Gulab Singh, the founder of the Dogra rule in Kashmir, deprived the Muslims of all proprietary rights of lands declaring that since he had purchased the country he was its sole owner and agriculturists; tillers and zamindars were only tenants-at-will.

Muslim peasants, 80 per cent of Kashmir’s population, had been dispossessed of their land and converted into beasts of burden, requisitioned, as they were in hordes, for forced unpaid labour. Education and employment were denied to them.

The forced labour broke the back of Muslim peasantry in Kashmir as non-Muslims were exempted from forced labour. Muslim cultivators working on the lands of Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and Dharmarth department were also exempted, not to forget the elites.

The powerless peasants were seized for begar when they used to be busy with their farming operations.

Although not all Kashmiri Pandits were by any means wealthy landowners, not the only members of the landed elite, large landholdings were certainly common among them (Mridu Rai, Hindu Rulers Muslims Subjects, p. 283). 5% population owned at least 30% of the land.

The chakdari system became an important mechanism for the Kashmiri Pandit community to acquire control over extensive land.

- Mridu Rai, Hindu Rulers Muslim Subjects, p. 157-158.

How Kashmiri Pandits acquired some of the richest lands.

Chakdari system was introduced by the Kashmiri Pandits to steal Muslim lands. One Kashmiri Pandit, Dewan Amar Nath had possession of 5,047 acres of land which he had no night to.

- Language of Belonging, Chitralekha Zutshi

Dogras imposed a tax (Shitra Shahi) on Kashmiri Muslims to build temples. Preaching Islam was banned and converting to Islam meant losing right to property.

The peasantry survived unspeakable crimes which would need a whole book to put down but this is exactly what helped Sheikh rise to power. His Quit Kashmir Movement drew its main strength from the oppressed peasantry which was promised self-rule along with land-to-the-tiller.

The peasants rallied behind his program of Naya Kashmir. The land reforms provided the initial thrust to modernization in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Abolition of feudal institutions (Jagirdars, maufis, and mukkararies) marked the first phase (April 1948).

As a result of this enactment, 396 Jagirdars and 2347 Mukarraridars who used to pocket about Rs. 556313 and Rs. 177921 land revenue annually respectively, disappeared from the rural scene. It relieved peasant from the crushing burden of payment in kind and released 4250 acres.

Moreover the jurisdictional jagirs of the state were also liquidated and population of about 2.5 lakh was freed from subjection and medieval autocracy. In the Second phase (Oct. 1948) tenants-at-will were granted fixed tenure over holdings.

These holdings were not to exceed 2.5 acres (17 kanals) of wet land and 4.5 acres (33 kanals) of dry land in the Kashmir valley. The tenancy reforms are estimated to have benefited three-fifths of the peasants cultivating 700,000 acres of land out of an area of 2.2 million acres.

The third phase of reforms -the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act (1950) abolished absentee landlordism completely. A ceiling of 22.5 acres was imposed on land-ownership and surplus land was transferred to the tillers, without any compensation.

As a result of the enactment of the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act 1950, 9000 odd proprietors were expropriated from 4.5 lakh acres of land out of which about 2.3 lakh acres were transferred to the tillers in ownership rights and the remaining land vested in the state.’

By 1961 about 8 lakh acres of land were transferred to tillers. Moreover, about 70,900 landless peasants, mostly Muslims, in the valley but including 25000 lower-caste Hindus in Jammu region, became peasant-proprietors.

The state Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1972 inaugurated the fourth phase of the reforms. As a result, the land ceiling was reduced from 22 acres to 12 standard acres, and lots of land was further released and transferred to numerous tillers.

However, despite these progressive provision some defects remained which came to the surface with its implementation. The position relating to orchards was quite complicated. The categorisation of orchards into ‘new orchards’ and ‘old orchards’ created a complicated situation.

Finally, the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms (Amendment) Act came into force on 13th July 1978. One among the most important amendments in the Act was that the orchards were exempted from the ceiling laws.

According to the Provincial estimates of Agricultural Census 1970-71, 29% of the peasants were expected to benefit & about 4000 acres of land were to become surplus for the allotment to landless and tillers and about 5 lakh acres of land were expected to acquire ownership rights.

The rights of ex-owners were extinguished for over 3,49,794 acres of land affecting 5,01,557 ex-owners and 5,33,222 persons were declared prospective owners.

This was a long & hard battle fought & won by the peasants, the base of these reforms was laid by Wingate & Lawrence after hearing out the people but not all of their recommendations were agreed to by the Dogra state. It was one of the main reasons why Sheikh was so famous.