'Why Are We Handing Over Our Territory to Pakistan? Rediff.Com India News
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12/30/2016 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? Rediff.com India News HOME NEWS BUSINESS MOVIES SPORTS CRICKET GET AHEAD SHOPPING rediff NewsApp Search SHOP FOR: Men's Lifestyle Women's Lifestyle Mobiles Electronics Watches Home & Decor Personal Care Health & Fitness Books All Categories Sign in | Create a Rediffmail account Rediff.com » News » 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? To get such articles in your inbox Share Comment Enter Your email ID Subscribe Text size: A A A Last updated on: June 13, 2016 11:12 IST 'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.' Latest from rediff.com Bigg Boss 10: Rohan gets wild 7 dead, several others trapped after Jharkhand mine collapses 2016: The ads we loved, the ads that worked Startups in 2016: A year of funding crunch (and it isn't over yet) IMAGE: A view of Srinagar from Pari Mahal, Kashmir. Photograph: Mridula Dwivedi Demonetisation has driven Solapur's beedi workers to loan Aman M Hingorani, a Supreme Court lawyer, has come up with an extremely well sharks researched and compelling book on the Kashmir dispute, Unravelling the Kashmir Knot (Sage). Here's how much Aamir, Salman, Dr Hingorani, left, below, believes it is imperative both to depoliticise the issue and then take Akshay have recourse to resolving the dispute by following the legal route as a key way to achieve enduring made in 2016 peace. He spoke to Rediff.com contributor Rashme Sehgal. What made you want to do a book on Kashmir? http://www.rediff.com/news/interview/whyarewehandingoverourterritorytopakistan/20160613.htm 1/10 12/30/2016 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? Rediff.com India News I, as such, have no connection with Kashmir. I had completed my LLM from the UK and was searching for a topic for my doctoral thesis. My father, who was a pre Partition lawyer, suggested that I look at the Kashmir issue as every conceivable principle of law had been Kohli on turned on its head in creating and sustaining this issue. engagement rumours with I felt that no comprehensive legal analysis on India's Anushka stand on J&K had been undertaken and I believed this would be an interesting area to look at academically. What will Modi The Partition of India took place because the tell us on 31/12? British wanted to create a sphere of influence in the subcontinent. Since the British had poor relations with the Congress, they felt the Congress would deny Britain military cooperation so they Karan Johar settled for the Muslim League and Mohammed Ali Jinnah to help them establish becomes An Unsuitable Boy! a separate State, namely Pakistan. The Great Game was being played out between Britain and Russia. The British wanted to stop Russian influence southwards, where the oil wells were located. The British knew they would 6 die of have to transfer power to Indian hands, but they did not want to let go of the entire suffocation as fire subcontinent. breaks out in Pune bakery Jawaharlal Nehru had already stated that he did not want an independent India to be part of the Commonwealth. Declassified British archives disclose that since the British wanted to retain a slice of India, Stars spotted! What's this? they felt that the northwestern part of India (particularly, the North West Frontier Province) Spotted: Vindu Dara Singh at Mumbai aiport could become a friendly State for their strategic, political and defence interests. Reader Swanand V Gogate sent us a photograph. More stars spotted The Muslim League had been created by the British initially to communalise the Indian polity with a view to offset the freedom struggle spearheaded by the Congress. Met a celebrity? Since the northwestern region of the subcontinent was predominantly Muslim, the British Email us photos & videos handpicked Jinnah to mouth the two nation theory in order to create Islamic Pakistan. For them, Pakistan was a means of continuing to wield power in this region. The British outwitted the Indian leadership into letting the Congressruled NWFP go to Pakistan, was complicit in Jinnah's 'Direct Action.' leading to a bloodbath in Bengal, Punjab and other parts of the country, and even effected the coup in the strategically located Gilgit to hand over such territory of J&K to Pakistan after J&K had acceded to India. "We are seeing terrorist movements in the guise of a freedom struggle because Nehru said the Kashmiris had the right to selfdetermination. We created the problem in the first place." The British were playing a dangerous gam e by stoking this religious frenzy between the Hindu and Muslim communities. They knew we would head for a bloodbath? They were ruthless, viewing the dead and dispossessed Indians as incidental damage. Lord Mountbatten is on record as having said 'What is 200,000 (dead Indians) out of 400 million? That is one person in 2,000, isn't it. It is a fractional percentage.' http://www.rediff.com/news/interview/whyarewehandingoverourterritorytopakistan/20160613.htm 2/10 12/30/2016 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? Rediff.com India News The whole world was looking with amazement at how we gave the British, who divided the country, a festive farewell. It seems shocking that the British were working according to a blueprint to divide the country about which the Congress did not have a clue. You write about the seeming innocence of Indian politicians. It was only a handful of Indian leaders in undivided India who were hobnobbing with Mountbatten. Following Partition, the British were heading both the Indian and Pakistani armies. We remained a British dominion till 1950. Right up to 1948, our entire Kashmir policy was being formulated by Mountbatten heading the Emergency Committee and the Defence Committee of the Indian Cabinet. IMAGE: The conference in New Delhi where Lord Louis Mountbatten disclosed Britain's plan for the Partition of India. Left to Right: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Ismay, adviser to Mountbatten, Lord Mountbatten, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images. How could we have been so naive? We were politically naive. My sense is that very effective smokescreens had been created by the British. They cultivated Jinnah. In the Simla Conference of 1945, they made Jinnah the sole representatives of all Indian Muslims even though he had little or no support of Indian Muslims. They identified influential Muslims to counter the Hindus and other Muslims. They set people against each another, like they did to disintegrate the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. They encouraged traditional HinduMuslim differences to deteriorate into a killing frenzy. Congress President Acharya (J B) Kripalani had said that if we go on like this, retaliating and heaping indignities upon each other, we shall progressively reduce ourselves to a stage of cannibalism and worse, and in every fresh communal fight the most brutal and degraded acts of the previous fight became the norm. http://www.rediff.com/news/interview/whyarewehandingoverourterritorytopakistan/20160613.htm 3/10 12/30/2016 'Why are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? Rediff.com India News The entire political leadership of undivided India was naive. The Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalan has written that people who we thought had statesmanship, acumen and farsightedness were left blinking their eyes while the British divided the country with stern calmness. Nehru promised a plebiscite in J&K to determine the wishes of the people to accede to India or Pakistan. Both modern day India and Pakistan are creations of British statutes enacted to give effect to the political agreement driven by the British and the Muslim League, and eventually accepted by the Congress, to partition the subcontinent. According to this agreement, the British provinces were to be partitioned according to the two nation theory, which I have explained was conceived by the British to create Pakistan. However, all the princely states were to regain full sovereignty and that sovereignty vested in the ruler, regardless of the religious complexion of the people of that state. It was the ruler alone who could offer accession. These British statutes were accepted by India and Pakistan. Pakistan had taken the correct legal position that princely states were sovereign in the full sense of the term as of August 15, 1947. J&K was a sovereign state on August 15, 1947, which is why it could accede to sovereign India in October that year. Pakistan had no say in the matter. But because of the controversial accession of the princely states of Junagadh and Hyderabad, the Congress formulated a policy making the wishes of the people relevant to the accession of a princely state. Nehru then agreed that this would apply to J&K. But the question to be asked was whether Nehru could make a promise that was contrary to the constitutional law then in force and which was accepted by both India and Pakistan namely, the British statutes. These statutes the Indian Independence Act, 1947 and the modified Government of India Act, 1935 clearly stipulated that it was only the ruler who was competent to decide the future of his princely state.