Merger or Accession ?

By B L Saraf

Omar Abdullah’s speech in the Legislative Assembly, made few days back, has created a controversy. At this juncture, he could have done well without it. He has said that Kashmir has only acceded to and not merged with India. We don’t know what crossed his mind when he made the distinction, whereas materially there is none. He made another point that it makes no sense in repeatedly saying, “Kashmir is an integral part of India” because no one says so about any other State of India . The knowledgeable tell us that this is beleaguered C M’s attempt to regain some of the lost political ground in the Valley. Merger or Accession -the fact is that relationship of Kashmir with India is, admittedly, of a unique nature brought about in unique circumstances. Omar’s speech should make us look afresh on the circumstances preceding and surrounding the fact of the union of Kashmir with India.
Traveling some distance with the Muslim Conference ,Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah came to realize that his struggle against the autocratic rule of Maharaja would not be all inclusive and purposeful unless every section of the J&K population was taken on board .His interaction with the nationalist leadership of British India , in Lahore, comprising Jawaharlal Nehru ,Dr Saifudin Kichloo and Abdul Gaffar Khan, enlarged his vision about the political need of the hour .Writing in his autobiography Aatishe Chinar about his meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru and other nationalist leaders Sheikh Abdullah says , “Soon after meeting the nationalist leaders I felt the deliverance of the Kashmiris lies in coming out of the narrow confines and aligning with the national mainstream ….”( P,.210) . He further writes that in order to garner support of the Indian Nationalist forces it was imperative to change the name and Constitution of Muslim Conference. Sheikh Abdullah found a good deal of commonality between the Indian Nationalists, who were fighting the British rule, and his struggle against the autocratic Maharaja. Accordingly ,on 28th June, 1938, the Working Committee of the Muslim Conference , on his resolution , changed the name of the Muslim Conference to ‘ National Conference ‘, with a view to enable the Hindus and Sikhs to join the struggle against the autocratic rule .Therefore, the bedrock of Indo- Kashmir association is the vision that developed during the freedom struggles of the two .It was of a socio -political set-up which would provide for a safe, tolerant and egalitarian space to every section of the populace, and respect their religious beliefs . It, thus, became an idea central to the both. Only history will tell whether this association did strengthen the shared values or become a festering sore–a flashpoint for the bloody wars in the subcontinent. Did the parties hold on to the promises made?
Kashmir’s association with India was on some conditions. The Maharaja, while acceding to India had, in terms of Clauses 7 & 8 of the Instrument of Accession, reserved a right not to commit himself to accept Constitution of India in toto or fetter his discretion to enter into arrangement with Govt. of India, and his sovereignty would continue as provided under this Instrument. This was indicative of a special position Kashmir would have within the Indian Union. Delhi Agreement of 1952 reiterated this position and Article 2 of the Constitution of India permitted it. At the time of accession J & K was governed by the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution Act of 1939, with Delhi’s jurisdiction extending only to External Affairs, Defence and Communication. The Maharaja wanted the continuation of the Act while the popular leaders differed. The Constituent Assembly was made aware that the State’s association with India would be on terms of accession , acknowledging this special position and the problems with which the government of J&K was, then, faced. Constituent Assembly adopted Article 306A which became Article 370 in the final Constitution. Thus a special provision for constitutional relationship of the State with the Union came into the existence. The geographic position, difference in the religions of the Ruler and the Ruled and the demographic character of the State dictated the course .Apart from that popular support was needed for the accession which came through Sheikh Abdullah. For some the conditions around the accession are for India and Kashmir to settle. Others see international dimension to it and think that fulfillment of the conditions is a sine quo non for Kashmir’s association with India to survive. This is a big subject in itself. Much can be said on both sides .Let us leave it for other time and the place to deliberate upon.
India is a union of States. The Indian Society is multi – cultural and multi- lingual. The language and ethnicity are the broad parameters on which the States, within the Indian Union, came to be reorganized .The Constitution of India is federal in nature where the States can exercise legislative and executive powers independent of Union Government, subject, however, to some limitations. Jammu & Kashmir is a constituent unit of Union of India as described in Article 1 of Constitution of India and Section 3 of Constitution of J&K . We must remember that all the Princely States that acceded to India or Pakistan signed the instruments of accession before joining either dominion .However, most of the Princely States got merged with the British India Provinces following the reorganisation of the States , post accession . Nearer home , Patiala and Kapoorthala ; Jaipur and Alwar in Rajasthan are the examples . The State of J&K retained its geographical boundaries as distinct identity , except those occupied by Pakistan . While acceding to India, it did not merge itself with any pre- existing Province in British India. The State retained its distinct identity as a separate entity , with a separate Constitution and flag .In any case the relationship of Kashmir with India is indestructible . There is no need to sharpen the edge of competitive politics by quibbling over the meaning of words “Accession”, “Merger” or “Union” One cannot be sure whether Omar Abdullah had this in mind when he made the speech because most people don’t credit him with the knowledge of turbulent Kashmir. But when seen in the aforementioned background his statement in the Assembly, to this extent, is a narration of the fact. Regarding his other part of the speech that there should be no repeating of , ” Kashmir is an integral part of India” he must go through Sec 3 of the State Constitution , which boldly mentions this fact . Mr CM, there is no separate constitution for any other State in the country.
The young CM would do well to recall what his illustrious grandfather told the Press in Delhi in Sept 1948., “We have burnt our boats. There is no place in Kashmir for a theocratic state. Kashmir will never make a plaything of India’s honour.” (Source – Kashmir: Behind the Vale-M.J Akbar). Omar Abdullah must realize that a word said in prevailing surcharged atmosphere may cause more harm than the intended good. Yes, Kashmir’s relationship with India needs to be reassessed and some promises made redeemed. But broad parameters of the values that, initially, defined the relationship must remain same.
(The author is former Principle Distt & Sessions Judge)

Legality of J&K’s Accession to India and Omar Abdullah’s separatist campaign

Mahesh Kaul

In 1947 when J&K acceded to India Maharaja Hari Singh signed the same standard form of the Instrument of Accession which was signed by the other princely states to accede to the Indian union.

“The accession of the state to India was not subject to any exceptions or pre-condition to provide for any separate and special constitutional arrangements for the state. Neither Jawahar Lal Nehru, nor Vallabhai Patel gave any assurances to Hari Singh or the National Conference leaders that J&K would be accorded a separate and independent political organization on the basis of the Muslim Majority character of its population.”
The partition plan that created the dominions of India and Pakistan in 1947 did not apply to the princely states. At the time of partition, the partition plan was applied to the British India out of which the two states of India and Pakistan were created.When the British left India there were two entities that is the British India and the princely states, with the British exit paramountcy expired and the princely states were left with two options that is either accession to India or Pakistan and there was no third option for the so called independence.
Moreover,as per that process of transfer of power and the partition plan, “the right to sovereignty lied with the ruler who had the legal and constitutional right to sign the instrument of accession. The partition of India left the states out its scope and the transfer of power accepted the lapse of the Paramountcy: the imperial authority the British exercised over the States. The accession of the states to India was the culmination of a historical process which symbolized the unity of the people in the British India and the Indian States”. Thus, the accession of J&K to India is complete. The above stated fact and reality has been made abundantly clear by the eminent political scientist Prof. M.K. Teng in his well researched book -Kashmir: the Myth of Autonomy.
The statement given by the chief Minister Omar Abdullah on the floor of state legislative assembly was open treason and sedition. This statement should not be seen in isolation as there seems to be international conspiracy to dismantle the northern frontiers of the Indian nation in J&K. The fuel to this fire is being provided by the Indian political class who have created a perverse discourse to establish J&K as a separate sphere of Muslim power with a view that J&K can be kept in the Indian union only when concessions are given to the Muslim separatism in J&K.
The same situation is being created as had emerged during the 1940′s when the partition politics of Muslim league was given credence and acceptance by the Indian political leadership and then ultimately, it was accepted by the British which lead to the partition of India.
If the national discourse is not set in the right direction then the day is not far when the second partition of the nation will be round the corner. Various forces are acting at the international level in tandem with the separatists of Kashmir and certain bigwigs of the Indian political establishment to exclude J&K from the Indian union. It is a known fact and a historical reality that those who control the Himalayas will hold sway over the Asia. Himalaya is the natural frontier of India. So to weaken or dismember India, the key lies in the control of the Himalayas. USA, China and Pakistan understand this well and that is why comprehensive thrust is being laid to exclude India from the Himalayas by unhinging J&K from the Indian. Re -emergence of General Parvez Musharaaf, Indian Visit of US president Barrack Hussain Obama in November is part of the US exit strategy from AfPak region in 2011, wherein he has a hidden agenda to dislodge India from J&K so that withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan & Pakistan is made possible by diluting Indian sovereignty over J&K and giving concrete concessions to Pakistan in Kashmir. This is a clear strategy to establish Muslim sphere of influence in J&K.
So Omar Abdullah’s statement should not be seen in isolation. He is hob nobbing with the foreign powers to declare J&K as Muslim sphere of power as was done by his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah when he was in touch with Adlai Stevenson for creating independent Kashmir.
Omar Abdullah needs to be tried for treason and solution to all the miseries of the minorities lies in the political reorganization of the J&K state.
That is the creation of homeland for the Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir,Jammu state,Union territory for Ladakh and the all time settlement of POK refugees and the west Pakistan refugees.

(writer is a PhD scholar at the School for Hospitalty and Tourism Management {SHTM}, University of Jammu, President, Sangarsh and Chairman, Heritage Initiative Foundation.)

Issue of accession : 18 questions for CM Omar Abdullah

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has miserable failed as an administrator and brought the state to such a sorry pass, has generated heat in the state and the rest of the country by raking up the settled issue of accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. He has reportedly alarmed the Prime Minister and the Home Minister and he has put the Congress party on the mat and created an awkward situation for it. He has given a handle to his opponents and integrationists to beat him from right and left and question his credentials. So much so, they have dubbed him as “anti-national” and demanded his dismissal and arrest. He has sought to divert the people’s attentions away from the real issues facing them by taking recourse to falsehood and politics of emotional blackmail and deceit.

The Chief Minister, who has lost his way and become thoroughly unpopular because of his own acts of omission and commission, inefficiency, recklessness and failure on each and every front, has sought to convey an impression in the restive Kashmir Valley that the political status of Jammu and Kashmir has yet to be determined, that the state acceded to India under an agreement, that it is New Delhi that has broken the agreement and that the ongoing unrest in the Kashmir Valley is because New Delhi has broken the agreement unilaterally. All white-lie. There is no substance in what the Chief Minister said on October 6 on the floor of the assembly. It’s all politically motivated. It’s all communally motivated. In fact, it is a desperate act of a desperate and comprehensively defeated and thoroughly isolated person to conceal his failures and put the innocent people on the warpath.

The statement the Chief Minister made needs to be contested. He needs to be asked simple and straight questions so that the National Conference is exposed in the eyes of the people and those in New Delhi who have been giving the Chief Minister moral and political support for reasons best known to them.

Here are 18 questions. The Chief Minister or any of the National Conference ideologues must answer these questions so that things are put in perspective and the people of the state in general and those of Kashmir in particular know the real story of the National Conference’s politics of opportunism, political debauchery and brinkmanship. Any failure on the part of the Chief Minister or any of his ideologues/political advisor to answer these questions would be construed as a vindication of the stand of those who have come to believe that it is the National Conference that is the root cause of all the problems confronting the people of the state as well as the Indian nation and that the Chief Minister has committed a serious mistake by raking up the settled issue of accession.

1. What was the locus standi of the National Conference at the time of accession? Is it not a fact that Sheikh Abdullah secured his release in September 1947 after tendering an unconditional apology to Maharaja Hari Singh?

2. Was the National Conference entitled to play any role whatever as far the issue of accession of the state to the Indian Dominion was concerned?

3. Who was to sign the Instrument of Accession and under which Act? Was it the Maharaja or the National Conference?

4. Where is the signed copy of the “agreement” the Chief Minister talked about on October 6 under which the state acceded to India?

5. Was the Instrument of Accession, signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, in any way different from the ones signed by the princes of other 660-odd princely states? If yes, what was the difference?

6. Who had prepared the Instrument of Accession document? Was it the princes of the respective princely states or was it a document prepared by the State Department (Read Home Department) of the Dominion Government?

7. Which of the princely states signed the Instrument of Merger? Was it the bigger states like Baroda, Travancore, Mysore or so on or the hill states such as in what we today call Himachal Pradesh, which were merged with Maha Punjab?

8. What was the Instrument of Attachment?

9. Where is the signed copy of the so-called Delhi Agreement of 1952 the National Conference consistently talks about? Is it not a fact that Abdul Rahim Rather in the presence of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and all of his Cabinet colleagues and National Conference MLAs and MLCs publicly acknowledged in Srinagar in the late 90s that there existed nothing like the signed Delhi Agreement and that it was a mere statement?

10. Is it not a fact that Sheikh Abdullah, who had come back to power in 1975 under the 1975 accord, appointed a three-member cabinet sub-committee to look into the whole gamut of the Central laws and institutions extended to the state after August 9, 1953 and recommend withdrawal of such laws as were deemed injurious to the state’s special status?

11. How many reports the said cabinet sub-committee produced? Or, is it not a fact that the said committee had produced two reports, one was from D D Thakur, which recommended that the needles of the clock could not be turned back and that the Central laws had benefited the state and its people, and the other was from G M Shah, the Sheikh’s son-in-law, and Ghulam Nabi Kochak, which had recommended wholesale withdrawal of the Central laws on the ground that they had eroded the state’s internal autonomy?

12. Is it not a fact that Sheikh Abdullah accepted the Thakur report in its entirety and rejected outright the recommendations of Shah and Kochak?

13. Is it not a fact that the members of the State Autonomy Committee deliberately chose not to refer to the 1975 accord in its report? Why did they do so?

14. Is it not a fact that the members of the State Autonomy Committee suppressed the fact that Sheikh Abdullah had appointed a three-member cabinet sub-committee to look into the whole issue of Central laws and institutions? Why did they do so? Why did they keep the people and the Government of India in the dark?

15. Is it not a fact that 18 more Central laws, including POTA, were introduced in the state between 1977 and 1990, when the National Conference was in power for most of the period? Did the Government of India force Sheikh Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah to adopt these Central laws? If yes, why didn’t they resign? Why didn’t they protest?

16. Is it not a fact that it was the National Conference Government that ratified the 1990 ordinance in 1996 adopting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which had been extended to the state when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the Home Minister of India? Why did Farooq Abdullah government do so?

17. Can the Chief Minister refer to a single Central law that was imposed on the state against the state’s will or without the “concurrence” of the state government?

18. Is it not a fact that the recently-announced 8-point package is nothing but the transfer of even those powers to New Delhi that are the sole preserve of the state government? Which autonomy and which agreement the Chief Minister is talking about? The only thing that doesn’t come under the purview of the state government is the suggestion regarding the appointment of interlocutors.

The Chief Minister must answer these simple questions. He just cannot mislead the people and suppress facts and murder history. But more than that, it is for the people of Kashmir to ask Omar Abdullah to answer these questions. They must remember that it is the Abdullah dynasty that has consistently played a foul game to enjoy the loaves and fishes of office. If they want to lead a life o dignity, they have no other option but to expose the misdeeds of those who have been preaching falsehood for the sake of personal power and profit.

(J K Study Center)