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Six Sources of Communist Power

By: Sri Sitaram Goel ; Additions by Dr. Rahul Shastri

SIX SOURCES OF COMMUNIST POWER – MYTH, IDEOLOGY, ORGANISATION, FINANCE, CULTURAL NETWORK, USE OF 3 INSTITUTIONS
. . . – Sitaram Goel in Nehru’s Fatal Friendship

. . . [Sita Ram Goelji’s seminal analysis has enduring significance, although some observations have become dated with the fall of Soviet Union. His analysis is presented here edited somewhat to suit the changed times. All additions & comments are parenthesised.]

[IDEOLOGY & ORGANISATION]

Communism is an ideology as well as an organisation. While the ideology perverts and subverts men’s minds, the organisation infiltrates and disintegrates all institutionalised life within a given community.

In fact, there is a dynamic integration between the ideology and the organisation. The prevalence of communist ideology in any sector of social life facilitates the task of communist organizational infiltration ; and communist infiltration, overt or secret, always helps the spread of communist ideology.

This interdependence of communist ideology and organization should never be lost sight of in any correct estimation of communist power and the location of the sources of that power.

With this background, we can proceed to identify the sources of communist power in India.

[MYTH & IDEOLOGY]

… the greatest source of its ideological power is the … Myth.

. . .[Goelji identifies two myths: the Soviet myth and the Spectre of American Imperialism. Points worth considering are: a) there could be many more and b) the election of Biden with left support is bound to complicate their positions on America]

The … Myth … [is] sanctioned, in the final analysis, by something more than mere propaganda by the communists and their allies. The ultimate basis of … [its] acceptance is provided by Marxist thought-categories which are accepted as ‘scientific’ truth even in avowedly anti-communist circles.

…. There are very few people amidst our politically conscious intelligentsia who have been through these categories and realised that they do not interpret the real situation. Our universities are totally dominated by professors and lecturers who regard these categories of thought as incontrovertible and holy truth and who continue to poison generation after generation of our young men and women.

. . . [Goelji goes on to identify the political streams and thought processes that contribute to the strengthening of the Myth]

[THREE PRONGED ORGANISATION]

Now I pass on to communist organisation … Today this organisation enjoys all constitutional and legal rights which democratic India can afford and has become highly respectable in the public eye …

The organisation is three-pronged :– open, camouflaged and secret.

The open organisation consists of what is commonly known as the ìCommunist Party of Indiaî which has a constitution, publishes party manifestos, maintains party organs, publishing houses, a network of party offices, members and paid whole- timers, participates in all sorts of elections and sends its representatives in our Parliament, the State Assemblies and all sorts of local bodies.

The camouflaged organisation consists of what are called ëfrontí organisations, such as the All-India Trade Union Congress, All-India Kisan Sabha, All-India Studentsí Federation, All-India Peace Council, the Progressive Writersí Association, the Indian Peopleís Theatre Association, the National Federation of Women, the Indian Association of Democratic Lawyers, the India-China Friendship Association, the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society, the Congress of Scientific Workers, etc. The fronts build specialised platforms in every walk of our social life, politicalise every non-political issue, create fellow-travellers, use non-political reputations for political purposes, infiltrate, control and influence the government, the press, the universities, political parties and every type of club and association, and organise exchange of delegations with communist countries and communist organisations abroad.

The secret organisation consists of what is popularly known as the ‘underground’ but which the communists call the ‘Tech’. No member of the ‘Tech’ can be recognised as a communist or a fellow-traveller. Their special job is to infiltrate the Armed Forces, the Police, the policy-making organs of the Government, to carry on espionage for the Soviet Government, to carry arms and ammunition and prepare for insurrection, civil war, or coup díetat, whichever method suits the Party in its final bid for power.

[FINANCE:- ORGANISATION, NETWORK & CULTURAL INFLUENCE]

. . . [Goelji identifies Soviet finance that was significant in his time. Today money flows from China, Middle East, Northern Europe and America as well as finance from domestic industry and trade can be scrutinised.]

Ample finances enable the Communist Party of India to maintain : 1) … whole-timers … [including party functionaries, MPs & MLAs]; 2) scores of daily, weekly and monthly newspapers ; 3) … publishing houses and bookstalls; 4) hundreds of party offices… and 5) several hundred professional fellow-travellers clustered around the front organisations.

Enormous amount of money is spent in subsidizing papers …, arranging conferences, festivals, dramas and frequent delegations and missions abroad … [to] allure intellectuals, writers, poets, artists, sports men, publicists, journalists, etc. with the help of money in cases where the ideological pull fails or proves inadequate.

[AIM OF NETWORKS: SPREAD-IDENTIFY-DENIGRATE-DIVIDE]

. . . [The networking thus created has dual use: to spread influence on the one hand and to identify, denigrate and/or divide opponents on the other]

And this tremendous organisational power is used by the communists not only for spreading their ideology, politics and organisational network, but also for denying opportunities to, and character assassination of, all those who are opposed to communism.

While persons, groups and parties amenable to communist ideological influence are attracted into the communist network, persons, groups and parties opposed to communism are set against each other by sheer organisational manoeuvres and whispering campaigns. Today this organisational domination by the communists has assumed serious proportions in India.

[USE OF INSTITUTIONS: UNIVERSITIES, MEDIA & CONGRESS]

. . . [Apart from its own organisations, three institutions in India are extensively used by Communism to further its purposes according to Goelji ]

First of all, our universities are deeply infiltrated by communist professors and student whole-timers. I know many university teachers who openly ‘teach’ communism in their classes. Anyone who tries to oppose them or to carry on some amount of anti-communist work is hounded out and blackened in no time. Thus the nation gets a large number of communised young men and women to run her administration, economy and education, in times to come.

Secondly, the press has, to a very large extent, passed into the hands of the Communist Party. One has only to look a little more closely into the headlines, news items, feature articles and editorials … an iron-curtain is being sprung up round this country, all unknown to people who run the government or the political parties.

Thirdly, the ruling Congress Party [ then ruling ] has been considerably penetrated. Though the Congress Party still swears by Gandhism, its slogans have already become communist slogans for all practical purposes. Many communists and fellow-travellers, such as the Marxist Forward Bloc, are entering the Congress … If the present trend continues, it is absolutely sure that the communists will, in near future, make a bid to capture the Congress organisation and, through it, the country.

Partitioned Freedom – 6

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(Read “Partitioned Freedom – 1” from this link – 1)
(Read “Partitioned Freedom – 2” from this link – 2)
(Read “Partitioned Freedom – 3” from this link – 3)
(Read “Partitioned Freedom – 4” from this link – 4)
(Read “Partitioned Freedom – 5” from this link – 5)

(Conclusion: Read “Partitioned Freedom – 6″ from this link)

Part 6

When strategy became policy at Lucknow in 1916, and the Khilafat and Moplah lay bare the slide of the Congress, many leaders were genuinely worried. They realised that the appeasement policies of the Congress were helping the League in furthering its separatist agenda. Despite his best efforts at placating the League and striving for Hindu-Muslim unity, Gandhi could not achieve much. When attempts were made to pacify the Moplahs in the name of Gandhi’s non-violence, they bluntly replied that Gandhi was a Kafir, and he could never be their leader. In 1924, Maulana Mohammed Ali, to whom Gandhi gave more importance than he did to Jinnah, declared: “However pure Mr. Gandhi’s character may be, he must appear to me, from the point of religion, inferior to any Mussalman even though he be without character.” In 1925, he reiterated it saying, “Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mr. Gandhi”.

Savarkar was one of the leaders who felt that Congress was making a colossal mistake by appeasing the fundamentalist Leaguers. Savarkar asked the Congress leadership to stop in the downward spiral of appeasement and be firm with the Muslim League leadership. “If you come, with you; if you do not, without you; if you oppose in spite of you” – this was the message he wanted the Congress to convey to the League. Yet the Congress leadership lacked that courage.

Shraddhananda’s Murder:
Swami Shraddhanand was a renowned Arya Samajist and a senior leader of the Congress. As a disciplined soldier of the movement, he had participated actively in the Khilafat movement too. Shraddhananda was a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, and used to play an active role in reconversion activities. This angered some fanatical Muslims. One such young man called Abdul Rasheed visited Shraddhananda’s residence at Naya Bazar in Delhi on December 23, 1926, on the pretext of discussing “some problems of the Islamic religion”. Shraddhananda was unwell and lying on his bed. According to the Arya Samaj website: “The visitor then asked for a glass of water, and while Dharm Singh (Shraddhanand’s attendant) was taking his glass away, he rushed up to the Swamiji and fired two bullets point-blank into his chest.”

The annual session of the Congress was taking place from December 25, 1926, at Guwahati. All the senior leaders, including Gandhi, were present at the session when the news of the gruesome murder of Swami Shraddhananda came in. Gandhi called Abdul Rashid his ‘own brother’, but moved a condolence motion himself. “If you hold dear the memory of Swami Shraddhanandji, you would help in purging the atmosphere of mutual hatred and calumny. Now you will perhaps understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swamiji’s murder. Guilty indeed are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another”, Gandhi said to the shock of many in the audience. At the very same session, funds were collected for the legal defence of Rashid in the courts. When he was sentenced to capital punishment by the British, there were over fifty thousand people in his funeral procession at Kolkata. That was where the appeasement policy of the leaders had led the country.

National Flag – (National symbols compromised):

Gandhi had proposed in 1921 that Congress should design a national flag. Several models were presented to him, and the one with three colours – orange, white and green –proved to be popular However, its interpretation as orange for the Hindus, white for the Christians, and green for the Muslims did not go down well with the people. A flag committee was then appointed in 1931 to look into the controversy and recommend a national flag for India. Among others, the 7-member committee included Nehru, Patel, and Azad. The committee submitted its report to the Karachi Congress session in December 1931.

“Opinion has been unanimous that our National Flag should be of a single colour except for the colour of the device. If there is one colour that is more acceptable to the Indians as a whole, one that is associated with this ancient country by long tradition, it is the Kesari or saffron colour. Accordingly, it is felt that the flag should be of the Kesari colour except for the colour of the device. That the device should be the Charkha is unanimously agreed to. The Committee have come to the conclusion that the charka should be in blue. Accordingly we recommend that the National Flag should be of Kesari or saffron colour having on it at the left top quarter the Charkha in blue with the wheel towards the flagstaff, the proportions of the flag being fly to hoist as three to two”, the report, signed by all the seven members stated.

However, the Congress session at Karachi rejected it, saying that the saffron colour represented only Hindus. The tricolour flag designed by Pingali Venkayya was adopted. It featured three horizontal stripes of saffron, white and green, with a Charkha in the centre. The colours were given a new interpretation thus: saffron for courage; white for truth and peace; and green for faith and prosperity. After the national song came the compromise with the national flag.

Language (concessions were made):

The Hindu Bhajans were modified. ‘Raghupati Raghava Rajaram – Patita Pavan Sitaram’ saw ‘Isvar Allah Tere Naam’ added to it. Even the national language was not spared. There were concerted efforts to discourage Muslims from learning Hindi right from the time of Syed Ahmad Khan. Syed Ahmad asked Muslims to prefer English to Hindi. Aligarh Muslim University taught only in English and Urdu. An effort was made to project Hindi as the language of the Hindus, and Urdu, that of the Muslims. In its eagerness to please the fundamentalists in the Muslim League, the Congress leadership decided at its 1925 Karachi session that Hindustani – a hybrid product from the mixture of Hindi and Urdu – should be the lingua franca of independent India. It even suggested that the script could either be Devnagari or Arabic.

Texts were rewritten. Special language classes were held for the Congress volunteers to familiarise them with the new hybrid language. Phrases like Badshah Ram, Begum Sita, and Maulvi Vasistha were promoted. Nevertheless, this one compromise did not go down well with the Congress and the nation. The protagonists of Hindi could succeed only after several years in making it the official language of the nation.

The Congress leadership continued to make these one-sided compromises without any reciprocal gestures being made by the League.

Cow slaughter was given free hand:

Even on a question as important to him as cow-slaughter, Gandhi was willing to compromise. “How can I force anyone not to slaughter cows unless he is himself so disposed? It is not as if there were only Hindus in the Indian Union. There are Muslims, Parsis, Christians, and other religious groups here”, he argued.

None of these concessions could move the League leadership. Instead, they only led to establishing the League and Jinnah, now its leader, as the ‘sole spokesmen’ for the Muslims, as Ayesha Jalal puts it. Emboldened, Jinnah went ahead ruthlessly, unmaking everything the Congress made, including, in the end, the geographical unity of the country.

(Final part to follow)

(Courtesy: The article was originally published in Chintan, India Foundation on August 18, 2020).

It was Nehru Who Ordered to Celebrate his Birthday as Children’s Day!

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Why do we celebrate Nehru Jayanti as Children’s Day? We have a ready-made answer with a punch quote of Nehru already on hands: Because Nehru was known for his love for children and was fondly called Chacha Nehru! And Nehru once said, “The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country”. Here goes the narrative which has been established in the public domain over the years. According to the popular belief, after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as Children’s Day in India.

But the reality is something else. It is a widely held misconception that November 14 is celebrated as Children’s Day after the death of Nehru. Reports and documents suggest that Nehru’s birthday was celebrated as Children’s day in 1955! Who did issue order to celebrate Nehru’s birthday as children’s day? Indeed, it was declared by the then Prime Minister of India, none other than Chacha Nehru! Interestingly, it had nothing to do with children or Chachaji’s eternal love and affections for India’s young buds. It was merely a public relations exercise, organised to please his Soviet Union masters Comrades Bulganin and Khrushchev who embarked on an India visit during that time.

Organiser Weekly, dated November 21, 1955, came out with a stinging editorial, penned by the then editor and stalwart journalist KR Malkani, targeting Jawaharlal Nehru for misusing the entire educational machinery to build up his dictatorship. Comparing Nehru’s humbug with that of Adolf Hitler, the editorial states, “Preparations to celebrate Pt. Nehru’s birthday and the Russian leaders’ arrival have set us thinking. It has been said of Hitler that he built up his dictatorship on the devotion of “Hitler Youth” organisation. It is well known that he assumed dictatorial powers without much amending the Weimer Constitution, that most perfect of democratic instruments. We must confess that the above preparations remind us of the “Hitler Jugend “, Organiser hit out at Nehru.

“For three weeks now, the entire educational machinery in the capital has been put out of gear. Since a number of students from every class in almost all the schools has been out rehearsing and re-rehearsing their allotted role for couple of hours every day, tuition has almost ground to a halt,” the editorial said.

The editorial condemns the repeated child rights violation occurred in the name of Children’s Day celebration as truckload of Delhi students, both boys and girls, had been daily transported to Kutub Minar ground for lessons in drilling, smiling, garlanding, clapping and shouting slogans!

“The official explanation is that they are observing Children’s Day. Wasting children’s education for three weeks is a rather wonderful way of celebrating Children’s Day. Nor is it clear why Pt. Nehru’s birthday should have been particularly selected for observation as ‘Children’s Day’, Shri Malkani wonders! “If any living dignitary’s birthday has to be celebrated on a national scale, the only right and indeed obvious, choice would be that of Rashtrapati’s,” he says.

The visionary journalist raised his concerns, asking whether the annual birthday celebration of Nehru continues into perpetuity, that later turned out to be true. “Also, is it the idea that ‘Nehru Jayanti” should be observed as Children’s Day forever hereafter? Or the Children’s Day chance with every incoming Premier’s birthday?,” he asks.

Interestingly, the editorial puts forth another suggestion that the right day for Children’s Day would be Krishna Janmashtami that birthday of the great child of all times-Sri Bala Krishna. Apart from Organiser, On November 14, 1956, The Times of India reported the Children’s Day: “Nearly 100,000 children assembled at the National Stadium today to participate in a Children’s Day rally, which coincided with the Prime Minister’s 67th birthday celebrations.” This is a new variant of the invisible colonialism which Nehru warned against, in his ‘Discovery of India’. It is high time to review and reexamine the readymade answers cooked up by so-called Nehruvians, for our frequently asked questions including, ‘why do we celebrate Nehru Jayanti as Children’s Day?’

Source : Organiser Weekly Online 14th Nov 2018

Gandhi Assassination – Nehru and the Power Equation

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Every year, it is a practise of the Congress and the commie brigade to make some remarks on Hindu nationalism on the 30th Jan.

On Jan 30th, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. A few months before his death, Bharat had attained political Independence and a few hours before Independence, Bharat was partitioned. Partition was a result of the aggressive stand of the Muslim League, weak leadership of the Indian National Congress, the British strategy to leave Bharat in a tattered condition and above all, a submission to the political concept of the Darul Islam.

Arnold Toynbee writes ‘ What is Pakistan ? it was the first successful step in this 20th century to realize their ( Muslims) 1200 year old dream of complete subjugation of this country.

Those interested in reading the events leading to the partition are documented here. Tragic Story of Partition.

The country witnessed a holocaust. What followed was a never before seen cataclysm. The transfer of population that the Congress leaders wanted to avoid, took place. They were killed, robbed, looted in transit. As the biggest migration of population in recorded history was in progress, a most dangerous situation arose in the capital. Every 4th person in Delhi was a Hindu or Sikh refugee from Pakistan. This lead to a lot of anger against the Congress leadership. A number of organisations were involved in service activities for the refugees, giving them shelter, support and succour in their times of great tragedy. Guruji Golwalkar of RSS gave a call to the RSS swayamsevaks not to leave Pakistan until the last Hindu is safely moved from the troubled areas. Thousands of swayamsevaks gave up their life in this cause. This is documented in the book, “ Jyoti Jala Nij Praan Ki“.

Assassination of Gandhi : Nathuram Godse was one of the people who believed Mahatma Gandhi was squarely responsible for the partition of Bharat. On the fateful day, on January 30, 1948 he approached Gandhi during the evening prayer at 5:17 pm. Godse bowed, and shot Gandhi at point blank range. Godse himself shouted “police” and surrendered himself. His defence was documented in a book, “May It Please your Honour”.

However, there has been no explanation of why Gandhiji was not rushed to the hospital and was instead taken to Birla House, where he was declared dead.

Congress maligns RSS :

Inspite of no evidence against the RSS and inspite of Sardar Patel indicating that the RSS is not involved, Nehru went ahead to press for the ban on the RSS. This fact is evident from the correspondence between Patel and Nehru. Replying to the Prime Minister’s letter urging him to ascertain the RSS connection in the case, Patel sent a categorical reply on 27 February 1948, less than a month after Gandhiji’s assassination:

‘I have kept myself almost in daily touch with the progress of the investigations regarding Bapu’s assassination case. All the main accused have given long and detailed statements of their activities. It also clearly emerges from the statements that the RSS was not involved in it at all.’

When no plausible reason is found about why Nehru was so keen to ban the RSS, it can be concluded that Nehru saw a potential rival in Guruji Golwalkar. In fact, one day before Gandhiji’s murder, on 29 Jan 1948 Nehru was reported to have said that: “I will crush the RSS”.

Shri Guruji’s grand reception at New Delhi Station – 21st Aug 1949

That Golwalkar was immensely popular is documented by BBC. In 1949, BBC radio reported: ‘Golwalkar is a shining star that has arisen on the Indian firmament. The only other Indian who can draw such huge crowds is Prime Minister Nehru.’ Golwalkar was the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS at that time.

On February 4, 1948, the government banned the RSS. After a long struggle by the RSS swayamsevaks, the ban was lifted unconditionally.In a written statement to the Bombay Legislative Assembly on September 14, 1949 (Proceedings p2126) the Home Minister Morarji Desai admitted that the ban on RSS was no longer considered necessary; it was lifted unconditionally; and the RSS gave no undertaking – Lifting of ban was unconditional

Inspite of all the direct evidence, the Congress did not end at this, In 1966, Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi appointed another commission under Justice JL Kapur, a retd judge of Supreme Court. It examined over 100 witnesses and submited a report in 1969. The Kapur Commission report said “

…RSS as such were not responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, meaning thereby that one could not name the organisation as such as being responsible for that most diabolical crime, the murder of the apostle of peace. It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members of the RSS..”

For More details on the the issue – Patel, Nehru and RSS

Veer Savarkar also maligned : Swatantra Veer Savarkar life and his works were inspiration to many freedom fighters including Bhagat Singh. Such a person was also charged with the conspiring the murder of Gandhi. No evidence was found against him but the accusations against him by the Commie brigade abetted by the Congress continue. As recently as 2013, The Hindu carried an article accusing him once again. A rejoinder to the repeated accusation was published in Niti Central – Gandhi Assassination and Veer Savarkar

Few Unanswered Questions on Nehru :

Nehru was the Prime Minister candidate inspite of Patel being the overwhelming favourite. It is clear from the documentation during that period that Gandhi favoured Nehru primarily to ensure that the Congress doesn’t split during the trying times after partition. It seems apparent that Gandhi believed that Patel would work under Nehru but Nehru wouldn’t vice versa. Gandhi was disappointed by some of the decisions taken by Nehru and in fact had called for a public debate on policies. This naturally put Nehru on the back-foot. He never responded.

A missing Netaji Subash Chandra Bose ( under mysterious circumstances ), an assassinated Gandhi, an implicated Savarkar, and a reviled Golwalkar ensured that Nehru had a free run. In fact even in 1953, a potential contender like Syamaprasad Mukherjee died under mysterious circumstances in the jail of J&K. This was a state managed by Nehru directly.

It is apparent that the biggest beneficiary of the above sequence of events was Nehru. He remained the Prime Minister of the country for 17 years. It is also a known fact that Gandhiji was of the opinion of disbanding the Congress in the future.

Yet, no investigation was taken in that direction as to why he chose to target such luminaries! When a great freedom fighter like Veer Savarkar and Rishi like Golwalkar could be incarcerated, why no questions were raised against Nehru and Congress is something I have been intrigued with.

Few more questions,

When Gandhiji was shot point blank, why was he not moved to a hospital and moved to Birla House ?
Was there no intelligence inputs on the assassination ? When there were 4 earlier attempts to murder Gandhi, what were the additional measures taken by the Nehru government to provide security. Did any heads roll ?
Why was Nehru in a hurry to find an organization to link Godse with when Godse was insisting he was doing it in individual capacity ?
Prof. Rajendra Singh, 4th Sarsanghchalak of RSS in an interview to Outlook ( Jan 1998 ) said regarding Godse “Initially, he was a member of the Congress, later he joined the RSS and left it subsequently, saying that it was a slow organisation. Then he formed his own group.” Godse left the RSS in 1934 and joined the HMS as per his own admission to the court. He then formed his own group. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Prof.Rajendra Singh had asked, “If investigations were done on whether RSS was involved in the assassination, why were there no investigations whether Congress was involved in allowing the assassination to happen” ? ( since he was a member of both the organizations and had left them ).

Gandhiji’s assassination gave an opportunity to Nehru to use enormous amount of state power to crush the Hindu nationalists. At the same time, he shifted the public discourse away from core national issues raising the bogey of Hindu fascism. This lead to sidelining of all major issues of national relevance like education, language, cow slaughter, agriculture, models of development, administration, and many more core issues. This was a classic example of the Marxist method of shifting public discourse.

The nation has to do a course correction. Bharateeyas must ask and seek what Nehru & Congress’s interests were in shifting the national discourse away from our core to the periphery.

References :

1. Tragic Story of partition – HV Seshadri

2. May It Please Your Honour – Nathuram Godse

3. The Hindu – Lifting of ban on RSS was unconditional by S.Gurumurthy

4. Niti Central – Gandhi’s assassination and Veer Savarkar by Anurupa Cinar

5. Gandhi-Nehru Letters by Cambridge University Press

6. http://www.gandhiserve.org – Gandhi’s concept of Gram Swaraj

7. Disband the Congress by Gandhi – ‘The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi – Volume 90′

8. Prof.Rajendra Singh Interview – Outlook Magazine – Jan 19th, 1998

– By Ayush Nadimpalli

twitter : ayush4bharat

Timely Call for Debate over Article 370

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Essay Published in “Kannada Prabha” daily, on the need for debate and abrogation of “Article 370” – By Praveen Patavardhan, English translation by Prashanth Vaidyaraj.

Narendra Modi in a recently held rally in Jammu questioned India’s first PM’s stand on Kashmir. He recalled the martyrdom of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Modi had asked for a debate on Article 370 of our constitution. As expected, the Congress, sections of the media which support the Congress have objected to such a debate.

As a new generation emerges, the way it thinks and acts changes too. When a topic concerning the nation is proposed and if the response is to either refuse to question or debate it, it will only raise eyebrows on the motive of such a response. Change is inevitable with time and a debate is certainly helpful. But when Modi proposed a debate on Article 370, editors of few newspapers received a flurry of reactions questioning Modi’s motive and suggesting that he had raised the issue only to create a vote bank of the Kashmiri Pandits.

Very few understand the travails of the Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Hindus who faced grave situations. People have hardly read about those who lost their own homes and were forced to live the life of refugees in their own land. Coverage about them in our media is even less. While Kashmiri Pandits formed 20% of Kashmir’s population in 1947, they have been reduced to about 808 families i.e around 3500 people according to the 2010 census. How many among these would have registered as voters? Can they even be a vote bank which can assure victory in elections? Moreover, for those who assume that J&K has become a part of India only through Article 370, have a greater need for a debate on this.

If the events that occurred after Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India through the Instrument of Accession are observed, it was only a particular sect of Muslims who harbored separatist tendencies. With few politicians and social activists supporting such separatist voices, the common man became the ultimate sufferer here.

With the division of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, Sheikh Abdullah was only involved in machinations that would guarantee his power and position in either of the states. He was the output of the Aligarh Muslim University, which had created and nurtured Muslim Separatism, Muslim Nationalism and was the harbinger of the idea of Pakistan. Sheikh was a close associate of Nehru and was also close to the then Viceroy Lord Mountbatten. Sheikh had called for ‘Quit Kashmir’ agitation against the Maharaja while the British were still ruling. Even though he was arrested by the Maharaja, his association with Nehru helped him to come out of prison. After the accession of J&K, the Maharaja had reluctantly handed over the authority to Sheikh as per the directions of Nehru. But once at the helm of affairs, Sheikh Abdullah had made a provocative speech where he has said,” We have snatched the crown of Kashmir from dust. We are now not concerned about our accession to either India or Pakistan. We demand complete freedom”. There are a few points worth pondering about in his speech:

1) Dust – This was in reference to the “Dogra” royalty that was ruling Kashmir

2) Maharaja had already signed the treaty of accession. Kashmir had become a part of India.

3) The idea behind the demand of complete freedom was to make J&K an independent country.

Right from the day Pakistan was formed, the Pakistani troops aided by tribal raiders had invaded and forcefully taken over “Gilgit” & “Baltistan”. These raiders who murdered, looted and ravaged Hindu women had illegally occupied large parts of our land in the process. As Sheikh Abdullah took over from the Maharaja, the raiders only increased their intensity of attacks and butchered Hindus of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhember. It was then that Sardar Patel who was the Home Minister deputed the Army to face the situation. The Army which was surging ahead towards Gilgit, Baltistan to free them from Pakistan’s illegal occupation was unceremoniously held back by Sheikh Abdullah. When General Paranjape had complained about this to Nehru, all he got in return was that he has to listen to Sheikh! What prompted Nehru to take such a stance is not clear. Was this due to the first steps Nehru took towards creating a Muslim vote bank or due to his unfailing admiration of Sheikh?

Nehru, who acted unflinchingly as Sheikh dictated, and some of his cabinet colleagues faltered next in the implementation of Article 370. It is said that the said article had no mention in the first version of the constitution. There was hardly any discussion on Article 370 when it was proposed by Gopalswamy Ayyangar in the constituent assembly. When a debate took place in the Congress Working Committee, it was only Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who stood by Gapalswamy Ayyangar. Ambedkar, who was the Law minister, had this to say about Sheikh:”I as the law minister working towards the mammoth task of framing the constitution of India, will not dishonor my country. You do not wish to give the authority of J&K to India but yet you claim you want equal rights for the Kashmiris…”. Sheikh was in no mood to relent. Instead of placating Sheikh against his demands, Nehru indulged in cuddling him further. The other Congress leaders agreed to include Article 370 only to pacify Nehru. But many including Sardar Patel, Ambedkar and the then President Babu Rajendra Prasad did not think this to be right. Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had vehemently opposed the Article 370 and granting special status to J&K through it. Dr.SP Mukherjee had launched an agitation against the arrogant decree which restricted even the President of India in Kashmir without the permission of the PM of Kashmir, by roaring that ‘A single country can’t have two constitutions, two prime ministers, and two National Emblems’ and had lunged towards Kashmir. Infact, Dr.Rajendra Prasad had written to Nehru quoting, “What will you gain by implementing this article? Is the assembly of J&K more important than the President of the country?” But Nehru never came out of his self-aggrandizing sheath.

Article 370 was included in the Constitution as a temporary and transitional measure only to mitigate the then prevalent circumstances. It indirectly suggests that:

J&K can choose to have its own Constitution.
India will govern J&K only in matters of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communications and Allied Matters.
India cannot impose Legislations on J&K without the consent of J&K government.

Do you think that the above provisions will convey that J&K is an integral part of India? Aren’t the separatists using the same provisions to further their agenda? Event this separatism is being fueled only in the Kashmir valley. Please remember that this is only the voice of 15% of the state who are Sunni Muslims. Of the 444 articles in our constitution, only 260 articles are applicable to J&K as of 2013.

Sikhs are a minority in our country. But in Punjab they are not deemed as minorities. They do not get the benefits of a minority in the state. It’s a different story in Kashmir. Even though J&K has 58% Muslims, they are deemed as minorities and accrue all the benefits. The real minorities here are the SCs and STs. They did not have any reservations till 1991, after which they got reservations only in education and jobs. They do not have any reservations in politics and does not seem that they will get it in the future either.

The debate over this injustice meted out to the people of J&K has to happen.

Let Article 370 be abrogated.

Source: Article published in Kannada Prabha, 9th December 2013.

Wonderful Poem by Prashanth Vaidyaraj, equally great translation into Kannada by Satya Narayan:

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Arise Bharat

Rousing National Consciousness