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'Secession of Kashmir will benefit India'

By STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, May 16 - Senior journalist and president of Journalists� Association of Assam (JAA) DN Chakravartty today said that India should wash her hands off Kashmir Valley and allow India baiter Kashmiri Muslims to take a decision on their own destiny.

In the course of a discussion in State Study Circle today, Chakravartty said that while the Hindu-majority Hyderabad was not allowed to accede to Pakistan despite an option to that effect by the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was for merging with Pakistan, India forcibly occupied Kashmir on the basis of an option by the Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir, notwithstanding opposition from the majority Muslim populace.

Referring to the genesis of partition of India on the basis of religion, Chakravartty said that the original concept of Indian Muslim League�s Pakistan was to embrace Sind, North Western Frontier Province, Baluchistan, the whole of Punjab, the whole Bengal, and whole of Assam, but �because of the brilliant intervention by Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, Sarat Chandra Bose and Hindu and Sikh leaders of Punjab, half of these two provinces were retained in India from the clutches of Pakistan and Assam was saved from doom because of the great leadership of Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi and the blessings of Gandhiji.�

A major part of Sylhet district went to Pakistan following plebiscite where the overwhelming majority of Muslims of Sylhet opted for Pakistan.

Chakravartty said that ever since the merger of Kashmir with India, the political leaders, the Army and the people of Pakistan had been harbouring perpetual hostility against India for non-fulfilment of their dreams of a full Pakistan.

�Since our country has been wasting colossal amounts of money, doling out developmental funds to Kashmir (the highest amount of funds in the country), even then majority of the Kashmiri people have not kept it a secret of their loyalty to Pakistan. Over 90 per cent of educated persons and over 98 per cent youths of Kashmir are thoroughly anti-India.�

Chakravartty added that struggling to retain Kashmir with the help of the vast Indian Army against the will of the vast majority of Kashmiris, and getting engaged in a series of wars and border clashes with Pakistan meant little sense. He said that secession of Kashmir Valley from India would not leave any scope for Pakistan to raise a finger against India and both the countries would be able to devote more attention to development than wasting billions in Indo-Pak wars.

He suggested that Ladakh and Jammu divisions should be separated and given Union Territory (UT) status, thus resolving the 68-year-old Kashmir problem.

Chakravartty recollected his discussion with the late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed when he was the Finance Minister of Assam and Chakravartty was the Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations, and said that Ahmed held the view that plebiscite could be held for determining the future of Kashmir but in the event of Kashmir opting for Pakistan, consequences would be disastrous for the Muslims living in the rest of India.

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