Amarnath and Congress legacy in J&K

Sinha has a long association with the problem in J&K — indeed, as long as the problem itself. In October 1947, he, as a 21-year-old officer in the Indian Army, was posted in Srinagar when the newly carved out Pakistan tried to annex Kashmir by launching a military attack. How did the people of Kashmir Valley react to this invasion? Sinha, still energetic and remarkably articulate at 82, recounts with a sparkle in his eyes the slogan he had heard in the streets of Srinagar: “Hamlewaar khabardaar / Hum Kashmiri Hindu-Musalmaan hain taiyyar”. (Invaders, be warned. We Kashmiris, both Hindus and Muslims, are ready to throw you out.)

That was then. Now, 61 years later, we have a situation in which separatist forces have the audacity to take out a pro-Pakistan march to Muzaffarabad by raising the bogey of a non-existent economic blockade by the people of Jammu. On Independence Day, they pulled down the tricolour at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and hoisted their own green-coloured flag. It is a measure of how utterly badly the affairs of Jammu & Kashmir have been handled over the past six decades by most governments at the state and national levels.

Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, had another great opportunity to secure a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue in the wake of the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. Pakistan had tasted a humiliating defeat and was internationally discredited for its unspeakable atrocities in the eastern Bengali-speaking part of its territory. Worse still, the Indian Army had as many as 93,000 Pakistani POWs. From this position of strength, Indira Gandhi could have easily compelled a defeated and demoralised Pakistan to accept a final settlement of the Kashmir issue. Alas, the 1972 Shimla accord postponed the settlement to a future date, which has still not arrived.

Her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi, an immature Prime Minister with no past political experience to his credit, allowed himself to be influenced by bad advisors and permitted brazen rigging of the Assembly elections in J&K in 1987. The anger and alienation which this Centrally-sponsored poll-rigging created made the Kashmiri soil more fertile than before for Pakistan to sow Islamist extremism and anti-India sentiments in the Valley.

Thus, we see that each of the three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family who have ruled India has contributed to the problem in Kashmir, a problem that has bled India for six decades and threatens to bleed us for many more decades to come. Now we have a fourth member of the family, Sonia Gandhi, in full control of the Government in New Delhi. What has been her attitude towards the current crisis in J&K, sparked by the provision of land — a meager 100 acres — for providing temporary amenities for Amarnath pilgrims? Deliberate silence. But the manner in which her Government has handled this issue speaks eloquently about its callousness and ineptitude.

The Amarnath issue would not have flared up at all if the Congress leadership in New Delhi and Srinagar had the courage of conviction to tell the people of Kashmir and the rest of India that the decision of the J&K Government (which, it must be remembered, was a Congress-led Government) to provide of land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board was fully in consonance with (a) the law of the land (‘The Jammu and Kashmir Shri Amarnathji Shrine Act, 2000’ Act passed by the J&K legislature); (b) directions of the judiciary (judgment of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court in 2005); and (c) Articles 26 and 27 of the Constitution of Secular India (these Articles clearly state that every religious denomination has the right, among other things, to manage its own affairs in matters of religion and, for this purpose, to own and acquire movable and immovable property). If space can be provided for a special Haj terminal at the international airport in Delhi, why not land for erecting basic amenities for Amarnath yatris? Can the Law and Constitution be different in Kashmir and in the rest of India?

Since the Congress leadership lacked the courage to stand by what is right, it meekly succumbed to the pressure of pro-Pakistani agitators in the Valley and revoked the order of land allotment to the Shrine Board. The subsequent counter-agitation by the people in Jammu is a legitimate expression of anger at this policy of appeasement of anti-India elements in Kashmir.

It is indeed India’s tragedy that the present leadership of the Congress and the UPA Government draws no distinction between anti-Amarnath protesters in Kashmir who have pro-Pakistan slogans on their lips, and the agitators in Jammu who have the tricolour in their hands.

Write to: Sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com