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| Delhi conspired against Jammu to pamper Kashmir | | 8 May 27, 1949 A Black Day | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 27: The story of Jammu's fall commenced on May 27, 1949 in the real sense of the term. And, the man who conspired against Jammu was none other than the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a fan of Sheikh Abdullah and enemy number one of Maharaja Hari Singh.
What happened on May 27, 1949, which could be termed as a Black Day for the people of Jammu province, who had ruled over Kashmir between 1846 and 1947? That day, Gopalaswami Ayangar, then controlling the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, moved a motion in the Indian Constituent Assembly to the effect that "notwithstanding anything contained in paragraph 4 (of the Schedule to the Constituent Assembly Rules), all the seats in the Assembly allotted to the State of Kashmir may be filled by the ruler of Kashmir on the advice of his Prime Minister".
Several objections were raised against this official motion. However, the one that irritated some of the members most was the omission of Jammu from the nomenclature of the State. Prominent among those who opposed the motion were Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra from West Bengal and Prof. K T Shah from Bihar. Prof. Shah possessed first-hand knowledge about the State and its people as well as the kind of political upheavals it had witnessed since 1931. He remained associated with the affairs of this princely State of Jammu and Kashmir for 15 long years and was its Planning Advisor for a few years before October 1947. He was also aware of the shape things would assume in Jammu and Kashmir in the days to come as he had a 15-day long interaction with National Conference president Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who had gone all the way from Srinagar to Mumbai to discuss with him his New Kashmir Plan. (The NC adopted "New Kashmir" programme in September, 1944 and demanded that "the Treaty of Amritsar dated March 16, 1846, signed between Maharaja Gulab Singh and the then British Government of India, which was in the nature of sale deed and was thus an insult to the people the State (Kashmir) must go lock, stock and barrel. This became the theme" of the 'Quit Kashmir' movement", which 'was launched in early 1946 -- April-May" (Report of the State Autonomy Committee, Jammu, April, 1999, P. 11).
While Pandit Maitra put question after question to know "if the word 'Kashmir' includes both Jammu and Kashmir", Prof. Shah moved an amendment to the official motion and made an appeal to the Constituent Assembly to ensure that the words "Jammu and" also figure before the word "Kashmir wherever it occurs".
Moving the amendment, Prof Shah said: "…There is some significance in this matter, which makes it more than ever necessary that you (Ayyangar) should not omit the other part (Jammu), and, if one may say so, the first part of the title of that ancient State. By calling it the State of Kashmir only you are perpetrating an error…May I ask…if we have made a mistake in the first instance, if we have been carried away by the importance of one sect (Sunni Muslims) of the State, by the importance of personages (the Sheikh and his colleagues) connected with that part of the State, is that any reason why we should forget the other side and no less important part of the State; and in this formal document continue to perpetuate that mistake and speak only of Kashmir, when we really mean Jammu and Kashmir? It is a fact not denied by the mover that is the correct name of the State".
Prof. Shah also told the Constituent Assembly that the relations between Kashmir and Jammu were not very cordial. To make his point, Prof Shah said: "Those at any rate who remember the campaign of the present Prime Minister (Sheikh Abdullah) of the State in connection with (the 1946) Quit Kashmir movement will realize that in the sequence of events that have happened, it is liable, if you describe it in this manner, to be gravely misunderstood wherever such nomenclature is allowed to be used; and our public records will be disfigured to that extent…The State of Jammu and Kashmir is correctly described as Jammu and Kashmir, so to say, there are two States in one kingdom, just as Scotland and England were two States under the first of the Stuarts. The king was the King James the sixth of England and King James the First of England. There were two crowns worn by one person. In regard to the State of Jammu and Kashmir until about the communal rising in 1931, it was for all practical administrative purposes actually divided into two provinces more or less distinct, though under the same ruler…"
He did not stop here. Prof. Shah went on cautioning the Constituent Assembly, saying "the matter of nomenclature is not merely a matter of verbal emendation that it has behind it a significance, a significance, in the sequence of events, not confined only to this House or this country. It has repercussions outside this country…Therefore, we must be careful in every word that we use, so that our expression, our nomenclature, our whole wording is in conformity with the situation and the correct facts". (To be continued) |
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