IT was on Oct 26, 1947, that India signed the illegal Instrument of Accession with Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh against the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been the bone of contention between Pakistan and India ever since. The revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution on Aug 5, 2019, was a consequence of that illegality in 1947.

There are many aspects that strengthen the stance of Pakistan on occupied Kashmir.

According to the June 3 Plan, it was decided that 564 princely states could either go to Pakistan or accede to India. But India annexed Junagadh and Hyderabad by violating the basic principles of the plan. The Instrument of Accession was given provisional acceptance.

Likewise, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru made many speeches wherein he stated that the Kashmir dispute would be resolved according to the will of people. These speeches on different occasions proved that Kashmir had been annexed against the wishes of the people.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has passed a litany of resolutions on the status of Jammu and Kashmir, and the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) has passed its own resolutions on the basis of which Pakistan rightly rejects India’s claim about Kashmir being its internal matter.

The action of Aug 5, 2019, was also in utter violation of the original Instrument of Accession that had declared that the state could not be compelled to accept any future constitution enacted by India.

But India has deprived the Kashmiris of their right to self-determination, which is also mentioned in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR).

All this reinforces the justified stance of Pakistan on the disputed status of occupied Kashmir issue.

Anwar Uddin
Ranipur

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2021