Kashmir After 1947 – The Birth of Azad Kashmir

A Nation Divided by Decisions

In the autumn of 1947, as the chill crept down the mountains and saffron fields turned golden, the people of Kashmir stood at a turning point that would define generations. The signing of the Instrument of Accession by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 October 1947 marked a historic and deeply contested moment, one that changed the course of South Asian history and the fate of every Kashmiri home.

For centuries, Kashmir had survived under successive rulers, Afghan Durranis, Sikh Maharajas, and the Dogra dynasty, but never before had the future of its people been determined so suddenly, and so far from their reach.

What followed in the months after the accession was not merely a political transition; it was the birth of a divided homeland, a story written in displacement, resistance, and resilience.

The Instrument of Accession: A Decision Under Fire

When Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to India, it was, according to official Indian records, a move made to request military assistance in defending his state against tribal incursions from the northwest. Indian troops were airlifted into Srinagar on 27 October 1947, beginning what India described as a defensive action to restore order.

Yet within Kashmir itself, the people were neither consulted nor informed. In the days preceding the signature, panic had already spread across the valley as Dogra troops withdrew, tribal fighters advanced, and communication lines broke down.

Many Kashmiris remember those days not in terms of diplomacy, but survival, the hurried closing of markets, the smell of burning houses in Pahalgam and Neelum, and the fear that something irreversible was happening beyond their control.

Several historical sources suggest that Indian troops were already being mobilised even before the formal accession was completed, raising questions that would echo for decades. But for ordinary people, such political technicalities meant little. To them, a new army had arrived, the skies above Dal Lake thundered with planes, and a foreign flag began to cast its shadow over their mountains.

One orchard owner from Anantnag, who was a child at the time, later recalled:

“We did not know what accession meant. All we knew was that new soldiers had come, and they were not ours. The Maharajas men had gone, and these new ones spoke a language of command we did not understand.”

From Protest to Revolution

The seeds of what would become Azad Kashmir were sown months before the accession. In Poonch, a region of rugged hills and fiercely independent tribes, resentment toward Dogra rule had long simmered.

Many men from Poonch had served in the British Indian Army during the Second World War. When they returned home in 1946–47, they found themselves subjected once again to heavy taxes, restrictions on owning weapons, and forced labour. The Dogra state’s demands for new levies to fund its army became the breaking point.

One survivor from the outskirts of Poonch described it decades later:

“We were not soldiers. We were farmers with rifles. But we had seen war in Burma and Africa under the British. We knew how to fight, and we fought for our land this time, not for empire.”

This resistance quickly gained moral and logistical support from sympathetic tribes across the newly formed border. As Dogra authority collapsed in the western hills, the local militias declared self-rule.

The Borders of a New World

By early 1948, the emerging “lines” between Indian and Pakistani-held territories began to solidify into a military boundary. This would later be called the Ceasefire Line, and decades later, the Line of Control (LoC). It was never a border drawn by the Kashmiri people themselves; it was a line drawn through their homes, families, and orchards.

Villages found themselves split, one half under Indian control, the other under the new administration forming in the west. A family in Kotli could no longer visit their cousins in Baramulla. A merchant from Muzaffarabad, who had traded in Srinagar for three generations, suddenly became a “foreigner.”

An elder from Bhimber recalled:

“Before 1947, our only border was the river. After that, they made lines on maps, but they cut through our hearts.”

The Proclamation of Azad Jammu & Kashmir

On 24 October 1947, before the Maharaja’s accession to India was publicly announced, leaders of the Kashmir Uprising met in Pallandri, a small town south of Muzaffarabad, and declared the formation of a provisional government for the liberated territories.

The new administration called itself the “Azad Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.”
The word Azad meaning free,captured the spirit of what people were fighting for: not domination by another state, but freedom from generations of subjugation.

The Provisional President was Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, a barrister educated in Lucknow and London, who had served as a member of the Dogra government but defected in protest after the state’s handling of the crisis. Under his leadership, the new government claimed to represent all people of Jammu and Kashmir, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

Sardar Ibrahim established his headquarters first in Pallandri, then later moved to Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad as the fighting intensified. With limited resources but strong will, the fledgling administration began to organise basic services like food supply, relief for refugees, and coordination of the local militias fighting on the front lines.

The Early Structure of the Azad Kashmir Government

The first Azad government was small but symbolic. It comprised a President, a few ministers handling defence, interior, finance, and public works, and regional representatives from the liberated areas. Decision-making was collective, often conducted in makeshift offices, sometimes even under tents.

Sardar Ibrahim’s vision was to create a temporary administration until the whole of Jammu and Kashmir could be freed and allowed to decide its own future through a plebiscite. But even within this early setup, several key priorities emerged:

• Security and Defence: Organising the disparate militias into a coordinated Azad Forces Command, which would later evolve into the Azad Kashmir Regiment.
• Refugee Welfare: Managing tens of thousands of displaced people streaming in from Poonch, Mirpur, and Jammu.
• Civil Administration: Reopening schools, restoring trade, and establishing courts for local disputes.
• Liaison with Pakistan: Maintaining communication and supply lines across the border for food, weapons, and humanitarian aid.

These early months were marked by chaos and exhaustion, but also by extraordinary resilience. Villages donated grain and livestock to feed the fighters. Teachers became clerks; traders became logisticians; imams acted as community organisers.

An elder from Kotli later recalled:

“We had no government in the beginning, only faith. But slowly, the faith turned into form, and the form became Azad Kashmir.”

The Azad Kashmir Armed Forces

In the early months of 1948, the Azad Kashmir forces; a patchwork of local militias, ex-servicemen from Poonch, and volunteers from the tribal areas of the Frontier, were at the forefront of the fighting across western Kashmir.

They operated independently under the leadership of the Azad Government of Jammu and Kashmir, headed by Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, and were driven by a shared mission to liberate their homeland from Dogra and Indian control. Though courageous and determined, these groups were unevenly equipped and faced severe logistical challenges.

As the conflict intensified and international attention grew, by mid-1948, to ensure better coordination and defence along the western front, the Pakistan Army began assisting the Azad forces, initially in an advisory capacity. This cooperation brought structure, training, and supplies through Rawalpindi, allowing the liberation movement to hold its ground against superior Indian firepower.

By late 1948, the Azad forces had evolved into a more organised formation under joint operational planning, paving the way for the establishment of the Azad Kashmir Regiment — a formal recognition of the Kashmiri fighters’ contribution to the defence of the liberated areas.

When the UN-mediated ceasefire came into effect on 1 January 1949, the combined Azad and Pakistani forces held roughly one-third of the former princely state. The newly drawn Ceasefire Line — later renamed the Line of Control (LoC) — reflected the frontlines secured by the Kashmiri freedom fighters, with Pakistan continuing to support and administer the territories they had freed, including Muzaffarabad and Gilgit-Baltistan.

This marked the transition from a spontaneous people’s uprising to a more structured phase of defence and governance — one in which Pakistan became the guarantor of the areas liberated by the Kashmiri resistance.

Relationship with Pakistan

From the very beginning, the Azad Government and Pakistan maintained a close yet distinct relationship. Pakistan extended political, humanitarian, and logistical support to the liberation movement, recognising that it represented the aspirations of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. India, however, accused Pakistan of direct military involvement — a claim Islamabad denied, stating that the struggle was an indigenous uprising of the Kashmiri people.

The Azad leadership consistently asserted its independent identity, emphasising that it spoke on behalf of all Kashmiris — Muslims, Hindus, and others — in their collective demand for freedom and self-determination. While Pakistan stood as a supportive ally, Azad Kashmir maintained that it was not an extension of Pakistan, but the voice of a nation fighting for its right to decide its own destiny.

Sardar Ibrahim worked tirelessly to maintain this balance. He met regularly with Pakistani officials, including Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, to coordinate aid and define the administrative status of Azad territories. In a statement issued in December 1947, he emphasised:

“We are not separatists, nor are we rebels. We are the people of Jammu and Kashmir exercising our right to self-determination after the collapse of our ruler’s authority.”

By 1948, Pakistan had set up a “Kashmir Affairs” office in Rawalpindi to manage the coordination of supplies, relief, and international communications. The Azad government retained autonomy over local governance, though its finances and defence were heavily dependent on Pakistani support.

This partnership laid the foundation for the unique semi-autonomous status that Azad Jammu & Kashmir would continue to hold in the decades ahead, tied closely to Pakistan, yet legally distinct.

The Ceasefire and the Line of Division

This was never meant to be a permanent border. The UN Resolution 47 (April 1948) had called for a plebiscite to allow Kashmiris to decide their own future after withdrawal of troops. But the ceasefire line hardened over time, separating families, markets, and memories.

For the Kashmiri people, this was both a relief and a heartbreak. Relief because the guns finally fell silent; heartbreak because their homeland had been split without their consent.

A mother from Mirpur summed it up decades later:

“The firing stopped, but our separation began that day. My sister lived across the line, and I have never seen her again.”

The Early Years of Azad Kashmir

In the years following 1949, Azad Kashmir faced monumental challenges. The region was impoverished, war-torn, and flooded with refugees. The provisional government struggled to build basic infrastructure while maintaining the morale of a population still yearning for reunification.

Under Sardar Ibrahim’s leadership, the government drafted an interim constitution in 1949, outlining administrative and judicial frameworks. Civil courts reopened, schools were rebuilt, and trade slowly resumed across the Neelum Valley. Muzaffarabad became the permanent seat of government.

However, political tensions soon arose between Azad leaders and Pakistani authorities over the distribution of power. In May 1949, under the “Karachi Agreement”, certain subjects like defence, foreign affairs, and communications were formally placed under Pakistan’s control, while the Azad government retained jurisdiction over internal matters. This arrangement preserved the region’s autonomy but also tied its destiny closely to Islamabad.

Despite these constraints, the spirit of self-governance remained strong. Local councils emerged, elections for community representatives were introduced, and education was prioritised. A generation of young Kashmiris grew up believing that Azad Kashmir represented both resistance and resilience, the living symbol of a struggle that was not yet over.

Legacy of the Early Struggles

The founding of Azad Jammu & Kashmir was not a smooth political process, but a story of survival and self-determination born from chaos. It was built not by powerful institutions but by ordinary Kashmiri farmers, veterans, teachers, and traders who refused to be voiceless in deciding their fate.

Even decades later, older generations in Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad speak of those early days with a mix of pride and sorrow. They remember the hunger, the sleepless nights under bombardment, but also the sense of unity that transcended tribe and class.

One elderly freedom fighter once said:

“We did not have much, but we had each other. That was enough to start a government.”

A Divided Dream

The creation of Azad Kashmir gave the people of the western region a sense of belonging and dignity, yet the division of the larger state left a deep scar. Families divided by the Line of Control still call across it in their dreams. The valley that had once sung with the same songs now echoed two national anthems.

To this day, the people of Azad Kashmir consider themselves part of a wider Kashmiri identity, bound by language, culture, and shared history. For them, the events of 1947–49 were not just about geopolitics but about justice, about reclaiming the right to determine their own destiny after centuries of being ruled by others.

A Struggle That Endures

The story of Azad Jammu & Kashmir is the story of a people who refused to disappear. From the night the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to the dawn when the first flag of Azad Kashmir was raised in Pallandri, every step was marked by sacrifice and hope.

What began as an uprising of farmers and ex-soldiers grew into a functioning administration that continues to this day, a testament to the endurance of Kashmiri identity and the human spirit’s refusal to surrender. For the elders who remember those days, the dream remains unfinished. For the young, it stands as a reminder that history is not only made by borders and governments, but by people who dare to believe in freedom.

“We called it Azad because it was the only word that carried the weight of our hearts,” said one veteran from Poonch. “We may have lost much, but that word freedom still lives in us.”