By Umair Khurshid
On May 1st, workers across the globe commemorate International Labour Day, marking the long history of struggle for fair wages, humane working conditions, and the dignity of labor. While Chicago’s Haymarket martyrs (1886) are often cited as its symbolic origin, the true genealogy of worker resistance is global, diverse, and often forgotten.
One such moment, largely erased from the mainstream annals of labor history, occurred in Srinagar on 29 April 1865, just two days before what we now mark as May Day. Thousands of Kashmiri shawl weavers, exhausted by decades of extortion, staged a peaceful but defiant protest against the Dogra monarchy’s oppressive taxation system. At least 28 were killed. Leaders were tortured and imprisoned. Yet, their uprising marked one of the first large-scale industrial labor strike, a full 21 years before the labor uprising in the US that would eventually inspire the international labor movement.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Kashmiri shawls, made from the ultra-fine underwool (pashm) of Changthangi goats, were among the most coveted luxury goods in the world. Fashionable across France, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Britain, these garments symbolized elegance and refinement. Yet their beauty belied the conditions of their production.
Under the Dogra regime established after the Treaty of Amritsar in 1846, through which Gulab Singh acquired Kashmir for 7.5 million rupees from the British East India Company, Kashmir’s economy was structured to serve the interests of the state and its colonial patrons. Article 10 of the treaty stipulated an annual tribute: one horse, twelve pashmina goats (six male and six female), and three pairs of Kashmiri shawls to be delivered to the British Crown. The shawl industry was among the most lucrative sectors, and was consequently subjected to intense fiscal scrutiny and regulation.
The Dogra administration imposed a complex system of taxes and permits on the shawl trade. Artisans, including weavers, dyers, and spinners, were compelled to work under a monopolistic system governed by the Dagh Shawl Department, which extracted revenue at every stage of production. A weaver earning 7 or 8 rupees could lose 5 rupees to taxation and forced levies, effectively reducing him to near-destitution. Children began working at ages as young as five, while girls entered the workforce by ten. The weavers could not migrate, switch employers, or even leave the valley without permission. The New York Times described the working conditions as “dens of squalid misery”. Oral histories and popular accounts allege even more grotesque forms of coercion: some weavers reportedly had their thumbs severed by Dogra and British enforcers to sabotage their ability to weave—a punishment for resistance or defective work.
These exploitative structures were further exacerbated by the industrialization of textiles in Europe. By the mid-19th century, Jacquard looms in Paisley, Scotland, were mass-producing shawl imitations, thereby flooding the global market with cheaper alternatives and precipitating a steep decline in demand for Kashmiri handwoven shawls. Eventually, Maharaja also imported Jacquard looms to counter the competition.
There were other efforts as well to circumvent the Kashmiri monopoly. William Moorcroft, an East India Company explorer, attempted to export Changthangi goats to England. In a comical-but-tragic twist, the male and female goats were placed on separate ships, an administrative oversight worthy of satire. Though they adjusted comfortably to the British climate, they couldn’t produce the fine under-down required for authentic pashmina wool.
French textile magnates had slightly more success. Industrialists like William-Louis Ternaux and Jean-Baptiste Decrétot imported 150 pashmina goats, producing a celebrated class of shawls known as cachemires or “Ternaux.” Yet even there, most goats perished due to the radical shift in climate and environment, once again demonstrating the irreplicability of Kashmir’s geography and labor ecology.
While efforts to herd goats in Europe failed, the influx of cheap European imitations did succeed in undermining global demand for authentic Kashmiri shawls. In response, the Dogra monarchy, already burdened by the need to recoup the costs of purchasing the territory, intensified its taxation of the shawl industry, a move that met with resistance from weavers. The first notable labor protest in Kashmir occurred on 6 June 1847, when approximately 4,000 shawl weavers marched through Srinagar to demand relief from unbearable working conditions and oppressive taxation. Although the protest was ultimately suppressed, it marked the emergence of organized working-class resistance in the Valley.
The more significant and violent uprising followed eighteen years later, on 29 April 1865. This resistance is remembered in Kashmiri oral traditions as the Shelbaf Tehreek — a testament to the weavers’ defiance. What sparked the unrest was the conduct of Raj Kak Dhar, head of the Dagh Shawl Department. He had secured the contract from the Dogra administration to collect taxes amounting to Rs 2 million annually and reportedly extorted nearly all of the artisans’ earnings through punitive levies.
Thousands of weavers congregated in Zaldagar, a historically working-class neighborhood of Srinagar, to protest their treatment. The Dogra regime responded with brutal force. Troops opened fire and herded fleeing protesters into the Keta Kol, a canal flowing from the Jhelum River. At least 28 bodies were recovered.
Leaders of the movement, including Ubli Baba, Sheikh Rasool, Qudda Lala, and Sona Bhat, were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. Two died in custody; the others were exiled to Bahu Fort in Jammu. The Maharaja, initially unmoved, months later ordered a partial remission of taxes, which were reimposed after the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) wiped out a significant portion, about 80 per cent, of Kashmir’s European export market in a single stroke.
The Great Depression and the long economic stagnation following World War I further destabilized the already fragile shawl and silk industries. By the early 20th century, the laboring classes of Kashmir, no longer confined to shawl weaving, began organizing themselves across sectors.
In 1924, workers at the Silk Factory, who were paid a mere 4.5 annas per day, launched a large-scale protest against their conditions. The demonstration, which included women and children, resulted in temporary army control over Srinagar. While the workers succeeded in achieving a small wage increase, the larger outcome was a growing awareness of the potential for organized resistance.
By the mid-1930s, various sectoral unions, comprising carpet weavers, tonga drivers, motor operators, and boatmen, coalesced under a single umbrella: the Mazdoor Sabha (Workers’ Assembly), formed in 1937. Its leadership included G.M. Sadiq as President and Prem Nath Bazaz as Secretary.
On 4 October 1937, the Mazdoor Sabha orchestrated what became a historic demonstration: a joint procession of laborers and peasants, numbering between 5,000 to 7,000, including 3,000 Silk Factory workers. What distinguished this event was not only its scale but its symbolic innovation: for the first time in Kashmir’s history, red flags were displayed publicly.
Slogans carried by the protesters addressed fundamental socioeconomic inequalities:
- We will change the order of society which does not recognize the laborers as human beings.
- We want bread.
- One earns 17,000 a day while a laborer gets one paisa.
This demonstration catalyzed a cultural and political shift. The communist iconography, especially the red flag, was adopted by Kashmiri trade unions as a permanent symbol.
The 29 April 1865 strike deserves remembrance not just for its bloodshed, but for what it represents: one of the earliest clear assertions of working-class resistance against structured economic violence. It preceded the Haymarket Affair and the Wisconsin labor movements, uniting artistry and agony, global trade, and local hunger.
