give speech on kashmir
Answers
ime Minister Narendra Modi, last week, commented that had Sardar Patel been in the driving seat, “entire Kashmir would have been ours”, has triggered a lot of discussion and debate. In this backdrop, the first public broadcast by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, is a major record for history. The broadcast offers details of Delhi’s official stand on 1947 events in J&K and the subsequent accession
I want to speak to you tonight about Kashmir, not about the beauty of that famous valley, but about the horror which it has had to face recently. We have passed through very critical days and the burden of taking vital and far-reaching decisions has fallen upon us. We have taken those decisions and I want to tell you about them.
The neighbouring Government, using language which is not the language of Governments or even of responsible people, has accused the Government of India of fraud in regard to the accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union. I cannot emulate that language nor have I any desire to do so, for I speak for a responsible Government and a responsible people. I agree that there has been fraud and violence in Kashmir but the question is: Who is responsible for it? Already considerable parts of the Jammu and Kashmir State have been overrun by raiders from outside, well-armed and well-equipped, and they have sacked and looted the towns and villages and put many of the inhabitants to the sword. Frightfulness suddenly descended upon this lovely and peaceful country’ and the beautiful city of Srinagar was on the verge of destruction.
I want to say at once that every step that we have taken in regard to Kashmir has been taken after the fullest thought and consideration of the consequences and I am convinced that what we have done was the right thing. Not to have taken those steps would have been a betrayal of a trust and cowardly submission to the law of the sword with its accompaniment of arson, rape and slaughter.
For some weeks past we had received reports of infiltration of raiding bands into the State territory of Jammu province, and also of a concentration of armed men near the border of Kashmir with the North-West Frontier Province. We were naturally concerned about this not only because of our close ties with Kashmir and her people but also because Kashmir is a frontier territory adjoining great nations and therefore we were bound to take an interest in the developments there. But we were anxious not to interfere and we took no step whatever to intervene even though a part of the Jammu province was overrun by these raiders.