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South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies

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What happened to Muslims in Jammu? Localidentity, ‘"the massacre” of 1947’ and the roots ofthe ‘Kashmir problem’

Christopher Snedden

To cite this article: Christopher Snedden (2001) What happened to Muslims in Jammu? Localidentity, ‘"the massacre” of 1947’ and the roots of the ‘Kashmir problem’, South Asia: Journal ofSouth Asian Studies, 24:2, 111-134, DOI: 10.1080/00856400108723454

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00856400108723454

Published online: 08 May 2007.

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South Asia, Vol. XXIV, no. 2 (2001), pp. 111-134

WHAT HAPPENED TO MUSLIMS IN JAMMU?LOCAL IDENTITY, '"THE MASSACRE" OF1947' AND THE ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIRPROBLEM'

Christopher SneddenLa Trobe University

SOME WRITERS CLAIM THAT UP TO TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MUSLIMSwere killed in Jammu Province of Jammu and Kashmir soon after thepartition of the Indian subcontinent in August 1947. They allege that

these Muslims were murdered in a campaign orchestrated by the HinduMaharaja, Hari Singh, and carried out by his army and various anti-Muslimelements in the state. These included Hindu and Sikh refugees from westernPunjab and right-wing Hindu organisations such as the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh [hereafter RSS].

There are two reasons why this massacre, if it occurred, is important.First, the tale of a massacre of Muslims caused a chain of events whichproduced the Kashmir dispute that still poisons relations between Pakistan andIndia. Second, the massacre appears to have slipped through the cracks ofsubcontinental history, overshadowed by the communal slaughter inneighbouring Punjab around the same time.

First, let me examine the chain of events leading to the strife-torn,divided 'Kashmir' of today's 'Kashmir problem'. In mid-1947, theMaharaja's forces disarmed many Muslims in Jammu Province and (Muslimsclaim) redistributed their arms to Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims from thePoonch Jagir, and Mirpur District, both located in western Jammu, thenobtained arms from the North-West Frontier Province. A large number ofthese men were former soldiers whose skills and experience had been gainedin the Indian Army during the Second World War. They were well able to

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112 SOUTH ASIA

MAP 1

JAMMU AND KASHMIR STATEPRE-PARTITION COMPOSITION

(emphasis on Jammu province)

North-West . _ . xFrontier fChilas) Frontier Districts

Jammu ProvinceChenani Jagir: Zero-shaped area shown within

UdhimpurTehsU (U2)Jl : Jammu District: Akhnoor TehsilJ2 : Jammu District Jammu TehsilJ3 : Jammu District Ranbirsinghpura TehsilJ4 : Jammu District: Samba TehsilKl : Kathua Distict: Jasmergarh TehsilK2 : Kathua Distict: Kathua TehsilK3 : Kathua District Basohli TehsilM l : Mirpur DistrictKotli TehsilM2 : Mirpur Distinct: Mirpur TehsilM3 : Mirpur Distict: Bhimber TehsilPI : PoonchJagir:Bagh TehsilP2 :PoonchJagir:HaveliTehsilP3 : Poonch Jagir: Sudhnoti Tehsil •P4 : Poonch Jagir: MendharTehsilR l : Reasi District: RampurRajouri TehsilR2 : ReasiDistriia:Reasi TehsilUl : Udhampur District Ramban TehsilU2 : Udhampur District Udhampur TehsilU3 : Udhampur District Ramnagar TehsilU4 : Udhampur District: Bhadarwah TehsilU5 : Udhampur DistrictKishtwar Tehsil

Kashmir ProvinceM'bad District Muzaffarabad DistrictBaramuUa DistrictAnantnag District

Frontier Districts ProvinceAstoreGA: Gilgit Agency: Hunza, Nagar, Pun. (Punial),

Ish. (Ishkuman), Yasin, Kuh Ghizar, ChilasGLA: Gilgit Leased AreaLadakh District: Skardu Tehsil, Kargil Tehsil,

Ladakh Tehsil

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ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR PROBLEM' 113

MAP 2

JAMMU AND KASHMIR: CURRENT POSITION(Source: various)

«^ Northern Areas' « .«• .(administered by Pakistan) *f\.

North-West '/ *Frontier **»%.Province

Z+*V—i?'A AKSai ChinSiachen \ (claimed by India;G l a c i c r \ controlled by China)

Mi(" *"• • ' • KargU

Abbottabad. ~Y 'l:t •Baraimilla.\MUITBB. \ .' .Srinanar

1 ]—JCasRawalpindi* I » r r ' \ K (India)

••X:J. jammu City\ BQmachal Pradesh

Sialkot

200 ,

"'"''" abS INDIA .Kilometres .Lahore* J

i

Key:

AK : Azad Kashmir (administered by Pakistan)CTC : Area ceded to China by Pakistan (claimed by India)TAJ : Tajikistan

. . . . . . . . ; Line of Control dividing Jammu and Kashmir intoIndian and Pakistan-administered areas. (The Lineof Control has only been demarcated as far as thepoint shown. Thereafter, it heads 'north to theborders'. This area is currently being militarilycontested by Pakistan and India.)

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114 SOUTH ASIA

use the newly-acquired weapons to defend themselves and their familiesagainst communal violence. These Muslims were also disgruntled withMaharaja Hari Singh who, they believed, was trying by stealth to take Jammuand Kashmir into India. They, therefore, decided to free the entire state fromthe Maharaja's control and ensure it joined Pakistan. Their activities grewinto a full-scale revolt against the Maharaja and led to the formation of theAzad Kashmir movement, which 'liberated' an area in western Jammu andKashmir and on 24 October 1947 proclaimed the independent Azad [Free]State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Talk of a massacre of Jammu Muslims encouraged outside forces toenter the state. Muslim Pukhtoon tribals, coming from or through Pakistan,entered Kashmir Province on 22 October, ostensibly to support their co-religionists in the struggle against non-Muslims. However, the tribals not onlyravaged the people of the province, they panicked the Maharaja by tipping thebalance of armed forces against him. To obtain help to defend his territory,Hari Singh acceded to India on 26 October. The Indian Army entered Jammuand Kashmir on 27 October and checked the tribals near Srinagar. It thensought to establish its control throughout Jammu and Kashmir where it foughtthe Azad Army, mentioned above. The Pakistan Army officially entered thestruggle in May 1948 as a massive Indian build-up threatened to overrun thesubstantial territorial gains made by the Azad Army. The Pakistan Army andthe Azad Army then combined and fought the Indian Army until the UnitedNations-brokered ceasefire on 1 January 1949 ended the first Pakistan-Indiawar. Thereafter, Jammu and Kashmir was effectively divided into Pakistaniand Indian-held areas, both much changed demographically andadministratively from August 1947.

If there was a massacre of two hundred thousand people in Jammu in thelast four months of 1947, it represented proportionally a slaughter even worsethan that which went on in Punjab. As we know, from mid-August to mid-November 1947, some 10.2 million people migrated from, or to, WestPakistan.1 They comprised an estimated 5.8 million Muslims who went toPakistan and 4.4 million Hindus and Sikhs who went to India. Large numbersfrom all communities were killed, abducted or died. There are no precisefigures, but estimates range from those of 'authoritative circles in New Delhi'who believed '... deaths directly or indirectly traceable to the Punjabcommunal disturbances and consequent migration would approach 1 million,'through a former British Indian civil servant's figure of two hundredthousand deaths,2 to a surprisingly low estimate by Indian Prime Minister,Jawaharlal Nehru, that '... only twenty or thirty thousand people had been

1 All figures in this paragraph from Joseph Schechtman, The Refugee in the World:Displacement and Integration (New York, A. S. Barnes and Co., 1963), p. 108.

2 Penderel Moon, quoted in Schechtman, op. cit., p. 108.

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ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR PROBLEM' 115

killed in Punjab'.3 While the figure of two hundred thousand deaths inJammu was no doubt lower than the total deaths in Punjab, as a percentage ofthe populations, the Jammu figure is astonishingly high, as subsequent tablesin this essay show.

As I pursued my research into the question of what happened in Jammuin 1947, I realised that I needed to analyse the religious and administrativecomposition of Jammu Province in 1947 and to use this analysis to cast lighton the claims of a massacre of two hundred thousand people. This essaytackles these two problems. While it concentrates heavily on both JammuProvince and its Muslims, it notes relevant factors about other areas ofJammu and Kashmir where this is necessary. It relies in part on three censuses- the first time, I believe, scholars have exploited all three - the Census ofIndia volume for Jammu & Kashmir State for 1941, the Census of AzadKashmir, 1951 and the Census of India, 1961A

Jammu and Kashmir in 1947

In 1941, Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim-majority state (see Table 1below), which it remained in 1947. Because of Jammu and Kashmir's Muslimmajority, many people believed Maharaja Hari Singh would accede toPakistan. However, the Maharaja's inclinations were - if independence wereunattainable - towards India. Many of his fellow Hindus in both JammuProvince and Kashmir Province were similarly inclined.

It is important to emphasise that Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir werenot unified in their aspirations about the future political allegiance of thestate. Muslims in Jammu and the Frontier Districts provinces stronglyfavoured joining Pakistan. Indeed, anti-Maharaja and pro-Pakistan Muslimsin Poonch rebelled in September 1947, and this revolt developed into theAzad Kashmir movement, the aim of which was to free Jammu and Kashmirfrom the rule of the Maharaja. Gilgit Muslims in the Frontier Districts

3 Schechtman, op. cit., p. 108.4 1) Census of India, 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, pt III, Village Tables, R. G.

Wreford (ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Government, 1942) [hereafter Census of India,1941].2) The Census of Azad Kashmir, 1951, Iftikha Ahmad, Chief Enumeration Officer [Murree?]Government of Azad Kashmir (1952).3) The Census of India, 1961, Vol. VI, Jammu and Kashmir, pt I-A, General Report,Superintendent of Census Operations Jammu and Kashmir, M. H. Kamili, Census of India,Srinagar, 1968 [hereafter Census of India, 1961]. The Census of India, 1961 has been usedbecause it was the first census taken after 1947 in (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir. While Indiahad a census in 1951, no data was collected in (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir because '... acomplete count was impossible in the [turbulent] conditions prevailing in the state' at the time.

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Province imprisoned the Maharaja's representative about a week after HariSingh finally acceded to India.. The representative had only recently arrived- replacing the British Resident who had left on 1 August when Britain quitits administration of this strategically sensitive area. The Gilgit Muslim'rebels' immediately indicated their desire to join Pakistan. Soon after,Karachi sent an official to administer the area.

In Kashmir Province, on the other hand, many Muslims lackedenthusiasm for Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus in the Kashmir Valley sharedthe same ethnicity and were far more secular in their outlooks and liberal intheir religious practices than co-religionists elsewhere. As a result, KashmirValley Muslims and Hindus were much closer to one another than to their co-religionists elsewhere in Jammu and Kashmir. Both groups were also underthe sway of Jammu and Kashmir's most charismatic and popular leader,Sheikh Abdullah, an opponent of 'feudalism', advocate of secularism andsympathiser with India. Because of these factors, Kashmir Valley Muslimsinclined towards Jammu and Kashmir joining India rather than Pakistan.

Table 1: The Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1941

JammuProvince

KashmirProvince

FrontierDistrictsProvince

Totals forJammu andKashmirState

Area (sq.miles)

12,378

8,539

63,554

84,471

Population

1,981,433

1,728,705

311,478

4,021,616

ReligiousComposition

61.19 per cent Muslims37.19 per cent Hindus1.41 percent Shikh0.21 percent Others: Jains,Christians, Buddhists, etc.93.48 per cent Muslims4.95 per cent Hindus1.56 per cent Shikhs0.01 per cent Others86.86 per cent Muslims12.89 per cent Buddhists0.25 per cent comprisingHindus, Others and Sikhs77.06 per cent Muslims20.46 per cent Hindus1.37 per cent Sikhs1.01 per cent Buddhists0.10 per cent Others

Number1,212,405

736,86227,896

4,2701,615,928

85,53127,001

245270,539

40,164

7753,098,872

822,95554,97540,684

4,130

Source: Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir Stale, Pt III, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford(ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Government, 1942).

This lack of enthusiasm for Pakistan among Muslims in the KashmirValley was significant. Muslims were ninety-three per cent of KashmirProvince's population, and eighty-five per cent of those Muslims wereconcentrated in the Kashmir Valley. Together, the Muslims of KashmirProvince constituted more than half of the Muslim population of the entire

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ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR PROBLEM' 117

state of Jammu and Kashmir. In any vote to determine the will of the Jammuand Kashmir people, the numerical strength of Kashmir Valley Muslimswould have been telling. Their political activity was centred around Srinagar,Jammu and Kashmir's largest city (1941 population: 207,787),5 as well as itssummer capital.

Within Jammu Province, the location of the majority of Muslims andHindus may partially explain their differing aspirations for Jammu andKashmir.6 Hindus, many pro-India, were not an overall majority in JammuProvince, although they were a majority in its eastern districts of Jammu,Udhampur, Kathua and the Chenani Jagir (a semi-autonomous fiefdom ofninety-five square miles totally surrounded by Udhampur District). Three-quarters of Jammu Province's Hindus lived in these four districts. Thelocation of these districts was important because they were close to areas thatbecame part of India.

Hindu-majority Jammu District was Jammu Province's most populousand most significant district. It was the homeland of the Maharaja and hisfellow Dogras and contained by far the most Hindus of any district in JammuProvince. It had the province's major urban centre, Jammu City (1941population: 50,379),7 which was Jammu and Kashmir's winter capital. Thedistrict was contiguous to Punjab, although the areas adjacent had Muslimmajorities. This proximity was to prove significant, as it enabled refugees toflow easily into and out of Jammu Province after partition.

Further east, the Hindu-majority districts of Udhampur and Kathua weregeographically significant. Udhampur was contiguous to Hindu-majoritydistricts of Punjab which were incorporated into India in 1947. KathuaDistrict, the province's second most 'Hindu' district after tiny Chenani Jagir,was contiguous to Pathankot Tehsil of Gurdaspur District, Punjab. WhileGurdaspur had an overall Muslim majority, Pathankot had a slight Hindumajority.8 The demarcation of the Pakistan-India border by the Englishman,Cyril Radcliffe, awarded Pathankot, and two other Muslim-majority tehsils inGurdaspur District, to India.9

5 Census of India, 1941, p. 344.6 Sikhs are not discussed: their population was small and their political position was close to that

of most Hindus in 1947.7 Ibid., p. 2.8 Alastair Lamb, Kashmir, A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990 (Karachi, Oxford University Press,

2nd impression, 1994), p. 7.9 Ibid, p. 103.

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Table 2: Muslims and Hindus in Jammu Province as percentages of their respective districts, aspercentages of Jammu Province, and as percentages of their respective communities

District

Jammu

Poonch

Mirpur

Udhampur

Reasi

Kathua

Chenani

TOTALJP

Muslims

170,789

379,645

310,900

128,327

175,539

45,000

2,205

1,212,405

%D

39.60

90.00

80.41

43.62

*68.06

25.33

18.70

%JP

8.62

19.16

15.69

6.48

8.86

2.27

0.11

69.19

%M

14.09

31.31

25.64

10.59

14.48

3.71

0.18

100.00

Hindus

248,173

37,965

63,576

164,820

80,725

132,022

9,581

736,862

%D

57.53

9.00

16.44

56.02

31.30

74.31

81.22

%JP

12.53

1.92

3.21

8.32

4.07

6.66

0.48

37.19

%H

33.68

5.15

8.63

22.37

10.96 .

17.91

1.30

100.00

**PopJP431,362

421,828

386,655

294,217

257,903

177,672

11,796

1,981,433

%JP

21.77

21.29

19.51

14.85

13.01

8.97

0.60

100.00

Source: Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, Pt JJJ, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford, (ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and KashmirGovernment, 1942).

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Key:D DistrictH Hindus in Jammu ProvinceJP Jammu ProvinceM Muslims in Jammu ProvincePop. Population* The census gives this figure as 'over 67 per cent' (p. 151)** Includes 27,896 Sikhs (1.41 per cent) and 4,270 and unspecified Others (0.21 per cent): Jains, Christians, Buddhists.

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Table 3: Muslims and Hindus in certain Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority District Groups, andas percentages of Jammu Province, of their District Group, and of their respective community

District Group*Muslim-majorityMirpur and PoonchMuslim-majoritydistricts:Mirpur, Poonch,ReasiHindu-majoritydistricts:Jammu, Kathua,Udhampur, ChenaniTOTALJP

Pop.

808,483

1,066,386

915,047

1,981,433

%JP

40.80

53.82

46.18

Muslims

690,545

866,084

346,321

1,212,405

%DG

85.41

81.22

37.85

%JP

34.85

43.71

17.48

61.18

%M

56.96

71.43

28.57

Hindus

101,541

182,266

554,596

736,862

%DG

12.56

17.09

60.61

%JP

5.12

9.20

27.99

37.19

%H

13.78

24.74

75.26

Source: Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, Pt HI, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford (ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and KashmirGovernment, 1942).

Key:DG District GroupH Hindus in Jammu ProvinceJP Jammu ProvinceM Muslims in Jammu ProvincePop. Population* Significant parts of these districts became Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir.

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120 SOUTH ASIA

Radcliffe may have been influenced by the fact that three Hindu-majority districts lay immediately beyond Pathankot. Despite the conspiracytheories of Alistair Lamb and various Pakistanis that pro-Indian elements'encouraged' Radcliffe to make this demarcation, no one knows if this is so -Radcliffe never talked about his 1947 decisions. Nevertheless, his allocationof Pathankot to India gave it an easy land route to Jammu from the plains ofPunjab. Without Pathankot, India would have had to construct a new roadthrough the difficult Himalayan foothills to either Kathua or Udhampurdistricts.10 With Pathankot, India only needed to upgrade the existing road toheavy-vehicle standard. New Delhi began this upgrade soon after partitionand completed it before the Maharaja's accession.

The majority of Muslims in Jammu Province lived in the westerndistricts of Mirpur, Reasi and the Poonch Jagir (see Table 3). All threedistricts had close geographic, historic, ethnic and cultural connections withPunjab. Poonch and Mirpur were Jammu Province's second and third mostpopulous districts. Apart from their strong Muslim majorities, both were alsocontiguous to, and most easily accessible from, Muslim-majority areas ofPunjab which were incorporated into Pakistan in 1947. Reasi wasimmediately east of these two districts. Such well-established ties with Punjabmade these districts much more closely aligned and integrated with Punjaband Lahore than with Jammu Province and Jammu City. This helps explainthe strong desire which Muslims who lived in these districts had to joinPakistan.

Muslims in eastern Jammu Province were also pro-Pakistan. Theirproblem was that in the districts in which they lived - Jammu, Kathua,Udhampur and Chenani Jagir - the larger Hindu community was wellconnected with the allegedly partisan Maharaja. One result was that Hindusand Sikhs were apparently given weapons taken from Muslims disarmed bythe Maharaja's forces. These weapons were then used against Muslims. Pro-Indian political groups, particularly the RSS, were much stronger in theseareas than the pro-Pakistan Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, whosestrength lay in western Jammu. Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas, a Jammuite, led theMuslim Conference. Elut the Maharaja kept Abbas in jail throughout 1947,even after his rival, Sheikh Abdullah was released. With Abbas preventedfrom influencing or leading Jammu Muslims, anti-Muslim elements,including the RSS and disgruntled Hindu and Sikh refugees, were able toharry Muslims in eastern Jammu Province virtually unhindered and with littlepublicity.

10 Lamb, op. c i t . , p. 15, footnote 4.

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The massacre of Muslims in Jammu Province

Almost all the communal violence of 1947 took place in Jammu Province asPoonchis rose against the Maharaja and his 'Hindu' forces and as Hindus andSikhs attacked Muslims. Various writers have argued that around twohundred thousand Muslims may have been killed in Jammu Province in thesecond half of 1947. According to the High Court of Azad Jammu andKashmir:

The Times of London, in its publication of October 10, 1948,reported: 'Over a quarter million Muslims were massacred inJammu Province alone. The orgies of bloodshed wereinitiated by hired gangsters imported by the Stateadministration, with State troops looking on as unconcernedspectators, at times and on occasions by the troops themselveswith the Maharaja heading them at quite a few places'.11

The problem with this assertion, however, is that I have been unable to locatethe article quoted: there was no edition of The Times of London on this day,which was a Sunday. In 1963, Ian Stephens claimed that:

... in the Jammu province ... within a period of about elevenweeks starting in August, systematic savageries, similar tothose already launched in East Punjab and in Patiala andKapurthala, practically eliminated the entire Muslim elementin the population, amounting to 500,000 people. About200,000 just disappeared, remaining untraceable, havingpresumably been butchered, or died from epidemics. The restfled destitute to West Punjab ... the full truth about thisappalling pogrom, as also about the extent of the Stateofficials' and indeed of the Maharajah's personal complicityin it took some time to reach Delhi, [but] leadingCongressmen were well aware of it by November.12

But Stephens does not give a source for these claims. An Azad KashmirGovernment publication of 1948 stated that:

Killing, looting, arson and rape by the Hindu Dogra troops,RSS Storm Troopers, Hindu and Sikh civilians, went on

1 1 Quoted in High Court of Judicature, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Verdict on Gilgit andBaltistan (Northern Area), Mirpur, Kashmir Human Rights Forum, (1993?), p. 31.

1 2 Ian Stephens, Pakistan (London, Ernest Benn Limited, 2nd rev. ed., 1964 [1st ed. 1963]),p. 200.

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unabated in Kashmir during August, September and October1947."...

No less than 200,000 Moslem men, women and children werekilled. At least, twenty-seven thousand women were abducted.Children were maimed under the eyes of their mothers, whowere raped in the presence of their children ... About 200,000Moslem refugees from Kashmir are now in Pakistanterritory.14

While the publication talks of 'Kashmir,' a generic term for 'Jammu andKashmir,' it almost certainly means Jammu. The two passages above wereseparated by a report from two Englishmen who visited 'Kashmir' inNovember 1947 reported seeing a massacre in Jammu City in JammuProvince.

Although the actual number of deaths in these incidents is uncertain,there were sufficient killings to make some Muslims in Jammu Provincebelieve there was a post-partition plot to eliminate them. In a book written in1951-52 but published only in 1965,15 Sardar Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, the'Founder-President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir'16 claimed there was asecret meeting of various rajas and maharajas near Srinagar in July 1947.They devised a conspiracy in collaboration with the RSS from Amritsar to:

... carry out a wholesale massacre of Mussalmans in the State,beginning with Poonch where they expected stiff resistance.This had to l)e carried out systematically with the activeassistance of the Dogra Army ... It was [later] learnt that ...the Sikhs and the RSSS [sic] had been transferred fromAmritsar to Jammu. The RSSS [sic] started their activitiesopenly with a licence from authorities.

A plan was evolved to completely wipe out the Muslimpopulation in the city of Jammu, and also in the districts ofJammu Province.17

The Pakistan Government also claimed there was a plot to eliminate theMuslims of Jammu. In 1952, the Minister for Kashmir Affairs in the Pakistan

13 Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom (Dept. of Public Relations, Azad KashmirGovernment, 1948), p. 5.

1 4 Ibid., p. 6.1 5 Sardar M. Ibrahim Khan, The Kashmir Saga (Lahore, Ripon Printing Press, 1965), p. 7.

Although published in 1965, Ibrahim states in his Preface that 'This book was originallywritten in 1951-52. It could not then be published for various reasons. One of the reasons wasmy financial difficulties. Even at the present time, I have faced serious difficulties in bringingthis out.'

1 6 Ibid., title page.1 7 Ibid., pp. 43-4.

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ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR PROBLEM' 123

Government, M. A. Gurmani, again had recourse to The Times to support thisassertion:

According to the special correspondent of The Times,London, in Jammu 237,000 Muslims were systematicallyexterminated, unless they escaped to Pakistan along theborder, by all the forces of the Dogra state headed by theMaharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs.18

Some Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir believed the Maharaja was involved inthe anti-Muslim activities. According to the 1948 Azad Kashmir Governmentpublication:

This bundle of nerves and contradictions, a bully and acoward, was advised by his fellow Maharajas of Kapurthalaand Patiala, to take quick and strong action, liquidate thewhole Moslem population by massacring large numbers andpushing out the rest into Pakistan ... He thus intended to sealoff the border and then massacre the Moslems of Kashmir ...Millions of our Moslem brethren living in the East Punjabhad been massacred. We saw what was coming to us.19

The Maharaja may well have been advised by, and was certainly aided by, theMaharaja of Patiala. When Indian troops entered Srinagar on 27 October,they found Patiala gunners already guarding the airfield. They had been thereat least since 17 October.20

The movement of Muslims from Jammu Province

While an unknown number of Muslims were killed in Jammu Province in1947, thousands fled to Pakistan to escape this violence. In 1948, Mohd.Hafizullah stated that'. . . nearly two lakhs [200,000] of [Muslims] must haveso far migrated to Pakistan'.21 Gurmani, of the Pakistan Government,believed the figure to be much higher: 'There were over 600,000 Muslimrefugees in Pakistan who had been hounded out of their homes in Indianoccupied areas of Kashmir by the Maharaja's troops and the Indian army'.22

1 8 M. A. Gurmani, Kashmir: A Survey (Public Relations Directorate, Ministry of Kashmir,Government of Pakistan, 1952?), p. 17.

1 9 Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom, op. cit., pp. 2-3.2 0 Lamb, op. cit., p. 131.2 1 Mohd. Hafizullah, Towards Azad Kashmir (Lahore, Bazam-i-Frogh-i-Adab, 1948), p. 119.

The Introduction is dated Mar. 7, 1948. The book was probably printed soon after.2 2 Gurmani, op. cit., p. 38.

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(Gurmani was certainly using the term 'Kashmir' to mean 'Jammu andKashmir').

The most plausible refugee figures are in a report titled 'Kashmirrefugees in Pakistan' by Afzal Mirza, published in Dawn on 2 January 1951.Mirza states that Muslim refugees from Jammu and Kashmir started to enterPakistan at the end of September 1947 '... when [the] more well-informedamong the Muslim population of the State, apprehending trouble, started tocome to Sialkot in small unnoticeable batches every day'.23 This tendencycontinued and 'during October-November, 1947, the genocide of the Muslimsof the State and their expulsion began according to plan, and as a result abouttwo hundred thousand Muslims were forced to take refuge in Pakistan'.24

Given Sialkot's proximity, most of these Muslims would have come fromJammu.

Mirza calls this exodus of Jammu and Kashmir refugees the 'first wave'.A 'second wave' of about two hundred thousand refugees arrived after theIndian Army's April to July 1948 offensive which threatened a significantloss of territory for Azad Kashmir and saw the Pakistan Army finallybecoming 'officially involved' in the fighting. A 'third wave' of about onehundred thousand refugees arrived following the Indian Army's November1948 offensive, as a result of which India further improved its militaryposition in Jammu and Kashmir. By early 1949, a total of some five hundredthousand people had fled Jammu and Kashmir to areas under Pakistanicontrol.

Mirza makes no mention of refugees coming from anywhere but areaswhich were part of Jarnmu Province. Muslims did leave the other provinces,although not in the same numbers as from Jammu. In Kashmir Province,there was almost no religious violence among local Muslims and Hindus.However, some Muslims left because they favoured Pakistan, a few were'encouraged' to leave by their political opponents in the National Conference,and some fled to avoid the fighting in the Muzaffarabad and Baramulladistricts of the province.25 In the remote Frontier Districts Province, it isunlikely that many, if any, Muslims left. The Muslim population had noHindu or Sikh minorities to deal with.

Most refugees from Jammu Province came from areas close to eitherPakistan or Azad Kashmir. A little less than two hundred thousand refugeesfrom the first two 'waves' sought asylum in Sialkot District, contiguous toJammu District. According to Mirza, these refugees '... mostly belong to that

2 3 Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.24 Ibid.2 5 Discussions in Dec. 1997, Jan. 1998 and Mar. 1999 in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and

Muzaffarabad with people who left Kashmir Province in 1947, or soon thereafter, either forAzad Kashmir or Pakistan.

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part of Jammu and Kashmir State which lies between the rivers Ravi andChenab. This area consists of Jammu, Kathua, Reasi and Udhampur tehsils'.26

(For 'tehsils', Mirza surely meant 'districts'.) Many of these arrivals wereprobably 'first wave' refugees seeking to escape the perceived or actual anti-Muslim activities in Jammu Province. The remaining two hundred thousandrefugees from the first two waves '... went over to other districts of thePunjab and the Frontier Province, viz., Gujrat, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Hazara,etc.'27 These were probably mostly 'second wave' refugees, as they camefrom the nearby three tehsils of Mirpur District: Bhimber, Kotli and Mirpur,and from Mirpur District's immediate neighbour, the Rajouri Tehsil of ReasiDistrict, where there was significant fighting. Almost all of the one hundredthousand 'third wave' refugees came from the Mendhar Tehsil of PoonchJagir, the jagir's most south-westerly tehsil, and from its immediateneighbour, the Rajouri Tehsil.

Although Mirza talks of five hundred thousand refugees, a precisenumber was hard to determine. Six months after the arrival of the 'thirdwave', an unidentified organisation counted the Jammu and Kashmir refugeesin Pakistan:

According to a sensus [sic] of Jammu and Kashmir refugeescarried out from May to July 1949, 354,540 were registeredin West Pakistan comprising 333,964 from Bharati [Indian]-held Kashmir, and 20,576 who have their homes in the AzadKashmir areas.28

This was about one hundred and fifty thousand short of the five hundredthousand who had supposedly arrived in the 'three waves'. Mirza accountedfor these in a section of his article titled the 'Present position':

Out of the roughly 500,000 Muslim refugees about 260,000are in Pakistan towns and villages and 90,000 are in camps inthe Punjab. About 150,000 are in Azad Kashmir including50,000 resettled in their homes in Azad Kashmir since thecease-fire.29

The 'missing' refugees were in Azad Kashmir, to which the count had notbeen extended.

2 6 Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.2 7 Ibid.28 Ibid.29 Ibid.

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While Azad Kashmir certainly had many refugees, the 1951 Censusmentions them rarely and gives no figures. It simply records that the numberof refugees was 'very considerable'.30 And describes them as an 'indigestibleelement' because:

... they have never given up the hope and the resolve of goingback [to their homes]. They have been waiting and watchingwith frayed nerves. Sundered clans and families have beenhoping all this time for re-union. Suspense and improvisationcharacterise all their transactions.31

No doubt, many Muslims who fled believed they would soon return to theirhomes once the people of Jammu and Kashmir had voted for the state to joinPakistan in the promised plebiscite.32 However, by 1953, many realised thatthe plebiscite would not be held in the near future. They then started to putdown permanent roots in Azad Kashmir or in Pakistan.

Mirza gives no figures for the number of Jammu and Kashmir Muslimskilled up to the time of his article in 1951. He does, however, claim that 'thescheme to exterminate the Muslims of the State was so thorough that only afraction of the Muslim population could reach Sialkot after paying quite aheavy toll of life.'33 He presumably refers mostly to those Muslims who livedin the Hindu-majority districts in the eastern part of Jammu Province. Mirzaclaims that Muslims were totally expelled from the lower tehsils ofUdhampur District and the lower part of Reasi Tehsil on the western side ofthe Chenab. As well, only a few Muslims of the Jasmirgarh and Kathuatehsils of Kathua District, a district where almost seventy-five per cent of thepopulation was Hindu, '... had been successful in saving their lives,' while'None is reported to have escaped from the tehsil of Basohli,'34 also inKathua District. Kathua District, it seemed, had few, if any, Muslims leftalive within its borders.

The killings and migrations, however, were by no means one way.According to the 1951 Census, there were only seven hundred and ninetynon-Muslims left in all of Azad Kashmir.35 Regardless of whether thesepeople were killed in, or they migrated from, Azad Kashmir, this is analarming statistic. In the 1941 Census, 63,576 Hindus had been living in theMirpur District, large parts of which became Azad Kashmir. Such a dramatic

3 0 Census of Azad Kashmir, 1951, op. c i t . , p. 31.3 1 Ibid., p. 8.3 2 Discussions in Dec. 1997, Jan. 1998 and Mar. 1999 in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and

Muzaffarabad with people who left Jammu Province or Kashmir Province in 1947, or soonthereafter, either for Azad Kashmir or Pakistan.

3 3 Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.3 4 Ibid.3 5 Census of Azad Kashmir, 1951, op. cit., p. 13.

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eclipse of the Hindu population was obviously one reason why the 1951Census, done under the aegis of Pakistani authorities, was classified 'Secret'and given limited distribution.

The 1961 Indian Census also talks about the move of Muslims fromJammu Province into Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. In a section titled'Uninhabited Villages', it states that:

... a large number of villages which were well inhabited till1947 were completely depopulated consequent upon themigration of their populations to West Pakistan and to theState territory on the other side of the Cease-Fire Line [i.e.Azad Kashmir]. Thus, while the number of uninhabitedvillages in Jammu district was only thirteen both in 1941 and1961, as many as 155 inhabited villages were completelydeserted as a result of mass migrations. In Kathua districtalso, the number of uninhabited villages had risen from 7 of1941 to 43 in 1961. The latter include, among others, 31depopulated villages.36

The same section states that Baramulla District also had an unspecifiedincrease in the number of uninhabited villages due to residual parts of theformer Muzaffarabad District merging with it. Presumably, people from thesevillages had gone to Azad Kashmir. They could also, of course, have beenkilled either by the Pukhtoons, who first entered Kashmir Province via thesetwo districts, or by the Indian Army.

The 1961 Census gives further information about the exodus of Muslimsfrom Jammu:

There has been a phenomenal fall in the rural population of[the] Muslim community in Jammu district during the lasttwo decades as a result of the mass migration to Pakistan ofmost of the Muslims who inhabited the various tehsils of thedistrict. The total population of this community in the districtas a whole, as returned at the 1961 Census, is about one-thirdof what it was in 1941, the corresponding figures being51,847 and 160,158 respectively. The fall is mostly reflectedin the rural sector and so far as the urban areas are concerned,the decrease is very small and does not exceed 3,441.37

It refers specifically to Jammu District which, since the 1941 Census, hadbecome slightly smaller in area. The 1961 Census stated that the number of

3 6 Census of India, 1961, p. 42.3 7 Ibid., p. 359.

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Muslims there had suffered a 'phenomenal decrease' of almost one hundredand twenty thousand.38 However, the census does not say whether thisdecrease was due to death or to migration.

The flow of people out of Jammu and Kashmir, however, was not onlyto Pakistan, nor was it only one way. By 1961, (Indian) Jammu and Kashmirhad also 'lost' 78,714 people to other states in India. The religious affiliationsof these emigrants was not provided in the 1961 Census.39 In 1961, thepopulation for (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir included '... 68,921 immigrantsof whom about two-thirds were displaced persons from West Pakistanalone'.40 By 1961, 48,856 people born in (West) Pakistan had migrated into(Indian) Jammu and Kashmir. Of them, 46,836 (ninety-six per cent) hadsettled in Jammu Province, with over seventy-five per cent of these in JammuDistrict and about thirteen per cent in Kathua District. The other twothousand and twenty were in Kashmir Province. In Jammu Province, the newarrivals had been allotted evacuee lands of original inhabitants who hadmigrated to Pakistan.41 Almost all other 'immigrants' to Jammu and Kashmirwere from Indian states, with a small number from Tibet (1,644) and Nepal(310).42

Did a massacre of Muslims occur in Jammu?

It is impossible to determine if a massacre of Muslims took place in JammuProvince in 1947. Neither the Azad Kashmir Government nor the (Indian)Jammu and Kashmir Government appear to have kept records. It is notfeasible to compare census figures, given that two of the three censuses werenot conducted sufficiently near the time of the alleged massacre. And the1951 Census in Azad Kashmir was of an area which can not be comparedwith any area surveyed previously.

The only district which offers a fair comparison is the Kathua District ofJammu Province. Alone of the districts of Jammu Province or KashmirProvince, it retained its pre-1947 borders after 1947. Based on data in the1961 Census, Kathua appears to have 'lost' almost fifty per cent of itsMuslims.43 However, no information is given as to how many of these peoplewere killed or migrated.

3 8 Census of India, 1961, op. cit . , p. 240.3 9 Ibid., p. 157.4 0 Ibid.4 1 Ibid., pp. 77-9.4 2 Ibid., p. 81.4 3 Ibid., pp. 243, 246. The 1961 Census does not give actual figures, only proportions. It states

that Kathua District had 111 Muslims per 10,000 of Muslims in the entire state in 1961 (i.e.,out of every 10,000 Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, 111 lived in Kathua District). The 1961Census also states that in 1941 Kathua District had 212 Muslims for every 10,000 Muslims in

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While these figures may be significant, two things must be remembered.Firstly, Kathua District was the most 'Hindu' district of Jammu Province in1941 (disregarding Chenani Jagir) with 74.31 per cent of its peoplecomprising Hindus. Hence, more Muslims may have felt compelled to leavethis district in 1947 than did Muslims in other less 'Hindu' districts.Secondly, the number of Muslims in Kathua District in 1941 was bothnumerically small and small as percentage of the Muslim population ofJammu Province. The 45,000 Muslims in Kathua District comprised only3.71 per cent of the 1,212,405 Muslims in Jammu Province in 1941.

From evidence now available, we cannot know the extent of the killingof Muslims in Jammu Province in 1947. What is important, however, is thatat the time, reports circulated of very widespread murders - up to twohundred thousand people, as the elusive Times report was supposed to havestated. With such reports in circulation, Jammu Muslims had every reason toseek refuge in safer places. It appears that many believed this might be atemporary measure: a spell in western Kashmir or Punjab before returning totheir homes.

The actions of Jammu Muslims underline the variety of ways in whichthe people of Maharaja Hari Singh's state thought of themselves in 1947.They had various identities, which began to harden only later - for some -into 'Pakistani'. In the militarily-experienced western districts of Jammu,Muslims looked to the plains of west Punjab and to ideas of a Pakistan state;but in the Kashmir Valley, Muslim goals were linked through SheikhAbdullah to ideas much more sympathetic to a secular state and ties withIndia.

The perception that large numbers of Muslims were being killed inJammu in September 1947 provoked Muslims in western Jammu to take uparms against the Maharaja's forces and their allies and to struggle to haveJammu and Kashmir join Pakistan. These actions started the chain of eventswhich saw Pukhtoon tribals enter Jammu and Kashmir, followed by theIndian and Pakistan armies, culminating with the effective division of Jammuand Kashmir into Pakistan and Indian-controlled areas on 1 January 1949.Had the Poonch uprising and the subsequent creation of Azad Kashmirremained for the Maharaja to deal with as an internal law and order issue, thefuture of Jammu and Kashmir may have been different. But given the stronglocal identities of the various units of the Maharaja's state, and thelongstanding alienation of various groups from his regime, such an outcomewas unlikely. The fact that the stories of the 'massacre of 200,000' seemed soplausible indicated how profound by 1947 these divisions already were.

the state.

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APPENDIX 1Composition of Jammu Province in 1941 by district and tehsil

District/TehsilJammu District:

AkhnoorJammuSriRanbirsinghpuraSamba

Kathua District:

KathuaJasmergarhBasohli

Udhampur Dist:UdhampurKishtwarRambanRamnagarBhadrawah

Reasi District:ReasiRampur Rajouri

Mirpur District:KotliMirpurBhimber

Chenani JagirPoonch Jagir:

BaghSudhnoti

HaveliMendharKarloop Jagir

TOTAL

Area1,147

317346

157327

1,023

22418.5614

5,070383

3,021583525553

1,789983806

1,627574355698

951,627

32.1348

479479[4|

12,378

1941 Pop.431,362

88,821156,556

96,52189,464

177,672

47,37859,67070,624

294,21752,93760,89375,79360,07644,518

257,903117,059140,844

386,655111,037113,115162,503

11,796**421,828

101,091108,300

110,733100,704

1,981,433

•Majority57.53% H

HinduHindu

Slight HmajorityHindu

74.31% H

HinduHinduHindu

56.02%HHindu

MuslimMuslimHinduHindu

68.06% M54.80% M79.09% M80.41% M

MuslimMuslim

64.79% M81.22% H>90% MMuslimMuslim

MuslimMuslim

61.19% M

Comments

Includes Jammu citySmallest tehsil in Jammuand Kashmir

Smallest dist. in Jammu &Kashmir

Census says >67% Muslim

Sikhs outnumber HindusMajority of Hindus live inSudhnotiIncluded Poonch town

Located/counted in Jammu, .Ramnagar tehsils

Source: Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, Pt III, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford(ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Government, 1942).

Key: JP Jammu ProvinceDist. District H HinduM Muslim Pop. PopulationPercentages are only specified where individual tehsil figures have been provided by census.Total given in census for Poonch Jagir is 1,000 greater than the sum of the figures given for thevarious tehsils.

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APPENDIX 2Explanatory Note on the 1941 Census

Note: For the three reasons, the above figures may moderately understate themajority position of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir in 1947.

1) When the census was taken in February 1941, many men were awayfrom Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Punjab, mainly looking for work'... to supplement the meagre incomes they extract from their lands'.44 Thismigration particularly affected Jammu Province, especially the Muslim-majority districts of Mirpur and Poonch, where agricultural holdings werepoor or small. It also affected the Muslim-majority districts of Baramulla andAnantnag in Kashmir Province which had severe winters. Muslims in theFrontier Districts Province also went to other areas of Jammu and Kashmirand to Punjab looking for work, but not in the same sort of numbers as fromthe other provinces.

2) The population of Jammu Province would have been greater in 1941but for the heavy recruiting of Muslims (mainly) and Hindus into the(British) Indian Army during World War II.

Of the three provinces of Jammu and Kashmir, the 1941 Censusmentions only Jammu Province as providing large numbers of soldiers.Almost all of them would have served outside the state with the Indian Armyand would have been away at the time when the census was taken in February1941. The 1941 Census confirms this shortcoming: 'As this Census coincidedwith the war and considerable recruiting activity, the population of somevillages and localities with military service connections may well have beenaffected more than usual' .4S

No specific figures are available, but estimates of the number of menfrom Jammu Province who served in the Indian Army range from fiftythousand to one hundred thousand. Former editor of The Statesman, Calcutta,Ian Stephens, states that over forty thousand (Muslim) Sudhans, one of themain tribes of Poonch, who were from the Sudhnoti Tehsil of Poonch Jagir(mentioned below), served in the Indian Army during World War II.46 A1948 Azad Kashmir Government publication claimed one hundred thousand

4 4 Census of India, 1961, p. 66.45 Census of India, 1941, p. 3.4 6 Stephens, op. c i t . , p. 199.

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Muslims from Jammu and Kashmir served in World War II.47 Josef Korbel, amember of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan '... duringits early and critical days,'48 citing a document published in Azad Kashmir,49

stated that 71,667 citizens of Jammu and Kashmir served in the British Indianforces in World War II. Of these, 60,402 were Muslims.50 Alastair Lambstates there may have been as many as 60,000 ex-servicemen in the Jagir ofPoonch in 1947.51

Although the 1941 Census did not give any specific figures, it mentionedsix of the seven districts of Jammu Province (Chenani Jagir was notmentioned) as providing men to either the Indian Army or the Jammu andKashmir Army. Discussing Jammu Province overall, it stated that:

A good percentage of the population in all districts belongs towhat may be termed, for the sake of convenience, the martialclasses, mostly Rajputs, both Hindu and Muslim. Theseelements are recruited for the army both in the State and inBritish India and their absence from their homes on militaryduty has a small effect on the permanent population.52

In Hindu-majority Jammu District (see Table 2), the census said that:

While agriculture is the chief means of subsistence except inurban areas, the rural population has other sources of income.The Rajputs arid other classes accustomed to join the armyform a considerable part of the population and pensions andpay for military service constitute an appreciable addition tothe family funds in many homes.53

While these Rajputs would have been both Hindus and Muslims, manyof the Hindus would have joined the Jammu and Kashmir State Army.However, for Muslims, the Indian Army was far more accessible. Thenumber of Muslims in the Jammu and Kashmir Army was not large, possiblybecause the Maharaja doubted their loyalty. Out of 7957 men in his army in1926, a maximum of 2000 were Muslims.54 The rest were Hindu Dogras,

4 7 Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom, p. 1.4 8 Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir (Princeton, Princeton University Press, rev. ed., 1966 [first

edition 1954]), p. viii.4 9 Ibid., p. 55. The publication Korbel cites is Jammu: A Muslim Province (Kashmir

Publications, Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir), p. 13. No author or publication date given.5 0 Ibid., pp. 54-5.5 1 Lamb, op. c i t . , pp. 122-3.5 2 Census of India, 1941, p. 3.5 3 Ibid., p. 4.5 4 Calculated from figures given in Major K. Brahma Singh, History of Jammu and Kashmir

Rifles 1820-1956 (New Delhi, Lancer International, 1990), p. 145.

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apart from about 1,000 'Gorkas'. By 1939, the Jammu and Kashmir Armyhad grown to 9078 men, although the ethrto-religious mix was similar to thatof 1926.55

In Hindu-majority Kathua District, the census stated that the wholedistrict was almost entirely dependent on agriculture, although 'Rajputs fromKathua are recruited in fair numbers for the Indian Army'.56

In Hindu-majority Udhampur District, 'The large Rajput element,especially in Ramnagar, provides recruits for the military services in the Stateand the army in British India' ,57

In Muslim-majority Reasi District, 'Considerable numbers of the Rajputelements join the State army and by this means relieve the straitenedcircumstances existing in the majority of homes'.58

In Muslim-majority Mirpur District:

An unusual feature of the Mirpur Muslim community is thatfemales exceed males; this is exceptional and indicates thelarge number of men out of the district at the time of theCensus earning a living elsewhere ... Agriculture in the Kotliand Mirpur Tehsils can not fully support the people who arestrong and virile; there are no industries worth the name. Theresult is that large numbers of the adult male population ofboth tehsils, Mirpur in particular, leave the district for periodsvarying in length in search of employment of all kinds. Theyjoin the army in large numbers as well as the mercantilemarine operating from Indian ports; some of them are foundas traders and seamen all over the world. Bhimber [Tehsil] isnot affected to the same extent although many of its men jointhe army.59

For Muslim-majority Poonch Jagir, the 1941 Census stated that:

The [population] increase is below the average for the wholeState. This may be attributed partly to increased migration tothe Punjab in the winter, when the Census was taken, in

5 5 K. B. Singh, op. cit., p. 169.5 6 Census of India, 1941, p. 66.5 7 Ibid., p. 98.58 Ibid., p. 153.5 9 Ibid., p. 182.

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search of employment and enlistment in various units of theIndian Army with which this district, especially tehsils Baghand Sudhnoti, has a close and long established association.The percentage increase is lowest in the Sudhnoti Tehsil ...[due] to the fact that [it] is the tehsil nearest to the Punjab,and [is] probably most affected by movement in search ofemployment and by enlistment.60

In Bagh and Sudhnoti Tehsils in particular, the census continued:

... the average size of holdings is small, crops are uncertainand outturn [sic] inadequate to meet local requirements. Theother tehsils are subject to the same difficulties but to a lessextent. A considerable number of men from the Bagh andSudhnoti Tehsils, and in smaller numbers from Haveli andMendhar Tehsils, enlist in the various units of the Indianarmy and get employment in various civil departments,especially railways, in British India. Many of them getdomestic service in one capacity or another ... It is reasonableto suppose that at the recent census a larger number of menthan usual were away from their homes at the time ofenumeration owing to increased enlistment and the increaseddemand for labour.61

The 1941 Census also mentions that men in the Gilgit Agency joined thelocal, British-officered Gilgit Scouts.62 The census provides no figures,probably because the Government of India, which controlled the censustaking in this area, did not make them available due to World War II.

3) The final reason why the above figures may moderately understate themajority position of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is because theexact number of Muslims in the districts of Kathua and the Poonch Jagir wereunknown. The census states that in Kathua District there was a Muslimpopulation of ' . . . over 45.000'63 and that in Poonch Jagir ' . . . over 90 percent of the total population is Muslim'.64 These appear to be minima only,thus understating the number of Muslims in these districts.

6 0 Ibid., p. 232.6 1 Ibid., p. 233.6 2 Ibid., p. 529.6 3 Ibid, p. 66.6 4 Ibid., p. 232.

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