Here is my 2 cents worth of opinion on this matter. Junagadh and Hyderabad even though had Muslim rulers and had chosen to accede to Pakistan, would not have worked because they are hindu majority areas, and Pakistan would have had the same issue that India is facing in Kashmir.
People need to remember that its the choice of the people of the land that should be considered not the ruler that was posted there by the British.
Also imagine how things would have been had Kashmir been part of Pakistan and there was no dispute. Both Pakistan and India would have been the best of friends even allies ( just like Britain and US are today) our economies would have been the envy of the world. Imagine the billions of dollars that we provide to foreign countries we could have spend on the welfare of our people.
Just imagine
@Imad.Khan
That line of reasoning leaves me stone dead cold. It is based on totally spurious manufactured sentiment.
It's all very well to say glibly today these supple things about Muslim rulers and Hindu subjects, and Hindu rulers and British subjects, but that overlooks the academically well-established fact that the Two Nations Theory originated in European sociological thought. There is even a date for the time from when the British introduced the concept of the Muslim Indian: the Hunter Commission Report.
So when people talk so learnedly about the inherent differences between the two communities - the Two Nations - I get amused when I am in a good mood, but when I am in the kind of mood I am now (nothing to do with you, just my BP acting up), I get pissed off at the way we fall for these artificial constructs and think that we could have run our lives by them, then or now. Even today, it is farcical, except that the people of Pakistan have actually created a nation, with no foundation other than the TNT, by deciding to stay together and make a go of it. And bully for them; we should support the gallant effort, without for one moment supporting the idiocy of the Pakistani deep state, who took all that nonsense seriously and created in Pakistan what Modi's peers and mentors are trying to create in India.
As far as leaving it to the people to decide is concerned, by the time it was clear that the British were leaving, the British themselves were unprepared for the early date of departure. You just have to look at the large number of British civil servants who joined the ICS, the IP and the IFS (forest service) in the two decades just before independence, to understand that no one, not the British, not the Congress, not the Muslim League, not the princes were prepared for a 1947 date.
I understand the sentiment behind your remark, but '...dil behlane ke liye...' and all that. Don't give it too much mind-space, but explore the sociology that was created, and marvel at the way that the whole sub-continent was duped. And continues to be duped.
So why didn't Pakistan withdraw its forces from Pakistan in accordance with the first step of UN resolution and let the people of united Kashmir engage in a plebiscite?
It shows Pakistan had no confidence in the plebiscite process for some reason.
The matter would have been settled with minimum fuss.
I personally believe paritition in the first place (by any format religion, language, ethnic group etc) should have been something a referendum should have been done (in whichever areas reach a minimum petition for it) for AFTER a level of development was reached in united India (say near universal literacy, less than 10% poverty, life expectancy higher than 70 etc). This could have been introduced into the united constitution. We never gave a chance to live side by side politically, culturally and economically with maximum local freedoms under federal structure.
One of the reasons for this is common to both India and Pakistan, and that is the prevalence of the mass movement over the earlier approach of taking things one step at a time, through memorials, representations and legislation. Once Gandhi swept in and swept out Gokhale and the moderates, and Gokhale's blue-eyed boy Jinnah with them, we were doomed, and we still are, on both sides of the Radcliffe Line and within B'desh as well. The agitational approach that came in was posited on the majoritarian principle.
NO democracy has succeeded by being majoritarian; the important and successful ones have learnt, painfully, the lesson that they have to look after their minorities and carry every section of opinion along, even at the cost of the sort of delay that would have a Chinese leader turning apoplectic. But that has the advantage of bringing in genuine, consensual change, and on the social, scientific and technical side, of encouraging genuine, free-thinking curiousity and progress; something that the Russians and Chinese have struggled to do and still socially struggle to do.
So from 1920 onwards, we had the agitational approach, and that proved so apparently successful that everyone picked up on it, the Muslim League, the JP movement in India, the traitors of the RSS, everybody. Today, the constitutional approach, the belief in the rule of law, is eroded to the point where a Pakistani Prime Minister is seen to have illegal funds stashed abroad and continues in office, largely because his predecessor was the Mister 10% of the sub-continent. Where another Prime Minister elsewhere is found to have been up to his elbows in defence bribery, and won elections after that. The value system is affected once we adopt majoritarian principles, and that is why we are all of us in this mess.
@Nilgiri
What you have suggested was actually built into the rather Heath Robinsonian structure that emerged from the labours of Stafford Cripps, and Jinnah was a party to it and had coaxed, cajoled and browbeaten the rest of the Muslim League leadership to accept it, when our own inimitable Panditji dropped his bombshell on the 10th of July. Read up on the structure; it provided for a weak centre, strong 'homelands' and a decision on staying together or moving away 10 years later!
Indian defence Minister Krishnan Menon openly said that the only reason India would not allow a plebiscite in Kashmir is that the people would vote to join Pakistan
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=KFEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7266,2323319&hl=en
Will you please do us the courtesy of getting Indian names right?
Krishna Menon, or Krishnan Menon, if it is more Islamic, said many stupid things. Are we to have those thrown in our faces every day of the year? He also said many wise things; how come those never come up for citation?
I think its probably due to lack of confidence ( from both ends ). Pakistani side would have been worried that if they withdraw then India will send in its forces to occupy the rest of the area.
Also Siachen incident hasn't helped where the Indian forces took over when they saw that there were no Pakistani contingent defending that part.
Please.
Considering that even while Pakistan was pouring in irregulars, and Hari Singh's army was disintegrating, India insisted on dotting the i's and crossing the t's, this is a bit much. As for Siachen, I hope you are aware of the long history of Pakistani conquest by tourism, and the imminent move into Siachen that was planned long before India woke up to the possibility.
A personal note: your posts are fine,and a pleasure to read. On a different day, I might have sulked in my tents, and not taken them up for response. Please don't let my temporary irritability affect you. I hope you continue to write these ultimately meaningful posts.
Indians often bring out this point. However Pakistan was willing to withdraw and there were continued negotiations between India and Pakistan over the plebiscite. Nehru even agreed to appoint a plebiscite administrator in April 1954 after talks with Bogra.
It was only when Pakistan joined CENTO that India used Pakistan's CENTO alliance as an excuse to call off the plebiscite.
Sorry, no way, Jose.
Pakistan resisted withdrawal from the first day of the Plebiscite Commission's meeting. There was never the slightest let-up in their resistance. The negotiations were phony on both sides; Pakistan never intended to let the relatively smaller numbers of the Mirpur ribbon or of Gilgit-Baltistan be swamped by Sheikh Abdullah's mobilisation of the overwhelming numbers of the Valley, and of Jammu and Ladakh. India - Nehru in particular - was seeking a way out of the consequences of that spontaneous offer of a plebiscite rooted in Abdullah's deep suspicion of Hari Singh's intentions, and refusal to exchange what he then thought was his privileged position within the Indian polity for a minor role in Pakistan.
Pakistan should demand that India release the Sunder Lal Committee Report-the report about the atrocities that the Indian army and Hindu hooligans perpetrated on Muslims when India invaded Hyderabad. There were some parts of the report smuggled to Pakistan and leaked to Radio Pakistan back in 1949. Here is one extract:
Ganjoti Paygah, District Osmanabad:
There are 500 homes belonging to Muslims here. Two hundred Muslims were murdered by the goondas. The army had seized weapons from the Muslims. As the Muslims became defenceless, the goondas began the massacre. Muslim women were raped by the troops. Statement of Pasha Bi, resident of Ganjoti: 'the trouble in Ganjoti began after the army's arrival. All the young Muslim women here were raped. Five daughters of Osman sahib were raped and six daughters of the Qazi were raped. Ismail Sahib Sawdagar's daughter was raped in Saiba Chamar's home for a week. Soldiers from Umarga came every week and after all-night rape, young Muslim women were sent back to their homes in the morning. Mahtab Tamboli's daughters were divided among Hindus, one is in Burga Julaha's home...'
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=psbFzupTAR8C&pg=PA210&dq=The+Age+of+Kali:+Indian+Travels+and+Encounters+ganjoti&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmh5XF1OjOAhXFnJQKHaEPA-YQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters ganjoti&f=false
This disgraceful episode, and the damning indictment by the staunch Muslim Sunder Lal, is not secret. It was a crime, and nothing can excuse it.
But what exactly do you hope to achieve by picking at this scab at this time?
Not sure how this will help in the current scenario.
@hellfire @Nilgiri @Joe Shearer
Can you guys please inform me how Kashmir being part of India benefits India....... I am not trolling, I want to understand your side. now i have heard the part that Dogra ruler signed the accession letter with India, but apart from that is there anything else?
Also i have heard that only few districts are having issues, the rest are peaceful, can you please provide me the list of districts which are causing problems for India?
@hellfire is practising deep-breathing exercises on the sidelines; the last few days, he has not managed to destroy as many as he used to with his fiery breath, so he has gone back to basics, leaving me to play Horatius at the bridge over the Tiber.
Kashmir - the vale in particular - is of no material or strategic benefit to India; the passes can be defended very comfortably from the India side, from Jammu and from Himachal. What will destroy India is acceptance of the principle that after choosing India, a part can walk away, years after the event, on communal grounds. India's entire existence is based on the primacy of the democratic principle; its biggest threat is from communal forces, or forces that give priority to one caste or some castes over others, or ethnic differences; everything that is not secular, in other words. If that principle of communal partition were to be extended again and again, there is nothing to stop India from becoming a rather large shawarma, to be sliced and made into rolls at will and according to the appetite of the consumer of the moment. Once Kashmir is to be sent away on communal grounds, every hyper-Hindu - there are many in this forum, who amuse us with their antics, but whose real-life meat-space equivalents are dangerous hoodlums - will turn around and say, Right! Let's get on with it, then. Out with the rest of them.
Is Pakistan prepared to face a flood of refugee people equal to its existing population? As a country, it sagged at the knees handling the Afghan refugees; what will be in prospect will be ten times the number. As the wise say, be careful what you pray for, you might get it. Separating Kashmir from India will put the whole balance of populations in India at stake, and the losers stand to be the communal states on India's borders.
As for the districts. I have to do my homework; there were a few in north Kashmir, traditionally under greater influence of the Hurriyat, a few more, of recent origin, in the hitherto quiescent south Kashmir, which is where the PDP had its strongholds; however, what most comments of this type mean is that the vale is troubled, never Jammu or the Ladakhis, not even the Shias of Kargil (Kargil is the part of Baltistan that was re-taken by Indian forces after Skardu and Kargil were both captured by the Gilgit Scouts and the state forces of Chitral acting in collusion in 1947-48). Only recently, the Shias have also expressed their fears and pessimism about the state of affairs prevailing; this is a singular event and is not expected to last long.
I can't give you a list of districts off the cuff, that is not my style. To research it and revert to you will take around a week to ten days and some effort communicating with knowledgeable people (all civilians, mostly all Kashmiri). I hope that this moth-eaten answer will serve until
@hellfire regains those long, curling tendrils of flame at fifty foot distances that were earlier his hallmark.
How does any part of India benefit from being part of India? Therein lies the answer.
I am beginning to hate you, mildly.
@Imad.Khan
Also, I strongly urge you to think where we all are heading.
Let us be very clear. Had Pakistan maintained its standstill agreement with J&K and not sent hordes into J&K, J&K , of it's own accord, would have merged with Pakistan. The Maharaja was under immense pressure and was indeed inclined towards the latter.
However, as you are aware, the water system on which Pakistan is dependent, is in Kashmir, hence, the issue .
I think the water issue was an afterthought and nobody thought much of it at the time.