From: jmukherj@athena.mit.edu (Jaideep Mukherjee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Kashmir Accession (was:Re: Kashmir:some questions?)
Date: 14 Apr 92 02:21:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Apr14.022159.18257
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <1992Apr13.214937.15357@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
gauri@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Gauri Pavate) writes:
>jmukherj@athena.mit.edu (Jaideep Mukherjee) writes:

>>  ".... it is my government's wish that as soon as law and order
>>have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader,
>>the question of the State's accession should be settled by a 
>>reference to the people".
>
>>  This was in a personal letter to Hari Singh on 27th Oct., 1947.
>>Surprisingly in the formal acceptance of the accession on the same
>>day, there is no mention of this. The principle of self-determination

	
>	The above quote of Mountbatten is infact from his formal
>acceptance letter (and not from a personal letter) to Hari Singh.
>The relevant portion of the letter is as follows:

[more complete quotes from the same letter deleted]

 The letter in question was indeed a very crucial document insofar
as it specifically mentions that the accession question should
be referred to the people. However I stand by original claim,
namely, that there were two documents pertaining to the Accession
that were signed by Mountbatten on 27th Oct. 1947 and that what
I have quoted from above is not the *formal acceptance document* but
a personal letter. There are two sources that appear to corroborate
this claim: Alastair Lamb, Crisis in Kashmir: 1947 to 1966 and
H.S. Gururaj Rao, Legal Aspects of the Kashmir Problem.

Quote from Lamb

"The Indian acceptance of the Maharaja's accession, which was
signed on 27 October, took the shape of two documents. One was
a formal statement by Mountbatten, the Governor General, that 
'I hereby accept this Instrument of Accession', which the Maharaja
had sent by way of V.P. Menon. The second was a personal letter 
from Mountbatten in reply to a letter from the Maharaja..".

 He then presents the text of the *personal letter* that I have
quoted from above.

The fact that the letter and the formal acceptance were indeed 
distinct types of documents can be verified by looking at
Appendices 12 and 13 in Rao's book.

 Appendix 12 contains two items:
1. Letter of 26 October 1947 from Maharajah Sir Hari Singh to
   Lord Mountbatten, requesting the accession of the State to
   India.
2. Reply of 27 October, 1947, from Lord Mountbatten to Maharaja
   Sir Hari Singh.

 Appendix 13 contains three items:
1. Instrument of Accession of Jammu and Kashmir State (signed
   by Hari Singh)
2. Acceptance of Instrument of Accession of Jammu and Kashmir
   State by the Governor-General of India.
 (It states)
  "I do hereby accept this Instrument of Accession",
   Dated this twenty-seventh day of October, nineteen hundred
   and forty-seven.
                     (Sd.) Mountbatten of Burma
                     Governor-General of India.

3. Schedule: The matters with respect to which the Dominion
   Legislature may make laws for this state.


>	The point to note above is that the Government of India
>acknowledged that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir (a) took
>place under exceptional circumstances, and (b) was disputed.  It
>is also acknowledged that the govt. policy in the case of a
>disputed accession would be to have a plebiscite of some sort
>to settle the issue.


 Here again, I would settle for an expert's opinion rather than
my own. What H.S. Gururaj Rao has to say about this differs
from your perspective as stated above.

Quote from Rao (p.40):

"... despite the risk of repetition it is necessary to point
out that *legally* India was under no obligation to make any
such declaration to ascertain the wishes of the people of
Kashmir regarding accession. It was a *political* declaration
and is not clothed in any legality. However, *at no time*, the
Government of India has declared that the *legal requirements*
for accession of Kashmir to India was not complete".


>	From what I have been able to gather, a disputed accession
>meant a case where the ruler of a State did not belong to the
>community to which the majority of his subjects belonged, and where
>the State did not accede to the country whose majority was the
>same as the State's.  From this point of view, the accession of
>Hyderabad and Junagarh to India were not disputed cases, since
>they acceeded to a country whose majority community was the same
>as the State's.

 It would be helpful if you could either post or let me know by
email, how you arrived at this definition of "disputed accession".

>					Gauri.


Jaideep
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian