Erasing Memory, Enforcing Power in Kashmir
WHAT happened in Srinagar on July 13underlines the deep-seated anger and frustration in the Valley, when all major political leaders were placed under house arrest, and the elected chief minister, Omar Abdullah, was manhandled to prevent him from reaching the martyrs’ memorial and offering prayers to the fallen rebels of 1931. This was nothing short of an attempt to erase history and collective memory of the Kashmiri people. The Hindutva-driven defence of the British-backed Dogra Raj’s autocratic rule has unleashed this assault on history.
As a day of remembrance, this year’s Kashmir Martyrs’ Day presents a starkly different picture. The altered political landscape in the Valley – marked by the abrogation of Article 370, the removal of July 13 from the list of state holidays, and the presence of an ‘invisible enemy’ that vivisected the state and reduced it to a Union Territory under the direct control of the Union Government’s law-and-order machinery – has fundamentally changed its significance.
Ninety-five years ago, in 1931, a series of incidents ignited widespread discontent against the Dogra rulers of Kashmir. In June that year, Abdul Qadeer Khan delivered a fiery speech urging the people to rise against the Dogra regime. Khan was a cook for a British Army officer who was on vacation in Kashmir, according to many accounts. He was charged with sedition by the Dogra regime. When his trial commenced in July 1931, large crowds of Kashmiri Muslims gathered outside the Sessions Court in Srinagar. Eventually, the proceedings were shifted to Srinagar Central Jail. On July 13, 1931, nearly 4,000–5,000 people assembled outside the jail to witness the trial. When the crowd tried to enter, the Dogra police opened fire, killing 22 Kashmiri Muslims and injuring many others.
For the first time in years, there were no public or political gatherings at the historic Mazar-e-Shuhada in Old Srinagar. An armoured vehicle stood at the gates of the martyrs’ cemetery, located next to the revered shrine of the Sufi saint of the Naqshbandi order.
The prominent Kashmiri Pandit politician and writer Prem Nath Bazaz documented the political developments of the 1931 uprising in great detail in his book Inside Kashmir (1941). Bazaz wrote that July 13, 1931, was “the most important day in the annals of contemporary Kashmir,” observing: “From this day, the struggle for independence and freedom in the most modern sense started openly.” Among the few Kashmiri Pandits, Bazaz had realised the end of the Dogra rule and saw the happenings of that day outside the Central Jail of Srinagar as the “watershed moment” in Kashmir’s socio-political history.
In July 1931, Kashmiris rose in rebellion and made a turning point. “It was an unprecedented elemental upheaval,” wrote Bazaz, “almost a revolution which shook the State and brought the Dogra Raj to the realisation of the stark reality.”
Similarly, in his book Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris, Christopher Snedden describes the events of July 13, 1931, as a moment when “Kashmiris mounted a serious anti-Maharaja uprising in the Kashmir Valley” – sparked by the brutal police firing ordered by the Maharaja’s forces, which killed 22 civilians.
He noted that Hari Singh’s heavy-handed arrests, imprisonments, and subsequent shootings and crackdowns on Kashmiri Muslims triggered widespread popular unrest and violence across the provinces of Jammu and Kashmir. “For maintaining law and order, the British had to send a troop of about 500 soldiers to support the ruler,” he wrote.
In his book The Making of Modern Kashmir, Aftab Hussain Para observes that the incidents of July 13, 1931, caused “a great uproar and shocked the very foundations of the Dogra Raj.”
The historian further explains that huge public demonstrations against the autocratic Dogra ruler, protest rallies, and fiery speeches by prominent leaders were already sweeping the region that year. “But it was Abdul Qadeer’s emotional and stirring speech against the government, followed by his arrest on charges of sedition, which provided a fresh focus for public demonstrations and protests,” he writes.
Omar Abdullah remarked: “The July 13 massacre is our Jallianwala Bagh. The people who laid down their lives did so against the British. Kashmir was being ruled under the British Paramountcy. What a shame that true heroes who fought against British rule in all its forms are today projected as villains only because they were Muslims. We may be denied the opportunity to visit their graves today, but we will not forget their sacrifices.”
