"Head of emergency administration -Sheikh Mohammed"

Hari Singh appealed to Lord Mountbatten of Burma the Governor-General of India for Indian military aid. In his Accession Offer dated October 26, 1947 which accompanied The Instrument of Accession duly signed by him, the Maharaja Hari Singh wrote "I may also inform your Excellency's Government that it is my intention at once to set up an interim Government and ask Shaikh Abdullah to carry the responsibilities in this emergency with my Prime Minister."
 Also in his letter to the Maharaja Lord Mountbatten wrote "My Government and I note with satisfaction that your Highness has decided to invite Sheikh Abdullah to form an Interim Government to work with your Prime Minister. The support of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru the Prime Minister of India was a key factor in getting Sheikh Abdullah appointed as Head of the emergency administration by the Maharaja.

As a consequence, Sheikh Abdullah was appointed head of an emergency administration by an order issued by the Maharaja which was undated except for the mention October 1947 in place of the date. He took charge as Head of the Emergency Administration on 30 October 1947.After assuming the charge of the Head of the emergency administration, he addressing his first meeting with the government officers said "Pakistan is not our enemy and we have the same respect for Mr Jinnah that we had previously. We want the Kashmir issue to be settled by Dialog and if for this purpose I have to go to Karachi to meet Mr Jinnah I am willing to go there".^[
He raised a force of local Kashmiri volunteers to patrol Srinagar and take control of administration after the flight of the Maharaja along with his family and Prime Minister Meher Chand Mahajan to Jammu even before the Indian troops had landed. This group of volunteers would serve as the nucleus for the subsequent formation of Jammu and Kashmir Militia.This Sheikh Abdullah hoped would take over the defence of Kashmir after the Indian army was withdrawn.  Sheikh Abdullah has alleged that most of the Muslim soldiers of the Militia were either discharged or imprisoned before his arrest in 1953.The Militia (dubbed as Dagan Brigade) was converted from a State Militia to a regular unit of the Indian Army on 2 December 1972 and re designated the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry)

Sheikh Abdullah as Prime Minister signing the bill abolishing feudalism in November 1950. Abolition of the feudal system was a great achievement of Sheikh Abdullah

Rise of Lion - Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah - Muslim Conference formed

Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues were greatly influenced by the lectures of a Kashmiri  lawyer Molvi Abdullah.

Kashmirs first Political Party the Muslim Conference with Sheikh Abdullah as President,  was formed on 16 October 1932. In his presidential address Sheikh Abdullah categorically stated that the Muslim Conference had come intoexistence to struggle for the rights of all oppressed sections of the society and not Muslims alone. It was not a communal party and would struggle for the rights of the oppressed, whether Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh, with the same inerest. He reasserted that the struggle of Kashmiris was not a communal struggle.

In March 1933 the Muslim Conference constituted a committee which included Molvi Abdullah and nine other members for the purpose of establishing contacts with non Muslim parties and exploring the possibility of forming a joint organisation. This effort was not successful because of the unfavourable reception of the idea by the non Muslim parties.

"Controversial Article -370"

This article specifies that except for Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Communications,(matters specified in the instrument of accession) the Indian Parliament needs the State Government's concurrence for applying all other laws. Thus the state's residents lived under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights, as compared to Indians.

Similar protections for unique status exist in tribal areas of India including those in Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland however it is only for the state of Jammu and Kashmir that the accession of the state to India is still a matter of dispute between India and Pakistan still on the agenda of the UN Security Council and where the Government of India vide 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord committed itself to keeping the relationship between the Union and Jammu and Kashmir State within the ambit of this article .

The 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord mentions that " The State of Jammu and Kashmir which is a constituent unit of the Union of India, shall, in its relation with the Union, continue to be governed by Article 370 of the Constitution of India " .

Indian citizens from other states and Kashmiri women who marry men from other states can not purchase land or property in Jammu & Kashmir.

"Post 1948"- Chinese Accession & Aritcle 370 formed

The eastern region of the erstwhile princely state of Kashmir has also been beset with a boundary dispute. In the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, although some boundary agreements were signed between Great Britain, Afghanistan and Russia over the northern borders of Kashmir, China never accepted these agreements, and the official Chinese position did not change with the communist takeover in 1949. By the mid-1950s the Chinese army had entered the north-east portion of Ladakh.

"By 1956–57 they had completed a military road through the Aksai Chin area to provide better communication between Xinjiang and western Tibet. India's belated discovery of this road led to border clashes between the two countries that culminated in the Sino-Indian war of October 1962."

China has occupied Aksai Chin since the early 1950s and, in addition, an adjoining region almost 8% of the territory, the Trans-Karakoram Tract was ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963.

Meanwhile, elections were held in Indian Jammu & Kashmir, which brought up the popular Muslim leader Sheikh Abdullah, who with his party National Conference, by and large supported India. The elected Constituent Assembly met for the first time in Srinagar on October 31, 1951. Then The State Constituent Assembly ratified the accession of the State to the Union of India on February 6, 1954 and the President of India subsequently issued the Constitution (Application to J&K) Order under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution extending the Union Constitution to the State with some exceptions and modifications. The State’s own Constitution came into force on January 26, 1957 under which the elections to the State Legislative Assembly were held for the first time on the basis of adult franchise the same year. This Constitution further reiterated the ratification of the State’s accession to Union of India.However, these tidings were not recognized by Pakistan, which has continued to press for a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the people. Pakistan set up its own Kashmir, called Azad Kashmir in a tiny Western chunk that it controls.

Lamha - An untold story of Kashmir: "Partition of India" - Birth of Kashmir Dispute

Lamha - An untold story of Kashmir: "Partition of India" - Birth of Kashmir Dispute: "Ranbir Singh's grandson Hari Singh, who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 . As parties to the pa..."

"Partition of India" - Birth of Kashmir Dispute

Ranbir Singh's grandson Hari Singh, who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 . As parties to the partition process, both countries had agreed that the rulers of princely states would be given the right to opt for either Pakistan or India or—in special cases—to remain independent. Kashmir's population was overall 77 per cent Muslim but with internal areas of non-Muslim majority. It shared a boundary with both India and Pakistan. Pakistan anticipated that the Maharaja would accede to Pakistan, when the British paramountcy ended on 14–15 August. When he hesitated to do this, Pakistan launched a guerrilla infiltration of Pashtun tribals meant to frighten its ruler into submission. Instead the Maharaja appealed to Mountbatten for assistance, and theGovernor-General agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India."Once the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, "Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and drove the Pakistani-sponsored irregulars from all but a small section of the state. The United Nations was then invited to mediate the quarrel. The UN mission insisted that the opinion of Kashmiris must be ascertained, while India insisted that no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared of irregulars."

In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under UN auspices; however, since the plebiscite demanded by the UN was never conducted, relations between India and Pakistan soured.

The UN Security Council on 20 January 1948 passed Resolution 39, establishing a special commission to investigate the conflict. Pursuant to the commission's recommendation, the Security Council ordered in its Resolution 47, passed on 21 April 1948, that the invading Pakistani army retreat from Jammu & Kashmir and that the accession of Kashmir to either India or Pakistan be determined in accordance with a plebiscite to be supervised by the UN. With Pakistan not forgoing its occupation from what it later termed as Azad Kashmir, none of the resolutions of UNSC could come to force.

"Sikh rule and Princely State"

By the early 19th century, the Kashmir valley had passed from the control of the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan, and four centuries of Muslim rule under the Mughals and the Afghans, to the conquering Sikh armies. Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Ranjit Deo, the Raja of Jammu, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) was captured by the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Lahore and afterwards, until 1846, became a tributary to the Sikh power.

J&K  combined disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities: to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Tibetan and its inhabitants practised Buddhism; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; in the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the Kashmiri brahmins orpandits; to the northeast, sparsely populated Baltistan had a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised Shi'aIslam; to the north, also sparsely populated, Gilgit Agency, was an area of diverse, mostly Shi'a groups; and, to the west,Punch was Muslim, but of different ethnicity than the Kashmir valley.