How to evaluate India’s fallacious claims regarding Kashmir

1. Kashmir acceded to India on October 27, 1947. Wrong.

Government of India says that because Maharajah signed the Instrument of Accession (IOA) on October 26, 1947, so the accession of Kashmir to India is final.

Let us try to examine the claim on GOI in a logical manner.

First, as we know it now that thousands of Kashmiris from Poonch area whose capitol is Rawalakot in Azad Kashmir were serving in the army of maharajah. They revolted against Maharajah on October 23, 1947. The 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 Maharajah so that no one can reach Srinagar from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. They were able to cross Kohala bridge and killed Brigadier Rajendr Singh of Maharajah’s army who was assigned to block any invasion from Poonch. The killing of brigadier Rajender Singh sent shock waves to Maharajah and his army. Maharajah’s army surrendered.  Maharajah abandoned Kashmir and left for Jammu in the morning of October 26 along with more than 100 truck loaded belongings, including gold, jewelry, diamond, 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. Maharajah reached Jammu in the afternoon of October 27. So, the Maharaja signing the IOA on October 26 in Jammu as suggested by GOI was not possible.

Second, VP 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 PM of Kashmir went up by air to Jammu on October 26 where Maharajah signed IOA. Then he returned 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. The records of British High Commission in New Delhi relates that on October 26 VP Menon attended Defense Committee meeting at 10.00 a.m. VP Menon went to 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. VP Menon went directly to meet with Alexander Symon, British High Commissioner at 5.00 p.m. The account of British High Commission related that VP Menon never left New Delhi on October 26. So, the account that Maharajah signed IOA on October 26 is not correct.

Third, Andrew Whitehead, BBC correspondent for 35 years says that he wanted to have a copy of IOC, but he was denied access to this document on the ground that it was “classified”

Fourth British Scholar, Alistair Lamb “Birth of a Tragedy” has convincingly demonstrated that the Instrument of Accession was as bogus document. An original has never been found, and there is no plausible explanation for a disappearance if an original had ever existed. He says that when he approached the GOI to see the original copy, they told him that it was stolen.

2. Kashmiri is the issue of fundamentalism. Wrong.

The term fundamentalism is quite inapplicable to the 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 the doctrinaire. 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. And 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 the Harvard University, Center for International Affairs on October 12, 1990 about the Hindu-Muslim co-existence 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 one 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 the fight between Hindus and Muslims, then people like Ram Chandra Kak (RC Kak), prime minister of Maharaja would not have supported an independent Kashmir. And Prem Nath Bazaz, one 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 the 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 (Capitol 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 the 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, Angana P. Chatterji wrote on page 8, “1 March 1990, more than half a million people march 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 author and Booker Prize-winner wrote in her article, “Azadi: The Only Thing Kashmiris Want” in 2011, “On 16 August 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 18 August 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 cannot be called terrorist. And more importantly, terrorists do not believe in submitting the memoranda to the office of the United Nations as the people of Kashmir do. The presence of more than 1 million people on the streets of Srinagar reflects the true nature of Kashmiri freedom struggle that it is popular and indigenous movement.

(Speach given by Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman, World Forum for Peace & Justice at a seminar organized today (August 22, 2024) by Istanbul-based ‘Kashmir Monitoring Center & Asia-Pacific Workshop.’)