Three Forgotten Accessions: Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar

Abstract

The August 1947 transfer of power in India brought to the fore questions regarding the future of the areas which had long been leased by the government of India from certain princely states. Focusing on the Gilgit Agency, parts of which were leased from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, this article traces the nature of the agency and the manner in which it ultimately became a de facto part of Pakistan while Kashmir acceded to India. Conflicting accounts exist as to who was actually responsible for the revolution in Gilgit which led it towards Pakistan. This article uses all available sources to relate clearly and analyse the actual course of events during the tumultuous months of October and November 1947. The article also assesses the status and then formal accession of the two small states of Hunza and Nagar, adjacent to Gilgit, which had been erroneously treated as being under the complete suzerainty of Kashmir.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Professor Ayesha Jalal and Mr Aneurin Ellis-Evans for their comments on the article.

Notes

Khan, Shamsher se Zanjeer Tak.

Khan, ‘Chauda Javanon ne Gilgit main Dogron Ke Iqtedar Ka Khatima Kar Diya’, 23–28, 82–83.

Sokefeld, ‘Jang Azadi’, 64.

See both ibid., 64–66, and Sokefeld, ‘From Colonialism to Postcolonial Colonialism’, 939–73.

Dani, History of the Northern Areas of Pakistan, 340.

Khan, Shamsher se Zanjeer Tak, 111–37.

For more details on the Great Game see, for example, Johnson, Spying for Empire.

The treaty read: ‘all the hilly or mountainous country, with its dependencies, situated to the eastward of the river Indus’ were to be a part of the new state of Jammu and Kashmir. Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar were westward of the river Indus. See ‘Treaty of Amritsar 1946’ in Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, 21–22.

Quoted in Haines ‘Colonial Routes, 545.

Note by Sir C MacDonald, March 14, 1899, India Office Records (henceforth IOR) L/PS/13/1860.

For details, see ‘Hunza's Relations with China’, IOR R/2/1080/257.

For details, see ‘Taking over by the Government of India of the civil administration of the Gilgit Wazarat, North of the Indus’, IOR, R/2/1085/294.

Note by Resident in Kashmir 1935, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

IOR L/PS/12/1336.

Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1 November 1858 read, in part: ‘We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions … we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity and honour of native Princes as our own’, as found in House of Commons (Sessional Papers), 296–97.

Telegram from Crown Representative to Secretary of State April 29, 1947, IOR L/PS/12/1860. The later date of June 1948 was still being used; the date of 15 Aug. 1947 came only with the 3 June plan.

Ibid.

Mansergh et al., Transfer of Power 1942–7, vol. 12, no. 108.

Mountbatten himself asserts that his visit was undertaken to dissuade Nehru from going to Kashmir. See Mountbatten, Report on the Last Viceroyalty, Part D, 4 June–5 July, 114–19. Nehru was deeply attached to his ancestral state of Kashmir and a number of historians, such as Lamb, have contended that he influenced Mountbatten in securing access to Kashmir through the Radcliffe Boundary Commission and used Mountbatten, who was staunchly against princely independence, to impress upon the maharaja of Kashmir specifically to accede to India.

Gopal, ed., Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 229.

Mansergh et al., Transfer of Power, vol. 12, no. 335.

For a detail of the Boundary Commission award, see Ali, The Emergence of Pakistan, 215–20. Only Pathankot tehsil had a Hindu majority, but, without Gurdaspur and Balata tehsils which had Muslim majorities, India could still not have unfettered access to Kashmir.

Mansergh et al., Transfer of Power, vol. 12, no. 428.

Trench, The Frontier Scouts, 269.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 58.

Shah Khan, Gilgit Scouts, 111 (trans. from Urdu by author).

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 23.

Ibid., 26.

Ibid., 25.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 62.

Ibid., 64–65.

IOR L/PS/13/1860, Gilgit Diaries, 58.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 66.

Ibid.

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 25–26.

Sokefeld, ‘From Colonialism to Postcolonial Colonialism’, 958.

Khan, ‘Chauda Javanon ne Gilgit main Dogron Ke Iqtedar Ka Khatima Kar Diya’, 23–28, 82–83.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 86.

Ibid.

Ibid., 97–98.

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 30.

Shah Khan, quoted in Dani, History of the Northern Areas, 340.

Khan, Shamsher se Zanjeer Tak.

Ibid.

See Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 73.

Details in ibid., 117.

Sheikh, Inquilab e Azadi Gilgit ki Roedad, 60-61 (trans. from Urdu by author).

Ibid., 63.

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 32.

Ibid., 141.

Ibid., 148.

Khan, ‘Chauda Javanon ne Gilgit main Dogron Ke Iqtedar Ka Khatima Kar Diya’, 23–28.

Khan, Shamsher se Zanjeer Tak, 27–33.

Mentioned in Haider, ‘Inquilab e Gilgit Meri Nazar Mein’, 345–46.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, scanned copy of telegram inset, 178.

Ibid., 155.

Ibid., 169.

Ibid., 174.

Scanned text of message in ibid., 179.

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 39.

Sheikh, Iniquilab e Azadi Gilgit di Roedad, 64.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 161.

Ibid., 181.

Khan, Shamsher se Zanjeer Tak, 8.

Dani, History of the Northern Areas, 327.

Khan, ‘Chauda Javanon ne Gilgit main Dogron Ke Iqtedar Ka Khatima Kar Diya’, 25.

On Shah Rais Khan and his role in Gilgit, see Question of the Rajaship of Gilgit, IOR R/2/1083/283.

Dani, History of the Northern Areas, 342.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 224.

Ibid., 226.

Ibid., 240.

Sir George Cunningham Papers, IOR, D670, 26.

The Kashmir Times 25 Feb.1936, IOR R/2/1085/294.

In Vol. 8, p. 114, of the Jinnah papers the editor notes that Jinnah accepted the accession of Nagar on 7 Dec. 1947. However, given the circumstances relating to the Kashmir issue and later reports of the British High Commission it is highly unlikely that Jinnah ever accepted the accession of either Hunza or Nagar. Even the accession of Chitral, a state which was clearly a salute state in its own right, was not accepted until Feb. 1948 due to Kashmir's claim of suzerainty over it.

See Appendix 1 to notes, summary, IOR R/2/1085/294.

Note of Prime Minster Jammu and Kashmir to Resident, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Comments on Note by Col. Fraser, 31 Aug. 1939, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Ibid.

Note by the Foreign Department on the States, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

For details, see Report on Mission to Chinese Turkestan, IOR L/PS/12/2371.

See numerous letters exchanged between the political and foreign departments and the resident, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Letter from Lt. Col. Fraser, Resident, to Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 73.

Quoted in ibid., 140.

Brown had the originals of both the Hunza and Nagar accession letters, which were turned over to Pakistan by his wife only after his death in 1994.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 182.

Sheikh, Iniquilab e Azadi Gilgit di Roedad, 62.

Brown, ‘The Gilgit Rebellion’, 125.

Singh, Gilgit before 1947, 35.

Mahajan, Debacle in Baltistan, 15.

‘Revolution in Gilgit’, The Times, 2 Jan. 1948.

Lamb, Incomplete Partition, 193–94.

Letter of C. B. Duke, Deputy UK High Commissioner Peshawar to Sr. Laurence Grafftey Smith UK High Commissioner to Pakistan Karachi, 13 Feb. 1948, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

See telegram 1006 from UKHC Delhi, 18 April 1948, and letter UKHC to Sir Archibald Carter, Permanent Under Secretary for Commonwealth Relations, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Telegram from Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to UK High Commissioner Karachi, 15 Mar. 1948, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Letter from UK Deputy High Commissioner Peshawar to UK High Commissioner Karachi, 8 Dec. 1947, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

Telegram to Commonwealth Relations Office from UK High Commissioner Karachi, 18 Mar. 1948, IOR L/PS/13/1860.

The Times, 22 June 1949.