“Kashmir may be conquered by the force of spiritual merit but not by the force of soldiers.” — Kalhana Pandit
I
So total has been the loss of hegemony of Kashmir’s elected representatives, in government and in the legislature, over the last two months, and so desperately brutal the recourse to coercive subjugation of fearless young anger on the streets of the valley, that if ever there was a time to say resistance to authority (sic) deserves to be rewarded with what it seeks, it has been now. If the prospect, that is, of the secession of the valley–since other parts of the state of Jammu & Kashmir desire, contrarily, not secession but more complete integration with the Union of India–were not fraught with incalculable negative consequences not just for India and Pakistan, but for the inhabitants of the valley itself.
To that I shall return.
Just the other day, the Home Minister of India made two significant averments in parliament. One that the Union recognizes that the Accession of the state of Jammu & Kashmir was a “unique one”; and, two, that, apart of all other things, the Republic and its successive governments had failed to keep promises made to the people of Jammu & Kashmir.
Since the time for pussy footing about Kashmir is conclusively at an end, it would help to flesh out those two averments beyond the Minister’s sketchily en passant mention.
Uniqueness of the Accession:
It is to be recalled that the two conditions agreed upon as the signposts for India’s pre-Independence Princely States as determinants of whether they would accede to India or to Pakistan were the religion of the majority within the states, and the congruity of the states to either Dominion.
In that context, the three states of Hyderabad, Junagarh, and Jammu & Kashmir offered interesting paradigms.
Where the first two had Muslim rulers but majority Hindu populations, J & K had a Dogra-Hindu ruler but a majority Muslim population. Of the three, clearly, J & K, being also contiguous with Pakistan, had the clearest case for accession to Pakistan.
Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, however, desired accession to neither of the two new countries, but wished to remain Independent.
Having succeeded in signing what was called a “Standstill” agreement with Pakistan, it was his hope to do the same with India. Except that the fates intervened in the shape of a precipitate invasion of the State he ruled by tribal warriors from the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan with that States’ active support and involvement in late October of 1947.
With next to no means of his own to meet, let alone defeat the invasion, he found himself constrained to appeal to India for military help vide his request for Accession to India, dated October, 26, 1947. He wrote to the then Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten of Burma:
The mass infiltration of tribesmen drawn from the distant areas of the North-West Frontier … cannot possibly be done without the knowledge of the Provincial Government of the North West Frontier Province and the Government of Pakistan. In spite of repeated requests made by my Government no attempt has been made to check these raiders or stop them from coming to my State. . . .I have no option but to ask for help from the Indian Dominion. Naturally they cannot send the help asked for by me without my State acceding to the Dominion of India. I have accordingly decided to do so and I attach the Instrument of Accession for acceptance by your Government.
That much for a Hindu ruler who had been reluctant to join even a Hindu-majority India but for the fact that circumstances forced such a decision upon him. Another matter that even on acceding, the Instrument of Accession he signed stated that the a\Accession in no way bound him to “acceptance of any future constitution of India” (Clause 7), and that “Nothing in this instrument affects the continuance of my sovereignty in and over this State” (Clause 8). Stipulations that to this day continue to color the fraught history of tensions between the Union and the State.
As a result, Article 306 A was adopted in the Draft Constitution, and in course became the much-talked-about Article 370 in the final Constitution of India. Most significantly, the “special status” thus accorded to the State of J & K, backed by the then Home Minister of India, Patel, (who said to the Constituent Assembly “in view of the special problems with which the government of Jammu & Kashmir is faced, we have made a special provision for the constitutional relationship of the State with the Union”) was accepted without demur also by Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, a member of Nehru’s cabinet, later to become the most vociferous and disruptive voice of the Hindu right-wing. More of that below.
But the best part of the “uniqueness” lay elsewhere, namely in the heroically principled declaration of allegiance to a prospectively secular and democratic Hindu-majority India by a Muslim Kashmiri leader of a Muslim-majority State, Sheikh Abdullah.
Internally, within the Princely State of J & K, a popular movement for the overthrow of the Maharaja’s rule had been underway for two decades before 1947, precipitating in the events of July, 1931, when some 21 popular resistors were gunned down by the Maharaja’s police force in front of a court house–a watershed event that led to the formation of the “Muslim Conference” which came to be led by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, a post-graduate from the Aligarh Muslim University who was denied a teaching post in the State by the Maharaja’s regime at a time when educated Kashmiri Muslims could be counted on finger-tips.
Within mainland India, although the Muslim League came a cropper in the elections to the Provincial Assemblies of 1936, following upon the passing of the Government of India Act of 1935, between that loss and 1946, the Muslim League under Jinnah made huge strides among Muslims in the states of Punjab and Bengal.
It was during this time that Jinnah was to make fervent arguments to Abdullah as to the obvious decision that the Kashmir Muslim Conference must make for joining forces with Jinnah’s League, and for the Pakistan resolution which the League had passed in 1940.
Remarkably, however, despite the Kashmir Maharaja regimes’ concerted anti-Muslim rule, and despite having forged the “Muslim Conference,” Abdullah, by then the undisputedly tallest leader of the valley, and indeed the State, and despite the State having been a Muslim majority one, came to reject the two-nation communal thesis of the Muslim League, and declare his preference for the secular-democratic struggle that the Indian National Congress under Gandhi and Nehru had been waging against colonial rule, as he converted the “Muslim Conference” into the “National Conference” in 1938. Clearly, some nine years before the partition of India and of the tribal invasion of Kashmir.
Abdullah in these years spoke repeatedly to his convictions.
In this well-documented paper Badri Raina has presented the main course of events with regard to the Accession of the princely State of Jammu & Kashmir to India at the end of the British Raj and the partition of India in 1947. His political and historical understanding of the Kashmir problem makes him one of the clearest voices of secularism and democracy in the Indian subcontinent. Being a Kashmiri himself, he has witnessed and followed up what Kashmir has gone through since 1947. His passionate defence of democratic and humanist values within the Union of India has made him one of the formidable opponents of the communalist forces in India which at present are broadly branded under the rubric of the Hindutva.
The killing of more than 51 Kashmiri youth over the last two-month period and the killing of more than 80,000 Kashmiris since 1989 by the Delhi rulers has been to suppress the population of the Kashmir Valley by force of arms. But this brutal suppression has failed to stifle the demand for Azadi (freedom) and people are dying to gain freedom.
I agree with Raina that the present situation in the Kashmir Valley is fraught with great dangers for the whole region. What is needed is a change in direction of the Indian policy in Kashmir. The old official mantra that Kashmir is an internal matter and full stop never had any validity. It has been a ruse to perpetuate Indian rule over Kashmir against the will of the majority of its people. No doubt a handful of Muslim elite, especially the descendants of Sheikh Abdullah, have been the beneficiaries of the Indian patronage and they will continue to be treated thus for their allegiance to the mantra of Kashmir being an integral part of India! Well, the answer to such people is that the vast majority of the people of Kashmir reject their policies and the Indian rule. That should not be difficult for anyone to see or understand.
To assert that Pakistan is not a party to the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir State, as Sheikh Abdullah is reported to have said, does not help much. The State of Jammu and Kashmir is divided; one part is under Pakistan and the other under India. Many divided families live on both sides of the Line of Control. Again, there is little comfort to hear that ‘Pakistan occupied Kashmir’ is an illegal entity while the Indian held Kashmir is free! Such a view is illusory. The people of Pakistani held Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) do not regard themselves occupied by Pakistan. But the people of Indian Kashmir reject Indian rule and they want Freedom from Indian rule.
However, it does not mean that I support or have ever supported the two-nation theory that became the basis for the partition of India. I still look at the whole of the subcontinent as a physical and cultural unity. Unfortunately, the two-nation theory won the day in the last century and the unfinished task of partition is still on our backs.
In the end, I consider Raina’s sagacious views a serious effort to grapple with the tragic situation in the Kashmir Valley. It is a voice of reason and all those who have thought of silencing the demands of Kashmiris with state violence and armed forces need to re-think.
No matter TONY Abbott has agreed to submit the Coalition’s election promises to three rural independents to form minority government
Hung parliament result the fact people wanted fairer live resources supported in demand an honest government
“Health Olympic Australia” is a nationally and international significant movement in the 21 century “knowledge economy” in “Health Economy Gold Rush”. “Health Olympic Australia” project will not only assist the Australian Government to shape a better health system for Australians but will also improve the general health of Australians. This will put Australia in a strong position for long term wealth generation and prosperity.
● By pass all economy in human history that benefit to every habitant on earth;
● All habitant must to face either lost, or to win;
● The dead lock situation either lost health supply, or getting enough supply to win the battle of health demands in health rebuilding in her/his own right efforts to achieve wealth creation.
There are at least five economic productivity outcomes will resulting significant GDP progressing from a “Health Olympic Australia” as follow:
1. Reductions in Australian Health Workforce cost;
2. Reduction in Healthcare cost;
3. Reduction in lost productivity cost;
4. Increase from agriculture outcome;
5. Increase from “Health Olympic Australia” creation in goods/products exportation.
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
Mr, Badri Raina, has given a glimpse of pre and post partition’s scenario, Unfortunately, the element of accession is not as simple as we put across, and we haven’t yet understood honestly the feelings of kashmiri. I think, we can dig historical events which has heavily contributed to this Unrest.
Sheikh’s arrest in 1953, ti self is an eye opener and the followed by arrest of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and the intervention of political bosses and policy makers siting in the center, has always tried to sell the future of Kashmirees as British did. British did for 75,00000 Nanuk Shahi Takas and they did for petty interests. I think this note could have ironed out certain fact which it hasn’t done. , respectfully submitted.
Zamir Ahmad
Reasearch Scholar
University of Hyderabad.
Badri Raina’s views are respected. The only way to resolve the matter is to hold a UN supervised, free plebiscite in Kashmir and listen to the Kashmiris … whose home it is. The more time India loses, and employs Israeli style occupation tactics, the lesser the chances of anyone … including the Pandits … of voting for accession to India (if already not, nil).
Kashmir isn’t about history, accession to India, Pakistan’s invasion, UN intervention, plebiscite, ethnic groups, or Islam. Handing over any part of Kashmir to a weak Pakistan would be akin to handing it over to China over the long run and is as good as the Indian subcontinent committing “water suicide”. Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user-comments/freetibet
What democratic societies should learn a lessen from Australia election 2010:
1. What time bombs will rock Australia democratic society?
The Australia historical hung parliament demonstrated the big gap of inequality society between the small educated elite groups who get highest pay by talk feast used mouth work controlling live essential resources of the country in every social platforms against the biggest less educated groups who get lowest pay by hands work squeezed by discriminative policies that sucking live blood from poor/less wealth off?
Voters’ voices do not hear?
Voters’ pains do not ease?
Voters’ cries do not care?
1. Poverty will not be phase out if no fairer resources to share;
2. Illness will not be reducing if no preventive measurement in real action;
3. Agriculture will not be revitalize if urbanization continuing its path;
4. Housing affordability will not be reach for young generation if government continues cashing from young generation debt by eating out the whole cake of education export revenue without plough back;
5. Manufacture industry will shrink smaller and smaller if no new elements there to power up to survive;
6. Employability will not in the sustainable mode for so long as manufacture and agriculture not going to boost.
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
Why believe coalition economic plan works without revitalize agriculture and manufacture industries??
It’s all about power and money most Politicians and parties wanted above all and after all election?
Just listen how Barry O’Farrell convincing voters: “People are our asset. They are our greatest wealth and they should be given the opportunity to pursue their dreams?” On the issue of economic management, Mr O’Farrell was asked what he thought was the state’s greatest source of wealth, given NSW lacked a resources industry.
Take a look below the link subject: “Time for Action” in “Healthy Active Life” program that convert Broken hill into a Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy? Link with http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=20747&mycomm=ES
… .
When we look at what today’s shrinking industries, such of agriculture (34% of fruit and 19% of vegetables imported); manufacture (10.5% by 2005–6) destructed by John Howard’s coalition government.
Will you then still believe Mr Barry O’Farrell’s coalition opposition announced positive and practical policies which will help revitalize agriculture and manufacture industries for create more sustainable jobs, and innovative export products?
Remember, it’s not one person to construct or destruct the whole lots of industries, it’s the matter of whole political party/government?
Will you also believe there were only 1-2 Politicians responding to this greatest “Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy model”?
Why the most Politicians do fail their own test in spend little brain work to revitalize agriculture and manufacture industries who with $1.65 million Tax payer’s money each annual spending for?
Masealake (Member of Inventor Association QLD)
Hey! I simply noticed another message in one other blog that seemed like this. How have you learnt all these things? That’s one cool post.
Labor will not win in next states and federal election without a new direction to sooth voters broken heart, following a 70 years hung parliament eruption.
KARL Bitar has resigned as the ALP’s national secretary after strong internal criticism of his management of Labor’s 2010 election campaign.
The voters’ hearts broken not only anger the one or two in election conducted, if we take a look at the careless tested below an example of what our $1.65 millions spending each of Politician care for community development are liked?
It really should surprised to all communities very much when there was no one MP responds to such greatest health/economic development from previous two letters sent through to all MPs in nation wide.
This important step could be seen of a foundation work that in the possible exploration of opportunities in innovative health/economic convergence development for the mining depleted and aging Broken Hill, and Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobra, Ivanhoe and Wentworth surrounding communities to catch of:
“A healthy Las Vegas economy model” with capacity to by passes the 100 years old economical pattern of Las Vergas US if achieved?
This step of health/economic convergence development opportunities are by far the largest in national, and international significance if we have our innovative knowledge, elements, resource and supported by this land, people and government;
Again, what are innovative ideas of politicians, political parties, and governments have been in efficient, effective, and economical governance in their best efforts to enable communities to reach these goals?
Masealake
(Member of Inventor Association QLD since 1993)
purplehealthy@gmail.com
Full details are linked to the following web site: http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=20747&mycomm=ES
Why believe coalition Supporting Local Communities?
It’s all about power and money most Politicians and parties wanted above all and after all election?
Just listen how Barry O’Farrell convincing voters: “Over the last four years I announced positive and practical policies which will help support local communities……..” .
Take a look below the link subject: “Time for Action” in “Healthy Active Life” program that convert Broken hill into a Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy? Link with http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=20747&mycomm=ES
… , will you then still believe Barry O’Farrell’s announced positive and practical policies which will help support local communities……..” ?
Will you also believe there were only 1-2 Politicians responding to this greatest “Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy model”?
Why the most Politicians do fail their own test in support community health/economic development who with$1.65 million Tax payer’s money each annual spending for?
Masealake (Member of Inventor Association QLD)
Why believe NSW coalition health plan works just by add a few dollars in hospital without innovative ideas?
It’s all about power and money most Politicians and parties wanted above all and after all election?
Just listen how Barry O’Farrell convincing voters: “The key to our program is giving medical professionals a bigger say in how health services are delivered in their area. These are the people who know what their patients need…so we will be listening to them”.
Where the Preventive Health program under coalition government’s 8 years health plan is proved that a political mouth show in which spent millions dollar only produced a book for sale, people who have to pay for reading, but not benefit taking.
Will you then still believe Mr Barry O’Farrell’s coalition opposition is committed to health reform (put some money in some hospital if you liked)? Then call it rebuild the hospital system through Better Hospitals and Healthcare program? The coalition put it up simply as a truly health reform that would fix NSW health problems?
Will you also believe there were only 1-2 Politicians responding to this greatest “Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy model”?
Why the most Politicians do fail their own test in spend little brain work to come up some innovative idea that truly achieve the health reform materialized that benefits to all voters?
Take a look below the link subject: “Time for Action” in “Healthy Active Life” program that convert Broken hill into a Healthy Las Vergas Broken Hill economy? Link with http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=20747&mycomm=ES
… .
Masealake (Member of Inventor Association QLD)