The conflict in Kashmir, one of the oldest unresolved issues at the United Nations since 1948, is often described as a territorial conflict between two countries: India and Pakistan. These two countries came into existence in 1947 when the British left the Indian subcontinent, partitioning their Indian Empire into India and Pakistan. The conflict in Kashmir is not a territorial dispute. Kashmiri people’s struggle in Kashmir is for Azadi (sovereignty) and it predates the British colonial era on the subcontinent. As noted by Cabeiri DeBergh Robinson, in her book Body of Victim, Body of Warrior; Refugee Families and the making of Kashmiri Jihadists, the conflict in Kashmir is “about the conflict and contestations for political recognition that were happening at the time of decolonization, when Kashmiri peoples’ struggle for political rights were with the monarch of Jammu and Kashmir, not with the British colonial power or with post-colonial nation-states of India and Pakistan” (Page 33).
The following is an excerpt from Volume VIII (1995-1996) of Kashmir Diary, a publication of the Kashmir Human Rights Foundation:
“In the European cemetery at the Sheikh Bagh, is a grave which I never pass without taking my hat off, for in it lies the mortal remains of Lieut. Robert Thorp, who gave his life for the Kashmiris in the year 1867. (Page 234) Lieutenant Thorp during his stay in the country made it his business to collect information regarding the persecution of Kashmiris… However, trouble came upon him, and he was ordered out of the country… He… returned to Srinagar… next morning he died of poison after his breakfast.” (Page 238) Biscoe, Tyndale; Kashmir in Sunlight and Shade, London; Seeley, Service and Co. Limited; 1925
In 1833, when the Sikh Dynasty of Punjab ruled Kashmir, a British Lieutenant Colonel, Robert Throp, visited Kashmir as a tourist. He fell in love with a Kashmiri girl. He married and took her to England. Robert Thorp was the third child of this couple. He also came to Kashmir. As a young army officer after visiting Africa, Robert Thorp arrived in Kashmir in 1865. By then the Sikhs had been vanquished by the British. Kashmir had been sold in 1846 to a Dogra Chieftain of Jammu by the British. When Robert Thorp visited Kashmir, Ranbir Singh ruled Kashmir. Robert Thorp was distressed to see the miserable plight of the people of Kashmir under Ranbir’s rule. Foreigners required permission of the British authorities to enter Kashmir. They could not stay in Kashmir for more than two months at that time. Robert Thorp stayed longer to study the appalling condition of the people of his mother’s birthplace. Thorp began a campaign to inform and educate the British people about conditions in Kashmir by writing to the British press in India and England. On 22nd November, 1868, Robert Thorp was found dead on the Suleman Teng Hill in Kashmir. He is buried in the Christian graveyard of Sheikh Bagh, Srinagar. The epitaph on his grave reads: “Robert Thorp, aged 30 years, who sacrificed his life for Kashmir on 22nd November 1868.”
Robert Thorp’s book titled: Misgovernment in Kashmir is dedicated to those people “who do not approve of cruelties upon human beings, and to those who are exalted from the moral, religious and social point of view and do not like oppression.” Some excerpts from the book follow: “For purposes entirely selfish, we (the British) deliberately sold millions of human beings into the absolute power of one of the meanest, most avaricious, cruel and unprincipled of men that ever sat upon a throne. Here is an Indian native prince, fit to be decorated, by the British Government in India, with the medal! The star of India! As the owner of the whole Kashmiri nation, he sucks his riches from their lifeblood, and stoops to draw a degrading revenue by pandering to their vices. Each nauch girl dances in his service; every cajollery she bestows on her admirers, every gift she extorts from their liberality, is for the benefit of the Dogra Maharaja… Should one of their bondwomen or dancing girl attempt to leave her degrading profession, she is driven back with a lash and the rod… Nor was it a ruler only whom we forced upon a reluctant people, but the crowd of rapacious and unprincipled ministers courtiers, hangers on of every grade who followed the fortune, of Gulab Singh. There, raised like himself from the lowest classes, and invested with the titles of Diwan, Wazir, Tehsildars etc., descended upon Kashmir like a flock of hungry vultures. They swept away the prosperity and happiness of its people, and their descendants are worthy of their ancestors.”
Robert Thorp’s book was published after his death. British government in India was forced to review the situation in Kashmir and steps were taken to better the conditions of the Kashmiris. As a result, British officers were appointed in the State. The intervention of the British helped in easing the situation to some extent.
Robert Thorp’s tombstone of 1868 should be considered one of the first markers on the road to the Azadi (sovereignty) of the Kashmiri nation.