Jammu Since 1947 Abdul Majid Zargar tells the tale

The recent communal incidents in district Rajouri of Jammu province need to be viewed in the historical perspective. Primarily,  because it is essential to lay the lessons of the past before the present & future  for those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it .

These events, were Ostensibly provoked by Parveen Togadia, international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, but in effect it is the continuation of the RSS agenda  followed in Jammu since 1947 .In that year, Muslims of Jammu were systematically annihilated under a well thought out plan  by RSS under Maharaja Hari Singh’s auspices. Their percentage in population was  reduced from 61% to 38% thus changing the demographic character of the province.

As Gandhi himself said on November 27, 1947, “This (genocide) has not been fully reported in the newspapers” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi; volume 90, page 115). On  December 25, 1947 he again said: “The Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu and those who had gone there from outside(referring to RSS cadres coming from adjoining areas of Punjab)   killed Muslims there. The Maharaja of Kashmir is responsible for what is happening there.. Muslim women have been dishonored” (ibid, page 298).
Horace Alexander wrote in the Spectator (January 16, 1948) that the killings had “the tacit consent of State authority” and put the figure at 200,000. On August 10, 1948, The Times (London) published a report by “A Special Correspondent”, an Indian Civil Service official who had served in the State. He wrote: “2,37,000 Muslims had been annihilated – all by the forces of the Dogra State, headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus , Sikhs & soldiers of Maharaja Patiala who had entered the state in the second week of October 1947. The survivors of that holocaust still scattered in this or other part of the state conservatively estimate the number of those killed close to five lac souls.

Hari Singh’s complicity was later fully exposed by the publication of Nehru’s letter of December 30, 1947, and the Sheikh’s letter of October 7, 1948, both addressed to Patel. (Sardar Patel’s Correspondence; volume 1, 1971, pages 135 and 237).
The Sheikh wrote: “There was enacted in every village and town through which he [Hari Singh] passed an orgy of arson, loot and murder of Muslims. In Jammu the killing of Muslims all over the province continued unabated for weeks under his very nose.”

It is baffling to  as to why action was not taken by Abdullah against the perpetrators of the heinous crime, a part of which took place during the period when he himself was the chief emergency administrator of the state. He writes in his autobiography “Aatish Chinar” that he intended to proceed against Maharaja & his cronies for war crimes & crimes against humanity but abandoned the idea later. Was it a result of coercive  pressure applied by Sardar Patel on Abdullah to imprison his close relative   accused of theft of valuable jewelry  In Maharaja of Indore’s(Known as Holkars) Palace where he was employed or a quid pro quo for a full fledged prime minstership as against a Dewan in Mysore type of Government or a combination of both is a matter of  seperate debate?

On the political side, It is interesting to note that when Abdullah Supported an accession with India in 1947, the Praja Parishad and its RSS brigade wanted an Independent J&K under Maharaj’s dispensation. In fact, on August 15, 1947, pro-Maharaja organization like Hindu Rajya Sabha, Praja Parishad and RSS hoisted Maharaja flags (state flags) in Jammu everywhere. They did not hoist Indian National Congress flags. And the banners said, Sovereign Independent Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan under Maharaja Hari Singh. That means the parties supporting Maharaja, particularly the Hindu Rajya Sabha headed by Pandit Prem Nath Dogra were favoring independent Jammu and Kashmir. Soon after accession, the Sangh Parivar came in its true color and foisted a communal identity on Jammu making  it a laboratory for experimentation of Hindutva policies which is continuing till date.

Post accession, transfer of power to Sheikh Abdullah created a huge resentment in Jammu as it was perceived a replacement of  “Hindu” Maharaja by  a “Muslim” leader. Even  Maharaja’s son, Karan Singh, lamented that “Dogra rule had in effect been replaced by Kashmiri rule”.(His interview to  Neville Maxwell of The Times (London) on 14^th November 1965 makes his disliking clear ) .This resentment gave a new lease of life to Praja Parishad which successfully spearheaded the “EK-Vidhan-EK Pradhan (in effect abolish article 370) agitation culminating in arrest of Prime Minster, Sheikh Mohd Abdullah in August 1953. It is the same group or outfit  which continuously beats the “Jammu discriminated” band and presents itself in various forms like “Amarnath Sangrash Samiti”,”Jammu State Morcha”,Jammu students Morcha etc. etc. at different points of time. The form  changes but the substance is same.
In October 1987, Jammu erupted in fury when Farooq Abdullah, at Rajiv Gandhi’s behest, ended the Darbar Move by which the government functioned alternately from Srinagar and Jammu every six months. Apparently it had  regional self-assertion tone but inwardly it was fiercely  communal. Again in August 2008, it was not Jammu but the communal forces there that took to the streets under a false regional garb. The issue of allotment of land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), a legacy of the former Governor S.K. Sinha’s communal agenda, was presented  nationally & internationally as an intolerant Kashmiri Muslim issue. But thanks to the untiring efforts of pro-freedom leaders of all hues, the impression did not gather ground in the rest of India or in international arena which could have spelt disaster for the movement.

It is, therefore imperative for all right thinking people  of J&K, Muslims particularly, to be vigilant against the nefarious designs of RSS & its tributaries like VHP etc and not  get provoked by the  venom  doled out by its sick minded parcharks  like Togodia  & Company.

(The author is a practicing chartered Accountant. Feed back at amzargar1@indiatimes.com)