Where is the PM Heading. ?

Dwarka Nath Munshi  

( The author has very ably analysed the implications of the demand for restoration of pre-1953 status to Jammu & Kashmir This well reasoned article should compel the votaries of this demand to reconsider their position and save the country of its disastrous consequences Ed.]

As the elections to Parliament keep moving closer, political matters, manoeuvres and colours are changing fast. In this desperate hurry. to buy votes and hold on to power, no price seems 100 high to the government and no ethics or national - interest is beyond sacrifice.

Thus, not very long ago, we saw in utter disbelief Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, promising the Kashmir Valley extremists that they could get anything short of Azadi only if they condescended to talk and participate in elections And just a few days ago, he broke his own record of total casualness in extremely serious matters of state when he agreed to take back the J&K State half a century in time to a political structure that had been set up as an emergency measure to stabilise the tottering administration there in those dark and uncertain days of Pakistan's first aggression By an unfortunate quirk, absolute power had the fallen into Sheikh Abdullah's lap. He loved it and wallowed in the pomp and ceremony of the official titles he got, and dreamt of perpetuating it all in a Sheikhdom of his own.

As the absurdity of it in a democratic federal order became clear to the people at large, in the State and the rest of the country, the Sheikh strove to fight back the oncoming tide with treachery. that characterised him, but had to pay for it. His colleagues, who followed him in power and the party, had a better sense of realism and his negative isolationism and they soan brought the state into the mainstream of a democratic order and secular vision.

The State Constituent Assembly, elected earlier under the leadership of the Sheikh to obtain the one major mandate for endorsement of the Accession by the people as had been initially promised, passed the resolution in time. For all intents and purposes, this had set the final seal on it and should have settled the matter as also closed. the UN File on the subject. The world body had hung the question on the peg of 'people's choice' which had now been made unequivocally But the ever-active Pakistan Government set against a supine Indian leadership had little difficulty in keeping it alive One Indian meekness followed another and emboldened Pakistan to make direct serious inroads into Kashmir riding on fanatical appeals to religion and an unabashed campaign of hatred against the Indian infidel'.

India's only answer to the growing explosive position was handing largesse in the form of developing funds to the powerful and influential small section of Kashmiri rulers which increased in volume with each act of subversion and insurgency and each threat which preceded these. The common Muslims of the State saw it as a sell-out and lost their faith in their own rulers and more in the Indian "overlord". What happened from 1990 onwards-an uprising of fearful proportions was a culmination of this mindlessness

The latest statements of the Prime Minister on "Azadi", on "sky's the limit", on going back to live in the past autocracy are stunning, and worse. This is an extreme irresponsibility on his part. He has stepped into an abyss from which he may not be ever able to extricate himself or the government he heads-an outgoing government at that. In a large sense, they have defied the Constitution and violated the integrity of the nation by simply mentioning the proposition.

No government, and least of all the present one, on its way out, has the right to take such a position, which is so critical to the future of the nation. The minimum requirement has to be to obtain the people's clear mandate at the general elections, now only a few months away. Anything short of that carries the risk of a national divide, with the overwhelming sections of loyal, patriotic Indians sparing nothing to prevent or undo it. Today's common comment around the country is that if the subversives in Kashmir could bend the spineless government to their will, it would take much less for the masses of India to bring it down on its knees.

What has been the mandate on the issue so far? If anything, each political party and the ruling party, most of all, has been more vociferous than the rest in asserting that the Jammu and Kashmir State, as it stood on the day of Independence in 1947, is as integral and inalienable part of India as any other and would never be subject to any compromise. And this is in consonance with the basic, unalterable principles of our Constitution which holds the sovereignty of the nation and the inviolability of its boundaries as sacrosanct.

Indeed such a sanctity is common to all nations of the world Take the USA for an instance It extended its boundaries by several means outright purchase of Louisiana from France and Alaska from Russia. It acquired part of California from Mexico, and so forth And the peoples of these territories had never been consulted. Yet these deals were never brought into question by the parties involved or by any international agency under any pretence.

How then can the present Indian Government barter the honour and integrity of the country for a possible continuance in power? If this is its acknowledgement of having exhausted all practical resources to restore peace and normalcy in the unfortunate valley and the State, the only honourable way for it is to get out at once.

When people are tested too much for their forbearance in national decisions, when a government assumes rights and powers that so obviously detract from the nation's sovereignty. when some one or a group of the power hungry put the nation's interests at stake, and their own above everything else, then they are sitting on people's distrust and anger of volcanic proportions which can blow up any moment

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Courtesy: - Dwarkanath Munshi and February 1996 Koshur Samachar