Rediff.com’s Vicky Nanjappa speaks to Author Anuj Dhar about his latest book on Subhash Chandra Bose and uncovers some of the CIA’s long-lost records, along the way.

For the first time, the Central Intelligence Agency has declassified and released to an India [ Images ]n citizen, two very important records — pertaining to the death of freedom fighter and nationalist icon Subhash Chandra Bose and also the situation in India at the time of Partition.

The documents were made available to Dhar, author of the book, Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery, in New Delhi [ Images ].”If the CIA could declassifiy this information, what stopped our government from doing the same?” Dhar told rediff.com.

Moreover the government has admitted to possessing reams of classified information of Bose. The Prime Minister’s Office lists 33 classified files on Bose, a Right to Information query filed by Dhar revealed.

Dhar then filed an application under the US Freedom of Information Act and the Agency Release Panel considered his appeal and determined that the document that was initially denied in its entirety can now be released in part, with some information to remain protected from release on the basis of FOIA exemptions.

The documents made available to rediff.com by Dhar tells interesting stories, the main one being that even after reports of Bose’s death, the spectre of his return from the United Soviet Socialist Republics remained strong enough to make many well-off Indians feel jittery

Dhar says that the number of documents released is small, but it is a turning point to end the excessive official secrecy thats exists in India. “The government is sitting on a stockpile of classified information on such great personality and the manner in which the Indian government handled the Russian angle as was mentioned by the Justice Mukherjee Commision left a lot to be desired,” Dhar said.

Comments on the political situation during Partition:

The document released by the CIA gives some interesting insights into the political situation in India just after independence. The source of the information has however been protected in the document. The document goes on to state:

‘I think it is quite possible that Liaquat Ali and (Jawaharlal) Nehru will finally submit to the partition of Kashmir [ Images ] in order that they may both save face. However I do not think that the people of either Pakistan or India are ready at the present to accept Partition but a wedge has been entered into their minds concerning partition which will eventually lead to that solution.’

‘Although I studied the problem for one year, I never actually did find out how strong the religious feeling was. In the Partition of India and Pakistan or what really was underneath the religious cover. However it is my impression that the differences between India and Pakistan at the present time are not basically religious but largely nationalistic and economic.’

‘I am also concerned about the strength of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, when last spring (1950) Golwalkar (fomer RSS chief M S Golwalkar) came to Delhi after his release from jail. This militant Hindu organisation and the Mahasabha party (Hindu Mahasabha) have become a great focus for Hindu refugees. Both parties are backed by old conservative Hindu elements such as the Brahmins. Both the RSS and the Mahasabha stand for the same principles, the two most important being anti-Muslim and anti-West — who they accuse of trying to breakdown the caste system. I think that Nehru has handled these parties very well and has not given them a chance to complain.’

‘At the present I think Nehru wants both Soviet friendship and US money and to obtain both of these, he is trying to play both ends against the middle. I do not know how much Nehru’s emotionality and racial pride, plus his Kashmiri blood affects his policy. His prepared statements represent a good governmental position, but when Nehru gets in front of a cheering crowd, he seems to go overboard in favour of whatever the crowd is enthusiastic about. His terrific emotionality makes him irresponsible at times and in my opinion, this is his biggest weakness, which is a dangerous thing in a country like India.’

‘I strongly suspect that Nehru’s conciliatory policy towards Pakistan is greatly influenced by the fact that there is still much Hindu property in Pakistan. I think he wants to avoid any difficulty with Pakistan until the Hindu property in Pakistan is recovered or compensated for. There are many people in Delhi who have vast holdings in Pakistan and they are currently trying to realize as much as possible from these properties.’

‘There is one other political note that I should mention at this time because I think that it may have some potential danger in it. I was impressed on many occasions by the fact that Bose is still a very popular hero I the eyes of the Indians. Recently his life story was told in the Indian movies and I attended several different native theatres to study the natives’ reaction.’

‘Every time that the actor representing Bose appeared on screen, he was loudly applauded. This expression of great enthusiasm clearly indicated to me that Bose is a national hero and in the eye of the man on the street I think he ranks next to Gandhi.’

‘It is now currently rumoured in Delhi that Bose living in Siberia, where he waits for a chance to make his big comeback. Officially Bose was declared lost, but his body has never been found. Whether Bose is alive or dead is relatively unimportant, but the possibility of an impostor should not be overlooked. I have several educated Indians tell me that the USSR would send a Bose ‘impostor’ into India and it would be easy to convince the people that he is Bose. If Bose or an impostor should return, it is probable that a great many of the people would accept his leadership. Some people believe the recurring rumour that Bose is still alive. According to their story Bose is presently active in the underground RSS movement.’

‘I have one other point to make concerning the political thinking of Indian students. All agreed that something must be done in India. They also agreed that Indian and Asian independence must be maintained. None of them knew what the US had done for Cuba or the Philippines and none had any knowledge of American history. What they did think, however was that China had at least been freed from foreign influence. They fail to see any current Soviet influence in China. And they are a mirror of most of the intelligent and educated Indian people, have never been exploited by the Soviets but they think they have been exploited by the British and also the American people.’

Read the CIA dossier on Partition

Read the CIA dossier on Netaji Bose’s death

Source: Rediff.com

To a starving person, God will appear in the form of bread alone.

Poverty is but the worst form of violence.

“As a jungli, as an adibasi I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march on that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastnesses. This Resolution is not going to teach Adibasis democracy. You cannot teach democracy to the tribal people; you have to learn democratic ways from them. They are the most democratic people on earth… The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of Independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected. There is no question of caste in my society. We are all equal. Have we not been casually treated by the Cabinet Mission, more than 30 million people completely ignored?… If history had to teach me’ anything at all, I should distrust this Resolution, but I do not. Now we are on a new road. Now we have simply got to learn to trust each other. And I ask friends who are not present with us today that they should come in, they should trust us and we, in turn must learn to trust them. We must create a new atmosphere of confidence among ourselves”.

- Constituent Assembly, 19th December 1946.

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity… That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over”.

- Constituent Assembly, 14th August 1947, Midnight.

“Although I have every respect and praise for this Constitution, yet there is one thing which I am most afraid of, and it is that this Constitution is tendentious to create a class – a class that democracy has created everywhere – of professional politicians.’ All democracies are run by professional politicians’ and I am afraid that is the main cause of their failures, because such people begin to live on democracies. It becomes with them a profession, the Statecraft’, becomes their only source of living. That is the bane of democracy and I want to make the future generations aware of this. It creates professional politicians’ – those whose earning depend on politics, with the result that they cut themselves adrift from all creative professions. If this democracy is also to be run by such persons who will have nothing else to fall back upon, and who live on Ministries or on the memberships of the Parliament, then this democracy is doomed, I am sure… But the picture from the villagers’ point of view is dull and dead. I cannot give argument to convince the villager that from 26th January 1950 his lot will be better. Nor is there anything tangible through which he can better understand this Constitution; because we give the villager nothing but the vote, which we will take from him after two years. That is the only thing we give him. So, I submit that it is only when those who till the soil are enabled to run this Constitution that they would appreciate it to be their charter of rights and freedom. Otherwise the Constitution is dull. There must be a leader. I hope our Indian earth is not so sterile that it will not give birth to a leader who will whisper life into this mould of the Constitution so that it could speak… Notwithstanding anything contained in this Constitution, no citizen of India shall draw for his personal use either from the public exchequer or from private enterprise a pay, profit or allowance which exceeds the earnings of an average wage earner”(this last statement he called the Mahamantra).

- Constituent Assembly, 25th November, 1949.

“We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality, on the economic plane we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up”.

- Constituent Assembly, 25th November, 1949.

First of the quote owes its existence to a spirited & gifted speaker Jaipal Singh – himself an adibasi, a Munda from Chotanagpur. He expresses his fear that Adibasis are unlikely to be treated fairly in the new nation whatever the protestations to the contrary of others, when speaking on the ‘Objectives Resolutions’ moved in the Constituent Assembly(CA). Yet he chooses to repose his faith in the words of Nehru. Stirring words of the next quote need no introduction. But they do reinforce 63 years later the sense of betrayal of reluctant confidence reposed by Jaipal in the man who uttered them. Mahavir Tyagi, a great Gandhi follower, minces no words in telling that self-serving politicians are likely to hold the constitution a hostage & make a mockery of all pious ideals. Most will agree that his stunning indictment rings true today though his prescription at the end must have met with strong disapproval when it was uttered. Many would be though wistful today as to why wasn’t his ‘Mahamantra’ included in the Constitution. The man who is described as the architect of Indian constitution, Dr. Ambedkar, speaks of his awareness of the infirmities of Indian democracy. Democracy to thrive & succeed requires the triad of Social, Economic & Political equality; just fulfilling the last will ultimately consign whole arrangement to the dustbin of history.

Constituent assembly (CA) debates, the breadth & depth of which I became aware of after reading ‘India after Gandhi’ by Ramchandra Guha, are rhetorical, ideological, prejudiced, contentious, and are greatly influenced by the upheavals in India of the time from 9th December 1946 to 25th November 1949 during which it held its sessions. But they are also eloquent, rousing, analytic, profound, and surprisingly prescient. People who sacrificed their careers, creature comforts, health, wealth, even life in the cause of freedom struggle & the makers of our Constitution – at least some among them –, are holding a mirror to our face, a mirror to the face of India that is Bharat. What do we see there? Have we redeemed their pledge? Not wholly, or in full measure, but do we have a face to say at least substantially? It depends. It depends upon whom we ask. If we ask the adibasis for whom Jaipal Singh spoke, if we ask the villagers, daily wage earners for whom Mahavir Tyagi spoke, if we ask those who suffer grossest economic or social inequality for whom Ambedkar spoke, or if we ask those from whose eyes tears haven’t ceased to flow for whom Gandhi spoke; then what answer would we expect to hear?

Activists like Dr. Biyanak Sen, Himanshu Kumar, Sudha Bhardwaj, and others are telling us that answer. An answer we refuse to hear, to see, to know or to contemplate about. If Jaipal Singh, Mahavir Tyagi, Ambedkar, Gandhi were to come today, where will we find them – with Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi in Delhi or with the adibasis in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and elsewhere? The government of the current ruler of India, granddaughter in law of Nehru & the newest-comer to India, would in all probability brand them terrorists or extremists, jail them or would have them die in an encounter with security forces for resisting the onslaught of the state by standing tall in solidarity with the tribals & the poor.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

By Aparna Pande
This piece appeared in Indolink on November 27, 2009

In 1950 India’s First Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited the United States. The American media and the Truman administration went all out to welcome Premier Nehru. This week India’s 17^th Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is on a state visit to the United States. The Obama administration, Washington’s policy-making elite and the media are once again celebrating this occasion. It is time to step back and look at the changed Indo-U.S. relationship, then and now.

In 1950 India was a 400 million strong country, independent for only 3 years, with a proud history and civilization but with very little resources. According to Premier Nehru, the architect of India’s foreign policy, the independence of India signaled the “rise of Asia.” As a secular democratic country keen to join the free world, the Indian leadership was keen to build ties with the United States. 

The United States under President Roosevelt had been very supportive of the Indian independence movement and subtle pressure had been repeatedly placed on the British government to allow India first dominion status and then complete independence. When partition took place many American officials were disappointed as for them a united India would have been able to make a much greater contribution to the world. When Prime Minister Nehru came to United States on his first trip there were high expectations from the American side.

However, Nehru was reluctant to involve India too deeply in the preoccupying issue of the day – the cold war. This along with other issues over time led to a disenchantment between the American and Indian leaderships. Since South Asia was never high on the American security agenda except for short periods of time, there was very little incentive to change the status quo. According to political scientist Myron Weiner, South Asia occupied a low priority because “it has no resources vital to the American economy,” it is “not a region with substantial American private investment,” “its geopolitical position raises no fundamental problems for American security,” “has no deep cultural or historical ties with the United States” and “no significant segment of the American population originates or had an enduring association with the region.”

Today, the reality is different. India is a 1.1 billion strong country with the third largest armed forces, the fifth largest economy in the world, and nuclear weapons. India is located in a part of the world which is now strategically important for American foreign policy. India is the largest democracy in the world and one of the few long-lasting democracies in South and South East Asia.

Compared to the very weak economic ties in the 1950s-1960s today the United States is India’s top trading partner with over $61 billion in bilateral trade. Over the last decade India has become the leading outsourcing destination for most American companies with two in five of America’s Fortune 500 companies outsourcing their software to India. U.S. investment in India in 1950s-1960s was mainly in the form of aid and loans, today U.S. is the largest foreign portfolio investor and there is over $16 billion of American foreign direct investment in India.

The India-US civilian nuclear deal of 2005 – an agreement on which is to be signed in Washington this week – will open up a $150 billion market in power plants. Two potential sites for the building of nuclear power plants have already been demarcated for American companies.

India plans on modernizing its military by spending $100 billion in the next ten years and many American companies are contenders for various contracts. Today American arms sales to India average $3.5 billion annually. For the last couple of years India and United States have even held annual joint military exercises.

In 1950s there was a very small Indian-American community, today there is a vibrant community of over 2.5 million. A few hundred Indian students came to study in the United States during the 1950s, today 100,000 Indian students come annually to study.

A report in the American media today reflects the reverse of Weiner’s observation of 1970: “On every big global issue today — from the economy to climate change to fighting terrorism and curbing nuclear proliferation — Washington needs New Delhi’s cooperation.”

This change in five decades is what led President Obama to invited Premier Singh as his first state guest in the White House.

At the welcoming ceremony President Obama stated, “Mr. Prime Minister, yours is the first official state visit of my presidency.  And it is fitting that you and India be so recognized. But above all, your visit at this pivotal moment in history speaks to the opportunity before us to build the relationship between our nations born in the last century into one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. This is the India that America welcomes today – a leader in Asia and around the world.”

Prime Minister Singh in turn pointed out that the United States and India were separated by distance but bound by common values. “Over the years, we have built upon these values and created a partnership that is based upon both principle and pragmatism. Our relations have been transformed, and today they encompass cooperation in all areas of human activity … This is a moment of great opportunity in our relationship. India and the United States can, and must, work together to harness the immense potential of our talented and enterprising people, and support each other’s growth and prosperity. We should cooperate in addressing global challenges of combating terrorism, making our environment cleaner and moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons.”

This bonhomie does not mean that there are no differences between U.S. and India anymore. These range from India’s relations with Pakistan, Iran’s nuclear weapons and climate change.

India has always seen American influence in South Asia as an attempt to “shore up” Pakistan in its consistent struggle to “seek equality” with India. Indian policy makers also believe that the U.S. has failed to curb Islamabad’s backing of anti-India extremists based in Pakistan mainly because Pakistan has often been a ‘frontline’ ally for the Americans, earlier during the cold war and now in the war against terrorism.

India and Iran share very old and warm ties. Iran is one of India’s leading suppliers of oil and natural gas and the Indian government is keen to go ahead with the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. Though not very comfortable at the prospect of another nuclear-armed power in the region, India is reluctant to support sanctions against Iran, for diplomatic, economic and historical reasons. India is also concerned about the impact of such sanctions on its Muslim population.

On the issue of climate change the Obama administration would like India (and China)- the leading emitters of greenhouse gases in the world – to accept limits on their carbon emissions. The Indian argument is that it is still a developing country and developed countries – who contributed to the present problem – ought to assume the lion’s share of the burden.

Though India has moved away from a strict non-aligned policy and from the 1990s has built deep economic, diplomatic, technological and cultural ties with the United States the Nehruvian legacy is still visible in what former American diplomat and analyst Teresita Shaffer refers to as ‘strategic autonomy.’ India has the capability and the desire to be a global power and an ally of the United States. However, New Delhi’s interests may not always be aligned with Washington’s and that is something both sides will have to bear in mind, to agree to often disagree and still remain friends.

Bhai,
You are not our neighbor,but our brother,notwithstanding the acrimony between the nations because of self seeking politicians.We,majority of Indians , feel sorry for Pakistan and also are also angry as to why with such a common back ground, people of Pakistan seem to be harboring ill will against us.When your cricketers like Intiqab Alam,Asif Iqbal,Zaheer Abbas,Javed Maindad,not withstanding his clownish behavior,Wasim Akram are considered as our own , what prevents you from understanding us?
Why can not the people of Pakistan show the door to warped generals and corrupt politicians and become friendly with us rather than distant US and a wily China?Why should you not shun the mullahs who spit venom on India?
Why do not you own up your mistakes in treating India as your enemy and know that we have lived together for centuries?

Story:
Dear Indian friend,

I am sorry for the tardiness in marking 26/11. It was not deliberate but as we fight daily battles with terrorism, it is not easy to tell what date it is. Don’t consider this letter a sign of weakness because I am a member of proud nation which will one day prove its potential and take its rightful place in the comity of nations as a progressive and modern country at peace within and without.

I do realize however that day is somewhere in the future and I write to you today as a member of an embattled nation fighting its demons and trying to undo the terrible legacy of the 1980s Afghan War. What happened on 26/11 was probably part of the same cycle and I am sorry that it had to come to what it did on 26/11. India was attacked. The attackers- hardened militants and frankenstein’s monsters created by Pakistan- had not just India in mind but they wanted to embroil Pakistan and India into Nuclear war which could lead to a wider global conflict involving all major powers. Fortunately that has not come to pass. Statesmenship of the highest order is required however to ensure that we don’t allow the militants to succeed.

Please also realize that Bombay – or Mumbai as you call it now- is not just an Indian city but one of the premier Asian cities. For us Pakistanis it is hallowed ground- it was this city that our founding father Mr. Jinnah called his own, where he made a name for himself through sheer hardwork and perseverence and which allowed to rise from humble origins to significance. The Taj – which was attacked- was where Mr. Jinnah spent his honeymoon with his beautiful wife Ruttie – a marriage that itself signified the pluralistic and secular ethos of that magnificent city. It is this city that his grandson has built his business empire in. For us Bombay is sacred ground and like much of India, which is littered with monuments of varying importance and significance to Pakistanis, it is our heritage as much as yours.

So let us attach a new significance to 26/11… let this day signify an awakening on both sides that enough with this “geo-strategic thinking” of one-upping each other. Let this be a day when we realize that the zero-sum game we have played have cost us dear in the past and that Pakistan and India must work together for peace, prosperity and progress of this common subcontinent of ours. Let us base our relationship on intense rivalry in cricket, human development and economic growth. Let us renounce all tactics of a thousand cuts once and for all and realize that it is not hard to make bombs but prosperous nations are known by their intellectual health, civic sense and adherence to human rights. Let us sack irresponsible Bonapartists like your Military chief who threatened a “limited nuclear war” and instead seek inspiration from what India’s first Prime Minister Nehru told Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in New York: “Zulfi, we have to save South Asia from Nuclear War”.

Let 26/11 be a new beginning and perhaps a return to Mr. Jinnah’s vision for India-Pakistan relations modelled on US-Canada relationship.

Yours sincerely,

YLH – Your Pakistani Well-wisher and rival claimant to progress and prosperity
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/marking-2611-a-letter-to-our-neighbors/#comment-21721

When I started this blog, a friend said that statistics proved that most people gave up writing after a few posts. The reason was that they were discouraged by the luke warm reponse received by their blogs and were therefore discouraged.I told him that I intended to write regularly and was not going to give up even if I did not receive any response. But it seems that my friend was right afterall! This post comes after a long hiatus. Actually, for some time after my last post, I was caught up in various professional matters. Later, when I  was relatively free, ennui and the sheer tedium of writing had overcome the desire to write. But, here I am again, after casting all self doubts aside.Hope I would not give up again.

I read somewhere that history was a nightmare from which people were constantly trying to awaken. How true! The way history is taught in our schools, it is one of the most boring subjects for many students. Frankly, I hardly remember what little history I was taught in the school. And I think I am not alone. Jawahar Lal Nehru, who wrote the most interesting books on history-Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History-  said that he “came late to history” as he did not learn much of it while at school. The same is true for most of us as we find history an endless succession of dates and dynasties only. It was perhaps this realization that made Nehru take up the writing of his books on history which became so popular the world over. The other books on Indian history that I have enjoyed reading are “The Wonder That Was India” by Basham and Rizvi. Actually, these are two books-Part I by Basham and II by Rizvi.

Thinking of Nehru, much as many people would like to debunk his politics, it has to be said that no other Indian politician, then or since then, except Gandhi, had written so extensively on such a variety of subjects. His felicity with the English language was wonderful and he had such a simple and lucid style which touched the hearts of his readers. How many politicians can you think of who had such breadth of vision and who expressed themselves so copiously and expressively?

November 14th was his birthday which is celebrated as children’s day in India. But gradually, it seems to be out of favour for when we were children, it was celebrated on a much wider and grander scale in schools. Apart from some token events, it seems to have been forgotten entirely. And it is no wonder because we have other more important issues to debate than infant mortality, malnutrition, female foeticide,illiteracy, problems of street children and the like! In fact, these and other children related issues hardly ever become the focus of our attention, even at election times, when all political parties are at their best in inculding as many issues as possible in their manifestoes.

It is late November and winter seems to have set in the North. The days have become shorter and it gets dark by 6 pm. Migratory birds have started arriving for their winter sojourn in the ponds and lakes of North India. We have roses blooming and the winter annuals are eagerly awaited. It is the season of weddings too. Marriage halls and other venues are bedecked like brides themselves and marriage processions can be encountered on roads with the groom astride the white mare. Now a days these processions or baraats as they are called do not evoke the same interest as in earlier days. A baraat used to be an event calculated to show off. The more the merrier used to be the mantra then. Brass bands, shehnai, chariots, elephants, fireworks-all were emploued to impress the bride’s people in particular and every one else in general. In fact, a baraat coming down the street with the band playing popular bollywood tunes used to be an occasion for the neighbourhood to come out on their balconies to watch the extragavanza. Now many grooms refuse to sit astride mares and lead a procession of drunk relatives jiving uncontrollably through the streets. But times are changing and we must change with them.

Soon we will be in the grip of cold wave and await Santa with his sackful of goodies. So long then.

I’ve visited the Nehru Planetarium countless times as a child but I only learnt yesterday that Pt Jawaharlal Nehru also lived within the same premises for 16 years. The building which is now Nehru memorial museum, preserves among other things his childhood photographs, old letters, his office, the room where he died, and a beautiful library. I don’t know why I was so fascinated by his library. I noticed the smooth brown wooden furniture, the layout of shelves and arrangement of books. Of course for a library these things are not unusual. But the style was many decades old, and there was something stirring about the fact that it is always locked and visitors only look in for a short time through the glass windows before going away to look at something else.

There was a book on one shelf which immediately caught my eye, it was called “The Son of Jesse”. Amazon found me a book cover which looks like a plausible front for the spine I saw. I wonder what this book is about, and how it found a place in Nehru’s library? He also had a copy of the Holy Bible. A beautiful ivory-white cover, red letter edition. Was it a King James Bible? I doubt it would have been an American Standard, and I don’t know which other translations might have been popular at that time. It probably doesn’t matter. Nehru’s political career and popular image does not reflect an interest in or impact of the Bible. If a little bit of speculation is permissible, I would imagine it was for political safety and goodwill that Nehru kept a copy. A few books away was a copy of the Qur’an, which appeared just as fresh and decorative as the Bible.

The canteen above the Nehru Planetarium is a beautiful and quiet open-air terrace opposite the Shikaar-Grah. The Shikaar-Grah was built a few centuries ago as a hunting tower in the middle of the jungle (as it was in the time of a certain medieval Muslim ruler – I have forgotten which one). In Nehru’s time apparently this tower served as a mini zoo – I am told that Nehru kept peacocks, lions, etc here. Now, however, no traces remain of iron bars or whatever else would have been used to contain the animals, and the only wildlife still seen is parrots and squirrels.

I had the privilege of taking this tour with a delightful bunch of brats who couldn’t care less about Nehru’s history and heritage: which is ironic, considering that Children’s Day (which we were celebrating) is a commemoration of this very man’s birthday. But I suppose while it is easy for kids to love people who play with them, it must be a challenge to be persuaded to love a man simply because he would have played with them had he been alive and present…

The excursion started with running around playing bhoot-bhoot (a game about ghosts and monsters) and nalka-nalka (a game about handpumps) and ended with exactly the same. I daresay these kids observe this tradition to welcome summer, winter, springtime and harvest, which also they must follow to bid these farewell. Sighting crows, pigeons and discarded alcohol bottles in Nehru’s gardens was infinitely more fascinating to them than watching the life-like reproduction of tryst with destiny in a model of the Parliament House. In a brief interactive session about the freedom struggle, they were disappointed to learn that Gandhi did not teach his followers to use guns, bombs or canons. It also surfaced that they had entirely missed that part of the Munnabhai series where Munna leaves his bhaigiri and takes to Gandhigiri.

Kids obviously do not like boring role models! I write this so that I will remember when I have brats of my own. Do parents make the mistake of only emphasizing the Sermon on the Mount without also telling of the withered fig tree, the whip of cords at the cleansing of the temple, the end times and of course of His glorious return? He is the Rider of the White Horse, the Faithful and True Word of God, the Son of God and the Saviour of Man… My role model is not boring.

It’s raining tonight. He created the rain and causes it to fall on the just and the unjust.
I go now to open the window.

 

Winning Doodle4Google Design

As India celebrated Children’s Day, which marks the birthday of her first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru on November 14, Google homepage had a design painted by a nine-year old named Puru Pratap Singh.

 

Puru Pratap Singh: The Winner!

Puru is a class-IV student of the Sector 43 branch of Amity International School, Gurgaon who won the Google India’s nationwide doodling competition, Doodle4Google, which called for creative designs and sketches of the Google logo.

Puru said that the elements of the design are what “make my country unique,”. He was awarded a T-shirt with his doodle printed on it, a laptop and a INR 100,000 art education grant for his school. He would not be paid any royalty for his work. Though his profile would pop up next to his doodle.

Puru’s entry was selected among a submission of more than 4,000 works based on artistic merit, creativity, and expression of the theme. The contest was open to all students from class I to X in India with theme: “My India”. Google had asked students to create a doodle by giving an illustrative representation of what India means to them. The selection was done by an eminent panel of judges including prominent figures like renowned cartoonist N Ponnappa, Dennis Hwang, Original Doodler and a young emerging Indian artist Raghava KK with help of the faculty and students of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

NowPublic

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism;

the way you play it is free will .        —Nehru

The words of longtime Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru seem to fit well with what I felt from this new piece that I delivered this past week to the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC.  It’s called Will and is a 10″ by 30″ canvas.

For me, this piece is about enduring, weathering the winds and tides of change while sticking to one’s objective.  I see a lot of strength in this tree.  A lot of will power. It bends, it strains, yet stands.

As Nehru inferred, we are all subject to strains and obstacles that we could easily let waylay our best laid plans.  But we also all possess the ability to will ourselves past these barriers, if we only choose to do so.  This decision to do so is one that many give up on much early in their struggle and settle for a mediocre version of what they foresaw for themselves.  The tree in this painting refuses to settle.

That’s what I get from this piece.  Maybe you’ll see something other than this and come away with a completely different read on this painting.  That’s okay and as valid as my own translation. Hopefully, it will have something to say to you…

Childrens Day in India marks the birth anniversary of Jawahar Nehru,,,the first prime minister of Independant India. Every year it is celebrated on 14th of november. It reflects the love and affection that Nehru had towards children. He had a special love and passion towards children though he was the first citizen of a nation and children reciprocated him with lots of love towards him….they called him Chacha. Even today the children celebrate this special day, enjoy and remember Nehru chacha and his vision…. of kids growing up to become mature and high thinking individuals where they come together and put hand in hand to build a dream nation. Nehru had a vision that proper and constructive idea’s should be sown in the minds of our children right from their innocent days of their childhood. This enables them to grow up with optimistic dreams and courage to fulfil them. This surely will form a strong foundation towards building a nation in all the fronts.

Children are like the flowers of the garden and all of us like to have these flowers blossoming for ever in the garden of our lives. No children….no life. We all have have a sweet innocent and a loving child in all of us…and we lose that child as we grow. We should all pledge on this day that we not only should care about children we have around….but also care about the child within us and keep it alive for ever. This enables us to live happily with whatever life gives us. We can keep ourselves off the unwanted stress and think positively towards a better future and a quality life. This is possible if we keep our minds clean and clear as that of a child.

We try to teach our children about a lot of things what they should do and what not always. But do we ever think in the direction of our children? Children now are very promising and many time those talents and instincts are either lost or we curb it when they are budding. Children of today’s generation are very talented much more than us as they are influenced by the effects of the pacing evolutions. The way they think and the way they act are totally different from what we or our ancestors used to do. We are either egoistic or are the victims of generation gap that we do not understand the visions of our children…might be that their ideas are too mature for us to understand. They are a different generation and we shall try to learn from them too in the process of teaching them. Lets be open and clear by minds and soul. When our children have the potential….why dont we try to channelize them in a proper way and aid them to better their lives…then what we are leading?

Every important day is celebrated with a hidden message. Often we either ignore or neglect it. We will take the message right from the childrens day…Childrens day is not only meant for the children. It is for us also. Life is a stream of thought process which need to be chanellised in various directions at various stages of life. We shall not limit the day for providing sweets to the child, giving speeches or preparing the children to speak about the importance of the day in a given time, telling stories of Nehru whom they have never seen. Rather we shall try to implement the qualities of those gread leaders in the life our children. We shall sit with them and speak out openly as to what they want. Its not that we should fulfil all that they ask for. But we can tell them that some things what they are thinking good is the otherway. If we convey it in a smoother way…and children can surely understand. We shall try to fill in the best colors so that the dreams of our children come out realistic….and its not different from our happiness….isnt it? Try not to curb or insult the thoughts of your child..however small and stupid they may appear…try to understand them…..value it….who knows tomorrow shall be theirs….and you will be proud of being there in their lives when they needed the most.

The rest of the thing is Childrens day…..and children love it…….Allow your children to enjoy and have fun along with their basics and education…keep them physically and mentally fit for the challenges of life. See your happiness in their innocent smiles…

There they are………….!!!!!! Arent their smiles beautiful……………………??????

Happy Children’s Day to all of you………….Keep the child in you alive……………..

School has a tannoy system that can be heard across the road and leaks into every corner of the orphanage campus. Every morning there is a song sung acapella by a different pupil, who serenades  us (usually out of tune) with songs from “camp rock” or any of the “high school musicals”, in fact someone is singing now as i type and then there is a recitation of the lords prayer…Much earlier in the day and even louder comes a different tannoy from a nearby Hindu temple again this can be heard all over the campus. Chanting/prayers/music usually start at around 4.30am and go on for around an hour.

school windows: KORAN BIBLE GITA KIPLING ELLIOT KEATS DICKENS DANTE FROST NEHRU TAGORE GANDHI

school mornings, of course the one day i decide to film is the one day they decide not to sing, but i will film again, and there will be a song…

Celebrate! The day is yours

John F. Kennedy

The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”

Pablo Casals

Chacha Nehru’s return gift on his birthday was that the day be made a reason to celebrate children as they will take on the nation tomorrow. And this is why year after year we celebrate his birthday as Children’s Day. But what’s even more interesting is that each country has a day dedicated to celebrate the spirit of children and recognise their talent.

The International Children’s Day which initially began in Turkey in 1920 was later adopted by Geneva during the world conference held in 1925. No one really knows why June 1 was chosen as the International Children’s Day but the theories are many. One of them is that it coincided with the orphans in China celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival, and hence the day remained.

The Universal Children’s Day is on November 20. The U.N. asked all countries to introduce a day to promote childhood.

Across the world

The People’s Republic of China celebrates Children’s Day on June 1. The Government encourages children to take part in activities as a mark of loyalty.

In Japan, the National Children’s Day is known as Kodomo no Hi. It is celebrated on May 5. Families make Kashiwamochi (rice cakes filled with red beans and wrapped with oak leaves) and Chimaki (rice cakes wrapped with bamboo leaves). Families also hang Shobu (irises) since irises were believed to repel evil spirits.

Australians celebrate Children’s Day on the first Sunday of July. Annual cultural activities are held to provide funding to all the disadvantaged children throughout Australia through the sale of ‘Happy Children’s Day’ cards.

In Dubai, Children’s Day is mostly celebrated in schools, or by the Indian consulate in partnership with a school — like the Indian High School.

In Mexico, children go to school, to attend a fiesta held by the school and at the end of which they are given a gift. In the afternoon, a parade is held for the children. Floats are also part of the parade. At the end of the parade, prizes are awarded to the best float and best costume.

In Singapore, it’s October 1 and it’s a holiday for kids and every school celebrates it in a different way. There are celebrations like fairs, little treats for children and programmes for the family.

Before its unification, Germany, had two days on which Children’s Day would be celebrated. In East Germany, it was known as “International Children’s Day” and in West Germany, it was called “World Children’s Day”. However, in West Germany, Children’s Day was mostly unknown to many .

In Pakistan, Children’s Day is celebrated on November 20. There are special programmes dedicated for children that are aired on TV and radio and special assemblies that happen in school along with some cultural programmes.

Carnival time

Thailand celebrates the second Saturday in January as Children’s Day. Many organisations — both governmental and commercial have various activities lined up for kids. They can visit zoos and use the buses for free. According to tradition, Thailand’s Prime Minister also needs to give a unique motto for children every year on this day. Children get to go to the government house; they sit in the seats of the Prime Minister and also in the conference room of the parliament. The Military has a show of military equipment, vehicle and aircraft for them.

In Argentina, El Día del Niño (Children’s Day) is celebrated on the second Sunday of August. Children receive gifts from their parents, and the community puts together events just for them.

In the U.K., Children’s Day is celebrated on August 30. And, there is a carnival for two days in London, called the Notting Hill Carnival. All school-going children perform and the carnival is extended to the next day, where Caribbean, Thai, Nigerian and Chinese food stalls are set up and there is a small parade.

Days across the globe

Thailand : The second

Saturday in January .

Hong Kong : April 4

Mexico : April 30

Japan : Known as Kodomo no

Hi it is celebrated on May 5.

Indonesia : July 23

Argentina : Known as El Día del

Niño is celebrated on the

second Sunday of August.

Singapore : October 1

Brazil : October 12

Canada : November 20

Pakistan : November 20.

Central Africa : December 25

“The truth is that heroes can have, most do have, feet of clay, flawed personalities who grapple with baser emotions while they serve the nation.  It is the commitment and the vision that matter.”  A G Noorani wrote this while reviewing two books on J F Kennedy in the Frontline dated Nov 6, 2009.

Noorani mentions a few examples of flaws in personalities that are considered great in history, though an ordinary book review wouldn’t call for such details.  I’m grateful to Noorani for mentioning those details because it made me think much about greatness.  [Having killed, with the generous assistance of the systems in which I worked, the delusions I nurtured about my own greatness, it became interesting to ponder on the topic.]

Gandhi was a great man, according to me (and many other silly people too).  But Gandhi too had feet of clay.  Didn’t he impose his ideas on his wife most of the time?  Did he care for his children one-tenth as much as he cared for the nation?  Didn’t he ask young girls to sleep beside him (mind you, I didn’t say sleep with) in his old age?  Didn’t he use those young girls as kind of crutches, again in his old age?  Well, Noorani doesn’t ask those questions.  It’s silly me who’s asking them. 

Noorani mentions just one example from Gandhi’s life.  The 50-year old Gandhi was immensely attracted to Sarladevi, a rich lady with “a broad cultural education” (Gandhi’s own words about her) and wife of Ram Bhuj Dutt Chaudhuri.  Gandhi confessed that he had lustful attitude toward this woman.   Noorani quotes Gandhi: “I was carried away in spite of myself and but for God’s intervention I might have become a wreck.”  I must add (lest I perpetrate some injustice upon Noorani as well as Gandhi) that Gandhi also said explicitly that this was the only lady who aroused lustful feelings in him. 

Suppose Kasturba was a woman of “a broad cultural education”.  Would she have aroused such “lustful” feelings in Gandhi?  If she had, would we have had Gandhi as the father of the nation?  Did Gandhi choose celibacy because Kasturba could not arouse his lust?  These are three (3 is my lucky number) of the many (blasphemous?) questions that aroused in my mind as I read Noorani’s review.

They are hypothetical questions and can be dismissed summarily if you wish.  Yet I think the questions are valid if you are discussing Gandhi’s greatness. 

Greatness lies partly in being able to overcome the temptations of the flesh.  It is when you are able to deal fairly and squarely with those temptations that you will be able to give due attention to your great vision.  And I’m pretty sure that Gandhi would have overcome the temptations had they even been proffered by his own wife.  That ability to grapple advantageously with temptations was part of Gandhi’s greatness. 

Noorani’s review goes on to mention a few other great men who had feet of clay and says that what matters ultimately is how useful you are to the people around you, to the institution you serve, to your society, to your nation.  Noorani doesn’t, however, discredit morality.  “In any fair assessment,” he says, “moral lapses must not be ignored…”

“Lloyd Geroge was utterly unscrupulous, financially corrupt and a philanderer to boot,” says Noorani.  Yet George has a significant place in British history because he “provided steady leadership to Britain during the First World War.”

John F Kennedy had too many women in his life.  That was the flaw his personality.  Yet Kennedy was great because of the services he rendered to his nation.

Nehru too had a weakness for women.  That does not really detract from his greatness.

While Gandhi overcame his temptations most of the time, many others like JFK succumbed.  So Gandhi was greater than JFK and others like him.  Yet JFK and others too remain great in comparison with (too) many others who add nothing worthwhile to the betterment of humanity or at least a section of humanity.

Anyone who adds more beauty, more compassion, more goodness to humanity is great in my view, even if the person has some personal drawbacks. 

The vast majority of people who have nothing to add to humanity are keen to highlight the drawbacks of the great because they think doing so will keep the greatness under their control.  We like to admire greatness; but not when the person is alive!

The sad news that PM’s security cordon prevented a seriou patient from reaching the hospital in time, should open our eyes.  He died.

Why are ministers going here and there and giving lectures?

We don’t want to hear them. They should work hard and clear the files.

Nehru used to take home files and work in the night, sleeping only four hours.

Um die notwendige Hausarbeit psychisch zu überstehen, höre ich mir während des Putzens und Waschens Berichte und Reportagen aus dem Radio an, die ich vorher aufgenommen habe. Dieses Wochenende war es eine ältere Folge der „Sendung für politische Literatur“ Andruck im Deutschlandfunk (28.09.09). Die Sendung war geradezu der Prototyp dessen, was ich mir seit 40 Jahren tagtäglich anhören muß.

Hier die Eingangssätze:

Warum ist der Westen so verhaßt in der südlichen Hemisphäre? Warum setzen sich die Völker Asiens, Afrikas und Lateinamerikas so energisch zur Wehr, gegen den Imperialismus, gegen den alten und neuen Kolonialismus europäischer Mächte und der USA? (…)

Ich verweise auf die Kritik des deutschen Botschafters in Kamerun Volker Seitz: Ausbeutung? Der Westen hat gigantische Summen ins unabhängige Afrika gepumpt! Und im übrigen war der Kolonialismus ein Zusatzgeschäft.

Aber weiter mit dem Deutschlandfunk:

Keine Frage, der Westen steht am Pranger der Dritten Welt. Es waren Männer wie Gammel Abdel Nasser, Pandit Nehru, Achmed Sukarno und Fidel Castro, die ihn auf die Anklagebank setzten, die Imperialismus und Kolonialismus gnadenlos geißelten und das Signal zur Erhebung der jahrhundertelang unterdrückten Völker der südlichen Hemisphäre gaben. (…)

Gehen wir doch einmal diese Heroen der Linken durch:

Nasser war ein „Nationalsozialist“, der viele Nazis ins Land holte, um ihn im Kampf gegen die Juden zu unterstützen.

Nehru und Sukarno vertraten ebenfalls eine Art „Nationalsozialismus“, der diese Länder nachhaltig wirtschaftlich ruiniert hat und in Indonesien schließlich in antichinesischen Massakern mündete. Dazu muß man wissen, daß in Südostasien das „Händlervolk“ der Chinesen traditionell ähnlich betrachtet wurde, wie die Juden in Europa.

Wenn man die Sache prozentual betrachtet hat Castro mehr Bürger des eigenen Landes interniert als Stalin. Ganz zu schweigen davon, daß er ein Land, das bei seiner Machtübernahme einen europäischen Lebensstandard hatte, wahrscheinlich für immer zugrundegerichtet hat.

Das also sind die Helden des „profilierten Globalisierungskritikers“ Jean Ziegler, dessen Buch Der Hass auf den Westen vorgestellt wird. Der Titel sagt wahrscheinlich mehr über den modern liberal Ziegler als über die Menschen in der Dritten Welt!

Als zweiter Beitrag wird ein neues Buch über Karl Marx vorgestellt. Daß diese Besprechung nichts anderes als eine Werbesendung für den Marxismus ist, wird allein schon daran ersichtlich, daß selbst die leichte Kritik des Buchautors an Marx, er habe ein „weltfrommes“ eschatologisches Programm vertreten, vom Rezensenten zurückgewiesen wird

Im übrigen ist das Zitat von Marx, das in diesem Zusammenhang gesendet wird, schon interessant:

Das jetzige Geschlecht gleicht den Juden, die Moses durch die Wüste führt: „Es hat nicht nur eine neue Welt zu erobern, es muß untergehen, um den Menschen Platz zu machen, die einer neuen Welt gewachsen sind.“

Ich muß dabei an die 100 000 000 Opfer des Kommunismus denken, die Platz machen mußten für die neue Welt.

Aber wir haben ja schon gesehen: unsere ach so humanistischen (Pseudo-) Intellektuellen denken nie an die Opfer!

In den beiden anschließenden Rezensionen geht es um die deutsche Geschichte.

Da ist erstmal ein Radioessay über ein 1961 erstmals erschienenes Buch zum Ersten Weltkrieg und der daran anschließende Historikerstreit, der sich daran entbrannte, daß in dem Buch der Versailler Vertrag gerechtfertigt wurde: Deutschland sei Schuld am Krieg gewesen, der von Anfang an eine imperialistische Ausrichtung hatte.

Prophetisch ist der vom Rezensenten zu Anfang zitierte Beitrag von Gerhard Ritter zur damaligen Diskussion:

In diesem Werk wird ein erster Gipfel erreicht in der politisch-historischen Modeströmung unserer Tage: In der Selbstverdunkelung deutschen Geschichtsbewußtseins, das seit der Katastrophe von 1945 die frühere Selbstvergötterung verdrängt hat und nun immer einseitiger sich durchzusetzen scheint. Nach meiner Überzeugung wird sich das nicht weniger verhängnisvoll auswirken als der Überpatriotismus von ehedem. So vermag ich das Buch nicht ohne tiefe Traurigkeit aus der Hand zu legen: Traurigkeit und Sorge im Blick auf die kommende Generation.

Man denke nur an Joschka Fischer, aus der besagten Generation, der offen bekannt hat, Deutschland müsse man von außen eindämmen und von innen völkisch ausdünnen. Mit anderen Worten: das deutsche Volk muß vernichtet werden!

In der Besprechung eines neu erschienenen Buches zum 18. Jahrhundert in Deutschland, wird die deutsche Fehlentwicklung darauf zurückgeführt, daß Deutschland nie so zentralisiert und „aufklärerisch“ war wie Frankreich, d.h. nie so war, wie es im Inneren des modern liberal aussieht: die Zentrale, „das Gehirn“, bestimmt alles.

Die Fehlentwicklung habe im 18. Jahrhundert begonnen:

Man verwies Politik und Gesellschaft ins zweite oder dritte Glied und erwärmte sich an Literatur und Musik. Das Verhängnis einer solchen Verhaltensweise bestand darin, daß es immer wieder zu Durchbrüchen ins Politische kam, bei denen ein ressentimentdurchtränktes Volk auch machtpolitisch die Spitzenposition für sich beanspruchte, die es in Kunst und Kultur innehatte.

Immerhin beschließt die Sendung eine neutrale Rezension über ein Buch, das die Anfänge des Roten Kreuzes vor 150 Jahren zum Thema hat.

Derartige Sendungen sind die Norm! Diese Gehirnwäsche Woche für Woche, ja Tag für Tag, seit mindestens vier Jahrzehnten! Die Hegemonie der linken „Intellektuellen“ ist erdrückend. Dies ist nur wegen der Panzerung der überwältigen Mehrzahl der Bevölkerung möglich, denn das linke Gesindel ist selbst saublöd und hätte im freien Austausch der Ideen keinerlei Überlebenschance. Saublöd, weil sie ihr Gehirn nicht zum Denken benutzen, sondern umgekehrt bei ihnen das Denken der Abwehr der bioenergetischen Impulse dient. Diese zutiefst sexualfeindliche („bioenergie-feindliche“) Charakterstruktur erklärt, warum sie dem Westen im allgemeinen und dem eigenen Volk im besonderen so viel Mißtrauen, Haß und Verachtung entgegenbringen und warum sie die faschistischen Unterdrücker der lebendigen Impulse in dieser Welt so sehr lieben.

Der Prototyp dieses ekelerregenden Journaillegewürms war die stalinistische Journalistin, die Reich ins Gefängnis gebracht hat:

Kashmir Dispute – The Myth

History vindicated Maharaja Hari Singh’s Stand

By Dr. M.K. Teng

Neither the composition of the population of the  Princely States nor the self-determination of their peoples was recognised by the British, the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress, as the determining factor of the future disposition for the states in respect of their accession.

After the 3 June Declaration, envisaging the partition of the British India, Nehru demanded the right of the people of the Princely States to determine their disposition in respect of their accession Mohammad Ali Jinnah rejected Nehru’s demand as an attempt to thwart the process of the partition. Shortly, before the transfer of power, the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten advised the Princess to keep in consideration the geography and the composition of the population of the States in reaching a decision on their accession. Mountbatten proposed to the Muslim League as well as the Congress to accept the principles of the partition–geographical contiguity and the composition of the population as the criteria of their accession. While the Congress leaders indicated their inclination to accept the proposals, the Muslim League leadership reacted sharply against the proposals and characterised them as an attempt to interfere with the rights of the Princes to determine the future of the States. At that time the Muslim League was deeply involved in shadowy maneuvers to support the Muslim rulers of several major States to remain out of India and align with Pakistan. It has been pointed out in an earlier part of this paper that Pakistan invoked the partition to legitimize its claim to Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the Muslim majority character of its population after the last two Muslim ruled States of Junagarh and Hyderabad were integrated with India.

There is enough historical evidence available, which reveals that in persuading the Congress leaders to accept the partition the British assured the Congress leaders that after the Muslim majority provinces and regions were separated to form the Muslim homeland of Pakistan, the unity of the rest of India, including the states would be preserved and not impaired any further.

The Indian leaders rejected the claim Pakistan made to the Muslim majority States as well as the  Muslim ruled States, but they dithered when the time to act and unite the States with India arrived. Instead of taking active measures to bring about the unification of the States with India, they resorted to subterfuge..

The Indian leaders turned to Mountbatten and not the people of the States to bring about their  integration with India. Mountbatten steered the States Department to accept a balance between the Muslim ruled States and the Muslim majority States. The largest of the Muslim ruled States were deep inside the Indian mainland. Neither Gandhi nor Nehru objected to the course, the Indian States Department followed.

The Viceroy did not forgive Hari Snigh for having disregarded his advice to come to terms with Pakistan. He refused stubbornly to deal with Jammu and Kashmir independent of the Muslim States and in the long run did more harm to Jammu and Kashmir than anybody else in India did. He was the main proponent of the policy of isolation, the Indian leaders followed towards Jammu and Kashmir. The way Mountbatten acted as the Governor General of India till 15 August 1947, and the way he acted as the Governor General of the Indian Dominion after 15 August 1947, left wide space open for Pakistan to claim a separate freedom for the Muslim of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the Muslim majority character of its population. Not many months after the Security Council adopted its first resolution on Jammu and Kashmir in August 1948, the Muslims laid claim to a separate freedom for them on the basis of the Muslim majority character of the population.

The Government of India and the Indian political leadership failed to rebut the claim made by Pakistan and the Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir that the state was on the agenda of the partition of India. Not only that, the Government of India and the Indian political leadership failed to refute the claim made by the Muslims of the state to a separate freedom, different from the freedom that the Indian people were ensured by the Constitution of India – a separate freedom which was determined by the theological imperatives of Islam. The Indian leaders overlooked the fact that the conflict which led to the partition of India was rooted in the claim the Indian Muslims made to a separate freedom which drew its sanction from the precept and precedent of religion.

The Muslim League followed a meticulously designed plan to use the Muslim rulers of several major Princely States, situated deep inside the Indian mainland to bring about the fragmentation of India. The Indian  leaders walked into the trap when they tried to balance the accession the Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir with the accession of the Hindu majority States ruled by the Muslim Nawabs like Bhopal, Hyderabad and Junagarh. The strategy to refer the issue of the accession to the people of these States tantamounted to the acceptance of the Muslim claim to a separate freedom, the Two-Nation theory envisaged. The Indian proposals to Pakistan to refer the accession of Junagarh with that Dominion, accomplished by the ruler of the State on the eve of the transfer of power, was a tame recognition of the Muslim claim to a separate freedom. When Pakistan made a counter-proposal to hold a plebiscite in all the three States, the Government of India was suddenly faced with a catastrophic choice. It promptly rejected the proposals made by Pakistan.

The Indian Government, for unknown reasons, separated its offer to refer the accession of the State to its people i.e. the Muslims for their endorsement. Why did not the Indian Government propose to refer the accession of Bhopal and Trancore to the Dominion of India, to the people of the two States? The rulers of both the States were opposed to join India and their people took to the streets and forced them to accede to India. Hardly ten months after the accession of the Jammu and Kashmir while the Indian armies were still fighting to drive out the invading forces, United Nations foisted a resolution on India which envisaged a plebiscite to determine its final disposition in respect of its accession. The resolution of the Security Council, virtually underlined the repudiation of the accession of the State to India and opened the option for the Muslims of the State to exercise their choice to join Pakistan. The Security Council Resolution was the first step in the process of the internationalization of the claim of the Muslims of the State to a separate freedom.  The Government of India cried hoarse that it had rejected the Two-Nation Theory inspite of having accepted the partition of India. But its commitment to refer the accession of the State, accomplished by Hari Singh to its people was a tacit recognition of the right to a separate freedom, which underlined the demand for Pakistan.

Another ten months after the August resolution of the Security Council was adopted the Indian Government took a fateful step and formally recognised the right the Muslims for Jammu and Kashmir to a separate freedom, when in May 1949, it agreed to exclude Jammu and Kashmir from the constitutional organisation of India. In November 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India incorporated provisions in the Constitution of India which left out the State from the constitutional structure which it had evolved for the Dominion as well as the Princely States which had acceded to India  and after years of labour. The special provisions for the State, embodied in the Constitution of India, stipulated the application of only Article if the Constitution of India to the State. A blanket limitation was imposed upon the application of the rest of the provisions of the Constitution of India to the State. The Union Government was empowered to exercise powers listed in the Central list of the Seventh Schedule of the India Constitution only in respect of defence, foreign affairs and communications which corresponded with the powers delegated by the State to the Dominion Government by virtue of the Instrument of Accession.

The Interim Government of the State, constituted by the National Conference insisted upon the right to frame a separate constitution for the State, which fulfilled the aspirations of the Muslims who constituted a majority of its population. The Interim Government arrogated to itself unrestricted powers and ruled the State by decree and ordinance. Within six years of its tenure, it completed the task of the Muslimisation of the State by enforcing the precedence of Islam and the Muslim majority in its social, economic and political organisation. In 1953, the Interim Government claimed a separate freedom for the Muslim ‘nation’ of Kashmir. The Indian leaders had conceded to the Muslims the right to constitute a Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir on the territories of India. Confronted by the demand for a Muslim State outside the territories of India, the Indian leaders were flustered. They refused to countenance the Muslim demand for a separate Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir, which did not form a part of India. The Interim Government was dismissed and the National Conference broke up.

Pakistan, the Muslim separatist and pro-Pakistan Muslim flanks joined by a large section of the leaders and cadres of the National Conference, called for a plebiscite in the State, which enabled the Muslims to exercise their right of self-determination. They claimed that they had acquired in consequence of the partition of India and which India, Pakistan as well as the United Nations had explicitly recognised.

The Muslim separatist movement led by the Plebiscite Front, committed itself to an ideological framework which was based upon the distortions of the history of the partition of India. The ideological commitments of the Plebiscite Front underlined : (a) that the right of the Muslims to a separate freedom enmated from the partition of India and the creation of the Muslim homeland of Pakistan; (b) that the right of the Muslims to a separate freedom transcended the accession of the State to India, brought about by the ruler of the State; and (c) that as a consequence of the partition of India, the Muslims, constituting the majority of the population of the State, had acquired an irreversible right to exercise their option to join the Muslim State of Pakistan.

In 1990, the Muslim Jehad initiated by Pakistan and the Muslim separatist forces in the State, claimed their aims to be the unification of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan on the basis of the Muslim majority character of its population to complete the agenda of the partition of India. The Jehad claimed that Muslims of the State, as the Muslims elsewhere in India, had acquired a right to a separate freedom which the  Muslim struggle for Pakistan had secured the Muslim nation of India.

The Indian Government and the Indian political class must realise that the Muslims of the State did not acquire any right to separate freedom from the partition of India, which brought Pakistan into being and any attempts to arrive at a compromise with the Muslim separatists forces will lead straight to a second partition of India. The Muslim claim to a separate freedom on the basis of religious is a negation of the unity of India.

Of the many distortions of the history of the transfer of power in India, which form a part of the Kashmir dispute, the most conspicuous is the distortion of the historical facts of the boundary demarcation between the Dominion of India and Pakistan in the province of the Punjab. After the announcement of the partition plan on 3 June, 1947, a Boundary Commission was constituted by the British to demarcate the boundary between the Muslim majority zones and the Hindu-Sikh majority zones in the two provinces of Bengal and the Punjab. The Boundary Commission for the demarcation of the Muslim majority zone in the Punjab was constituted of four Boundary Commissioners, two of them representing the Muslims and two representing Hindus and the Sikhs. Justice Din Mohammad and Justice Mohammad Munir represented the Muslims and Justice Mehar Chand Mahajan and Justice Teja Singh represented the Hindus and the Sikhs respectively. A British lawyer of great repute, Sir Cyril Radcliff was appointed the Chairman of the Commission. Sir Radcliff presided over the Boundary Commission appointed for the demarcation of the boundary in the province of Bengal as well.

The Boundary Commission was charged with the responsibility of demarcating the Muslim majority region of the Punjab from the Hindu-Sikh majority region of the province on the basis of the population and other factors, which were considered to be relevant to the division of the province. Justice Mohammad Munir and Justice Din Mohammad refused to agree upon the criteria to specifically identify the factors other than population ratios. The Muslim Commissioners insisted upon strict adherence to the population proportions as the basis of the division of the province.

Mehar Chand Mahajan and Teja Singh pleaded for a balanced interpretation of the terms of reference of the Boundary Commission and emphasised the need to bring about harmonization between population proportions and the “other factors”, specified in the terms of reference. They felt that the division of the province of the Punjab was bound to affect the lives of millions of people, belonging to various communities living in the province as well as the future of the two Dominions, India and Pakistan. The Commissioners pointed out to the Commission that the population of the Hindus and Sikhs was unevenly distributed over the province of the Punjab. They pointed out that larger sections of the Hindu and Sikh population were concentrated in relatively smaller region of the East Punjab  and the imbalance would be reflected in demarcation of Hindu and Sikh majority regions from the Muslim majority regions of the West Punjab. They expressed the fears that the territorial division of the Punjab on the basis of population would earmark a smaller part of the East Punjab, to the Hindu and Sikh Community which would not commenserate with their population in the province. The Hindus and the Sikhs, Mahajan and Teja Singh pointed out to the Commission formed 45 percent of the population of the province and the territorial division of the province on the basis of the population ratios would leave them with less than 30 percent of the territory of the Punjab.

Mahajan and Teja Singh pointed out to the commission that fair distribution of river waters, irrigation headworks and canal system and cultural and religious centres could not be left out of its consideration in the delimitation of the Muslim majority and the Hindu and Sikh majority regions of the province. They emphasized the necessity of keeping in view the geographical contiguity of the demarcated regions, the communications and the viability of the borders  of the two Dominions of India and Pakistan. They told the Commission that in the demarcation of the borders between the West Punjab and the East Punjab balance would have to be achieved to ensure a fair and equitable division of the territories of the province between the Muslim community and the Hindu and the Sikh communities.

The most controversial and bitterly contested part of the demarcation for the borders was the division of the Doab, comprising the districts of the Lahore Division. Of the four districts of Lahore Division, the District of Amritsar was a Hindu-Sikh majority district and the district of Gurdaspur was a Muslim majority district with the Muslims having a nominal majority of 0.8 percent. Both Din Mohammad and Mohammad Munir insisted upon the inclusion of the entire Lahore Division in the West Punjab. The Muslim Commissioners were men of great ability and legal acumen and had the advantage of representing the majority community of the Punjab. They knew that the inclusion of the Lahore Division in the West Punjab would be of crucial importance to the future of Pakistan. The inclusion of the Lahore Division in the West Pakistan would ensure the Muslim homeland a larger share of water resources, irrigation headworks and the canal system of the Punjab. It would also close the only communication line; the Jammu-Madhopur fair weather road, which ran between the Jammu and Kashmir State and the Dominion of India. The Muslim League leaders were keen to isolate Jammu and Kashmir and build pressure on the ruler of the State to compel him to come to terms with Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir was not wholly isolated from India and had a contiguous frontier with Kangra and the Punjab Hill States, which had acceded to India. The State Government could construct an alternative communication route to connect the State with India. The construction of an alternative road between the State and the Dominion of India would, however, be an arduous task and take a long time, thus exposing the State to more hardship. Logistically also the construction of an alternative road would pose many problems. The borders between the State and the Indian Union running east of the Pathankot tehsil in Gurdaspur district, through which the Jammu-Madhopur road run, were mountainous and rugged and largely snowbound. The closure of the Jammu-Sialkot road and railway line and the Jhelum Valley road, which linked Srinagar with Rawalpindi had been closed by Pakistan and there was little prospect of their being thrown open for transport after the State joined India. By the time, the Boundary Commission begun its work, Pakistan was left with little doubt about the disinclination for the ruler of the State Maharaja Hari Singh to accede to that country.

Mahajan and Teja Singh pleaded for the inclusion of the Division of Lahore in the East Punjab. The two Commissioners raised fundamental issues with unparalleled eloquence in respect of their claim, which Sir Cyril Radcliffe could not overlook altogether. The issues they raised, included:

i) the distribution of water resources between the East and West Punjab, the location of the irrigation headworks and the canal system;

ii) the continuation of the communication lines in the East Punjab of which the Lahore Division formed Centre;

iii) the demarcation of a viable and defensible border of the India in the Punjab;

iv) the interests of the Sikh Community which had its largest assets in the West Punjab and its main religious and cultural centres in the Division of Lahore;

v) the Indian interest in the road-link between Jammu and Madhopur, arising out of its proximity to Jammu and Kashmir State for the security of that state as well as its future relations with the Indian Dominion.

Both Mahajan and Teja Singh avoided the heavily value-laden discourse of the Congress leaders, in their presentation to the Commission. They marshalled up concrete facts relevant to the demarcation of boundary in the Punjab and elucidated in detail the consequences – geographic, economic, political and strategic, the division of the province was bound to lead to and their impact on the future of the Hindus and Sikhs in the Punjab. Sir Radcliffe was a man of independent outlook, sent down from his country to draw the boundaries of the new Muslim State of Pakistan, which the British had actively connvived in creating. Sir Radcliffe knew little of the cultural configuration of the Punjab, its economic organisation and its history. Not only the Punjab, Sir Radcliffe knew much less of the history and culture and economic and political organisation of Bengal, the other Indian province he was commissioned to divide between the two communities, Hindus and Muslims, on the basis of population proportions.

Mahajan and Teja Singh were genuinely fearful of the future of their communities in the Punjab. The history of the Punjab had been shaped by Hindus and the Sikhs. The Sikhs established a powerful Kingdom in the Punjab, the borders of which extended from Afghanistan to the eastern fringes of Tibet. The Sikh state integrated the Himalayas into the northern frontier of India. The Himalayas, Sanskritised by the Hindus of Kashmir, formed the civilisational frontier of India. The establishment of the Sikh power put an end to the long history of the invasion of India from the north. The division of Punjab was bound to have serious effect on the future of the Sikh community. The Punjab was considered by the Sikhs to be their homeland. The Sikh places of pilgrimage were located in the eastern part of the Punjab, mainly the Division of Lahore. The responsibility of apprising the Boundary Commission of the sociology of the Sikh religion and its moorings in the Hindu civilisation of India, fell upon the Hindu and Sikh Commissioners. Teja Singh, ravaged by the anti-Hindu riots in the Punjab, exhibited great courage and forbearance, in defending the cause of his community.

The Muslim League carried on a strident campaign to build pressure on the Commission to demarcate the boundary between the east and the West Punjab on the basis of the population proportions. The British Governors of the Punjab and the North-East Frontier province along with the British officials posted in the two provinces acted in tandem to influence the Commission.

The Boundary Commission was entrusted with the historic task, of the demarcation of the Indian frontier in the north. Jammu and Kashmir formed the central spur of the warm Himalayan uplands and the new configuration of power created by the emergence of the Muslim state of Pakistan, was bound to effect the security of the Himalayas. There is no evidence to show that the Indian leaders realised the importance of the crucial changes, the emergence of Pakistan, would bring about in the structure of power-relations along northern frontier of India.

The Hindu and Sikh leaders of the Punjab evinced serious interest in the boundary demarcation. Both Mahajan and Teja Singh kept themselves in close touch with the Hindu and Sikh leaders of the Punjab. Among them were Sir Shadi Lal and Bakshi Tek Chand. Both Sir Shadi Lal and Tek Chand were in the confidence of Maharaja Hari Singh. The Indian leaders had warbled notions about the northern frontier of India. They were carried away by the fraternal regard, the Asian conference held in Delhi in 1946, symbolised. The Indian leaders viewed the solidarity of the Asian people and the emergence of the Asian nation from colonial dominance as basis for coexistence and cooperation among the Asian people. Gandhi disclaimed national frontiers. He claimed commitment to vaguely conceived concept of anarchism which formed a part of the intellectual tradition of the early twentieth century.

They had accepted partition of India, but they refused to recognise its political implications. They were unable to comprehend the significance of the demarcation of the boundary between India and Pakistan in the Punjab. Their inability to link the boundary demarcation in the Punjab with the security of the Northern Frontier of India exposed Jammu and Kashmir and the entire Indian frontier, stretching to its east, to foreign aggression.

Another man, whose future  was linked with the de marcation of the boundary in the Punjab, was Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. The Jammu-Madhopur fair weather cart-road was the only communication link between the State and India. The two major all weather motorable roads, the Jehlum-Valley Road linking Srinagar with Rawalpindi and the Jammu-Sialkot road ran into the West Punjab. The railway line connecting Jammu with Sialkot also ran into the West Punjab. The border between the State and Kangra and the Punjab Hill States, which had decided to accede to India, was broken by rugged mountainous terrain. An alternate road could be built via Mukerian to connect Jammu with Kangra and via Doda with the Punjab Hill States. Indeed, when Mahajan and Teja Singh pointed out to the Commission the necessity of securing access to Jammu and Kashmir through East Punjab, Mohammad Munir and Din Mohammad suggested the construction of an alternate land route via Mukerian connecting Jammu with Kangra. The Hindu and the Sikh Commissioners  realised, as did Hari Singh, the importance of the tehsil of Pathankot to the viability and the defensibility of the borders of India as well the Jammu and Kashmir State.

Sir Shadi Lal and Bakshi Tek Chand kept Hari Singh informed of the boundary demarcation in the Punjab. They were close to Mehar Chand Mahajan and had apprised him of the interest Hari Singh had in the demarcation of the boundary in the Punjab.

Hari Singh was suspicious of Mountbatten, whose mind he knew. He did not trust the Congress leaders. He had received a communication from States Minister, in which the latter had advised him to release the National Conference leaders and come to terms with them. Unsure of the course Sir Radcliffe would follow in respect of his State, he reportedly, conveyed to the British officials, through some of his trusted British friends, his interests in a balance border with the two Dominions of India and Pakistan and the importance of the Jammu-Pathankot road for the security of his State. Reportedly, he conveyed to the British authorities that in case he was not secured the land route between Jammu and Pathankot he would have no other alternative except to depend upon the Dominion of India for the construction of a new transit route, across the eastern borders of the State with Kangra or with any of the Punjab Hill States, which had already acceded to India.

The British were not averse to a balanced border of the State with India and Pakistan, for they were keen to avoid any diplomatic or political lapse which would push the Maharaja into the lap of India. Some of the British officials sincerely believed that Hari Singh would opt for an arrangement in which he was not required to accede to any of the Dominions, if he was guaranteed peace on his frontiers. Ram Chander Kak, out of stratagem or straight devotion to his master, had spared no efforts to assure the British, that Hari Singh pursued a policy, which enabled him to retain his independence, rather than join India which was beset with serious difficulties.

In view of the extremely divergent views and deep disagreement among the Hindu and Sikh Commissioners and the Muslim Commissioners, the Boundary Commission was unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement on the demarcation of the boundary across the Lahore Division. In accordance with the procedure laid down for the Boundary Commission, in case of disagreement among the Hindu, Sikh and the Muslim representation in the Commission, it was decided by mutual agreement to entrust the task of the demaracation to Sir Radcliffe, the Chairman of the Boundary Commission. The Commissioners, representing the Hindus and the Sikh as well as the Muslims agreed that the arbitral award made by Sir Radcliffe would be binding on them.

History had cast a unique responsibility on Sir Radcliffe, to lay down the future boundaries of the nation of India, which was on the threshold of freedom from centuries of slavery as well as describe the future boundaries of an independent Muslim state in India. The Congress leaders, were perhaps, oblivious of the elemental  change the creation of Pakistan would bring into the civilisational boundaries of India and the far-reaching effect the establishment of a Muslim power in India, would have on its northern frontiers. Jammu and Kashmir formed the central spur of the great Himalayan uplands poised as the State was, it stood as a sentinel for any eastward expansion of any power from the west as well as the north.

Pakistan was, however, keenly conscious of the strategic importance of Jammu and Kashmir. But the Government of Pakistan was unable to judge the ability of Maharaja Hari Singh to defeat their designs. Hari Singh played a historic role in persuading Sir Radcliffe to accept  that his State could not be completely isolated from the Indian Dominion.

The Muslim League leaders did not trust Hari Singh. They spared no efforts to convince the British officials in the Government of India about the necessity to ensure that the Boundary Commission did not deviate from the principle of the population proportions. The Muslim League leaders were keen to acquire the Ravi Headworks at Madhopur isolate the district of Amritsar and seal the existing road-link connecting Jammu and Kashmir with India. The League leaders sent Chowdhary Mohammad Ali to convey to the British officials in the Indian Government their concern about the future of the Lahore Division. Mohammad Ali met, Lord Ismay, the Political Advisor to the Viceroy to convey to Mountbatten the anxiety of the Muslim League leaders about any deviation from the principle of population-proportions the Boundary Commission may resort to in the demarcation of the boundary in the Punjab. Ismay told Mohammad Ali that the Boundary Commission was an independent body of which the functions were determined by its terms of reference, and the Government of India had no role in its function. Many years later, research in Pakistan revealed that during his meeting with Lord Ismay, Mohammad Ali showed the Political Advisor a sketch map of the demarcation of the boundary between east and west Punjab which was not strictly based upon the principle of population-proportions. Ismay, reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with it.

The award of the Boundary Commission was announced on 18 of August 1947, three days after the transfer of power in India. Sir Radcliffe left India the same day. The districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur were included in the East Punjab, whereas the districts of Lahore and Sheikhopora were included in the West Punjab. The entire Muslim League leadership flared upon in anger against the inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab and blamed Sir Radcliffe of connivance in a craftily devised plan to give India access to Jammu and Kashmir and provide the Indian state the strategic ground to grab the State. Communal riots flared up in Lahore and spread to the whole of the Punjab.

Sir Radcliffe followed uniform standards in the delimitation of the boundary between India and Pakistan in Bengal as well as the Punjab. Evidently, he did not overlook the consideration of other factors, specifically mentioned in the terms of reference of the Boundary Commission in the delimitation of the boundary between the East and the West Punjab. He did take into consideration the nominal majority, the Muslims enjoyed over the Hindus and the Sikhs in Gurdaspur. The Tehsil of Pathankote in the Gurdaspur district had a distinct Hindu majority and it could not have been included in the West Punjab by any stretch of imagination. Sir Radcliffe had not followed the district boundaries as the basis of delimitation of the boundaries elsewhere in the Punjab. Besides, the Ravi irrigation headworks were located in Pathankot and they could not have been excluded from the East Punjab, to ensure a just and equitable distribution of water resources in the Punjab between India and Pakistan. undoubtedly, Sir Radcliffe did not overlook the necessity of providing a balanced border to the Jammu and Kashmir State, for which Mahajan and Teja Singh had spiritedly  pleaded. The security of the Jammu and Kashmir State, which constituted the central spur of the northern frontier of India and which was crucial to the security of the Himalays, could not be left out the consideration of the Boundary Commission. The division of the Punjab was a part of the partition  of India and the demarcation of the boundary between India and Pakistan could not be undertaken in isolation from its effects on the Indian States. The delimitation of the boundary in the Punjab around the Bahawalpur State, was undertaken with due consideration of its future affiliations. Bahawalpur joined Pakistan,.

Sir Radcliffe recognised the inclusion of the district of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab as a strategic requirement of the security of the northern frontier of India, including the frontier of India in the Punjab. He accepted in his report that the inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab was necessary for the security of the district of Amritsar, which would otherwise he surrounded by Pakistan. Perhaps, Radcliffe was aware of the security of the northern Frontier of India, in which the British were more interested than the Congress leaders, who had warbled notions about the security of the Himalayas. Unlike the other officials of the Government of India, Radcliffe was free of the trappings, the British officials of the Indian Civil Service were strapped to. He did not visualise the partition of India as the British officials of the Indian Government did, and he was guided by his own judgement. He refused to recognise the claim to the geographical expression of the Muslim nation of Pakistan, the way the British officials of the Indian Government did. He had little regard for their colonial concerns or Jinnah’s notions of the ascendance of the Muslims power in India.

An important consideration which Sir Radcliffe had in mind in dividing the Lahore Division was the future of the Sikh Community, which was bound to be adversely affected by the partition of the Punjab. The land and the assets owned by the Sikhs were largely situated in the west Punjab but a larger section of their population lived in the East Punjab. Besides, their main religious centres and most sacred shrines, including the Durbar Saheb, were located in the Lahore Division. The division of the Punjab was bound to uproot them from the West Pakistan and deprive them of their land and assets. The claim laid by the Muslims to the whole of Lahore Division, would divest them of their sacred places and shrines. Lahore was the seat of the Sikh empire of the Punjab, which had changed the course of the history of India. The demarcation of the boundary of the East Punjab was therefore, crucial to the survival and future of the Sikh community. Both Mahajan and Teja Singh emphasised upon the need to consider the interests of the Sikh community in the demarcation of the boundary in the Punjab.

The inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab mitigated, though only partially, the rigours of the division of the Punjab. The delimitation of the boundary in the Punjab, Sir Radcliffe undertook, gave the Muslims, who constituted 55 percent of the population of the Province, 65 percent of its territory. The Hindus and the Sikhs who constituted 45 percent of the population got only 35 percent of the territory of the Punjab. The Muslim League leaders had no reason to grumble. Their reconstruction were politically motivated and aimed to prepare ground to launch a new form of Direct Action to reduce the Jammu and Kashmri State.

Pakistan resorted to the distortion of the history of the transfer of power in India, to justify its claim on Jammu and Kashmir. Inside Jammu and Kashmir the National Conference leaders who ruled the State for decades after its accession to India, resorted to the distortion of the history of the accession of the State to India, to legitimize their claim to a Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir inside India but independent of the Indian Union and its political organisation. Not only that. The Muslim separatists forces, which dominated the political scene in the State after the disintegration of the National Conference in 1953, also resorted to the fossilization of the facts of the accession of the State to India. Interestingly, the entire process of the distortion of the history of the accession of the State, spread over decades of Indian freedom assumed varied expressives from time to time.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who headed the Interim Government instituted in March 1948, disclaimed the Instrument of Accession executed by Hari Singh, as merely the Kagzi Ilhaq’ or “paper Accession” and claimed that the “real accession of the state to India” would be accomplished by the people of the State, more precisely the Muslim majority of the people of the State. While the Constitution of India was on the anvil and the issue of the constitutional provisions for the States came up for the consideration for the Constituent Assembly of India, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah claimed that the National Conference had endorsed the accession of the State to India on the condition that the claim the people of the state had to a separate freedom was recognised by India and the leadership of the National Conference had been assured by the Indian leaders that the people of Jammu and Kashmir would be reserved the right to constitute Jammu and Kashmir into an autonomous political organisation, independent of the Indian constitutional organisation.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and other National Conference leaders, claimed that they had been assured that Jammu and Kashmir would not be integrated in the constitutional organisaion of India and the assurances were incorporated in the Instrument of Accession. They stressed that they had agreed to the accede to India on the specific condition that the Muslim identity of the State would form the basis of its political organisation.

In his inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir convened in 1951, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who was the Prime Minister of the Interim Government of the State, claimed that the Constituent Assembly was vested with the plenary powers, drawn from the people of the State and independent of the Constitution of India. He claimed that the Constituent Assembly was vested with the powers to opt out of India and assume independence or join the Muslim state of Pakistan.

Fifty years later the claims Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah made in the Constituent Assembly were echoed in the first Round Table Conference, convened by the Government of India in 2006, to reach a consensus on a future settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

Mr Muzaffar Hussain Beg, represented the People Democratic Party in the Round Table Conference which was a constituent of the coalition government in the State, headed by the Congress Party. Beg claimed, that the Instrument of Accession was a treaty between two independent states, the Dominion of India and the Jammu and Kashmir State and the Constituent Assembly was a sovereign authority, independent powers inherent in its sovereignty.

The Government of India made no efforts to put the record straight. Frightened at the prospect of losing the support of the National Conference the Indian leaders did not question the veracity of the claims the Conference leaders made. Indeed, they depended upon the support of the National Conference to win the plebiscite which the United Nations Organisation was hectically preparing to hold in the State. The Indian leaders, overwhelmed by their own sense of self-righteousness, helped overtly and covertly in the falsification of the history of the integration of the Princely States with India and the accession of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Dominion in 1947. Many of them went as far as to link the unity of India with the reassertion of the subnational identity of Jammu and Kashmir, which the Muslim demand for separate freedom for the Muslim symbolised.

The Indian Independence Act of 1947, laid down separate procedures for the transfers of power in the British India and the Indian Princely States. The Princely States were left out of the partition plan, which divided the British Indian provinces and envisaged the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. In respect of the Princely States, the Indian Independence Act, envisaged the lapse of the paramountcy – the power which the British Crown exercised over the Indian States. The British Government clarified its stand on the future disposition of the States in the British Parliament during the debate on the Indian Independence Bill. It categorically stated that the lapse of the Paramountcy would not enable the Princes to acquire Dominion status or assume independence.

The British Government made it clear that the reversion of the Paramountcy to the rulers of the States would inevitably lead to mutually accepted agreements between the Dominions and the Princely States which would involve their accession. The Indian Independence Act did not envisage in the procedure the accession of States. The Nawab of Bhopal approached the Diplomatic Mission of the United States of America in India to seek the recognition of the Independence of his state. The American Government snubbed the Nawab and refused to countenance any proposals for the independence of the Princely States in India. It was left to be formulated by the two Dominions of India and Pakistan.

The Political Department of the British Government of India was divided into two separate Political Departments – the Political Department of Pakistan to deal with the Indian Princely States. The Political Department of India was put in charge of Sardar Vallabhai Patel and the Political Department of Pakistan was put in charge of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar. The procedure for the accession of the States to the two Dominions was evolved separately by their respective Political Departments.

The Muslim League however, insisted upon the independence of the Princely States in order to enable the Muslim ruled states to remain out of India. The Muslim League aimed to Balkanise the Princely States and place the state of Pakistan in a position which provided it a way to forge an alliance with them. The Indian States spread over more than one-third of the territory of India constituted more than one fourth of the Indian population. Some of the Muslim ruled Princely States were largest among the Princely States of India and several of them were fabulously rich.

The claim Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah made in his inaugural speech to the Constituent Assembly of the State that the States had the option to assume independence was a reiteration of the stand the Muslim League had taken on the future disposition of the states following the lapse of the Paramountcy. The lapse of the Paramountcy did not underline the independence of the States. It did not envisage the reversion of any plenary powers to the Princes or the people of the states as a consequence of the dissolution of the Paramountcy. The states were not independent when they were integrated in the British Empire in India. They did not acquire independence when they were liberated from the British Empire 1947. They were not vested with any inherent powers to claim independence to which Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah referred to in his inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly.

The convocation of the Constituent Assemblies in the States was provided for in the stipulations of the Instrument of Accession that the Princely States acceding to India, executed. The Instrument of Accession devised by the States Department of Pakistan for the accession of the States to that country did not envisage provisions pertaining to the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The power to convene separate Constituent Assemblies was reserved for all the major states the Union of the States, which acceded to India.

The Jammu and Kashmir State was no exception. In fact, Constituent Assemblies were convened, in the states of Cochin and Mysore and the State Union of Saurashtra, shortly after their accession to the Indian Dominion.

The Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir was a creature of the Instrument of Accession. It exercised powers which were drawn from the state of India and its sovereign authority. It did not assess any powers to revoke the accession of the State to India to bring about the accession of the State to Pakistan or opt for its independence, as Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in his inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly claimed or as Mr Muzaffar Hussain Beg claimed in the Round Table Conference.

The truth of what happened during those fateful days of October 1947, when the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was accomplished was concealed by a irredentist campaign of disinformation which was launched to cover the acts of cowardice and betrayal, subterfuge and surrender which went into the making of the Kashmir dispute.

The National Conference leaders, were at no stage, brought in to endorse the accession of the State to India. No one among them was required to sign or countersign the accession and none of them signed or countesigned the Instrument of Accession, executed by Maharaja Hari Singh. The Indian Independence Act, an Act of the British Parliament, which laid down the procedure for the transfer of power in India, did not recognize the right of self-determination of either the people of the British India or the people of the States.

The transfer of power was based on an agreement among the Congress, the Muslim League and the British. The British and the Muslim League stubbornly refused to recognise the right of the people of the British India and right of the people of the Princely State to determine the future of the British India or the Indian states. The Muslim League and the British insisted upon the lapse of the Paramountcy and its reversion to the rulers of the States. Accession of the States was not subject to any conditions and the Instrument of Accession underlined an irreversible process the British provided for the dissolution of the empire in India.

No assurance was given to the National Conference leaders that the Constituent Assembly of the State would be vested with plenary powers or powers to ratify the accession of the State to India, revoke it opt for its independence or its accession to Pakistan. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the other National Conference leaders did not seek the exclusion of the State from the Indian political organization as a condition for the accession of the state to India. Nor did the Indian leaders give any assurance to them that the Jammu and Kashmir would be reconstituted into an independent political organisation, which would represent its Muslim identity.

At the time of the transfer of power in India, the National Conference leaders and cadres were in jail. They were released from their incarceration after the proclamation of General Amnesty was made on 6 September 1947. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Acting President of the National Conference who had evaded arrest and taken refugee in the British India in May 1946, arrived in Srinagar with several other senior leaders of the National Conference on 12 September 1947. Meanwhile, Mohi-ud-Din Qara the Director General of the War Council, which had been constituted by the National Conference to direct the Quit Kashmir Movement, surfaced from his underground quarters alongwith some of his close aides. Onkar Nath Trisal, who played a historic role in the defence of Srinagar, when the invading armies of Pakistan surrounded the city, was with him. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was released from jail on 29 September 1947.

Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad used the good offices of Pandit Sham Sundar Lal Dhar, a personal aide of the Maharaja to arrange a reconciliatory meeting between Hari Singh and Sheikh Mohammd Abdullah. The meeting did not go beyond usual formalities as the two men who shaped the future of the State looked at each other with cold distrust. Shiban Madan, a close kin of Sham Sundar Lal Dhar, then a man of younger years acted as a help. Shiban Madan told the author in a interview held in Srinagar in 1978, that Hari Singh sat through the meeting glumly. His Highness looked straight when the usual presentation ceremony of the Nazarana was completed. He sat glum and expressionless, his haughty demeanour more than awkwardly visible. The rest of the meeting was strictly formal.”

Hari Singh was unable to judge the far-reaching consequences of the end of the British empire in India. Not only him, the other Princes too refused to realise that their power, which had its sanction in the British Paramountcy had virtually suffered dissolution with its withdrawal. The Princely rulers genuinely believed that the States were their fiefs and the British had usurped their right to rule them. They visualised the end of the British Empire as an act of deliverance for them, which they believed would enable them to regain the unquestioned authority they had as the sovereigns of the states.

They considered accession of their States to India as a new arrangement with the Dominion of India, by virtue of which they would part with the specific powers of the defence, foreign affairs and communications of the states and retain the rest of the powers of the governance without the encumbrances the Paramountcy entailed.

Hari Singh had been shaken by Mountabatten’s advice to come to terms with Pakistan when the Viceroy visited Srinagar. Accession to Pakistan was the last act, Hari Singh was prepared to perform. However, when he turned to India and conveyed to the Indian leaders his desire to accede to India the Indian leaders advised him not to take any perceptible action in respect of the accession, till the transfer of power had been accomplished. The Indian leaders advised Hari Singh to end the distrust with the National Conference,  release the leaders and cadres of the Conference and take them into confidence and commence preparations to associate them with the government of the State.

After the transfer of power in August 1947 Hari Singh promptly ordered fresh recruitment to his armed forces and reportedly sought to secure field guns from Patiala and Hyderabad. Reports appeared in the newspapers in Pakistan that he tried to seek military assistance from India and wanted the Indian Government to take up the conversion of the fair weather road from Jammu to Madhopur, into a national roadway.

He was alarmed by the establishment of the Provisional Government of Pak-occupied-Kashmir at Tran Khel in the district of Mirpur by Sardar Ibrahim Khan on 30 August 1947. Hari Singh knew that the proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Kashmir had been made in connivance with the intelligence agencies of the Government of Pakistan and the leaders of the Muslim League to build pressure on him to accede to Pakistan.

Meanwhile Sham Sunder Lal Dhar helped to bridge the differences between Hari Singh and the National Conference leaders. Hari Singh agreed to revive the Dyarchy he had introduced in the State Government in 1944, and provide a wider share of power for the National Conference and accept to entrust a fairly large measure of responsibility in the State Government to National Conference leaders as members of his Council of Ministers. The National Conference leaders had shown their readiness to join the State Government.

For Hari Singh however, the difficulties he faced in regard to the accession were not eased. Several developments in the process of the integration of the States complicated his situation further. Junagarh, situated in the midst of the Kathiawad States, which had acceded to India, acceded to Pakistan on the eve of the transfer of power. The Nawab of Hyderabad refused to join India and secretly plotted with the leadership of the Muslim League to align himself with Pakistan.

Not only that. Mountbatten was at the helm of affairs in India, where he had been placed by the Congress leaders probably, to earn them a favourable disposition of the British. Hari Singh knew that Mountbatten had not forgiven him for his audacity to send him back to the Indian capital, without having agreed to abide by his advice to come to terms with Pakistan. It is hardly possible that the Congress leaders must not report have received the intelligence of what transpired between the Viceroy and the Maharaja in Srinagar. But how did they install him the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India is an enigma, which continues to remain unexplained.

Hari Singh was unsure of the Congress leaders as well, who had, in unabashed self-conceit, indicated their willingness to accept a settlement on the Princely States on the basis of their population and geographical location. Perhaps, they sought to use the influence of the Viceroy to ensure the accession of the Muslim ruled States, inhabited by Hindu majorities and situated within the territorial limits earmarked for the Indian Dominion to India. It is hardly possible that they did not know the mind of the Viceroy and perhaps the strategic implications of the future disposition of Jammu and Kashmir to the British interests in Asia. A section of the Congress leadership was not averse to the division of the States on the basis of their population even after the transfer of power. Some of them believed that Mountbatten would be able extricate Junagarh from Pakistan and bring about the integration of Hyderabad with India. Their prestige in the whole of the Kathiawad peninsula had plummeted down as they had reacted to the accession of Junagarh to Pakistan  pussiliminously. The rulers of the Kathiawad States had to send Jam Sahib of Nawanagar to convince the Congress leaders that Junagarh posed a serious threat to them and to demand immediate and effective action to liberate Junagarh, which was fast slipping into a civil wear.

The Congress leaders looked up to Mountbatten, who advised them restraint. Later admissions made by him in his interviews and memoirs, prove that he was keen to secure the interests of Pakistan and his country, Britain, in Jammu and Kashmir, but he had no mandate from the British Government to secure the Indian interests in the Muslim ruled States of Junagarh and Hyderabad. He disapproved of any perceptible action for the reclamation Junagarh and Hyderabad.

Hari Singh did not lose sight of the problems, arising out of his enemity with Mountabatten and the duplicity of the Congress leaders. Jinnah scuttled the proposals to divide the States on the basis of their population and scoffed at the suggestions made by Mountbatten. Hari Singh knew that if he took a false step, Mountbatten as well as the Congress leaders would nor hesitate to abandon him in a bargain with Pakistan.

This was the greatest act of betrayal committed by the men in power in India. The Indian Government crumbled in its resolve to set right the wrong in Junagarh and rein in the Nawab of Hyderabad. The Indian leaders  looked upto Mountbatten to deliver them from their predicament though experience had shown to them that the major role in the integration of the States had been played by the States people who had struggled for the unity of the States with India and the Hindu rulers of the States who had acceded to India.

The Government of India should have made a bold move to take Hari Singh into confidence, thrash out the issues pertaining to the transfer of power to the peoples representatives with him and helped in removing the prevailing distrust between him and the National Conference leaders. Instead the Indian leaders sulked away. Gandhi had advised Hari Singh to handover the State Government to the National Conference leaders and entrust them the responsibility to conduct elections to the Praja Sabha, the State Legislative Assembly and empower the elected representatives of the people to take a decision on the accession of the State. Hari Singh had refused to abide by Gandhi’s advice and told him that such a course would enable Pakistan to grab the State with the support of the Muslim Conference and the other pro-Pakistan flanks in the state. Later events proved that Hari Singh had chosen the right course. Jammu and Kashmir would have gone the way, North West Frontier Province did if he had opted for elections to the Praja Sabha.

The Indian Princely States were a part of the Indian nation. Partition did not divide the States, nor did the partition empower Pakistan to grab Junagarh or claim Hyderabad on the basis of being Muslim ruled States and annex Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of its population. The Muslim League as well as the British treated the States as their personal preserve and sought to use them to Balkanise India. The Princes as well as the people of the States defeated their designs.

The role played by Mountbatten and VP Menon, in the integration of the Indian States was only marginal. The States’ Ministry did not draw up any plans for the consolidation of the northern frontier of India of which Jammu and Kashmir was the central spur. Nor did the States Ministry formulate any plans for the security of the Himalayas against the threat of their de-Sanskritsation which the creation of Pakistan posed.

Few in-depth investigations and inquiries have been undertaken so far to unravel the forces and factors, which shaped the events in Jammu and Kashmir, during the fateful days following the transfer of power in India. No investigations were ever carried out in the actions of men, who were at the helm of affairs in India, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, their motivations and their personal prejudices. Much of what happened those days, has been covered under false propaganda by the Government of India as well as the  Government of Pakistan and the  Interim Government which was instituted in Jammu and Kashmir after the accession of the State to India. A widespread disinformation campaign was launched by the Interim Government in collusion with the Government to find scapegoats for their failures and to apportion blame, where it did not belong. The sordid story of what happened in the state, those days, is yet to be told.

Pakistan sought to bend the procedure laid down by the Indian Independence Act for the transfer of power in India, to grab the Muslim majority states as well as the states ruled by Muslim Princes.

The Indian Government failed signally to counteract the stratagem, subversion and military intervention, Pakistan employed to achieve its objectives. Perhaps the British, who had quit India, still cast a shadow on the Indian outlook. The Congress leadership with its liberalist tradition which denied the civilisational boundaries of the Indian nation, continued to play the Muslim card, to prove that Jammu and Kashmir would be more Islamic than the Muslim State of Pakistan after its inclusion in the Indian Dominion.

The Congress leaders wanted Maharaja Hari Singh to follow what they did in collusion with Mountabatten to retrieve Junagarh and bring round the Nawab of Hyderabad to come to terms, with India. Gandhi advised Hari Singh, during his visit to Kashmir, towards the close of July 1947, to (a) transfer the powers of the State Government to the representatives of his Muslim subjects, who formed a majority of the population of the state; (b) hold fresh elections to the Praja Sabha, the State Legislative Assembly, on the basis of universal adult franchise and (c) entrust the Praja Sabha with the task of taking a decision on the accession of the state. The meeting between Hari Singh and Mahatma Gandhi was held on the lawns of the Gupkar Palace, situated on the eastern bank of the Dal Lake in Srinagar. Maharani Tara Devi and the Heir-Apparent Karan Singh were present in the meeting. The only other man present in the meeting was a senior officer of the state army, who acted as an aide to the Maharaja and prepared the situation report of the meeting for the military archives of the state.

Gandhi had lost touch with the developments in the princely states. He was not aware of the dangerous  situation in Jammu and Kashmir. He did not know that an armed rebellion was brewing in the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu province, where arms and ammunition were being dumped by the elements of the Muslim League from a  cross the border of the state with the Punjab. He was hardly aware of the sharp divide between the Kashmiri speaking Muslims and non-Kashmiri speaking Muslims. He did not know that the non-Kashmiri speaking Muslims, who constituted nearly half the Muslim population of state along with a small section of the Kashmiri-speaking Muslims owing loyality to the Mirwaiz, the chief Muslim divine of Kashmir, supported the Muslim Conference, which spearheaded the struggle for Pakistan. He was completely unaware of the fact that the Kashmiri-speaking Muslims constituted about half the population of the Muslims of the State and together with the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Buddhists they formed more than sixty percent of the population of the State. The Hindus, the Sikhs and the Buddhists, a million people, constituted more than a quarter of the population of the State. Gandhi was completely unaware of the impact of the partition on the leaders and cadres of the National Conference, which had its main support bases in the community of the Kashmiri-speaking Muslims, largely concentrated in the Kashmir province. He did not know that an influential section of the leaders and cadres of the National Conference favoured a reconsideration of the commitment of the National Conference to the unity of India.

Gandhi believed that by seeking to divest Hari Singh of his powers to determine the future affiliation of the State in respect of its accession and empowering his Muslim subjects to take a decision on the accession of the state, he would be able to create a precedent for the rulers of the Muslim ruled states, to entrust their powers to determine the future affiliations of their states their Hindu subjects, who formed a majority of their population. Nearly all the Muslim ruled states, barring a few of them situated within the territories delimited for the Muslim State of Pakistan, nearly all the Muslim ruled States in India, including the major states of Hyderabad, Junagarh, Bhopal, were populated by preponderant Hindu majorities.

Perhaps, Gandhi believed that the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir committed to support the accession of the state to India, would opt to join India after power was transferred to them and they were empowered to  determine the future affiliations of the state. He was convinced that the transfer of power in Jammu and Kashmir would provide him a moral ground to bring round Pakistan as well as Mountbatten to persuade the Muslim rulers to abnegate from their power to determine the future affiliations of their states and entrust their subjects and of whom the Hindus formed a majority, to opt for India.

Gandhi and the other Indian leaders did not even get the wind of the secret preparations in Pakistan for military intervention in the Jammu and Kashmir State in the name of the Jehad for the liberation of the Muslims from their subjection to the Dogra Rule, while Gandhi went on a indefinite fast to prevent communal violence in India which threatened the Muslims, Pakistan prepared feverishly for the invasion of the state. Pakistan planned to reduce the state by military force and then deal with India from a position of strength in respect of Junagarh and Hyderabad. Junagarh had acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad was plotting the align itself with Pakistan to remain out of India.

Had Hari Singh accepted Gandhi’s advice he would have provided open ground for Pakistan and the Muslim League to grab the state by stratagem and force. Gandhi’s suggestion to hold the elections to the Praja Sabha would have enabled the Muslim Conference and the flanks of pro-Pakistan Muslim activists, operating underground, to sabotage the National Conference and use religious appeal for Jehad to pack the Praja Sabha with the Muslim Conference. Any stringent measures adopted by him to prohibit religious propaganda in the elections would have brought him the blame of having settled the expression for the will of the Muslims. In case he did not take effective measures to prohibit the use of religious propaganda in the elections he would virtually leave the field open for the Muslim Jehad to take over.

Hari Singh had borne the ravages of Muslim communalism. He had also faced the scourage of the Paramountcy. The Congress leaders had installed Mountbatten as the first Governor General of the Dominion of India. Hari Singh had rebuffed Mountbatten and refused to abide by his advice to join Pakistan. Mountbatten, later events proved, had not forgotten the slight Hari Singh had caused to him. The Maharaja did not allow himself to be arranged before the man, who had spared no efforts to push his state into Pakistan for his management. He refused to accept Gandhi’s advice.

Hari Singh contested Gandhi’s views on the accession of the state and refused to abnegate from his rightful obligation to determine the future of his state. He told Gandhi, in measured words in the presence of Maharani Tara Devi, who regarded the Mahatma in awe, that the safety and the security of the Hindus and the other minorities in the state was uppermost in his mind, and he would not abandon them at any cost. He insisted upon the recognition of his rights as the ruler of the state to determine the basis of his future relations with India. He reminded Gandhi that nor only had the lapse of the Paramountcy vested in him the right to determine the future of the State, the Indian States Ministry had recognised the rights of the rulers of the States as the basis of their accession to India and he could not be treated in a manner different from the way, the rulers of all other acceding states had been treated.

Gandhi gave expression to his feelings in a statement he gave to the press in Punjab, on his way back to Delhi. He said that Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim state and therefore, its future must be determined by Muslims who formed a majority of its population. He denounced the treaties between the Princes and the British as “parchments of paper” and decried the claims made by the Princes to any rights arising out of such treaties.

Hari Singh did not accept the surrender to a Muslim majority identity as the basis of a settlement of the accession of the state. He refused to become part of the process to consolidate the borders of the Muslim state of Pakistan, which Mountbatten and the Congress leaders visualised as the guarantee of the unity of India.

Later events proved Hari Singh right. Pakistan strove hard to hold Junagarh and openly supported Hyderabad in its endeavour to remain out of India. Pakistan invaded the State, irrespective of the procedure laid down by the Indian Independence Act, for the lapse of the Paramountcy, showing little regard for the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir and the people of Junagarh and Hyderabad.

Gandhi’s press statement administered a jolt to Maharaja Hari Singh. Maharani Tara Devi favoured reconciliation with the Congress leadership. She cautioned Hari Singh against the isolation into which the State was sinking fast. It is a lesser known fact that the Maharani tried to bridge the gulf between Hari Singh and the Indian leaders.

Shortly after Gandhi left Kashmir Hari Singh removed Ram Chandra Kak from his office and appointed General Janak Singh, one of his close kin the Prime Minister of the state. Ram Chandra Kak headed the State Government during the last years of the British Raj in India. Kak served the Maharaja with unflinching loyalty and devotion. Kak belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community in Kashmir, which played a pioneering role in the growth of national consciousness in the State. While in office, Kak acted as an interface for the Maharaja with the British as well the Muslim League, at a time, when the Princes were struggling to place the State in between the British Crown and an independent Indian nation. The political Department of the British Govt. of India, with conrad corfield, a diehard British Civil Service officer, as its head, spared no efforts to assure the Princes that the British would not abandon the Princely India and would ensure the continuity of the treaties between the States and the Crown. Like the other Princes, Hari Singh was suddenly brought on the crossroads, when India was divided and the British Paramountcy was withdrawn.

The British refused to continue the protection, the Paramountcy had provided the States and the Muslim League claimed Jammu and Kashmir for the Muslim State of Pakistan on the basis of the Muslim majority of its population.

During the days, the future of the constitutional organization of India was taking shape, Ram Chandra Kak was at the Centrestage of the negotiations between the Princes, the British and the Indian leaders. The Princes were not left with the choice to seek a place outside the constitutional organization of the two successor Dominions of India and Pakistan. The undersecretary of the State for India in the British Government, clarified in the British Parliament, during the debate on the Indian Independence Bill, that the British Government would not recognize the States as the Dominions of the Commonwealth nor would extend it recognition to their independence. Kak was no longer relevant in the political context in which Jammu and Kashmir was left with no choice except to join India, the option to accede to Pakistan was not acceptable to Hari Singh or Kak.

Hari Singh turned away from the British, when he refused to abide by the advice of the Viceroy of India tendered to him to come to terms with Pakistan.

He earned the displeasure of the leaders of the Muslim League, when he refused to grant permission to Mohammad Ali Jinnah to visit Jammu and Kashmir, during the days, the transfer of power in India was in process of completion. Jinnah sent several of his emissaries to persuade Hari Singh to accede to Pakistan on conditions which he specified. A second world war veteran Major General Shaukat Hayat Khan, arrived in Kashmir with a peculiar proposal from him.

Khan met Hari Singh in his palace. He told the Maharaja that he had been commissioned by Jinnah to convey to the Maharaja that he could lay down any conditions that he chose, to accede to Pakistan and that Pakistan would deposit a huge amount of money in British currency worth hundreds of millions of Sterling Pounds, in the Bank of England, as guarantee against any breach of the conditions laid down by him.

Hari Singh was slighted, but he did not lose his poise. He told Shaukat Hayat that he would take a decision on the accession of the State only in consideration of the interests of his subjects.

Naseeb Singh, an Army officer, of the Signal Corps, who was in attendance on the Maharaja those days, told the author in an interview: “I heard him (Shaukat Hayat) tell his aides, how strange of the Maharaja it was to have turned down the offer. As he saw me standing bye, he recoiled and fell silent”. Thakur Kartar Singh, a close kin of the Maharaja and a former Revenue Minister of the State, told the author in an interview in Jammu. “His Highness was severely intolerant of any suggestion about his relations with Pakistan.

He felt hurt by what happened around him. He had given a long rope to Ramchandra Kak. He waited patiently, though that was not in his habit, for an opportunity to save the State from going to Pakistan. Pakistan pressurized him to agree to accede to that country, offering to accept any number of conditions that he would lay to safeguard his interests. But he “withstood all pressures”.

Hari Singh offered a Standstill Agreement to India as well as Pakistan for which the Indian States Department and the State Department of Pakistan had provided the option. The Indian Government did not take any action on the Standstill Agreement, though it extended the period of accession by two months for both the States – Jammu and Kashmir as well as Hyderabad. Hyderabad was the other Princely State, which did not accede to the Indian Dominion by 15 August 1947.

That Pakistan had adopted a policy of confrontation with the State Government was signaled by the formation of the Provisional Government of ‘Azad’ Kashmir, by pro-Pakistan Muslim flanks and the cadres of the Muslim Conference, at Trad Khel on 30 August 1947. Sardar Ibrahim Khan founder of the Provisional Government of ‘Azad’ Kashmir, took the salute of a contingent of armed volunteers of the Provisional Government which march passed before him in a military formation. The volunteers were armed with the rifles supplied to them from Pakistan.

Hari Singh proclaimed a general amnesty for all political prisoners who were involved in the Quit Kashmir Movement and against whom proceedings were in process in the courts of the state. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Acting President of the National Conference, who had taken refuge in the British India, during the Quit Kashmir Movement, alongwith other leaders of the National Conference, arrived in Srinagar on 12 September 1947. He received a tumultuous welcome, from the people in Srinagar.

The leaders and cadres of the Conference who had gone underground, had already begun to emerge from their underground quarters. Mohi-ud-Din Qara the Head of the War Council, which had been constituted to direct the Quit Kashmir Movement, came out of his underground quarters, alongwith a number of his senior cadres. Among them was Onkar Nath Trisal, a senior communist party activist, who later played a memorable role in the defence of Srinagar, when the invading armies of Pakistan were pouring into its outskirts. Mohi-ud-Din Qara addressed a number of public meetings, where he impressed upon the people of the necessity to maintain intercommunity peace and combat communalism and subversion.

While the National Conference leaders and cadres set out to reconstruct the organizational units of the National Conference, which had been battered by the Quit Kashmir Movement, Pakistan launched a surreptitious campaign in the State to unite the Muslims in support of its accession to that country. The leaders and cadres of the Muslim Conference and the sections of the Muslim community which were ideologically committed to the Muslim struggle for Pakistan, though they did not support the Muslim Conference, carried on the campaign with the support of the widespread network of Pakistani agents, spies and intelligence sleuths of the Government of Pakistan which operated underground and in vast numbers, Muslim League cadres and other political activists who had slipped into the state unnoticed.

The creation of Pakistan symbolized the realization of the desperation of the Muslim Ummah in India and (a) religious obligation devolved on the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir to support its accession to Pakistan to consolidate the Muslim power (b) the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir were part of the Muslim Umah and therefore were bound to Pakistan by the bond of Islam; (c) any deviation from a commitment to the unity of the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir would be an un-Islamic act. The National Conference had spearheaded the Muslim struggle for liberation from the Dogra Rule and now the only option for the leaders and National Conference was to join the struggle for the unification of the State with Pakistan (d) India and the Hindus who formed the main resistance to the struggle for Pakistan, were trying their utmost to scuttle the freedom of the Muslims in the Princely States, where the Muslims were subject to severe repression and the ruler of the State was waiting for an opportunity to join India, scuttle the freedom of the Muslims and perpetuate his power (e) the Muslim struggle for Pakistan was not against the Maharaja and the Muslims of the State had assured him that they would recognize him as the constitutional head of the State if he opted for Pakistan; (f) the National Conference and its cadres and supporters would be accommodated in the Muslim commonwealth of Pakistan on the basis of equality and brotherhood enjoined by Islam upon all the Muslims irrespective of their language and the region which they inhabited (g) any differences between the National Conference leadership and the Muslim leadership of the people of Pakistan could be settled mutually and (h) the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir had to stand united in the struggle for Pakistan in view of the efforts the enemies of Islam were making in India to impair the unity of the Muslims.

The police intelligence of the State reported that it had received information about an underground cell, involved in the raising of a militia, the Muslim Guard, to defend the struggle for Pakistan against any police or military action the State Government resorted to. A woman volunteer of Pakistan was charged with the tasks of recruitment of local Muslim volunteers to the ranks of the Muslims guard. The intelligence report about the Muslim Guard reached the State Government and a summary of the report was sent to Hari Singh as well. As usual, Hari Singh sent it to the State archives. But no action was taken against the sabotage planned by the enemy agents to foment a rebellion in the State, probably to coincide with the invasion of State Pakistan was secretly planning.

The Indian leaders took little notice of the developments in the State. The States’ Minister wrote a cryptic letter to Hari Singh, imploring the Maharaja to bring all punitive measures against the National Conference to an end, release the Conference leaders and cadres from imprisonment and seek their cooperation to meet the challenge the State was faced with.

On September 3, 1947, an intelligence signal was received in the Army headquarters at Delhi, that armed infiltrators of Pakistan had raided a border outpost, three miles inside the state territory. The signal with the staggering import evoked response from the Indian Government. The Indian leaders received information about the border raids and the heavy damage to life and property the Hindus and the Sikhs suffered in the border districts of the State. No voice was raised in India against the depredation, the armed infiltrators spread in the border districts of the State.

Note: The Article, in this series are based upon documentary sources in the Indian Archives, Archives of the Jammu and Kashmir State, Sardar Patel Papers; documents and Papers in Sapru House Library, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, Contemporary Newspaper Files and Interview.

Source: Kashmir Sentinel

Will this ever be implemented or Kashmiris will keep dying for their basic human right of freedom?

It’s amazing how United Nations has played the role of a servant for imperialist powers which only act when it is in the interests of few powerful governments.

If East Taimoor can be given the right then who not Kashmir? Just because USA or UK aren’t interested.

Read the preamble and you will see India itself went into UN for a peace agreement and now for last 6 decades is deceiving the world and denying the truth.

Was this resolution just a lie by UN , Nehru and India.

Remember to bring peace in the world you need to do justice.

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RESOLUTION 47 (1948) ON THE INDIA-PAKISTAN QUESTION SUBMITTED JOINTLY BY THE REPRESENTATIVES FOR BELGIUM, CANADA, CHINA, COLUMBIA, THE UNITED KINGDOM AND UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ADOPTED BY THE SECURITY COUNCIL AT ITS 286TH MEETING HELD ON 21 APRIL, 1948. (DOCUMENT NO. S/726, DATED THE 21ST APRIL, 1948).

THE SECURITY COUNCIL

Having considered the complaint of the Government of India concerning the dispute over the State of Jammu and Kashmir, having heard the representative of India in support of that complaint and the reply and counter complaints of the representative of Pakistan,

Being strongly of opinion that the early restoration of peace and order in Jammu and Kashmir in essential and that India and Pakistan should do their utmost to bring about cessation of all fighting,

Noting with satisfaction that both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan would be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite,

Considering that the continuation of the dispute is likely to endanger international peace and security,

Reaffirms its resolution 38 (1948) of 17 January 1948;

Resolves that the membership of the Commission established by its resolution 39 (1948) of 20 January 1948, shall be increased to five and shall include, in addition to the membership mentioned in that Resolution, representatives of ….and …, and that if the membership of the commission has not been completed within ten days from the date of the adoption of this resolution the President of the Council may designate such other Member or Members of the United Nations as are required to complete the membership of five;

Instructs the Commission to proceed at once to the Indian sub-continent and there place its good offices and mediation at the disposal of the Governments of India and Pakistan with a view to facilitating the taking of the necessary measures, both with respect to the restoration peace and order and to the holding of a plebiscite by the two Governments, acting in co-operation with one another and with the Commission, and further instructs the Commission to keep the Council informed of the action taken under the resolution; and, to this end,

Recommends to the Governments of India and Pakistan the following measures as those which in the opinion of the Council and appropriate to bring about a cessation of the fighting and to create proper conditions for a free and impartial plebiscite to decide whether the State of Jammu and Kashmir is to accede to India or Pakistan.

A – RESTORATION OF PEACE AND ORDER

1. The Government of Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavors:

1. To secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purposes of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State;

2. To make known to all concerned that the measures indicated in this and the following paragraphs provide full freedom to all subjects of the State, regardless of creed, caste, or party, to express their views and to vote on the question of the accession of the State, and that therefore they should co-operate in the maintenance of peace and order.

2. The Government of India should:
1. When it is established to the satisfaction of the Commission set up in accordance with the Council’s Resolution 39 (1948) that the tribesmen are withdrawing and that arrangements for the cessation of the fighting have become effective, put into operation in consultation with the Commission a plan for withdrawing their own forces from Jammu and Kashmir and reducing them progressively to the minimum strength required for the support of the civil power in the maintenance of law and order;

2. Make known that the withdrawal is taking place in stages and announce the completion of each stage;

3. When the Indian forces shall have been reduced to the minimum strength mentioned in (a) above, arrange in consultation with the Commission for the stationing of the remaining forces to be carried out in accordance with the following principles:
1. That the presence of troops should not afford any intimidation or appearance of intimidation to the inhabitants of the State;

2. That as small a number as possible should be retained in forward areas;

3. That any reserve of troops which may be included in the total strength should be located within their present base area.

3. The Government of India should agree that until such time as the plebiscite administration referred to below finds it necessary to exercise the powers of direction and supervision over the State forces and policy provided for in paragraph 8, they will be held in areas to be agreed upon with the Plebiscite Administrator.

4. After the plan referred to in paragraph 2(a) above has been put into operation, personnel recruited locally in each district should so far as possible be utilized for the reestablishment and maintenance of law and order with due regard to protection of minorities, subject to such additional requirements as may be specified by the Plebiscite Administration referred to in paragraph 7.

5. If these local forces should be found to be inadequate, the Commission, subject to the agreement of both the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan, should arrange for the use of such forces of either Dominion as it deems effective for the purpose of pacification.

B – PLEBISCITE

6. The Government of India should undertake to ensure that the Government of the State invite the major political groups to designate responsible representatives to share equitably and fully in the conduct of the administration at the ministerial level, while the plebiscite is being prepared and carried out.

7. The Government of India should undertake that there will be established in Jammu and Kashmir a Plebiscite Administration to hold a plebiscite as soon as possible on the question of the accession of the State to India or Pakistan.

8. The Government of India should undertake that there will be delegated by the State to the Plebiscite Administration such powers as the latter considers necessary for holding a fair and impartial plebiscite including, for that purpose only, the direction and supervision of the State forces and police.

9. The Government of India should at the request of the Plebiscite Administration, make available from the Indian forces such assistance as the Plebiscite Administration may require for the performance of its functions.

10.
1. The Government of India should agree that a nominee of the Secretary-General of the United Nations will be appointed to be the Plebiscite Administrator.

2. The Plebiscite Administrator, acting as an officer of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, should have authority to nominate the assistants and other subordinates and to draft regulations governing the Plebiscite. Such nominees should be formally appointed and such draft regulations should be formally promulgated by the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

3. The Government of India should undertake that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir will appoint fully qualified persons nominated by the Plebiscite Administrator to act as special magistrates within the State judicial system to hear cases which in the opinion of the Plebiscite Administrator have a serious bearing on the preparation and the conduct of a free and impartial plebiscite.

4. The terms of service of the Administrator should form the subject of a separate negotiation between the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Government of India. The Administrator should fix the terms of service for his assistants and subordinates.

5. The Administrator should have the right to communicate directly, with the Government of the State and with the Commission of the Security Council and, through the Commission, with the Security Council, with the Governments of India and Pakistan and with their representatives with the Commission. It would be his duty to bring to the notice of any or all of the foregoing (as he in his discretion may decide) any circumstances arising which may tend, in his opinion, to interfere with the freedom of the Plebiscite.

11. The Government of India should undertake to prevent and to give full support to the Administrator and his staff in preventing any threat, coercion or intimidation, bribery or other undue influence on the voters in the plebiscite, and the government of India should publicly announce and should cause the Government of the State to announce this undertaking as an international obligation binding on all public authorities and officials in Jammu and Kashmir.

12. The Government of India should themselves and through the government of the State declare and make known that all subjects of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, regardless of creed, caste or party, will be safe and free in expressing their views and in voting on the question of the accession of the State and that there will be freedom of the Press, speech and assembly and freedom of travel in the State, including freedom of lawful entry and exit.

13. The Government of India should use and should ensure that the Government of the State also use their best endeavor to effect the withdrawal from the State of all Indian nationals other than those who are normally resident therein or who on or since l5th August 1947 have entered it for a lawful purpose.

14. The Government of India should ensure that the Government of the State releases all political prisoners and take all possible steps so that:
1. all citizens of the State who have left it on account of disturbances are invited and are free to return to their homes and to exercise their rights as such citizens;
2. there is no victimization;
3. minorities in all parts of the State are accorded adequate protection.

15. The Commission of the Security Council should at the end of the plebiscite certify to the Council whether the plebiscite has or has not been really free and impartial.

C-GENERAL PROVISIONS

16. The Governments of India and Pakistan should each be invited to nominate a representative to be attached to the Commission for such assistance as it may require in the performance of its task.

17. The Commission should establish in Jammu and Kashmir such observers as it may require of any of the proceedings in pursuance of the measures indicated in the foregoing paragraphs.

18. The Security Council Commission should carry out the tasks assigned to it herein.

*The Security Council voted on this Resolution on 20-1-1948 with the following result:­

In favour: ** Argentina , ** Canada , China . France , ** Syria , U.K. , and U.S.A.

Abstaining: ** Belgium . ** Columbia , **Ukranian S.S.R. , and U.S.S.R.

**Non-permanent Members of the Security Council.

Source:http://www.kashmiri-cc.ca/un/sc21apr48.htm