National Security Doctrine for Global Reach continues...

The Act read with the 1935 British India Constitution then in force, also provided that if any of the sovereigns thus empowered, chose to sign an Instrument of Accession in favour of India or Pakistan, such kingdom would be permanently merged into that country, as notified in the Instrument. There was no provision in the Act for revocation or review of the Instrument of Accession thus signed, or for the wishes of the people of any kingdom to be ascertained. That is the legal position on which modern India and Pakistan are founded.

On October 26, 1947, the Maharaja of Kashmir faced with invading irregulars, supported by the Pakistan Army, signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of India. Thus, in strictly legal terms, by virtue of the Act, the whole of Kashmir became irreversibly an inalienable part of India. Interestingly, because of this legal fact, when the matter had come before the UN the US government (judged by the declassified dispatches of the Department of State) held that India had “an iron clad legal right” to Kashmir. US delegate Mr. John Foster Dulles [as he was before becoming Secretary of State], in the UNCIP Conference in Paris in 1949 had sent dispatches to the US State Department to that effect.

The Constitution of India, moreover, does not provide for ceding any Indian territory under any circumstances. Merger into India hence is a ‘one-way ticket’. Therefore by the Indian Independence Act, 1947 (from which the new nation of Pakistan draws its own legitimacy) and the Indian Constitution, once the Instrument of Accession was signed by the Maharaja of Kashmir in favour of India, there remained no legal claim of any other nation or peoples, to any part of Kashmir. In this, legally speaking, even the people of Kashmir have no voice in this merger with India. There is, therefore constitutionally speaking no scope for holding a plebiscite.

to be continued....

( This account is maintained by Har Anand Publication)