Kashmir is more than a territorial dispute; it is a continuation of the ideological duel between Gandhi and Nehru on the one side and Jinnah on the other. Nehru stuck to his story in 'the Discovery of India' with the fascinating cover leafs of Indian nationalism and secularism. To him and his followers, Islam's advent in India was sacrilegious intrusion into their faiths and identity ignoring that Islam had made an immense contribution towards the culture and civilization of India. To them, Hinduism was a complete religion and a way of life. Any external influence was seriously harmful. Hinduism's influence is all encompassing. Its followers are different in all respects from Muslims and others. Since Hinduism's birth place is India therefore India and Hinduism are the same thing. Hindustan, Bharat and India have deep religious meanings and connotations. Its followers forget that only during the English rule an artificial unity of India was achieved.
Hindus got an advantage over Muslims during the British Rule. In education and exposure to the western culture and ideas, both political and social, Hindus exploited them to annihilate Muslim influence and the effects of their rule over past five hundred years prior to the English. In order to strengthen their inner beliefs and religious agenda of which the geographical unity of India was an article of faith, Gandhi and Nehru started tactfully using secularism and nationalism to undermine and reject any other political idea put forward by Jinnah and his Muslim League that had the potential of protecting and promoting the well-being of Indian Muslims and other religious minorities.
Twentieth century and its two devastating wars brought with them the twilight of British Empire in India. The ideas of democracy and representative government made possible the long-awaited dream of Hindu Rule in India and with it the hope of wiping out Islam and its followers and their identity in India. But at least two Indian Muslims, Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, having foreseen, understood and planned the salvation of Indian Muslims from the Hindu Rule. They articulated the two-nation theory experienced in daily life. It envisaged a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. Nehru having the advantage of Eaton education, English connections and social background fully understood English psyche and historical Christian prejudices towards Islam, successfully played on his political piano, tunes that found enough English ears except Churchill and few others who had interaction with Hindus and had also a command over the history. Despite his outer sophistication and pretentious manners, Nehru was a Hindu to the core. In his conversations and interaction with the English and other European leaders, he hardly hid his hate for Islam and its archaic beliefs, which he would attribute to, and mixed with Jinnah's thinking and idea of Pakistan to prejudice the British. Nehru also used to his advantage some Muslims including few religious scholars and liberals belonging to landed classes who took pride in their superior pedigree and sided with Nehru and Indian Congress against Jinnah. Nehru effectively exploited them to discredit, though unsuccessfully, Jinnah and impressed upon the English and local folks the futility of Jinnah's two-nation theory and the idea of Pakistan. Jinnah, with his handful lieutenants, against all odds, successfully put forward his argument for Pakistan and won a separate homeland for Muslims living in India.
The tragedy struck when Churchill lost elections in 1945 despite winning a war for Britain with sacrifices of Muslim blood on the fronts of war theatre. Pakistan was a defeat for Nehru, Hindus and for those Muslims who supported Nehru in the name of nationalism and secularism. Despite losing to Jinnah, the intrigue went on. The idea was now to make Pakistan weak and give Jinnah a moth-eaten Pakistan. Jinnah would even accept that. The Indian Independence Act, 1947, read in the light of subsequent developments and in the context of usurping of about 564 Indian Princely States by India in connivance with Mountbatten, Patel, Menon and Nehru and unfair division of the Punjab and Bengal and holding of a referendum in the erstwhile NWFP, it surely seems, that the British or at least the Atlee Government was a party to the intrigue against Pakistan, otherwise, there was no point in not giving the option of independence to Princely States or following the same principles given in the Independence Act for accession. That would have created a balance of power in the subcontinent. It is further proved that the British policy was to leave matters in such a way that both countries kept fighting forever. The principle of accession could be elaborated to avoid future disputes like the rule laid down for the division British India on the basis of Muslim and Hindu Majority areas. India put this argument forward in the case of Hyderabad and Junagadh, but in Kashmir, it would get against his past conduct and tried to argue that sovereignty over Kashmir vested in the Maharaja who despite his hate towards Nehru, was put under immense pressure through Gandhi, RSS leaders and others to accede to India. The manipulation of Nehru through Mountbatten was outrageous and highly unfair. Against all principles of fairness, Redcliff gave at least three tehsils of Gurdaspur to India that connected Jammu to India. This should have been noted as a clear indication of India planning to usurp Kashmir.
Pakistan faced with tremendous lack of resources and influx of refugees, was not in a position to fight back intrigues of Nehru and Mountbatten who had direct access to the British Crown and Prime Minister Atlee. It is in the knowledge of British Government that the so-called accession of Kashmir was an open act of aggression and fraud.
A legitimate freedom movement against the blatant aggression and atrocities of the Maharaja forces against unarmed and innocent Kashmiris who revolted against the century-old repression and seeing it being replaced with the Hindu rule, when helped by some volunteer tribesmen, were described as 'invaders' by the Indian and British propaganda that was used as an excuse to invade Kashmir on 27 October 1947.
Pakistan had no direct information about the Indian plans and having been tricked with a Standstill Agreement on 14 August 1947, it could not come to the rescue of the persecuted Kashmiris. The 'Sher-e-Kashmir', Sheikh Abdullah was hiding in Nehru's bosoms. He proved to be another Mir Jafar for his fellows. Only he knew that the accession was a fraud. He tried to exploit it latter but it was too late.
The promise of plebiscite by Mountbatten and Nehru was only a ploy to consolidate India's hold over Kashmir. Nehru lost no opportunity of propagating in his conversations with the UN representatives Jinnah's 'backward' religious ideas and the danger of a Muslim state, which to Western mind tremendously appealed. Nehru's pretentious outlook and belief in secularism, nationalism and democracy won him huge favours. But the hidden dream of Hinduvata supremacy reappeared in Modi's form and his RSS, which vindicated Jinnah. The tragedy however is that lies are thriving in the post-truth era. Free and fair plebiscite in Kashmir would surely be a defeat for Nehru and his brand of secularism and also for Hinduvata of Modi. It is a challenge for everyone in India including its Supreme Court.
Kashmiris must choose an honorable path and fight their way to freedom without waiting for a savior. The moment of their freedom has come and it cannot be stopped. (The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court and a former Additional Attorney General for Pakistan)
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