Debate on
7/8/1952
Pandit
Fotedar (J&K)
With your
permission, Sir, I rise to contribute my estimate on the speech of the Prime
Minister regarding Kashmir
and submit the same to the wisdom of this Parliament to be considered in a most
cool, calm and calculated manner. Before I bring myself to the points raised by
my hon’ble colleague Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, I would like to say...
Mr
Deputy-Speaker: The
hon’ble member may stop a while, for a couple of minutes. There is too much of
noise in the House. Order, Even the smallest noise is carried over by the mike.
The hon’ble member may come to the front.
Pandit
Fotedar:
It is
lamentably disquieting to observe that at a moment when we have got to reckon
with an unscrupulous enemy to whom nothing is sacred, at a moment when the
war-clouds are again threatening on the horizon, at a moment when every
endeavour ought to be made by all the parties in India to consolidate their
ranks and to forget their differences in order to develop our country, at a
moment when our case is being discussed at the very top level at Geneva, at a
moment when our Armies are facing each other, and at a moment when we are on a
war path, it is most lamentable to observe that the floor of this great
Parliament should be converted into an arena for the creation of fissiparous
tendencies and an emotional atmosphere which after all, is not going to do good
to the cause for which we stand, cannot be conducive to the development of those
sacred principles for which India and Kashmir stand, of the sacred principle of
secularism for which we have struggled and suffered.
It is
going to do no good, but it will only help and support Pakistan and our enemies.
Jinnah, during his life time, in fact after the year 1944, when he was very much
maltreated in Kashmir
by the Muslims for his idealogy, wanted two things about Kashmir.
One was, a isolation of Kashmir from
India. The second was liquidation of Abdullahism. What Jinnah failed to achieve
during his life time, what the Muslim League and Pakistan failed to achieve even
through aggression, what they have all along been failing to achieve in spite of
their tremendous efforts to get Kashmir away from India, today I find here in
this Parliament, in the name of democracy, in the name of Hinduism, in the name
of Bharat, all this is being achieved for Pakistan, and a homage of hearty
flattery is being paid to Mr Jinnah and his revered memory. In this connection,
I quote a couplet from a Persian poet who has said:
"Dil
Kay Phapholey Jal Uthay Sinay Kay Dagh Say
Is
Ghar Ko Aag Lag Gai Gar Kay Chiragh Say"
This
great Parliament of India which is representatives of the teeming millions, owes
to the nation, and to the country as also to the rising generation to give the
right type of lead to the people at the most crucial hour of our evolutionary
history. At the present moment, if we fail to discharge our duties towards the
people, we will go down to posterity as people having committed political
suicide, while of an unsound mind. I would like to refer this great Parliament
to the struggle which the Kashmiris have put in for removing exploitation for
feeding the poverty-stricken people and for doing away with autocracy for the
last 20 years, and in this great struggle the people of Kashmir were helped,
assisted and inspired by the India nation and particularly the Congress.
They had
the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi, and the guidance of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
When partition became a reality and when the tallest among us, my hon’ble friend
Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee included, much against their wishes and under the
storms and stress of circumstances bowed before the two-nation theory, there was
only one place in India which stood in solitary glory and that was Kashmir which
gave a challenge to the two-nation theory and also the diplomacy of the
Britishers. When the two Punjabs and the whole of North India had flared up and
the people indulged in activities which would degrade even the brute, and the
communal tension mounted like an eruption where a human being could not
recognise another human being, it was Kashmir alone which maintained communal
harmony, there not even a single person was touched, although it became a sort
of rendezvous for the refugees from the West Punjab and also the East Punjab.
When they
passed through our State, nobody was touched and I know it for certain that
nobody was touched. When our own borders flared up and Pakistan inspired Titanic
hordes of medieval Barbarism were let loose on us, when the Maharaja left us not
recognising his responsibility if not towards the Muslims at least towards the
Hindu population, and left bag and baggage, with 85 lorry-loads of Rajputs and
all his kith and kin, and his property, gold and other things, when the
administrative machinery collapsed from within, and not a sentinel was to be
seen anywhere, when the enemy was battering at our gates, when there were
Muslims inside and Muslims outside, I would like to refer my hon’ble friend Dr
Shyama Prasad Mookherjee to those three historic hectic days unparalleled in the
history of the world, and put to him this question-what happened? How is it that
the Muslims of Kashmir were kept back from falling into the lapse of Pakistan?
What was it that prevented them from doing so? Today Sheikh Abdullah’s bona
fides are being challenged and we are being called communalists and turncoats.
It may be, but I would like to have the explanation, after discussing things.
History does not repeat itself every time and often. It happened once, and it
will go down in history in letters of gold that if there was on nation which was
free from communalism under the current of India’s secularism, that was Kashmir
and
Kashmir
alone. I would like to pose this question to my hon’ble friend: Was it the
temptation of money from India?
The Kashmiris were fighting for a doubtful cause. We had only one link with
India, namely the air link. It is just possible that within 20 minutes, that
link could have been captured. Then we would have been no more. My hon’ble
friends Mr Chatterjee and Mr Deshpande would have seen that my sisters,
daughters and mothers would have been sold for a pittance in the bazaars of
Rawalpindi and Kisakhani.
It was
not Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee or Mr Chatterjee or any Hindu stalwart that saved
the chastity or my daughters and sisters in Kashmir. Sir, those days were
memorable days. Those three days when the Indian soldiers had not touched the
soil of Kashmir
were hectic and memorable days. At that time we looked to the high sky thinking
that an aeroplane would come, believing that Kashmir had
always the blessings of India
through the Congress. We looked to Sheikh Abdullah and the Hindus and Muslims
clustered round him "Mere
Kashmir
Zindabad".
Those
were days when any ordinary leadership would have collapsed. But then Sheikh
Abdullah was there, a Muslim, why did he not go to Pakistan? Why should be come
to
Hindustan?
There were 15 lakhs of Muslims there. And if the enemy would have got Kashmir,
crossed Banihal and gone right into the heart of Jammu and reached Gurdaspur,
then Gurdaspur would have been our borders, and not Uri and then your would not
have had talks of Kashmir or Ladakh or Jammu very glibly as you do now. It is
very easy to talk glibly of them now.
It is
always very easy to be very wise after the event. But I would like to pose this
question to my hon’ble friend. Why is it that Kashmir did not go to Pakistan?
What kept it back from doing so? Was it the temptation of money? Was it to wreak
a vengeance on Pakistan, was it madness? It was the love for secular democracy
and our great experiment in the human philosophy which was going on in Kashmir
for the last 20 years, it was our faith in the efficacy of the path shown by
Mahatma Gandhi and in our economic programme and not the vituperations of the
gravest kind, advanced by Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, it was our faith in the
path shown by Gandhiji which was responsible for keeping back Kashmir from
falling into the lapse of Pakistan that saved Kashmir which Kashmir has acceded
to secular India and I may assure you that no amount of fulmination, no amount
of intimidation or coercion will deflect us from that path which has been down
to is by the Father of the Nation. Come what may, we will lay down our lives,
but not leave that path of righteousness, truth and humanity.
Then I
would like to refer to certain issues raised by my hon’ble friend, for whom I
have great respect and regard, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. He said some thing
about giving Kashmir
a special status, and very late in the day he though of it. In the year 1950, on
the 25th January when you completed your constitution, you had a chapter on
Transitory Provisions and Article 370 incorporated in the constitution, where
you gave a special status to Kashmir.
While it as said that the Congress and Panditji have always sold the conscience
of Hinduism and Hindustan, I believe it was my hon’ble friend Dr Shyama Prasad
Mookerjee who gave this special status to Kashmir, during the making of the
constitution. That special status was with regard to constitution-making. Have
you conceded that right to any other state?
If not,
what were the special consideration and weighty reasons which compelled even a
person like Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee who is so wise, so over-zealous a patriot
and who seems to claim the monopoly of world’s patriotism to allow that clause
to remain in the constitution? When you give me the right to make my own
constitution, I become a sovereign for my own affairs. I would like to make
known my own position once and for all; my position is like that of a daughter,
who is a daughter in her mother’s house, but a mistress in her own, vis-a-vis
the
Republic
of
India and the Indian Constitution. It may be said that we may apply the entire
Indian Constitution to Kashmir,
and have all the fundamental rights. In fact, I would love such a thing.
But how
is it going to constitute a solution for that great and basic position of ours,
namely, that of determining the will of the people? If we do so, we would be
raising a structure without completing the basis, which is the will of the
people and staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
Whether
it was right or wrong, somehow the Instrument of Accession is there. The will of
the people must be ascertained. We are committed before the people. My hon’ble
friend Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee referred to Hyderabad. We may have made
commitments, and I do not know whether we have kept us those pledges of ours or
broken them up.
But with
regard to Hyderabad,
there was no other party with whom we had to reckon. In the case of Kashmir, the
initiative is not only with us. It is there with Pakistan, and so it is with
Kashmir and the United Nations. The Kashmir
question is indissolubly linked up with the world affairs today that if you have
to examine very calmly and coolly the Kashmir
situation, you must try to understand the present day world politics. It has
become an object of international attention and importance. We talk about Jammu
glibly as we do here.
Pakistan
may say ‘Now I would like to have Jammu,
the whole of this thing or that thing’. ‘If you indiscreetly talk like that and
say ‘We would like to have Jammu
and we would like to have Ladakh and so on’, you are only, indirectly though,
suggesting ‘let us make a gift and present of Kashmir
valley to Pakistan’. I would like to know how many Indians there are, howmany
patriots there are in this country who would like to make a present of the
Kashmir
valley to Pakistan. I assure you that the Kashmir issue today is such a
tremendous knotty and delicate subject that any indiscreet handling and any lack
of proper appreciation of the basic things involved in the Kashmir affair may
not only lead us into great chaos, but I may tell you it may imperil the peace
not only of India and Asia, but may endanger the peace of the whole world.
Now, the
hon’ble Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, of course at whose feet, I love to learn
many a thing and for whom I have very great respect, who is one who should have
been a great leader of a great national organisation in India, with an economic
programme be the head of sectarian body which is harmful. Should we not have our
economic programme, should we not have freedom from privation, freedom from
want, freedom from scarcity and freedom from troubles? Sir, he said just now
something about the population of Jammu. Only about five months ago, he said:
‘Why don’t you conquer and get back the territory which has been taken away by
Pakistan?’ Possibly he may be knowing of a document, the aide memoir
wherein India had made it clear to Lozzano, that unless four conditions were
fulfilled, India was not going to be a party to any sort of negotiation or
settlement.
One was
the rehabilitation of 7 lakhs of refugees living in Pakistan. We have been
saying it and demanding it time and again that we must get back that territory,
but when it suited him, and now believing in cutting nose to spite the face he
takes a somersalt and says that the population of Jammu is only 7 or 8 lakhs,
the rest is with Pakistan. One should not talk hot and cold in the same breath.
Sir, I
will tell you that by such things we have not been able to create a friendly
atmosphere, to create that goodwill which is very much essential for achieving a
most difficult thing. I do not say that the Kashmiris are not with India;
Kashmirs are with India, and Kashmir is an integral part of India,
but the main question is there. It is the question of ascertaining the will of
the people for which you stand committed here, there and everything. I would
like to make an appeal to Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee who is really a great
patriot, who is very wise, who can lead us, who can guide us, that he should
take an impersonal, dispassionate view of this whole thing and try to analyses
and know whom this whole storm that has been created is going to help.
The
second point, Sir, is this. It is most uncharitable, it is most unfair, I would
say it is almost an outrage against political morality, to try to put a person
to test who has been put to test at a time when he was confronted with odds, a
person who stood by the side of India and by the side of Kashmir at the hour of
India’s and Kashmir’s sorest trial. If we take the population point of view,
wherever there was Muslim majority, that place went to Hindustan. Kashmir is the
only place which is having this experiment in human philosophy and with a Muslim
majority has acceded to India.
Kashmir is fighting against odds in the furtherance of this ideology.
Kashmir
is the only place where the Hindus and Muslims lived amicably against odds and
we want Kashmir to be administered in that friendly atmosphere, and I trust our
hon’ble Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee will see sense and lead us in this behalf as
also in many other things.