How to Evaluate India’s Fallacious Claims Regarding Kashmir
Dr. Fai, Secretary General | World Forum for Peace & Justice
Speech given by Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman, World Forum for Peace & Justice at a seminar organized today (August 22, 2024) by the Istanbul-based ‘Kashmir Monitoring Center & Asia-Pacific Workshop.’
1. Kashmir acceded to India on October 27, 1947. Wrong.
The Government of India says that because the Maharajah signed the Instrument of Accession (IOA) on October 26, 1947, the accession of Kashmir to India is final.
Let us try to examine the claim of the Government of India in a logical manner.
First, as we know it now, thousands of Kashmiris from the Poonch area, whose capital is Rawalakot in Azad Kashmir, were serving in the army of the Maharajah. They revolted against the Maharajah on October 23, 1947. Two days later, under the leadership of Major Khurshid Anwar, they broke all roadblocks on October 25, 1947, that were set by the army of the Maharajah to prevent anyone from reaching Srinagar from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. They were able to cross Kohala Bridge and killed Brigadier Rajinder Singh of the Maharajah’s army, who was assigned to block any invasion from Poonch. The killing of Brigadier Rajinder Singh sent shock waves to the Maharajah and his army. The Maharajah’s army surrendered. The Maharajah abandoned Kashmir and left for Jammu on the morning of October 26, along with more than 100 trucks loaded with belongings, including gold, jewelry, diamonds, etc. The weather was not cooperating, and the road from Srinagar to Jammu was very bad. He stayed overnight at Patni Top Dak Bungalow, which is 70 miles away from Jammu. The Maharajah reached Jammu in the afternoon of October 27. So, the Maharajah signing the IOA on October 26 in Jammu, as suggested by the Government of India, was not possible.
Second, V.P. Menon, ‘Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of States,’ writes in his book, ‘The Story of the Integration of Indian States,’ pages 399-400, that he, along with Mehr Chand Mahajan, Deputy Prime Minister of Kashmir, went by air to Jammu on October 26, where the Maharajah signed the IOA. Then he returned to New Delhi in the afternoon on October 26. Mehr Chand Mahajan, in his book, “Looking Back,” says that he never visited Jammu on October 26. Records of the British High Commission in New Delhi relate that on October 26, V.P. Menon attended a Defense Committee meeting at 10:00 a.m. V.P. Menon went to the airport on October 26 at 3:45 p.m. to go to Jammu, but the flight did not take off because there were no night landing facilities at Srinagar airport. V.P. Menon went directly to meet with Alexander Symon, British High Commissioner, at 5:00 p.m. The account of the British High Commission indicates that V.P. Menon never left New Delhi on October 26. So, the account that the Maharajah signed the IOA on October 26 is not correct.
Third, Andrew Whitehead, BBC correspondent for 35 years, says that he wanted to have a copy of the IOA, but he was denied access to this document on the grounds that it was “classified.”
Fourth, British scholar Alistair Lamb, in “Birth of a Tragedy,” has convincingly demonstrated that the Instrument of Accession was a bogus document. An original has never been found, and there is no plausible explanation for its disappearance if an original had ever existed. He says that when he approached the Government of India to see the original copy, they told him that it was stolen.
2. Kashmir is the issue of fundamentalism. Wrong.
The term fundamentalism is quite inapplicable to Kashmiri society. Kashmir has remained the symbol of communal harmony for centuries. It has a long tradition of moderation and non-violence. The traditional hallmark of Kashmir has been religious pluralism, amity, and an aversion to doctrinaire ideologies. Its culture cannot and does not generate extremism or fundamentalism. Its four major religious groups—Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism—live in neighborhoods together; they work together; they socialize together; they celebrate and mourn together; they are a model of religious harmony and ecumenism. Their adherents have not been segregated into residential ghettos.
A person no less important than Mahatma Gandhi has eloquently elucidated these sentiments in 1947: “While the rest of the country burns in communal fire, I see a shining ‘Ray of Hope’ in Kashmir only.”
George Fernandes, then the Federal Minister of India, spoke at Harvard University, Center for International Affairs, on October 12, 1990, about Hindu-Muslim coexistence in Kashmir. He said, “I was last in Kashmir a fortnight back…One point which people constantly make and which, I believe, needs to be made is that the property—houses, orchards—owned by the Pandits have not been damaged in the last year. The apples, for instance, from these orchards have been plucked (by Muslim neighbors) and sold, and the money has been deposited. The houses have been looked after as they were earlier by Muslim neighbors.” (Harvard U. Transcript page 8.)
Had Kashmir been a fight between Hindus and Muslims, then people like Ram Chandra Kak (R.C. Kak), Prime Minister of the Maharajah, would not have supported an independent Kashmir. And Prem Nath Bazaz, one of the greatest historians of the time, would not have been the mastermind of the slogan, “Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris.”
Ved Bhasin, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Kashmir Times, told the United States Department of State in my presence that he does not want to be part of either India or Pakistan but wants to have an independent Kashmir.
3. Kashmir is an issue of terrorism. Wrong.
On many occasions, virtually all the citizenry of Srinagar (the capital city of Kashmir)—men, women, and children—came out on the streets to lodge a non-violent protest against the continuance of Indian occupation. According to Srinagar-based newspapers, on many occasions in early 1990, more than one million Kashmiris demonstrated against India, with 400 memoranda sent to the United Nations to apprise it of the tragic and intolerable situation in the Valley.
“KASHMIR: The Case for Freedom,” a book compiled by luminaries like Pankaj Mishra, Arundhati Roy, Tariq Ali, Hilal Bhatt, and Angana P. Chatterji, wrote on page 8, “On March 1, 1990, more than half a million people marched to the offices of the UN Military Observer Group in Srinagar to demand the implementation of UN resolutions.”
Arundhati Roy, one of the internationally known authors and Booker Prize winners, wrote in her article, “Azadi: The Only Thing Kashmiris Want,” in 2011, “On August 16, 2008, more than 300,000 people marched to Pampore, to the village of Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was shot down in cold blood five days earlier. Ms. Roy added: ‘On August 18, 2008, an equal number gathered in Srinagar on the vast grounds of the TRC (Tourist Reception Centre, not the Truth and Reconciliation Committee), close to the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), to submit a memorandum.’”
Reuters news agency reported on August 18, 2008, “Tens of thousands of Muslims marched peacefully past the United Nations office in Kashmir on Monday, calling on the international body to intervene over the disputed Himalayan region.”
Certainly, terrorists cannot compose the entire populations of the major towns of Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Unquestionably, one million people or half a million people cannot be called terrorists. More importantly, terrorists do not believe in submitting memoranda to the office of the United Nations, as the people of Kashmir do. The presence of more than one million people on the streets of Srinagar reflects the true nature of the Kashmiri freedom struggle, which is a popular and indigenous movement.
Dr. Fai is also the Secretary General, World Forum for Peace & Justice. He can be reached at gnfai2003@yahoo.com
www.kashmirawareness.org
As I watched this video, the chants and their tone screamed of non-belonging. For the longest time, in spaces of resistance – in streets and alleys across Kashmir – such chants have risen to a crescendo.
