive scale, not only by the local people, but also the Pakistani army and their tribal irregulars.
Section 3: Hindu and Sikh Refugees into Jammu
With the creation of Pakistan, a large number of Hindus and Sikhs fled from Punjab and North West Frontier Province, not to Indian Punjab, but into Jammu region. In particular, this was true of the Dogras of Sialkot. In the Punjab Gazetteer for Sialkot district [14], we find that there were a large number of Dogras in Sialkot district. This is confirmed by a former JKLF leader, Shabir Chaudhary, in his book, Loc. 1884-1890, [2], that the north eastern part of the Sialkot district was heavily Dogra. The number of Dogras is hard to precisely determine, since many of the Dogras of Sialkot registered their language as Punjabi and not Dogri. The Punjab Gazetteer for Sialkot district puts the number at ‘many thousands’ [14], while Shabir Chaudhary puts the number at one lakh Loc. 1884-1890, [2]. A large number of these Hindus and Sikhs would naturally flee into Jammu. We now try to estimate the number of Hindu and Sikh refugees in the Jammu province, district by district.
The number of refugees that we have estimated is likely to be an underestimate as a large number of both residents and refugees left Jammu and Kashmir during the reign of Sheikh Abdullah, when the youth of Jammu were often left unemployed, due to Abdullah’s policies. Paramanand Parashar [15] claims that 3 lakh Hindus and Sikhs, mostly from Jammu, left the state in search of employment. Departure from Jammu is particularly true for the refugees, since the refugees were unemployable in the government sector in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly due to the state subject laws prevalent there. However, this number cannot be evaluated properly, as we don’t have the exact estimates of the numbers that entered the state, nor those that left the state, nor do we have the accurate growth rates in the various districts of Jammu, since there was no census in 1951. What we have are rough estimates using the census of 1961, and using these estimates, we shall attempt to give a final number.
In his book, Partha Ghosh estimates that there were 70, 000 refugees from West Pakistan in September 1947. Many of these migrated to other parts of India later on, and there were still 48, 856 Hindus and Sikh refugees in Jammu and Kashmir, of which 46, 836 were settled in Jammu Loc. 959, [3] by the time of the 1961 census. In this article, we shall first estimate the number of Hindu and Sikh refugees in Jammu and then estimate the number that came from PoJK and the number that came from Pakistan.
In order to estimate the numbers, the numbers of Indics in 1941 and 1961 have been taken from [8] and [9] respectively. By Indics, we include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and tribal religions.
In order to estimate the rise of the Indic population in the 1941-1961 period, we have applied the 1931-1941 growth rates for the districts for the 1941-1951 period. This is a reasonable estimate as the medical facilities and culture, compared to 1931 to 1941, did not change vastly between 1941 and 1951, when the state was in a disturbed situation. Indeed the growth rates may be a slight overestimate as there were a large number of soldiers who were away in 1939-1945 period, when the war was going on. Consequently, we apply the 1931-1941 growth rates for the period and obtain the estimates in 1951. In the estimate for the 1951 to 1961 period, we apply the growth rates of Kangra district for Jammu, and Kathua, and the growth rates of Shimla for the districts of Udhampur, and Doda. Poonch is a separate case, and will be dealt with separately. This is a more accurate reflection of the total numbers as the growth rates in Jammu, and Kathua would have followed the same trajectory as Kangra as they have significant, to which it is culturally similar, while the hill districts are more Pahari and would have followed the lower growth rate patterns of Shimla district. In this estimate, it is important to understand that when we refer to Jammu district, we refer to the present Jammu and Samba districts; Poonch includes the current Poonch, and Rajouri districts, and Doda includes the current Doda and Kishtwar districts (Kishtwar, Ramban and Bhaderwah tehsils of the pre-1947 Udhampur district), while Udhampur district includes Udhampur, and Ramnagar tehsils of the pre-1947 Udhampur district, Reasi tehsil of pre-1947 Reasi district, and Chenani jahgir. Kathua district, once called Jasmergarh, has remained more or less constant. All the numbers are given in thousands.
From the table 1, we can observe that the refugees mostly ended up in Jammu, with 88, 500 refugees of the total of around 1.02 lakhs. A small number of refugees also arrived in Kathua district. The other two districts of Udhampur, and Doda had practically no refugees, and the small discrepancies are more reflective of the growth rate discrepancies than any immigration or emigration on significant levels. Given that the bulk of the refugees arrived in Jammu, it is unsurprising that most of the riots occurred exactly where the refugees were present. This pattern follows the pattern in other parts of India, with riots on Muslims occurring exactly where the refugees occurred.
Section 4: Missing Muslims of Jammu province
In this section, we shall attempt to evaluate the number of Muslims that have gone missing from the Jammu province. In order to estimate the number of Muslims that should have been there in 1961, we have estimated the 1941-1951 growth extending the 1931-1941 Muslim growth rates to the next decade and using the Muslim growth rate of Pakistan for the 1951-1961 decade. This gives the upper bound of the number of those missing, as the growth rate of Muslims in Pakistan was likely higher than the growth rates of the Muslims of Jammu. The growth rate of Pakistan is definitely too high for the hill districts like Udhampur and Doda, which had a much lower growth rate. Similarly, by extending the 1931-1941 Muslim growth rates to the next two decades, we obtain the lower bound of the number of Muslims that should have been there in Jammu. This gives us the likely number of Muslims missing from Jammu. This exercise has been performed for the four districts of Jammu, Udhampur, Doda and Kathua, as these were the four districts affected by riots. Poonch-Rajouri has been dealt with separately, as the circumstances in Poonch were very different.
We have grouped the districts into Jammu and Kathua, where Muslims clearly went missing. We shall deal with Udhampur-Doda separately, as Udhampur-Doda districts underwent re-organisation after independence, and there are circumstances there which need some explanation.
Let us focus on the Muslims who went missing in the two districts of Jammu and Kathua, where there should have been much higher numbers. In Jammu, there should have been between 1.24 lakhs and 1.62 lakhs more Muslims in 1961, and in Kathua, there should have been between 31.8 thousand and 38.6 thousand more Muslims assuming the growth rates mentioned in table 2. When this number is projected back to 1947 using the same formula, we get 1.17 − 1.26 lakh additional Muslims who should have existed in Jammu and 26.75 − 29.11 thousand additional Muslims who should have existed in Kathua.
Let us now focus on the Udhampur and Doda districts. As was previously mentioned, after 1947, the erstwhile Udhampur, Reasi and Poonch districts were re-organised. Bhaderwah, Kishtwar and Ramban tehsils of erstwhile Udhampur district were moved to the newly created Doda district, while Reasi tehsil of Reasi district, Udhampur and Ramnagar tehsils of Udhampur district and Chenani jahgir were moved to the new Udhampur district. Finally, Rampur-Rajouri tehsil of Reasi district was merged with the remnant of the Poonch jahgir to form the new Poonch district. Fortunately, we do have the religious distribution at the previous level, so we can provide an estimate for the new districts of Doda and Udhampur, with one proviso. In the census of 1961 [9], which has mentioned the 1941 numbers, we find the following statistics for the Muslim population in 1941 and 1961. Using these, we provide our first estimate in table 3.
Looking at the numbers of the missing Muslims, it is clear that there is practically no change in the district of Udhampur compared to the expected numbers, while the numbers in Doda are higher than expected in 1961 by anywhere between 11 thousand and 32 thousand. This is likely due to the fact that many of the Muslims expelled from Jammu and Kathua, especially the Gujjars, fled not to Pakistan or Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir, but to Doda, where their brethren lived in much higher numbers.
This is a case of internal displacement, and not that of expulsion of the Muslims from India.
However, when we look at the 1941 census pp. 380-381, [8], tehsil by tehsil, we get slightly different statistics for Udhampur and Doda districts. We can conjecture that the lower number of Muslims in Doda and the slightly higher Muslim population in Udhampur in 1941 is due to the migratory Gujjar population, which might have moved to other districts. Nevertheless, we cannot definitively account for this discrepancy, and consequently, we provide the estimates using the numbers mentioned in pp. 380-381 [8] too using table 4.
If we accept these numbers, would appear that there should have been 56−61 thousand more Muslims in Udhampur, while there are between 28 − 54 thousand more Muslims than there should have been in Doda. The astonishingly high growth rate of 31.34% between 1931 and 1941 under this assumption in Udhampur makes this statistic less likely and some of the change is almost certainly due to migratory population; nevertheless, we have provided this statistic too. Using this statistics, we should have had between 7.01 thousand and 28.18 thousand more Muslims in Udhampur-Doda.
Adding the numbers of the the four districts of Udhampur, Doda, Jammu and Kathua, we obtain an estimate between 1.24 lakh and 2.29 lakh Muslims missing in Jammu region in 1961. Now projecting this back to 1947, we obtain an estimate between 1.17 lakhs and 1.26 lakhs for Jammu district, between 0 and 42.75 thousand for Udhampur, and 26.75 thousand and 29.11 thousand for Kathua. However, this is counter-balanced by the fact that there are between 7.7 and 50.5 thousand Muslims more in Doda. This yields a total of 1.16 lakhs to 1.90 lakh missing Muslims in the Jammu region due to the riots.
Now, let us focus on the region of Poonch-Rajouri. The major problem with providing estimates for Poonch is that the district was literally torn in half by the Pakistani invasion, with Sadhnuti and parts of Bagh and Poonch Haveli tehsils remaining in the hands of Pakistan, while the remaining parts of Bagh and Poonch Haveli, and the tehsil of Mendhar remaining in the hands of India. Further, this district, which was around 90% Muslim was never touched by anti-Muslim riots. Rajouri, originally a Muslim majority tehsil in Reasi district, was also overrun by the Pakistanis, and most of the district was recaptured by the Indian soldiers in the war. Indeed, in Poonch, it was the Hindus who were shut up in the Poonch town for over an year, alongside a lot of refugees from the countryside around. In Rajouri, many of the regions which were overrun by the Pakistanis saw Hindu flight in the initial days. However, since these regions were a warzone, they may have lost some population due to people fleeing a warzone, with the Hindus fleeing towards India, and the Muslims fleeing in the other direction, all trying to escape a warzone.
We attempt to give an estimate of the number of Muslims which this region may have lost. The total number of Muslims in the Indian part of the Poonch-Rajouri region was approximately 2.6 − 2.7 lakhs{1}. Assuming that these regions grew at the same rate as the others, we obtain a rough estimate of 29.22 thousand to 73.79 thousand missing Muslims in 1961. Projecting this back to 1947, we get an estimate of 24.97 thousand to 55.73 thousand missing Muslims. Nevertheless, we emphasise that these flights of Muslims were not due to the riots. In fact, this conjecture is confirmed by [13], who claims that Muslims fled in April-June 1948, due to the advances of the Indian army, even though he produces inflated figures of the numbers of Muslims who fled during this phase.
Further, it is instructive to observe that the numbers of Hindus and Sikhs also came down in the Poonch-Rajouri region. In 1941, in the entirety of the Poonch Rajouri districts, there were 50 − 60 thousand Hindus and Sikhs, and in 1961, 66.7 thousand Hindus and Sikhs in the same region. This indicates that there was a loss of 10 − 20 thousand Hindus and Sikhs from the region.
What do the above statistics show? Almost all the missing Muslims come from either Kathua or Jammu districts. Even in the worst case, the numbers show that approximately 80% of the numbers come from these two districts. The other districts were barely touched at all, and indeed, in the case of Doda, the Muslim population went up, most likely due to internal displacement of the Muslims. And it is these districts that were affected by refugees, as was shown in Table 1. In order to compute the total number of dead, we shall rely on the number of dead estimated by various sources. Partha Ghosh estimates the total number who moved from India to Pakistan 75 lakhs to 1 crore Muslims, and total number of dead (both Hindus and Muslims) at 10 lakhs. Mountbatten put the total migrations at 60 lakh Muslims, and total number of dead (both Hindus and Muslims) at 2 lakhs. Other sources have put the total number of dead between these two extremes, with all of them agreeing that the number of Hindu and Muslim dead was approximately equal in numbers. Under these assumptions, we get a ratio of migration to death at between 15 : 1 to 30 : 1. Accepting the higher estimate that the number of Muslims dead in Jammu was 15 : 1 we should get an estimate of 7, 300 to 12, 700 dead Muslims. This is the maximum estimate of the total number of dead, and the number killed and expelled from the Jammu region ranges between 1.16 and 1.9 lakhs.
Did Jammu turn Hindu majority due to the killing and expulsion of Muslims?
It has been claimed that Jammu was Muslim majority and that the Indian expulsion of the Muslims has converted it into a Muslim minority region. We shall examine this claim in some detail. According to the 1941 census, there were 7.63 lakh Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, and 12.16 lakh Muslims in the Jammu province pp. 380-381, [8]. This yields a total of 61.3% Muslims, and 38.5% Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. Christians formed the rest. It is important to emphasise that this included both the Indian side and the Pakistani side of Jammu. However, when we look at the Indian side of Jammu, Hindus, Sikhs and Jains were 6.49 lakhs in the districts excluding Poonch, and Muslims were 5.22 lakhs. As previously remarked, it is hard to estimate accurately the population of the Indian side of Poonch due to the district being split between India and Pakistan. Nevertheless, looking at the population of the Indian side of Poonch, a rough estimate would give 10 − 20 thousand Hindus and Sikhs, and approximately 1.4 − 1.5 lakh Muslims. This gives a total of roughly equal number of both Muslims and Hindus on the Indian side of Jammu. In 1961, there were 9.04 lakh Hindus and 5.12 lakhs Muslims. Hindus rose to 63.21%, while Muslims fell to 35.80%, which means that, roughly 72% of the Muslim population of Jammu was retained in India in Jammu, in proportional terms. This is despite the fact that roughly a lakh of the Hindus were either from West Pakistan or from Pakistani parts of Jammu.
But when we look at both the Indian and the Pakistani parts of Jammu, the picture radically changes. The population of Pakistani part of Jammu adds up to a total of approximately 6 lakhs in 1961 and this, when added to the total poulation of the Muslims of the Indian side of Jammu shows that the total proportion of Muslims in Jammu (Indian and Pakistani) is approximately 55%, which is just slightly less than their proportion in 1941. This shows that the united Jammu was and still is a Hindu minority area. When we take the Indian census of 2011, and the Pakistani census of 2017, we get 36 lakhs Hindus and Sikhs, and 43 − 45 lakhs Muslims (depending on how one computes the growth rates between 2011 and 2017), which yields a total of approximately 57% Muslims in the united Jammu region, roughly the same proportion as they were in 1961, and only marginally lower they were in 1941.
Section 5: Missing Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir
PoJK consists of Mirpur district and parts of Poonch in Jammu, Muzaffarabad in Kashmir Valley, the whole of Gilgit and Baltistan areas in the north. In the Gilgit and Baltistan areas in the north, there were few Hindus and Sikhs outside state officials and armed forces. Originally Buddhist, these had been long converted to Islam before the 1947 war. However, Muzaffarabad, Bhimber and Poonch had significant Hindu and Sikh minorities. This is reflected in every census since 1881. In the census in 1941 (as in other census documents), it was reported that the presence of both the Hindus and the Sikhs in PoJK has been found since the earliest times. The Brahmins constituted over 19, 000 in Poonch Jagir, and over 14, 000 in Bhimber district p. 12, [8] There were over 8, 000 Hindu Rajputs and over 16, 000 Jats in Bhimber district p. 12, [8]. Reporting about the Sikhs, the census says, “The largest aggregations [of the Sikhs] are found in Poonch Jagir, Mirpur and Muzaffarabad. Whilst the main influx of the Sikhs to the country followed its conquest by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, there is evidence to show that there were Sikhs in small numbers in the country as early as the sixteenth century. Guru Nanak visited Kashmir and is said to have made converts.” p. 12, [8]. Consequently, it may be affirmed that the Hindus and the Sikhs did not constitute the seasonal traders, but were landed families too. This clearly indicates that the expelled Hindus and Sikhs did not constitute merely the refugees and seasonal traders, but established land owning classes too. This is confirmed in a cursory statement by Balraj Madhok who says about Hindus of Pakistan occupied Jammu region, “The situation in the Punjabi-speaking western districts of Mirpur and Poonch including Bhimber and Rajauri was different. This is a predominantly Muslim area. About a lakh of Hindus, who were less than 10 per cent of the total population of this region, constituted the business community though some of them tilled the soil as well.” p. 48, [11].
As a matter of interest, we have computed the number of Hindus and Sikhs from the Pakistan occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir who have gone missing. In fact, in the Pakistani side of Jammu and Kashmir, Hindus and Sikhs have been practically wiped out entirely. In 1941, the number of Hindus and Sikhs in the regions of Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir were as shown in the table [5].
From the table [5], it is clearly observable that the total number of Hindus and Sikhs in the regions overrun by the Pakistanis constituted 84,806 and 33,525 respectively in 1941. The decadal growth rates of Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, and Poonch (Bagh and Sadhnuti tehsils) in 1931-1941 were 12.15%, 9.39% and 8.89% respectively. The numbers of Hindus and Sikhs in Gilgit and Ladakh are very small, and seem to have been comprised of the state armed forces and state officials often, so the growth rates do not apply here.
The annual growth rates turn out to be 1.28%, 1.25% and 1.24% respectively for the districts. Assuming that the growth rates of the previous decade held, we find that the number of Hindus and Sikhs in Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Sadhnuti to be 87, 391 and 34, 591 respectively. There are no estimates of Hindus or Sikhs left today in the region and the entire population is assumed to have either been expelled or killed. Snedden, who surveyed the region (published in [22] in 2013), does not mention any Hindus or Sikhs in PoJK of any significance. Consequently, a rough figure would be 1.225 lakhs to be the number of Hindus and Sikhs who went missing from PoJK. This is the base figure of the Hindu and Sikh residents of PoJK. However, thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees had flooded the border towns (now in PoJK) in the wake of the Partition. Madhok points out that Bhimber had at least 2000 refugees, Mirpur had at least 15,000 refugees, Rajouri had 5,000 and Kotli, an uncounted number. Many of these refugees (along with Hindus and Sikh residents) of these towns, with the exception of those in Kotli, perished. pp. 50-51, [11] Consequently, a figure of 1.5 lakh seems the base figure of missing Hindus and Sikhs from PoJK. Even the notoriously pro-Pakistan Alastair Lamb has conceded that at least 60,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees fled Poonch and Mirpur areas during the conflict p. 63, [10]. The number of Hindus and Sikhs missing from the Pakistani parts of Jammu and Kashmir has been handled in greater detail in [18].
Section 6: Change of Muslims in Regions which saw big Refugee Influx
The districts of Punjab and Bengal, which saw a massive refugee influx, saw similar cleansing of the Muslims. In this part, we shall see the change of Muslims between 1941 and 1951 in some of the worst hit districts of Punjab and Bengal, where refugees arrived in massive numbers.
The Indian part of Punjab (which includes the current Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) was 66.18% Indic (Hindu, Sikh and Jain combined) and 33.09% Muslim in 1941. The Muslim percentage fell to 1.8% in 1951. In actual numbers, Muslims constituted 53.28 lakhs in 1941 and fell to 2.9 lakhs in 1951. In short, this was an astonishing 95% reduction of Muslims. In table 6, we show the fall of Muslims in the three
border districts of Punjab, which saw the maximum influx of refugees, between 1941 and 1951.
In Bengal, Muslims fell from 29.48% in 1941 to 19.46% in 1951. Further, the numbers for the border districts of Bengal, which took maximum refugees from East Pakistan are also striking. In Bengal, it was the district of Nadia, the (then united) Twenty Four Paraganas district and Kolkata which took in the maximum number of refugees. The fall of Muslims in these districts, shown in table 7 is also very instructive to observe.
In fact, compared to the neighbouring districts of Punjab, which saw almost a total wipe out of the Muslims in the region, the number of Muslims who went missing from Jammu is far less (both in terms of numbers and in terms of proportion). In this sense, Jammu and Kashmir follows the Bengal pattern of riots, rather than the Punjab pattern of riots, which saw the near total extermination of the Muslim minority in the state.
Section 7: Propaganda
Now that we have put the numbers of the dead and expelled on both sides of the line of control in perspective, we shall, in this section, examine the propaganda pursued by the different sets of people about the riots in Jammu and the numbers they have quoted. We shall leave it to the readers to examine how these inflated numbers harmonise with the actual numbers observed in the census. The High Court of Judicature, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Verdict on Gilgit and Baltistan (Northern Area), Mirpur, Kashmir Human Rights Forum, has claimed that “The Times of London, in its publication of October 10, 1948, reported: ’Over a quarter million Muslims were massacred in Jammu Province alone. The orgies of bloodshed were initiated by hired gangsters imported by the State administration, with State troops looking on as unconcerned spectators, at times and on occasions by the troops themselves with the Maharaja heading them at quite a few places”’ [21]. However, as Snedden himself in [21] remarks, there was no edition of The Times of London on that particular day, since it was a Sunday. Ian Stephens, once the editor of the Statesman, claimed in his book that “… in the Jammu province … within a period of about eleven weeks starting in August, systematic savageries, similar to those already launched in East Punjab and in Patiala and Kapurthala, practically eliminated the entire Muslim element in the population, amounting to 500,000 people. About 200,000 just disappeared, remaining untraceable, having presumably been butchered, or died from epidemics. The rest fled destitute to West Punjab … the full truth about this appalling pogrom, as also about the extent of the State officials’ and indeed of the Maharajah’s personal complicity in it took some time to reach Delhi, [but] leading Congressmen were well aware of it by November.” p. 200, [23]. Again, it is interesting that he gives no source for his numbers. However, as we have previously observed from the census numbers, most of the Muslims of Jammu province remained intact in the region. The next bit of propaganda about the number of Muslims killed and expelled comes from [25]. This one claims, “No less than 200,000 Moslem men, women and children were killed. At least, twenty-seven thousand women were abducted. Children were maimed under the eyes of their mothers, who were raped in the presence of their children … About 200,000 Moslem refugees from Kashmir are now in Pakistan territory.” Mohd. Hafizullah, in his book, states, “..nearly two lakhs [200,000] of [Muslims] must have so far migrated to Pakistan.” p. 119, [6]. Gurmani, in his book, states, “ ‘There were over 600,000 Muslim refugees in Pakistan who had been hounded out of their homes in Indian occupied areas of Kashmir by the Maharaja’s troops and the Indian army’.” p. 38, [5].
It is unnecessary to state that neither of them have provided specific sources. Gurmani, it may be added, refers to the previously mentioned The Times again. An article in The Dawn by Mirza [13] claims that the Muslims from India arrived in three separate batches, with 200, 000 till April 1947, 200, 000 between April and June 1948, and 100, 000 more in November 1948, when the Indian army made rapid strides in the recapture of areas in the northern regions. Further, he claims that the first two waves comprised of Muslims who came from the Udhampur, Reasi, Jammu and Kathua ‘tehsils’. Again, needless to state, no proper source has been provided by any of these. An unnamed organisation is supposed to have conducted a ‘sensus’ which gave him these numbers. In [26], a Times correspondent has claimed that 237,000 people were `systematically exterminated – unless they escaped into Pakistan’. However, the author gives no sources for his estimates. This estimate is about 20% higher than the highest possible number which we have estimated from the census, but once more, like [13], does get the regions where the riots occurred correctly. Interestingly, the 1951 census, which covered the Pakistani occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir, gives no numbers, merely stating that the number of refugees is ‘very considerable’ [21]. What is interesting is that the census of Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir, without the northern areas, mentions that the number of the non-Muslim population had fallen to just 790 people [21]. In short, the entire population of the Pakistani occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir had been wiped out entirely. This is probably the reason why it was classified as ‘secret’ and not allowed distribution [21].
It is interesting that Snedden [21] is not even sure if and when a massacre took place in the Indian part of Jammu. In his own words, “It is impossible to determine if a massacre of Muslims took place in Jammu Province in 1947.” [21] He certainly gives no dates or places where the massacres are supposed to have occurred. He merely quotes a series of authors who have given numbers often without any sources. What is even more surprising is that he has not even made any attempt to find the number of Muslims
who disappeared from Jammu. He merely claims that it is impossible to be certain how many Muslims have disappeared because “Neither the Azad Kashmir Government nor the (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir Government appear to have kept records. It is not feasible to compare census figures, given that two of the three censuses were not conducted sufficiently near the time of the alleged massacre” [21]. He further makes two claims for his inability to find the size of the missing populations, which can be roughly summarised as
1. The boundaries of districts changed between 1941 and 1951 and hence it is hard to find the number of Muslims that disappeared from the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir.
2. The census of 1941 may have underestimated the Muslim numbers slightly because many Muslims had been recruited for the second world war during the period.
Both these objections are invalid as we will point out. Even accepting that the boundary of the districts had changed, it did not prevent the author from finding out the ballpark figure of the number of Muslims who had gone missing between 1941 and 1961 from the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir, within a reasonable range, by taking into account the likely growth rates and the number of Muslims in the entire Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir in 1941 and 1961. While this would not give an accurate number, this would certainly give the numbers within a reasonable range. Further, it is inaccurate to claim that the district boundaries changed making the computation of the number of missing Muslims impossible. Most of the tehsil boundaries remained the same. It is only in Poonch district that there was a major change due to the war. The changes in the other districts relate either to re-distribution of tehsils due to reorganisation, or due to the small area of Bhimber left in Jammu district after the line of control was established, or the small area of Jammu district that was lost to the Pakistani side. Given that the tehsil level data is available in both 1941 and 1961, it is a trivial exercise to compute the number of missing Muslims in Udhampur and Reasi districts, and the small variation in the boundaries of Jammu district cannot be considered an impossible barrier to estimating the number of missing Muslims.
Further, the census is not a raw count of the numbers of people in the district. It is an estimation which takes into account the number of people at war and the number of people working elsewhere, based on the answers provided by the families of these soldiers and workers. Indeed, we cite the census commissioner of the Jammu and Kashmir census in 1941 about the accuracy of the census. He specifically states,“The tables relating to the actual population, its distribution, variations and communal composition may be accepted as correct subject to a very small margin of error; the same may be said of the tables. relating. to birthplace.” p. iii, [8]. Given this assertion by the census commissioner, the objection claimed by Snedden does not hold.
In addition to this, we also examine the propaganda attempted by Indian authors. A speech given by Ved Bhasin was reported in [16], but there the author has not given any numbers for the number of dead and expelled Muslims. In [1], the magazine has claimed that Ved Bhasin had claimed that 100, 000 fatal casualties occurred. Nevertheless, there is no direct quote from Ved Bhasin, and in any case, Ved Bhasin does not provide any sources for his claims either. In [24], the author, Karan Thapar, quotes Horace Alexander for a figure of 200, 000 as ‘unaccounted for’. He quotes Christopher Snedden, whose work we have just examined. Further, he quotes Arjun Appaduri and Arien Mack for 200, 000 killed and 500, 000 expelled, a figure that happens to be larger than the entire population of Muslims in the Indian part of Jammu in 1941, and we have just shown, using the 1961 census that the total number of Muslims in the Indian side was still over 5 lakhs. Consequently, we must regard this number as an absolute fabrication.
Section 8: Conclusion
Putting together the numbers, we see that roughly 1.5 lakh Hindus and Sikhs were killed or expelled from the Pakistan occupied parts of Kashmir. On the other hand, a total of 1.16 to 1.9 lakh Muslims went missing from the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir due to riots, with another 24 thousand to 55 thousand Muslims going missing due to the war in Poonch and Rajouri districts. In other words, the number of dead and expelled from either side of Jammu and Kashmir due to riots was approximately equal. But while the riots on the Indian side of Jammu were precisely in those areas where large number of refugees fled, with India retaining roughly 70% of the Jammu Muslims in proportional terms, on the Pakistani side, it was a total holocaust of the Hindus and Sikhs, with both Hindus and Sikhs being exterminated entirely. What this shows is that the riots on the Indian side were restricted, while Pakistan launched an all out war on the Hindus and Sikhs of the entire region, wiping them out en masse.
References
[1] Khalid Bashir Ahmad. circa 1947: a long story. Kashmir Life, 2014.
[2] Shabir Chaudhary. Kashmir Dispute. AuthorHouse UK, 2016.
[3] Partha Ghosh. Migrants, Refugees and Stateless in South Asia. Sage Publishing, 2016.
[4] Bal Gupta. Forgotten Atrocities:Memoirs of a Survivor. Lulu Enterprises, 2012.
[5] MA Gurmani. Kashmir: A Survey. Public Relations Directorate, Ministry of Kashmir, Government of
Pakistan, 1952?
[6] Mohd. Hafizullah. Towards Azad Kashmir. Bazam-i-Frogh-i-Adab Lahore, 1948.
[7] Jagmohan. My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir. Allied Publishers, 1991.
[8] Jammu and Kashmir State. Census of India, 1941 VOLUME XXII – JAMMU and KASHMIR. The
Ranbir Government Press, 1943.
[9] AP Joshi, MD Srinivas, and JK Bajaj. Religious Demography of India. Centre for Policy Studies, 2003.
[10] Alastair Lamb. Birth of a Tragedy:Kashmir 1947. Roxford Books, 1993.
[11] Balraj Madhok. KASHMIR – The Storm Centre of the World. Kashmir Information Network, 2001.
[12] Krishna Mehta. Kashmir 1947: A Survivor’s Story. Penguin Books, 2005.
[13] Afzal Mirza. Kashmir refugees in pakistan. The Dawn, 2nd January, 1951.
[14] Government of Punjab. Gazetteer of the Sialkot District. Lahore Civil and Military Gazette Press,
1895.
[15] Parmanand Parashar. Kashmir and the Freedom Movement. Sarup and Sons, 2004. [16] Kashmir Life reporting Ved Bhasin’s speech. Jammu 1947. Kashmir Life, 2015.
[17] Lt. Gen. LP Sen. Slender was the Thread. Orient and Longman, 1988.
[18] Shanmukh, Aparna, Saswati Sarkar, and Dikgaj. Missing hindus and sikhs of pakistan-occupied jammu and kashmir. DailyO, 2016.
[19] Harbans Singh. Maharaja Hari Singh: The Troubled Years. Brahaspati Publications, 2011.
[20] Karan Singh. Autobiography. Oxford India Paperbacks, 1994.
[21] Christopher Snedden. What happened to muslims in jammu? local identity, ‘”the massacre” of 1947’ and the roots of the ‘kashmir problem’. Journal of South Asian Studies, 24(2):111–134, 2001.
[22] Christopher Snedden. Kashmir: The Unwritten History. Harper Collins Publishers, 2013.
[23] Ian Stephens. Pakistan. Ernest Benn Limited, 1964.
[24] Karan Thapar. We cannot be selective about the past in jammu and kashmir. Hindustan Times, 2019.
[25] Unknown. Kashmir’s Fight for Freedom. Dept. of Public Relations, Azad Kashmir Government, 1948.
[26] Unknown, “Fate of Kashmir”, Times, August 1948.
{1} Given that this region was divided between India and Pakistan, it is very hard for us to give an accurate estimate. However, based on the topography and the proportions of the tehsils that remain in India and Pakistan, we believe that our estimates are correct. Nevertheless, we may be off by a few thousands, one way or the other.