Impact of the International Crises on the External Trade of Kashmir (1870-1947 A.D)

War destroyed the communities and families in Europe and disrupted the developments of the social and economic fabric. But there were coun-tries/regions which were not directly involved in these wars, had to face the same impact. For example, Kashmir situated on the fringes of the Indian sub-continent was equally affected by these International Crises. With the completion of Jehlum Valley Cart Road in 1890, trade increased manifold with Europe. But unfortunately, the involvement of European countries in war from 1870-1945 A.D, reduced the demand of highly praised luxurious items of Kashmir viz. Shawl, carpets, papier-mache, woodcarving, embroidery, woolens, silver item etc. Engagement of these governments in the gigan-tic war efforts: in which the whole economic activity was directed towards war industries, Kashmir while heavily relying on the foreign countries for its trade had to suffer.


Introduction
The state of Jammu and Kashmir is situated at a place on the globe where the borders of half a dozen countries meet (Bazaz, 2003). From the immemorial times, the state people had established trade relations with their entire neighbouring world and were driving great benefit from them. Routes connecting trade centers of the state with those of the bordering countries had been opened.
Before any roads for wheeled traffic were constructed, canals and rivers were also used for carrying merchandise from one place to another. It was natural that the people of Kashmir should have greater business intercourse with the coun-jat Ba Tariff Naist). He also made shawls one of favorite components of dress.
The delicate texture, softness and durability had made Kashmiri shawls unrivalled in the whole world making them extensive article of trade. To quote Abul Fazl "the Kashmiri shawls are exported to ever clime" (Fazl, 1974).
Bernier, who visited Kashmir in the company of Aurangzeb in 1665 wrote: "What may be considered peculiar to Kachemira, and the staple commodity that which particularly promotes the trade of the country and fills it with wealth, is the prodigious quality of shawls which they manufacture and which gave occupation even to the little children".
In 1796 A.D. during the time of Abdullah Khan, an Afghan Governor of Kashmir, a blind man, named Sayid Yahaya, had come from Baghdad as a visitor to Kashmir, and when he took leave from Abdullah Khan to return, the latter gave a present of orange-coloured shawl. The Sayid, having gone to Egypt gave it as a present to its Khedive there. Soon after, Napoleon Bonaparte came to Egypt with his famous fleet with the object of harassing the English in India, but he was smashed up by Nelson on the Nile. The Khedive gave him this shawl as a present. Napoleon sent it to France and it attracted the fashionable people there.
French traders soon came to Kashmir to indulge in the trading activities of shawl and exported shawls of various designs to France.
In-fact France became the major consumer of this pride product of Kashmir, as is evident from the following Simultaneously, Europe witnessed some drastic changes that not only left their impact on Europe but on the whole world. The foundation of the German Empire was the most important event in the European history during 19 th century (Roopshikha, 2008). The result of the unification was creation of German empire that enabled Prussia to control all the German states and European politics as well. The birth of Germany created an entirely new centre of gravity in international affairs and represents as complete a break with the Europe (1815-1871) as that Era represents a break with the ancient regime of Pre-French revolutionary days. Fundamentally, the cause of the Franco-Prussian conflict was the deep rivalry between the two countries which had revealed it in 1866.
There were bitter memories left by the first Napoleon; and there was the long historical grudge demanding satisfaction against Gallic neighbor who had kept Germany weak and divided for her own aggrandizement. France had long enough withheld from Germany her national right to development, and asserted outrageous and intolerable claim to interference. The startling growth of Prussian power and the unexpected demonstration of her strength had given to Europe and more especially to France, an unmistakable challenge (Grant and Temperely, 1927).
On 19 th July 1870, the French Emperor declared war to Prussian kingdom Napoleon III lead the Army. France weakened by its preceding wars (Crimea, Italy, Mexico) had an army of hardly two hundred thousand men on frontier against five hundred thousand men of Germany. Without any obstacle on their way, the German army invaded the region of champagne and finally reached Paris (Marriot, 1945).
It was because of this war France lost nearly 17,000 "communes" whole Alsace shawl bafs against 28,000 as per the Census Report of 1891.
2) Russian Expansion in Central Asia: Kashmir had been the meeting place of the three Greatest Empires (Yasin, 2002) of the East-the British, the Russians and the Chinese (Kapur, 1992 (Knight, 1986) and formed an important trade route between India and Central Asia. The Genesis of this branch of trade lay in a Treaty (1842) (Kapur, 1992).
It is important to mention here that since the nature (composition) of Kashmir's External trade was largely determined by volume-value ratio (as these were snow bound areas so products which were less in weight, but high in demand were preferred by merchants to carry on these routes) of the commodities, therefore, Kashmir shawl became a preferable item of this trade. It is also important to put it here that the commerce of Ladakh was yet not of any value as far as her local production was concerned. The Foreign Trade of the area was Times sometimes move fast than expected. It was in the second half of the Nineteenth century that Tsarist Russia and Britain found themselves in the state of rivalry in Central Asia, they had conflicting interests in the Balkan region of Europe. Each country tried to check the other extensions of power and influence in that direction. Russia had an alternate field to compensate her setbacks in the Balkan region, viz., Central Asia. In fact, she had been advancing towards Central Asia since the beginning of 19 th century. In this regard, William Moorcroft had written a warning in 1822 that trade with Russia via Turkestan was increasing. It was in 1832, the British East India Company Board of Control had sent Burnes to Central Asia to investigate the possibility of British commerce to counter a possible Russian threat to India. It was during this period, according to C. Karpinski "Russia imported more than two million rubles worth of Turkish and Kashmir shawls in 1825-1826". These moves of British in Central Asia affected the supply of shawl wool to valley. In the time of the Dogras, the average import of wool amounted to nearly 300 maunds. The following Table 2 shows the gradual decrease of the shawl wool. The decrease in the imports was mainly due to: 1) Epidemics amongst the shawl wool goats in Turfan, Khotan, Yarkand and Kirghiz herds (Moorcroft & Trebeck, 1841).
2) The heavy taxes levied on import of pashmina.
3) Sudden price rise of wool owing to its purchase by the British trading Company in India. 4) Increasing demand for wool from Delhi, Lucknow, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Rampur. 5) Emergence of Nurpur, Simla and Hosharpur as new centers of pashmina Trade.
6) The beginning of the shawl wool trade by the British merchants stationed at Darjeeling. 7) Impediment caused by the border conflicts between Kashmir and China on account of disturbed conditions in Sinkiang. 8) Last but not the least, tax exemption and other trade concessions granted to the Russians merchants by the Chinese government. Moreover, Russia also made all efforts to consolidate its position in Western Turkistan. The rivalry between these two powers reached to the extent that British goods could not find its market in Russian dominated areas, including goods from Kashmir. Consequently, there was an urgent need to strengthen the British defenses on the North West of India. And the strategic position of Kashmir in the defense of the North West frontiers gave it a great importance. According to Wakefield: In its relation to our rule in India the position of this kingdom, its physical and other characters, have an importance which its extent and general barrenness would scarcely warrant, for it constitutes a formidable defense, A Rocky Bulwark to our Empire on its Northern Frontier, a natural obstacle against any foe proceeding that quarter (Wakefield, 1879).
By watching these happenings, The British government took effective steps in the consolidation of the "Scientific Frontier" of the Indian empire. They extended railway lines up to Quetta and the Khyber passes. A policy of reconciliation with the Amir of Afghanistan was enunciated so as to secure safe North Western frontier. Having done this, they desired to seal two other doors from outside influence i.e. Gilgit and Leh (Kapur, 1992).
But these measures did not give a fruitful result as Russians also took a num- Asian market (Hamilton, 1906  The trade between Kashmir and Central Asia was mostly an import trade, there is no export trade worth the name (Administrative Report, 1912Report, -1913.
The Central Asian traders who brought their articles to sell in Kashmir took off certain articles when they returned home (Trade Report, 1908-1909. Rations and personal luggage of the traders and travelers were registered under this head (Trade Report, 1911-1912. tries. But for those countries that were not directly involved in the war were also affected. Same was case with the state of Jammu and Kashmir which was quite far away from the war zone and was equally or even more affected by these wars.
We see during this period the main exports of Kashmir especially Carpets Silk, woollens, papier mache, silver-ware, wood-carving and numdas etc. enjoyed a mixed demand. The below discussion will give us an idea of the same.
The carpet industry (Sufi, 1948(Sufi, -1849 Simultaneously, Silk (Khan, 1999) was also in great demand in foreign as well  (Ganju, 1945). In 1904, the factory came to have 10 filatures which contained 1864 reeling basins. In the same year, silk weaving was taken up on an experimental basis. Although the quality of cloth produced was satisfactory and found to compare favourably with the average products of the looms of Japan, but unfortunately, in 1907, a fire occurred in the Srinagar silk factory and almost all the stocks of silk were destroyed, as such nothing was exported out of the year's production (Administrative Report, 1969). It was also seen that new venture of experimentation did not prove successful from the financial point of view. Steps were also taken to make direct sales in the American markets.
Other industries like embroidered numdas got a great boost during the First World War. The export of numda after being embroidered in Kashmir ran into lakhs in the First World War. The demand for Kashmir woollens increased and decreased in the following manner. The demand of woollens in fact increased due to the ongoing "Swadeshi Movement." According to the available estimates, Kashmir by the years 1904-1905, 1905-1906 and 1906-1907 managed to export woolen (Ganju, 1945) Table 4 and Table 5 (Trade Report, 1913Report, -1918. The woollen exports retained its propitious marketing character up to the later part of the War, we see from 1913 to 1918 woollens showed increasing trend, because of the decline of the imports thence from, however they markedly fell which in turn bore considerable declining imprints on the prices as well. With this the imports swelled (Ganju, 1945). After the First World War, we find im-   Rs. 365,274 in 1930-1931. After 1931-1937 Rs. 1,125,430 (Administrative Report, 1995). The year opened with somewhat a depressed state of market and closed with distinctly hopeful prospects. The effects of the abnormal decline in the prices during the latter half of the preceding year continued to be felt in the early part of the year. But during closing months especially since the declaration of war improvements in the situation were substantially enough to counter balance the efforts of earlier depression (Administrative Report, 1995). Handloom silks mostly depended on home markets. The War, therefore, did not interfere with its steady growth. More so because of the innovations of certain enterprising firms during the year 1939-1940, large quantities of Georgettes were produced. They swelled the volume of trade. Silk products were in great demand in the Indian cities, especially Lahore, Amritsar and Delhi. During 1940-1941, Bedsheets, Teapoy covers and Silk Sarees, particularly in embroidery form were in great demand. Of course, war did create a problem with respect to improvement in dyes and chemicals. Those who already possessed the stocks, indulged in profiteering. With all these difficulties the handloom industry was considered to be the biggest cottage industry in the state during 1943. Embroidery was also done on woolens and silks in Kashmir. It was an auxiliary of Woollens and Silk industries. Amlikar shawls had become famous all over the world because of the attractive work done on Pashmina or Raffal. Silk Saries, Teapoy covers, and Bedsheets were in great demand in 1941 because of the colourful designs in embroidery. Though, the price of Pashmina wool had gone up in 1942-1943. Yet the popularity of excellent embroidery motivated artisans to do more work and produce very beautiful pieces which could be acceptable even on higher cost. About 17,000 persons worked in this industry during 1940-1941. In 1942 the total production of carpets was estimated to 40,000 sq.ft valued at Rs. 1,200,000. Soon after the close of the Second World War the American demand shifted back from "numdas" to carpets and this increased the annual output. The home demand also increased. The restoration of normalcy in the state and the rapidly increasing tourist traffic increased the demand for carpets. The increasing demand of carpets helped the Kashmir in developing its economy.
Yet another active art of Kashmir during this period was papier-mache. During the period of War, the number of visitors to the valley showed a marked increase due to influx of army personal, who spent their holidays in Kashmir, the papier-mache industry, therefore made brisk sales and the total value of goods produced increased from Rs. 2 lakhs (Administrative Report, 1940-1941 1942-1943A.D and 1943-1944. A.D (Administrative Report, 1945-1946 During the year 1944-1945 A.D, and 1945-1946 A.D, war conditions continued to influence the working of the industry in all respects. The department continued to supply to the government of India for defence purposes practically the whole of it's out-turned (Administrative Report, 1944. Thus to give impetus to the local weaving industry local manufactures were also supplied with raw-silks at prices much below the markets rates. The outturn of superior silks was booked by His Majesty government and the inferior silks were sold in India markets. The sales of silk and it's by products effected by the department during the year 1945 totaled 241,759 pounds and the amount received was Rs. 38,339,415 (Administrative Report, 1998-1999.
We see the ups and downs in the market continued till the Second World War was over except silk; no product of Kashmir was used for war purposes.

4) Closure of Jehlum valley road:
Kashmir did not have any modern highways till 1890 (Ahmad, 2007). The year 1890-1891, was a land mark in the history of Kashmir as it was, in this year that the construction of Jehlum Valley Cart Road was started (Administrative Report, 1923Report, -1924 It is only in modern times that this western route has attained a real prominence. This originated in the time of the Afghan rule over Kashmir, when the route along the Vitasta to Muzaffarbad and hence through Hazara afforded the shortest and least exposed line of communication between Kashmir and Peshawar (Stein, 2007). Subsequently, after the annexation of the Punjab, the establishment of the hill station of the Muree naturally drew traffic in this direction. The construction of the Tonga road from Muree to Baramulla finally assured to this route its present supremacy.
By the end of the 19 th century, Kashmir was hit by a severe famine in 1877-1879 (Civil and Military Gazette, 1878), which made it necessary to have a good road which could connect the valley with the Punjab, from where the grains for relief could be imported (Younghusband, 1996). The plan took a practical shape, when the construction of the said road was undertaken in 1881, for a cart road from Baramulla (Neve, 2003) to Kohala by the state government. Its length was about 97 1 2 miles of which only 25 miles were nearly completed in 1885. In other words, the work was being executed at the average rate of about 6 miles a year. At this rate, about 11 more years were needed to construct the whole road. The chief reason for such a slow progress was stated to be the lack of funds with the state government (Kapur, 1992).
Another reason which made the construction of road important was at this time, the British government of India was greatly alarmed by the Russian advance in Central Asia. In the words of col. Algernon Durand: She had advanced practically to the Hindukush; it was necessary to see that she did not cross it (Tyndale Biscoe, 2004).
Such then became the determination of the government of India. And to facilitate the achievement of that objective, they decided that, not only the construction of a road from India to Kashmir, whose borders touched those of the Russian Turkistan, should be completed (Knight, 1986), but a road even beyond up Rawalpindi its distance was 196 miles. The road was spoken of as a masterpiece of mountain engineering and was recognized by some as "the most beautiful Motorable road in the whole world". This road costs Rs. 2,178,780 which was a huge sum. But as a trade route the Jehlum valley road did not prove of any considerable importance until it was made fit for wheeled traffic (Ahmad, 2007).
The road was one of the main trade routes of the state and almost whole of the trade between Kashmir and British India was carried on by this route (Trade Report, 1900-1901. It was then the border town of the Punjab province of the then British Indian territories was constructed. The significance of this road was highlighted by Ernest, F Neve in these words: According to him the chief exports are fruits, consisting largely of apples, pears, and walnuts. Of this over, 100,000 maunds, or about 3500 tons are exported annually. Rice and maize vary between one thousand and three thousand tons, according to the existence of scarcity in the North of India.
Besides these highways, there were several bridle paths and footpaths connecting different parts of the state (Ahmad, 2007) with neighbouring countries but such of them as could be maintained in good conditions were used in case of emergency or only by local people living on either side of the border (Bamzai, 1980). It will be seen that like the big rivers all the highways connected the Jammu and Kashmir state with that part of the Punjab, which now forms part of Pakistan. It was therefore quite natural that almost all export and import business of the country should be carried on with or through the trade centres of that Singh might agree to the compulsions of geographical contiguity and composition of population of the state and accede to Pakistan. But with the announcement of Radcliff award a different picture emerged. Kashmir became more susceptible than before to the pulls of rival dominions of India and Pakistan and was, therefore, due to suffer heavily in consequence (Pampori, 1992).
With the Decolonization of Indian sub-continent accompanied by partition and conflict between the two succeeding states of India and Pakistan the problems of the state of Jammu and Kashmir which had close and intimate contacts with both of them increased manifold, needless to say that the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir was the bone of contention in that conflict (Gupta, 1967). Partition explained with different meanings by different authors. Few of these are produced here.
Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, had explained in these words, That the dawn of independence came littered with the several limbs and blood drenched bodies of innocent men, women and children was a nightmare from which the sub-continent has never fully recovered. The colossal human tragedy of the partition and its continuing aftermath has been better conveyed by the sensitive creative writers and artists-for example in Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories and Ritwik Ghatak's films-than by historians (Bose and Jalal, 2004). Larry Collins further substantiated partition in these words that "Cyril Radcliff's … line had left 5 million Sikhs and Hindus in Pakistan half of the Punjab, over 5 million Muslims in India's half dead". Mehar Chand Mahajan, in his book "Looking Back" observed that about 2 million people migrated from one side to the other (Mahajan, 1994). This situation was touched by another author, who said that ours has been a century where countries have been partitioned to fulfill the economic and political ambitions of formidable groups, completely ignoring the cost of human suffering, which has been enormous and continuous. Even in such callous and unpromising times the partition of the Indian subcontinent registered as an awesome tragedy (Settar and Gupta, 2002).
Partition was accompanied by several unfortunate circumstances for India in general and Kashmir in particular. There were problems which were associated with any such process of division. For instance, difficulties relating to the division of assets, and liabilities, demarcation of boundaries both of the land and the water. Several administrative difficulties emerged as one political unit had to be bifurcated.
After partition, the embroidery industry Sozni like other crafts received a setback, partly because of the division of the country, leading to a human tragedy and partly due to the attack on Kashmir by tribesmen (Birdwood, 2005 Kashmir. The situation highlighted by Ian Talbot in his book in these words: The protection and control of access of the movement of people and goods through borders is a vital symbol of statehood within weeks of the chaotic scenes of partition, the India and Pakistan states had tightened their grip of Attari and Wagah (Talbot, 2006). The experience of the colonial states war time system of controls was put into practice with the creation of an elaborate system of permits and licenses. State construction proceeded at the expense of the former free movement of people and goods between Lahore and Amritsar. While the order was an economic resource for some, it dealt a savage blow to others and Amritsari traders in particular became hostages to geography their city, cut off from its former markets and raw material supplies, was now dependent for its prosperity on government decisions concerning cloth quotas, import and export licenses and transport. A peripheral city that lacked administrative importance possessed only limited political leverage.
To make good the loss sustained by the state and its, people by this abrupt dislocation of export and import trade, the government of India constructed a new highway at a hugest cost of the three crores of rupee linking Jammu with pathankot in east Punjab. It was a marvelous feat of road engineering (highly creditable to the public works department of the government of India) the road is an extension of the Srinagar Banihal-Jammu road. Thus instead of the four water ways, three highways and one railway linking, the state with the outside world we have now one road and it was supposed that this would meet the demand of the people. As a matter of fact the National conference leaders in Kashmir have stated in their speeches and statements more than once that the business carried on through the Srinagar-Pathankot road is larger in volume than used to be conducted through all the abandoned highways, waterways and railway put together (Bazaz, 2003). No doubt, when the new government under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah took over, they formulated a well considered policy for rejuvenating artisan industry in Kashmir. The first and foremost step which the government took was to provide market to the suffocating artisan industries. This they did by laying a network of emporiums throughout the country under Government Arts Emporium. Among other arts and crafts, Kashmir embroidery formed one of the most important crafts of Kashmir and was displayed and sold through these Emporia. The embroidery produced, in the production centers and purchased from private Karkhandars was sold through these Emporia's. heads of departments also were, as a matter of rule, giving comprehensive data about their working in their Periodical Reports. After independence no report was submitted so therefore it is not easy to know to what extent the Srinagar-Pathankot road has been able to make good the damage that has been done to the country by the sudden closure of her nature-given water-ways, expensively-built highways and wisely designed small and single railway. Yet it is also very difficult to see the irreparable loss that the state people have suffered by the new arrangements and will, continue to suffer until the closed waterways and high-ways and the railway will be re-opened and traffic on them re-started under normal and peaceful condition.