Sumit Nayyar
Accession Day is observed on October 26 every year. The day marks the anniversary of Maharaja Hari Singh signing the ‘Instrument of Accession’ with the Government of India. The signing of this document cemented Jammu and Kashmir as a member of the Dominion of India. It was first announced as a public holiday in 2020. The people in Jammu and Kashmir whose nationalist sentiments favour India celebrate the day by lighting fireworks, singing the Indian national anthem, and hoisting the Indian flag.
Jammu and Kashmir has a long and rich history. The area has been inhabited by humans since the Neolithic period in 3000 B.C. Since then, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have lived under the rule of many monarchs – the Uttara-Kurus, the Maurya Empire, the Karkota Empire, the Mughals, and the Sikhs, among others.
The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was torn apart when British India was partitioned to form the modern nations of India and Pakistan. When Pakistani forces launched a guerrilla attack on Kashmir in 1947, Hari Singh, the reigning monarch of Kashmir at the time, turned to Mountbatten and India. He was asked to sign the Instrument of Accession – a document declaring the princely state as part of the Dominion of India. After the first Indo-Pakistan War drew to an end, the United Nations was called for mediation. The U.N.’s suggestion to hold a referendum to discern the aspirations of the Kashmiri people was refused by India.
Jammu and Kashmir, thus, became a part of the Union of India. The state was accorded special status by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. The article, though, was repealed in 2019 and the state of Jammu and Kashmir was split into two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. In 2020, Accession Day was made a public holiday.
Accession Day is a public holiday in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, commemorating 26 October 1947, when Maharaja Hari Singh signed off the Instrument of Accession, in which Jammu and Kashmir joined the Dominion of India. It became an official public holiday in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time in 2020.
INSTRUMENT OF ACCESSION-
The Instrument of Accession was a legal document first introduced by the Government of India Act 1935 and used in 1947 to enable each of the rulers of the princely states under British paramountcy to join one of the new dominions of India or Pakistan created by the Partition of British India
Instrument of Accession (Jammu and Kashmir)
The Jammu and Kashmir Instrument of Accession is a legal document executed by Maharaja Hari Singh, ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, on 26 October 1947. y executing an Instrument of Accession under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh agreed to accede his state to the Dominion of India.
On 27 October 1947, the then Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten accepted the accession. In a letter sent to Maharaja Hari Singh on the same day, he said, “it is my Government’s wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the State’s accession should be settled by a reference to the people.
Lord Mountbatten’s remark, and an offer made by the Government of India to conduct a plebiscite or referendum to determine the future status of Kashmir, led to a dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the legality of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India.
India claims that the accession is unconditional and final, while Pakistan maintains that the Maharaja acted under duress, that he had no right to accede to India at a time when a standstill agreement with Pakistan was still in force, and that he was not in control of his state and therefore not in a position and does not have the legitimacy to take such a decision.
The accession to India is celebrated on Accession Day, which is held annually on 26 October
The Schedule referred to in paragraph 3 of the Instrument of Accession reads as follows
Schedule of instrument of Accession: the matters with respect to which the dominion legislature may make laws for this State.
A. Defence
1. The naval, military and air forces of the Dominion and any other armed forces raised or maintained by the Dominion; any armed forces, including forces raised or maintained by an acceding State, which are attached to, or operating with, any of the armed forces of the Dominion.
2. Naval, military and air force works, administration of cantonment areas.
3. Arms, fire-arms, ammunition.
4. Explosives.
B. External Affairs
1. External affairs; the implementing of treaties and agreements with other countries; extradition, including the surrender of criminals and accused persons to parts of His Majesty’s Dominions outside India.
2. Admission into, and emigration and expulsion from, India, including in relation thereto the regulation of the movements in India of persons who are not British subjects domiciled in India or subjects of any acceding State; pilgrimages to places beyond India.
3. Naturalisation.
C. Communications
1. Posts and telegraphs, including telephones, wireless, broadcasting, and other like forms of communication.
2. Federal railways; the regulation of all railways other than minor railways in respect of safety, maximum and minimum rates and fares, station and services terminal charges, interchange of traffic and the responsibility of railway administrations as carriers of goods and passengers; the regulation of minor railways in respect of safety and the responsibility of the administrations of such railways as carriers of goods and passengers.
3. Maritime shipping and navigation, including shipping and navigation on tidal waters; Admiralty jurisdiction.
4. Port quarantine.
5. Major ports, that is to say, the declaration and delimitation of such ports, and the constitution and powers of Port Authorities therein.
6. Aircraft and air navigation; the provision of aerodromes; regulation and organisation of air traffic and of aerodromes.
7. Lighthouses, including lightships, beacons and other provisions for the safety of shipping and aircraft.
8. Carriage of passengers and goods by sea or by air.
9. Extension of the powers and jurisdiction of members of the police force belonging to any unit to railway area outside that unit.
D. Ancillary
1. Election to the Dominion Legislature, subject to the provisions of the Act and of any Order made there under.
2. Offences against laws with respect to any of the aforesaid matters.
3. Inquiries and statistics for the purposes of any of the aforesaid matters.
4. Jurisdiction and powers of all courts with respect to any of the aforesaid matters but, except with the consent of the Ruler of the acceding State, not so as to confer any jurisdiction or powers upon any courts other than courts ordinarily exercising jurisdiction in or in relation to that State.
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