1846-1947: Kashmir Before 1947
- 1846: Jammu and Kashmir(J&K) State is created for the first time with the signing on March 16 of the Second Treaty of Amritsar between the British East India company and Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu. It is an addendum to the Treaty of Lahore signed one week earlier on March 9, 1846 which gives the terms of surrender of the Sikh Durbar at Lahore to the British. The Sikhs cannot pay part of the demand made by the British; Gulab Singh steps in on their behalf to pay Rs.75,00,000, and in return receives Kashmir Valley, part of the Sikh territories, to add to Jammu and Ladakh already under his rule. Gulab Singh accepts overall British sovereignty. Kashmir Valley is a Muslim majority region speaking the Kashmiri language and a distinct culture called Kashmiriyat.
- 1857: The War of independence, The Subcontinent fractured into hundreds of states.
- 1931: The movement against the repressive Maharaja Hari Singh begins. It is brutally suppressed by the State forces. Hari Singh is part of a Hindu Dogra dynasty, ruling over a majority Muslim State. The predominantly Muslim population was kept poor, illiterate and was not adequately represented in the State's services. The Glancy Commission appointed by the Maharaja publishes a report in April 1932, confirming the existence of the grievances of the State's subjects and suggests recommendations providing for adequate representation of Muslims in the State's services; Maharaja accepts these recommendations but delays implementation, leading to another agitation in 1934. Maharaja grants a Constitution providing a Legislative Assembly for the people, but the Assembly turns out to be powerless. The 1931 protest led to the Quit Kashmir movement against the Maharajah in 1946 by the Kashmir leader Sheikh Abdullah, and eventually to the Azad Kashmir movement which gained momentum a year later.
- March 23, 1940: The Lahore Resolution is proposed by MA Jinnah and seconded by Sikandar Hyat Khan and Fazlul Haq. Referring to British India, it states “That geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”. There is no mention of "Pakistan", an acronym invented by Chaudhury Rehmat Ali in England, but the Lahore Resolution later becomes known as the Pakistan Resolution.
- July 26, 1946: Quit Kashmir movement gains momentum. The Muslim Conference adopts the Azad Kashmir Resolution on July 26, 1946 calling for the end of autocratic rule in the region. The resolution also claims for Kashmiris the right to elect their own constituent assembly.
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of The Kashmir Conflict