Imperial India

"Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push"

- Joker, in the movie The Dark Knight

Indeed, all it's taken for madness to be unleashed in J&K was nothing more than a little push. The act of giving 40 hectares of land for temporary use was going to cause demographic change. Jammu protested, and then Kashmiris tried to go to Muzaffarabad to sell their wares.

And in all this, bleeding hearts have come out of the woodwork arguing for "azadi". Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar is one of these bleeding hearts who believes that India is doing to Kashmir what "Great" Britain did to India.

Indian "intellectuals" have got to be the most masochistic people on the planet. They hardly lose any opportunity to indulge in self-flagellation. Unfortunately, many Indians do not know the facts of the Kashmir issue, and Aiyar being a "respected" Sunday columnist, is being taken seriously by people. Let's have a look at his claims.

As a liberal, i dislike ruling people against their will.

There are a lot of people who do not wish be ruled by the govt of India. I too am one of them. I don't see why I should pay taxes for money that ends up being exchanged to buy votes in a confidence motion. And a lot of other people would agree. If we get together, can we ask for independence from India as well?

The politically correct story of the maharaja's accession ignores a devastating parallel event. Just as Kashmir had a Hindu maharaja ruling over a Muslim majority, Junagadh had a Muslim nawab ruling over a Hindu majority. The Hindu maharaja acceded to India, and the Muslim nawab to Pakistan.

Well, Aiyar too ignores a very potent fact about both Junagadh and Kashmir. It is true that the Nawab of Junagadh chose Pakistan. However, two states under his suzeraintity, Mangrol and Babariawad, acceeded to India. Junagadh attacked them, thereby attacking India. India had all the right in the world to intervene. Even after that, India agreed to a plebiscite which was almost unanimously in favor of accession to India.

Coming to Kashmir, India was not against a plebiscite. It is a common propaganda by Pakistan and the liberals that we were. But a plebiscite has pre-requisites, like everything else. The pre-requisites were specified in UN Security Council Resoution 47 [full text here] and and the very first was that Pakistan would withdraw its military from all of J&K, and the Pathan tribesmen (who had invaded Kashmir to begin with and caused Hari Singh's accession to India) and remove all non-Kashmiris from J&K.

Pakistan neither did nor committed to, any of these. So when the UN-prescribed conditions for a plebiscite have not been met, how is it hypocritical to not go for a plebiscite?

Even India's entry into Kashmir wasn't a forced one, unlike the British entry into India. India did not invade a sovereign territory, the forces moved in after Hari Singh acceeded to India. The Pathans invaded Kashmir on 22 Oct 1947 and were well on their way to Srinagar. Hari Singh asked the Indian govt to intervene. But India could not legally do so unless Kashmir acceeded to India. He did that, and that's when India came in.

UN Resolution 47 clearly clubbed the Pakistan and the Pathan "tribesmen" recognizing that Pakistan was behind the Pathan invaders. So the accession of Kashmir to India was due to the invasion precipitated by Pakistan. How is this in any way similar to what the British did?

In these 60 years, we've had that bugbear of the Right called Article 370, which among other things forbids non-Kashmiris from buying land there. The vice versa is not forbidden. This is in direct contradiction to every occupied territory in history, whether it's Tibet, British India or, indeed, "Azad" Kashmir. Occupying powers, like China in Tibet, try to change demographics, which is something India hasn't done. How is this reminiscent to British rule except in deluded fantasy?

Let me not exaggerate. Indian rule in Kashmir is not classical colonialism. India has pumped vast sums into Kashmir, not extracted revenue as the Raj did. Kashmir was among the poorest states during the Raj, but now has the lowest poverty rate in India. It enjoys wide civil rights that the Raj never gave. Some elections — 1977, 1983 and 2002 — were perfectly fair.

Well, at least at the end of an article consisting of nothing but hideous exaggeration and self-flagellation, Aiyar has the good sense to inject some perspective. Yet masochistic tendencies can't be resisted for long, evidently. That's why Indian rule is not "classical" colonialism, whatever that means.

In the end, he roots for that eternal chimera: plebiscite. A plebiscite was possible in 1948, and if Pakistan had played along things would probably have been different. But plebiscite is not an indefinitely valid promise - after generations have passed, after Pakistan has altered the demographics of PoK, after the Kashmiri Pandits have been hounded out and Aksai Chin gifted to China, there is no more plebiscite possible.

Yet, the Aiyars of the world continue to mislead people into self-flagellation. Talking about the British Raj is an emotional ploy guaranteed to succeed in sending most Indians into a catharsis of shame, and it works because most Indians haven't read Resolution 47. We're lucky intellectuals like these weren't in power during Bhindranwale's revolt, else Punjab would have been a different country by now.