Kashmir’s Accession to India is conditional

India has always claimed that the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India is absolute and legally unconditional, while the letters exchanged between India’s Governor-General Lord Mountbatten and the State’s Maharaja Hari Singh constitute a political Commitment. A document recently unearthed from the National Achieves of India puts things in perspective. Section 8 (2) of the Indian Independence Act, 1947 empowered the Governors-General of India and Pakistan to make orders to adapt the Government of India Act 1935 to serve as their interim constitution until their respective Constituent Assembly framed their Constitutions.

Zubin Mehta concert exposed India

For Zubin Mehta it was the realization of a dream. For the German ambassador in India, Michael Steiner, it was the fulfillment of a promise to an internationally renowned conductor. For the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, it was a reassertion of the brute strength of the state.

Everybody seems to have had a stake in the first-ever international musical concert in the Kashmir Valley, held September 7, except the people of the region. The world-renowned conductor wanted to bring a message of peace and harmony to local Kashmiris, but instead ended up grating on the raw nerves of those who are still not reconciled to the loss of hundreds of loved ones during the decades of conflict in India’s northernmost state.

Bijbehara Massacre (22 October 1993)

It had been a week since the Dargath Hazratbal was placed under siege by the army on October 15, 1993 to flush out a group of JKLF militants, who had taken shelter inside the shrine complex. The siege caused widespread anger across Kashmir which would find expression in the form of protest demonstrations.

On October 22, after Friday prayers, around 15,000 people gathered in the court yard of the local Jamia Masjid Bijbehara to register their protest against the siege. A procession then started marching through various streets shouting slogans for the ending of the Hazratbal siege and in support of Kashmir’s freedom.