Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: August 22, 2000
India Today once boasted
of having the clout to build public opinion strong enough to oust a government
in New Delhi. But in this, its silver jubilee year, that intelligent
man's weekly has committed quite a few blunders in its two recent cover
stories on J&K, thereby exposing once again how some so-called intellectuals
have not yet got their history right on what has for 53 years now been
an extremely critical, sensitive subject for the entire nation.
Thus, the magazine's
issue of August 14 would have us believe that J&K acceded to India
in 1947 in return for Nehru's promise of plebiscite and Article 370's nomenclature
of "prime minister" of J&K was changed to "chief minister" in 1964.
The Centre extended jurisdiction over J&K in 1953. Sheikh Abdullah
died in 1983 and his son Farooq, became J&K's chief minister in that
year.
All the above statements
are fiction, pure fiction.
Firstly, J&K's accession
to India had nothing to do with the promise of plebiscite by Nehru or anyone
else. It was instead directly linked to the tribal invasion from
Pakistan that threatened the very survival of Srinagar city, forcing its
ruler to ask India's military help and offer accession for that purpose.
And Nehru's promise of plebiscite was made in his All India Radio broadcast
of December 23, 1949. (It is a different matter that according to
a former chief justice of India, M C Mahajan, the Instrument of Accession,
designed by the British and the Indian Independence Act, 1947, of the British
Parliament gave no legal or constitutional authority to Nehru or Mountbatten,
the then governor general, to make that promise).
Secondly, the draft Constitution
of India was presented to our Constituent Assembly for debate in February
1948 and, therefore, Article 370 being promised in 1947 is poppycock.
Thirdly, the Centre's
jurisdiction over J&K was extended, not in 1953, but on January 26,
1950, by a Presidential Order issued under Article 370.
Fourthly, the nomenclature
of 'prime minister' of J&K was changed to 'chief minister' not in 1964
but April 1965 by the sixth amendment to the J&K State Constitution,
1957.
Finally, Sheikh Abdullah
died, not in 1983, but on September 8, 1982. Similarly, his son Farooq
became J&K's chief minister, not in 1983, but on September 9, 1982.
The above factual blunders
may not be critical in arguing for or against J&K's demand for autonomy.
However, insofar as they emanate from a reputed magazine with a very large
readership, they distort public perception on a major national issue.
The sad part is that
such errors indicate a skin deep, chalta hai attitude towards national
responsibility that falls on the democracy's Fourth Estate. The above
errors of fact, for instance, would just not have arisen had the publication
prepared, for its correspondents, a fact sheet from an authoritative book
on J&K like that of Chief Justice Dr A S Anand who had his PhD dissertation
on the subject approved by London University.
Next, there is Shekhar
Gupta, editor-in-chief of the widely circulated The Indian Express.
In his column of August 5, one of his brazen accusations is that "We had
defied the UN resolutions on a plebiscite." If Pervez Musharraf and Madeleine
Albright -- both India haters in their own way -- read that, and well they
might, they will both be ecstatic beyond words, for it is a submission
they are itching for. And it will needlessly require Jaswant Singh
to reiterate our national position for the nth time that India never defied
the UN resolution on plebiscite. Rather, it was Pakistan that did
so by just not fulfilling the resolution's first condition requiring it
to withdraw its tribesmen and nationals from the J&K state territory
it had invaded for the purpose of fighting in October 1947 (resolution
adopted on August 13, 1948, by UN Commission for India and Pakistan).
With specific reference
to autonomy for J&K, Gupta's second accusation is that, "We had consistently
and calculatedly diluted the autonomy promised to Kashmir under the Instrument
of Accession and Article 370."
That charge is based
on a lack of comprehension of the essence of Article 370 which, while guaranteeing
the sanctity of the accession deed, also permitted an extension of the
Indian Parliament's laws to J&K with the concurrence of the government
of that state or in consultation with it. Let it be known here that
Article 370, as it stands, had the approval of the four representatives
from J and K appointed on the Indian Constituent Assembly in June 1949
by the Sadar-i-Riyasat on the advice of his council of ministers.
Let it be known too that all the parliamentary laws extended to J&K
so far have the latter's nod. Let it be known finally that the enlargement
of various provisions of Indian laws to J&K via Article 370 was upheld
by that state's high court in 1959 and by the Supreme Court in 1961 as
well as in 1970. So where is the chicanery or devilish design that
Shekhar now charges Delhi with?
The crucial question
arises again: Why can't an intellectual like Shekhar Gupta see the importance
of ensuring that his million and more readers get the right fundamental
facts? Is it flippancy? Is it arrogance? Is it sadistic pleasure available
from flagellating the government with the pen?
Then there are those
two gentlemen who, by virtue of their "former foreign secretary" status,
have got wide platforms in our ever-expanding media that is thirsting for
"experts". One of them is J N Dixit.
Writing in The Indian
Express of July 24, he advocates autonomy to J&K in the framework of
the Sheikh Abdullah-Indira Gandhi agreement of 1975. But in summing
up the contents of that accord, he says that one its clauses laid down
that with regard to those provisions of the Indian Constitution as had
been made applicable to J&K, only those affecting the unity of India
were unalterable, thereby implying that all others of those provisions
were alterable.
But such an open general
licence just doesn't exist in the text of that agreement published in The
Statesman, Calcutta, of February 25, 1975. That text says clearly
that only alterations and modifications to such provisions of the Indian
Constitution as had been made applicable to J&K can be repealed after
considering the merit of each; those provisions made applicable to J&K
without modifications were unalterable.
Dixit conceals more than
he reveals with his assertion that Maharaja Hari Singh's decision to accede
to India did not represent the view of the Kashmiri people. This
is another of those opinions from a reputedly high source that harms India's
cause in the eyes of the Madeleines and Musharrafs. Forgotten in
this mischievous assertion by Dixit is that, under the monarchical system,
the act of accession is the prerogative of the prince and that his people
had no legal right to be consulted on the issue of accession. He
also fails to mention that when the duly elected Constituent Assembly of
J&K unanimously ratified in February 1954 the state's accession to
India, the people of J&K had endorsed their Maharaja's action of October
1947.
Lastly, there's that
other "former foreign secretary", Muchkund Dubey. Writing in The
Hindu of July 17, he makes the emotive plea that, "Autonomy is the only
basis of, and indeed the minimum must, for sett ling the problem with the
people of Kashmir." This plea, mind you, after visiting "Kashmir" -- presumably
Srinagar -- for a few days, and perceiving the "almost total alienation
of the people from India." And yet, says Dubey, the bottomline should be
the Instrument of Accession and Article 370.
But that is how it has
always been in the last 50 years, hasn't it?
If it is the colossal
corruption and miserable misgovernance of J&K that is generally accepted
as the reason for increasing unemployment and underdevelopment in J&K,
how can autonomy resolve the situation? Dubey provides no answer, partly
because in an entire 1,200-word article he mentions 'Jammu' only once and
'Ladakh' not even once. How far did his perception of "people's alienation"
really go then?
The correct answer to
J&K's problem may well have been given by a mere letter writer, Hari
Om, from Jammu. He told The Hindu that the freedom and autonomy sought
by the people of J&K was the freedom and autonomy from the National
Conference Party of Farooq Abdullah and from the Hurriyat. All that
the people of the state were crying for, wrote Hari Om, is "a genuinely
democratic government and a fair, clean and responsive government."
That simple, common man's remedy is, alas, beyond the ken of the skin-deep
intellect of many in high places here.
