Socialist Tinge in Kashmir |
Talking about the social history of Kashmir, it is frequently articulated through the perspective of conquest and resistance. In the era of mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century, during the Afghan (1752–1819) and Sikh (1819–1846) dominions, the valley had a complex paradoxical social structure characterized by both exploitation and cooperation. These two regimes instituted one of the most severe economic systems in Kashmir’s history, exhausting its resources, suppressing its people, and shattering its economy. Despite oppression, Kashmiris constructed a moral and community economy, a cooperative model that anticipated the socialist consciousness of the contemporary period.
The Afghan Regime
The acquisition of Kashmir by Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1752 signified the onset of a violent period in the valley’s history. The Afghan Durranis controlled by military governors who perceived Kashmir not as a province to administer, but as a tributary estate to exploit (Bamzai, 1994). Their principal objective was revenue generation, rather than governance.
Breaking barriers, the Taxation went beyond land earnings to include trees, livestock, fruits, and cooking utensils. According to Tareekh-i-Kashmir and some Persian chronicles, Afghan officials forced payments in kind, frequently surpassing 50 % of the overall yield. The most notorious among them, Azad Khan, Haji Karim Dad Khan, and Amir Khan Jawansher, transformed income collecting into an act of harassment. Villagers sought refuge in forest areas, discarding their properties to evade the cruelty of tax collectors (Chhabra, 2005).
The Muslim agrarian peasantry predominantly suffered under the Afghan fiscal regimen. The authorities did not invest in irrigation as well as in agricultural productivity. Officials operated as private profiteers, amassing wealth through extortion (Bamzai, 1994). The urban elite linked to Kabul thrived, while the rural parts deteriorated into ruins.
This pattern of collective endurance amid exploitation may be described as a primitive socialism not ideologically articulated, but materially practiced. It was the socialism of necessity: peasants pooling labour, sharing resources, and surviving through mutual dependence when the state withdrew from moral responsibility.
The Sikh Rule
In 1819, the Sikh army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, under Misr Diwan Chand, expelled the Afghans from Kashmir. The event was greeted........