'The Middle Eastern question or some political problems of Indian defence' [‎219v] (443/616)

352 the north-east frontier of india
is that which passes through Ladakh. Its history
furnishes an excellent illustration of the ruinous vicissi
tudes through which so many native states passed until
the final establishment of Pax Britannica in India. It
was once a centre of Buddhism, which prevailed up
to the fifth century of our era. Under Hindu rulers
of Rajput origin, from whom the present Maharajah
claims descent, it was subjected to constant invasions
by Tartar and Mongol hordes. Mahmud of Ghazni in
the eleventh, and Shams-ud-Din in the fourteenth,
century imported into it the conquering standards of
Islam, and in 1586 it was finally incorporated by Akbar
with the Mogul Empire of Delhi. In 1752 it was
wrested from his degenerate descendants by Ahmed
Shah Abdali, of Afghanistan, and for sixty-nine years
was held by Afghan rulers more or less independent
of Kabul, until it was in turn wrested from them by
Ranjit Singh and his Sikhs. It then remained subject
to the lieutenants of the Sikh Government at Lahore
until after the battle of Sobraon, when Gulab Singh,
having negotiated the terms of the Sikh surrender,
obtained from the Indian Government his own recogni
tion as Maharajah of Kashmir and Jammu. He lived
just long enough to give substantial proofs of his
loyalty upon the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857, and
both his son and his grandson, the present occupant
of the Gaddi, have followed worthily in his footsteps.
To-day Kashmir is not only one of the natural bul
warks of our Indian Empire, but it contributes a very
important contingent to the Imperial Service Troops
placed at the disposal of the Government of India by
the native chiefs of India. The Kashmir contingent
consists of four regiments of infantry and two mountain
batteries—the latter a unique distinction, as no other