Hari singh

In what will be a boost to the BJP ahead of expected elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has fulfilled a long-pending demand of the Jammu province by declaring the birth anniversary of Maharaja Hari Singh, Jammu has long felt that the last Dogra ruler of J&K never got due recognition from successive governments both at the Centre and in J&K, despite being instrumental in ensuring the Union territory’s accession to India. On the contrary, following Independence, as the Kashmir province gained in prominence, Hari Singh was driven out and spent the last 12 years of his life in virtual exile in Bombay (as it was called then). The More From Political Pulse • Aurangzeb, bulldozer, hijab: why are moderates Fadnavis and Shivraj sounding so shrill? Will hate pay or is the worm turning? • Nitish Kumar fills in Manjhi-sized gap in Cabinet, brings in Mushahar leader Ratnesh Sada • TN Governor vs Govt saga now over arrested minister, Ravi tries to block Stalin's moves to reallocate portfolios but retain Balaji Click here for more With other assurances to Announcing Hari Singh’s birthday as a public holiday, Sinha said it was to acknowledge his contributions to both J&K and the nation. Earlier in 2019, October 26 – the day in 1947 that the Maharaja had signed the Instrument of Accession – was declared a public holiday. Alongside, the J&K administration dropped Martyrs’ Day on July 13 and the birth anniversary of National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah on ...

New Delhi: Having scrapped Article 370 that granted Jammu and Kashmir special status, the Modi government is now looking to change the narrative on the newly-formed union territory through two new elements — establishing credentials of Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir when it acceded to India, as a nationalist, and two, highlighting the legal and moral sanctity of the ‘Instrument of Accession(IOA)’ that formally united J&K with India. The first significant step in this direction has been initiated with the new administration declaring 26 October, the day the Instrument of Accession was signed in 1947, as a public holiday in the union territory. This is the first time since Independence that the ‘Accession Day’ has been declared a public holiday in Jammu and Kashmir. According to government sources, the step has been taken to counter the narrative built over the last seven decades that Maharaja Hari Singh was not a nationalist and he deliberately delayed signing the Instrument of Accession until the last moment.  In a nutshell, the cornerstone of the Modi government’s forthcoming narrative on the Jammu and Kashmir issue will revolve around the fact that the then princely states had no third option; the IOA was uniform for all states; the J&K succession was delayed by then PM Jawaharlal Nehru and that the Maharaja signed an unconditional succession. Sources in the government also said it will play up historical records, particularly those by ...

On October 26, 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession with India, thereby ending the intense angling for that princely state by rival players India and Pakistan. The prelude to it was an intricate maze of bureaucratic jostling, uncertainty, simulation of friendship by vested parties, indecision, and finally a tribal raid. Karan Singh, the Maharaja’s son and then the heir apparent of J&K, framed it thus: “Death and destruction were fast approaching Srinagar, our smug world had collapsed around us....” After the British left the Indian subcontinent on August 14, 1947, the princely state of J&K had remained independent for 73 days. Maharaja Hari Singh was already in the thick of internal disturbances, with multiple uprisings against his Dogra reign, most notably in 1865, 1924, and 1931. He also faced a formidable challenger in Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference. The National Conference, earlier called the Muslim Conference, was influenced by the Reading Room Party of 1931, an anti-Dogra group of left-wing Muslim intellectuals. Also read: The Muslim majority in the princely state found the Maharaja’s reign authoritarian. In the words of Kashmiri author P.N. Bazaz, “Dogra rule has been a Hindu Raj.” Maharaja Hari Singh thought of independence because, according to American Indologist William Norman Brown, “He disliked becoming part of India, which was being democratised, or Pakistan, which was Muslim....” Maharaja Hari Singh, J...

In 1881, British newspapers compared many great generals from history and came to the conclusion: “Some people might think that Napoleon was a great general. Some might mention Marshall Hindenburg, Lord Kitchener, General Karobzey, or Duke of Wellington, etc. And some going further might Say, Halaku Khan, Genghis Khan, Changez Khan, Richard or Allaudin, etc. But let me tell you that in North of India, a general of the name Hari Singh Nalwa of Sikhs prevailed. Had he lived longer and had the sources and artillery of the British, he would have conquered most of Asia and Europe…”. As the legend goes, once whilst Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Hari Singh were passing through. a jungle, a lion suddenly charged at the Maharaja’s horse. In order to protect his king, the latter leaped at the lion and bare-handedly severed its jaws. Since then, he came to be known as “Baghmaar” (lion killer) and “Nalwa”. Known as the “most feared Sikh”, Hari Singh Nalwa, had subdued the unruliest forces in Afghanistan. After gaining conquest of a sizeable area along the Afghan border, he forbade them from crossing the Khyber Pass, which was the gateway for foreign invaders into India from 1000 AD till the early 19th century. According to the former Vice-Chancellor of GNDU, Amritsar, Dr. S. P. Singh, the Afghans were so terrified of Nalwa that Afghani mothers often used his name to instill fear amongst their unruly children: “Go to sleep otherwise Hariya (Hari Singh Nalwa) will come”. Hari Singh Nalwa wa...

The fresh controversy over the role of Maharaja Hari Singh in the accession of the princely state to India flows from attempts to establish the last ruler of Jammu and Kashmir as an icon, particularly in the Jammu region, generously helped along by the rise of the BJP and its politics of Hindu pride. In the latest instance, Union minister Kiren Rijiju stirred the pot by claiming that Hari Singh had wanted to accede to India long before October 1947 – when an invasion from Pakistan finally led to a hastened signing – and that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru due to his bias towards Kashmir and Sheikh Abdullah delayed it. Only for Subscribers | An opinion piece by Hari Singh’s son Karan Singh saying he had never come across anything that suggested the Maharaja wanted to accede before Independence, was in turn publicly countered by fellow Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. The Congress communications in-charge accused Karan Singh of not defending Nehru. New row over Kashmir Accession | For Kashmir, where the Dogra ruler, who remained the titular Maharaja until 1952, when monarchy in the state was abolished, is seen as more a feudal lord, the message coming from the Centre is clear. Martyrs’ Day was observed in the memory of those killed in Kashmir when the soldiers of Hari Singh opened fire on July 12, 1931, at protesters demanding the release of a person held for a speech against the Maharaja. But for many in Jammu, especially the younger generation that remembers the Maharaja mo...

At the time of the With the support of On 12 September 1947, then prime minister and defense minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan approved two plans for an invasion of Kashmir prepared by Colonel Roughly 100,000 Muslims and non-Muslims from East Punjab and West Punjab respectively were safely escorted through Jammu by Jammu and Kashmir State Forces. Violence against Jammu Muslims Unlike the According to scholar Ian Copland, the administration's pogrom against its Muslim subjects in Jammu was undertaken partly out of revenge for the Observers state that a main aim of Hari Singh and his administration was to alter the demographics of the region by eliminating the Muslim population, in order to ensure a Hindu majority in the region. Scholar Ilyas Chattha and Jammu journalist Massacres On 14 October, the Talab Khatikan and Mohalla Ustad, Muslims were surrounded and were denied water supply and food. The Muslims in Talab Khatikan area had joined to defend themselves with the arms they could gather, who later received support from the Muslim Conference. They were eventually asked to surrender and the administration asked them to go to Pakistan for their safety. These Muslims and others who wanted to go to Sialkot, in thousands, were loaded in numerous trucks and were escorted by the troops in the first week of November. When they reached the outskirts of the city, they were pulled out and killed by armed Sikhs and RSS men, while abducting the women. There were also reports of l...