K N Pandita
Today is the 9th August 2024. Seventy-one years ago, on this day of 1953, something big happened in Kashmir which gave a completely new direction to the history of our State and also the perception of world community of Kashmir issue.
The towering political leader of Kashmir who had founded, nurtured and immensely strengthened J&K’s (henceforth Kashmir for brevity) movement for doing away with monarchy and replace it with a popular regime, was deposed as Prime Minister and arrested. The charge brought against him was of sedition viz annulling accession of the state and declaring its independence.
The method of deposing him was made to look constitutional. A majority vote of no confidence in his government by the J&K cabinet was made the basis of his deposition. It was not voted by the constituency assembly. For several months before the action of 9th August, central leadership had been in touch with the opposition in the cabinet. Only after it was convinced that Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad, the Deputy Prime Minister and his cohorts, Sadiq in particular, were on board, the die was cast.
Let us not go into the legalities of deposition and arrest of the Sheikh. Our focus is on two aspects of the case; Sheikh -Nehru bonhomie and Sheikh – Nehru discord.
Nehru reposed full trust in the Sheikh as a secular and nationalist leader. Bui it was a blunder on his part — and also undemocratic — to sideline the Mirwaiz of Kashmir, Maulvi Yusuf Shah who adhered to pro-Pakistan ideology. Nehru lost sight of the fact that the Sheikh had begun his political career as an adherent of Kashmir Muslim Conference which was the local version of the Muslim League.
In terms of secularist outreach of the Sheikh, he was miles away from the standing of the Mirwaiz House. Nehru’s inability to objectively compare and evaluate Mirwaiz house’s ‘Kashmiriyyat’ and the Sheikh’s politically-oriented “secularism” (Sher-I-Kashmir ka kya Irshad etc.) caused dire hazard to the people of the valley. That hazard could not be mitigated down to our times. This is a reality.
The question whether the Sheikh had genuine reasons to adopt a defiant mood in early 1950s has been widely debated and inferences drawn. Supposing the reasons were genuine, why could not the Sheikh sort these out with his patron who was enjoying all power in New Delhi? Perhaps the Sheikh was not thinking of drastic measure of completely separating from India because he knew he had burnt his boats with Pakistan. By strange quirk of destiny, two diametrically opposite elements, namely the maneuverings of the CIA and the choreography of the Indian Left, without being in tandem, converged on widening the breach between the Sheikh and Nehru.
The malaise lay not in New Delhi but Srinagar where the Leftists worked surreptitiously to destabilize the Sheikh’s position. The Sheikh had received and welcomed full support from the Left during the heyday of his freedom movement. But he never became a 4 – anna member of that political group. Once in absolute power, he certainly overshadowed his cabinet and worked more arbitrarily giving the opposition a cause for disgruntlement.
It is also believed that the Sheikhs arbitrary stance had its roots in the way in which Nehru bestowed unrestricted powers on him while making him the Chief Administrator in October 1947 soon after the Pakistani invaders were pushed out of the valley. Maharaja’s cabinet was dissolved and the Sheikh was declared Chief Administrator without clarifying the powers he enjoyed and their jurisdiction. National Conference, the party headed by the Sheikh and now in power, had not worked meticulously on any administrative plan or policy framework when power was handed over to it in totally unexpected circumstances. If a sound mechanism of checks and balances had been framed even temporarily, perhaps the Sheikh would not have decided to administer the state in an arbitrary manner.
At that point of time, Maharaja Hari Singh, who was now only a nominal Head of the State, strongly protested against the Sheikh’s way of administering the State. He wrote copiously to the then Home Minister Sardar Patel, who, owing to his physical weakness and advanced age besides the over-bearing demeneur of the Prime Minister Nehru, had become helpless, could not stem the tide in Kashmir politics. The drift carried the state away to the realms of uncertainty.
Twelve years later, in 1962, the story was repeated. This time, the Leftists targeted Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad, who, owing to his powerful public liaising, had endeared himself to the masses of the people in Kashmir. False stories were spread to malign Bakhshi as the anti-Bakhshi lobby in New Delhi wanted to project Sadiq as the real face of Indian socialist ideology in Kashmir. Kashmir history knows of no bigger hypocrites than the Left when we make in depth and dispassionate study of current Kashmir political history.
In my opinion, the roots of Kashmir canker lay not in August 8-9 of 1953 but in the day on which Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad was removed ignominiously from power through the highly damaging Kamaraj Plan. Dismissal of the Bakhshi from power was not because of the loss of majority vote in the cabinet as was the case with the Sheikh or a stigma of arrogance and arbitration. It was not the decision of the Union Cabinet as well; but it was sequel to “His Majesty” ethos that ruled the country. Who is paying the price of New Delhi’s narrow – minded and whimsical policy for Kashmir? It is we the disillusioned and misled people of Kashmir.
Now Dr Farooq says that unless New Delhi talks to Pakistan, militancy will not go. A leader enjoying the popularity with the masses of people, a person whose third generation has been ruling the state, should have demonstrated courage of going to Islamabad and inviting the Pakistani rulers to talk to him on Kashmir. How does he imagine he can make the cat’s paw of the Indian government? If he is able to forge a sensible and long-lasting solution after talks with the Pakistanis, it will be easier for the Indian nation to exert pressure on New Delhi to take the matter in right earnest. Otherwise misleading the people by slogans of talk to Pakistan is another wound inflicted on the conscience of Kashmiri people.
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