Reacting to the Congress accusation that ‘some Bhartiya Janata Party leaders
are resorting to distortions of history to mislead the present generations with a
view to malign Congress leaders who were responsible for the princely state of
J&K to opt for secular India’, Brig Veteran Anil Gupta Spokesperson of the party
quoted former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rums field, “As we know there
are known knowns. There are things we know. We also know there are known
unknowns.” The people deserve to know the known unknowns as well which
the Congress has tried to suppress and hide from them through manipulated
text books and narratives to suit them. Congress has deliberately sold a
narrative to promote the belief that the accession of J&K took place only due
to the efforts of Nehru and Sheikh underplaying the patriotism and love for
India of its Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh. 
Congress spokesperson has claimed that at least ten years before the
Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession many Congress leaders had
begun the efforts to ensure the accession of Muslim majority state with India
and defeat the designs of Jinnah. He probably in his enthusiasm to belittle BJP
leaders forgot that Lahore Declaration with Jinnah as one of the signatories
calling for a separate Muslim state Pakistan was signed only in 1940, stated
Brig Gupta. Maharaja Hari Singh had announced his love for India much earlier
at the Round Table Conference in London in 1931 in which Jinnah was also
present.
With this he earned the wrath of British and an unsavory saga of conspiracies
unfolded against him upon his return to the state. His statement, “I am an
Indian first and then a Maharaja” sent shivers across the British rulers who
tasked a British Mr. Weikfield, Maharaja’s Prime Minister to weaken the
Maharaja. Weikfield then chose Sheikh Abdullah and coaxed him to create a
Hindu-Muslim divide to weaken the Maharaja. The role thereafter played by
the Sheikh and his bonhomie with Nehru is well documented except for the
known unknown fact of his treachery against the Maharaja. Maharaja Hari
Singh who ensured that the state of Jammu and Kashmir became a legal and
constitutional part of India remains the most understood and wronged ruler as
a result of personal politics and machinations of Sheikh and Nehru, rued Brig
Gupta.
Another known unknown fact which is deliberately suppressed is the offer of
Maharaja to accede to India much before 26th October. But it was the
insistence of Nehru that reigns of the state should be handed over to Sheikh
first which did not allow the accession earlier. Even after the exit of Maharaja
when Sheikh started showing his tendency of exclusion and reluctance of
complete integration with India, the agitation launched by pro-Indian
nationalists of Jammu was condemned by Nehru as communal which
emboldened the Sheikh to commit atrocities on the Dogra’s of Jammu
protesting, under the banner of Praja Parishad, against his authoritarian rule
and anti-national utterances, asserted Brig Gupta. Sheikh was later arrested for
anti-national activities.
Thereafter, governments were installed and scrapped at the pleasure of the
Congress leaders sitting in Delhi. The masterstroke was the merger of National
Conference with Congress in 1965. It was superseded ten years later in 1975
when Mir Qasim was divested of his portfolio of CM and Sheikh Abdullah was
brought back by the same Congress party stated Brig Gupta.
“Through disclosure of the few of known unknown facts I leave it to the people
particularly the present generations to decide for themselves who is
responsible for the distortion of history”, appealed Brig Gupta.
(Brig Veteran Anil Gupta)
Spokesperson
Bharatiya Janata Party, J&K
