Chairman
World Forum for Peace & Justice
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai
March 18, 2025
“Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it.” Joseph Goebbels.
Dr. S Jaishankar, the Minister of External Affairs spoke on March 18, 2025, during ‘The Raisina Dialogue ‘which is a multilateral conference held annually in New Delhi, India. This year, there are more than 3,500 participants from 125 counters attending. Dr. Jaishankar noted that the “longest-standing” illegal occupation of a territory globally after World War II has been experienced by India – in Kashmir. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes Gilgit and Baltistan, called Northern Areas before 1970, had acceded to India in 1947.”
Let us analyze the assertion put forth by Jaishankar Ji. The question needs to be faced: at what point of time and by what justifiable means did Kashmir become a part of India?
- By the Maharaja’s accession? To begin with, it is a historical fact that faced with the insurgency of his people, the Maharajah fled the capital Srinagar, on October 25, 1947, and arranged that India send its army to help him crush the rebellion. India, coveting the territory, set one condition on its armed intervention, that the Maharajah must sign an Instrument of Accession to India. Maharaja signed but Lord Mountbatten, then the Governor-General of India accepted it subject to the reference to the people. Between October and December of 1947, the Azad Kashmir forces successfully resisted India’s armed intervention and liberated one‑third of the State. Realizing it could not quell the resistance, India brought the issue to the United Nations in January 1948.
There was much in the submissions at the United Nations that was controversial, Jaishankar Ji, but the proposal of a plebiscite was not. This is clear from the statement made on January 15, 1948 by Indian delegate, Sir Gopalasawami Ayyangar, at Security Council,”… Whether she [Kashmir] should withdraw from her accession to India, and either accede to India or remain independent, with a right to claim admission as a member of the UN – all this we have recognised to be matter for unfettered decision by the people of Kashmir after normal life is restored there.” So, it is clear that India itself acknowledge that the accession was subject to plebiscite under international auspices.
- By the decision of the Jammu & Kashmir Constituent Assembly? But India assured the United Nations Security Council that the decision of the Assembly would not prejudice the plebiscite and come in its way.
- By the sheer passage of time? But, despite the lapse of decades, Kashmiris have shown themselves as unreconciled to Indian occupation and rule.
Jaishankar Ji, you know it better that the ostensible accession of Kashmir to India is a fiction entrenched in the Indian position. The fact that the act was performed by a feudal ruler who had fled his capital in the face of popular revolt is well established in the official record of the dispute. If India were as certain of the legal strength of its claim as it professes to be, would it not agree to the whole question being examined by the World Court? A process lasting a few months would vindicate its position and bring it resounding victory. But India knows that an impartial investigation would be fatal to its claim. Hence the loud, indignant insistence on ‘sovereignty.’
Said an experienced lawyer to his young apprentice: “If you are weak in law, stress the facts; if you are weak in facts, stress the law; but if you are weak in both facts and law, give them hell!” The way India has been giving hell to all its critics would please that lawyer.”
Jaishankar Ji remembers what he said in Tokyo on July 28, 2024 while unveiling the bust of Mahatma Gandhi that “The message that Mahatma Gandhi gave through his life and through his work is timeless.” So, it is time to listen to Mahatma Gandhi again who said on July 29, 1947, in Delhi, “The real sovereign of the state are the people. The ruler is a servant of the people. If he is not so then he is not the ruler. This is my firm belief, and that is why I became a rebel against the British – because the British claimed to be the rulers of India, and I refused to recognize them as such. In Kashmir too the power belongs to the public. Let them do as they want.”
It may be helpful to narrate a story here of a distinguished diplomat of India, Barrister Minoo Masani, former Indian Ambassador to Brazil. The story was published in Dalit Voice, Bangalore, India on August 1, 1990. Ambassador Masani wrote, ‘A lady asked me other day, ‘why Gorbachev would not agree to the Lithuanian demand for independence from the Soviet Union.’ I countered with the question: ‘Do you believe that Kashmir belongs to India?’ ‘Yes, of course’ she said. ‘That is why?’ I said, ‘There are too many Russians who wrongly believe that Lithuania belongs to the Soviet Union, just as you believe that Kashmir belongs to India.’
I think, Dr. Jaishankar, truly a global diplomat behaves like prime minister Nehru about whom, President John F. Kennedy said, “Pandit Nehru has the ability to talk scholarly about every issue under the sun, but as soon as there is any mention of Kashmir, he instantaneously puts his head down and fixes his eyes on the floor fixed in the button-hole of his sherwani and keeps quiet and sinks deep into a state of meditation like a Yogi.”
So, it is fair to say that India will get nowhere by explaining away Kashmir as an integral part of India. India is promoting this narrative because she trembles at any attempt to resolve the Kashmir crisis because she is frightened by its outcome.’ When a former Defense Minister, Krishna Menon, was questioned as to why India would never hold a free self-determination election in Kashmir, he confessed that all of India’s political leaders knew it would lose. And would 900,000 soldiers be needed in Kashmir if the main opponents to India’s occupation were but a handful of militants”? The question answers itself.
Sounder minds must prevail. More rational methods of dealing with Kashmir conflict must be sought. Repeating the same mistakes while expecting different results has long ago been found to be the path of failure. Seventy-eight years should demonstrate both India & Pakistan a need for a change in policy, a policy that accepts the need for coming together in a process that accepts the right of all people of five zones of Kashmir – the Valley, Ladakh, Jammu, Azad Kashmir & Gilgat-Baltistan – to determine their own destiny. This is the time that world powers, including the United States should realize that given a chance, the people of Jammu & Kashmir could be instrumental in providing a way out of this catastrophic cycle of violence.
Dr. Fai is also the Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum.
He can be reached at: WhatsApp: 1-202-607-6435. Or. gnfai2003@yahoo.com
www.kashmirawareness.org