Azadi

The settlement at Jammu that there would be no transfer of land and that the pilgrims would only use the government-built facilities, pre-fabricated huts, etc., for three months has nothing in it to which the people in the valley could object. Yet the original handling of the land issue has aroused misgivings in the valley.

Unfortunately, most political parties in the valley have rejected the settlement. They could have begun a new chapter in good relations by welcoming it. In this way, the valley might have spanned the distance with Jammu, without which the state of Kashmir is incomplete. After living hundreds of years together, the two cannot go apart. Their equation has been an example for the rest of India.

I recall that at one meeting where I mentioned only Kashmir when discussing the state, Syed Shah Gillani corrected me that it was Jammu and Kashmir. Today he favours Kashmir for Islam. Religion does not provide the sinews for the country's integrity. Bangladesh had to liberate itself from the Islamic Pakistan when the former felt exploited. That both avowed the same religion could not ward off the break-up.

The problem with those who are today in the limelight in the valley is that they have allowed their secular movement to be hijacked by those who talk in terms of religion alone. Only a secular valley can impress the other parts of the country, not an Islamic state of Kashmir. Looking back, I feel that if Pakistan had been patient after its formation on August 14, 1947, the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir would have fallen in its lap. It could not have survived independently, land-locked as it is. The pressure of population - the majority was Muslim - would have made it join Pakistan. But the latter messed up things.

After the lapse of British rule the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir did not join either India or Pakistan and preferred to stay independent. It wanted to enter into a standstill agreement with both the countries. Pakistan agreed to it. But India did not since Sheikh Abdullah, the popular Kashmiri leader, was for the rule of people.