Also targets Karan Singh for disappointing response
Nehru rejected Hari Singh’s plea to accede to India thrice
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Nov 14: Law Minister Kiren Rijiju today again targeted first Prime Minister of independent India and Congress leader Jawahar Lal Nehru on the accession of Kashmir with India and also hit out at Dr Karan Singh, former Sadr-e-Riyasat, saying his response to his previous article on the subject is deeply disappointing.
In a series of tweets and an article written on News 18 Network on the birth anniversary of Nehru, Rijiju wrote: “Acharya Kripalani, president of the Indian National Congress, visited Kashmir in May 1947. A report published in The Tribune on May 20, 1947, recorded this about Kripalani’s views:” Hari Singh was keen to accede to India and that it was not correct on the part of the National Conference to raise the demand of ‘Quit Kashmir’ against Hari Singh. ‘He is not an outsider’… He appealed to the National Conference in particular to give up the call of ‘Quit Kashmir’.”
“Dr Karan Singh also mentioned in his article that there was lack of prior intelligence regarding the Pakistani invasion. Perhaps, he meant Hari Singh had no intelligence inputs,”’ Rijiju said but added that the same is not true about Nehru.
“In his Parliament speech dated November 25, 1947, Nehru accepted that he was aware in advance, he said and quoted him as saying “In September, news reached us that tribesmen of the northwest frontier province were being collected and sent to the Kashmir border.” In the same speech, Nehru further states, “About this time, the State authorities asked us to supply them with arms and ammunition. We agreed to do so in the normal course. But in fact, no supply was made till events took a more serious turn.”
Before this speech, on November 2, 1947, Nehru had addressed the nation on Kashmir. In this long speech, Nehru stated, “We were asked by Kashmir state to provide them with arms. We took no urgent steps about it and although sanction was given by our State and Defence Ministries, actually no arms were sent.”
“This clarifies further the callous role Nehru was playing with security of the region – using it as a tool to get his demands fulfilled. The Kashmir region, in particular, and India, in general, are still paying the price for this gamesmanship by Nehru,”’ said the Law Minister.
Rijiju quoted Nehru’s letter on October 21, 1947 to Mehar Chand Mahajan, Prime Minister of Kashmir, which said, “It will probably be undesirable to make any declaration of adhesion to the Indian Union at this stage” and asked “What do these words convey”?
“Who was asking for accession and who was delaying it? Pakistan had already invaded Kashmir on October 20, 1947. On October 21, a day later, Nehru was still advising the Kashmir Government not to accede to India till his personal wishes and agenda were fulfilled (which he explicitly enunciated in the same letter). Will this evidence be denied as well? he asked.
Further, the Law Minister said, in a speech delivered on November 25, 1947, in Parliament, when the issue was still evolving internationally, Nehru stated – “We did not want a mere accession from the top but an association in accordance with the will of her people. Indeed, we did not encourage any rapid decision.”
As clear as daylight, not once but on multiple occasions, Nehru himself stated as to who was putting conditions on accession and thereby delayed it till the personal agenda was fulfilled, Rijiju said.
He said the ‘Quit Kashmir’ movement was launched by Sheikh Abdullah in 1946 and he was supported in this agitation by Nehru.
“Hari Singh, a Dogra king (father of Karan Singh), was not an outsider to Kashmir and had as many rights in the Kashmir Valley as anyone else. Every other Congress leader understood the absurdity of replicating the ‘Quit India’ call against colonial British with a ‘Quit Kashmir’ call against a Kashmiri Hindu ruler. Yet, Nehru plunged headlong in support of Abdullah and even landed up in Kashmir to support him. This started a chain of events that had decades-long tragic consequences,” he added.
Hari Singh had asserted in the House of Lords as Vice-Chancellor of Chamber of Prince’s: “I am an Indian first, and then a Maharaja.” The same Hari Singh was, thus, obviously pleading to join India in 1947 on multiple occasions but was thwarted on each occasion till Nehru’s agenda was fulfilled”.
Rijiju also took on Dr Karan Singh, a senior Congress leader, former Minister and ex Sadr-e-Riyasat, saying response to his recent article `Panch Bhool’ or ‘Five Blunders’ on Kashmir by Dr Karan Singh is deeply disappointing.
“The response to my article by Dr Karan Singh is deeply disappointing. He completely skipped the other four blunders of Nehru – suo motu insisting that the accession was provisional; moving the UN under the wrong Article after Pakistan’s invasion, thereby making it a party to the dispute instead of an aggressor; letting the myth of a UN-mandated plebiscite perpetuate; and creation of the divisive Article 370,” Rijiju wrote..
Asserting that there were no answers or even a modicum of plausible defence, he said on the first and primary blunder – of Nehru delaying the accession itself – Dr Karan Singh has presented a sanitized history, resorted to poor wordplay, and, that too, in a roundabout way to somehow extricate Nehru.
But even voluminous evidence of Nehru’s blunders could still not save Dr Karan Singh from the acerbic reminder of his place by Jairam Ramesh of the Congress, the Law Minister said.
Rijiju claimed that Nehru moved the United Nations under the wrong Article after Pakistan’s invasion, thereby making it a party to the dispute instead of an aggressor. He added that Nehru let the “myth” of a UN-mandated plebiscite perpetuate and created the “divisive” Article 370 of the Constitution.
“Nehru rejected Maharaja Hari Singh’s plea to accede to India not just once but thrice,” he wrote.
“Nehru was aware even in June 1947 that all that Hari Singh wanted was to join the Indian dominion. Nehru stated as much in his note to Mountbatten (the last Viceroy of India),” Rijiju wrote.
He said it was time for the citizens of the country to rebuff attempts to falsify history and stand true to the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
“The people of this region, along with the rest of India, deserve to know the truth of what actually happened during those tumultuous months and years,” the Minister wrote.
That the Congress and its ruling dynasty puts Nehru (and the later members of the dynasty) first and India later, is a well-established fact, the Law Minister said, adding it is time for students of history to find the courage, in light of facts, to set history right, clear the name of those unfairly besmirched by family historians to make Nehru look good.
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