PoJK, taking Kashmir issue to UN big Nehruvian blunders: Jitendra Singh

“If India’s partition was a historic blunder, PoJK was a Nehruvian blunder,” said Union Minister Jitendra Singh while addressing the ‘Sankalp Diwas’ seminar in New Delhi on Sunday. The event was organised by the JK People’s Forum and JK Study Centre commemorating the 1994 Parliamentary resolution on PoJK.

“The biggest contradiction of the partition of the Indian subcontinent was that the common citizens of India, including the Muslims, were opposed to it, but it was forced on the people just because of the personal political ambition of two individuals, namely Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which led to one of the greatest exchanges of population between the two countries and massive riots, particularly in Punjab and Bengal,” said Jitendra.

The Minister recalled that the division of J&K was not a part of the Partition executed by Redcliff Line but rather a fallout of the same. “J&K acceded to India through a proper Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh but Pakistan did not reconcile to this and waged a war against India,” he said.

The Minister said the greatest tragedy is that when the Indian forces were on the verge of retrieving back the territory captured by Pakistan, “the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared unilateral ceasefire, which if he had refrained from doing, the whole of J&K would have been part of India and the issue of PoJK would have never arisen”.

“If PM Nehru had allowed Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to handle J&K with the same authority and freedom as he handled the other princely state of India, the whole of J&K, including PoJK, would have been a part of the Indian Republic. The issue was further complicated because of another Nehruvian blunder—taking the so-called Kashmir issue to the UNO,” said Jitendra.

“Injustice faced by three generation in J&K was undone by the abrogation of Article 370,” he added.