AMNA RAZZAQ
If there has ever been a catastrophe to hit Kashmir politically, devastate it economically, ruin it socially and bash it psychologically, it is this Treaty. History is a huge repository of human error and wisdom, fortune and misfortune, triumph and tragedy. It’s a storehouse of knowledge the appreciating of which (both by Kashmir leaders & our younger generations) is crucial not only for making our present momentous but for determining our future course of actions also. An adequate understanding of historical events especially those that have largely been responsible for adversities of a nation is even more vital for beneath them lays the real cause of its humiliation. The Treaty of Amritsar, signed on 16 March 1846, formalized the arrangements in the Treaty of Lahore between the British East India Company and Gulab Singh Dogra after the First Anglo-Sikh War, offers one good example of such human rights violations. The treaty between the British Government on the one part and Maharajah Gulab Singh of Jammu on the other concluded on the part of the British Government by Frederick Currie, Esq. and Brevet-Major Henry Montgomery Lawrence, acting under the orders of the Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Hardinge, G.C.B., one of her Britannic Majesty’s most Honorable Privy Council, Governor-General of the possessions of the East India Company, to direct and control all the affairs in the East Indies and by Maharajah Gulab Singh in person – 1846. With folded hands Gulab Singh declared himself to be a ‘zar kharid ghulam’ of the Raj. On the next day, March 16, 1846 the Treaty of Amritsar was signed. By Article 1 of the treaty, Gulab Singh acquired ‘all the hilly or mountainous country with its dependencies situated to the eastward of the River Indus and the westward of the River Ravi’. It is this Treaty that is at the core of the problem Kashmir is so desperately grappling with for the last so many decades and the public grasp of which is at the lowest ebb. Ever since March 1846 when the British ‘sold’ it for seventy five lakh of rupees to the Dogra warlord Gulab Singh, predominantly Muslim Kashmir together with principality of Jammu and the frontier districts including Buddhist Ladakh experienced unmitigated autocratic rule. In Kashmir the Amritsar Treaty dispossessed people of their property and their ownership rights of their land, produce, creative work, cattle and even their lives. Now the sole proprietor of all this became the Maharaja of Jammu who got new title as Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, the Maharaja not only owed the title to Kashmir by the treaty of 1846, but also the possession which he obtained in that year to the support given by the British power. By virtue of this “Sale deed of Kashmir” unrestricted power was transferred to the Dogra Hindu ruler Raja Gulab Singh who became an all powerful Hindu despot ruling a hapless Muslim majority. The people of Kashmir were brought under the imperialism of the Dogras who themselves were functioning as de-facto vassals of the super imperialist Britain. Through the treaty of Amritsar, sovereignty over Kashmir was negotiated with the person of the ruler and not with the people of Kashmir. In fact the treaty stood on a different footing from those signed with other Indian states, in that no resident was appointed, giving full internal authority and autonomy to Gulab Singh. Taking advantage of this unbridled absolutism, Gulab Singh let loose a reign of repression, exploitation, persecution, discrimination and religious intolerance especially in the valley.Due to the Treaty of Amritsar the sense of self-estrangement among the Kashmiris got dominated day by day and they became strangers on their own land. And the treaty of Amritsar hence actually proved the sale of fate of Kashmiris. By the Treaty of Lahore the British claimed all the territories between the Beas and the Indus in lieu of the remaining one crore rupees.
The Sikh Empire was also forced to recognize Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, their erstwhile vassal, as an ‘independent sovereign’ to allow the British to ‘admit him to the privileges of a separate treaty’. This Gulab Singh was a one-time sowar or cavalryman of the Dogra army who found favor with Maharaja Ranjit Singh and was elevated as a prince of Jammu. To add insult to inhumanity, Gulab Singh acknowledged the supremacy of the British Government – amply demonstrated by the power to sell into bondage every man woman and child in Kashmir – by agreeing to present annually to the British Government. Some events have not only long lasting impact but also in many ways go on expanding over the history it’s narrative consequences and the way future events happen, and the Treaty of Amritsar had many such repercussions for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It is the British that are thus responsible for the unending cycle of slavery, violence and death that followed the Treaty of Amritsar and continues to this day. Subsequently “Treaty of Amritsar” notoriously known as “Sale deed of Kashmir” was concluded between Raja Gulab Singh and the British Government on March 16, 1846 at Amritsar. By this infamous Treaty of Amritsar the British Government sold for ever to Maharaja Raja Gulab Singh and the heir’s male of his body, the State of Jammu and Kashmir for seventy five lac of rupees (Nanakshahi) only, fifty lakhs to be paid on ratification of this treaty and twenty five lakhs on or before the 1st of October 1846. The Treaty of Amritsar consisted of 10 Articles which elaborated only upon the boundaries of the area sold, the sale amount, resolution of bilateral disputes, forging of military alliances, acknowledgement of British supremacy and yearly tribute but made no mention whatsoever of the rights, interests or the future of the people of the State.