beware of vajpayee's peace moves by a lavakare

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http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/31arvind.htm

 

Beware of Vajpayee's peace moves!May 31, 2003

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.

 

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Stop cribbing, ACTION is what the Indian scriptures talk aboutTake the battle

into the enemy camp, SET THE AGENDA, be proactiveIn an argument, no emotions,

be detached, get yr facts right, then attack with the precision of a missile