For the first time in last 73 years, the Government of India in coordination with the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has triggered its own narrative, seeking to dismantle Pakistan’s version of tribal invasion of 1947 in Kashmir.
On October 22, 1947, armed hordes of the tribal raiders of Pakistan’s province of North Western Frontier Province, now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with support of Pakistan’s Army and establishment, had invaded the territories of Jammu and Kashmir. The invasion led to Maharaja Hari Singh signing an instrument of accession with India on October 26. The next day, on October 27, the Indian Army made its first landing on the Srinagar Airport and repulsed the invasion over the weeks.
With the commemoration being limited to a wreath-laying on a memorial of Battle of Budgam, New Delhi has not come up with an informed narrative over the decades. On the other side, Pakistan-backed separatists and terrorists in Kashmir have been observing October 27 as ‘Black Day’ and enforcing a shutdown against the Indian Army’s first entry on that day, since 1989. After conversion of the erstwhile State into the union territories of J&K and Ladakh and withdrawal of J&K’s special status, the Union government had decided to observe October 22 as a ‘Black Day’, in an attempt to float a new narrative and contest the one espoused by Pakistan, separatist and territories.