JAMMU: What would have happened, if India had not declared ceasefire on January 1, 1949 to halt the advance of brave Indian Armed Forced in Poonch-Rajouri and Uri sectors in the wake of Pakistani aggression under the guise of tribals or Kabali raid in the Valley and the hilly areas of Jammu? The answer is that India would not have been subjected to three full-fledged wars and the proxy war spanning over three decades. The answer is also that the nation would not have witnessed a snake in its backyards in terms of Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir-an epicenter of terrorism and launching pad for Jihadis to give India ‘thousand cuts’. The fact is that the so-called ‘Kashmir imbroglio’ would not have gone to the United Nations to embarrass the 1.40 billion population from time to time.
Why should have Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru committed a blunder, costing the nation its integral part, resulting in uprooting of Hindus from Mirpur and Muzaffarabad post 1947 and miniscule Kashmiri Pandit minority from the Valley post 1990? The answers should have been sought for what is now known as Nehruvian blunder.
Did Jawaharlal Nehru stop the Army from moving forward to reclaim the Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to satiate the alter ego of his friend Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah that subsequently deprived the hilly and border areas of their pivotal role in the governance? The vast majority of Jammu and Kashmir had to remain as fence sitters as far as the affairs of the then huge Dogra state were concerned. BJP’s Devender Singh Rana feels that the nation was taken for a ride to fulfill the political ambitions of an elite class of Kashmir for decades and decades. So do several thinkers, columnists and generals.
“It appears that wittingly or unwittingly, Nehru was part of the plot to restrain the Indian Army from recovering the entire Muzaffarabad-Poonch belt and the Gilgit Agency. Legendary journalist Kuldip Nayar asked (Major General) Kulwant Singh (commander of the force tasked with beating back the infiltrators) why he restrained the Indian Army from recovering these territories. Singh replied that he had been told by Nehru to halt the Indian Army’s advance at a place where the Kashmiri language was no longer spoken. The logic was that the writ of Sheikh Abdullah, appointed the Chief Executive Administrator after Maharaja Hari Singh had signed the Instrument of Accession. (Defence Monitor December 13, 2021)
BJP Patriarch and former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani is reported by Deccan Herald (July 17, 2011) quoting former Jammu and Kashmir Governor and a celebrated soldier Lt General S K Sinha, telling a gathering that they were able to win a decisive victory by liberating Baramulla and advancing 60 miles to Uri where, the Valley ends and a gorge along the Jhelum starts to Muzaffarabad. Sinha is reported to have said that Indian forces received orders to cease fire and halt the advance to Muzaffarabad, according to Lal Krishan Advani. Lt General Sinha was a young Major of the Indian Army during 1947, the only Indian Army officer, deployed to drive out armed tribals from Kashmir.
The Congress has committed a plethora of blunders since the independence of India from the British Empire that is now under the public scanner, more than ever before. But can the Nehruvian blunder on Kashmir be ignored? No, the answer would be.
