If only the light of truth could shine out from the dust and debris of this calamity
Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pak-Occupied Kashmir has borne the brunt of the terrible devastation wrought by the recent killer earthquake of 8/10. Operating from his tent, Sirdar Sikandar Hyat-Khan, the Prime Minister of PoK, exclaims in anguish that he is now the ‘PM of a graveyard’. Little does the world know how intimate his family’s association with the genesis of the Kashmir problem is.
2. He belongs to an illustrious lineage. His grandfather Sir Sikandar Hyat-Khan was a quintessential landed aristocrat who was the renowned and much- decorated Prime Minister of undivided Punjab interruptedly for seven years [ 1937-1942 ] in what is regarded as its “Golden Era” , heading a non-Muslim League Unionist Party that was then opposed to partition. He enjoyed a non-communal, nationalist image who did much for rural Punjab. Later, following the Sikandar-Jinnah [Lucknow] Pact, he joined the League but died an untimely death in 1942. His son Shaukat, who was a flamboyant army major participating in the Eighth Army’s campaign in North Africa, returned home and joining Punjab politics, became an ardent and close follower of Jinnah, acquiring the image of a charismatic & maverick politician. He served as a Punjab minister a couple of times prior and subsequent to the partition.
3. Jinnah had erroneously assumed that Muslim-majority Kashmir was “in his pocket” and dreamt of “riding in triumph” into Srinagar. But he had reckoned without Kashmir’s special syncretic culture and secular heritage. The Valley’s leading political formation, the National Conference was led by the charismatic, albeit enigmatic and extremely ambitious Sheikh Abdullah who, greatly influenced by democratic, secular ,nationalistic and socialistic Congress ideology, was an ardent admirer of the Mahatma and a close friend of Nehru. President of the Congress-dominated All-India States People’s Conference, the Sheikh, while advocating popular and democratic rule in all princely states, had openly declared his opposition to the two-nation theory. There was therefore little love lost between him and Jinnah especially after the latter rubbished his socialistic Naya Kashmir and pro-democracy Quit Kashmir movements.
4. 03 June 1947: India Independence Act promulgated. Under the terms of the transfer of power, the rulers of the 556 princely States had unfettered discretion to chose independence or accede to either of the two dominions. In practice, independence was not a viable option and Mountbatten advised the latter course, keeping in view the factors of communal composition and geographical contiguity.
5. Being the Hindu ruler of a predominantly Muslim populace characterized by that special syncretism called kashmiriyat , Maharaja Hari Singh was unable to arrive at a decision. Mountbatten visited Kashmir in June ostensibly to persuade the Maharaja to make up his mind one way or the other. His real agenda, however, was to make him accede to Pakistan. He even carried an assurance from the Congress leadership, including Sardar Patel, that in case he opted for Pakistan India would not construe it as a hostile act. But Hari Singh continued to temporize. .
6. Meanwhile, a worried Jinnah sent emissaries inviting Sheikh Abdullah to meet him. The Sheikh first sent his trusted lieutenant Bakshi Ghulam Mohd. followed by G.M. Sadiq, both of whom received shabby treatment at the hands of the PM Liaqat Ali, which only hardened Abdullah’s anti-Jinnah stand. The Sheikh totally abandoned any thought of traveling to Karachi when he received reliable reports of the possibility of his being held under duress if he went there.
6. Enter Shaukat Hyat-Khan. It is early Sep 1947. In his reminiscences, he claims requesting his fellow minister Miyan Iftikharuddin [a former Muslim Congressman, and one of the very few Muslim leaders to see the insides of a British prison ] who was on good terms with the Sheikh because of their friendship during his Congress days , to “go and persuade the Sheikh to help Kashmir opt for Pakistan”. En route to Srinagar, the Miyan runs into Brigadier Akbar Khan, then Deputy Director, Weapons and Equipment Directorate of the Pakistan GHQ who was in Murree on a brief holiday, to secretly prepare a contingency plan to annex Kashmir through covert operations .He writes out a plan captioned “ Armed Revolt Inside Kashmir”. “Since open interference or aggression by Pakistan was obviously undesirable,” he recalls in his memoirs [ Raiders in Kashmir, 1992], “it was proposed to concentrate the efforts upon strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir.” [ italics mine] . He hands over a dozen copies of this plan to Mian Iftikhar on the latter’s return from Srinagar to report the failure of his mission to the Pakistani top brass.
Around 11 Sep, PM Liaqat Ali Khan presides over a conference at Lahore attended amongst others by Shaukat, Finance Minister Mohammed Al [later Governor General] , Mian Iftikharuddin, General Zaman Kiani [ ex-INA], Retd. Major Khurshid Anwar [ an India Reserve Officer in a Railways battalion during WWII, and later a commander of the Muslim League National Guards], and Brig Akbar Khan . The conference decides to simply “walk into Kashmir”. Shaukat is put in over-all charge of the operations assisted by Brigadiers Sher Khan and Akbar Khan, both of 6/13 Frontier Force [‘Piffers’ ], General Kiani, Colonel Dara and Taj Mohammed Khanzada. Initially Akbar Khan’s role is to covertly arrange 4000 rifles from ordnance stores.
Much to Shaukat’s chagrin, Ghulam Mohammad, the Finance Minister, backed by Liaqat Ali, foists his kinsman Anwar Sheikh, a fellow Kake-Zai, on the operational High Command of the Kashmir ops. Sheikh not only delays the invasion by running off to get married and celebrate his honeymoon but also secures the recruitment of NWFP tribals in a big way. He had been instrumental, at Jinnah’s behest, in successfully mobilizing the tribals to attack Badshah Khan’s pro-Congress Khudai Khidmatgars before the NWFP referendum held in 1947 that the latter eventually boycotted.
9 Early October 1947: Pakistan imposes economic blockade on Kashmir by curtailing /suspending civil supplies in violation of the Standstill Agreement. This is followed by an increasing crescendo of armed attacks by irregulars in muftis on J & k border villages, culminating on the 22nd October, in a massive invasion when around 5000 tribals in over 100 lorries, organized, funded, armed and led by Pakistani army officers---Brig. Sher Khan, Brig Mohammed Akbar Khan [“Gen Tariq”] , Anwar Sheikh, Kiani & co -- in a covert operation, ransack Muzaffarabad, the gateway to the Valley---looting, killing, raping indiscriminately. And the first Battle for Kashmir begins.
Oct 24. It is PM Nehru who first informs Mountbatten of the invasion, which is immediately confirmed by the acting Pakistan C-in-C General Gracey.
Oct 25: The invaders are barely 30 miles from Srinagar. The Maharaja seeks India’s military assistance. India agrees subject, at Mountbatten’s suggestion, to the Ruler first acceding to India, which he does on 26 Oct. Sheikh Abdullah, the undisputed popular leader, is a party to the decision. While accepting the accession, Mountbatten avoidably conveys to the Maharajah the ‘wish of GOI that after the Kashmir soil is cleared of the invader, the wishes of the people may be ascertained.’
Oct 27: The first Indian troops land in Srinagar and the battle sis joined. General Grace, ordered by Jinnah to launch an official attack on J & K reports the matter to Field Marshal Auchinleck, the Supreme Commander of all the forces in the two new dominions who refuses, as J & K is now legally part of India.
Oct 28: THE FUNDAMENAL LIE: Pakistan accuses India of obtaining the accession through “fraud and violence”. Mountbatten vehemently denies any fraud and says violence came from Pakistan. Pakistan denies any complicity with the invading hordes, claiming it has no control over them and that it is “doing everything in its power to discourage them, short of war.” Fierce fighting rages on.
1st Jan 1948: At the behest of Mountbatten and against the advice of Sardar Patel, Nehru takes the matter to the newly- created UNO, hoping to avert full-scale Indo-Pak war so soon after the Partition holocaust. Pakistan repeats its Big Lie there too. The Cold Warriors, with heir own agendas, choose to ignore it.
13 August 1948: The UN Commission for India & Pakistan formulates a resolution proposing that there be [a] a cease-fire, followed by [b] the complete withdrawal of all Pak nationals including soldiers and irregulars, [c] followed by a reduction of Indian forces [d] followed by a plebiscite for whole of J & K in which Pak shall have no role. . While the cease-fire was effected on Jan 01 1949, leaving Pakistan in possession of 1/3rd of J & K territory [b] never took place, making [c] & [d] redundant, leading to a stalemate that persists to date.
1965: THE SECOND BIG LIE: Pakistan launches another unsuccessful covert operation in August 1965 entitled Operation Gibraltar. Once again, it denies its involvement accusing India of attacking Pakistan. The prevalent Cold War geopolitics prevents the international community from shedding its blinkered, pseudo-symmetrical view of Indo-Pak relations .The report of the UN Military Observer Group exposing Pakistan’s perfidious aggression is not allowed to see the light of the day by the then Secretary General Ralphe Bunche. Ayub sells this ill-considered adventure to his people as a great defensive victory against Indian aggression.
10. It is only on 7 September 2005 , the fortieth anniversary of 1965 war that the then Pak Air Chief , retired Air Marshal Nur Khan exposes it for what it was: A Big Lie. Speaking to the Dawn, he said that Ayub and a small coterie of top army officers had “planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”. Calling it “an unnecessary war”, Khan says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned… “Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation as a great victory, the Army came to believe [in] its own fiction and has used since [sic] Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999,” he said. “In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.”
11. Air Marshal Khan demanded, continues the Dawn report, “that a truth commission be formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation……”. Mr. Khan believes that our soldiers when called upon have fought with their lives but because of bad leadership their supreme sacrifices went waste. And after every war that we began we ended up taking dictation from the enemy — at Tashkent, at Simla and lastly at Washington.
Post script:
1. Sirdar Shaukat Hyat-Khan, after a chequered and controversial political career, reveals all in his memoirs “ The Nation that lost its soul” in 1995 and dies a bitter and disappointed man. His son Sirdar Sikandar Hyat-Khan enters PoK politics in the early 70s. Brig. Mohd. Akbar Khan [later Major General] is sentenced in March 1951 to 14 years transportation in the Pindi conspiracy case surrounding the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan. Released in 1955, he becomes a lawyer, serves as Minister of State for Internal Security under President Bhutto and later as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, penning in 1992, his role in the First Kashmir invasion.
2. Meanwhile, three generations of Pakistanis are brought up on the Big Lie, and Kashmir indeed comes to “run in their veins”. Their India-centric history textbooks are filled not only with historical distortions & fabrications but teach virulent hatred towards India and its “infidel Hindus” [all non-Muslims being “infidels” ] blaming her for all Pakistan’s ills. So much so that even respected liberal mainstream columnists like Ayaz Amir passionately believe that the “UN resolutions” constitute the bedrock of Pakistan’s case for Kashmir and that Musharraf is betraying the country by hinting that he might discard Pak insistence on them. Obviously, they have either not read Shaukat Hyat-Khan’s or Akbar Khan’s or Nur Khan’s exposes or refuse to believe them. How will Musharraf, assuming he is sincere in his peace efforts, sell peace to his people?
3. India on the other hand becomes oblivious to the imperative need for reclaiming PoK, or at least staking a claim for it, resting content with seeking to freeze the status quo. For three generations of Indian children, the study of modern Indian history ends with the attainment of Independence. Ergo, there is little knowledge of post-1947 events, much less of the merits of the Kashmir problem. Whenever Musharraf utters the word ‘UN resolutions’ we go on the back foot.
4. Will the truth ever emerge from the ruins of Muzaffarabad and Balakot? Can there ever be real reconciliation without confronting the truth, howsoever bitter it might be? While India must go all out to provide succour to is neighbour in this hour of indescribable calamity, that need not keep it from publishing a White Paper on its position on the Kashmir issue ---beginning with the invasions, the UN resolutions, the denials and duplicity et al---for the information of the people of the sub-continent as well as for the international community. Even now , there is no mainstream international paper or magazine or news channel ---including the Guardian or the BBC or the Economist—that does not characterize Kashmir as an Indo-Pak “dispute” .
5. Why not face the truth? After all, the governments of Korea and China have no qualms about forcing Japan to apologise for the latter’s invasion, occupation, atrocities and war crimes in the 1930s. The British monarch visited Jallianwala Bagh and expressed unconditional regret. The post-WWII German governments have not only unconditionally and unequivocally accepted responsibility for the Holocaust but have made sure that their present and future generations are enabled to learn the full & true facts about the evils of the Nazi period. India can continue to ignore or tolerate the venom- spewing and jihadist textbooks of Pakistan at its own peril. “Jettisoning the baggage of the past” is an invitation to repeating past errors. India must expose this not-so subtle subversion of history and demand that it be undone. Truth alone heals, and it heals permanently.
Rajat Kumar Narain
[ IAS 1970: UP: Resigned 1984]
The author is currently researching and working on a book about the genesis of the Kashmir problem , based on primary as well as secondary material. The author hopes to present some new facts and perspectives.]
2. He belongs to an illustrious lineage. His grandfather Sir Sikandar Hyat-Khan was a quintessential landed aristocrat who was the renowned and much- decorated Prime Minister of undivided Punjab interruptedly for seven years [ 1937-1942 ] in what is regarded as its “Golden Era” , heading a non-Muslim League Unionist Party that was then opposed to partition. He enjoyed a non-communal, nationalist image who did much for rural Punjab. Later, following the Sikandar-Jinnah [Lucknow] Pact, he joined the League but died an untimely death in 1942. His son Shaukat, who was a flamboyant army major participating in the Eighth Army’s campaign in North Africa, returned home and joining Punjab politics, became an ardent and close follower of Jinnah, acquiring the image of a charismatic & maverick politician. He served as a Punjab minister a couple of times prior and subsequent to the partition.
3. Jinnah had erroneously assumed that Muslim-majority Kashmir was “in his pocket” and dreamt of “riding in triumph” into Srinagar. But he had reckoned without Kashmir’s special syncretic culture and secular heritage. The Valley’s leading political formation, the National Conference was led by the charismatic, albeit enigmatic and extremely ambitious Sheikh Abdullah who, greatly influenced by democratic, secular ,nationalistic and socialistic Congress ideology, was an ardent admirer of the Mahatma and a close friend of Nehru. President of the Congress-dominated All-India States People’s Conference, the Sheikh, while advocating popular and democratic rule in all princely states, had openly declared his opposition to the two-nation theory. There was therefore little love lost between him and Jinnah especially after the latter rubbished his socialistic Naya Kashmir and pro-democracy Quit Kashmir movements.
4. 03 June 1947: India Independence Act promulgated. Under the terms of the transfer of power, the rulers of the 556 princely States had unfettered discretion to chose independence or accede to either of the two dominions. In practice, independence was not a viable option and Mountbatten advised the latter course, keeping in view the factors of communal composition and geographical contiguity.
5. Being the Hindu ruler of a predominantly Muslim populace characterized by that special syncretism called kashmiriyat , Maharaja Hari Singh was unable to arrive at a decision. Mountbatten visited Kashmir in June ostensibly to persuade the Maharaja to make up his mind one way or the other. His real agenda, however, was to make him accede to Pakistan. He even carried an assurance from the Congress leadership, including Sardar Patel, that in case he opted for Pakistan India would not construe it as a hostile act. But Hari Singh continued to temporize. .
6. Meanwhile, a worried Jinnah sent emissaries inviting Sheikh Abdullah to meet him. The Sheikh first sent his trusted lieutenant Bakshi Ghulam Mohd. followed by G.M. Sadiq, both of whom received shabby treatment at the hands of the PM Liaqat Ali, which only hardened Abdullah’s anti-Jinnah stand. The Sheikh totally abandoned any thought of traveling to Karachi when he received reliable reports of the possibility of his being held under duress if he went there.
6. Enter Shaukat Hyat-Khan. It is early Sep 1947. In his reminiscences, he claims requesting his fellow minister Miyan Iftikharuddin [a former Muslim Congressman, and one of the very few Muslim leaders to see the insides of a British prison ] who was on good terms with the Sheikh because of their friendship during his Congress days , to “go and persuade the Sheikh to help Kashmir opt for Pakistan”. En route to Srinagar, the Miyan runs into Brigadier Akbar Khan, then Deputy Director, Weapons and Equipment Directorate of the Pakistan GHQ who was in Murree on a brief holiday, to secretly prepare a contingency plan to annex Kashmir through covert operations .He writes out a plan captioned “ Armed Revolt Inside Kashmir”. “Since open interference or aggression by Pakistan was obviously undesirable,” he recalls in his memoirs [ Raiders in Kashmir, 1992], “it was proposed to concentrate the efforts upon strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir.” [ italics mine] . He hands over a dozen copies of this plan to Mian Iftikhar on the latter’s return from Srinagar to report the failure of his mission to the Pakistani top brass.
Around 11 Sep, PM Liaqat Ali Khan presides over a conference at Lahore attended amongst others by Shaukat, Finance Minister Mohammed Al [later Governor General] , Mian Iftikharuddin, General Zaman Kiani [ ex-INA], Retd. Major Khurshid Anwar [ an India Reserve Officer in a Railways battalion during WWII, and later a commander of the Muslim League National Guards], and Brig Akbar Khan . The conference decides to simply “walk into Kashmir”. Shaukat is put in over-all charge of the operations assisted by Brigadiers Sher Khan and Akbar Khan, both of 6/13 Frontier Force [‘Piffers’ ], General Kiani, Colonel Dara and Taj Mohammed Khanzada. Initially Akbar Khan’s role is to covertly arrange 4000 rifles from ordnance stores.
Much to Shaukat’s chagrin, Ghulam Mohammad, the Finance Minister, backed by Liaqat Ali, foists his kinsman Anwar Sheikh, a fellow Kake-Zai, on the operational High Command of the Kashmir ops. Sheikh not only delays the invasion by running off to get married and celebrate his honeymoon but also secures the recruitment of NWFP tribals in a big way. He had been instrumental, at Jinnah’s behest, in successfully mobilizing the tribals to attack Badshah Khan’s pro-Congress Khudai Khidmatgars before the NWFP referendum held in 1947 that the latter eventually boycotted.
9 Early October 1947: Pakistan imposes economic blockade on Kashmir by curtailing /suspending civil supplies in violation of the Standstill Agreement. This is followed by an increasing crescendo of armed attacks by irregulars in muftis on J & k border villages, culminating on the 22nd October, in a massive invasion when around 5000 tribals in over 100 lorries, organized, funded, armed and led by Pakistani army officers---Brig. Sher Khan, Brig Mohammed Akbar Khan [“Gen Tariq”] , Anwar Sheikh, Kiani & co -- in a covert operation, ransack Muzaffarabad, the gateway to the Valley---looting, killing, raping indiscriminately. And the first Battle for Kashmir begins.
Oct 24. It is PM Nehru who first informs Mountbatten of the invasion, which is immediately confirmed by the acting Pakistan C-in-C General Gracey.
Oct 25: The invaders are barely 30 miles from Srinagar. The Maharaja seeks India’s military assistance. India agrees subject, at Mountbatten’s suggestion, to the Ruler first acceding to India, which he does on 26 Oct. Sheikh Abdullah, the undisputed popular leader, is a party to the decision. While accepting the accession, Mountbatten avoidably conveys to the Maharajah the ‘wish of GOI that after the Kashmir soil is cleared of the invader, the wishes of the people may be ascertained.’
Oct 27: The first Indian troops land in Srinagar and the battle sis joined. General Grace, ordered by Jinnah to launch an official attack on J & K reports the matter to Field Marshal Auchinleck, the Supreme Commander of all the forces in the two new dominions who refuses, as J & K is now legally part of India.
Oct 28: THE FUNDAMENAL LIE: Pakistan accuses India of obtaining the accession through “fraud and violence”. Mountbatten vehemently denies any fraud and says violence came from Pakistan. Pakistan denies any complicity with the invading hordes, claiming it has no control over them and that it is “doing everything in its power to discourage them, short of war.” Fierce fighting rages on.
1st Jan 1948: At the behest of Mountbatten and against the advice of Sardar Patel, Nehru takes the matter to the newly- created UNO, hoping to avert full-scale Indo-Pak war so soon after the Partition holocaust. Pakistan repeats its Big Lie there too. The Cold Warriors, with heir own agendas, choose to ignore it.
13 August 1948: The UN Commission for India & Pakistan formulates a resolution proposing that there be [a] a cease-fire, followed by [b] the complete withdrawal of all Pak nationals including soldiers and irregulars, [c] followed by a reduction of Indian forces [d] followed by a plebiscite for whole of J & K in which Pak shall have no role. . While the cease-fire was effected on Jan 01 1949, leaving Pakistan in possession of 1/3rd of J & K territory [b] never took place, making [c] & [d] redundant, leading to a stalemate that persists to date.
1965: THE SECOND BIG LIE: Pakistan launches another unsuccessful covert operation in August 1965 entitled Operation Gibraltar. Once again, it denies its involvement accusing India of attacking Pakistan. The prevalent Cold War geopolitics prevents the international community from shedding its blinkered, pseudo-symmetrical view of Indo-Pak relations .The report of the UN Military Observer Group exposing Pakistan’s perfidious aggression is not allowed to see the light of the day by the then Secretary General Ralphe Bunche. Ayub sells this ill-considered adventure to his people as a great defensive victory against Indian aggression.
10. It is only on 7 September 2005 , the fortieth anniversary of 1965 war that the then Pak Air Chief , retired Air Marshal Nur Khan exposes it for what it was: A Big Lie. Speaking to the Dawn, he said that Ayub and a small coterie of top army officers had “planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”. Calling it “an unnecessary war”, Khan says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned… “Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation as a great victory, the Army came to believe [in] its own fiction and has used since [sic] Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999,” he said. “In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.”
11. Air Marshal Khan demanded, continues the Dawn report, “that a truth commission be formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation……”. Mr. Khan believes that our soldiers when called upon have fought with their lives but because of bad leadership their supreme sacrifices went waste. And after every war that we began we ended up taking dictation from the enemy — at Tashkent, at Simla and lastly at Washington.
Post script:
1. Sirdar Shaukat Hyat-Khan, after a chequered and controversial political career, reveals all in his memoirs “ The Nation that lost its soul” in 1995 and dies a bitter and disappointed man. His son Sirdar Sikandar Hyat-Khan enters PoK politics in the early 70s. Brig. Mohd. Akbar Khan [later Major General] is sentenced in March 1951 to 14 years transportation in the Pindi conspiracy case surrounding the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan. Released in 1955, he becomes a lawyer, serves as Minister of State for Internal Security under President Bhutto and later as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, penning in 1992, his role in the First Kashmir invasion.
2. Meanwhile, three generations of Pakistanis are brought up on the Big Lie, and Kashmir indeed comes to “run in their veins”. Their India-centric history textbooks are filled not only with historical distortions & fabrications but teach virulent hatred towards India and its “infidel Hindus” [all non-Muslims being “infidels” ] blaming her for all Pakistan’s ills. So much so that even respected liberal mainstream columnists like Ayaz Amir passionately believe that the “UN resolutions” constitute the bedrock of Pakistan’s case for Kashmir and that Musharraf is betraying the country by hinting that he might discard Pak insistence on them. Obviously, they have either not read Shaukat Hyat-Khan’s or Akbar Khan’s or Nur Khan’s exposes or refuse to believe them. How will Musharraf, assuming he is sincere in his peace efforts, sell peace to his people?
3. India on the other hand becomes oblivious to the imperative need for reclaiming PoK, or at least staking a claim for it, resting content with seeking to freeze the status quo. For three generations of Indian children, the study of modern Indian history ends with the attainment of Independence. Ergo, there is little knowledge of post-1947 events, much less of the merits of the Kashmir problem. Whenever Musharraf utters the word ‘UN resolutions’ we go on the back foot.
4. Will the truth ever emerge from the ruins of Muzaffarabad and Balakot? Can there ever be real reconciliation without confronting the truth, howsoever bitter it might be? While India must go all out to provide succour to is neighbour in this hour of indescribable calamity, that need not keep it from publishing a White Paper on its position on the Kashmir issue ---beginning with the invasions, the UN resolutions, the denials and duplicity et al---for the information of the people of the sub-continent as well as for the international community. Even now , there is no mainstream international paper or magazine or news channel ---including the Guardian or the BBC or the Economist—that does not characterize Kashmir as an Indo-Pak “dispute” .
5. Why not face the truth? After all, the governments of Korea and China have no qualms about forcing Japan to apologise for the latter’s invasion, occupation, atrocities and war crimes in the 1930s. The British monarch visited Jallianwala Bagh and expressed unconditional regret. The post-WWII German governments have not only unconditionally and unequivocally accepted responsibility for the Holocaust but have made sure that their present and future generations are enabled to learn the full & true facts about the evils of the Nazi period. India can continue to ignore or tolerate the venom- spewing and jihadist textbooks of Pakistan at its own peril. “Jettisoning the baggage of the past” is an invitation to repeating past errors. India must expose this not-so subtle subversion of history and demand that it be undone. Truth alone heals, and it heals permanently.
Rajat Kumar Narain
[ IAS 1970: UP: Resigned 1984]
The author is currently researching and working on a book about the genesis of the Kashmir problem , based on primary as well as secondary material. The author hopes to present some new facts and perspectives.]
posted by rajatnarain at 7:55 PM
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