Chib Rajputs in Kashmir Politics: From the Muslim Conference to AJK Government

Chib Rajputs (چب راجپوت; also written Chibh or Chhib) have taken part in Kashmir politics since the agitation of 1931, when Raja Buddhe Khan, zaildar of Samahni near Bhimber, led the rising in his valley. Drawing on Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan’s 1997 history, this article traces the Chib Rajputs in politics from the founding of the Muslim Conference in 1932 to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), where Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, a Domal of Chib descent, became Prime Minister and President, and Raja Muhammad Zulqarnain Khan of Kasgumah served as a minister from 1985 to 1995.

Chib Rajputs and politics before 1931: land, office and the court

Before mass politics, Chib influence ran through land and office. Under the Dogra Maharajas the clan’s leading men were jagirdars (holders of revenue grants), zaildars (heads of a circle of villages) and numbardars (village headmen), and a few reached the court: Kasgumah produced an ADC to Maharaja Hari Singh and a Governor of Kashmir, Khan Bahadur Raja Muhammad Afzal Khan, while Raja Muhammad Sarwar Khan of Panjeri was a Wazir-e-Wazarat, or district officer. The Hindu Chib house of Ghawaliyan was related by marriage to the Maharaja’s own family, though the book’s three accounts of the exact link differ. In British Punjab the old ruling families sat as provincial darbaris and honorary magistrates: Khan Bahadur Raja Muhammad Akbar Khan, head of the Bhimber royal family, presided over the Jhelum Municipality until 1934, and Rai Dilawar Khan of Thotha Rai Bahadur sat for seven years on the district board.

1931: the Samahni rising

The turning point came in 1931, when agitation against Dogra rule spread to Mirpur, Bhimber and Kotli. In the Samahni valley the movement, which the book calls the Tahaffuz-e-Qur’an (“protection of the Qur’an”) movement, was led by Raja Zaman Ali Khan, better known as Raja Buddhe Khan, zaildar and jagirdar of Samahni. Curfew was imposed, troops fired on the protesters, and Buddhe Khan was arrested for rebellion while the women of the valley demonstrated for his release. Tried at Naushera, he was defended by Naeem-ul-Haq, an advocate nominated, the book says, by Allama Iqbal, and acquitted; his confiscated jagir was restored because it was a Mughal grant rather than a Dogra one, though he lost his zaildari. His lieutenants, Raja Rahmdad Khan of Ghawaliyan and Raja Syed Muhammad Khan of Bandi, went underground.

In Poonch, the Domal leader Sardar Fateh Muhammad Khan Karelvi gave up a police career for the same agitation and faced several prosecutions, three of them for murder, none of which was proved; the book also credits him with ending a customs toll between Thakiala Parawa, Rajouri and Kotli. Not every Chib stood on the same side, however: Raja Allah Dad Khan of the Lehri jagir near Mangla received an extra jagir of Rs 300 a year from the State for his services during the 1931 disturbances.

The Muslim Conference years, 1932–1947

The All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, founded in 1932, became the political home of most of the Chib leaders in the book. It names two Chibs among the party’s founders: Sardar Fateh Muhammad Khan Karelvi, who sat in the State Assembly for the Muslims of Mendhar and Haveli and was a close companion of Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas, and Captain Raja Fazal-ur-Rahman Khan of Panjeri, zaildar and member of the State Assembly. Karelvi is also recorded at the All-India Muslim League’s session in Lahore on 23 March 1940, though that passage is partly lost in printing.

Local leaders built the party village by village. In the Banah valley, Khan Inayatullah Khan of Khui Ratta founded and quietly financed its Khoi Ratta branch; Justice Rahim Dad Khan called him the party’s “Seth Birla”, after the Indian industrialist. He gave land for a Jami Masjid plinth where Friday rallies competed with the rival National Conference, and one such Friday ended in a brawl and a court case that went the Muslim Conference’s way. In Da’ora, Raja Mardan Ali Khan left the police and revenue service at Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas’s urging to work for the party alongside A. R. Saghar, Chaudhry Hamidullah, Raja Fazal-ur-Rahman Khan, Karelvi and Colonel Mahmood Khan (see Kalri and Mandi Da’ora). Kasgumah sent Captain Muhammad Murawwat Khan to the State Assembly, and his brother Raja Muhammad Yaqub Khan stood for the Bhimber seat as the Muslim Conference candidate in the 1946 election. Master Raja Khan Malik Khan of Barhang was among Ghulam Abbas’s most trusted companions, and Raja Rahmdad Khan of Ghawaliyan, in the book’s words, lived and died for the Muslim Conference.

Chib Rajputs in AJK politics after 1947

After the war of 1947–48 the Chib country of Bhimber, Samahni, Mirpur and Kotli lay in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (see The Chib Rajputs in 1947). The most prominent politician of Chib descent in the book is Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, son of Karelvi and a member of the Domal tribe, which descends from Raja Dom Khan, brother of Baba Shadi Shaheed. Active from 1970, he held the offices of Senior Minister, Leader of the House, Prime Minister and President of AJK, and the book adds that he was for a time president of the Pakistan National Alliance. By 1998 he led the Muslim Conference (S), one of two factions into which the party had split; the other, the Muslim Conference (Q), was led by Sardar Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Khan.

From the Bhimber district the leading figure is Raja Muhammad Zulqarnain Khan of Kasgumah, grandson of Raja Mardan Ali Khan, elected to the AJK Assembly several times and for about ten consecutive years (1985–95) minister of finance, local bodies, rural development and electricity; at the time of writing he was a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Council and an adviser to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Raja Maqsood Ahmad Khan of Bandala won the Samahni seat in 1985 and brought electricity, metalled roads, schools, a water supply and sub-division status to the Samahni valley; he later served as vice-chairman of the AJK Local Development Council (1990–95), sat on the Jammu and Kashmir Council and became the founding president of the Muslim Conference in the new Bhimber district (see Mandi Bandala).

Behind the elected men stood organisers. In Da’ora, the retired DSP Raja Muhammad Iqbal Khan was a power-broker in Constituency No. 7 who twice helped Zulqarnain Khan into the Assembly; his son Raja Mazhar Iqbal Khan, an advocate, became district president and central secretary of the Muslim Conference and a member of the AJK Bar Council. Raja Fazal-ur-Rehman Khan of Pothi Jang Khan rose from vice-chairman of Union Council Da’ora to the party’s Central Working Committee and the presidency of the Tehsil Muslim Conference, Bhimber, an office also held by Raja Fateh Khan, Raja Buddhe Khan’s brother. In Kotli, Khan Iqbal Sikandar Khan of Khui Ratta, a Muslim Conference man elected district councillor in 1979, 1983 and 1991–92 and a close companion of Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, chaired the Kotli District Council until July 1998.

The Muslim Conference was not the only choice. Raja Bashir Ahmad Khan of Da’ora helped found the Pakistan People’s Party in Bhimber in the early 1970s before returning to the Muslim Conference; two Kalri workers, Raja Tajammal Husain Khan and Raja Zafarullah Khan, moved from the Muslim Conference to the PPP; Engineer Raja Muhammad Khalid Khan of Chak Khurd was central deputy amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami in AJK; and the retired DSP Raja Muhammad Ilyas Khan of Panjeri presided over the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation League in Bhimber district.

Administrators and judges

Many of the clan’s most influential men served the state rather than parties. Raja Imdad Ali Khan of Ghawaliyan, first Sub-Judge of Bhimber in 1948, retired as a District and Sessions Judge in 1975. Raja Abdul Khaliq Khan of Panjeri retired as AJK’s Secretary Revenue and received the Tamgha-e-Quaid-e-Azam, and his cousin Raja Naseem Akhtar Khan became Additional Chief Secretary. Raja Nur Ali Khan of Bandala led the survey and resettlement for the Mangla Dam, and Brigadier Habib-ur-Rahman Khan, after commanding the Azad forces, became Political Agent in Baltistan and Gilgit and, from 1967, Resident Commissioner for Gilgit and Baltistan. In Pakistan’s courts, Justice Raja Afrasiab Khan, of a family from Mandi Rajal, became a judge of the Supreme Court.

In Pakistan’s Punjab

Across the old border, in Gujrat and Jhelum districts, Chib families entered Punjab politics. Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan of Pothi Rajgan contested an MLA seat in 1954 before joining the provincial civil service, and his sons Raja Shaukat Hussain Khan, vice-chairman of the Gujrat District Council from 1979, and Raja Wajahat Hussain Khan, a district councillor from 1987, both stood for provincial seats. Thotha Rai Bahadur supplied a succession of union council chairmen and a Gujrat district councillor, Raja Muhammad Zulfiqar Khan, and in Lahore Raja Abdul Rahman Khan, a Kharian Chib and advocate of the Supreme Court, served as secretary of the High Court’s jail reforms committee, which the book credits with freeing more than ten thousand prisoners. The wider story of the clan is told in Chib Rajputs: history, origins and clans.

Chib office-holders at a glance

Frequently asked questions

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• Raja Buddhe Khan and the 1931 Samahni MovementThe zaildar who challenged Dogra rule.
• The Domal of PoonchDescendants of Raja Dom Khan, from Karelvi to Sikandar Hayat Khan.
• The Rajgan of KasgumahFrom Maj. Gen. Farman Ali Khan to Raja Zulqarnain Khan.
• Subedar Khan Inayatullah KhanThe Muslim Conference’s financier in the Banah valley.
• Mandi BandalaZaildars, a commissioner and an MLA for Samahni.
• The Chib Rajputs in 1947Battles, refugees and martyrs.