Maharajas, lands and fruits: Vikramaditya Singh shares glimpse of historic Maharaja farms’ harvest

Ziraat Times Team Report

Srinagar, July 4: Former legislator and scion of the erstwhile Dogra royal family, Vikramaditya Singh, has shared images from the ongoing harvest season at the historic Maharaja Farms in Srinagar, highlighting the estate’s continuing association with agriculture and horticulture.

Posting photographs from the farm on social media, Singh wrote: “Enjoyed a bumper harvest season at Maharaja Farms, Srinagar.”

The sprawling Maharaja Farms, located on the outskirts of Srinagar, are among the agricultural estates historically associated with the Dogra royal family. During the princely era of Jammu and Kashmir, the estate served not merely as a royal agricultural holding but also as a centre for cultivation of high-value crops, orchards and livestock management. The farms supplied produce to royal establishments while also demonstrating improved farming practices suited to the Valley’s agro-climatic conditions.

Historically, the Dogra rulers showed considerable interest in agriculture and horticulture, sectors that formed the backbone of the erstwhile state’s economy.

The modern state of Jammu & Kashmir, established by Maharaja Gulab Singh via the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, saw its agrarian landscape systematically transformed through consecutive royal interests. As documented in Diwan Kirpa Ram’s contemporary Persian manuscript Gulabnama, Gulab Singh’s initial focus was the stabilization of a highly inequitable land revenue system inherited from Sikh and Afghan rule.

His successor, Maharaja Ranbir Singh, shifted from mere consolidation to targeted economic expansion. He introduced scientific sericulture, expanded grapevine cultivation (viticulture), and systematically distributed state land using structural units like Nafre to intensify food production, a phase detailed in Frederic Drew’s The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories (1875).

The institutionalization of these efforts culminated under Maharaja Pratap Singh, who formally established the State Department of Agriculture and Horticulture in 1907. As recorded in Sir Walter Lawrence’s authoritative The Valley of Kashmir (1895), this era introduced the landmark 251-mile Ranbir Canal and modern model farms to propagate high-yielding fruit varieties. Finally, Maharaja Hari Singh advanced these holdings through the Land Alienation Act of 1933 and the introduction of cooperative societies, protecting peasant land ownership and turning Kashmiri horticulture into a structured, export-driven state industry.

Following the political changes of 1947 and the subsequent land reforms of the early 1950s, large tracts of land were transferred under the landmark “land to the tiller” programme to their rightful farming communities of J&K. While much of the estate was redistributed, portions of the Maharaja Farms remained under the family’s ownership and continued to be managed as agricultural and horticultural holdings.

Over the decades, the farms have retained their identity as a working agricultural estate, cultivating seasonal crops and maintaining orchards that reflect Kashmir’s rich farming traditions. The property has also been associated with experimentation in modern farming practices while preserving the Valley’s long-standing horticultural heritage.

Vikramaditya Singh’s post drew attention to the enduring connection between the former royal family and agriculture, with the images depicting the ongoing harvest at one of Kashmir’s historically significant agricultural estates.