Rijiju blasts Congress-Nehru on blunders in Kashmir

Prof Hari Om

Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju did a great justice to the nation by calling the bluff of JL Nehru and Congress and telling the nation without mincing words that it was Nehru, and not Maharaja Hari Singh, who was responsible for all the ills afflicting the nation in Kashmir. He on October 27 cited five blunders which Nehru committed to hurt the nation and please separatist of separatists and communalist of communalists Sheikh Abdullah of Kashmir and president of the Valley-based National Conference (NC), votary of greater autonomy, bordering on virtual sovereignty or J&K’s limited accession with India on the ground that J&K was a Muslim-majority region. The five blunders which Kiren Rijiju cited included (1) “rejection of Maharaja Hari Singh’s request for accession in July 1947”, (2) “declaration of (the otherwise) eventful accession of J&K to India provisional”, (3) “approaching United Nations under Article 35 and not Article 51”, (4) “perpetrating the myth that UN mandate plebiscite was in any way was an open question, and (5) “institutionalization of the separatist mindset by creating Article 370”. What he said in public print was based on the official records. Indeed, the Union Law Minister set the record straight.
It needs to be underlined that J&K was the only Princely State that was not handled by the Union Home Minister, Sardar Patel, as Nehru had de-linked it from the State Department (read Home Ministry) and attached it with his own Foreign Ministry as if the State was a foreign country. We must glance through Nehru’s telegram No 413, dated October 28, 1947; and telegrams No. 25 and 255, dated October 31, 1947, to his Pakistani counterpart; letter from Nehru to the Pakistani Prime Minister, No. 368, dated November 21, 1947; his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly, November 25, 1947; The Statesman, January 18, 1951 and May 1, 1953; statement in Parliament on February 12, 1951; address at public meeting in Srinagar, June 4, 1951; report of the AICC, July 6, 1951; statements made in Parliament on June 26 and August 7, 1952 and March 31, 1955; letters from Nehru to the Pakistani Prime Minister, dated September 3, 1953, and November 10, 1953; statement made in the Indian Council of States on May 18, 1954; The Times of India, May 16, 1954; and so on.
Here are some of the statements Nehru made between 1947 and 1955, the most crucial period as far as the State was concerned.

1. “We have always right from the beginning accepted the idea of the Kashmir people (read Kashmiri Muslims) deciding their fate by referendum or plebiscite. Ultimately, the final decision of settlement, which must come, has, first of all, to be made basically by the people of Kashmir.”
2. “In regard to accession also, it has been made clear that this is subject to reference to people of the State (read Kashmir) and their decision.”
3. “First of all, I would like to remind you of the fateful days of 1947 when I came to Srinagar and gave the solemn assurance that the people of India would stand by Kashmir in her struggle. (Who was he to speak on behalf of the people of India and who had given him that mandate?) On that assurance, I shook Sheikh Abdullah’s hand before the vast multitude that had gathered there (read Srinagar). I want to repeat that the Government of India will stand by that pledge, whatever happens. That pledge itself stated that it is for the people of Kashmir to decide their fate without external interference (read New Delhi’s interference). That assurance also remains and will continue.”
4. “Kashmir should decide on the question of accession by plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of the United Nations.”
5. “…The people of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to accede to either Dominion (read Indian or Pakistan Dominion) then.”
6. “But as far as the Government of India is concerned, every assurance and international commitment in regard to Kashmir stands.”
7. “India is a great country and Kashmir is almost in the heart of Asia. There is an enormous difference not only geographically but in all kinds of facts there. Do you think you are dealing with a part of UP or Bihar or Gujarat? You are dealing with Kashmir”. (Home Minister P Chidambaram almost said the same thing in Srinagar after assuming the charge in 2009. He had said: “Solutions applicable to other parts of India cannot be replicated in Kashmir, as Kashmir has unique geography and unique history.” It appears he had gone through the Nehru’s June 4, 1951 address at a public meeting in Srinagar.)
8. “We had given our pledge to the people of Kashmir, and subsequently to the United Nations; we stood by it and we stand by it today. Let the people of Kashmir decide.”
9. “We have taken the issue to the United Nations and given our word of honour for a peaceful solution. As a great nation, we cannot go back on it. We have left the question for a final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision.”

10. “If, after a proper plebiscite, the people of Kashmir said, ‘We do not want to be with India’, we are committed to accepting that. We will accept it though it might pain us. We will not send an army against them. We will accept that, however hurt we might feel about it, we will change the Constitution, if necessary.” (Interlocutors for Jammu & Kashmir Dileep Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar also expressed similar views in Srinagar in October 2010.)
11. “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we have merely said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir, it is our conviction and one that is borne out by the policy that we have pursued not only in Kashmir but everywhere. Though these five years (1947-1952) have meant a lot of trouble and expense and in spite of all we have done we would willingly leave Kashmir if it was made clear to us that the people of Kashmir wanted us to go. However sad we may feel about leaving, we are not going to stay against the wishes of the people. We are not going to impose ourselves on them at the point of bayonet. I started with the presumption that it is for the people of Kashmir to decide their own future. We will not compel them. In that sense, the people of Kashmir are sovereign.”
12. “The whole dispute about Kashmir is still before the United Nations. We cannot just decide things concerning Kashmir. We cannot pass a bill or issue an order concerning Kashmir or do whatever we want.”
13. “As a result of the plebiscite over the entire state, we would be in a position to consider the matter, so that the final decision should cause least disturbance and should take into consideration geographical, economic and other important factors.”
14. Nehru bypassed the Indian Parliament and introduced Article 35A in J&K on May 14, 1954 w.e.f. May 14, 1944, when India was still under the British rule and J&K a princely state. It was done at the best of Pakistan to empower the Kashmiri leadership to declare all the non-Kashmiris a persona-non-grata in J&K.

A reference to four more statements made by the Congress on J&K after it formed coalition government at the Centre in May 2004 will also be in order.

1. Immediately after the formation of the UPA Government, the then Foreign Minister K Natwar Singh during an interview to the BBC declared that “the Government of India is prepared to redraw the political map of India if that could lead to the resolution of the Kashmir problem”. The anchor was Karan Thapar. This programme took place in the fourth week of May 2004.
2. A week later, Home Minister Shivraj Patil declared that “our government has decided to reward the moderate militants”. He said so in an interview to the same channel and the anchor again was Karan Thapar.
3. On February 25, 2006, none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested at the First Round Table Conference in Delhi that “there is the need to evolve a consensus on the issues of self-rule and autonomy within the vast flexibilities provided by the Indian Constitution”. This writer was part of the Round Table Conference.
4. On March 29, 2006, the J&K CM Ghulam Nabi Azad suggested that there should be “joint control of India and Pakistan over the state’s waters, power projects, agriculture, sericulture, tourism, forestry and environment”. Azad made this unsettling suggestion while participating in a seminar in Jammu University a day after (March 28) the then J&K Governor, Gen SK Sinha, bemoaned in the Jammu University that “the Government of India has virtually stopped calling J&K as an integral part of India”.

All this should establish that Nehru and the Congress were willing to allow J&K go out of India. How sad? The saddest part of the whole situation is that even today, Congress is treading the path Nehru charted in July 1947.