Editing Kashmir (section)

=== Princely state ===
{{Main|Jammu and Kashmir (princely state)}}
[[File:Maharajah Gulab Singh (1792-1857) seated holding a sword against a bolster on a terrace.webp|thumb|[[Gulab Singh]], The first [[Dogra dynasty|Maharaja]] of [[Jammu and Kashmir (princely state)|Jammu and Kashmir]], which was founded in 1846.]]
[[File:NWFP-Kashmir1909-a.jpg|thumb|1909 Map of the Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu. The names of regions, important cities, rivers, and mountains are underlined in red.]]

In 1845, the [[First Anglo-Sikh War]] broke out. According to ''[[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]]:''

<blockquote>Gulab Singh contrived to hold himself aloof till the [[battle of Sobraon]] (1846), when he appeared as a useful mediator and the trusted advisor of [[Henry Lawrence (Indian Army officer)|Sir Henry Lawrence]]. Two treaties were concluded. By the first the [[History of Lahore|State of Lahore]] (i.e. West Punjab) handed over to the British, as equivalent for one crore indemnity, the hill countries between the rivers Beas and Indus; by the second the British made over to Gulab Singh for 75 lakhs all the hilly or mountainous country situated to the east of the Indus and the west of the Ravi i.e. the Vale of Kashmir.<ref name=imperialgazet-gulabsingh/></blockquote>

Drafted by a treaty and a bill of sale, and constituted between 1820 and 1858, the Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was first called) combined disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities:<ref name=bowers>Bowers, Paul. 2004. [http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2004/rp04-028.pdf "Kashmir." Research Paper 4/28] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326182755/http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2004/rp04-028.pdf |date=26 March 2009 }}, International Affairs and Defence, House of Commons Library, United Kingdom.</ref> to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally [[Tibetan people|Tibetan]] and its inhabitants practised [[Tibetan Buddhism|Buddhism]]; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly [[Kashmiri Muslims|Muslim]]—mostly [[Sunni Muslim|Sunni]], however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the [[brahmin]] [[Kashmiri Pandits]]. To the northeast, sparsely populated [[Baltistan]] had a population ethnically related to that of Ladakh, but which practised [[Shia Islam]]. To the north, also sparsely populated, [[Gilgit Agency]] was an area of diverse, mostly ''Shia'' groups, and, to the west, [[History of Poonch District|Punch]] was populated mostly by Muslims of a different ethnicity than that of the Kashmir valley.<ref name=bowers/> After the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]], in which Kashmir sided with the British, and the subsequent assumption of [[British Raj|direct rule]] by Great Britain, the [[princely state]] of Kashmir came under the [[suzerainty]] of the [[The Crown|British Crown]].

In the British census of India of 1941, Kashmir registered a Muslim majority population of 77%, a Hindu population of 20% and a sparse population of Buddhists and Sikhs comprising the remaining 3%.<ref name=bose-sumantra-2005-p15-17>{{Harvnb|Bose, Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace|2003|pp=15–17}}</ref> That same year, [[Prem Nath Bazaz]], a [[Kashmiri Pandit]] journalist wrote: "The poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. ... Most are landless laborers, working as serfs for absentee [Hindu] landlords ...  Almost the whole brunt of official corruption is borne by the Muslim masses."<ref>Quoted in {{Harvnb|Bose, Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace|2003|pp=15–17}}</ref> Under  Hindu rule, Muslims faced hefty taxation and discrimination in the legal system, and were forced into labor without any wages.<ref>{{citation |last1=Amin |first1=Tahir |last2=Schofield |first2=Victoria |chapter=Kashmir |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World |year=2009 |chapter-url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0433 |access-date=19 June 2018 |archive-date=20 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180620003316/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0433 |url-status=live }}</ref> Conditions in the princely state caused a significant migration of people from the Kashmir Valley to the Punjab of British India.<ref name="Bose2013">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=reiwAAAAQBAJ |title=Transforming India |date=2013 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-72820-2 |pages=211 |author=Sumantra Bose |access-date=19 June 2018 |archive-date=17 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117140440/https://books.google.com/books?id=reiwAAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> For almost a century, until the census, a small Hindu elite had ruled over a vast and impoverished Muslim peasantry.<ref name=bose-sumantra-2005-p15-17/><ref name=talbot-singh-p54>{{Harvnb|Talbot|Singh|2009|p=54}}</ref> Driven into docility by chronic indebtedness to landlords and moneylenders, having no education besides, nor awareness of rights,<ref name=bose-sumantra-2005-p15-17/> the Muslim peasants had no political representation until the 1930s.<ref name=talbot-singh-p54/>