Kashmir lies in the close proximity of Central Asia; it borders various neighboring states and is located at the crossroads of various routes that connect to Central Asia, from Tibet to Afghanistan and from Gilgit to Kashgar. Historically, the Kashmir Valley was connected through the Silk Route to different parts of Asia, due to which many Sufi saints and travellers travelled across the valley. It became an entry point to the Indian subcontinent.

The geographical proximity of Kashmir with Central Asia and Tibet was also acknowledged by Jawaharlal Nehru when he said that Kashmir, while part of India, was in fact the heart of Asia. "For countless ages," he said, "great caravans have passed from India right up to Central Asia through the state." How many people, he wondered, realized that Kashmir was further north than Tibet?

The valley of Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Union of India, is the point from where the Central Asian landscape begins. The two most important passes, the Zoji La and Burzil passes, situated less than a hundred kilometers from the capital city of Srinagar, connect the tablelands of Central Asia andTibet. On crossing the passes, one suddenly enters the great bleak wastes of Central Asia, where there is practically no rainfall and where even the winter snowfall on the mountaintopsis but light. That's why the region of Ladakh is considered a desert. Besides these two passes, there are two other passes on the western side of the valley known as Pir ki Gali and Haji Pir Pass, which connected the valley with Lahore and other areas of present-day Pakistan.

Before moving further, it is important to define what Central Asia means in our context. The term "Central Asia" is often used to describe the whole of the immense territory, with its great varieties of altitudes, climates, and inhabitants, comprised between the Caspian in the west and the Great Wall of China in the east; Siberia in the north; and Khorasan (Persia), Afghanistan, and Tibet in the south. In contemporary Soviet usage, for instance, Central Asia is taken to mean only the five Soviet republics—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. But these republics form only a part of Central Asia. "Central Asia" covers not only Soviet and Chinese Central Asia but also northern Afghanistan and Tibet. Their history, culture, and commerce have been interlinked from time immemorial. Hence, it is difficult, if not impossible, to study in isolation the political, social, and economic growth of a particular region only.

Economic relations

The geographical location of Kashmir as a bridge between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent has been of decisive importance for trade and cultural exchanges. Before the discovery of sea routes, all the main trade routes connecting Eastern and Central Asia with Eastern Europe and countries of the Middle and Far East lay across this territory, and Kashmir was one of the crossroads in these historical webs of interlinked roads.

Trade routes

By the first century BC the oldest and longest trade route known to man—the 'Silk Route,' so named because it was mostly used by caravans that brought silk from China to Persia and to the Levantine market—was firmly established. It was along this route that semi-diplomatic and commercial missions traveled from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean across the Middle East, Bactria, Samarkand, India, the Central Asian region, and to China. Through the northern and southern branches of the Silk Road, trade and ideas were exchanged and transmitted.

From Peking the route passed over the Gobi along a belt of oases both north and south of the desert, which provided the necessary halts with wells and caravanserais. The routes, the northern one via Hami, Turfan, and Kucha, and the southern one via Khotan, converged on Kashgar in Sinkiang. The geographicalposition of Kashgar—almost on the same parallel as Peking—renders it an obligatory point in any line of trade connecting China with the Caspian.

Kashgar was the junction of the routes from Kashmir via Leh. On the southern flank the routes leading up the valleys of the Yarkand River and its tributaries converged on the Karakoram Pass, which is the only line of communication giving access to the uppermost valley of the Indus in the Ladakh area.

The first important town on the Central Asia side of the Karakoram is Yarkand, on a direct line between Kashgar and Leh in Kashmir. There are a number of passes leading to Yarkand from Leh, but generally only three were followed, depending on the season and also the nature of goods carried. Yarkand and Kashgar were also approachable via Gilgit through the Hunza and Sarikol passes.

In ancient times, the Kashmir Valley had close political and cultural relations with Gandhara, the northwest frontier of India. The passes leading to the Central Asia plains through the Kabul Valley also formed important lines of communication with Kashmir. The road from the Valley followed closely the course of the Jhelum and, after crossing the Urusha (Hazara) district, joined the caravan route from India. It was over this route, the "Western Gate of Kashmir," that Hiun Tsiang and Ou'Kong travelled to reach the Valley.

Silk

As earlier discussed, Kashmir Valley was connected to the Silk Routes. Various theories have been put forward regarding the origin of the silk industry. According to the native records of China, the empress Se-ling-she, wife of the famous emperor Ewang-te (2640 BC), encouraged the cultivation of the mulberry tree, the rearing of the worms, and the reeling of silk. She is also creditedwith the invention of the loom. The Chinese guarded the secrets of their valuable industry with vigilant jealousy. Accordingto a tradition, the eggs of the insect and the seed of the mulberry tree were carried to India by a Chinese princess concealedin a fold of her headdress. From India the silkworm was slowly carried northwards and spread in Khotan, Persia, and other states of Central Asia.

In olden times Kashmir was, like China, a great exporter of silk. The silk found its way to Damascus and Bukhara, and the Issidons, the inhabitants of modern Khotan, were the chief agents in the transmission of silk into Western Asia and Europe by the Oxus River over the Caspian and Black Seas. Mirza Haider Dughlat, who ruled over Kashmir in 1540 AD, writes in his Tarikh-i-Rashidi:

Among the wonders of Kashmir are the number of mulberry trees cultivated for their leaves for the production of silk."

Shawl-wool

But the chief article of import that directly affected the economic life of Kashmir from remote times was påslim, or raw wool, for the manufacture of shawls. The history of this industry is as interesting as it is varied. When the Kashmiris make the shawl is made of very fine, soft, short, flossy underwool called Keli phumb, or the pashm of Keli, or shawl-goat, a variety of Capra hircus inhabiting the elevated regions of Tibet. These regions are, owing to their high altitude, intensely cold, and nature has clothed the goats with this warm wool.

The higher the goats live, the finer and warmer their wool is. The Tibetans call the he-goat and the she-goat yielding this wool rabo and rama, and the white and brown pashm, lena karpo and lena nakpo, and the kel's pashm, tsokul. There are several varieties of pashm according to the districts in which it is produced, but the finest comes from Changthong and Turfan. The pasturage of Turfan is from goats in the Tien-shan mountains, and the principal marts of collection are Turfan and Uch-turfan. Before the closure of the road to Leh by the Chinese, it used to come by caravan by the Kashgar-Yarkand-Leh route. Those who traded in this commodity were called Tibet-baqals.

Moorcroft, who visited Ladakh in 1819, says, "The fleece is cut once a year, and the wool is coarsely picked either in the place from whence it comes or in Leh. It is sold by the importers to the merchants at that city, by whom it is sent on to Kashmir. About 800 loads are annually exported to Kashmir, to which country it is exclusively confined. It is considered illegal in Rudok and Changthong to allow the trade in shawl-wool except through Ladakh."

Tea

Till late into the 19th century, another article of import from China to Kashmir was tea in the form of bricks. According to the Chinese legend, the virtues of tea were discovered by the mythical emperor Chinnung (2737 BC). Another tradition in China attributes the knowledge of tea to having travelled from India and being introduced in China in 543 AD by Bodhidharma, an ascetic from India on a missionary expedition. However, in the 8th century, its use had become so common there that a tax was levied on it. Till well into the 19th century, it may be said that China and Japan were the only tea-producing countries, and thus it was but natural that tea should have been imported into India via Leh in Kashmir.

The use of tea was introduced in Kashmir by the traders who came into the state from across the Pamirs, as also by the Kashmiri traders who went over and partook of it in those countries during their sojourn. Mirza Haider is also credited with having introduced this beverage into Kashmir. Although its use was not profuse till 1878, Chinese brick tea coming from Tibet formed one of the chief articles of import. As late as 1920, when cheap Indian tea was imported via the Jhelum Valley Road in trucks, 108 maunds of this commodity valued at 'Rs. 17,323 were imported from Tibet.

Political relations

Imperialist rivalries in Central Asia

Central Asia had become the target of Russian colonial expansion with the consolidation of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Western Turkestan, devoid of a strong central government, was split into small principalities where petty princes held feeble sway. For almost a century, Bukhara was ruled by the Sheybani dynasty, founded by a scion of Chingiz Khan. The Khan, Muhammad Sheybani, brought the whole of western Turkestan and also Khorasan under his control, but he was defeated and killed in 1510 while mounting an attack on the Persian Empire. The region then passed for some time into the occupation of the Persians, but soon the Sheybanids returned. Their rule continued till the beginning of the sixteenth century, with Samarkand and Bukhara alternating as capitals. The territory was divided among several branches of the dynasty. Thus came into being the Khanates of Bukhara, Khiva, and Khokand.

Russia in Central Asia

Such was the political pattern of the region through the 18th and well into the 19th centuries. This uneventful period was brought to an end by the mounting pressure from the Russians upon all three Khanates. Russian goods appeared in the Central Asian bazaars. The traders were followed by soldiers, and as early as the 1830s, the Khanate of Khiva was the target of an abortive Russian expedition. At the same time the Russians established a bridgehead on the east coast of the Caspian, in Turkmenia, and from there pushed eastwards along the Kopet-Dagh mountains.

Here they came rather close to Afghan territory on the left bank of the Amu-darya. Afghanistan was by then regarded by the British as the stepping stone for their expansion in Central Asia, and hence the Russian advance was causing them anxiety. Meanwhile the Russians, pushing south from Siberia, established themselves on the Syrdarya, and the three Khanates, Bukhara, Khiva, and Khokand, became a contested area between the two colonial powers.

Political connections

Early contacts

The Russian occupation of Central Asia was as spectacular as the advance of the British in India. At the close of the eighteenth century, some Russians did find their way to Central Asia, Eastern Turkestan, and Kashmir. Though not on any political mission yet, they were the pioneers in opening up to the Russians the way to Ladakh and Kashmir via the barren deserts of Central Asia, the Kirghiz Steppes, and Chinese Turkestan. The importance of their travels in this period cannot be underestimated because the Russians had very scant, if any, knowledge of the territories traversed by these travelers. This was more true of the route via Kokand-Yarkand-Leh-Srinagar-Jammu towards the heartland of India.

Filip Yefremov, a soldier by profession, narrates about the kingdom of Ladakh being ruled by a local Raja and also about the Afghan rule in Kashmir with Karim Dad Khan as its governor. Yefremov's travels in Ladakh, Kashmir, and Jammu bear some political importance due to the fact that after sailing from Calcutta to London, he reported about his experiences to the Russian Ambassador there and also to Count Alexander Bezborodko at St. Petersburg. Yefremov was even honored with an audience before the Russian Empress on November 5, 1782.³ He can safely be described as a pioneer for bringing to the notice of the then Tsarist government the state of affairs in Ladakh, Kashmir, and Jammu during the later years of the Afghan rule.

In spite of their being strangers to the territories of Central Asia and Kashmir, both these travellers have given a vivid picture of the area they passed through. While Yefremov described the route from Russia to Ladakh, Kashmir, and India via Bukhara, Kokand, Kashgar, and Yarkand, Danibegov returned to Russia via Kashmir, Ladakh, Eastern Turkestan, and Semipalatinsk (then the Russian frontier facing Central Asian Khanates). Omsk fort, Novgorod, and Moscow. He bypassed the intervening Central Asian Khanates, obviously due to the turbulent conditions there and acts of brigandage by the Kirghiz nomads.

However, both these travellers proved to the Russian official and commercial circles that neither of these two routes was inaccessible for any determined traveller. They also highlighted the shawl trade in Kashmir. Yefremov's narrative was published in Russia in as many as three editions (in 1786, 1794, and 1811). Danibegov's account was translated from Georgian into Russian and published in 1815 in Moscow. Both Yefremov and Danibegov attracted considerable interest in the Russian academic and official circles.

Kashmir's overtures to Russians in Central Asia

When the British transferred to Gulab Singh the independent possession of the newly carved State of Jammu and Kashmir, they desired to have a say in the internal affairs of the State. On one pretext or another, British officers began to be deputed to Kashmir. The agreement of the Kashmir ruler to the temporary posting of a British officer on special duty in Kashmir during summer months did not satiate the British thirst for a firm control over the internal and external affairs of Jammu and Kashmir through a full-fledged resident.

The anti-Dogra attitude of the English-language press in India, which played up the misrule in Kashmir, was another cause of annoyance. All these factors led to a certain bitterness and resentment in the hearts of both Gulab Singh and his successor, Ranbir Singh, who resisted all such moves politely but firmly. Both these rulers tried to keep their bosses in good humor by dispatching grandiloquent letters, which only amused the ruling British elite. Similarly, the extravagant state reception accorded to every British visitor to the valley only helped them in winning over but a few personalities with little or no weight in the British Durbar.

The Dogra rulers provided generous assistance by way of men and materials to the British for quelling the 1857 uprising. Simultaneously, they were trying their best to keep the British at an arm's length. With the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia gaining in intensity after the Russian penetration of the Kokand Khanate, the British temptations to use Kashmir as a listening post for monitoring developments in the neighborhood increased. But Ranbir Singh was too scared to allow any British officer to reside in Kashmir permanently, as it would not only impinge upon his authority but also bring him disgrace among his loyal and complacent subjects.

Dogra rulers wanted to be supreme within their territory. Complete and independent control over the affairs of the state, including the conduct of its foreign relations with the neighboring territories in Afghanistan, Eastern Turkestan, and other Central Asian khanates, was most dear to both Gulab Singh and his heir, Ranbir Singh. Ranbir Singh even toyed with the idea of establishing a direct and friendly intercourse with the Russians in Central Asia. Easy access of the Kukas to the Jammu Durbar and their employment by Ranbir Singh as carriers of his messages to the Russians in Central Asia are now well established.

Before discussing the dispatch of Kashmiri missions to Central Asia, it would be relevant here to throw some light on certain anti-British activities of the Dogra rulers. Maharaja Gulab Singh's crude diplomatic maneuver to prevent the passage of a British-trained surveyor through Leh and the Karakoram Pass to Yarkand in the company of the Kokandi envoy has already been mentioned. A careful study of the documents pertaining to Bhai Maharaja Singh", an anti-British Sikh fighter during and after the second Anglo-Sikh war, shows the indirect role played by Maharaja Gulab Singh and his son Ranbir Singh in his resistance against the British.

Conclusion

Although the attempts made by the Kashmir ruler to establish friendly relations with the Russians in Central Asia had no political fallout, these did result in some positive developments in promoting the socio-economic intercourse between the two regions. This is what must have sustained Ranbir Singh's interest in continuing his communications with the Russian authorities in Central Asia until he died in 1885. As per Faiz Buksh's report made to the British authorities in Punjab in 1871, the Russian Governor at Tashkent, Cherniaev, had agreed to transmit Kashmir shawls to Russian markets. According to certain Russian sources, Gorchakov too had consented to provide adequate protection to Kashmiri merchants in Russian territories.

Numerous Kashmiris began to reside in Russian Central Asia, some learning the Russian language and some running shops. Thus, the two sides succeed in establishing a mutually beneficial understanding on the socio-economic plane, which could not continue due to its disruption by the British. But the absence of any expansionist designs towards British India, including the State of Kashmir, at the given moment did not imply that Tsarist Russia adopted an indifferent attitude towards the Kashmir ruler. It did try to reciprocate the Maharaja's sentiments by deputing some envoys in disguise. Since these emissaries could not penetrate the British fence to reach the Maharaja of Kashmir, any attempt to forge a political understanding between the two sides could not succeed.

References

Bamzai, P.N.K. 2009. Kashmir and Central Asia. Srinagar: Gulshan Books.
Bazaz, G. N. 2015. Key to Kashmir. Srinagar: Jay Kay Books.
Hassnain, F. M. 1980. Heritage of Kashmir. Srinagar: Gulshan Publishers.
Warikoo, K. 2014. Central Asia & Kashmir: A Study in the Context of Anglo-Russian Rivalry. Delhi: Gyan Publishing House.