Maharaja Hari Singh

The ruler whose legacy deserves reassessment

Col Ajay K Raina (Retd)

ajaykrraina@gmail.com

Every year, 23 September offers an opportunity to remember Maharaja Hari Singh, born on that day in 1895, not merely as the last ruling Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, but as a ruler whose record was considerably more complex and progressive than the narrow political narrative that subsequently came to dominate his legacy. His reign combined social reform, educational expansion, constitutional experimentation and a distinctly Indian political consciousness. Yet much of the historical discussion about him has been reduced to the events surrounding the accession of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 and his subsequent removal from the State.

That reduction does considerable injustice to the man and his times.

In 1925, Maharaja Hari Singh inherited one of the largest and most diverse princely States in the subcontinent, stretching from Jammu to Kashmir and Ladakh and encompassing communities with sharply different religious, linguistic and social traditions. His response was to undertake a series of reforms that, for a princely ruler of that era, were remarkably forward-looking.

The phrase associated with his accession to the throne, "justice is my religion", has acquired an almost proverbial status in Jammu. More important than the words themselves, however, is the extent to which his administration attempted to translate that philosophy into policy. His government introduced compulsory primary education, legislated against child marriage and permitted widows to remarry, while cracking down on social ills like the skin trade, Begaar, etc. His administration also took significant steps towards dismantling caste-based exclusion. In 1932, state temples, public wells and schools were opened to the so-called depressed classes. Such reforms were not introduced in a social vacuum; they encountered opposition from sections of orthodox society, making their implementation all the more significant. His government therefore addressed several social practices that remained deeply entrenched elsewhere in India.

Hari Singh's reformism extended beyond social legislation. He also recognised that the traditional structure of princely government could not remain untouched by the political changes sweeping India. The creation of the Praja Sabha in the 1930s introduced elected representation into the State's political structure. In 1939, Hari Singh and his Law and Revenue Minister, Justice Sir Lal Gopal Mukherjee, produced a written Constitution for Jammu and Kashmir. It was certainly not a modern democratic constitution in today's sense, but it represented a significant constitutional experiment within princely India.

His political outlook towards India is equally worthy of attention. At the First Round Table Conference in London in 1930-31, Hari Singh attended as representative of the Chamber of Princes. His intervention went beyond protecting the princes' privileges. He supported the concept of an all-India federation and argued for equality for Indians within the British Commonwealth. The position he articulated showed that he saw himself not simply as the ruler of a princely State but also as an Indian participant in the country's broader constitutional future.

His standing was also reflected in his wartime role. During the Second World War, he served on the British War Cabinet. In 1944, he travelled to Britain, attended wartime meetings and inspected military installations and Indian troops serving overseas. This matters when examining what happened in 1947.

The familiar narrative often portrays Maharaja Hari Singh as having procrastinated over accession, preferring independence until Pakistan's invasion left him with no alternative. The reality was more complicated. It is true that he considered an independent Jammu and Kashmir while Lord Wavell kept the option open for large princely states to exercise. However, with Lord Mountbatten's arrival in early 1947 and the subsequent passage of the Indian Independence Act, his approach changed.

Jawaharlal Nehru himself provided significant confirmation in the Lok Sabha on 24 July 1952. Referring to the events of 1947, Nehru acknowledged that the question of Kashmir had come before the Government of India informally around July or the middle of July. He said his government had advised that Jammu and Kashmir should not be hurried into a decision. That admission is important because it complicates the claim that the Maharaja simply remained indecisive until the invasion. At the same time, he insisted on releasing Sheikh Abdullah as a precondition for accession talks; Sheikh was indeed released well before the invaders came in.

The problem had several strands. Maharaja Hari Singh was weighing his options; Delhi had its own assessment of the strategic and political circumstances; and Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference had become central to Nehru's thinking about the State's future political structure. Lord Mountbatten, during his visit to the state in June 1947, suggested to the Maharaja that if he chose Pakistan over India, Delhi would have no objections. Sardar Patel's position was also significant. On 3 July 1947, he wrote to the Maharaja, arguing that the interests of the state lay in joining the Indian Union and its Constituent Assembly.

It would therefore be an oversimplification to attribute the entire delay in accession to one individual or one relationship. At the same time, it is equally simplistic to describe Maharaja Hari Singh as a ruler who had no inclination towards India until the Pakistani invasion forced his hand.

October 1947 changed the equation completely.

After invading Owen Pattan (Poonch) in Jammu on 08/09 October 1947, on 22 October, Pakistan-backed tribal forces invaded Kashmir through the Muzaffarabad sector and advanced towards Srinagar. The state forces could not contain the advance, thanks to treachery on the part of its Muslim troops. Faced with an existential military emergency, the Maharaja sought India's military assistance. He signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947 and Indian troops were flown into Srinagar the next morning.

The subsequent treatment of the Maharaja is one of the more extraordinary episodes of independent India's early history. Less than two years after accession, he was effectively removed from the political life of his own State. On 20 June 1949, after appointing his son Yuvraj Karan Singh as Regent, Hari Singh left Delhi for Bombay since he was not allowed to return to Jammu. He never returned to his state. The precise political responsibility for this outcome remains contested, particularly regarding the respective roles of Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah and other leaders. But the basic fact is undisputed: the ruler who had acceded his State to India in its hour of crisis spent the rest of his life away from it. He died in Bombay on 26 April 1961.

The tragedy of Maharaja Hari Singh's historical image is that the politics of accession came to overshadow almost everything that preceded it. He was neither the flawless monarch sometimes portrayed by admirers nor the caricature of an unchanging autocrat found in some older accounts. His administration had limitations, political opposition to his rule was a reality, and his State was not a democracy in the contemporary sense. A credible historical assessment must acknowledge those shortcomings. And such an assessment must not be made through the prism of today.

But balance also requires recognition of the other side of the record. His reforms do not require creating a heroic myth. They require only that history be allowed to become more complete.

23 September should therefore be more than a ceremonial birth anniversary. It should be an occasion to revisit Maharaja Hari Singh's record without the filters imposed by subsequent political battles. He belonged to a generation caught between monarchy and democracy, empire and independence, inherited privilege and social reform. He attempted to modernise his State while navigating political forces that were rapidly becoming larger than any princely ruler could control.

His final years were marked by political targeting and exile, but that should not be allowed to erase the record of his earlier achievements. Perhaps the most appropriate way to remember him is through the principle with which his reign is associated: "justice is my religion." Whatever reservations one may have about aspects of his rule, the reforms undertaken during his reign suggest that the declaration was not merely ceremonial.

Maharaja Hari Singh's place in history should therefore extend well beyond the signature on an Instrument of Accession. He was a reforming monarch, an advocate of constitutional development, a participant in India's struggle for political equality and, at the decisive moment of 1947, the ruler whose decision brought Jammu and Kashmir into the Indian Union.

His legacy deserves neither hagiography nor erasure; it deserves history.

(The author is the Chairman of the Jammu State People's Movement (JSPM))