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| India-Pakistan dialogue: Role of people of Jammu and Kashmir | | | rustam
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 8: Tehrik-e-Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani has, it seems, gone astray. He has turned down the Union Home Minister's offer of talks. He has said he will consider the offer only if it is accepted that Jammu and Kashmir a disputed territory. He has also reiterated his stand that plebiscite is the only option available.
Yes, there is a dispute between India and Pakistan and the dispute is over the areas that have been under the illegal occupation of Pakistan since 1947-48, called the so-called Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. These areas were an integral part of the Jammu and Kashmir State, as it existed on August 15, 1947, when the country witnessed the communal partition and the emergence of a sovereign and independent Pakistan. These are the areas whose political status has yet to be determined and, hence, to that extent these areas are a bilateral issue.
Everyone knows that it was the British India that was partitioned as per the Indian Independence Act of 1947. As for the 560 odd princely states, including the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which also constituted what was also called the Indian India, it was the princes of the respective princely states who had been empowered by the Indian Independence Act of 1947 to take a decision on the political future of their respective states. The choices, as per the Independence Act were two, not three and these were accession to the Indian Dominion or the accession to the Pakistani Dominion with contiguity being the primary criterion. No princely state had the right to become independent. The people of these princely states didn't have the power to decide as to whether they should India or Pakistan or they could become independent. They had no choice but to go with their princes' decision, as they alone had the power to take decision in terms of the constitutional law on the subject.
The Congress had once suggested that it would be only appropriate if the people's views were ascertained, but the Muslim League leaders, especially Mohammad Ali Jinnah, rejected outright the Congress' suggestion. He insisted that only the princes should have the power to take a decision on the political future of their respective states and he succeeded in carrying the day.
Yes, the United Nations resolutions do talk of the right to self-determination. But this right of self-determination could be exercised in a particular condition. The condition is that Pakistan has to vacate the aggression and withdraw all of its troops from the Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; India will send its troops to the vacated areas to maintain law and order; and a plebiscite would be organized in whole of the state when there is perfect peace. Hence, it is not for India, but for Pakistan to fulfill this condition, which, it will never ever fulfill. In fact, Islamabad has complicated the whole issue by ceding nearly 5000 sq miles of the state's land area in the Gilgit-Baltistan region to China, which has not only constructed military roads there, but also a highway connecting Beijing with Pakistan. Besides, it is now busy in laying down railway line in the region and constructing, in collaboration with Pakistan, a major hydel project.
It would be too much to expect from Pakistan that it would sever her ties with Beijing, which appear to be very strong as of today, ask Beijing to quit the Aksai Chin area and allow New Delhi to re-integrate the Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan region into the Indian Jammu and Kashmir to create conditions conducive for organizing a plebiscite there. The United Nations resolution, in other words, not only implicitly recognizes the Indian sovereignty over the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed before the Pakistani aggression, but also doesn't provide for a plebiscite region-wise, or district-wise or zone-wise. These resolutions contemplate a plebiscite in the whole of the state and in one go.
Thus, according to the Indian Independence Act, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have no locus standi as far as determination of the political future of Jammu and Kashmir State is concerned. It is a settled issue. Even a jurist of the stature of Justice A S Anand has very authoritatively said in seminal book on the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India is final, legal, non-negotiable and irrevocable. This is the legal position. (To be continued) |
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