By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru had endorsed the proposal for signing of the Instrument of Accession and Annexed Agreement between the Union Government and 25 Khasi States on August 17, 1948.
As per the Demi Official (DO) letter of late Nehru to former Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel on October 13 1947 suggested that the first Prime Minister believed that the people of this part of the country deserve special recognition.
“You will remember my drawing your attention some time ago to the agreement which had been arrived at with the Khasi States by then Governor of Assam Akbar Hydari. I do not know what the position is now but I understand that Desai of the States Department wrote to Hydari turning down that agreement and suggesting a new form of Instrument of Accession, presumably the Accession which most States have signed,” late Nehru had stated in the DO letter which was released by the Syiem Hima Maharam and President Federation of Khasi States Paiem Niandro Syiemiong during a gathering held here on Tuesday.
The official letter was found recently after long years of research by the Federation of Khasi States.
According to him, the Khasi States are hardly States in the normal sense of the word; they are frontier tracts inhabited by tribal people while adding that their problem thus is a double one of dealing with some States or sub-States and tribal people.
“It is a very mixed affair and has to be treated separately. Being a frontier area the Khasi states have special importance. It would be advisable to treat this matter on a separate basis without in any way infringing your general terms of Accession. These tribal people have given us a lot of trouble in the past and we have repeatedly given them many assurances,” India’s first Prime Minister had said.
Nehru had pointed out that Hydari acted in line with the various assurances which they have given in the past.
“If there is a feeling in these areas that we are going back on what we have agreed, there is bound to be difficulty and trouble. I feel that the question is wholly different from any other applicable to States generally because of the tribal position. I hope, therefore, that your department is giving favourable consideration to the agreement arrived at by Hydari with these Khasi States,” he had stated.
At the dawn of Independence, 25 Khasi States signed the Instrument of Accession and Annexed Agreement in Shillong on various dates starting from December 15, 1947 up to March 19, 1948, in presence of Sir Akbar Hydari, Governor of Assam. After all the Khasi chieftains had signed the conditional treaty, it was sent to Delhi and was accepted and finally signed by Late Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the last Governor General of India, on August 17, 1948.
However, the Khasi States did not sign the Instrument of Merger as done by all former Indian States.