The controversy that erupted in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly over the holiday marking Maharaja Hari Singh’s birth anniversary is not really about a day off. It is about history, identity and the competing political memories of Jammu and the Kashmir Valley.
On September 22, 2026, a National Conference MLA demanded restoration of public holidays on the birth and death anniversaries of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, December 5 and September 8 respectively. He went further: if these holidays could not be restored, he demanded that the public holiday marking Maharaja Hari Singh’s birth anniversary on September 23 should also be withdrawn. PDP legislators supported the demand and also called for restoration of the July 13 Martyrs’ Day holiday. The demand triggered protests from BJP legislators and eventually a walkout.
The present holiday calendar tells its own story. The J&K administration removed July 13 and December 5 from the list of public holidays in 2020. September 23, Maharaja Hari Singh’s birthday, was later added and remains an official holiday in 2026. October 26, Accession Day, is also an official holiday.
There is nothing inherently wrong with commemorating Sheikh Abdullah. Nor is there anything unusual about Jammu wanting the legacy of Maharaja Hari Singh officially recognised. The problem begins when recognition of one historical memory is presented as requiring the erasure of another. That is precisely what makes the present controversy significant.
For Jammu, Maharaja Hari Singh is not merely the last Dogra ruler. He represents a historical legacy deeply associated with the Dogra state, its institutions and Jammu’s place in the history of the erstwhile state. His decision to accede to India in October 1947 is also central to Jammu’s political narrative, despite an agenda-driven campaign to malign his life by a section of historians.
For large sections of the Valley, Sheikh Abdullah occupies a comparable place in the political imagination. He led the movement against the Maharaja, became the most influential Kashmiri Muslim political leader of his generation and remained a dominant figure in J&K politics for decades. His supporters naturally regard his contribution as deserving official recognition.
The question, therefore, is not whether either memory should exist. Both already exist. The question is whether the state should turn them into competing claims.
July 13: one event, two historical narratives
The argument over July 13 is even more complicated. The date commemorates the 22 people who were killed on July 13, 1931. The conventional Kashmir narrative regards them as martyrs of the political struggle against Dogra rule. The day was officially observed as Martyrs’ Day for decades and remained a public holiday until it was removed from the calendar in 2020. There is, however, another account of the events, based on the inquiry under Chief Justice Barjor Dalal. That version should be remembered if July 13 is invoked as historical truth rather than political symbolism.
According to the Commission’s alternative account, the gathering outside Srinagar Central Jail, where a foreign national was being tried for subversion, became an unlawful and violent assembly, with attempts to force entry into the jail and disturbances extending into parts of the city where shops of Kashmiri Pandits were looted in Maharajganj and Vicharinag. The deaths occurred in the course of the authorities’ effort to disperse the crowd. That is precisely why July 13 should be approached historically rather than ceremonially.
Competing accounts of what happened exist, and the political meaning attached to the day differs sharply between communities and regions. Presenting only one narrative as uncontested history does little to promote reconciliation. The same principle should apply to every historical personality, including Sheikh Abdullah.
Sheikh Abdullah and the idea of an independent Kashmir
Another episode in Sheikh Abdullah’s political career should not be forgotten whenever his historical legacy is invoked. In September 1948, Sheikh Abdullah gave an interview to foreign correspondents in which he spoke explicitly of the possibility of an independent Kashmir. As reported from the interview, the idea was that neither accession to India nor accession to Pakistan necessarily offered a satisfactory solution, and that an independent Kashmir, guaranteed by India, Pakistan, and other international powers, could provide an alternative. The interview caused considerable concern within the Indian leadership and became an important episode in subsequent assessments of Abdullah’s political thinking.
This does not erase his contribution to Kashmir’s political history. But his political record should not be sanitised when his legacy is invoked in the Assembly. History should be allowed to remain complicated.
Jammu and Kashmir are not politically identical
And that is where the holiday controversy takes us to a much larger issue. Jammu and the Kashmir Valley are geographically contiguous but have never been politically or historically identical. Their experiences of the Dogra period were different. Their responses to the events of 1947 were different. Their political movements developed differently. Their heroes are different. Their collective memories are often contradictory.
Even today, their economic concerns, developmental priorities and political aspirations are not always the same. Recurring disputes over representation, recruitment, development, political power, and now even public holidays are symptoms of that underlying regional divergence.
The problem is not that Jammu and Kashmir possess different historical memories. The problem is that the political system still treats those differences as though they can be resolved through a single, centralised narrative. Delhi needs to recognise this reality.
The answer, however, is not to remove Sheikh Abdullah from history in Jammu, any more than it is to erase Maharaja Hari Singh from the historical memory of Kashmir. Nor should July 13 or September 23 become annual occasions for reopening old political battles. A mature political arrangement should have enough room for multiple histories to coexist.
The holiday calendar could easily accommodate this principle. No constitutional necessity requires commemorating one historical personality at the expense of another. If a section of society attaches significance to Sheikh Abdullah’s birth anniversary, that sentiment can be acknowledged. If Jammu attaches significance to Maharaja Hari Singh’s birthday, that too can be acknowledged. If July 13 remains historically important to sections of the Valley, its history can be studied and debated without necessarily imposing one interpretation of the events upon everyone.
The larger issue is therefore not the number of holidays. It is the absence of a political framework sufficiently sensitive to the distinct regional identities within the Union Territory.
For decades, Jammu has complained that its political voice has been subordinated to a Kashmir-centric political structure. Kashmir, in turn, has its own historical grievances and political narratives. Treating these two regions as if they possess identical aspirations has not eliminated the differences. It has often intensified them.
The present controversy is therefore a warning. When a public holiday becomes a battlefield between Maharaja Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah, it shows the underlying contest is not about calendars. It is about competing conceptions of history and identity. Delhi would do well to recognise that reality rather than attempting to manage it through administrative decisions about which names appear on an annual holiday notification.
Jammu and Kashmir need not have one historical memory. They can have many. Maharaja Hari Singh can remain an important figure for Jammu; Sheikh Abdullah can remain an important figure for Kashmir; July 13 can remain a deeply significant and contested episode in the history of the Valley; and the accession of October 1947 can remain a foundational event in India’s history. A modern political system’s task is not to decide which community’s memory should prevail. It is to create enough political space for different memories, identities and aspirations to coexist.
The recurring holiday controversy demonstrates that Jammu and the Kashmir Valley are not merely two geographical divisions of one administrative unit. They are two regions with distinct historical experiences, political priorities and developmental aspirations. The longer this reality is ignored, the more every symbolic dispute will become a proxy for the larger unresolved question: how should these two very different regions be governed politically so that neither feels compelled to fight for recognition of its own history?
That is the question Delhi needs to confront. The calendar is merely where the argument has surfaced this year. Separating the two and creating two distinct political entities within Bharat’s constitutional framework is the way forward; otherwise, precious hours will keep being wasted fighting such issues inside the assembly hall or protesting at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
(The author is a military historian and the chairman of the JSPM)
