Accession Day (Velay Divas)

Shehjar Online



Accession Day (Velay Divas) K L Chowdhury

ctober 26, 1947 Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India. Accession day should have been a red letter day in the State calendar, but far from any official celebrations, the memories of the day bring out contrasting emotions in different regions. Officially, the day has been discarded even from memory and buried in an unknown cemetery where no candle is ever lit. Far from being commemorated, 27 October, when Indian forces were airlifted to drive the invaders out from Kashmir, is observed in the valley as Occupation Day. History: In reality, Accession brought Kashmir back where it really belongs from ancient times. Kashmir has always been a part of India. There is mention in Mahabharata of Kashmir clan—one amongst the many ruling dynasties that comprised different kingdoms in the length and breadth of India. The first known ruler of Kashmir, Gonanda, was related to Jarasandha who ruled Maghadda during Kurukheshtra war. That was around 3000 BC. Emperor Ashoka built the capital of Kashmir at Shringari—from which Srinagar got its name— in 250 BC near the present Pandrethan. The Fourth Buddhist Council was held in Kashmir in Kanshika’s rule around 100 AD. These historical facts negate the theory that Kashmir was a separate country. The Muslims who make such claims came much later. They invaded Kashmir in mid 12th century and changed the demography through conversions under the Turks, Central Asian invaders, Moguls and Afghans. National amnesia: Accession Day has also been conveniently forgotten by the country, because we have made of mess of what was a position of advantage, turning an opportunity into an adversity thorough a series of tactical, strategic and political blunders that continue to exact a heavy price from the nation. We are shy, nay afraid, even to commemorate this day because it might touch the sensitivities of those who have questioned the legality and finality of accession; because our leaders, rulers down the last six decades have complicated the issue through successive political chicanery, thuggery and deceit. Is it not shocking to realize that it took our country 50 years to commemorate the sacrifices of our armed forces who fought the Chinese in 1962 under the most adverse conditions – ill prepared, ill equipped, ill conceived and poorly backed by the county’s political class. . We do not like to recall our blunders, or learn lessons from them. Chronology of events: In fact, the story how accession finally came about—and its aftermath—is replete with faulty visions, miscalculations, missteps, and misadventures that led to a series of tragic events and pushed J&K into the quagmire of a seemingly unending conflict for which the Indian nation has been paying enormous price. Unless and until we understand the genesis of the events pre and post-independence, our understanding of history will remain clouded and we will be unfair to ourselves as well as those who hold contrary views on accession. At the time of Indian independence, India was divided into two sets of territories—one, the territories of British India, which were under the direct control of the Governor-General of India; two, the Princely States, the territories over which the British Crown had suzerainty, but which were under the control of the hereditary rulers of the states. In the independence and partition of British India of 1947, the 562 Princely were given a choice to join either the new Dominion of India or the newly formed state of Pakistan, or to remain independent. Maharaja Hari Singh, who ruled J&K for 22 years and spent much of his time between hunting in the deep forests of the valley and running horses in Bombay Race Course, had little time for a reasoned understanding of the rapidly unfolding events in the subcontinent. He nurtured ambitions of independence, and, alliance with western powers, even with Russia. He was inimical to India especially because he had no love lost for Jawaharlal Nehru for being on the side of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in the Quit Kashmir Movement. Yet, he was not totally bereft of common sense to realize that joining Pakistan would be a fatal error. In the third week of June 1947, after the decision was taken to divide India, Lord Mountbatten set out for Kashmir. In Srinagar, the viceroy met the Prime Minister, Ramchand Kak, and advised him to tell Maharajah Hari Singh to accede to either dominion. Ramchand Kak informed him in categorical terms that Kashmir would stay independent. The Maharaja, it is said, avoided seeing Mountbatten, pretending to be down with abdominal colic. On August 15, when India got her independence, Jammu and Kashmir did not acceded to either India or Pakistan. In order to buy time, the Maharaja offered to sign a 'standstill agreement' with both countries. This would allow the free movement of people and goods across borders. Pakistan signed the agreement, but India decided to wait. However, Pakistan stopped rail service between Sialkot and Jammu in the middle of September which blocked the passage of goods through this important route into J&K. The squeeze led to deterioration of relations with Pakistan. We all remember how salt—amongst other necessities of everyday existence—became scarcer than precious stones in what goes down in Kashmir history as the ‘salt famine’ Pakistan soon grew impatient. On October 22, 1947 a five thousands strong group of tribal raiders, backed by Pakistani forces, led an incursion into the State of Jammu & Kashmir from Abbottabad, marching swiftly down the Jehlum valley. They took Dommel on the first day and overpowered the Maharaja’s battalion at Muzaffarabad. Soon, Uri fell to the invaders in spite of meeting a fierce resistance from state troops under Brig. Rajinder Singh, whose ranks were sorely depleted by the desertion of many of its Muslim troops some of whom joined the invading forces. Baramullah fell next and the rampaging hordes looted and burnt down properties, killed innocent people, raped women and took hostages. They damaged and shut down the Mohura power station plunging Srinagar into darkness, and marched rapidly to get within the outskirts of the capital. Some of us still remember their dance of death and destruction with horror. Maharaja Hari Singh woke up from his reveries when the invaders reached the gates of Srinagar. He was forced to appeal India for help. That would come only after accession. On 26 October he signed the instrument of accession. The Indian forces were airlifted from 27th October and soon pushed the invaders out from the city. However, it was going to be a long and protracted war, spread over many months in many sectors across Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh and Kargil, Poonch and Rajouri. India took the issue of Pakistani invasion to the United Nations on I January 1948. A year later, on 31 Dec 1948, a cease fire brokered by the UN was put into place. By that time nearly two-fifths of the territory J&K were in Pakistan’s control. The UN resolution required Pakistan to withdraw all forces from J&K, allowed India to maintain minimum forces to preserve law and order, and, after compliance of these conditions, to hold a free and impartial plebiscite to determine the future of the state. Thus a case of aggression by Pakistan was converted into a dispute. Pakistan; the aggressor became a stakeholder in Kashmir. The rest is history. The Instrument of Accession: The Instrument of Accession is a legal document executed by Maharajah Hari Singh, ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, on 26 October 1947. By executing this document under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947, Maharajah Hari Singh agreed to accede to the Dominion of India. There was no ambiguity in its being unconditional and final. Fundamentally, there is no question about the legality or finality of accession. One, it was signed by a ruler of the princely state as with all the other princely states according to the conditions laid down for partition of India. Two, the first J&K Constituent Assembly, duly elected in 1951, unanimously endorsed and ratified the state's accession to India on February 15, 1954. Three, J&K adopted its own constitution in November, 1956, re-iterating that “The State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India.” Then what went wrong? Blunders: Five blunders look us in the eye: One, Hari Singh’s vacuous dreams of independence, his vacillation, his lackadaisical attitude in the face of grave danger to his subjects and his State. Two, the clause put forth by the then Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten, of ‘reference to the people after the state was cleared of invaders’. In a letter sent to Maharajah Hari Singh next day after he signed the instrument of accession, Lord Mountbatten accepted the accession with a remark, “it is my Government's wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader, the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people.” What was the need to put that condition when none had been requested by the ruler of J&K. Could he have included this condition without the knowledge of Nehru? Was it a conspiracy of the western powers? Why did India insist on retaining a Briton as the first governor general after her independence? These questions have remained unanswered till today. Three, India approaching the UN for intervention especially when she was in a dominant position in the war. Four, Nehru’s unflinching faith in Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, putting all eggs in one basket. Five, India’s grave blunder in agreeing to a ceasefire before driving out the invaders from the whole territory of J&K. Six, the conditions laid down in the UN resolution for a plebiscite, making an aggressor a stakeholder in J&K. De-accession, Separation and India’s climb-down: The crusade for de-accession and separation of J&K was born on the very day of accession. Not only the fact that the valley was Muslim majority and therefore inclined to Pakistan on the basis of religion, but also that an opportunity was created by the blunders outlined above for the forces inimical to merger with India, including the vacillating character of Sheikh Abdullah. Unfortunately, India could not correct the anomaly when opportunity offered itself on several occasions, especially when she was in a position of strength after the conclusive victory over Pakistan in 1971. She went on blundering from a series of policy failures and strategic errors. After 23 years of subversion, sedition and armed insurgency, starting from 1989, it may seem a pyrrhic victory for the separatists in that their dream of total independence has not been achieved, nor a merger with Pakistan; but Kashmir has turned into a de-facto Islamic State in a secular India, and the two-nation theory has been translated into a reality here. The pompous parliamentary resolution of 1994 that Kashmir is a closed case, that the only unresolved issue is the reclamation of the part annexed by Pakistan in 1947, is a far cry from the toned down rhetoric of our national leaders, ‘that sky is the limit’ for Kashmiri’s separatist aspirations. In fact, the greater the Kashmiris raise the pitch for a separate and special identity, the more India is ready to offer—rail and road link, international airport, educational institutions and central universities, super-specialty hospitals and medical colleges, developmental projects and job-orientated schemes, special reservations in central government ventures and big business, subsidies and grants—and yet the appetite remains insatiate, nay, it whets into pangs of hunger. Down the years, it seems India has not only lost her vision of Kashmir, but far from taking steps to bring it closer to the nation, she has reconciled to a policy of containment of the separatist rhetoric through appeasement and fruitless engagement, sops and concessions, poor diplomacy and intrigue. She seems to have lost the moral courage to hold on to Kashmir. She seems to suffer from a guilt complex and is content with a loose, tenuous, fragile one-way relationship, where she is ready to yield, to give everything and get nothing in return, not even a modicum of peace, let alone gratitude. The Kashmiri politicians of all hues, be they from mainstream national parties like Congress and CPM, be they the mainstream regional parties like NC, PDP, be they separatists—moderate or hard-line—may have different ideologies and goals, different styles and methodologies, they have one thing in common—they all question the legality and/or the degree of accession of J&K to India. Right from Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah down to his son and grandson, they have mastered the language which pays, the idiom that India understands. They have turned into cry babies, and India into a schizophrenic mother who rewards each baby cry with a freebie. The baby has been spoilt beyond measure. Crying has become ingrained with its nature. It cries, shouts, throws tantrums, raves, threatens, pelts stones, brandishes a gun, and even fires it with impunity. But the rewards flow all the same. Cry-and-reward phenomenon: This cry-and-reward phenomenon has evolved into an incurable disease. In 2008, when Omar Abdullah roared in the Indian Parliament, claiming he was a Kashmiri Muslim before he was an Indian, and that he would not give one inch of land for the holy Amaranth yatra, not one member dared him. (Paradoxically, while no Indian can buy an inch of land in Kashmir, Kashmiris are free to have all of India; they have bought big lots of land in major metropolises, built business empires, and enjoy special privileges everywhere). On the contrary, his speech was lauded by the congress apologists and the so called liberal-democratic-secular elite of the land. He was soon to be rewarded with Congress support in forming the present coalition government. A spoilt brat—like so many other spoilt new princilings of post-independent India who have come to assume a divine right to rule—he can get away with any and all surliness—calling for more and more engagement with the separatists and with Pakistan even as their depredations go on unabated, raising the pitch for the revocation of AFSPA even in the face of resurgent militancy in Kashmir, even as more than 900 panches and sarpanches have resigned in terror, reminiscent of the days militancy peaked in 1990 when people rushed frantically to news papers to declare their non-allegiance to any political party lest they are targeted by the militants. When Manmohan Singh announced the first batch of ministers for his UPA-2, Farooq Abdullah fumed for not finding his name in the selected list. He sulked, flew to far away South Africa to vacation and watch IPL cricket. The reward for his tantrum was a cabinet berth as the Union Renewable Energy Minister. When Geelani decrees the ushering of Islamic rule and Sharia in Kashmir and its merger with Pakistan, India sends emissaries, begging him for an interview, and ‘liberals’ like Arundhatti Roy rush into his embrace and sing paeans to his insane outbursts. When the separatists hobnob with Pakistani embassy officials and visiting dignitaries right under her nose, India buries her eyes in sand like the ostrich; she seals her ears when they preach sedition in New Delhi. India does not dare to bring the scaffold down on the neck of Afzal Guru facing death sentence for the Parliament attack. India has almost accepted the right of Pakistan to strike at her with impunity anytime, anywhere from Delhi to Mumbai to Varanasi et al. Why commemorate Accession day? That is why commemorating Accession day is all the more important in recalling how the nation is paying dearly for India’s pathetic failure in Kashmir. In particular, it is a day for us, the Kashmiri Pandits, who have been driven out of our homeland, to introspect and renew and reenergize our crusade for reversing our exodus. For us, Kashmir is our motherland, from where our religion springs, where Kashmiri Shaivism took birth, where our culture is rooted, where our ancestors lived and died, where our aspirations still reside. We suffered the barbarities perpetrated by the raiders in 1947. We have suffered worst discrimination since the so called popular rule in Kashmir; we suffered genocide during the present insurgency; and we continue to suffer in exile from the same rulers who drove us out. We have been consigned into the dustbin of history, and dumped in the wild wastes at Jagti, where our folk are deprived of basic living conditions, tortured with drought and darkness as power and water are shut off most hours of the day most days of the week. Our demand for minority rights have been repeatedly ignored, even as no one has time to ponder over another paradoxical situation in that Kashmiri Muslims are enjoying a minority status at the National level and all the rights of majority with no concessions for minorities at the state level. Our long struggle for a bill for the preservation and protection of our religious places is been repeatedly scuttled. We have no representation in the state cabinet, hardly any representation worth the name in the legislature. Our rolls in the state services are rapidly declining. At that rate we may not exist in the registers of J&K at all in the next decade or so. To suffer silently at the hands of tyrants is worse crime than tyranny itself. Lest we are accused of compromising our fundamental rights, lest we are charged for siding with those who brought Kashmir to the present state of ruin, lest we relapse into a state of amnesia of the sufferings we have gone through, lest we are ridiculed for accepting exile as our final destination, we must arise and rededicate ourselves to regain our rightful place in Kashmir. As a first step towards that goal, we must not forget history. Celebrating Accession day is one way of recalling it. Paying homage to the people who laid their lives for the cause is another. Resolutions: Today, let us recall the great services of the great sons of soil—Vallabhai Patel, and VP Menon—who, through great statesmanship, grit and determination, brought the 500 odd princely states into India’s fold at the time of division of India. Today, let us remember and pay homage to Brig Rajinder Singh, Lt. Col Ranjit Rai, Major Somnath Sharma, Maqbool Sherwani, and hundreds of brave soldiers who died fighting and driving out the invading hordes. Today, let us reiterate that accession is full, final, unconditional and irreversible. Today, let us stake our claim to Kashmir, to our homeland. Our struggle has to continue to reclaim it even if takes decades. We must never give up. If India gives up in Kashmir, there is danger she will have to give up more and more of her territory as demography changes fast in several other states. We have to stem the rising tide of religious fanaticism before it inundates the whole nation. (Presidential address on Accession Day commemoration organized by J&K Vichar Manch in Jammu on 26 October, 2012)

**Dr. K L Chowdhury Dr. K L Chowdhury retired as a Professor of Medicine, Medical College, Srinagar. Presently he is the Director of a charitable institution, Shriya Bhatt Mission Hospital and Research Center, Durga Nagar, Jammu. He is a physician and neurologist, a medical researcher, poet, social activist. He writes on diverse subjects – medical, literary, social and political and has numerous research papers to his credit, his pioneering work being “The Health Trauma in a Displaced Population” which was presented at national and international conferences. He has published three anthologies namely: 1- “Of Gods, Men and Militants”. Minerva Press (Pvt.) India -2000 2- “A Thousand-Petalled Garland and other Poems”. Writers Workshop Kolkata – 2003 3- “Enchanting world of Infants” Peacock Books, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors-2007 He was declared Shehjar's 'Kashmiri Person of the year' for 2007.

Copyrights © 2007 Shehjar online and KashmirGroup.com . Any content, including but not limited to text, software, music, sound, photographs, video, graphics or other material contained may not be modified, copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, or distributed in any form or context without written permission. Terms & Conditions. The views expressed are solely the author's and not necessarily the views of Shehjar or its owners. Content and posts from such authors are provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confer no rights. The material and information provided iare for general information only and should not, in any respect, be relied on as professional advice. Neither Shehjar.kashmirgroup.com nor kashmirgroup.com represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other information displayed, uploaded, or distributed through the Service by any user, information provider or any other person or entity. You acknowledge that any reliance upon any such opinion, advice, statement, memorandum, or information shall be at your sole risk.