What Happened To Muslims in Jammu by Cristopher Snedden

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
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What happened to Muslims in Jammu? Local

identity, "the massacre of 1947 and the roots of
the Kashmir problem
Christopher Snedden
To cite this article: Christopher Snedden (2001) What happened to Muslims in Jammu? Local
identity, "the massacre of 1947 and the roots of the Kashmir problem, South Asia: Journal of
South Asian Studies, 24:2, 111-134, DOI: 10.1080/00856400108723454
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South Asia, Vol. XXIV, no. 2 (2001), pp. 111-134
WHAT HAPPENED TO MUSLIMS IN JAMMU?

LOCAL IDENTITY, '"THE MASSACRE" OF
1947' AND THE ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR
PROBLEM'
Christopher Snedden
La Trobe University
OME WRITERS CLAIM THAT UP TO TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MUSLIMS
were killed in Jammu Province of Jammu and Kashmir soon after the
partition of the Indian subcontinent in August 1947. They allege that
these Muslims were murdered in a campaign orchestrated by the Hindu
Maharaja, Hari Singh, and carried out by his army and various anti-Muslim
elements in the state. These included Hindu and Sikh refugees from western
Punjab and right-wing Hindu organisations such as the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak 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 which
produced the Kashmir dispute that still poisons relations between Pakistan and
India. Second, the massacre appears to have slipped through the cracks of
subcontinental history, overshadowed by the communal slaughter in
neighbouring 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, the
Maharaja's forces disarmed many Muslims in Jammu Province and (Muslims
claim) redistributed their arms to Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims from the
Poonch Jagir, and Mirpur District, both located in western Jammu, then
obtained arms from the North-West Frontier Province. A large number of
these men were former soldiers whose skills and experience had been gained
in the Indian Army during the Second World War. They were well able to
112
SOUTH ASIA
MAP 1
JAMMU AND KASHMIR STATE
PRE-PARTITION COMPOSITION
(emphasis on Jammu province)
North-West
Frontier
. _ . x
fChilas) Frontier Districts
Jammu Province
Kashmir Province
Chenani Jagir: Zero-shaped area shown within

UdhimpurTehsU (U2)
Jl : Jammu District: Akhnoor Tehsil
J2 : Jammu District Jammu Tehsil
J3 : Jammu District Ranbirsinghpura Tehsil
J4 : Jammu District: Samba Tehsil
Kl : Kathua Distict: Jasmergarh Tehsil
K2 : Kathua Distict: Kathua Tehsil
K3 : Kathua District Basohli Tehsil
M l : Mirpur DistrictKotli Tehsil
M2 : Mirpur Distinct: Mirpur Tehsil
M3 : Mirpur Distict: Bhimber Tehsil
PI : PoonchJagir:Bagh Tehsil
P2 :PoonchJagir:HaveliTehsil
P3 : Poonch Jagir: Sudhnoti Tehsil
P4 : Poonch Jagir: MendharTehsil
R l : Reasi District: RampurRajouri Tehsil
R2 : ReasiDistriia:Reasi Tehsil
U l : Udhampur District Ramban Tehsil
U2 : Udhampur District Udhampur Tehsil
U3 : Udhampur District Ramnagar Tehsil
U4 : Udhampur District: Bhadarwah Tehsil
U5 : Udhampur DistrictKishtwar Tehsil
M'bad District Muzaffarabad District

BaramuUa District
Anantnag District
Frontier Districts Province

Astore
GA: Gilgit Agency: Hunza, Nagar, Pun. (Punial),
Ish. (Ishkuman), Yasin, Kuh Ghizar, Chilas
GLA: Gilgit Leased Area
Ladakh District: Skardu Tehsil, Kargil Tehsil,
Ladakh Tehsil
113
ROOTS OF THE 'KASHMIR PROBLEM'
MAP 2
JAMMU AND KASHMIR: CURRENT POSITION
(Source: various)
Northern Areas
' . .(administered by Pakistan) *f\.
North-West
'/
Frontier
Province
**%.
("
Mi
Abbottabad.
MUITBB.
~Y
\
Rawalpindi*
Z+*Vi?'A
Siachen
Glacicr
\
\
AKSai Chin
* " ' KargU
'l:t Baraimilla.\
.'
.Srinanar
]JCas
I rr'\
K (India)
X:J. jammu City\ BQmachal Pradesh

Sialkot
200
Kilometres
"'"''" abS
INDIA .
Lahore* J
Key:
AK :
CTC :
TAJ :
........;
(claimed by India;
controlled by China)
Azad Kashmir (administered by Pakistan)

Area ceded to China by Pakistan (claimed by India)
Tajikistan
Line of Control dividing Jammu and Kashmir into
Indian and Pakistan-administered areas. (The Line
of Control has only been demarcated as far as the
point shown. Thereafter, it heads 'north to the
borders'. This area is currently being militarily
contested by Pakistan and India.)
114
SOUTH ASIA
use the newly-acquired weapons to defend themselves and their families

against communal violence. These Muslims were also disgruntled with
Maharaja Hari Singh who, they believed, was trying by stealth to take Jammu
and Kashmir into India. They, therefore, decided to free the entire state from
the Maharaja's control and ensure it joined Pakistan. Their activities grew
into a full-scale revolt against the Maharaja and led to the formation of the
Azad Kashmir movement, which 'liberated' an area in western Jammu and
Kashmir 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 to
enter the state. Muslim Pukhtoon tribals, coming from or through Pakistan,
entered Kashmir Province on 22 October, ostensibly to support their coreligionists in the struggle against non-Muslims. However, the tribals not only
ravaged the people of the province, they panicked the Maharaja by tipping the
balance of armed forces against him. To obtain help to defend his territory,
Hari Singh acceded to India on 26 October. The Indian Army entered Jammu
and Kashmir on 27 October and checked the tribals near Srinagar. It then
sought to establish its control throughout Jammu and Kashmir where it fought
the Azad Army, mentioned above. The Pakistan Army officially entered the
struggle in May 1948 as a massive Indian build-up threatened to overrun the
substantial territorial gains made by the Azad Army. The Pakistan Army and
the Azad Army then combined and fought the Indian Army until the United
Nations-brokered ceasefire on 1 January 1949 ended the first Pakistan-India
war. Thereafter, Jammu and Kashmir was effectively divided into Pakistani
and Indian-held areas, both much changed demographically and
administratively from August 1947.
If there was a massacre of two hundred thousand people in Jammu in the
last four months of 1947, it represented proportionally a slaughter even worse
than that which went on in Punjab. As we know, from mid-August to midNovember 1947, some 10.2 million people migrated from, or to, West
Pakistan.1 They comprised an estimated 5.8 million Muslims who went to
Pakistan and 4.4 million Hindus and Sikhs who went to India. Large numbers
from all communities were killed, abducted or died. There are no precise
figures, but estimates range from those of 'authoritative circles in New Delhi'
who believed '... deaths directly or indirectly traceable to the Punjab
communal disturbances and consequent migration would approach 1 million,'
through a former British Indian civil servant's figure of two hundred
thousand 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.
Penderel Moon, quoted in Schechtman, op. cit., p. 108.
115
killed in Punjab'.3 While the figure of two hundred thousand deaths in

Jammu was no doubt lower than the total deaths in Punjab, as a percentage of
the populations, the Jammu figure is astonishingly high, as subsequent tables
in this essay show.
As I pursued my research into the question of what happened in Jammu
in 1947, I realised that I needed to analyse the religious and administrative
composition of Jammu Province in 1947 and to use this analysis to cast light
on the claims of a massacre of two hundred thousand people. This essay
tackles these two problems. While it concentrates heavily on both Jammu
Province and its Muslims, it notes relevant factors about other areas of
Jammu 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 of
India volume for Jammu & Kashmir State for 1941, the Census of Azad
Kashmir, 1951 and the Census of India, 1961A
Jammu and Kashmir in 1947
In 1941, Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim-majority state (see Table 1
below), which it remained in 1947. Because of Jammu and Kashmir's Muslim
majority, many people believed Maharaja Hari Singh would accede to
Pakistan. However, the Maharaja's inclinations were - if independence were
unattainable - towards India. Many of his fellow Hindus in both Jammu
Province and Kashmir Province were similarly inclined.
It is important to emphasise that Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir were
not unified in their aspirations about the future political allegiance of the
state. Muslims in Jammu and the Frontier Districts provinces strongly
favoured joining Pakistan. Indeed, anti-Maharaja and pro-Pakistan Muslims
in Poonch rebelled in September 1947, and this revolt developed into the
Azad Kashmir movement, the aim of which was to free Jammu and Kashmir
from the rule of the Maharaja. Gilgit Muslims in the Frontier Districts
3
4
Schechtman, op. cit., p. 108.

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 used
because it was the first census taken after 1947 in (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir. While India
had a census in 1951, no data was collected in (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir because '... a
complete count was impossible in the [turbulent] conditions prevailing in the state' at the time.
116
SOUTH ASIA
Province imprisoned the Maharaja's representative about a week after Hari

Singh finally acceded to India.. The representative had only recently arrived
- replacing the British Resident who had left on 1 August when Britain quit
its 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 lacked
enthusiasm for Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus in the Kashmir Valley shared
the same ethnicity and were far more secular in their outlooks and liberal in
their religious practices than co-religionists elsewhere. As a result, Kashmir
Valley Muslims and Hindus were much closer to one another than to their coreligionists elsewhere in Jammu and Kashmir. Both groups were also under
the sway of Jammu and Kashmir's most charismatic and popular leader,
Sheikh Abdullah, an opponent of 'feudalism', advocate of secularism and
sympathiser with India. Because of these factors, Kashmir Valley Muslims
inclined towards Jammu and Kashmir joining India rather than Pakistan.
Table 1: The Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1941
Jammu
Province
Area (sq.
miles)
Population
12,378
1,981,433
Kashmir
Province
8,539
1,728,705
Frontier
Districts
Province
63,554
311,478
Totals for
Jammu and
Kashmir
State
84,471
4,021,616
Religious
Composition
61.19 per cent Muslims
37.19 per cent Hindus
1.41 percent Shikh
0.21 percent Others: Jains,
Christians, Buddhists, etc.
1.56 per cent Shikhs
0.01 per cent Others
12.89 per cent Buddhists
0.25 per cent comprising
Hindus, Others and Sikhs
1.37 per cent Sikhs
1.01 per cent Buddhists
0.10 per cent Others
Number
1,212,405
736,862
27,896
4,270
1,615,928
85,531
27,001
245
270,539
40,164
775
3,098,872
822,955
54,975
40,684
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 Kashmir

Valley was significant. Muslims were ninety-three per cent of Kashmir
Province's population, and eighty-five per cent of those Muslims were
concentrated in the Kashmir Valley. Together, the Muslims of Kashmir
Province constituted more than half of the Muslim population of the entire
117
state of Jammu and Kashmir. In any vote to determine the will of the Jammu
and Kashmir people, the numerical strength of Kashmir Valley Muslims
would have been telling. Their political activity was centred around Srinagar,
Jammu and Kashmir's largest city (1941 population: 207,787),5 as well as its
summer capital.
Within Jammu Province, the location of the majority of Muslims and
Hindus may partially explain their differing aspirations for Jammu and
Kashmir.6 Hindus, many pro-India, were not an overall majority in Jammu
Province, although they were a majority in its eastern districts of Jammu,
Udhampur, Kathua and the Chenani Jagir (a semi-autonomous fiefdom of
ninety-five square miles totally surrounded by Udhampur District). Threequarters of Jammu Province's Hindus lived in these four districts. The
location of these districts was important because they were close to areas that
became part of India.
Hindu-majority Jammu District was Jammu Province's most populous
and most significant district. It was the homeland of the Maharaja and his
fellow Dogras and contained by far the most Hindus of any district in Jammu
Province. It had the province's major urban centre, Jammu City (1941
population: 50,379),7 which was Jammu and Kashmir's winter capital. The
district was contiguous to Punjab, although the areas adjacent had Muslim
majorities. This proximity was to prove significant, as it enabled refugees to
flow easily into and out of Jammu Province after partition.
Further east, the Hindu-majority districts of Udhampur and Kathua were
geographically significant. Udhampur was contiguous to Hindu-majority
districts of Punjab which were incorporated into India in 1947. Kathua
District, the province's second most 'Hindu' district after tiny Chenani Jagir,
was contiguous to Pathankot Tehsil of Gurdaspur District, Punjab. While
Gurdaspur had an overall Muslim majority, Pathankot had a slight Hindu
majority.8 The demarcation of the Pakistan-India border by the Englishman,
Cyril Radcliffe, awarded Pathankot, and two other Muslim-majority tehsils in
Gurdaspur District, to India.9
6
7
8
Census of India, 1941, p. 344.

Sikhs are not discussed: their population was small and their political position was close to that
of most Hindus in 1947.
Ibid., p. 2.
Alastair Lamb, Kashmir, A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990 (Karachi, Oxford University Press,
2nd impression, 1994), p. 7.
Ibid, p. 103.
Table 2:
District
Muslims and Hindus in Jammu Province as percentages of their respective districts, as

percentages of Jammu Province, and as percentages of their respective communities
Muslims
%D
%JP
%M
Hindus
%D
%JP
%H
**PopJP
%JP
Jammu
170,789
39.60
8.62
14.09
248,173
57.53
12.53
33.68
431,362
21.77
Poonch
379,645
90.00
19.16
31.31
37,965
9.00
1.92
5.15
421,828
21.29
Mirpur
310,900
80.41
15.69
25.64
63,576
16.44
3.21
8.63
386,655
19.51
Udhampur
128,327
43.62
6.48
10.59
164,820
56.02
8.32
22.37
294,217
14.85
Reasi
175,539
*68.06
8.86
14.48
80,725
31.30
4.07
10.96
257,903
13.01
Kathua
45,000
25.33
2.27
3.71
132,022
74.31
6.66
17.91
177,672
8.97
Chenani
2,205
18.70
0.11
0.18
9,581
81.22
0.48
1.30
11,796
0.60
69.19
100.00
736,862
37.19
100.00
1,981,433
100.00
oo
OO
TOTALJP
1,212,405
Source: Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, Pt JJJ, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford, (ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir
Government, 1942).
Key:
D
H
JP
M
Pop.
*
**
District
Hindus in Jammu Province
Jammu Province
Muslims in Jammu Province
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.
O
>
OO
Table 3:
Muslims and Hindus in certain Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority District Groups, and
as percentages of Jammu Province, of their District Group, and of their respective community
District Group
*Muslim-majority
Mirpur and Poonch
Muslim-majority
districts:
Mirpur, Poonch,
Reasi
Hindu-majority
districts:
Jammu, Kathua,
Udhampur, Chenani
TOTALJP
Source:
%DG
%JP
%M
Hindus
%DG
%JP
%H
690,545
85.41
34.85
56.96
101,541
12.56
5.12
13.78
53.82
866,084
81.22
43.71
71.43
182,266
17.09
9.20
24.74
46.18
346,321
37.85
17.48
28.57
554,596
60.61
27.99
75.26
Pop.
%JP
808,483
40.80
1,066,386
915,047
Muslims
So
H
1,981,433
1,212,405
61.18
736,862
DG
District Group
H
JP
M
Pop.
*
Hindus in Jammu Province

Jammu Province
Muslims in Jammu Province
Population
Significant parts of these districts became Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir.
>on
37.19
Census of India 1941, Vol. XXII, Jammu & Kashmir State, Pt HI, Village Tables, R. G. Wreford (ed.) (Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir
Government, 1942).
Key:
GO
13
o
w
120
SOUTH ASIA
Radcliffe may have been influenced by the fact that three Hindumajority districts lay immediately beyond Pathankot. Despite the conspiracy
theories 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 allocation
of Pathankot to India gave it an easy land route to Jammu from the plains of
Punjab. Without Pathankot, India would have had to construct a new road
through the difficult Himalayan foothills to either Kathua or Udhampur
districts.10 With Pathankot, India only needed to upgrade the existing road to
heavy-vehicle standard. New Delhi began this upgrade soon after partition
and completed it before the Maharaja's accession.
The majority of Muslims in Jammu Province lived in the western
districts of Mirpur, Reasi and the Poonch Jagir (see Table 3). All three
districts had close geographic, historic, ethnic and cultural connections with
Punjab. Poonch and Mirpur were Jammu Province's second and third most
populous districts. Apart from their strong Muslim majorities, both were also
contiguous to, and most easily accessible from, Muslim-majority areas of
Punjab which were incorporated into Pakistan in 1947. Reasi was
immediately east of these two districts. Such well-established ties with Punjab
made these districts much more closely aligned and integrated with Punjab
and Lahore than with Jammu Province and Jammu City. This helps explain
the strong desire which Muslims who lived in these districts had to join
Pakistan.
Muslims in eastern Jammu Province were also pro-Pakistan. Their
problem was that in the districts in which they lived - Jammu, Kathua,
Udhampur and Chenani Jagir - the larger Hindu community was well
connected with the allegedly partisan Maharaja. One result was that Hindus
and Sikhs were apparently given weapons taken from Muslims disarmed by
the Maharaja's forces. These weapons were then used against Muslims. ProIndian political groups, particularly the RSS, were much stronger in these
areas than the pro-Pakistan Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, whose
strength lay in western Jammu. Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas, a Jammuite, led the
Muslim Conference. Elut the Maharaja kept Abbas in jail throughout 1947,
even after his rival, Sheikh Abdullah was released. With Abbas prevented
from influencing or leading Jammu Muslims, anti-Muslim elements,
including the RSS and disgruntled Hindu and Sikh refugees, were able to
harry Muslims in eastern Jammu Province virtually unhindered and with little
publicity.
10
Lamb, op. c i t . , p. 15, footnote 4.
121
The massacre of Muslims in Jammu Province
Almost all the communal violence of 1947 took place in Jammu Province as
Poonchis rose against the Maharaja and his 'Hindu' forces and as Hindus and
Sikhs attacked Muslims. Various writers have argued that around two
hundred thousand Muslims may have been killed in Jammu Province in the
second half of 1947. According to the High Court of Azad Jammu and
Kashmir:
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'. 11
The problem with this assertion, however, is that I have been unable to locate
the 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 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.12
But Stephens does not give a source for these claims. An Azad Kashmir
Government publication of 1948 stated that:
Killing, looting, arson and rape by the Hindu Dogra troops,
RSS Storm Troopers, Hindu and Sikh civilians, went on
11
12
Quoted in High Court of Judicature, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Verdict on Gilgit and
Baltistan (Northern Area), Mirpur, Kashmir Human Rights Forum, (1993?), p. 31.
Ian Stephens, Pakistan (London, Ernest Benn Limited, 2nd rev. ed., 1964 [1st ed. 1963]),
p. 200.
122
SOUTH ASIA
unabated in Kashmir during August, September and October
1947."...
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.14
While the publication talks of 'Kashmir,' a generic term for 'Jammu and
Kashmir,' it almost certainly means Jammu. The two passages above were
separated by a report from two Englishmen who visited 'Kashmir' in
November 1947 reported seeing a massacre in Jammu City in Jammu
Province.
Although the actual number of deaths in these incidents is uncertain,
there were sufficient killings to make some Muslims in Jammu Province
believe there was a post-partition plot to eliminate them. In a book written in
1951-52 but published only in 1965,15 Sardar Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, the
'Founder-President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir'16 claimed there was a
secret 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 active
assistance of the Dogra Army ... It was [later] learnt that ...
the Sikhs and the RSSS [sic] had been transferred from
Amritsar to Jammu. The RSSS [sic] started their activities
openly with a licence from authorities.
A plan was evolved to completely wipe out the Muslim
population in the city of Jammu, and also in the districts of
Jammu Province.17
The Pakistan Government also claimed there was a plot to eliminate the
Muslims of Jammu. In 1952, the Minister for Kashmir Affairs in the Pakistan
13
14
15
16
17
Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom (Dept. of Public Relations, Azad Kashmir
Government, 1948), p. 5.
Ibid., p. 6.
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 originally
written in 1951-52. It could not then be published for various reasons. One of the reasons was
my financial difficulties. Even at the present time, I have faced serious difficulties in bringing
this out.'
Ibid., title page.
Ibid., pp. 43-4.
123
Government, M. A. Gurmani, again had recourse to The Times to support this

assertion:
According to the special correspondent of The Times,

London, in Jammu 237,000 Muslims were systematically
exterminated, unless they escaped to Pakistan along the
border, by all the forces of the Dogra state headed by the
Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs.18
Some Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir believed the Maharaja was involved in
the anti-Muslim activities. According to the 1948 Azad Kashmir Government
publication:
This bundle of nerves and contradictions, a bully and a
coward, was advised by his fellow Maharajas of Kapurthala
and Patiala, to take quick and strong action, liquidate the
whole Moslem population by massacring large numbers and
pushing out the rest into Pakistan ... He thus intended to seal
off the border and then massacre the Moslems of Kashmir ...
Millions of our Moslem brethren living in the East Punjab
had been massacred. We saw what was coming to us. 19
The Maharaja may well have been advised by, and was certainly aided by, the
Maharaja of Patiala. When Indian troops entered Srinagar on 27 October,
they found Patiala gunners already guarding the airfield. They had been there
at least since 17 October. 20
The movement of Muslims from Jammu Province
While an unknown number of Muslims were killed in Jammu Province in
1947, thousands fled to Pakistan to escape this violence. In 1948, Mohd.
Hafizullah stated that'... nearly two lakhs [200,000] of [Muslims] must have
so far migrated to Pakistan'.21 Gurmani, of the Pakistan Government,
believed the figure to be much higher: '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'. 22
18
19
20
21
22
M. A. Gurmani, Kashmir: A Survey (Public Relations Directorate, Ministry of Kashmir,

Government of Pakistan, 1952?), p. 17.
Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom, op. cit., pp. 2-3.
Lamb, op. cit., p. 131.
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.
Gurmani, op. cit., p. 38.
124
SOUTH ASIA
(Gurmani was certainly using the term 'Kashmir' to mean 'Jammu and
Kashmir').
The most plausible refugee figures are in a report titled 'Kashmir
refugees in Pakistan' by Afzal Mirza, published in Dawn on 2 January 1951.
Mirza states that Muslim refugees from Jammu and Kashmir started to enter
Pakistan at the end of September 1947 '... when [the] more well-informed
among the Muslim population of the State, apprehending trouble, started to
come to Sialkot in small unnoticeable batches every day'. 23 This tendency
continued and 'during October-November, 1947, the genocide of the Muslims
of the State and their expulsion began according to plan, and as a result about
two hundred thousand Muslims were forced to take refuge in Pakistan'.24
Given Sialkot's proximity, most of these Muslims would have come from
Jammu.
Mirza calls this exodus of Jammu and Kashmir refugees the 'first wave'.
A 'second wave' of about two hundred thousand refugees arrived after the
Indian Army's April to July 1948 offensive which threatened a significant
loss of territory for Azad Kashmir and saw the Pakistan Army finally
becoming 'officially involved' in the fighting. A 'third wave' of about one
hundred thousand refugees arrived following the Indian Army's November
1948 offensive, as a result of which India further improved its military
position in Jammu and Kashmir. By early 1949, a total of some five hundred
thousand people had fled Jammu and Kashmir to areas under Pakistani
control.
Mirza makes no mention of refugees coming from anywhere but areas
which 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 Baramulla
districts of the province.25 In the remote Frontier Districts Province, it is
unlikely that many, if any, Muslims left. The Muslim population had no
Hindu or Sikh minorities to deal with.
Most refugees from Jammu Province came from areas close to either
Pakistan or Azad Kashmir. A little less than two hundred thousand refugees
from the first two 'waves' sought asylum in Sialkot District, contiguous to
Jammu District. According to Mirza, these refugees '... mostly belong to that
23
24
25
Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.

Ibid.
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 for
Azad Kashmir or Pakistan.
125
part of Jammu and Kashmir State which lies between the rivers Ravi and
Chenab. This area consists of Jammu, Kathua, Reasi and Udhampur tehsils'.26
(For 'tehsils', Mirza surely meant 'districts'.) Many of these arrivals were
probably 'first wave' refugees seeking to escape the perceived or actual antiMuslim activities in Jammu Province. The remaining two hundred thousand
refugees from the first two waves '... went over to other districts of the
Punjab and the Frontier Province, viz., Gujrat, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Hazara,
etc.' 27 These were probably mostly 'second wave' refugees, as they came
from the nearby three tehsils of Mirpur District: Bhimber, Kotli and Mirpur,
and from Mirpur District's immediate neighbour, the Rajouri Tehsil of Reasi
District, where there was significant fighting. Almost all of the one hundred
thousand 'third wave' refugees came from the Mendhar Tehsil of Poonch
Jagir, the jagir's most south-westerly tehsil, and from its immediate
neighbour, the Rajouri Tehsil.
Although Mirza talks of five hundred thousand refugees, a precise
number was hard to determine. Six months after the arrival of the 'third
wave', an unidentified organisation counted the Jammu and Kashmir refugees
in Pakistan:
According to a sensus [sic] of Jammu and Kashmir refugees
carried out from May to July 1949, 354,540 were registered
in West Pakistan comprising 333,964 from Bharati [Indian]held Kashmir, and 20,576 who have their homes in the Azad
Kashmir areas.28
This was about one hundred and fifty thousand short of the five hundred
thousand who had supposedly arrived in the 'three waves'. Mirza accounted
for these in a section of his article titled the 'Present position':
Out of the roughly 500,000 Muslim refugees about 260,000
are in Pakistan towns and villages and 90,000 are in camps in
the Punjab. About 150,000 are in Azad Kashmir including
50,000 resettled in their homes in Azad Kashmir since the
cease-fire.29
The 'missing' refugees were in Azad Kashmir, to which the count had not
been extended.
26
27
28
29
Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
126
SOUTH ASIA
While Azad Kashmir certainly had many refugees, the 1951 Census
mentions them rarely and gives no figures. It simply records that the number
of refugees was 'very considerable'.30 And describes them as an 'indigestible
element' because:
... they have never given up the hope and the resolve of going
back [to their homes]. They have been waiting and watching
with frayed nerves. Sundered clans and families have been
hoping all this time for re-union. Suspense and improvisation
characterise all their transactions.31
No doubt, many Muslims who fled believed they would soon return to their
homes once the people of Jammu and Kashmir had voted for the state to join
Pakistan in the promised plebiscite.32 However, by 1953, many realised that
the plebiscite would not be held in the near future. They then started to put
down permanent roots in Azad Kashmir or in Pakistan.
Mirza gives no figures for the number of Jammu and Kashmir Muslims
killed up to the time of his article in 1951. He does, however, claim that 'the
scheme to exterminate the Muslims of the State was so thorough that only a
fraction of the Muslim population could reach Sialkot after paying quite a
heavy toll of life.'33 He presumably refers mostly to those Muslims who lived
in the Hindu-majority districts in the eastern part of Jammu Province. Mirza
claims that Muslims were totally expelled from the lower tehsils of
Udhampur District and the lower part of Reasi Tehsil on the western side of
the Chenab. As well, only a few Muslims of the Jasmirgarh and Kathua
tehsils of Kathua District, a district where almost seventy-five per cent of the
population was Hindu, '... had been successful in saving their lives,' while
'None is reported to have escaped from the tehsil of Basohli,'34 also in
Kathua District. Kathua District, it seemed, had few, if any, Muslims left
alive 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 ninety
non-Muslims left in all of Azad Kashmir.35 Regardless of whether these
people were killed in, or they migrated from, Azad Kashmir, this is an
alarming statistic. In the 1941 Census, 63,576 Hindus had been living in the
Mirpur District, large parts of which became Azad Kashmir. Such a dramatic
30
31
32
33
34
35
Census of Azad Kashmir, 1951, op.c i t . ,p. 31.

Ibid., p. 8.
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 soon
thereafter, either for Azad Kashmir or Pakistan.
Dawn, 2 Jan. 1951.
Ibid.
Census of Azad Kashmir, 1951, op. cit., p. 13.
127
eclipse of the Hindu population was obviously one reason why the 1951
Census, 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 from
Jammu Province into Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. In a section titled
'Uninhabited Villages', it states that:
... a large number of villages which were well inhabited till
1947 were completely depopulated consequent upon the
migration of their populations to West Pakistan and to the
State territory on the other side of the Cease-Fire Line [i.e.
Azad Kashmir]. Thus, while the number of uninhabited
villages in Jammu district was only thirteen both in 1941 and
1961, as many as 155 inhabited villages were completely
deserted as a result of mass migrations. In Kathua district
also, the number of uninhabited villages had risen from 7 of
1941 to 43 in 1961. The latter include, among others, 31
depopulated villages.36
The same section states that Baramulla District also had an unspecified
increase in the number of uninhabited villages due to residual parts of the
former Muzaffarabad District merging with it. Presumably, people from these
villages had gone to Azad Kashmir. They could also, of course, have been
killed either by the Pukhtoons, who first entered Kashmir Province via these
two districts, or by the Indian Army.
The 1961 Census gives further information about the exodus of Muslims
from Jammu:
There has been a phenomenal fall in the rural population of
[the] Muslim community in Jammu district during the last
two decades as a result of the mass migration to Pakistan of
most of the Muslims who inhabited the various tehsils of the
district. The total population of this community in the district
as a whole, as returned at the 1961 Census, is about one-third
of what it was in 1941, the corresponding figures being
51,847 and 160,158 respectively. The fall is mostly reflected
in 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, had
become slightly smaller in area. The 1961 Census stated that the number of
36
37

Ibid., p. 359.
128
SOUTH ASIA
Muslims there had suffered a 'phenomenal decrease' of almost one hundred

and twenty thousand.38 However, the census does not say whether this
decrease was due to death or to migration.
The flow of people out of Jammu and Kashmir, however, was not only
to Pakistan, nor was it only one way. By 1961, (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir
had also 'lost' 78,714 people to other states in India. The religious affiliations
of these emigrants was not provided in the 1961 Census.39 In 1961, the
population for (Indian) Jammu and Kashmir included '... 68,921 immigrants
of whom about two-thirds were displaced persons from West Pakistan
alone'.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) had
settled in Jammu Province, with over seventy-five per cent of these in Jammu
District and about thirteen per cent in Kathua District. The other two
thousand and twenty were in Kashmir Province. In Jammu Province, the new
arrivals had been allotted evacuee lands of original inhabitants who had
migrated to Pakistan.41 Almost all other 'immigrants' to Jammu and Kashmir
were 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 Jammu
Province in 1947. 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. And the
1951 Census in Azad Kashmir was of an area which can not be compared
with any area surveyed previously.
The only district which offers a fair comparison is the Kathua District of
Jammu Province. Alone of the districts of Jammu Province or Kashmir
Province, it retained its pre-1947 borders after 1947. Based on data in the
1961 Census, Kathua appears to have 'lost' almost fifty per cent of its
Muslims.43 However, no information is given as to how many of these people
were killed or migrated.
38
39
40
41
42
43
Census of India, 1961, op. cit., p. 240.

Ibid., p. 157.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 77-9.
Ibid., p. 81.
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 1961
Census also states that in 1941 Kathua District had 212 Muslims for every 10,000 Muslims in
129
While these figures may be significant, two things must be remembered.

Firstly, Kathua District was the most 'Hindu' district of Jammu Province in
1941 (disregarding Chenani Jagir) with 74.31 per cent of its people
comprising Hindus. Hence, more Muslims may have felt compelled to leave
this district in 1947 than did Muslims in other less 'Hindu' districts.
Secondly, the number of Muslims in Kathua District in 1941 was both
numerically small and small as percentage of the Muslim population of
Jammu Province. The 45,000 Muslims in Kathua District comprised only
3.71 per cent of the 1,212,405 Muslims in Jammu Province in 1941.
From evidence now available, we cannot know the extent of the killing
of Muslims in Jammu Province in 1947. What is important, however, is that
at the time, reports circulated of very widespread murders - up to two
hundred thousand people, as the elusive Times report was supposed to have
stated. With such reports in circulation, Jammu Muslims had every reason to
seek refuge in safer places. It appears that many believed this might be a
temporary measure: a spell in western Kashmir or Punjab before returning to
their homes.
The actions of Jammu Muslims underline the variety of ways in which
the 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 Sheikh
Abdullah to ideas much more sympathetic to a secular state and ties with
India.
The perception that large numbers of Muslims were being killed in
Jammu in September 1947 provoked Muslims in western Jammu to take up
arms against the Maharaja's forces and their allies and to struggle to have
Jammu and Kashmir join Pakistan. These actions started the chain of events
which saw Pukhtoon tribals enter Jammu and Kashmir, followed by the
Indian and Pakistan armies, culminating with the effective division of Jammu
and Kashmir into Pakistan and Indian-controlled areas on 1 January 1949.
Had the Poonch uprising and the subsequent creation of Azad Kashmir
remained for the Maharaja to deal with as an internal law and order issue, the
future of Jammu and Kashmir may have been different. But given the strong
local identities of the various units of the Maharaja's state, and the
longstanding alienation of various groups from his regime, such an outcome
was unlikely. The fact that the stories of the 'massacre of 200,000' seemed so
plausible indicated how profound by 1947 these divisions already were.
the state.
130
SOUTH ASIA
APPENDIX 1
Composition of Jammu Province in 1941 by district and tehsil
Area
1,147
317
346
1941 Pop.
431,362
88,821
156,556
Ranbirsinghpura
Samba
Kathua District:
157
327
1,023
96,521
89,464
177,672
Kathua
Jasmergarh
Basohli
Udhampur Dist:
Udhampur
Kishtwar
Ramban
Ramnagar
Bhadrawah
Reasi District:
Reasi
Rampur Rajouri
224
18.5
614
5,070
383
3,021
583
525
553
1,789
983
806
47,378
59,670
70,624
294,217
52,937
60,893
75,793
60,076
44,518
257,903
117,059
140,844
Mirpur District:
Kotli
Mirpur
Bhimber
Chenani Jagir
Poonch Jagir:
Bagh
Sudhnoti
1,627
574
355
698
95
1,627
32.1
348
386,655
111,037
113,115
162,503
11,796
**421,828
101,091
108,300
Haveli
Mendhar
Karloop Jagir
479
479
[4|
110,733
100,704
12,378
1,981,433
District/Tehsil
Jammu District:
Akhnoor
Jammu
Sri
TOTAL
Majority
57.53% H
Hindu
Hindu
Slight H
majority
Hindu
74.31% H
Comments
Includes Jammu city
Smallest tehsil in Jammu
and Kashmir
Smallest dist. in Jammu &
Kashmir
Hindu
Hindu
Hindu
56.02%H
Hindu
Muslim
Muslim
Hindu
Hindu
68.06% M Census says >67% Muslim
54.80% M
79.09% M
80.41% M
Muslim
Muslim
64.79% M
81.22% H
>90% M
Sikhs outnumber Hindus
Muslim
Majority of Hindus live in
Muslim
Sudhnoti
Included Poonch town
Muslim
Muslim
Located/counted in Jammu, .
Ramnagar tehsils
61.19% M
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:
Dist.
District
H
Hindu
Jammu Province
JP
M
Muslim
Pop.
Population
Percentages 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 the
various tehsils.
131
APPENDIX 2
Explanatory Note on the 1941 Census
Note: For the three reasons, the above figures may moderately understate the
majority position of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir in 1947.
1) When the census was taken in February 1941, many men were away
from Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Punjab, mainly looking for work
'... to supplement the meagre incomes they extract from their lands'.44 This
migration particularly affected Jammu Province, especially the Muslimmajority districts of Mirpur and Poonch, where agricultural holdings were
poor or small. It also affected the Muslim-majority districts of Baramulla and
Anantnag in Kashmir Province which had severe winters. Muslims in the
Frontier Districts Province also went to other areas of Jammu and Kashmir
and to Punjab looking for work, but not in the same sort of numbers as from
the other provinces.
2) The population of Jammu Province would have been greater in 1941
but 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 Census
mentions only Jammu Province as providing large numbers of soldiers.
Almost all of them would have served outside the state with the Indian Army
and would have been away at the time when the census was taken in February
1941. The 1941 Census confirms this shortcoming: 'As this Census coincided
with the war and considerable recruiting activity, the population of some
villages and localities with military service connections may well have been
affected more than usual' .4S
No specific figures are available, but estimates of the number of men
from Jammu Province who served in the Indian Army range from fifty
thousand to one hundred thousand. Former editor of The Statesman, Calcutta,
Ian Stephens, states that over forty thousand (Muslim) Sudhans, one of the
main tribes of Poonch, who were from the Sudhnoti Tehsil of Poonch Jagir
(mentioned below), served in the Indian Army during World War II. 46 A
1948 Azad Kashmir Government publication claimed one hundred thousand
44
45
46

Stephens, op. c i t . , p. 199.
132
SOUTH ASIA
Muslims from Jammu and Kashmir served in World War II.47 Josef Korbel, a
member of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan '... during
its 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 Indian
forces in World War II. Of these, 60,402 were Muslims.50 Alastair Lamb
states there may have been as many as 60,000 ex-servicemen in the Jagir of
Poonch in 1947.51
Although the 1941 Census did not give any specific figures, it mentioned
six of the seven districts of Jammu Province (Chenani Jagir was not
mentioned) as providing men to either the Indian Army or the Jammu and
Kashmir Army. Discussing Jammu Province overall, it stated that:
A good percentage of the population in all districts belongs to
what may be termed, for the sake of convenience, the martial
classes, mostly Rajputs, both Hindu and Muslim. These
elements are recruited for the army both in the State and in
British India and their absence from their homes on military
duty 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 in
urban areas, the rural population has other sources of income.
The Rajputs arid other classes accustomed to join the army
form a considerable part of the population and pensions and
pay for military service constitute an appreciable addition to
the family funds in many homes.53
While these Rajputs would have been both Hindus and Muslims, many
of the Hindus would have joined the Jammu and Kashmir State Army.
However, for Muslims, the Indian Army was far more accessible. The
number of Muslims in the Jammu and Kashmir Army was not large, possibly
because the Maharaja doubted their loyalty. Out of 7957 men in his army in
1926, a maximum of 2000 were Muslims.54 The rest were Hindu Dogras,
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Author unknown, Kashmir's Fight for Freedom, p. 1.

Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir (Princeton, Princeton University Press, rev. ed., 1966 [first
edition 1954]), p. viii.
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.
Ibid., pp. 54-5.
Lamb, op. c i t . , pp. 122-3.
Ibid., p. 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.
133
apart from about 1,000 'Gorkas'. By 1939, the Jammu and Kashmir Army
had grown to 9078 men, although the ethrto-religious mix was similar to that
of 1926.55
In Hindu-majority Kathua District, the census stated that the whole

district was almost entirely dependent on agriculture, although 'Rajputs from
Kathua 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 State
and the army in British India' , 57
In Muslim-majority Reasi District, 'Considerable numbers of the Rajput
elements join the State army and by this means relieve the straitened
circumstances existing in the majority of homes'. 5 8
In Muslim-majority Mirpur District:
An unusual feature of the Mirpur Muslim community is that
females exceed males; this is exceptional and indicates the
large number of men out of the district at the time of the
Census earning a living elsewhere ... Agriculture in the Kotli
and Mirpur Tehsils can not fully support the people who are
strong and virile; there are no industries worth the name. The
result is that large numbers of the adult male population of
both tehsils, Mirpur in particular, leave the district for periods
varying in length in search of employment of all kinds. They
join the army in large numbers as well as the mercantile
marine operating from Indian ports; some of them are found
as traders and seamen all over the world. Bhimber [Tehsil] is
not affected to the same extent although many of its men join
the army.59
For Muslim-majority Poonch Jagir, the 1941 Census stated that:
The [population] increase is below the average for the whole
State. This may be attributed partly to increased migration to
the Punjab in the winter, when the Census was taken, in
55
56
57
58
59
K. B. Singh, op. cit., p. 169.

Ibid., p. 98.
Ibid., p. 153.
Ibid., p. 182.
134
SOUTH ASIA
search of employment and enlistment in various units of the
Indian Army with which this district, especially tehsils Bagh
and 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 of
employment and by enlistment.60
In Bagh and Sudhnoti Tehsils in particular, the census continued:

... the average size of holdings is small, crops are uncertain
and outturn [sic] inadequate to meet local requirements. The
other tehsils are subject to the same difficulties but to a less
extent. A considerable number of men from the Bagh and
Sudhnoti Tehsils, and in smaller numbers from Haveli and
Mendhar Tehsils, enlist in the various units of the Indian
army and get employment in various civil departments,
especially railways, in British India. Many of them get
domestic service in one capacity or another ... It is reasonable
to suppose that at the recent census a larger number of men
than usual were away from their homes at the time of
enumeration owing to increased enlistment and the increased
demand for labour.61
The 1941 Census also mentions that men in the Gilgit Agency joined the
local, British-officered Gilgit Scouts. 62 The census provides no figures,
probably because the Government of India, which controlled the census
taking in this area, did not make them available due to World War II.
3) The final reason why the above figures may moderately understate the
majority position of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is because the
exact number of Muslims in the districts of Kathua and the Poonch Jagir were
unknown. The census states that in Kathua District there was a Muslim
population of ' . . . over 45.000' 6 3 and that in Poonch Jagir ' . . . over 90 per
cent of the total population is Muslim'. 64 These appear to be minima only,
thus understating the number of Muslims in these districts.
60
61
62
63
64
Ibid., p. 232.
Ibid., p. 233.
Ibid., p. 529.
Ibid, p. 66.
Ibid., p. 232.

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