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| Jammu & Kashmir Accession -Nehru bungled, complicated issue | | | Hari Om | 10/26/2014 10:35:22 PM |
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The story of crisis in J&K and
exploitation and blackmail of
Delhi commenced when on October 26, 1947, Mehar Chand Mahajan, then Prime Minister of J&K, went to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other central leaders to discuss the situation arising out of the Pakistani aggression in the state and negotiate the State's accession with the Indian Dominion. Accompanying him was VP Menon whom the Defence Committee, presided over by Lord Mountbatten, nominated Governor-General of Independent India, had sent to Srinagar to study the situation on-the-spot and report to the Government of India. Mahajan carried with him the Instrument of Accession document which was duly signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, who alone had the authority to take final decision on the political future of his Princely State in terms of the constitutional law on the subject (read Indian Independence Act of 1947 under which Muslim Pakistan also came into being). In the course of the confabulations held between the two Prime Ministers, tempers ran very high. The question under discussion was the Hari Singh's request for an immediate military support to defend the "all out invasion of Kashmir" started on October 22, 1947. The Pakistani aggression was, it must be noted, aimed at grabbing J&K or seeking its forced accession to the Pakistan Dominion on the ground that it was a Muslim-majority State.
Mahajan forcefully and vigorously pleaded with Nehru that the Indian military help must be immediately sent to the Valley, for Kashmir was in imminent danger of falling a victim to Pakistan's evil design. To the "forceful" pleadings Nehru "unrealistically retorted: "India was strong enough to retake it". This casual reply obviously, disappointed and dismayed Mahajan.
It may sound strange but it is a hard fact that Nehru did not pay any heed to the Hari Singh's request. Rather he dismissed it with a shake of head. His reasoning: This might not be logistically possible and seemed to be dependent on the advice of the British Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as it did happen in Hyderabad operations later. A contemporary commentator said: "Nehru's hesitancy was typical of the one he displayed at the time of such operations: still later when Goa action took place: to do or not to do split his mind".
Nehru's attitude compelled Mahajan to say that "in the event of the request being not conceded, he had the Maharaja's instructions to go to Lahore and negotiate with Mohammad Ali Jinnah", the Pakistan Governor-General, and Liaquat Ali Khan, the Premier. It was a pressure tactic. Mahajan's remarks provoked Nehru. He, in anger, retorted: "Mahajan, you may go". Under those tense moments, Mahajan had no other option but to part company with Nehru abandoning discussion on the issue. When he was about to leave the Nehru's room, Sardar Patel, Home Minister, intervened and said: "Mahajan, you are not going to Pakistan". Just at that critical moment, a servant entered Nehru's room bringing with him a small slip from the adjoining room where Kashmir-based National Conference president and rabidly anti-India, anti-Jammu and anti-Ladakh Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was camping. A soon as Nehru read that slip, his already red face "lit up". Overwhelmed and relaxed, Nehru reflected: "Oh, Sheikh Sahib says the same thing". The slip played the magic and question which a few minutes before had generated intense heat got solved. Without further debate and argument, Nehru accepted the offer of accession and agreed to help the State against Pakistan's unprovoked and illegal war. Thereafter, the things moved fast and the very next morning the airlift commenced. It is intriguing that Nehru made the Sheikh a party when the latter had no locus standi in the matter.
Here it is pertinent to mention that the partition plan according to which the Muslim-dominated areas of British India were to be detached to constitute Muslim Pakistan did not include 560-odd princely states, including J&K. As for the Princely States, after the lapse of paramountcy, the princes had the power the join any of the two Dominions -- India or Pakistan -- taking into consideration geographical contiguity.
Yet another equally important and relevant point to be considered is that the Instrument of Accession document Mahajan carried to Delhi was similar to the one signed by other rulers of Princely India. The moment the Government of India accepted the accession as per the provisions specified, J&K became an integral part of India. Accession under this instrument was full, final, unconditional, irrevocable and non-negotiable.
Still another aspect of the accession story that needs to be highlighted is the Nehru's different approach towards J&K. When the question of accession of Princely States arose, Nehru was "petrified" that Sardar Patel should handle his "beloved Kashmir" in the same way in which he handled all other Princely States. Nehru did not allow Sardar Patel to handle J&K. In fact, he attached J&K with the Foreign Ministry he himself held as if the State was an alien country. Had Sardar Patel handled the J&K issue, he would surely have adopted an objective, national and rational approach and solved the so-called problem in India's favour in 1947 itself. In fact, on March 8, 1948, Sardar Patel told Balraj Madhok, former Jan Sangh president, that he would "set things right in Kashmir in one month if he was asked to tackle it. But he would not interfere so long as the issue remained in Nehru's charge".
Why did the Sheikh favour J&K's accession to India? This is a riddle which catches everybody's imagination. Fortunately, however, one can solve this riddle by going through the November 1947 interview the Sheikh gave to Ian Stephens of The statesman. On the lawns of the Nedou's Hotel Srinagar, the Sheikh told Ian Stephens that "if they (Pakistani regulars and irregulars) had to attack, Mr Stephens, why in Heaven's sake couldn't they go to Poonch (Jammu) to help the People (read Muslims) there against the autocrat (Hari Singh)? Why must they rush towards Srinagar, looting and burning? Ian Stephens explains: "As a Kashmiri with ancestral recollections of the previous incursions up the same route, he had felt personally outraged". More than that, Sheikh Abdullah had the "mortal fear of elimination at the hands of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan". Of the Sheikh, Jinnah had contemptuously observed: "Oh, that tall man who sings the Kuran (Quran) and exploits the people" (read Kashmiri speaking ethnic Sunnis). Liaquat Ali Khan, on the other hand, called the Sheikh quisling. "This quisling, an agent of the Congress for many years, who struts about the stage bartering the life, honour and freedom of the people for the sake of personal power and profit".
Sheikh Abdullah achieved both profit and power through Nehru's generous support. The former camouflaged his real motive. His real motive was nothing but independence from India. This became crystal clear on October 27, 1947, when he in unequivocal terms declared at Srinagar that "we have picked up the crown of Kashmir from dust" and "the question of joining India or Pakistan can wait. We have to complete our independence first".
The truth, in short, is that Nehru, who hated Maharaja Hari Singh a nationalist of nationalists and had flirted with the Sheikh for years, complicated the simple issue of accession. So much so, he made many highly unsettling statements in Srinagar itself after the accession of the State with India had taken place, which emboldened the votaries of the pernicious two-nation theory to exploit them and arose sectarian passions in the Valley by consistently saying that the Accession was conditional. The nation has been paying through its nose for the follies Nehru committed to keep the seditious Sheikh in good humour and harass Maharaja Hari Singh. Credit goes to the people of Jammu and Ladakh and nationalist constituency in the Valley who made supreme sacrifices from time to time to scuttle the anti-India moves and strengthen the Indian position in the sensitive border state. That even the biased United Nations Security Council resolutions, especially the one adopted on August 13, 1948, acknowledged that the Indian stand on J&K was correct. The August 13 resolution asks Pakistan to vacate the aggression and requires India to maintain law and order in the illegally-occupied-areas to be vacated by the aggressor Pakistan.
In any case, we have a government in place at the centre, which, unlike the successive Congress governments in Delhi, completely trashes the Nehruvian approach to J&K and approves the Sardar Patel line as far as the institution of the Indian State is concerned. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proved during his very short stint in office that he means business.
Courtesy: www.niticentral.com |
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