Kashmir issue has been in light lately as Indian diplomats at UN emphasize to takedown the issue from the UN general assembly. Today let’s learn in brief about what circumstances prevailed that led to a huge issue related to Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
At the time of independence, the government agreed to provide Jammu and Kashmir its special status of being independent. Seeing this opportunity, Pakistan could not control its patience and declared a war. The Pakistani army started looting their oppression on the Kashmiri people and Maharaja Hari Singh had no other option but to surrender to India and signed ‘Instrument of Accession’. As soon as this treaty was signed, the Indian army reached Srinagar and started attacking the Pakistan’s army. They demolished the enemy side and hence the Pakistanis had no other option but to fall back to that frontier which is now the actual LOC.
Now, this is the turning point of our history with Pakistan and the main topic of this article. At the very same moment when Indian army was busy keeping the other side at their original position, our 1st Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru visited the UN council to resolve the Kashmir issue which is known as ‘Resolution 47’. The resolution was passed with majority. At the same time it is stated that, a referendum was scheduled in Kashmir that was going to decide the territory will belong to Pakistan or India. Also, it is stated that if the Prime Minister had not gone to UN to pass the ‘Resolution 47’, the Army would have captured the whole northern frontier/area of Kashmir and a disputed LOC and PoK would not have emerged.
But the resolution passed stating:- a) Pakistan will reduce and remove it forces from the region; b) India will gradually reduce its army from the Line of Control; c) India will organise a peaceful agreement among the political parties and then a plebiscite administrator will organise a voting situation among the people of Kashmir to decide their geo-political situation.
The resolution seems top-notch right? Unfortunately, it is not. None of the major terms stated above has administered till date. Thus we see the emergence of so called Line of Control (LoC) which divided India’s Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) on 1st January 1949.
And now the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was given under the article 370 which in short states the special powers to J&K and India will have control on only defence, communication and external affairs, rest the constitution of J&K will be different. Sheikh Abdullah the leader of National conference won the majority of 1957 but was detained under the act of doing conspiracy to attain the full autonomy of J&K.
This was not enough, by the year 1962-1964, when Kashmir was viewing to gain what it deserved, the demise of our Prime Minister happens and at the same time period China declares war on India, and consequently annex the north-east region, the area surrounding Aksai Chin.
The blessing to India happened when Lal Bahadur Shastri becomes the 2nd Prime Minister and 1st BJP leader. All the things was going good till Pakistan declares war on India. Again for the 2nd time Indian army won and annexed all the areas of Pakistan till Lahore. A Tashkent agreement was signed between the countries but was a mere conspiracy to kill the Prime Minister. What we see next is Indira Gandhi of Congress becomes the Prime Minister and conducted no investigation of the death of Ex-Prime Minister which sure was a conspiracy. The worst things shape when Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency after the signing of Indira-Sheikh accord with Sheikh Abdullah to grant him the right to become Chief Minister of J&K. Seeing the policies of Indira Gandhi, the CM decided to follow communal practice rather than secular practices to attain the special rights.
He changed names of 2500 villages to Islamic names, his speeches were pro- Islamic and started to manifest ‘Islamisation’. His son’s Farooq Abdullah and brother-in-law handled the party after his demise. In 1987, the JKNC (J&K National Conference) and INC won the elections and defeated Muslim Front party by a 85-4 seats. The whole situation escalated the Muslim Front to undertake aggressive measures followed by militarisation and sowing the seed of heavy militant organisation in the region. The leaders of Muslim Front fled to PoK and started brainwashing the youths of Kashmir giving rise to terrorism.
And now till date we see the disturbances in the territory between the citizens of J&K, Militants and Indian Army. All the leaders who were fighting elections in 1987 are now mostly associated with Hizbul, Harkat-e-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad.
Now, it is up to the readers what they believe about the history of Kashmir. What I feel after reading articles on the issue is had not the Indian National Congress interfered the 1987 elections and speculated vote, had not the 1st PM of India visited the UN and signed the Resolution 47, had not INC declared emergency status in the country, the Geo-Political structure of India would have been different. Lal Bahadur Shastri would have tackled the whole situation very well.
Revoking article 370 was a good idea done by the parliament as now India can interfere in every proceedings of J&K and decision taken by them.
I think it would be a very immature decision to give full autonomy to J&K as seeing its history in the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh when he was incapable to fight against Pakistan. If India does not support J&K in the coming future in terms of economy, human welfare and defence then most of the youths would be brainwashed by the militant groups and we will see a rise in terrorism.
Thus the Us, the UK, Germany, France are backing India to remove any issues upheld in the UN council.
Regards,
Vishesh Garg
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