B L Saraf
Come 14th November a joyous spirit pervaded the air : children saw something special in it, young looked up for an inspiration from a man born on this day and the old remembered him as a person having toiled hard to see country free : and , then set it on a path of emancipation and development – whose fruit we harvest in abundance , today .The man was called Jawaharlal Nehru . Those were the days ! And these are the days when such a thinking – howsoever faint it may be – is an unpardonable blasphemy . It has become fashionable to hold Nehru responsible for what ails India . Everyone is unsparing . To the left liberals and separatists Nehru is a ‘ criminal ‘ who “cheated Kashmiris of the Azadi” . The nationalists castigate him for not having fully merged Kashmir with the mainland .
To evaluate role of Nehru sense of history is essential. Kashmir has had centuries old spiritual and civilizational relations with the Indian mainland . But, as argued earlier, their present Constitutional relationship is embedded in a meeting that took place between Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah in early 1937, in Lahore. Sheikh Abdullah writes in his Aatish-e-Chhinar that he was so impressed by Nehru and his views that he “felt if leaders of Muslim Conference have to seek support from the Indian nationalists they will have to enlarge their vision and bring changes in the name and constitution of the party.” The camaraderie between Nehru and Abdullah, partly personal partly ideological, became instrumental in state acceding to the Indian Union, though Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession (IOA ).
Some hold Nehru guilty of introducing a conditionality in the state’s accession with the Union, by resting its finality on the wishes of people of the state. However, facts speak otherwise. V P Menon records in his book Integration of The Indian States p 399, that it was Mountbatten who insisted that accession of J&K should be conditional on the will of the people being ascertained by plebiscite , after the raiders had been driven out of the state. This was agreed to by Nehru and his Ministers , p 399 . S. Gopal, in his book Jawaharlal Nehru Vol 11 p 20, corroborates the version.
On 24 July, 1952 Nehru made a statement in Lok Sabha on Delhi Agreement, in regard to J &K ” the accession is complete in law and in fact J&K is a constituent unit like any other .” On 29 March 1956 he stated in the Lok Sabha ” The talk of plebiscite in Kashmir was ‘ entirely beside the point ‘ and there could be no question of holding it until Pakistan had withdrawn all armed forces from the state. The Kashmir problem had to be viewed afresh because of the American Military aid to Pakistan and added that Pakistan’s joining Baghdad Pact and SEATO had invalidated the old arguments relating to the question .” He then said , “Legally and constitutionally , Kashmir acceded to India .This is an undoubted fact . You may criticize the speed , with which this was done , but the fact is that legally and constitutionally the state of J&K acceded to India . Therefore it became the duty of the Indian Union to defend and protect Kashmir from aggression and drive out the invaders ….” ( Jawaid Alam in Select Correspondence Between Jawaharlal Nehru and Karan Singh P.195 and Sandeep Bamzai in Bonfire of Kashmiriat – Deconstructing the Accession – p 68.
Nehru is cursed for allowing Mountbatten to be the Governor -General of free India. We tend to forget that Mountbatten helped India’s cause on Kashmir . He advised Cyril Radcliff to alter his boundary plan in East Punjab to grant India physical connectivity with J&K, so necessary for the state to accede to India . Imagine what would be the fate of India’s case in UNO if there wouldn’t be an IOA, or had it come after Indian forces had landed in the Valley. Working under the influence of Anglo- American block as it was then, UNO would have easily indicted India. It were testing times for India. In 1947-1952 India was not what it has become after the advent of 21st Century – a country politically and economically empowered enough to ignore the UNO .
As written earlier , Mountbatten’s letter doesn’t give anything to the opponents of the accession , or to the Nehru baiters. Krishna Menon , speaking in the UN Security Council on 23rd January, 1957 explained the matter, ” We may then be asked; What is the meaning of a letter written by Earl Mountbatten, when he was Governor – General of India , to the Maharaja about consulting wishes of the people. As I pointed out there is document of accession . There is an offer and then there is acceptance …..
The letter of Mountbatten is a separate document and has nothing to do with this . What does that document do ? It makes no guarantee. It expresses wish of the Government of India – not as a part of law, but as part of political policy …” He then referred to the Constituent Assembly of the state and explained how people of the state have been consulted. Kashmir – Krishna Menon’s speeches in Security Council (Publication Division of Ministry Of Information GOI Ps 42, 43)
True, Maharaja Hari Singh was all for India and wanted J&K State to align with it which he ultimately did . Being the Ruler, he alone was authorized to sign the IOA. While appreciating the role of Maharaja the demographic character of his subjects and their possible adverse reaction his move could evoke has to be kept in view. The vast majority of his subjects were of a faith different from his. Under these circumstances the situations which arose in Hyderabad and Junagarh can’t be overlooked where rulers of a particular faith opted for Paksitan in disregard to the wishes of their subject who practiced a faith different from them. With the result their IOAs with Pakistan came cropper.
Their misadventure failed because none among the majority community supported them. On the flip side, the situation becomes a mirror image of J&K. In these circumstances if we exclude Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah from the Indian discourse on Kashmir one shudders to visualize where J&K would be today? Hari Singh’s signing of I O A with India wouldn’t be of much help.
The matter of Kashmir’s relationship with India is too complex to be understood in selectively quoted excerpts of Pt; Nehru’s speeches. One has to understand the environment and the political upheaval that prevailed immediately after the independence in the sub-continent, and what preceded it in the political arena of the Valley, in 1947. The tribal attack on J&K, aided and abetted by Pakistan made things very murky. Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach towards Kashmir has to be understood in that background . What Nehru did for the prosperity of India , building democratic and learning institutions is for all to see. We may run down him but in doing so we should not jeopardize India’s cause in Kashmir .
(The author is former Principal District & Sessions Judge)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
