news details |
|
|
| Kashmiri opinion-maker condemns Dogra rulers, demands trifurcation of J&K | | 1846 Treaty of Amritsar under attack | | Early Times Report
jammu, Nov 20: Noted Kashmiri opinion-maker and writer Ghulam Nabi Khayal has attacked the March 1846 Treaty of Amritsar under which Kashmir Valley was merged with the mighty Jammu Kingdom, denounced the otherwise progressive Dogra rulers of Jammu and demanded trifurcation of the State to end unrest.
Condemning the Treaty of Amritsar, Khayal has said that the despotic Dogra Hindu rulers annexed a Hindu Jammu and a Buddhist Ladakh with a unique Muslim Kashmir after the "shameful Amritsar Deed was signed on 16 March 1846 between East India Company and Gulab Singh Dogra, which entitled Gulab Singh to purchase entire Kashmir against a sum of Rs seventy five lakh (Nanak Shahi) which Gulab Singh could not pay off at a time". To prove his point, he has referred to what Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru said about the Treaty of Amritsar.
He has said that Mahatma Gandhi had condemned the Treaty of Amritsar as "sellout" and Jawaharlal Nehru dismissed it as "the document of slavery for the people of Kashmir." He has also quoted eminent Urdu journalist and writer, Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr, to prove his point. Mehr had written that "in 1846, the British rulers sold out Kashmir in a way that used to be adopted by the American colonizers during their early days while disposing off black slaves".
He has used filthy language for Maharaja Gulab Singh, who founded the State of J&K, Khayal said: "Gulab Singh Dogra was a tyrannical autocratic ruler and it was immediately after him ascending the throne that he started in a barbarian way intimidating and harassing the Muslims of Kashmir whom this brute killer would skin alive publicly".
Khayal is absolutely wrong. Maharaja Gulab Singh believed in secular values and he treated the State's three regions equally. It appears he has not read Maharaja Gulab Singh. To call Gulab Singh a cruel ruler would be only to murder the glorious history of the brave Dogras, who created J&K State at a time when the princely States fell one by one before the canny British imperialists.
He has, however, appreciated the ground realities in the State and said J&K is a fit case for a three-way split. He has said: "It may be called an irony of fate that a State having nothing common in its artificially bound three regions are poles apart from one another in every sphere of life". "There is not an iota of commonality found between these three regions historically, economically, religiously, socially, ethnically, politically, theoretically and in all other aspects of human life," he has said.
"Jammu has all along been a pricking thorn in the eye of Kashmir. Time and again, its right-wing political activists are seen waiting for an opportunity to harass and cow down Muslim community. A violent agitation against Muslims was witnessed in 2010 when Jammu Dogra hooligans let loose their terror by way of attacking mosques and threatening economic blockade for Kashmir," he has further said, adding that during the 26-year long ongoing militancy, Jammu got the lion's share in every sphere of life but they still complain of being ignored in "overall development of this region". Terming the people of Ladakh as anti-Kashmir, Khayal has said: "The mountainous land of Buddhists, Ladakh, has also been playing anti-Kashmir card intermittently which witnessed an ugly look of horror against Kashmiri traders and cabmen about 40 years ago".
"Keeping in view the entire scenario of artificially created three regions of this State, it is need of the day and only road to permanent resolution of Kashmir dispute that Kashmir be given the status of an autonomous State. All roads opening out in both India and Pakistan thrown open for easy travel with the revival of permit system. Ladakh's genuine demand for Union territory status is to be conceded. Otherwise also, this frontier land is now straightaway ruled by its own Council and not by the State Government. The anti-Kashmir Jammu be merged into Punjab or given a separate statehood. Kashmir should least bother about the political future of Dogra land. Other relevant modalities could be talked about later," he has said.
The point is that there are persons in Kashmir who have come to the conclusion that a three-way split of J&K is a must to end unrest in the State. They need to be commended. Indeed, a Jammu and Ladakh long for segregation from Kashmir to lead a dignified life under the Indian Constitution. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
