Painting picture courtesy Christie's Auction House Sometimes, a painting begins to ask more questions than it answers. A late eighteenth-century painting, attributed to the Mandi school and catalogued as showing Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra with a courtier, has intrigued me for some time. At first glance, the identification appears straightforward enough. Two men sit opposite each other, smoking hookahs, while attendants stand behind them holding fly-whisks. One figure is dressed in red, the other in white. The scene is informal, almost intimate, and yet unmistakably courtly. But the more I looked at the painting, the less convinced I became that the red-clad figure was Sansar Chand. The reason came from looking at other portraits. Among the surviving paintings associated with the Mandi court are several portraits of Raja Surma Sen, who ruled Mandi from 1781 until his death in 1788. One such portrait shows him seated smoking a hookah, attended by a fly-whisk bearer. Another depicts ...
A lot of loose talk is put out about the cruelty of the Dogra rule in Kashmir valley, especially on the economic front. However, the picture is myopic to say the least, given how the Dogras, post their control of Kashmir valley, actually did several important changes to the Valley economy, leading it towards modernization on par with the rest of the country, and even ahead of it in several areas. While it may be a point of contention that several of these reforms were put forth under the pressure of the Britishers, the progenitors can never be disputed. One such set of considerations pertains to the revival of the Kashmir economy under the Dogra rule, which is often brushed under the carpet. I will just point out three areas of reforms that the Dogras undertook to highlight how their rule was in fact beneficial to the Kashmir valley, and the normal narrative of oppression is not as straightforward as it seems. Controlling Famines At the time of accession, Kashmir was a ...