Three Forgotten Accessions: Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar DOI: 10.1080/03086530903538269 * Yaqoob Khan Bangash pages 117-143 Available online: 16 Feb 2010 The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Volume 38, Issue 1, 2010 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. Introduction In November 1947, there was only one flagpole in South Asia where the Union Flag still fluttered. This was at the mountainous post of Kalandarchi in the Gilgit Agency where Subedar Jamshed Khan, an ardent imperialist, could not bear the transfer of the agency to Kashmiri hands and refused to obey the orders of his superiors to replace the Union Flag with the Jammu and Kashmir state flag. The flag was eventually replaced by that of Pakistan only in the first week of November 1947. This almost trivial incident was an important example of the intimate connection the British had formed with this ‘roof of the world’. It is also noteworthy because the government of Jammu and Kashmir state never did have complete control over this region, and was never going to either. Significant also is the coincidence that the agency's change of administration—from British to Pakistani hands—happened under a British officer. This article traces the critical events from 1 August 1947 to 16 November 1947—from the day on which the Gilgit Agency (Figure 1) was handed over to the Kashmir Darbar to the date when the first Pakistani political agent arrived in Gilgit town. The summer of 1947 was a time of great trepidation for the people of Gilgit as well as the small states of Hunza and Nagar. The British had administered this whole region since the establishment of the agency in 1889, while since 1935 the Gilgit Wazarat area had also been leased to the government of India for a period of sixty years. All this came to an abrupt and premature end by the setting of the transfer of power date of 15 August 1947. As a result, two weeks before the transfer of power, on 1 August 1947 the British political agent handed over control of the agency to the Kashmir Darbar. This action raised the level of anxiety among the people of Gilgit, and especially the Gilgit Scouts—the agency's para-military force—who did not welcome back Dogra Raj. The ruling mirs of Hunza and Nagar also became very wary of their status and well-being since their states were intricately linked to the agency, which was now under Srinagar's control. The advent of the transfer of power date of 15 August 1947 and its uneventful passing also increased tensions in the region, as the fate of its people became all the more uncertain. In these bewildering times rumours of a revolt in Gilgit and accession to Pakistan by Hunza and Nagar became progressively vociferous. The 27 October 1947 the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India furthered heightened tensions and brought to the fore a revolt which within a week saw this whole region move decidedly in favour of Pakistan. Baffling however was the reaction of the Pakistan establishment which did not take any keen interest in the affairs of the Gilgit Agency and the two states and sent in its representative, a political agent, only on 16 November 1947—two weeks after the agency and the states had announced their accession to Pakistan. In writing narratives on either the accession of states to Pakistan or the beginning of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, historians often overlook the accession of Hunza and Nagar states, as well as the local revolt in Gilgit, which brought this whole area under the control of Pakistan. The strategic importance of the Gilgit region, so important to theorists of the ‘Great Game’ in imperial India and its borders with China and the Soviet Union, seems to have been overshadowed by the frantic attempts of both Pakistan and India to take control of the vale of Kashmir. Hence the quiet change of power in Gilgit, and the accession of Hunza and Nagar, almost happened unnoticed both in Karachi and in New Delhi. Also, the role of the protagonists in Gilgit's rebellion is still disputed: some give credit to Major William Brown, the British commandant of the Gilgit Scouts for the revolt, while others relate Gilgit's declaration for Pakistan to be the work of local Kashmir state forces’ Muslim officers and/or the Muslim officers of the Gilgit Scouts. Still others argue that the role of the civilians was critical in impressing upon the administration that incorporation into Pakistan was best. Concerning Hunza and Nagar, their legal status and capacity to accede to either India or Pakistan without the concurrence of the Kashmir Darbar is hotly debated. The attitude of the Hunza and Nagar princes as well as their people towards both Kashmir and Pakistan still remains unclear. The events from August to November 1947 are even now fiercely disputed. On the one hand, there is the account of Major Brown, which claims that it was mainly his initiative, with the help of his second in command, Captain Jock Mathieson in Chilas, that Gilgit was able to declare itself for Pakistan. On the other hand, there is the account of Captain Mirza Hassan of the Jammu and Kashmir 6th Infantry who claims that it was all his plan and that the move to accede to Pakistan was undertaken under his leadership.1 He also contends that, in fact, Major Brown was arrested just before the ‘revolution’. Then there is the account of Subedar Major Babar Khan of the Gilgit Scouts which asserts that it was mainly the Indian officers of the scouts who initiated and led the movement towards Pakistan and that both Brown and Hassan had little to do with it.2 Dr Sokefeld, writing on the Gilgit affair, commented: ‘The accounts of that revolt, which include testimonies of many of its protagonists themselves (mainly military officers), are both numerous and bewildering in their number of contradictions. A major force behind the composition of quite a number of these stories seems to be competition for personal honour because many writers/authors strive to enhance their own position and contribution to the revolt.’3 Sokefeld, while having access to nearly all the local accounts, does not seem to have consulted Major Brown's detailed account of the affair (although he had access to the précis of events in the British Library), and so accepted the local accounts of what happened to be mainly true without really explaining why. His narrative of the events surrounding the revolt scarcely even mentions the existence of Major Brown, and his main concern seems to be establishing the exact role of the scouts and the state forces’ Muslim officers in the revolt.4 Similarly, Dr Ahmed Hasan Dani, writing the history of the northern areas of Pakistan, simply dismissed the role of Major Brown, noting that, as there was an underground movement to ally Gilgit with Pakistan, Brown was not ‘the leader of the independence of Gilgit’.5 Dani, whose account is also almost uncritical in its acceptance of the local accounts, is also handicapped by the unavailability of Brown's detailed diary. Mirzada Shah Khan's history of the Gilgit Scouts, written in Urdu, is a very interesting read, since it tries to ascribe roles to the local scouts and the state forces’ officers as well as Major Brown and Captain Matheison. In assigning roles, Mirzada Shah Khan credits Subedar Major Babar Khan with inciting the local revolt in Gilgit and for planning the takeover of the administration. He does not give Captain Mirza Hassan a role in Gilgit during the revolt, but assigns him a prominent position in the immediate aftermath and during the operations in Skardu. Concerning Major Brown, he does not mention any plans by Major Brown to accede to Pakistan but notes that Brown did help the local scouts once they informed him of their plans to take over the administration during the night of 31 October 1947.6 Even though Mirzada Shah Khan does try to habilitate everyone in narrative, serious questions still remain. For example, the immediate acquiescence of Major Brown and Captain Matheison is taken almost for granted. Also, there is no explanation given as to why Major Brown was sent to Karachi as commandant of the scouts to liaise with the Pakistan government, rather than one of the so-called leaders of the revolt, if they had more authority and control than Brown. Further, as most of the local accounts of the events were written in the 1970s and 1980s when a lot of the material was used to gain domestic popularity, the account of Major Brown, written only a short time after the events in 1948 has a larger degree of credibility. With information available from nearly all sides, with the exception of the Pakistani government, where only scant information is available from the political agent, a much clearer picture of what happened in the lead up to the Gilgit revolt as well as during it can now be ascertained. To assess these issues fully this paper is divided into two sections. The first section traces the events from the time of the handover of the Gilgit Agency to the Kashmir Darbar by the British on 1 August 1947 to the revolt and its aftermath till 16 November 1947. This section sheds critical light on the structure of the Gilgit Agency, the role and influence of the Gilgit Scouts, and the attempts of the Kashmir governor to assert his authority in the region. The role of the major players is also assessed, especially with regard to the controversial role of Major Brown and his second in command Captain Mathieson. The second section then examines the situation of the states of Hunza and Nagar, beginning with the debate over their legal status and hence capability to accede to any country. The manoeuvrings of the mirs of Hunza and Nagar in the days before their accession to Pakistan in trying to chalk out a future for their people is also discussed. The British came in direct contact with the area that eventually formed the Gilgit Agency in the aftermath of the Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1840s and the creation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. At that time the northern frontier of the Indian Empire was at the forefront of the so-called ‘Great Game’ between the British Indian Empire and Czarist Russia.7 Ever since the steady advance of Russia into central Asia, the British had been wary that eventually the Russians would reach Afghanistan and then ultimately attack India—something which was not without precedence. Therefore, the British tried to establish Afghanistan as a buffer state, within its sphere of influence, so that the Russian threat could be contained. The three Anglo-Afghan wars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were clear attempts to counter Russian influence and install friendly regimes in Afghanistan. As Gilgit, and the states of Hunza and Nagar, lay strategically near the border with Afghanistan, Russia and China, it was imperative for the British to have at least political and military control of the region so as to facilitate intelligence gathering, border control and the expansion of trade across Chinese Turkestan and Central Asia. As the region of Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar lay beyond the direct control of the Kashmir Darbar under the Treaty of Amritsar 1846,8 it took a long time for Maharajas Ghulab Singh and Ranbir Singh to expand into and assert their authority in Gilgit, and over Hunza and Nagar, and it was only in 1870 that they were finally able to hold Gilgit town. With the grip of the government of Jammu and Kashmir being of a very tenuous nature in this area, the government of India deputed Col. John Biddulph as an officer on special duty in 1877 for ‘protecting trade and watching over political events’.9 Col. Biddulph, while failing to rein in the Dogra forces in their mistreatment of the Muslim residents of the Gilgit region, did manage to unify and strengthen the state of Chitral as an important buffer against Afghanistan and Russia. However, nothing much could be achieved to fully control and demarcate the region till the death of Maharaja Ranbir Singh in 1885, when the government of India instituted some administrative changes in the state and created the Gilgit Agency in 1889 with a permanent political agent under the supervision of the Kashmir resident. After the establishment of a permanent agency in 1889, the British embarked upon securing the territory. The pacification of Hunza and Nagar in 1892 and the subordination and demarcation of Chitral in 1895 helped greatly in consolidating much of this unmarked mountainous territory. Two agreements —the 1893 Anglo-Afghan Agreement establishing the Durand Line as the boundary between British India and Afghanistan and the 1895 Anglo-Russian Pamir Boundary Commission delimiting the boundary between Russia and British India—further demarcated spheres of influence in the ‘roof of the world’. Both these agreements clarified the limits of the Gilgit Agency, except the boundary with China. Thereafter, in 1899, Sir C. MacDonald, the British minister in Peking, sent a note to the Chinese court proposing a border with British India. The note stated that the border should extend beyond the Karakorum watershed, to mount Povalo Shveikovski, where all the three empires—British, Russian, and Chinese—met at the tip of the Wakhan corridor.10 But, since the Manchu dynasty was in political turmoil at the time, no reply was sent from the Chinese side and the government of India interpreted this inaction as an indication of its acceptance of the boundary proposal. Lord Curzon modified this proposal in 1905 when he sent another note to the Chinese court arguing for a boundary beyond the Karakorum watershed, for which he wished to relinquish India's claim to the Taghdumbash Pamir, which brought them in direct contact with the Czarist empire.11 Apparently this change was undertaken to prevent British India coming in direct contact with Russia, and also because it gave vital grazing ground to Hunza whose relations with the Chinese the government of India was keen on severing. However, this 1905 note was not sent to the Chinese and therefore the issue of the agency's border with China remained unsettled. The Gilgit Agency was expanded in 1935 by leasing the Gilgit Wazarat from the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Sir Hari Singh for a period of sixty years, giving the British political agent complete control over its administration, communications and defence. Hitherto the agency had been administered under a form of dyarchy under which the British political agent was responsible for the defence, foreign relations and communications, while the Kashmir government wazir