JAMMU: On August 9, 1953, when Sheikh Abdullah was dethroned and arrested, his government dismissed and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed invited to form a new cabinet, Jammu and Kashmir had the unique experience of having two Prime Ministers for three hours.
A bunch of revealing letters written by Mridula Sarabhai during the summer of 1956, and addressed to Indian parliamentarians and the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, shed light on the ‘unceremonious’ ouster of the Sheikh and the tyranny imposed by his successor, Bakshi, thereafter.
The letters compiled as a book can be accessed here:
In one of these letters, written on July 9, 1956, she pointed out that when Sheikh Abdullah was served his dismissal order and arrested at 4.20 A.M., Bakshi had already been invited to form a new government at 1 A.M (more than three hours prior to the arrest).
The dismissal order from the Sadar-i-Riyasat, Dr Karan Singh, was sent to him at the time of his arrest. Among the documents that he received was the order dissolving the Sheikh cabinet and invitation to Bakshi to form a new one, Memorandum of cabinet ministers, cover letter and reply of Shyam Lal Saraf, Sheikh’s cabinet colleague who had been asked to resign on August 8, 1953 on charges of “mal-administration and corruption in the health services.”
“Kashmir thus had the unique experience of having two Prime Ministers for 3 hours,” she wrote.
Mridula Sarabhai’s Kashmir Connection
Sarabhai who played a major role in the Indian freedom movement as a Congress member and supervised the exchange and rehabilitation of women after the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, was disillusioned by the Congress after the Sheikh’s dismissal.
She was extremely critical of the role of the Indian government in encouraging the ‘undemocratic coup’ against Sheikh Abdullah which she believed was ‘arbitrary’ and done in a way that resembled ‘autocratic governments’. For consistently campaigning for the Sheikh, Sarabhai was briefly arrested in 1948 and lodged in Tihar jail.
Procedural Flaws
She wrote, “Democracy lays down a procedure for the removal of a Prime Minister. This was not done till about two months later when the Assembly was called upon to give their verdict of confidence.”
In her letter, she pointed out several procedural flaws in which the entire business of dismissing one government and legalizing another had been done between August 9 and October 5, 1953, when the vote of confidence in support of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was secured.
The vote of confidence, she maintained, had been secured by making the legislators targets of repression. A “number of M.L.A.s had been threatened” of “dire consequences” and those of dared to defy were prevented from attending the Assembly of “their votes secured through protective and benevolent custody” on October 5.
She pointed out that the official report of the day’s session was never published exposing the “bluff” of hiding the number of M.L.A.s who attended, those who abstained and those who were in detention. She also questioned whether any “hush-money” or other baits were offered and alleged that several members were “bought over at Rs 7000 a piece for their votes”.
Another anomaly, that she pointed out, was that while the vote of confidence was secured on October 5, the House was informed about the detention of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah and six other members – Mirza Mohd. Afzal Beg, Mubarak Shah, Hakim Habibullah, Mirza Ghulam Mohd. Beg, Ghulam Nabi Wani and Alla-ud-Din on October 6.
Curious case of Ghulam Nabi Wani
These detentions were announced by the then Speaker of the House, G.M. Sadiq, who later went on to become Jammu and Kashmir’s Prime Minister and Chief Minister. Interestingly when Sadiq informed the house about the detentions, the then Deputy Home Minister, D.P. Dhar submitted that the name of ‘Ghulam Nabi Wani’ be deleted from the list as he was present in the House.
Wani, who was one of the detainees, along with Sheikh Abdullah, was mysteriously sitting on the Treasury benches on October 6. It is not known whether he was one of the M.L.A.s present for the vote of confidence a day prior to that since no official record of the proceedings of the legislative assembly for October 5, 1953 exists.
‘A Farce and Victimisation’
Calling the exercise a farce, Mridula pointed out that the deposed Sheikh Abdullah had been denied the opportunity to represent his case before the vote of confidence. She questioned how a Prime Minister elected by the assembly was denied this chance and no mention was made during the proceedings of Sheikh’s request to the President of India, Prime Minister of India and the Speaker of the state legislative assembly.
She wrote, “With one or two sessions of the Assembly the people got convinced that the authorities had made it a subordinate organ of theirs. While on one side they were acclaiming it to the world that they were following a “democratic procedure”, on the other, the position of the Assembly had been made more or less like the House of Deputies in the Nazi regime….”
This letter also included instances of targeting the opposition, reduced to a few individuals, within the Assembly in the subsequent days and years. She mentions one incident of Ghulam Rasul Kar, Ghulam Ahmad of Poonch and Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Salar staging a walk-out as a protest against Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest and how within a few hours, they were forced to change their statements.
Mridula Sarabhai’s biographer Aparna Basu in ‘Mridula Sarabhai: A Rebel with a Cause’ also mentions the several reports Sarabhai wrote giving details of the tyranny that was being perpetrated through the disbanded ‘Peace Brigade’ that comprised “hirelings, previous convicts and known criminals”. Quoting Sarabhai, the book mentions, “it’s leader, Ghulam Qadir Gandarbali was the most notorious and brutal officer of the police force of J&K State.”
In yet another instance after Mirza Afzal Beg was briefly released in 1954, the Bakshi government feared that some members may cross the floor and join him (Beg) in the opposition. To scuttle any such possibility, it cracked down on M.L.A.s it thought would be vulnerable, Mridula’s letters pointed out.
A day before the session, the Bakshi government arrested Pandit Janki Nath Kakru, Mr Jeelani of Pampore was lifted physically by a minister in his car and taken to his Bungalow, Malim Ghulam Hassan was made to resign his seat in the Assembly in very “suspicious circumstances” and Peer Maqbul Yalgami of Handwara, who resigned in protest against government “high-handedness and repression” was arrested.
Mridula Sarabhai’s letter offers a detailed overview of the systemic and continued repression targeting the legislators. She mentioned the case of Ghulam Mohiuddin Hamdani – leader of the opposition party – who was “criminally assaulted and manhandled” by a member of the Home Guards.
She also noted that after Mirza Beg was released on November 30, 1954 on health grounds, he was put under constant surveillance. Those who visited him, including government officials and employees, were threatened or lost their jobs. When he visited the hospital for treatment, “unruly elements” posted in the hospital did not allow him to see a doctor. Beg was subsequently re-arrested on November 19, 1955.
As an aside, Basu mentions that Mridula differed from Beg when the latter floated the Plebiscite Front in 1955, which declared that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was purely temporary, and to determine its final status, a plebiscite should be held. The book states that Mridula’s presumption that the Sheikh shared her opinion was “incorrect”.
She also mentioned the case of Ghulam Rasool Raina who became the target of “vilification” and “harassment” through detention, threatening his friends and family and bribery demands. His case was also highlighted by an Urdu Jammu based weekly ‘Sach’ on April 27, 1956. The periodical noted: “Unnecessary and illegal harassment and oppression of the relatives of Opposition members in the Kashmir assembly by the Police and the National Conference.”
The letter giving details of the harassment of different opposition members was written a few months before the Jammu and Kashmir constitution was passed, prompting Mridula Sarabhai to make an impassioned appeal against what she believed was flawed and undemocratic.
She believed that the government did not want to release Sheikh Abdullah to ensure his absence in the Constituent Assembly before the finalization of the J&K Constitution.
Sarabhai concluded the letter thus:
“The sovereignty of the people will be sacrificed if the constitution is passed when the members of the assembly and the public are kept in ignorance of its implication, and when members of the Opposition are kept in detention and under terror conditions.”
Her biography quotes Mridula as saying:
“Constitution-making is not the privilege of one group…… every segment of society should be represented in the framing of the Constitution….. Hence, my humble request is that the Constitution should not be finalized unless Sheikh Abdullah and the other members of the Constituent Assembly are released….. and normalcy restored……”
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