The people in the vast regions of Ladakh and Jammu are very eager to come closer to the rest of the country and share its sorrows and happiness as members of the same family. These regions are neither involved in present terrorism in the vlley nor hve they any consideration for the sinister objectives of the separatists. Indeed they are vehemently opposed to it. These two regions have nevertheless their own aspirations, expectations, loyalties and, of course, problems and with that their understandable disappointments. Ladakh has been clamouring for being taken over as a Centrally-administered Union territory. In Jammu, the intensity of the feelings of the people for a complete unequivocal and unconditional accession to India is manifested in their pressing demand for freeing the accession from any conditions and artificial barriers such as Article 370 of Indian Constitution.
In my earlier book Unhappy Kashmir - The Hidden Story, while concluding the preface I had said: "An in-depth study of these hidden facts should enable the people in general and policy-makers in particular to learn from past blunders and act timely and decisively to prevent the looming national disaster". Has the purpse been served as I had wished? The present situation may be summed up in a Sanskrit phrase: Yadasthanam pradishtya bhayami. (We are exactly where we were). In fact, the situation has worsened. What happened in Bombay on Black Friday, March 12, 1993, will stay in India's history as a national shame. Nowhere in the world has any city suffered the misfortune of 13 powerful bomb blasts - all in a span of two hours or so. A massive building of critical importance to the country's prestige and economy went up or caved in like nine pins in the explosions of unparalleled destructive power arranged at regular intervals of time and space of a single day. A Friday in the Muslims' fasting month of Ramazan at mid-day time prayers when most of them were in mosques, safe from the dangers of war-scale bomb operations. It started from Ahmedabad, devastated Bombay and brought havoc in Calcutta. As the planning appears alphabetical, one has to keep one's finger crossed as to the fate of D.
These blasts were not a sudden development. In July, 1991, some anti- natinal elements had thrown a sophisticated plastique bomb on a house in Khalse village of coastal Maharashtra. The blast was so strong that it woke up villagers 7km away. The local police said arms spare parts and ammunition were smuggled along the coast and were assembled in an illegal jungle factory. Immediateldy afetrwards, Mr. A.R. Antulay, M.P. and a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra brought this incident to the notice of the Home Minister of India. There was neither response nor action. The tragedy of Black Friday has shown how incompetent, inefficient, impotent, indifferent, the Government of India has rendered itself.
Those who have been holdig sway in India since independence have their well-known techniques which include slandering authors whose factual account is inconvenient and ensure that facts are sunk down by chorus of denials. Truth alone lives has comeo to mean that what is allowed to live will automatically become the truth. Our ruling establishment as also dominating media men are having a fixed mindset in regard to Kashmir. Neither the ground reality nor any amount of genuine arguments affect this mindset even slightly. When Dr. Johnson was told that the doctrine of Bishop Berkley, that matter was non-existent and that everything in the Universe was merely ideal, was only ingenious sophistry but that it was impossible to refute it, Dr. Johnson with great alacrity answered striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone till he rebounded from it saying, I refute it thus.
Tragedy of Kashmir owes its origin to blunders of our leaders after independence. They unfotunately overlooked the sign posts and took wrong turns. That speeding prooved suicidical on mountain roads. But shelter was taken under banality, ambiguity, inanities and what is worse disinformation. Indian people have been fed on lies and illusions. Facts and situations about Kashmir have been twisted on the fond hope that tomorrow may be all right.
We Indians have a tendency to be carried away by the status of a person. Popular sentiment or our fear or respect for him/her plays havoc with our judgement and faculty for critical appreciation. As a people we lack sense of history and what passes for history is generally a mixture of myth-making and syncophancy. Our biographies are nothing more than eulogies. Leaders have to be blindly glorified and any reference to their lapses is considered to be in bad taste. In fact, so glaring is the national despair helplessness over the unending insurgency in Kashmir that any assessment which goes against the grain of conventional wisdom is brushed under the carpet. Faced with the collapse of a much trumped up experiment in secularism, the supine Indian intelligentia and political monopolists appear determined to pretend to be unembarassed. Unwilling to accept reality, the Indian political establishment has been paralysed.
There is utter confusion in Government in regard to this over-riding national problem. Commenting on dreadful blasts in Bombay and Calcutta in March, 1993, the Prime Minister Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao attributod these to an attempt by India's enemies to obstruct our economic reforms. The fact is the enemy is working to break India and not just disrupt economic activity. The bomb blasts are part of Pakistan's proxy war against India in Kashmir. Abraham Lincoln after his election as President of United States said: "I have been elected to fill an important office for a brief period am now in your eyes, invested with an influence which will soon pass away. But should my administration prove to be a wicked one or what is more probable, a very foolish one, if you the people are true to yourselves and the Constitution, there is but little harm I can do, thank God." These cautioning words of Lincoln to the people of America are appropriately and very pointedly applicable to the people of India more particularly at this critical juncture.
Editorials even front page ones, countless articles in the media and large number of books have spared no pains in justifying what has been done or not done and what has been happening in Kashmir. They have had their say in this country which guarantees freedom of speech to every one. It is time now that cold facts are allowed to speak for themselves. This book presents a new agenda for nation-wide action and may be taken as the Nation's own White Paper on Kashmnir. From the point of independence of thought and fearless presentation of facts, the book is not a partisan production. I have not been influenced by fears of wounding either individuls or classes. Those whom I may have offended must bear with me, in consideration of honesty and disinterestedness of my aim. I have written dispassionataly and without prejudice. I have not allowed dosire to dictate conclusion or hope to masquerade as judgement. My only purpose is to force attention of the indifferent and casual reader to the issues that are dealt with in the book. I would request the reader to set aside the irritation, if any, and concentrate his thought on tremendous issues discussed in the book. My aim is to stir up the average Indian, who is complacent if not somnolent, who is unsuspecting if not ill-informed, to realise what is happening. If any written word is not acceptable factully or otherwise, critics are free to launch a convincing rejoinder through the same print media. That is the tradition and ethos of this country. I have tried to break new ground. My approach is unconventional and unorthodox. And I leave the conclusions to the readers.
I feel pleasure in expressing my gratitude to the tri-lingual magazine, Koshur Samachar, Amar Colony, New Delhi-24, which has been a source of inspiration and information to me.
New Delhi Dinanath Raina August 1, 1993Back to Table of Contents