It is an undeniable fad of history that it was India and not the ‘people of Kashmir or their chief supporter, Pakistan, that took up the issue of Kash­mir with the United Nations Security Council and sought its indulgence under Article 35 of the United Nations Charter.

The Security Council p­assed various resolutions, incl­uding the most important of them all, the one dated 21^st A­pril, 1948, which envisaged a solution of the issue of Kashmir by a free and impartial plebis­cite under UN auspices. India accepted the UN resolutions reluctantly, with the mental res­ervation that it would sabot-age them and not allow their imp­lementation because she was sure that the result of the plebiscite would be against her.

Pandit Nehru’s confide­ntial correspondence, which h­as been published from New Delhi by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund through the co­urtesy of the Oxford University Press only last year, reveals that Nehru wrote to Abdullah in reply to the latter’s letter that Kashmir would not vote in fav­our of India in the plebiscite, on 12^th January 1949. Thus only one week after the pass­age of second resolution of the UNCIP on 5^th January 1949, that he agreed with Abdullah that result of plebiscite in Kash­mir would not be favourable to India, and in due course India would have to back out from it but in order to keep the UN Security Council in good mood, it was imperative to pay lip ser­vice to the plebiscite scheme because running away from that so early would make India’ position challengeable. in the world.

But the UN resolutions on Kashmir are now hanging round the neck of India as Alb­atross, whom the Ancient Mar­iner the sailor in Coleridge’s p­oem of the same name has killed, but hung round his neck all the same. The UN resolut­ions will continue to haunt India till such time as India does not leave the Kashmiris to their fate and does not come out of Kas­hmir lock, stock and barrel.

It is obvious that the reference by India of the Kas­hmir case to the UN has boom­eranged. The latest self-defeat­ing action of India and her stoo­ges in Kashmir is the imprisonment without trial of the leaders of the APHC, including the aili­ng Chairman Sayed Ali Gilani, Muhammad Yasin Malik and many more, in the notorious jai­ls of Jodhpur in India and Ud­hampur in the Jammu region. Kashmiris have decided to face the Indian onslaught on every front and this is why they have challenged the detention by writ petitions in ‘the Srinagar High Court, which has admitted the petitions and sent notices to Farooq Abdullah, who said in a Press conference that these le­aders would remain in prison for at least three years, and to the Indian and IHK agencies to show cause why the APHC lea­ders have been detained with­out legal action.

Back in the 1950s, a si­milar case was launched agai­nst Sheikh Abdullah by the Ind­ian and Kashmir regime, when he was not seeing eye to eye with India. The case continued in the court of sessions Judge of Srinagar and Abdullah was charged for having conspired with Pakistan to subvert the oc­cupied Kashmir regime (of Bak­hshi Ghulam) and making it p­art of Pakistan and all that. The case went on for several years but, after that, it was withdra­wn unconditionally. In his defe­nce, Abdullah and other accus­ed like Mirza Afzal Beg, who had formed the Plebiscite Fro­nt, argued that their only crime was that they wanted impleme­ntation of the resolution under UN in Kashmir, which internat­ional decision had been taken at the instance of the Indian government by the UNSC. Sta­tements and speeches of Ne­hru, not less than two dozen in number, saying that Kashmir’s fate could be decided by the Kashmiris only in a UN supe­rvised plebiscite were produced by Abdullah and Ben and the other accused Kashmiris who­se number was more than a h­undred, in their defence.

They said that if the demand of plebiscite in Kash­mir was a crime, even Pandit Nehru was a culprit as it was his government, which referred the Kashmir case to the UN and initiated the resolution of plebiscite. They also quoted th­e reply of Lord Mountbatten, the last British GG to the Subcontinent, to Maharaja Han Singh’s letter to him, in October 1947, in which Mount-batten said that the issue of accession could finally be se­ttled only by a referendum of t­he people. This made India’s p­osition pretty awkward in the Srinagar Sessions Court and the proceedings were flashed t­he world over, making India’s position in Kashmir vulnerable and challengeable.

History is going to be repeated now with the writ peti­tions of the APHC detenues against the Indian and Kashmir regimes’ detentions order agai­nst them. This is most certain that like Sheikh Abdullah and Afzal Beg, and all the detenues of the Kashmir conspiracy case of the late 1950s, the APHC leaders’ counsels will also pile up all UN resolutions on Kas­hmir, the statements of Nehru and his ministers inside and outside the Parliament, in whi­ch they asserted that even if th­e result to the plebiscite would be against India, they would gl­adly abide by the verdict of the people of Kashmir. As such it would be India that would be the loser.

Very recently a refere­ndum was organised by the UN in East Timor on the issue of independence and 22 per cent people voted in favour of the island remaining with Indonesia and 78 per cent voted in favour of independence. In the elec­tions in Kashmir valley, 87 per cent people did not cast their votes while the Indian Election Commission claimed that 13 per cent votes had been cast. Most of these 13 per cent vo­tes, even according to Indian Press reports, were bogus. Th­us the position on the ground is that 87 per cent of the people of the Kashmir Valley, the most thickly populated area of Jammu and Kashmir which compr­ises three constituencies of the Indian Lok Sabha, have refu­sed to cast their votes as Ind­ians and they do not agree with the Indian claim that Kashmir is an integral part or utoot ang of India.

This is a simple case of arithmetic In Indonesia,. the de­cision of 78 per cent of the voters to separate East Timor from Indonesia over—ruled that of the 22 per cent. India herself supervised the pools in Kashm­ir, with the help of seven lac of her forces, but the result was a complete failure for India. Even in the remaining three constitu­encies the polling was less as compared to last year’s polling in the same constituencies.

It is generally said by observers of the political situati­on in Kashmir that the polling exercise of the 6 Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir has been a sort of referendum, which was organized by India herself, and which gave the net result that Kashmiris alienation from India is complete. The elections have been a farce and the anti-Indian leader and groups of Ka­shmir, under the banner of the APHC, and otherwise also , ha­ve proved that Kashmir is not a part of India like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal or Uttar Pradesh and the Indian Claim of Kash­mir being her utoot ang or inse­parable part, is a lie which has no legs to stand on.

The Writ petitions of the leaders of the APHC will br­ing into international limelight the original stand of India in Kashmir and the UNSC and U­NCIP decisions. There are a considerable number of Indian thinker, writers and observers, as also human rights obser­vers, who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Their stand of Kashmir is almost the same as that of the APHC leaders of Kashmir.

Law is after all law. It should be known to everybody that the former Chief Justice of Jammu Kashmir High Court of Judicature, Mr. Justice Bhau­ddin Farooquee, who formed t­he Jammu and Kashmir Hum­an Rights (Protection) Forum a decade ago, has already chal­lenged all the laws that have been promulgated in Kashmir by India with the connivance of the puppet Legislative Assem­bly of Kashmir, after the dismi­ssal of Sheikh Abdullah in Aug­ust 1973. He has pleaded in the High Court that all encro­achments on the autonomy of Kashmir are ultra vires of the Constitution of Jammu and Ka­shmir and even against Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.

This case of Kashmir versus India has been pending a judgement before the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir all these years. According to the last clause of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, only the Constituent Assembly of Kas­hmir, which has ceased to exit after 1957, could change the K­ashmir- India relation-ship. The Legislative Assembly has been used by the Indian government as a rubber stamp of curtail the autonomy of Kashmir during th­e past 46 years. The writ of Ju­stice Farooquee has been in the Srinagar High Court pen­ding judgement for the last decade. The detailed petition was reproduced some years a-go in a publication of the Kas­hmir Liberation Cell, Muzaffar­abad / Rawalpindi, in a book named Kashmir Holocaust

The best way for India to face the realities on the ground in Kashmir. It is merely political bankruptcy to argue that the UN resolutions on Ka­shmir are old and not wor­kable. There is no mention of any time limit in the UN resolution. The Charter of the UN is three years older than the Kashmir resolutions, but nobody ever said that the UN Charter be relegated to the du­stbin because it is 54 years old. Indians should know the old saying that old is gold. The UN resolutions on Kashmir are still workable . A fitting example of the people deciding the future of an area was provided only last month by the referendum in East Timor.

What is good for East Timor is not bad for Kashmir. Indian leaders should sum up courage and abide by the com­mitments of the founders of in­dependent India regarding Kas­hmir. That is the only way out. They should also forget that a­nybody in Pakistan or Kashmir will abandon the struggle of Ka­shmir. Kashmiris are like the sword in the hands of destiny. lqbal has rightly said about Ka­shmir. Zarbate Paihum say ho jata hai aakhar paash paash/ Haakimiyat ka butey sangeen dil-o-aaeena roo ( By constant hammering, ultimately the ston­e-hearted and mirror- shaped dol of imperialism is broken to pieces).