Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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A rejoinder to Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai - There is no dispute on Jammu and Kashmir



By Mahesh Kaul



What we are witnessing in terms of Jammu and Kashmir issue at the international forums by the components of the separatists tendencies is the falsification of reality band demagoguery. It is the compulsion of the US and its allies to accommodate the interests of the Pakistan and its foot soldiers and mercenaries in Jammu and Kashmir so that it makes their exit easy. It is the sad commentary on the Indian political establishment and the Indian state that in order to safeguard its national interests USA is compromising on its war on terrorism by co opting the so called moderate Taliban and the so called right to self determination of the jihadi forces in Jammu and Kashmir who are responsible for religiously cleansing the Kashmiri Pandits from their ancestral Homeland -Kashmir in 1989-90 to lay the foundation of Nizam-e-Mustafa.The slogans and the public outbursts against the Kashmiri Pandit Hindu minority community in Kashmir with the hit lists issued by various jihadi organizations and the outfits claiming themselves now the flag bearers of the Jammu and Kashmir's independence with so called secular overtones were in the forefront of killing the Kashmiri Pandits for being the civilisational anchors of the Indian nation. The propaganda campaign launched by Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai and his ilk should be seen in this context.


His speech and terming the ongoing jihadi movement in Kashmir as the freedom struggle and free from fundamentalism and communalism is a lie meant to hoodwink the world opinion in the name of right to self determination. The points he has raised needs point by point rebuttal to set the record straight and apprise the international community that what is being said by the Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai and his separatist bandwagon is meant to deprive the religiously cleansed Kashmiri Pandits and other sections of the Hindu minority in the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir from the right life and limb and hold them hostage to the jihadi politics and interests of Islamic sub nationalism which has no place for the democratic and secular idea of India as enshrined in the Indian constitution and the norms of the civilized society.If an independent study of the ethno-religious conflict in this Himalayan frintline state of India is conducted by an international organization of standing then it will reveal the gruesome face of the so called torch bearers of the freedom struggle in the name of human rights.


The Lakh of Kashmiri Pandits who are languishing in various rented tenements and temporary refugee settlements are waiting for the justice and share in the economics and politics of the state which has been reduced to the Muslim sphere of influence in the name of secularism. Kashmiri Pandits need the constitutional safeguards against the future refoulment by the jihadi forces who demolished their social, religious and economic structure.


The eight points raised by Dr.Ghulam Nabi fai at a Kashmir event near Naval Lodge Monterey, organized by the American Muslim Alliance headed by Dr. Agha Saeed and attended by Mr. Mark Hinkle, former Chairman, the Libertarian National Committee are: i. The rights of all members of minorities in Jammu and Kashmir should be protected at all costs; ii. All those persons who have been displaced from Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 should be encouraged to return; iii. The members of the Pandit community displaced in the recent past should be facilitated to return and their rehabilitation guaranteed; iv. The 'Armed Forces Special Powers Act' (AFSPA) should be repealed as recommended by the leadership of civil society of India, like Justice Rajiner Sachar & Ambassador Kuldip Nayar; v. The bunkers from villages and towns need to be dismantled; vi. The release of political prisoners would go a long way to hasten the progress of peace and reconciliation in the region; vii. The Kashmiris should be integral component of the ongoing peace process as they are the primary stake holders. They should be inclusive in the peace process with India & Pakistan as it will facilitate permanent, durable and honorable settlement of the Kashmir dispute; viii. The leadership of both India Pakistan must recognize that there can be no settlement, negotiated or otherwise, without the active and full participation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir living on both sides of the Cease-fire Line, including the Kashmiri diaspora.


The first point that "The rights of all members of minorities in Jammu and Kashmir should be protected at all costs" makes one to ponder where was the separatist bandwagon when Kashmir was religiously cleansed of the minority Kashmiri Pandits by subjecting the community to holocaust and genocide. The slogans like ase gashe Pakistan Battav ros te Bhaatnave saan( We want Pakistan without Kashmiri Pandit males but with Kashmiri Pandit females) raised as motivational dictums to instigate the Kashmiri Muslim majority to indulge in annihilation of the minority in 1980-90 sums up the sociological undercurrents that led to the forced exile of the minority community. When no social and economic infrastructure and political space is available to this community after being trampled upon by the separatist formations, how can the rights of the minorities can be safeguarded by the system which is being run by the collaborators of the balkanizing forces? How can the community be accommodated when their ancestral properties have been either encroached upon or sold in distress sales at the throw away prices? How will be the religious rights of the community be restored when hundreds of the temples have been vandalized and demolished to erase the civilisational symbols of the community? And how can a saboteur rights, when it is he who has violated them? It is a paradox that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and should have been the laboratory of the Indian secularism but the Article 370 and other impediments which are temporary in nature are giving the space to the separatist forces to withhold the fundamental rights that are available to all other citizens of the Indian nation in other parts of the country. In Such a state how can the rights of the Kashmiri Pandits and other minorities be safeguarded ? The second point "All those persons who have been displaced from Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 should be encouraged to return" is vague and misleading to greater extent. It needs to be clarified as to what is meant by word displaced in this point. Does this point include the non-Muslim minorities (Hindus and Sikhs)of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir hailing from Muzzafarabad and Mirpur, who were subjected to genocide and made people of nowhere and are still for the justice.


Third point that "The members of the Pandit community displaced in the recent past should be facilitated to return and their rehabilitation guaranteed". Who will guarantee the return and rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits? The majority community of Kashmir or the separatist forces who were in the forefront to throw the community out of their habitat? The question becomes compounded keeping in view the non application of the fundamental rights as enshrined in the constitution of India due Article 370 and the fraud perpetuated under this Article in terms of 35A to keep the minorities of the state out the socio-political ambit and maintain the Muslim sphere of influence and gave an upper hand to the forces who have reduced Jammu and Kashmir to state within the state posing a challenge to the idea of India.


Fourth point "The 'Armed Forces Special Powers Act' (AFSPA) should be repealed as recommended by the leadership of civil society of India, like Justice Rajinder Sachar & Ambassador Kuldip Nayar" needs to be understood in strategic terms. It goes to the credit of the security forces who have upheld the territorial integrity of the Indian nation amid the policy paralysis on the part of the political establishment. It is a tactical ploy to beat the drums about the repeal of the AFSPA as it will give the safe passage to the jihadi and Taliban network to turn their guns towards Jammu and Kashmir where the public space in terms of Muslim sphere of influence is available to give them space and wage a war against the Indian nation. It seems that US is ready to forec the Indian state to compromise on the sovereignty of the state so that it can withdraw from Af-Pak region .The revocal of the AFSPA should be seen in this backdrop.It is a trap to reinforce and consolidate the jihadi ranks.After the recent attack in the Kathua district of the Jammu region of the state ,Syed Salhaudin who is leading the United Jihad Council from Pakistan and has accepted the responsibility of the attack besides giving warning that such attacks will be expanded to Poonch ,Rajouri and other areas of the Jammu region as well. Thus seeking the revocation of the AFSPA is basically clearing the ground for the operations of the jihadi forces.


Fifth and Sixth points "The bunkers from villages and towns need to be dismantled" and "The release of political prisoners would go a long way to hasten the progress of peace and reconciliation in the region.the persons who are being termed as political prisoners are the ones who have lead the state into the cesspool of regression and stone age, having no inclination for the democracy and secularism besides humanity. This is a well calculated ploy to project the instigators of the mobs as the messiahs.Seventh point "The bunkers from villages and towns need to be dismantled "The Kashmiris should be integral component of the ongoing peace process as they are the primary stake holders. They should be inclusive in the peace process with India & Pakistan as it will facilitate permanent, durable and honorable settlement of the Kashmir dispute "The state of Jammu and Kashmir is a multi ethnic and multi religious entity and the state is not confined to Kashmir valley only.


It comprises of the three main regions-Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh besides the illegally occupied areas of the state with Pakistan, comprising of Gilgit, Baltistan and the Northern Areas.The people of Jammu region are ethnically different from the Kashmir region besides the region has the predominat Hindu population that has time and again reaffirmed its allegiance with India,people of Ladakh have been in the forefront in raising voice against the Kashmiri Muslim subjugation and have been demanding the union territory status since decades. After the cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir ,it has led to the demographic change of the region makes it predominatly Muslim region.Kashmiri pandits have been demanding return and rehabilitation with the constitutional guarantees so that their genocide and religious cleansing to reversed for ever. And it can be possible with the free flow of the Indian constitution .They have been raising the demand of Union Territory in which they can be rehabilitated with all rights that are available to all Indian citizens, which have been denied to them in the garb of the so called special state in terms of the Article 370.They want to decide their socio-political destiny themselves as the jihadi atrocities have reduced them to the people with no land and state within their own country and apt case to be declared Internally Displaed Community (IDP).They have been denied this status as the Indian state refuses to see them in the right perspective of the internatiuonal refugee covenants. It is a slur on the Indian state that it terms them as "Migrants' as if they had left their ancestral homeland on their free will and are taken akin to nomads who have no property rights.It seems that there is premium on separatism and humiliation for Indian nationalism in Jammu and Kashmir.As far as the term dispute used in this point.It is misleading. There is no dispute on Jammu and Kashmir. As the Instrument of accession signed by the Maharaja Hari Singh was same as signed by other princely states.
The partition of the Indian subcontinent should be seen in the perspective of the Anglo-Muslim alliance that was forged by the British to retain their strategic foothold in the Indian subcontinent to have an access to the Russian activities and the appreciable influence on the Central Asian region mainly in terms of oil reserves. As the oil reserves were in the domain of the Central Asian and Middle Eastern Islamic countries and regions, the British encouraged the separatist Muslim sentiment in India to impress the Muslim world and at the same time kept the nationalist movement for the Indian independence under check, which the British viewed as the 'Hindu Nationalist' upsurge.
Kashmir problem is the outcome of the 'Great Game' which the British played to keep the separatist Muslim element alive to keep its stakes high even though World War II had changed the dynamics of the strategic world order. This move was further meant to make the north-Indian borders weak and pregnable forever and the result is the present Kashmir crisis. It was a clear move to sow the seeds of the balkanisation of the Indian Union.The process of maintaining the checks and applying brakes on the Indian nationalists had been devised by the British well before 1947 and Jinnah was a British prop to materialise the separatist Muslim claims for the partition of India.
These ploys and what was going on in the British mind has been revealed by Krishna Menon, who was close to the British circles, in the following words to Lord Mountbatten well before the partition on June 14, 1947, "Is this frontier of (the northwest of India abutting Afghanistan & Iran) still the hinterland of the Imperial Strategy? Do British still think in terms of being able to use this territory and all that follows from it? There is considerable amount of talk in this way; and if Kashmir, for one reason or another, chooses to be in Pakistan, that is a further development in this direction. I do not know of British policy in this matter. I do not know whether you know it either. But if this be the intent, this is tragic … As it becomes more evident, the attitude of India would be resentful and Britain's hold on Pakistan would not improve it." (pp.15-16, The Untold Story of India's Partition) Menon was pointing towards the British strategy of using West Pakistan as a base to stop the Soviet expansion towards the Indian Ocean, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf and secondly he implied that British policy was so 'subterranean" that even the Viceroy was ignorant of it ?
These intrigues shaped the Kashmir problem and result is the present state of chaos and desperation. Accession of the Jammu & Kashmir State to the Indian Union needs to be understood by keeping in mind the traits of the British and the separatist Muslim mindset of the Muslim League nurtured
by the imperial policy makers to divide India to suit their strategic hold on the subcontinent.
There is a false premise on which Jammu & Kashmir's accession to India is always understood by certain vested interests: "That the Radcliffe Boundary Commission award giving Gurdaspur District to the Indian East Punjab was announced on August 17, 1947, two days after the new Dominions of India and Pakistan had already come into being." This is totally absurd. The demarcation of the areas that would go to Pakistan had already been decided by the British well before 1947, the year of the partition. Its blueprint was prepared by the Viceroy Lord Archbald Wavell in 1946 to forge an alliance with Jinnah's Muslim League, the foundation of this unholy alliance was laid in 1940-41 by his predecessor Linlithgow to project Jinnah as the sole spokesman of 'Muslim India'.
The same blueprint was kept under cover till the opportune time came in 1947 for the British withdrawal. It was deliberately kept in abeyance so that the finger of suspicion for the vivisection of India is not raised against the British Empire.
Narender Singh Sarila, who was an ADC to the last Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten, was a witness to the British decisions and policy. Has observed candidly in his book The Untold Story of India's Partition that "secret archives cannot be depended upon to reveal the entire picture. Many decisions that are taken by government are never committed on paper or, if so committed, are not revealed even after the probationary period for keeping them under wraps has lapsed. For instance, Lord Mountbatten's reports to London, sent after August 15, 1947, while he was the Governor-General of India, have not been unsealed even after almost sixty years, thereby depriving us of information surrounding British policy on Kashmir". (pp.168, The Untold Story of India's Partition) Lord Wavell was constantly in touch with the Secretary of State in London. His blueprint for the partition was being taken seriously in London. On January 29, 1946, the Secretary of State revealed the British policy by stating, in a telegram to Wavell, that "It would help me to know when I may expect to receive your recommendation as regards definition of genuinely Muslim areas if we are compelled to give a decision to this (Partition)".
(pp.194-195,The Untold Story of India's Partition) Gurdaspur district was not incorporated into the Indian Union after the partition, Wavell's partition plan forwarded to London on February 6-7, 1946 makes it clear as to what was in store for millions of people of the Indian subcontinent.



His partition plan which was implemented by his successor Lord Mountbatten reads "1) If compelled to indicate demarcation of genuinely Moslem areas I recommend that we should include (a) Sind, North-West Frontier Province, British Baluchistan and Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore Divisions of Punjab, Less Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts … 2) In the Punjab the only Moslem-majority district that would not go into Pakistan under demarcation is Gurdaspur. Gurdaspur must go with Amritsar for geographical reasons and Amritsar being the sacred city of Sikhs must stay out of Pakistan…" (pp.195,The Untold Story of India's Partition). Therefore it becomes clear that the decision regarding the Gurdaspur district was taken well before partition and the argument regarding its inclusion in the Indian Union after the partition does not hold any ground as it is far from the historical fact made amply clear by Lord Wavell's partition plan.
So the point raised by the fifth columnists and other left liberal intellectuals that "Maharaja Hari Singh could not accede to the newly created Indian Dominion and the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru could not accept such a request on or before August 15, 1947 because under the provision of July 1947 Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament, Pathankot tehsil at that time, the only geographical link of Jammu & Kashmir, was located in Gurdaspur District of west Punjab which had been notified under the aforesaid Act as part of Pakistan"is falsification of the reality.
Another observation by these individuals that "The Maharaja Sahib had therefore no other option than to think of Standstill Agreement with both new dominions of India and Pakistan and making Jammu & Kashmir an Eastern Switzerland of Asia" is another misinterpretation of constitutional realities and the facts. As India under the British was composed of British India and the Princely States which accepted the British rule, the rulers of these States were thus bound to accede to one of the dominions and there was no provision for their independent existence. The celebrated political scientist MK Teng, in the preface to his book titled Kashmir: the Myth of Autonomy has cleared this misconception regarding the accession of Jammu & Kashmir and other Princely States to the Indian Union. He writes, "The partition of India did not envisage the accession of the Princely States to the dominion of India and Pakistan on the basis British India was divided. The partition of India left the States out of its scope and the transfer of power accepted the lapse of the Paramountcy: the imperial authority the British exercised over the States. The accession of the States to India was the culmination of a historical process which symbolised the unity of the people in the British India and the Indian States". (pp.VII, Kashmir-Myth of Autonomy) It is a populist view in order to cover the truth regarding the accession that Maharaja Hari Singh was trapped and was hence indecisive to accede to India. To clear this misconception further Teng writes, "In 1947, when Jammu & Kashmir acceded to India, the ruler of the State, Maharaja Hari Singh signed the same standard form of the Instrument of Accession, which the other major Indian States signed. The accession of the State to India was not subject to any exceptions or pre-condition to provide for any separate and special constitutional arrangements for the State. Neither Nehru nor Patel gave any assurances to Hari Singh nor the National Conference leaders that Jammu & Kashmir would be accorded a separate and independent political organisation on the basis of the Muslim Majority character of its population." (pp.VII,
Kashmir-Myth of Autonomy) Thus it is crystal clear that the accession of the Jammu and Kashmir State to the Indian Union is complete in the Constitutional manner. This explanation tears into the so called dispute theory of Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai.
Eighth point," The leadership of both India Pakistan must recognize that there can be no settlement, negotiated or otherwise, without the active and full participation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir living on both sides of the Cease-fire Line, including the Kashmiri diaspora". The people who have created the conflict should restore the rights of the Non Muslim minorities of the state and then talk of the participation of the people.Last but not the least,Dr.Fai's exhotataion that " It is important to note that the people of Kashmir should not read their history wrong. It is a history of tolerance and amity between different religious communities. Kashmiri culture has a long tradition of moderation and non-violence. This culture does not generate extremism or fundamentalism. The people of Kashmir know that the conflict was never a fight between Hindus and Muslims. Nor was it a border dispute between India and Pakistan. It has always been about the destiny, future and lives of 18 million people of Jammu & Kashmir, be they Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists. Can anyone deny the fact - of no small significance - that while the Subcontinent under British rule was the scene of recurrent murderous strife, communal riots were unheard of in Kashmir? That unquestionable fact brings out the real character of Kashmir's heritage" is misleading and diversionary tactics from the communal faultlines that lead to the persecution of the Kashmiri Pandits in particular and the Hindus of the state in particular.Kashmir has had a continuous communal history due to the genocide inflicted by the Muslim separatism well before 1947,which only reached crescendo in 1990 with religious cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits from their ancestral Homel and. The communal riots of 1931 shed the light on the communal faultlines perpetuated by the Muslim communalism in Kashmir that has led to the present violation of human rights of the Kashmiri Hindus. The communal riots that engulfed Srinagar (Kashmir) on July 13,1931 were not spontaneous but the culmination of the prolonged intrigues by the British to violate the Treaty of Amritsar, which they had signed with Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1846, the founder of the political and geographical entity called the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, their aim was to control the Northern Frontiers of India to keep an eye on the Russian advances and ethnic tribes that inhabited these regions. They also understood the importance of the Jammu and Kashmir in terms of guarding their rule in India. They were also aware of the fact that Himalayas defined the civilisational and cultural moorings of the Indian Nation and the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which holds the key to the Sanskritisation of India. They wanted the control over the Himalayas not to serve them but to subvert the authority of the ruler of the State as the seeds of the Anglo-Muslim alliance were already sown to implement the policy of divide and rule. This unfortunately was made operative on ground in 1931 in Kashmir. 'Barjor Dalal' report of the Srinagar Riot Enquiry Committee-1931 is an eye opener . The reason being that when ruling elite of the State is challenging, the accession of the State with the Indian nation, without understanding the Constitutional reality that it was the British India which was the part of the partition plan and not the princely states. 'Barjor Dalal' report of the Srinagar Riot Enquiry Committee-1931 with the writer's prologue and epilogue is a welcome publication. The reason being that when ruling elite of the State is challenging, the accession of the State with the Indian nation, without understanding the Constitutional reality that it was the British India which was the part of the partition plan and not the princely states. Moreover, the sovereignty lied with the ruler and not the subjects. This publication will add to the already available archival material on the State and its evolution as a political entity. The Srinagar riot of July 13, 1931 was the desired outcome of the intrigues in which the British indulged from 1847 but Maharaj Gulab Singh was the astute statesman to swim over the unwanted tides. Even his successor, Maharaja Ranbir Singh managed to act as the statesman to outwit the British ploys to give them any foothold in the State to control its political set up. But Britishers were keeping a keen eye on the affairs of the State and during Maharaja Pratap Singh's reign, they managed to subvert the political and administrative authority of the Maharaja. By the time, Maharaj Hari Singh, the progressive ruler of the State ascended the throne on September 23,1925, after the demise of his uncle, Maharaja Pratap Singh-the unwanted developments had reached the critical mass.British exploited the fact that the State had a Hindu Maharaja ruling the Muslims. It was a God sent opportunity for them to divert the attention from the effects of the economic turmoil in the rest of India due to the economic depression in Europe as Indian economy was linked to it. They raised the bogey that the economic empowerment of the Muslims was blocked by the Hindu Maharaja to keep them in perpetual slavery.
The report examines the eye witness accounts and different shades of opinion to analyse as to what went wrong that changed the social and political dynamics of the State forever. Maharaja had been astute enough to promulgate the hereditary State subject definition. This legal enactment was introduced to checkmate the intrusion of the Britishers to interfere in the State and restricting their entry. The former Maharaja was also well aware of the their mischief to subvert the political stability of the State as it was during his time in 1924 that Silk factory workers in Srinagar raised the banner of revolt. Maharaja Hari Singh was not the favourite of the British rulers as he was well aware of the deployments' world over. He had made his mind clear about his intentions about the role the princely states should play to uphold the Indian nation. This did not go down well with imperialist British. The report extensively discusses that how British instigated the Muslim populace of Punjab and
therefore, All India Kashmir Muslim Conference came into existence in 1928. It members had nothing to do with Kashmir but the element of pan-Islamism was instigated.
Though the Conference started pleading the case for the Muslim education in the State but "it's real object was to secure for the Muslims of British India, especially of the Punjab, the right to be appointed in the State services so long, at least as the Muslims of the State remained unqualified."
Both the provinces of the State were kept under boil by the British. In Jammu, Youngmen's Muslim Association was set up, it acted on the lines of Muslim Reading Room party of Fateh Kadal, Srinagar. The brain behind the disruptive activities of these formations was Wakefield, the officer of the political department of the Government of British India. The visit of the Muslim Association to Kashmir and interaction with the Reading Room Party was made to infuse a sense of coherence to instigate bigger trouble for the Maharaja in 1931. The trial of Abdul Qadir, a non-state subject cook of the British officer and his seditious speech that set the communal frenzy in motion in Srinagar has been clearly discussed in the book.
One thing that makes this publication important is that it exposes the denial of communal ruling elite regarding the atrocities on minorities of Kashmir that grabbed the power in 1947 by making the Maharaja abdicate the State under pressure from V P Menon under the advice of Vallabhai Patel. The communal riots have been well documented in this report and help to see the present State of political turmoil in perspective. Shailender Singh Jamwal has aptly summed up the state of Hindu minorities in Jammu and Kashmir on July 13, 1931 who observe this day as the black day. He writes,"The people of Kashmir and their political organisations barring Kashmiri Pandits observe this day as martyr's Day because Dogra troops resorted to firing in Kashmir in which ten people lost their lives.
While many in Jammu, including Kashmiri Pandits observe this day as a Black Day as their business establishments in Kashmir were plundered by the members of the majority community; moreover, their dignity, honour and lives were endangered. Since then, both the major communities of the State have been living a poles apart.
This event has divided the people of the State on religious, regional and ideological basis and does not allow them to sink their differences."
Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai and his ilk should be aware of this reality that there is no dispute on Jammu and Kashmir, which he refers to as Kashmir.The only thing that has to be addressed is the restoration of the rights of the Kashmiri Hindus and other non Muslim minorities who have been reduced to hostages of the Kashmiri Muslim separatism.


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