A Leaf from History Tribute to those who saved Ladakh

[Cobra Arbok]

I have no doubt that some of his points are true, but his language clearly illuminates one-sided bias. He categorizes the coalition of native rebels and their Pakistani allies as "non-state actors" and "raiders" while forgetting that the Dogra regime whom he romanticizes are not only foreign to Kashmir but came to power through conquest and cemented power through raiding and oppression, and were infamous for their persecution of Muslims and the demographic change they initiated in Jammu through ethnic cleansing.


These are people from Jammu; they are non-Muslim and not native to the land.

What you're doing would be like the British Raj bringing over British settlers to India, claiming they are Indian and then showcasing to the world how patriotic and loyal these Indians are to the British Empire.



They are not natives either, majority of them can trace their origins back to Tibetan migrants, they make up 40% of the population of Ladakh; numbering less than 100,000.

Fair enough, although this article was about Ladakh, not Jammu. Also Ladakh was a part of Tibet until it was annexed by Zorowar Singh from the Qing dynasty.

 

[I S I]

When I get an alert, I do; the rest of the time, it's so nice.

k

 

[Joe Shearer]

I have no doubt that some of his points are true, but his language clearly illuminates one-sided bias.

Since I have used no language smacking of one-sided bias, and have romanticised nobody but military heroes, this shows that bias can be in the writing or in the reading; in this case, a drain inspector will find what he needs to find to keep his job.

He categorizes the coalition of native rebels and their Pakistani allies as "non-state actors" and "raiders" while forgetting that the Dogra regime whom he romanticizes are not only foreign to Kashmir but came to power through conquest and cemented power through raiding and oppression, and were infamous for their persecution of Muslims and the demographic change they initiated in Jammu through ethnic cleansing.

What is now called the State of Jammu & Kashmir was made up of several segments, at least five: Jammu, Poonch, Doda and the cis-Shivaliks, Ladakh, Baltistan (counting it separate from Ladakh, because ethnicity was similar, religion was different), Gilgit and the cis-Pamir emirates, and the Valley of Kashmir. None of these were ethnically cleansed before the horrors of 47; the hill rajas were thorns in the side of the rising power of the Sikhs but they were not Muslim, they were Dogras and the other 'hill' Rajputs - Rawats, for instance - and allies of the Mughal Governors of the Punjab. There was a large concentration of so-called migrants, the Sudans of Sudanuti, in western Jammu, and another concentration in eastern Jammu; they were the worst hit by the reaction of the Hindu and Sikh refugees, both in eastern Jammu and, to a lesser extent, in western Jammu.

The coalition that he loosely talks about were part native residents, the Sudans of Sudanuti in particular, and a completely different and differently hired, armed and deployed by the security wing of the Muslim League and officers 'on leave' from the Pakistan Army, and a third element consisting of the mutinous Gilgit Scouts and the State Forces of Chitral. The second element were distinct from the first and the third, and were the original model for subsequent use by Pakistan of the convenient fiction of non-state actors. Having tasted blood, the Pakistan Army never got over its taste for using irregulars armed to the teeth, against soft targets, to attain their objectives. The very next time that hostilities broke out, they turned almost automatically to this practice, and infiltrated the groups of Special Forces commandos into Kashmir as the operative part of Operation Gibraltar. The names given to the groups are educative.

These are people from Jammu; they are non-Muslim and not native to the land.

Dogras have been in Jammu and in the hills from before the Muslims; many Muslims in these areas are, in fact, converted Dogras, or other Pahadis.

What you're doing would be like the British Raj bringing over British settlers to India, claiming they are Indian and then showcasing to the world how patriotic and loyal these Indians are to the British Empire.

They did, but, of course, the numbers were superficial, and impressed nobody, not even non-administrative British.

They are not natives either, majority of them can trace their origins back to Tibetan migrants, they make up 40% of the population of Ladakh; numbering less than 100,000.

There is nothing called 'natives' of Ladakh; in ethnic and religious terms, they were identical with the Tibetans. Ladakh was a separate principality within Tibet, as was so-called Western Tibet, and the forgotten kingdom of Guge (Guge ruled over parts of Ladakh).

Most Tibetan migrants from the post-PRC seizure are settled in the Dharamsala area; there is simply not enough space for the cold desert of Ladakh to take a large infusion.

The effort at bringing in 'natives' of Ladakh is fairly obvious; an effort to conflate the Baltistani vassals of Ladakh with the other inhabitants, and thereby build a narrative that the tail wagged the dog, that the Shia Muslims of Baltistan ruled the Buddhists of Ladakh.