Memoranda for Submission to the Chief Ministers of the Two Telugu States.

National Security

Unintegratable & Undeliverable: J&K

Dt:  9/3/15

Unintegratable & Undeliverable: J&K

Dr T.H.Chowdary*

What goes by the name of  Jammu & Kashmir state is not a homogeneous one nor was it ever an integrated entity in  historic times.  After the last Anglo-Sikh war , in 1848 Gulab Singh the ruler of Jammu who until then was a feudatory Raja under  the Sikh supremacy,  got the kingship of Jammu from the  victorious British East India  Company.  He purchased  Kashmir  from the British  victors for  Rs. 75 lakhs.  Later on the sprawling frontier territories of  Gilgit, Baltistan and  Ladakh were also  bestowed on the   Dogra ruler by the British. Hari Singh is the  fourth   in the line of succession from Gulab Singh onwards.  His territories as of 1947 comprised of  three provinces  –  Jammu, Kashmir and Frontier Districts of Gilgit and Balkistan and Ladakh. Together they had a population according to the 1941 census, of  a little over 4 mln. Gilgit and Baltistan were populated more or less 100% by Shia  Muslims & Ladakh was Buddhist majority with Kargil Tehsil having Muslim majority.  The Kashmir Valley was  about  92% Muslim  and  8% Hindu Pandits  and a few Sikhs.

 2. The area, population and its religious composition as per the  1941 census was:

3. Jammu province where there was considerable Hindu population had the  following  composition.

 Jammu Province as a whole:

Jammu Province: district-wise

4. It would be  seen  that   the Hindu majority four districts together had  a Hindu population  of 5,54,596 (62%) and  3,46,321 Muslims (38%) .  The three Muslim majority districts of Poonch, Mirpur and  Riasi together had a Muslim population of  866,084  ( 82.60%) and Hindu population of 182,266 ( 17.38%). 

5. In Aug 1947, with the  imminent division of India and  creation of Pakistan, there were  widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in what is now Pakistan and  in Eastern India. Hari Singh, the Maharaja of J&K has not decided as to which state, India or Pakistan he would accede to. His then  Prime Minister, Ramachandra Kak  a Hindu Pandit was pressing  for accession to Pakistan. Harisingh could not  make up his mind. Md. Ali Jinnah held the  firm and open view that according to the India Independence  Act 1947 passed by the British Parliament  people’s wishes  have no place as regards the  final status of the  600 and odd princely states including J&K, Hyderabad and  Junagarh. The Maharajas and Nawabs were the sole authority who could legally  decide accession to either  state  or independence.  He was inveigling  Hari Singh to join Pakistan  suggesting that he would  accept any conditions that Hari Singh might  impose. But Hari Singh was in total indecision as in the Muslims League  ruled Pakistan, his position and that of  Hindus could be in great  danger. 

6. During this  period of indecision, communal riots erupted in the Jammu province. Hindus and Sikhs,  the minority  in Pakistan ‘s Punjab were fleeing to  India . Some of them were crossing the   Jammu territory which has  all the road and rail connections  to  Punjab. These  refugees from Pakistan  could be the cause for  the Hindu majority in Jammu province and refugees passing through it  taking  revenge on Muslims.  But this could  happen only in Hindu majority  districts, namely Jammu, Uddhampur and Kathua . The  Muslim  majority in Mirpur, Poonch and Riasi took  revenge on the  Hindu  minority there. There was a rebellion in the  Muslim  districts of Jammu province against Hari Singh’s rule. These three districts were more or less liberated from the rule of the Maharaja (just like some Telengana districts were liberated  by communists in Nizam’s Hyderabad State, in 1946-48). This happened  even before October 22 when  the  tribals  of Pakistan invaded Kashmir.  

7. While almost all the  Hindus in the  three Muslim  majority districts of Jammu province fled east -wards to the Hindu majority districts, not all Muslims from the  Hindus majority Jammu district fled to Azad Kashmir / Pakistan. (This is just like almost all Hindu-Sikhs of  Pakistan  migrating to India but all Muslims of India  not migrating to Pakistan and so continuing the  Muslim problem in India).  

8. As per the 1941 census,  while  Jammu province   had  overall  Muslim majority of 67%; after the formation of the  Azad Kashmir and ceasefire lines and the  migration of the   minority populations, the position  in what now is Jammu province in J&K of India  by 1948, the Hindu population   rose from 62 % to 68% and the Muslim population declined from 38% to 32%.

9. The  Kashmir valley which  was more or less entirely freed from the raiders by India after the   accession of  J&K state to India  on the 26^th October 1947, continues to be  overwhelmingly Muslim majority area.  In 1990 more or less the entire Hindu pandit minority population had to  flee  because of the jihadis from Pakistan  and   the local Muslims subjecting    Hindus  to  bestial cruelty.  

10. The Maharaja’s forces in Gilgit and Baltisthan   rebelled and within a few days,  Pakistan sent its administrators to the area.   A part of it was gifted by  Pakistan  later on to China.

11. The present position is : the Kashmir  province  is over  99% Muslim; the Jammu province  is 68% Hindu and 32% Muslim. The other  province Laddakh,  is Buddhist majority but  the Kargil district of Laddakh is Muslim majority.

12. There is absolutely no glue which can  keep the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Laddakh together. Jammu’s  Muslims are of  Panjabi origin whereas the Muslims of  Kashmir are  ex-pandits and other Hindus . Racially and culturally, the  Kashmir  Valley Muslims are  different from Jammu Muslims, just as Bangladeshi  Muslims are different from Pakistan ‘s Panjabi Muslims . 

13. J&K state is an artificial creation which has no common history or culture or language between the  peoples of the  three provinces.   Since 1948, there is  discrimination against  Jammu because it is Hindu majority.  No Hindu,   despite  they being over 30% of J&K’s population, could  ever become the Chief Minister whereas Muslims could become Chief Ministers in overwhelmingly Hindu majority  states  of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar and Assam. While there is one  MLA  for 63,673 voters in Kashmir, there is  one  MLA for 84,270 voters in Jammu province.  It is cruel to keep the Jammu  and Ladakh people under the  rule of the  Kashmir Valley’s people .  This inequality and injustice must be ended immediately.

14.  If  A.P could be divided between the  two Telugu people into Telengana and  Andhra, there is  a hundred times more  justification for  separating Jammu and Ladakh into separate   units ; Jammu as a full-fledged state of the Indian Union with complete merger and Ladakh as an union territory. The  Kashmir Valley could be another state. Talking of autonomy for the  artificial  state of Jammu & Kashmir and denying it to Jammu   whose  people and language and  heritage are  entirely different from Kashmir Valley, is unjust and irrational.  Complete justice could be done to all the  peoples  in J&K only by   trifurcation of the state and  having  Art-370 confined only to the Kashmir Valley, with Jammu and Laddak, getting fully integrated into the Indian Union, each as a separate unit.

15. The Government by coalition of the  PDP and BJP is undoubtedly a historic event. Its durability is problematic because of  the fundamental ideologies that  underlie the  two parties  are  incompatible. If for any reasons,  the coalition falls apart, then that should lead to re-organisation of J&K into three separate units. Secularism in India cannot be allowed to be ransomed by Kashmir valley. As it is, we are  already incurring  heavy costs in men and  finances for keeping the  LOC inviolate and delivering welfare to the  valley people.(1,230 words)

END