After the Indian Supreme Court by a unanimous verdict upheld the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, Mohammad Abdullah, Member of the Rajya Sabha ( the upper House of the Indian Parliament ), who belongs to the DMK party of Tamilnadu, raised a controversy in the House while participating in the debate on the J&K Reorganisation ( Amendment ) Bill and the J&K Reservation ( Amendment ) Bill.
Mr Abdullah, in his speech quoted social activist EV Ramasamy ( Periyar ) who said that ” every race has a right of self determination”, and according to Mr Abdullah this right of self determination belongs to Kashmiris too.
This was immediately objected to by the Chairman of the House Mr Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Ministers of the ruling BJP also strongly objected to the statement.
The Congress party MPs, too, dissociated themselves from Mr Abdullah’s statement.
The right of self determination belongs to a nation, not constituent parts of a nation. For instance, India is a nation having several constituent people e.g. Bengalis, Tamilians, Punjabis, Odias, Nagas, UPites, Biharis, Rajasthanis, Gujratis, Kashmiris, etc. The principle of federalism, which is incorporated in the Indian Constitution, really means catering to the regional aspirations of these constituent people ( by granting them a state legislative assembly, state government, etc ). But to say that these constituent people have a right of self determination would mean that they have the right to secede from the Indian Union. This cannot be accepted, as that would lead to the Balkanisation and break up of India.
In America the southern Confederate states claimed the right to secede, and so a civil war, from 1861 to 1865, had to be fought to establish the principle that no state can secede from the Union. In fact no nation can survive if its constituent people are given the right of self determination.
So the statement of Periyar, quoted by Mr Abdullah, was rightly condemned by the Chairman and several members of the House.
In fact Periyar was a British agent serving the British policy of divide and rule, and he was opposed to Indian independence ( he called 15th August 1947 a day of mourning ) , as pointed out in the articles below :
Kashmir was independent only till 1588 when its last independent ruler Yusuf Shah Chak was deposed by Mughal Emperor Akbar, who conquered Kashmir and incorporated it into the Mughal Empire. After short spells of Afghan, Sikh and Dogra rule, Kashmir ultimately came under British rule as a princely state ( with a Maharaja as its formal head ). So those who say that Kashmir was always independent have not read history.
