India's False Claim on Kashmir
On October 28th 1993, Robin Raphel stated that Washington did not
recognise the Instrument of Accession to India as meaning that Kashmir
is not forever more an integral part of India. She expressed the view that
the whole of Kashmir is disputed territory, the future status of which
must be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in Geneva,
recently, passed a resolution proclaiming Kashmir's accession to India
as bogus and null and void. The ICJ went further by condemning the human
rights violations in Kashmir.
These events serve to highlight the disputed status of Kashmir
by focusing on the fraudulent nature of the Instrument of Accession which
was 'signed' by the Mahrajah of Kashmir on 26th October 1947.
The Indians claim that the Instrument of Accession was signed by
Mahrajah Hari Singh on 26th October 1947, in which the Mahrajah agreed
to accede to India in return for military assistance to put down the popular
rebellion against him, seen at that time as an invasion by tribesmen from
neighbouring Pakistan. The details of the accession were worked out between
the Kashmiri Prime Minister, MC Mahajan and the Indian official, VP Menon,
in Dehli. However, there are serious doubts about the signing of the document.
Alastair Lamb (in his book, Kashmir - A disputed legacy (1846-1990) points
out that the Instrument of Accession could not have been signed by the
Mahrajah on 26th October as he was travelling by road to Jammu (a distance
of over 350 Km).
There is no evidence to suggest that a meeting or communication
of any kind took place on 26th October 1947. In fact it was on 27th October
1947 that the Mahrajah was informed by his MC Mahajan and VP Menon (who
had flown into Srinagar), the the Instrument of Accession had already been
negotiated in Dehli. The Mahrajah did not in fact sign the Instrument of
Accession, if at all, until 27th October 1947. This sheds doubts on the
actions of the Indian regime. Some Indian troops had already arrived and
secured Srinagar airfield during the middle of October 1947. On 26th October
1947, a further massive airlift brought thousands of Indian troops to Kashmir
- BEFORE the signing of the Accession. Therefore, this situation begs the
question: would the Mahrajah have signed the
Instrument of Accession had the Indian troops not been on Kashmiri
soil?
No satisfactory original of the Instrument of Accession has ever
been produced in an international forum; a published form has always been
shown. Further, the document was not presented to Pakistan or to the UN.
In the summer of 1995, the Indian authorities reported the original document
as lost or stolen. This sheds further doubt on whether the Mahrajah actually
signed the Instrument of
Accession.
The Governor-General of India at the time, Lord Mountbatten, stipulated
that the permanent accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union will only be
accepted once the people of Kashmir had been consulted. He noted in a letter
to the Mahrajah, "the question of the states's accession should be settled
by a reference to the people". Furthermore, when the Kashmir crisis broke
out in October 1947, the principle of reference to the people through plebiscite
was already established as similar disputes in some other states had been
resolved this way. The Indian Prime Minister J Nehru, accepted this principle
and reiterated his position in a letter to the British Prime Minister on
25th October 1947, "our view, which we have repeatedly made public, is
that the question of accession in any disputed territory must be decided
in accordance with the wishes of the people and we adhere to this view".
Therefore, at the time of the so-called accession, the Indian regime accepted
the principle of reference to the people. Based on this principle, the
Instrument of Accession should have been provisional and conditional upon
the outcome of a plebiscite.
When India took the Kashmir issue to the UN in 1948, it did so
under article 35 of Chapter VI which outlines the means for a peaceful
settlement of disputes. It is interesting to note here that India did not
present the Kashmir case under the UN Chapter VII which relates to acts
of aggression as India was alleging Pakistan.
Therefore, it is evident that by raising the issue under Chapter
VI, India recognised the Kashmir issue as a dispute, thus conceding that
the Instrument of Accession had not confirmed the state to be an integral
part of India. India is still party to all the UN resolutions on Kashmir.
Moreover, India and Pakistan accepted the UN resolutions of January 1948
calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir to exercise the right of self-determination
of the people of Kashmir. India's acceptance of the UN resolutions establishes
beyond a doubt, that the future of status of Kashmir would be determined
by its people. Therefore, the Instrument of Accession, even if genuine,
is rendered null and void.
In the past, attempts to hold a plebiscite have been met with fierce
opposition from India. India has known, right from the start, that the
result of a plebiscite is a foregone conclusion - the population of Kashmir
would have voted to rid themselves of Indian rule. This has been the case
from 26th October 1947 to the present day. On the practicality of holding
a plebiscite, a paper by the US state
department, presented to the UN on 2nd December 1947, noted , "the
dominion of India may attempt to establish the extant electoral rolls on
the basis for the referendum. As these rolls are said to contain less than
7% of the population and were compiled on a basis which served the weight
to the
members of the wealthiest educated Hindu majority who would obviously
vote for accession to India, it is important that the electoral body should
in fact be composed on a basis of complete adult suffrage in order that
the result of the referendum may be representative of the actual wishes
of the people of Kashmir".
In view of the above arguments, it is clear that the Indian case
on Kashmir is politically, legally and morally unjustified. The commitment
made by India and the UN to allow the people of the state to choose their
own future are neither time bound nor do they provide an escape clause
for the Indian regime. It is only through fraud and repression that India
continues to forcefully occupy a large
portion of Kashmir.
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