Asserting forcefully and passionately that the people of Jammu and Kashmir, including areas under Pakistani occupation, want to be with India, Union Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Thursday said those who wanted “azadi'' were unaware of the consequences of this demand.
Intervening in a debate in the Lok Sabha on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the State would share the fate of Afghanistan, where the diktat of the Taliban runs now, if it became independent.
“Most Kashmiris want to find a solution to the problems within India. We want to find a solution to the problem within India and not in Pakistan, China or in America,'' he said.
“We want the Jammu and Kashmir of Hari Singh that had acceded to India and included the PoK, some parts of which are now with China,” he said, adding that it seemed that India had given up on these areas.
“India should make it abundantly clear to Pakistan that “enough is enough'' and that the PoK is our territory,'' he said. “No one knows what is happening in these areas across the boundary and neither is the media writing about it.''
“Hindustan is in our hearts and there is no machine available today that can open our hearts and show our sentiments are with Hindustan,” Dr. Abdullah said.
Appealing passionately to “win the hearts and minds'' of the Kashmiris, Dr. Abdullah said Kashmir was not a simple problem and it should not be made to look simple either. Kashmir is not with India because of military power but chose to be with it because of the policies and ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he said, evoking a thunderous applause from the members.
Pointing to the BJP benches, he said, “Dil pe raj karna hai, zameen pe nahi (you have to rule the hearts of the people, not the land).”
He referred to the autonomy resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2000 when he was the Chief Minister and said without the autonomy of all States, India would not have a truly federal structure. All States will make a similar demand for more autonomy in the years to come, he added.
Taking on the Congress, he said he had raised the issue of central grants with then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, when V.P. Singh was Finance Minister and Manmohan Singh was Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission.
But his demand for 90 per cent grants and 10 per cent loan from the central funds were rejected by V.P. Singh, which was conveyed to him, the then Chief Minister added.
On another occasion when A.B. Vajpayee was the Prime Minister, Dr. Abdullah said he had submitted a note on autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir to the Cabinet, but it was not considered, even though most of the Ministers had not read it at all.
“Let us have a dialogue, only then will we have a better India. You will never make a better India if you do not win the hearts and minds of the people,” he added.
Dr. Abdullah's party colleague Mirza Mehboob Beg said the “autonomy” for Jammu and Kashmir was part of the instrument of accession signed between Maharaja Hari Singh and the Government of India and it was something to be “restored” and not granted to the State.
