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| J&K would have acceded to India before Oct 26 but Nehru… | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Oct 25: The general belief in the country is that Maharaja Hari Singh offered accession of his State only on October 26, 1947. This is not true. The fact of the matter is that he proposed accession immediately after Pakistan broke the standstill agreement and invaded Jammu & Kashmir on October 20.
It would be only prudent to quote verbatim what the then Prime Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Mehr Chand Mahajan, wrote in this context in his autobiography 'Looking Back'.
He wrote: "Pakistan invasion was an unprovoked act of aggression. The Maharaja had not done anything to invite it.
Its objective was to take possession of the state by force. What did India do on the other hand? When we got the news of the raid, we sent our Deputy Prime Minister with a letter from His Highness to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India. I also sent personal letters, asking help on humanitarian grounds to save us from this unprovoked act of aggression. We also sent a letter proposing accession. The British Prime Minister was approached by cable but no response came from him. October 24 and 25, the two most anxious and most exciting days passed but no reply came from anywhere. The whole of Srinagar and the State were in danger and everyone was running for his life. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and his party (National Conference) had organized groups of their party men to stop people from leaving the state, not realizing that they would all be killed if raiders reached Srinagar and everything would be destroyed. Sheikh Abdullah had quietly taken a plane to Delhi on the 25th evening".
Mehr Chand Mahajan further wrote: "The Maharaja and the Cabinet discussed what military action they could take at the last moment to save the town (Srinagar). We had, at our disposal, a cavalry battalion, the personal guards of His Highness and a disbanded company of Muslim soldiers. Pakistan had invaded the State and overrun it while India was neither giving help nor sending even a reply to our request. We spent two more days in suspense and in organizing whatever defensive action we could take with the help of the Dogra Brigadier, the guards and the police officers. Of course, we allowed the people to leave the town as best as they could…"
This following account of Mehr Chand Mahajan would clear all the cobwebs of confusion and establish that Maharaja Hari Singh tried his best to persuade Nehru to accept the accession proposal and help the State against the Pakistani aggression before October 26. |
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