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| Indira decimated Cong in J&K | | Era Of Blunders -- II | | Rustam
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 2: Indira Gandhi not only imposed wartime restrictions on the civil liberties and gagged the press, but she also committed a blunder at Shimla in 1972 by making Kashmir a party to the Kashmir issue. Before 1972, Pakistan was considered as an aggressor, but after the infamous Shimla Agreement Pakistan came to be known as a party to the Kashmir issue. She converted the spectacular victory in the battlefield into a humiliating diplomatic defeat. She could have resolved the issue in 1972 because over 90,000 Pakistani soldiers, including generals, had laid down their arms before the chivalrous Indian Army. But she didn't do that. Instead, she complicated the whole issue by entering into negotiations with Sheikh Abdullah of Plebiscite Front and reached an agreement with him, called Indira-Sheikh Accord, 1975.
Far more amazing was this accord. It not only brought back "a deflated" Sheikh back to power but also empowered him to review all the Central laws extended to the State after August 9, 1953, when he was deposed and arrested. He had been arrested because he had been dreaming of - and working towards - a Switzerland-type independent Kashmir and towards the dangerous direction the Sheikh was drifting, Jawaharlal Nehru had to agree to his arrest.
The immediate fall-out of the truce was a virtual eclipse of the Congress party's independent status in the state. In fact, the accord decimated the Congress in the state. It needs to be noted that she had handed over the state power to the Sheikh on a platter - Sheikh who that time headed the Plebiscite Front and whose anti-India outfit didn't have a single legislator either in the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council. The Sheikh himself was not a member of either of the two Houses. Syed Mir Qasim of the Congress was then ruling the state. He was unceremoniously removed paving way for the Sheikh to do whatever he had in mind. The Congress had been enjoying absolute majority in the Assembly since 1965, when the then Wazir-e-Azam Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq, at the best of New Delhi, merged the National Conference with the Congress. It was perhaps the first instance of its kind in the world that a national party, which had been ruling the country since 1946, decimated its branch in the sensitive Jammu & Kashmir State to bring back to power a man whom her father had got arrested under the charge of "sedition."
Defending the unjust and un-politic truce, Indira had then told the nation: "All that was being done was to allow the Kashmiris (read Kashmiri Muslims) greater sense of participation and encourage them to shed their exclusiveness and join the national mainstream." Indira, like her father, had poor judgment on men and matters. This became quite evident immediately after the Sheikh became Chief Minister in 1975. By accepting this Accord, the Sheikh had not become a "patriot" overnight, nor had he forgotten the past or forgiven his detractors. But being in power he could create difficulties for the Centre and this he did unscrupulously. His first masterstroke made some Muslim legislators belonging to the Congress defect to his side. After assuming the coveted chair, he reverted to his old game of singing two songs - crticising India in front of his Kashmiri audiences and expressing differently while speaking to Indian pressmen or addressing his Jammu audiences. In other words, he evolved a two-pronged strategy. To please his co-religionists in Kashmir, he would pour venom on India and everything India, and after crossing the Jawahar Tunnel, he would project himself as a great champion of democracy and secularism to prove his loyalty towards the Indian nation.
As expected, the relations between New Delhi and the Sheikh got strained. That his detention from 1953 to 1973 had not at all changed his mind or that he still cherished the dream of independent Kashmir became clear when in 1977 the Sheikh and his National Conference contested elections on the planks of "opening of the Jhelum Valley Road, withdrawal of Indian Army from Kashmir and defeating of Indian political parties." And he won the elections hands down. Ever since then, the nation has been facing serious troubles in Kashmir, with the Congress depending upon the National Conference or the people's Democratic Party for its survival. It's no wonder then that the people have started terming the Congress party in the state as a "B-team" and "C-team" of the Kashmir-based political outfits.
Had Indira not committed blunder in 1975 by bringing the deflated Sheikh back to power, things in the state today would have been quite different and we would not have a Chief Minister who has been damaging the national cause more meticulously ever since his elevation to the highest executive office. So much so, he has questioned the very accession of the state with India. (Concluded) |
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