Fall of Raja Sukh Jiwan Mal: the Durrani reconquest of Kashmir

01Eight years of freedom

Abdali took Kashmir in 1752 and his governors ruled it harshly. Sukh Jiwan Mal, who had risen in the Afghan service, became chief adviser to the governor Abdullah Khan Kabuli. Urged by the Kashmiri noble Abul Hasan Bandey, he had Kabuli killed and took power, receiving the title of Raja from the Mughal emperor. He beat back two Afghan expeditions. When famine struck in 1755 he gave out grain from the state stores, and he gathered poets at his court and had the history of Kashmir written afresh.

02Betrayal

Force had failed, so Abdali worked on the Raja’s friends. Sukh Jiwan fell out with Bandey, and in 1762, the year of Abdali’s sixth invasion, Nur-ud-Din Bamzai led an Afghan army over the passes. Much of the Raja’s army went over to the invaders, and his commander-in-chief Bakht Mal deserted him. Sukh Jiwan was captured, blinded and sent to Abdali at Lahore, where he was put to death. Kashmir stayed under Afghan governors until Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army took it in 1819.