This lecture by S Raghavan on Article 370 is not only intellectually dishonest but also a very selective reading of history. Actually his argument is straight out of AG Noorani’s tendentious exegeses published in Pakistani newspapers & in his books.
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Whole lecture is about ‘state of Kashmir’. Extremely unsettling when a scholar distorts facts. Kashmir is not a state. Jammu & Kashmir is a state. Kashmir was not a princely state, Jammu & Kashmir (including Ladakh) was. Kashmir did not accede to India; Jammu & Kashmir did. 2/n
J&K acceded to India using same instrument of accession (introduced by British in 1935) as other princely states but this lecture pretends as if only “Kashmir” acceded on special terms. Why did other princely states merge with India completely but Kashmir became a problem? 3/n
Also, none of the Noorani school of scholars are able to answer why Hari Singh of J&K was less of a legitimate authority than rulers of other princely states? Were rulers of other princely states far more secular, democratic, progressive & just rulers? 4/n
Was Nizam of Hyderabad kinder & better as an administrator than Hari Singh? Why was Sheikh Abdullah, (popular leader of Kashmir valley but unelected & untested on any constitutional floor) more legitimate than the Dogra ruler who administrated Ladakh & Jammu as well? 5/n
Crux of this lecture is fundamentally this—Two Nation Theory is correct; Hindus & Muslims can’t coexist as equals; Muslims need same guarantees & special provisions that Jinnah sought; Kashmir, a Muslim majority valley, must dictate terms of relationship of J&K with New Delhi 6/n
If Kashmiri Muslims are not given special status in the union of India (which is Hindu dominated), they are justified to seek autonomy (the best alternative to partition) for the whole state of J&K. 7/n
The biggest problem with this line of thinking is that it completely ignores the fundamentals on which Nehru & Jinnah disagreed, leading to the Partition of India. 8/n
India’s founding fathers envisaged a union with equality for everyone; Jinnah wanted a loose federation with special status for Muslims. In Nehru’s India, there is no scope for creating constitutional islands on religious lines. N/n
The biggest claim S Raghavan makes in his lecture is that militancy in Kashmir is a result of the erosion of Article 370. He offers no evidence. Correlation is not causality. The fact is those who led insurgency in Kashmir, were not believers of Article 370 to begin with. N1/n
JKLF, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, AGH, & other terror groups are not believers & proponents of Article 370. They have never been & they never will be. They have sought either clean separation from India or accession with Pakistan & Islamic Ummah. N2/n
More importantly, Raghavan fails to recognize that its Kashmiri Muslims themselves who allowed for erosion of Article 370, who fight insurgency, who have been killed for standing up for India in Kashmir. He tries to blur the line between heterogenous views & positions in Kashmir.
