Maanal Pawan Kohli
20The creation of Duggar Desh is often linked to the Treaty of Amritsar in March 1846, when Raja Gulab Singh was formally recognised as Maharaja. Yet to view Dogra sovereignty as the outcome of a single legal transaction is to overlook the deeper historical process that made such recognition possible. The foundations of Duggar Desh were laid earlier – and January 1846 was the moment when this transformation became inevitable.
By early 1846, the Sikh Empire was in irreversible decline. The First Anglo-Sikh War exposed deep structural weaknesses following Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death. Central authority in Lahore faltered, military command lacked cohesion, and peripheral regions were increasingly compelled to determine their own political futures.
Amid this uncertainty, Jammu emerged as a centre of relative stability and continuity. Raja Gulab Singh’s position in January 1846 must be understood within this context. Jammu was not a volatile frontier zone but a region with a functioning administrative apparatus, established revenue systems, and long experience in hill governance. This institutional stability became the bedrock upon which Duggar Desh would be constructed.
January marked a decisive shift – from survival to consolidation. British victories in late 1845 clarified the likely outcome of the war, and by January 1846 attention had turned towards post-war arrangements. Direct British control over the mountainous hill regions was impractical; what was required was a locally rooted authority capable of maintaining order and extracting revenue. Jammu, both geographically and administratively, fulfilled this requirement.
At the heart of Duggar Desh’s creation lay not merely diplomacy, but governability. Harsh winter conditions restricted access to Kashmir and the higher Himalayan regions, making Jammu the operational centre for administration, logistics, and communication. Power had already begun to flow through Jammu well before formal recognition was granted. The Treaty of Amritsar did not create this reality; it acknowledged one that had already taken shape.
Equally significant was Raja Gulab Singh’s political restraint during the First Anglo-Sikh War. While many Sikh commanders were drawn into direct confrontation, Gulab Singh adopted a calculated neutrality. This was not passivity, but prudence. By preserving his forces and administrative base, he ensured that Jammu remained intact while surrounding power structures disintegrated. Such restraint reinforced Jammu’s image – for both British officials and regional elites – as a stabilising authority rather than a disruptive one.
The British, too, were not blind to this distinction. Their post-war strategy in North India increasingly favoured indirect rule through dependable regional powers rather than costly military occupation. In this framework, Jammu was not an afterthought but a solution. Its rulers possessed local legitimacy, intimate knowledge of difficult terrain, and an existing bureaucratic framework capable of sustaining governance in extreme conditions. Recognition followed readiness.
This understanding is reflected in Dogra historical memory, preserved through oral tradition:
(Where the ground is stable, power naturally settles.)
Importantly, the emergence of Duggar Desh also reflected continuity with older hill-state traditions. Dogra rule did not begin in 1846; it evolved from centuries of Rajput lineage, service under successive empires, and experience in frontier administration. January 1846 therefore represents not a rupture, but a culmination – when accumulated authority crystallised into sovereignty.
Another Dogri saying captures this logic succinctly:
(Rule does not endure by the sword alone, but by judgement.)
Revisiting January 1846 allows us to see Duggar Desh not as a colonial gift, but as the outcome of careful regional agency. Its birth lay not in a treaty alone, but in the quiet alignment of geography, governance, and political foresight.
No commemorative date marks January. No spectacle followed. Yet it was the month when Jammu moved from being a regional power within a collapsing empire to becoming the nucleus of a new political order. The story of Duggar Desh begins not with proclamation, but with consolidation – quiet, calculated, and rooted in the realities of the land.
(The author is Masters in History, University of Jammu)
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