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| Forget Past, Give Autonomy | | BJP is a communal party, says Farooq Abdullah | | Rustam
Jammu, June 29: NC president and Union Minister for Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah yesterday dismissed the BJP as a "communal organization" and urged its leadership not to look back or to "think of the country of six decades ago" and be modern or to "think of modern India." The immediate provocation was the charge leveled by BJP veteran and former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani that neither Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru nor Sheikh Abdullah considered J&K as an integral part of India. Abdullah asserted that "J&K is today part of India due to Sheikh Abdullah and National Conference. Otherwise, we would have become part of Pakistan and nobody could have stopped us."
India is a democratic country and everyone has the right to say whatever he/she wants. Hence, let Farooq say what he wants. But the fact is that what Advani said was absolutely correct and was based on historical facts. No one can question his assertion that "Kashmir problem was the Nehru's gift to India." Similarly, no one can question Advani's assertion that Sheikh Abdullah never considered J&K as an integral part of India. Even today, the NC leadership doesn't regard the state as an integral part of India to the same extent as other states of the Union. That's the reason the NC has been demanding greater autonomy, bordering on sovereignty. It is a well-known fact that the NC wants New Delhi to withdraw from the state all central laws and institutions extended after August 9, 1953 so that the state becomes semi-independent. Farooq Abdullah himself has questioned his father's decision to become a party to the state's accession to India.
It would not be out of place to mention here that Sheikh Abdullah never wanted Kashmir to become part of India. In fact, he had tried his level best to cultivate Muslim League leadership before and after 1947 and ensure merger of Kashmir with Pakistan, but nothing came out of his efforts. Why because neither founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah nor Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan had any love lost for the Sheikh. In fact, the Sheikh had the "mortal fear of elimination" at the hands of Jinnah and Khan. Of the Sheikh, Jinnah had contemptuously observed: "Oh! That tall man who sings the Quran and exploits the people (Muslims of Kashmir). Khan, on the other hand, called the Sheikh" "This quisling, an agent of the Congress for many years, who struts about the stage bartering the life, honour and freedom of the people for the sake of personal power and profit."
Sheikh Abdullah achieved both "profit and power through the Nehru's generous, unchecked support by cleverly camouflaging his real motive." His real motive was nothing but "independence." This became clear on October 27, 1947, when he in unequivocal terms declared at Srinagar: "We have picked up the crown of Kashmir from dust. The question of joining India or Pakistan can wait. We have to complete our independence first." Earlier, he had sent Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq to Lahore to negotiate Kashmir's accession with Pakistan.
Farooq Abdullah would do well to look back and retrospect. It's no use beating about the bush and speaking something that has no basis. He should remember that charity begins at home. If he is really committed to what he said about the political status of J&K, he has no other alternative but to respect the Indian Constitution and he and his party can do so by abandoning their autonomy plank. He just cannot urge Advani to become modern" and demand semi-independence from India at the same time on the ground that Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region.
As for Advani's party, it just cannot be termed as communal. It's demand for total integration of the state into India is rational, national, secular and democratic, notwithstanding the fact that the BJP itself has committed several blunders in the state and complicated its political scene. Its greatest blunder was its decision to include the NC in the NDA in 1998. By entering into an alliance with the NC, the BJP demonstrated that it could go to any extent to enjoy the loaves and fishes of office. It was this and several other similar actions, including its decision to compromise its ideology for the sake of power, which have been responsible for its decline and two successive defeats in the general elections, held in 2004 and 2009. The Congress won both the elections by default. Courtesy: the unscrupulous BJP leadership both in the state and at the centre. Even today, the BJP appears to be rudderless, confused and ambivalent. |
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