Congress attacks Arundhati over Kashmir remark
Submitted by kamran on 20 August 2008 - 9:25am.
By IANS,
New Delhi : Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy who had issued a statement advocating freedom for Kashmir was a "loose cannon" who had "abused the liberal traditions of India", the Congress said Wednesday.
"She (Roy) is a loose cannon who has abused liberal traditions of India to its fullest," said Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari.
"It is a great tribute to the tolerance of India's ethos that a person who openly calls for Balkanization of country is not being locked up and the keys are not being thrown away," Tiwari told IANS.
The author and rights activist had said Monday after participating in a rally to the UN office in Srinagar: "The reaction of the people in Kashmir is actually a referendum. People don't need anyone to represent them; they are representing themselves. India needs freedom from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs freedom from India."
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Kashmir
Arundhati Roy is a rare commodity in Indian politics.
She talks about the 1947 History of Kashmir. It is impossible to deny the historical fact that it was India which took the case of Kashmir to UNO in 1948, and it was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ( the Kashmir born leader)who promised referendum on the kashmir Issue.
The British administered India by two systems. One was Provinces which were administered regions under complete British control and the other was princely states, which were ruled by local Indian rulers subjected to the British. When the British gave India and Pakistan independence, the provinces were handed over to the respective governments and it was agreed that the princely states could join India or Pakistan according to two principles. The ruler's will and the people's will.
Three princely states which were within India's borders refused to join India. One of them was Junagad. Junagad, in the present day Gujarat, was a small princely state whose ruler was a Muslim and he opted for Pakistan but the residents of his state were mostly Hindus and they opted for India. After some riots which occurred in Junagad the ruler emigrated or exiled to Pakistan and thus Junagad was included in India.
Two other two states wanted to declare independence. One was Hyderabad in south India and Kashmir in north India. Both these states were big princely states, about the size of England. The rulers of these states claimed that with the end of British rule in India, ended also the agreements these ruling families had with the British and therefore were independent. Hyderabad's ruling family was Muslim, but the majority of its residents were Hindus and they wanted to join India. After some riots in Hyderabad and the request from these people to the Indian government to join India, the Indian government acting according to the principle of 'people's will' sent its army to Hyderabad to include it in India.
If we go by the above rule, Kashmir had a Hindu ruler but a majority Muslim population. so by the socalled people's will, the people should decide their future: to join India, Pakistan or remain independent. But big powers do not follow the moral principles in politics. In the interest of Indian Muslims, it is better if Kashmir remains part of India. Ms Roy talks pure ethics that is difficult to digest by present day politicians.
Fatimahkodi.
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