Some Details of
the Kashmir Division Formula
By Arvind Lavakare
SECTION
153 B (1) (a) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (as amended by the
Information Technology Act, 2000) stipulates that 'Whoever, by
words either spoken or written or by signs or by visible representations
or otherwise, makes or publishes any imputation that any class
of persons cannot, by reason of their being members of any religious,
racial, language or regional group or caste or community, bear
true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law
established or uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India shall
be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years,
or with fine, or with both.'
In
the light of the above provision of an India law, consider the
following sentence that was reportedly uttered by at a public
rally in Srinagar on Thursday, May 22, by Sajjad Lone, chairman
of the People's Conference party:
'Kashmir
is neither the integral part of one country nor the jugular vein
of another, but belongs to its people who alone will decide its
future.' (Report in The Asian Age, Mumbai, May 23, 2003 by the
daily's Special Correspondent.)
Isn't Lone's statement a clear case of violating of the Indian
Penal Code's above cited Section? The entire state of Jammu and
Kashmir is specified in the First Schedule of Article 1 of the
Constitution of India as being part of the territory of the Union
of India.
Setting
out the 'Relationship of the State with the Union of India",
Section 3 of the J&K State Constitution categorically enshrines
the fact that 'The State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be
an integral part of the Union of India.' Section 147 of the state
Constitution also provides that 'no bill or amendment seeking
to make any change in the provisions of section 3…shall
be moved or introduced in either House of the Legislature.' Yet,
here is this Lone fellow publicly disowning the nation's and the
state's constitution by saying that 'Kashmir' is not an integral
part of India.
But
what is done to him? Exactly nothing. The IPC is not slapped on
him -- presumably because, courtesy Article 370, Section 1 of
the IPC itself makes it clear that the Act 'shall extend to the
whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.' And since
there seems to be no law of J&K which treats challenging India's
sovereignty over the state as an offence, civil or criminal, what
Lone gets is not a law slapped on him but high-powered multi-media
publicity. The media also gives his political party the label
of 'separatist' in inverted commas, as though it were some sort
of a meritorious award. Such a thing can happen only in our India,
softest democracy in the world.
If
the blacks of Texas, for instance, agitate to rescind their state's
annexation by the America of 1845, the entire black population
of the state would probably get prosecuted and persecuted under
the Patriot Act of George W Bush. By the way, Arundhati Roy's
speech at Harlem, New York, on May 13 this year told us that the
world's 'freest' country has the highest number of prisoners in
the world and that George W Bush oversaw 152 executions when he
was governor of Texas.
It
would be nonsensical to support the 'separatist' call of Lone
and others by citing Quebec province's quest to be separated from
the Canadian Federation. There the Supreme Court accepts a referendum
verdict as a means to grant that separation because the Canadian
Constitution has an enabling provision.
In
India, on the other hand, the nation's constitution does not permit
secession and, therefore, does not permit 'plebiscite' or 'referendum'
on any issue. Then why and how should Lone & Co be permitted
to continue with their 'separatist' demand? And their talk of
the wish of the people of 'Kashmir' in deciding the future status
of their state, what if, tomorrow, the people of Nagaland wish
to be separate of India, and if, day after tomorrow, Tamilians
want a separate nation for themselves? Should we grant these 'separatists'
their wishes?
The
people of J&K are in no way different from the remaining citizens
of India excepting that they have special rights denied to others
in India and are even otherwise the most appeased people of India
though the Muslim majority Kashmir valley has hardly ever shown
its gratitude for what the country has bestowed on the state in
several ways. All
they do, these valley people, is crib and cry for more.
The
villain of the piece, it would seem, is the Government of India's
own timidity on the subject of 'separatism.' There was that December
of 1962 when Sardar Swaran Singh, the then minister of railways,
was appointed leader of the Indian delegation to Rawalpindi for
starting a new round of talks on Indo-Pak problems, including
J&K. Nehru's main brief to the delegation was that while India
did claim full and complete sovereignty over the whole of J&K
state, we would be prepared to voluntarily give up our sovereignty
over some parts of our territory in an effort to reach an overall
peaceful settlement. A new international line in 'Kashmir' was
what Nehru intended to offer to Pakistan and his full-dress Cabinet
endorsed it without a murmur. (Page 255, Outside The Archives,
Sangam Books India Pvt Ltd., 1984, by Y D Gundevia, ICS, foreign
secretary to Nehru.) The die had been cast for 'take away.'
Thus
it was that on February 10, 1963, in Karachi, the 'Kashmir' map
was on the table between Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's PM, and
Sardar Swaran Singh. Our delegation asked Bhutto to show on the
map what he actually wanted. Bhutto leaned over the table and
pointed to the little town of Kathua on the Kashmir-Himachal border.
He drew a circle somewhere there with his forefinger and said,
'You can have this part of Kashmir. We want the rest.' (Ibid,
page 280)
Memories
of that nightmare were aroused by a recent report from The
News of May 15 e-mailed by Varsha Bhosle. Based on Geo TV's
'Capital Talk' programme, the report said Niaz A Naik, former
Pak foreign secretary, had, for the first time, disclosed on television
that he had discussed the 'Chenab Formula' with Prime Minister
Vajpayee and R K Mishra in 1999 as a solution to the Kashmir dispute
during his back-channel diplomacy in Delhi. Naik claimed he discussed
the formula with a map of J&K in front and that Vajpayee had
shown 'a lot of interest' in the formula. In a nutshell, the Chenab
Formula meant that J&K state would be divided between Hindu
and Muslim majority areas, with the city of Srinagar and most
parts of the Kashmir valley going to Pakistan as the population
of these areas consist of a Muslim majority. Naik also said India
and Pakistan could discuss the formula again.
This
latest revelation by Naik about Vajpayee's interest in the Chenab
Formula makes one suspect, nay dread, that there was more than
a grain of truth in the article by senior journalist M D Nalapat,
datelined New Delhi, July 9, 2001 and posted on tehelka.com With
the Agra summit only a few days away, Nalapat wrote of 'getting
reports that individuals close to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
had assured their Pakistani interlocutors that he would, in effect,
hand over the Kashmir valley to the jehadis in exchange for peace
elsewhere.'
Whatever
the authenticity of Nalapat's sources two years ago, the truth
is that the entire nation must now be on full alert as Vajpayee
is apparently plunging headlong into his third peace initiative.
The
formation of an all-party council is a must to work out a secret
consensus on the compromise that the nation can make on the K
issue when the dialogue with Pak does come about.
In
the next session of Parliament, the Opposition must insist on
such a council to be established urgently with a regular schedule
of meetings to be held without fail. Simultaneously, a PIL needs
to be filed straight away stopping the government of India from
implementing any future agreement with Pakistan on the K issue
until it is ratified by a two-thirds majority of the total strength
of each of the two Houses of Parliament and approved by the state
government of J&K as required by President of India's Constitution
(Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order of May 14, 1954 modifying
existing Article 253 which extends to all other states.
Meanwhile,
since the 'separatists' of the Sajjad Lone's People's Conference
and other parties cannot be apparently silenced by law, they must
be systematically exposed for what they really are: ungrateful
and rabble-rousing resident non-Indians.
