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| Friendship with Pakistan just not possible | | | Rustam
JAMMU, Mar 25: The Pakistani response to the goodwill gestures shown by Atal Behari Vajpayee was no different. Similar has been the response of Islamabad to Manmohan Singh's unilateral goodwill gestures. Message from Islamabad is loud and clear: Endorse two-nation theory, quit Kashmir and give absolute power to Pakistan to establish full control over the state waters. India will never accept it.
The fact of the matter is that had Jawaharlal Nehru rejected the advice of Lord Mountbatten, the free India's nominated Governor-General with no plenipotentiary powers, and not taken at his behest the issue of Pakistani aggression on Indian territory in Jammu and Kashmir to what Sardar Patel described as "Insecurity Council" (read United Nations Security Council) and a "disturber of peace" when the Pakistani soldiers were in headlong retreat, things perhaps would have been totally different today.
Islamabad has no locus standi in Jammu and Kashmir except as the "aggressor" and the only outstanding issue that now remains to be resolved is for Pakistan to vacate the so-called Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas, which have been under its illegal occupation. As this could not be achieved through peaceful means for 62 years, India has no other alternative but to free by other available means what we rightfully claim to be ours. If Turkey could invade Northern Iraq to "pursue Kurdish rebels" and if Israel could hold on to the strategic Golan Heights, which is undoubtedly Syrian or annex territories in Southern Lebnon as a security zone, why can't we occupy our own territories?
We must implement the unanimous resolution passed in the Parliament in February 1994 and take some concrete steps to evict the trespassers from our own soil. Besides, we must tell Pakistan in clear terms that India would not tolerate any attempt to destabilize the country by aiding or abetting terrorism in the Valley and other parts of the state.
India, in addition, should explode the myth, which Pakistani no-holds-barred propaganda blitz has painstakingly fostered, about Islamabad's interest in granting the right to self-determination to Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani propaganda machinery has done all this to keep the world in the dark about the truth in this regard. Here is what Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq, a colleague of Sheikh Abdullah till August 1953, had disclosed. According to him, prior to the Pakistani aggression, the National Conference sent him to Pakistan, where he urged its leaders "to recognize the democratic rights of the people for self-determination and to abide by the sovereign will of a free people on the question of association with either of the Dominions (India and Pakistan). I met Pakistan's Prime Minister and other ministers. But it was of no use." Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, another senior leader of the National Conference and who replaced Sheikh Abdullah as Prime Minister of the State on August 9, 1953, asserted in November 1947: "The Pakistani leaders were reported to have said that unless Sheikh Abdullah pledged to Pakistan that the National Conference would solidly vote for the State's accession to Pakistan, they could not agree to a referendum. That suggestion was totally unacceptable to the National Conference."
It was this animus Pakistani rulers, including Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaqat Ali, had for the "popular" leaders of the Valley that was behind the stubborn Pakistani rejection of all the UN attempts in the 1950s at demilitarization of Kashmir to prepare the ground for a plebiscite. The attitude of Pakistan remains the same even today.
It is hoped that Muzzaffar Hussain Baig and others of his ilk who urge New Delhi to establish friendly relations with Pakistan would look all these facts in the face and abandon the path they are treading. This is in their interest as well as in the interest of the people of the state and New Delhi. (Concluded) —Early Times Report |
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