Template:EngvarB Template:Infobox office holder Khurshid Anwar was an activist of All-India Muslim League, heading its private militia, the Muslim League National Guards.[1]Template:Sfnp Described as a "shadowy figure" and "complete adventurer", he is generally addressed as a "Major" in Pakistani sources. He was a key figure in the rise of the Muslim League during 1946–1947, organising its campaigns in Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, prior to India's partition. After the independence of Pakistan, he was instrumental in organising the tribal invasion of princely state of Kashmir, leading to the First Kashmir War.
Early career
Khurshid Anwar was a Punjabi[2][3]Template:Sfn from Jullundhar in Punjab.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A source also states him to be a Pathan from the North-West Frontier Province.Template:Sfn Anwar has been described as a "shadowy figure", "complete adventurer",Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and a "Muslim League's most important secret weapon in the creation of Pakistan".Template:Sfn
Anwar is said to have worked as an official in the civil supplies department in Delhi prior to World War II. Due to the close association of this department with the military during the War, he is said to have been given the rank of a Major. He is generally referred to as a "Major" in Pakistani sources. Anwar was suspected of bribe-taking and supplying goods to civilians. This ended his association with the Army.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Muslim League National Guards
The All-India Muslim League had a volunteer militia called the Muslim League National Guards (MLNG), originally headed by Siddique Ali Khan.Template:Sfnp Khurshid Ahmed served as the second-in-command.Template:Sfnp According to scholar Ayesha Jalal, Khurshid Anwar was appointed as the commander (Salar) of MLNG in October 1946. He was given a target of rising 200,000 volunteers. Anwar is said to have devoted 'considerable energy' to the effort, impressing upon the League workers the danger posed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which was, in his view, financed by the Indian National Congress.Template:Sfn By the end of 1946, the National Guards ranks swelled to 60,000 members. The 1946 Bihar riots were instrumental in mobilising the Muslims of India to activism.Template:Sfn After he was appointed by Jinnah to lead the group, one intelligence report read, ‘Instruction is being given in the art of knife and acid throwing, and in the use of fire-arms.'[4]
When the Muslim League led a civil disobedience movement against the Unionist government of Punjab, vexing its prime minister Khizar Hayat Tiwana, Tiwana banned the Muslim League National Guards in January 1947. But Anwar went underground to keep the agitation going.Template:Sfn Under his leadership, the National Guards blew up bridges and railway lines during the Punjab civil disobedience campaign.Template:Sfnp Eventually the Unionist government was overthrown.Template:Sfn
Afterwards, Anwar went to the North-West Frontier Province, where he worked with the Muslim League leaders Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan and Pir of Manki Sharif to launch a direct action campaign against the Congress government.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnp He is said to have organised an underground movement publishing cyclostyled newspapers and broadcasting on a wireless transmitter.Template:Sfn Anwar's rallies led to attacks on the local communities of Hindus and Sikhs,Template:Sfn generating a stream of refugees into Kashmir, which closed off any possibility of the Maharaja of Kashmir acceding to Pakistan.Template:Sfn Anwar is also said to have gotten away with a good deal of loot from his attacks on the minorities.Template:Sfn
Invasion of Kashmir
On 12 September 1947, the Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan held a meeting in Lahore to formulate a strategy for capturing Kashmir. In addition to Khurshid Anwar, the meeting was attended by Punjab politicians Mian Iftikharuddin and Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, Colonel Akbar Khan, Major General Zaman Kiani. A three-pronged approach was decided at the meeting, for Akbar Khan to organise the rebellion inside Kashmir, General Kiani to organise an invasion from the south using former Indian National Army personnel, and for Anwar to organise an invasion via Muzaffarabad using activists from Pakistan.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
According to Shaukat Hayat Khan, no decision was made at the 12 September meeting to involve Pashtun tribes. He claims that he had explicitly ordered Anwar not to involve them, and that Anwar had 'disobeyed' by recruiting the Mahsud tribesmen of Waziristan.Template:Sfn There were other meetings however, Around 20 September, Kashmir's Muslim Conference leaders were summoned to a meeting in Lahore, where Shaukat Hayat Khan was present along with the premier of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Abdul Qayyum Khan.[5] Anwar's allies in the NWFP for the organisation of the tribal invasion were Abdul Qayyum Khan, the Pir of Wana and the Pir of Manki Sharif. Both the Pirs had wanted to launch a jihad against Kashmir to free their Muslim brethren from Hindu rule.Template:Sfn
According to Shaukat Hayat Khan, they had fixed a 'D-day' in September, but discovered that Anwar had married a Muslim League worker in Peshawar and disappeared on a honeymoon.Template:Sfn His wife, Begum Mumtaz Jamal[6] was said to be a Kashmiri Pathan: her father was a Kashmiri while her mother was a Swati.Template:Sfn
Anwar himself has given other 'D-days': 15 October in one instance,[7] and 21 October in another.[8] Eventually, the invasion did take place on 22 October.
With the help of the NWFP Chief Minister Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, the divisional commissioner Khawaja Abdur Rahim of Rawalpindi and the political agents of the tribal agencies, Anwar mobilised Afridis from the Khyber Agency and Mehsuds from the Waziristan Agency.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn They were further joined by Wazirs, Daurs, Bhittanis, Khattaks, Turis, Swatis and men of Dir.Template:Sfn Trucks belonging to the paramilitary Frontier Corps were used to transport them to the Kashmir border.Template:Sfn
On 22 October 1947, Anwar entered Kashmir near Muzaffarabad heading a lashkar of 4,000 tribesmen.Template:Sfn They quickly secured Muzaffarabad, took Uri and proceeded to Baramulla. At each location, they stopped to plunder the local population, especially the Hindus and Sikhs. It was part of their arrangement with Anwar; "they had no other remuneration," according to Colonel Akbar Khan.Template:Sfn When they reached Baramulla, a rich provincial capital, their desire for loot was overwhelming, and they stopped listening to Anwar's orders. Anwar and some of the tribal elders grew deeply ashamed of what was done in Baramulla.Template:Sfn
The tribal lashkar stopped in Baramulla for two days, during which the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir negotiated his accession to India and India air-lifted troops to Srinagar. According to some accounts, Anwar asked for an undertaking from the tribal leaders to abstain from looting, respect government property and protect treasuries. The tribesmen are said to have refused. Scholar Andrew Whitehead states that Anwar appears to have summoned political and religious leaders of the tribesmen to instil discipline in them. The Pir of Manki Sharif himself was among them.Template:Sfn
On 29 October, Governor George Cunningham of NWFP claims to have convinced Mohammad Ali Jinnah of providing better support to the tribal lashkar. Consequently, the government decided to maintain a contingent of 5,000 tribesmen in Kashmir, provide their rations and ammunition, and establish a directing committee of five officials in Abbottabad to control recruitment and supplies. A battalion of troops was also sent to maintain order among tribesmen.Template:Sfn
After the tribesmen advanced again, about 1,000 of them reached Budgam by 3 November, which was within five miles of the Srinagar airfield. Here they were engaged by Indian troops. According Brigadier L. P. Sen of the Indian Army, the tribesmen failed to press home their advantage in reaching the airfield. Anwar states that he reached within one mile of the airfield along with twenty men, but lacked the strength to press forward.Template:Sfn Around 6 November, Srinagar was exposed to its closest encounter with war as the city "reverberated to the sound of machine-gun and mortar firing". Three hundred tribesmen faced a roadblock of the Indian Army 4.5 km west of the city, and engaged in a pitched battle in the early hours of the morning. By dawn, they were repulsed.Template:Sfn The tribesmen then gathered at Shalateng, northwest of Srinagar. The Indians deployed newly arrived armoured cars and air support. The tribesmen were routed, with heavy casualties, and dispersed. The Indians pursued them and recaptured Pattan, Baramulla and Uri within the next few days.Template:Sfn
Around 10 November, Anwar was injured in leg by a bomb splinter and was evacuated to Abbottabad. Colonel Akbar Khan took over the command of the tribal lashkar.Template:Sfn
Pakistan Football Federation
Anwar served as president of the Pakistan Football Federation between 1948 and 1949.[9]
References
- ↑ An American Witness To India's Partition. SAGE Publishing India(2007).
- ↑ Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War{{#if:Schofield|, Schofield}. Bloomsbury Academic(1996). ISBN 978-1-86064-036-0
- ↑ Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990{{#if:Lamb|, Lamb}. Roxford Books(1991). ISBN 978-0-907129-05-9
- ↑ SHATTERED LANDS Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia{{#if:Dalrymple|, Dalrymple}. HarperCollins(2025). ISBN 978-93-6989-485-7
- ↑ The Herald, Volume 25. Pakistan Herald Publications.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedHasan - ↑ Template:Harvnb: "In early October Khurshid Anwar came to Pindi and asked Syed Nazir Hussain Shah for four or five guides on the 12th of October to guide his five hundred men to the airfield in Srinagar. He claims that the original plan was to attack Muzaffarabad on the 15th of October."
- ↑ Template:Harvnb: "Khurshid Anwar, the man who can best be described as the military commander of the invasion of the Kashmir Valley, said that D-day had been fixed for Tuesday, 21 October, but had to be delayed until the following morning."
- ↑ Pakistan Football Federation.
Bibliography
- [{{{url}}} The Pakistan Army Till 1965]. Strategicus and Tactitus.
- Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan. Nation Books(2015).
- Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge(2002).
- Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir. Melville House.
- The Origins of a Dispute: Kashmir 1947. Oxford University Press.
- Incomplete Partition: The Genesis of the Kashmir Dispute, 1947-1948. Oxford University Press.
- [{{{url}}} Kashmir – Today, Tomorrow?].
- Kashmir in Conflict. I. B. Taurus & Co.
- [{{{url}}} The First Kashmir War Revisited](May 2008).
- India's Partition: The Story of Imperialism in Retreat. Routledge(2004).
- [{{{url}}} Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, Volume 2]. National Institute Kashmir Studies.
- Freedom's Cry: The Popular Dimension in the Pakistan Movement and Partition Experience in North-West India. Oxford University Press.
- A Mission in Kashmir. Penguin.