Kashmir Legal Documents

Before concluding, we must dispel another myth popularized by those who question the existence of J&K IoA. Its origin seems to be based on the attribution attributed to Professor Lamb. [22] While he did write that the signed copy of the IoA was never attached to the government`s 1948 J&K White Paper, or was never included in the documents the Indian government sent to the UN Security Council that year, this discrepancy can also be explained in simple terms. It should be remembered that in the late 1940s and 1950s, photocopies and mimeography were not available in India. Thus, perhaps the government has attached only a copy of the draft law of the Io commonly used to ensure the adherence of the 140 princely states to these documents. I have already shown that the text of the IoA models has been retyped to put them in front of the CA-L. Of course, the government could have foreseen its future harsh and often abusive criticism and included photos of the signed copy of the J&K IoA in all these documents. It was in his power to do so. It is not for me to explain why she decided not to.

This statement should come from the Indian government. Pakistan`s proposed decision to illegally annex Gilgit Baltistan, change the basis of the current Jammu and Kashmir issue and cement China`s involvement in the dispute is a response to concerns expressed by Beijing. China considers it internationally indefensible to invest billions of dollars in a road that runs through disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan. If Pakistan imposes its sovereign control over Gilgit Baltistan, India has the political and moral right to fully integrate Jammu and Kashmir into India and to remove Article 370 of its constitution, which grants Jammu and Kashmir a special status. Any solution to the long-standing problem of Jammu and Kashmir is only jeopardized by such events. Lord Mountbatten, then Governor-General, wrote to the Maharaja after signing the instrument of accession that he wished to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir as soon as he was liberated from the invader. Although this declaration proved to be the most controversial element of Jammu and Kashmir`s accession to India, it should be noted that this «letter» is not legally part of the instrument of accession. From a legal point of view, it does not affect the legality of the instrument of accession. The Indian Independence Act does not provide for conditional accession, as that would not be its parliamentary policy, and confirms that the instrument of accession legally and constitutionally binds the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India. Although some emotional, sentimental, cultural, ethnic and religious dimensions can be discussed, this article aims to examine the issue of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from a purely legal perspective.

Article 257 of the Constitution of Pakistan is a provision relating to Jammu and Kashmir administered by Pakistan; «If (and after) the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir decide to join Pakistan, their relations with Pakistan will be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of the state. This provision is contrary to the Jammu and Kashmir Azad Interim Constitutional Act 1974, which clearly states that anyone who disseminates an opinion or action in a manner that harms Pakistan`s ideology will be disqualified. Pakistan`s constitution only recognizes political parties that remain loyal to Pakistan, unlike India. The Indian government recognizes all «pro-freedom» parties (including those that call for secession from India or Pakistan). In addition, the rule of the subject of state in Gilgit Baltistan was repealed in 1974, which legally allowed Pakistan to alter the socio-economic demographics, affecting the local culture of the territory. Pakistan has repeatedly questioned the legal status of the instrument of accession, claiming that Maharaja Hari Singh has no legal authority to decide on matters affecting his state, as his power has already been usurped by popular uprisings. Despite some minor revolts, the state was still under the rule of its Maharajah, and under international law, the new government of Jammu and Kashmir had not yet acquired statehood, as it did not meet the conditions of a sovereign government with the power to deal with external affairs. Under international law, a dictated treaty is legally as valid as a treaty freely concluded on both sides, confirming that the Maharaja is the competent legal authority for the execution of the instrument of accession.

[9] With all due respect to Prof. It must be said to Lamb that the parallel he drew in 1991 between the model on which the J&K IoA was drawn and an application for a driver`s license is inappropriate for several reasons (see F.N. #4 above). First, the integration of the princely states into the Dominion could not permit a variety of arrangements, if integration was achieved. The process by which the joint text of the IoA bill was drafted by the newly created Ministry of State under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the direction of his Secretary Shri V. P. Menon is documented in Chapter V of its well-known publication: The History of the Integration of the Indian States, Longmans Green & Co. London, 1956, pp. 67ff. Second, practicality, based on common sense, dictated the need to print a common template for IoA to be used to ensure the adherence of all major princely states, rather than having to retype each document.

This would have required at least 280 documents, or 140 sets of 2 documents each – one copy for the leader who signed the IoAs and another for the Dominion government. Given the critical period, I think this would have been a heavy course of action that would have resulted in delays that the country could not afford. In a letter to Maharaja Hari Singh dated 27. In October 1947, the then Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten, accepted accession with a remark: «My Government wishes that as soon as law and order is restored in Jammu and Kashmir and its soil is cleansed of the invader, the question of statehood will be settled by reference to the people. [5] Lord Mountbatten`s remark and the Indian government`s offer to hold a referendum or referendum to determine the future status of Kashmir led to a dispute between India and Pakistan over the legality of Jammu and Kashmir`s accession to India. [6] [7] India claims that membership is unconditional and definitive, while Pakistan claims that membership is fraudulent. [8] The instrument of accession is a legal document signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 October 1947, thus agreeing to join the Indian Union. As a result, with the signing of the instrument of accession, the first war between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir took place from 1947 to 1948. In 1948, Indian forces managed to thwart the Pakistani attack and were ready to invade Mirpur and Muzaffarabad (now under Pakistani administration). On the night of January 1, 1948, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called in his troops and declared a formal ceasefire when he took the matter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

At the end of the war, India was able to rid the regions of the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh of the invading forces. [14] Although I requested copies of the IoAs signed by the leaders of 16 princely states in my ITR application to the MHA, the reproduction fee charged by the National Archives (Rs 20 per page) to provide IOA photos forced me to limit them to five. So I decided to take one IoA from each part of India – East, West, North and South – as representative samples. If I had had a nice scholarship to work full-time on this task, I might have gotten scanned images of all the IoAs signed by the leaders in India. The National Archives also provides photocopies of these documents. Since monochrome copies do not satisfactorily reproduce the appearance of the original documents, I decided to obtain color images for publication in this article. As can be seen from the documents published here, the leaders of Mysore, Tehri Garhwal, Manipur and Udaipur, did not sign the status quo agreements attached to IoAs, and Lord Mountbatten did not add his signature. In all these cases, the standstill agreements were signed by the subordinates of the leaders. In the case of Mysore, the status quo agreement was signed by the Dewan (Prime Minister) of Mysore, in the case of Manipur, it was signed by the private secretary of the Maharaja, in the case of Tehri Garhwal, it was signed by the Chief Secretary of State, and in the case of Udaipur by the acting Prime Minister of the time. For legal reasons, the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India completely excludes Pakistan, which manifests itself as the self-proclaimed protector of the rights of the people of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, while illegally administering nearly half of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (Gilgit Baltistan and Pakistan administered by Jammu and Kashmir). The current situation of mistrust and fundamentalism is unlikely to change without structured and genuine dialogue at the diplomatic level.