Daya Sagar
Since the families who were forced by the havoc created by Pakistan aided & abetted open attack on 22nd Oct 1947 from Muzaffarabad side on the Indian state of J&K which had not acceded to India Dominion upto 26th Oct 1947 i.e even more than months after 14th August 1947 to leave their homes had found shelter in safe areas of other Indian states including J&K ( many families like that of Mirpur had resisted the invasion and it is said that atlast Mirpur had fallen only on 25 Nov 1947) so they could not be treated as refugees and were treated officially by Government of India / J&K Government as Displaced Persons ( POJK DPs) from their own areas to their ‘own country areas’ . And in the overall interest of the two ‘infant’ dominions of India and Pakistan the Government of India had on 1st January 1948 approached United Nations Organisation with a complaint (under Article 35 of the Charter of the United Nations) submitting that Pakistan had ‘attacked’ Indian territories in the State of J&K that acceded to India Dominion on 26th October 1947 and Pakistan be asked to vacate the illegally occupied areas. So POJK DPs 1947 were/ are told by GOI even in 2023 that in case claims for property / assets left behind are paid to them like other refugees from Pakistan , India can lose claim on POJK areas and hence no claims for the properties /assets / recoverable left behind in Pakistan occupied areas have been paid to them but surely with the assurance that illegally occupied areas shall be got vacated from Pakistan and their ‘hearths’ would be restored to them. No doubt Government of India/ J&K government did make some plans for their temporary settlement / stay. The India Parliament resolution of 22 Feb 1994 demanding that “Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression” is still lying unexecuted by GOI even 29 yrs after.
A joint rehabilitation Board was also appointed to work on the possible steps/ measures for rehabilitation POJK DPs 1947. Joint Rehabilitation Board headed by Major General Tara Singh Bal which had on it members also from State Government Authorities among other measures also recommended in 1960s that to agriculturist families from POJK land measuring upto 12 acres Abi/ 18 acres Khushkee be allotted per displaced family . No doubt that much land could not be given where ever allotted but the ‘scale’ recommended by the Maj Gen Tara Singh Board could be one of the prominent indicators for the purpose of imagining extent of value of assets the displaced families might have left behind in POJK and the extent of claims that possibly could be there in favour of POJK DP families had they been treated as refugees.
As is well known Government of India in 1960s invited applications from some categories of families for providing Rs.3500 per family but the conditions under which the POJK DP families had been displaced and were living in the safer areas after displacement were unimaginably horrible & distressing so they were not in balanced state of mind at least for 2 decades to make the calculated demands / representations to specifically secure their interests. Other then ex gratia of Rs.3500 ( not provided to all displaced families and where ever was given was adjusted against the agri land provided/ one room living accommodation provided to urban settlers /any loan provided) No other special / regular support for trade / education/ employment was/ has been provided to these ‘Permanent Resident’ /State Subjects of J&K immediately on arrival and even after that. POJK DPs are still hopefully hoping for their return .Due to continued uncertainty POJK DPs 1947 have fallen back in employment / trade/ higher education
It has been in the year 2013-14 that J&K Government initiated some proposals to compensate POJK DPs in some form other than in the name of claims for their properties / assets left behind in occupied areas . For taking such action , though late, it was expected that the government would give due and sympathetic consideration to the facts that (i) These families had to run for life leaving their assets behind not as a result of partition of British India but as a result of the in direct aggression by Pakistan ( often named by some as Tribal attack aided and abetted by Pakistan ) on the Indian State of J&K that had formally acceded to India on 26th October 1947 (ii) A large majority of these families had no cash with them when they landed in safe zones (what ever cash they had, it was left behind in deserted homes or the bank accounts there or with the debtors ) (iii) A large majority was of small businessmen, non government employees, agriculturists and labour class and hence had no any available backup on reaching ‘this side’ worth honorable bread earning even for minimum survival, education of their children, starting some trade or even for presenting and contesting their cases / demands before the Governments. Many of them had no respectable shelter nor had capacity to build or buy such shelter for about 2-3 decades (iv) Most of the families lost one or more of their member / kin while fleeing for life. Even the head of family of many families was killed by the invaders / rioters and imagine the fate of the orphans left behind and (v) the extent of pennilessness, agony and helplessness of the DPs in early days in the ‘fact’ of some reports of ‘elders’ that some parents even got the age of their 3 to 4 year infant entered as 6 years or more just to get Rs.10 /pm as ration money per head (even this very meager financial support by government for survival ,maximum Rs.50 per month, was only provided for some time in the initial days to POJK DPS and had been discontinued thereafter what to talk of increasing the scale) (vi) No any special support was given for establishing trade, securing employment and acquiring formal and professional education. Many of them had to hence take to menial employment even for bare survival and seek / beg support from their fiends / relations. They had been forced by circumstances to physical, social and mental torture, (vii) What ,ever ex Gratia amount ( cash / kind equivalent to Rs. 3500/ per family of 1947 times under the policy of GOI sanctioned in 1960 the same was also in a way taken back from the POJK DPs as cost of the small pieces of land / one room dwellings / plots / cash aid/loan provided by Government to them and (viii) that ex gratia of Rs.3500 was not given to all families ( not atleast to 9500 families ) and hence they cannot be treated like those who were given some assistance / ex gratia {In reply to Lok Sabha Q 7214 by Sh. Chowdhary Talib Hussain: asking whether it is a fact that the migrants from Pak occupied Kashmir (PoK) have been requesting the Government of India since 1947 to register their claims of the movable and immovable property left by them in PoK the Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs (Shri Ch. Vidyasagar Rao) had said on May 14, 2002 “No claims for compensation in lieu of the properties left behind by these displaced persons were invited by the Government of India ………. formal registration of displaced persons for the purpose of payment of ex-gratia etc. commenced in the year 1960 … where in . the number of families registered was 31,619. The cases of about 9,500 families relating to the following categories were rejected……”: Over 40000 families of1947 must have grown to 1,50,000 in 2023.
To be continued
(The writer is a Sr Journalist & analyst of J&K Affairs. dayasagr45@yahoo.com)