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| Geelani & Co have no moral right to oppose division of J&K | | | Early Times report
Jammu, Sept 7: The other day the rabidly anti-India and out-and-out pro-Pakistan Radical Islamist Syed Ali Shah Geelani dismissed out-of-the-hand the demand for the division of the state. He said no power on earth could divide the State of Jammu and Kashmir. He belongs to that category of Kashmiri leaders who opposed the March 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, signed between Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu and the British Government, and demanded independence for Kashmir from what they called the oppressive and alien Jammu rule, and changed their stance in October 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru conspired against Jammu and transferred political power from Jammu to Kashmir using unfair and undemocratic means.
It bears recalling that it was in March 1846 that the State of Jammu and Kashmir came into being. The Raja of Jammu purchased Kashmir paying rupees 75 lakh to the British Government and integrated the Valley into his Jammu Kingdom. The Kashmiri Muslim leadership consistently opposed this historic treaty saying Raja Gulab Singh had purchased the "life, honour and dignity of the Kashmiri Muslims by paying a sum of Rs 75 lakh to the British Government". The Muslim leadership in Kashmir repeatedly asked the British Government to help it achieve freedom from Jammu. Their consistent and persistent demand was: "Throw the Treat of Amritsar lock, stock and barrel."
This slogan continued to remain the watchword of the Kashmiri Muslim leadership right till 1947. In other words, this separatist slogan dominated the Kashmir's religio-political scene for 101 years. In between, the Kashmiri Muslim leadership launched several movements to achieve their objective. The 1946 Quit Kashmir Movement was one such movement. It would not be out of place to quote verbatim a paragraph from the Report of the State Autonomy Committee (April 1999) to put things in proper perspective and prove the point that the Kashmiri Muslim leadership had never ever supported the Treaty of Amritsar.
The paragraph reads like this: "After the adoption of the programme of 'New Kashmir' (Naya Kashmir) in September 1944 and its presentation to the ruler (Hari Singh), yet another experiment was launched by him (Hari Singh) to ensure popular association with the administration. In pursuance of a notification issued on 2nd October, 1944 a nominee of the National Conference and other member of the Praja Sabha (Legislative Assembly) were appointed as ministers in the Cabinet but this experiment did not last long. The experiment failed when the National Conference nominee resigned. It sharpened the struggle for ultimate changes in Kashmir. By the time this farce of diarchy ended with resignation of National Conference nominee from the Cabinet, the Cabinet Mission (of 1946) was slated to arrive in India (from England) to negotiate transfer of power and the future constitution of the country. The premier political party of the state (read Kashmir), all J&K National Conference, recognized that paramountcy of the British would lapse and that time had come when on such lapse the people's right to exercise the sovereign right for governance must take precedence over everything else. The party (read National Conference) demanded that the Treaty of Amritsar dated 16th March, 1846 signed between Maharaja Gulab Singh and the then British Government of India which was in the nature of a sale deed and was thus an insult of the people to the state (read Kashmiri Muslims) must go lock, stock and barrel. This became the theme. The 'Quit Kashmir' movement was launched in early 1946 (April-May). A memorial was submitted to the Cabinet Mission claiming the right to have sovereignty restored to the people…" (P-11).
In between, the Kashmiri Muslim leadership also organized innumerable demonstrations to make Maharaja Hari Singh to scrap the State Subject definition of 1927 - State Subject Definition that debarred the people from outside the state to acquire immovable property in the state and obtain the state government jobs. Maharaja Hari Singh had adopted this legislation to counter the demand of the Kashmiri Muslim leadership to "import from British India educated Muslims so that they man all posts in Kashmir."
In other words, between 1846 and 1947 and between 1927 and 1947, the Kashmiri Muslim leadership fought against two developments - formation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir under the Treaty of Amritsar and adoption of the State Subject laws. They opposed the Treaty of Amritsar because they did not want any kind of truck with the "alien Jammu" or because they wanted to get out of the Jammu kingdom. They opposed the State Subject laws because they wanted the Muslims from the British India to come to Kashmir to man all the posts under the state government. But after 1947, the Kashmiri Muslim leadership took a complete U-turn and consistently opposed the demands in Jammu and Ladakh for separation from Kashmir and abolition of the archaic State Subject laws for reasons not really difficult to fathom. (To be continued) |
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