Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 31, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/31arvind.htm
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. As suggested in an earlier column of this writer, 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.
