By Spiton Kharakor
With the lapse of the British paramountcy on August 15, 1947, British India was divided into India and Pakistan on communal lines. The then Sylhet District of Surma Valley was truncated from Assam Province and was amalgamated with Pakistan. Similarly East Bengal became Pakistan and West Bengal became India. Also, Eastern Punjab came to India and West Punjab went to Pakistan.
The India Independence Act 1947 passed by the British “House of Commons,” gave the option to 562 princely States in India to either join India or Pakistan. Although the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, Hari Singh signed the Standstill Agreement with Pakistan he did not accede territorially to Pakistan. So also the Khasi States though signed a Standstill Agreement with India did not accede to it. Only Jammu & Kashmir and the Khasi States in the Indian Subcontinent never signed an Instrument of Merger with India.
However, the Pakistani tribals invaded the kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir from the North on October 22, 1947, and within three days they were on the outskirts of Baramullah. They were on a winning spree. Maharaja Hari Singh was frustrated and had no option but to ask help from India. The Government of India expressed its inability to help unless J&K first acceded into India. Hence willy-nilly Maharaja Hari Singh signed an Instrument of Accession with India on October 26, 1947. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhai Patel air-dashed Indian troops from Delhi to Srinagar on October 27, 1947. By December 31, 1947 the valiant Indian troops drove the invaders out of the Kashmir Valley and Srinagar was saved.
Mahatma Gandhi was still alive then, but nothing was known about his reaction. However, the then Governor General of India Lord Mountbatten asked Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to report it immediately to the UN Security Council for mediation, which he obliged. The United Nations intervened and a line of control or L.O.C. was demarcated. India got approximately two thirds of Kashmir and the remaining one third, including Aksai Chin now controlled by China went to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
In North East India, there were three princely states: the Khasi State, Tripura State and Manipur State. At the very moment when the Maharaja of Tripura expired his minor son was appointed as Regent. He was in favour of joining India. Later, the Raja of Manipur signed an Instrument of Accession including an Instrument of Merger with India. He was honoured with a privy purse of three lakh rupees per annum excluding taxation, until it was abolished in 1971. Other princes in the country also enjoyed privy purses according to the size of their kingdom, for joining India.
All the 25 Khasi states were asked to appear before Sir Akbar Hydari Governor of Assam at the Government House (now Raj Bhavan) on December 15, 1947 for signing the Instrument of Accession (IoA) with India. However, only 19 of the 25 chieftains agreed to sign the IoA. The remaining 6 states abstained from signing. Vallabhai Patel air-dashed from New Delhi to Guwahati on January 1, 1948. Next day he met the people of Shillong. A public meeting was held at the lawns of the Lady Hydari Park, Shillong. He appealed to the people on the utility of joining the Indian Union. He said, “Yours is a land for gods to live in. Its air, its natural scenery, its pure atmosphere, its sweet water, would attract even gods if your hearts were pure”.
The Nongstoiñ State one of the 25 Khasi states convened a Dorbar Hima or General Council on the January 13, 1948. The General Council proclaimed Nongstoiñ State to be sovereign state as per the directives of the Indian Independence Act 1947. Later, Mr. Wickliffe Syiem, Syiem Khynnah or Deputy Chieftain of Nongstoiñ State left for New York “Lake Success” UN Security Council to report on the matter. He was the first tribal from North East India to get a Bachelor of Engineering Degree from Baroda (Vadodara) affiliated to Bombay University in 1937.
During the Drafting of the Constitution at the Constituent Assembly of India, the Khasi States Constitution Making Durbar was holding a General Conference at Dinam Hall, Jaiaw, Shillong on July 20 and 21, 1949. The Conference was presided over by Dr. Homiwell Lyngdoh. Rev JJM. Nichols-Roy vehemently argued at the Conference for a Sixth Schedule to be incorporated in the Constitution if the Khasi states were to remain within Assam. However, the Syiem of Hima Jirang, Sirendro Wahlang opposed this view and wanted to be outside Assam and seek for a First Schedule Status for Khasi States with a new set up. The Chairman Dr Homiwell Lyngdoh put the agenda to vote. The Syiem of Hima Jirang got 46 votes. Rev JJM Nichols-Roy got only 40 votes and his motion for the Sixth Schedule was lost before the House.
Rev JJM Nichols-Roy, however, being the Member of the Constituent Assembly from Assam Province disregarded the above ruling and projected again his ambition in the September 1949 session of the Constituent Assembly for a Sixth Schedule in Assam. Unfortunately, a representative of the Khasi States, Manipur State and Tripura State at the Constituent Assembly was Mr GS Guha. He did not defend the resolution of the Khasi State Constitution Making Dorbar. He kept silent and remained a mere spectator at the debate of the Constituent Assembly then.
Thereafter, in late October and early November 1949, a delegation from the Khasi States Constitution Making Durbar went to New Delhi. The delegation included the President of the Federation of Khasi States and Syiem of Khyrim State, Olim Sing, Miss Mavis Dunn Lyngdoh an ex-cabinet minister of Assam Province and Omil Harris Rease Shullai a member of Khasi States Constitution Making Durbar from Mawkhar-Jaiaw Constituency. They met Dr. B.R Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly and lodged their dissatisfaction.
Thereafter, Syed Muhammad Sa’adullah a Member of the Drafting Committee spoke at the Constituent Assembly on the November 21, 1949 and said, “Sir, the Khasi Hills have been relegated to the Sixth Schedule for which Rev JJM. Nichols-Roy is very much thankful, but there is a Constitutional anomaly. Although the Constituent Assembly is not to find a remedy for that, yet I must sound a note of warning that this small District of the Khasi Hills embraces 25 native states most of which had treaty rights with the suzerain power in Delhi. They were asked to join the Indian Dominion in 1947. Instrument of Accession accompanied by an Agreement were executed by these chieftains and they were accepted by the Central Government. But even though this area is included in the Sixth Schedule, up till now no settlement has been arrived at between the Constituent Assembly of the Federation of the Khasi States and Assam Government or the Government of India.
It is unfortunate that the Khasi States till 1949 were princely states but were relegated to a mere district of the United Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills under Assam Province since January 26, 1950 without any proclamation from the Khasi Constitution Making Durbar in 1949. So it is no surprise when after the abrogation of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir State was demoted into a Union Territory. We have now seen the tyranny of the majority and to be a minority is a crime which is prevailing now. It is evident that there is no plurality in our country now.
Earlier, the whole of North East India including Assam were not under the domain of the great Mughal Empire. When David Scott came to Assam in 1824 he found that the Burmese King ruled Assam and not the Ahom ruler. Through the Treaty of Yandaboo 1826 signed in Burma (Myanmar) between the English Trading Company and Burmese King it was agreed that the latter should be abdicated for good from Assam Brahmaputra Valley in favour of the English Trading East India Company.
So when the British left India in 1947 everyone in the North East India wanted to exert their autonomy. Mr. Angami Zapu Phizo a Naga Nationalist along with four or five leaders came to Shillong to meet the tribal leaders in 1955. Nothing was known about the meeting at Shillong. Thereafter the Naga Hills was in turmoil since 1956. There was breakdown of law and order in Naga Hills and the underground elements raised their head. Mr. Phizo slipped out from the country and escaped to England and got asylum there. There were also rumblings in Tibet, and Dalai Lama came to India in 1959 to seek asylum. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru allowed him to stay at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.
Laldenga raised an armed rebellion against the country on the February 28, 1966. He declared an independent Lushai Hills (now Mizoram), a district of Assam then. Laldenga thereafter left the country. Later, a fact finding delegation from Assam Assembly headed by Hoover Hynñiewta, Ex. M.P. and MLA from Shillong Constituency went to visit Lushai Hills. They returned with used bullets and other explosives and displayed them before the House of the Assam Legislative Assembly, showing thereby the atrocities committed by the Indian Air Force which strafed the Lushai Hills in 1966.
At present, the whole of Assam and the Assamese people are on the boil. They are waiting for the final report of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to be published on the August 31, 2019. What will happen in the future is uncertain. Will the 40 lakh infiltrators with doubtful Indian identity be allowed to live in Assam? Will the NRC face a gridlock? Where will the infiltrators be sent? Will all the states in India accept them? Will amnesty be given to them? If so then the whole exercise of the NRC would become infructuous.
The whole of North East India is against the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). If the Government of India approves it because they are in majority in both Houses of Parliament then the fate of the indigenous people of North East India would be at stake. The biggest challenge for the indigenous population in North East India is to protect its identity, culture, land and economy.
It was reported that at least 4000 people have been detained since August 5th 2019 in Kashmir over the fears of unrest since New Delhi divested the region of its autonomy. They were held and arrested and held under the Public Safety Act (PSA) a law that allows authorities to imprison someone for up to two years without charge or trial. Most of them were flown out of Kashmir because prisons have run out of capacity.
The Supreme Court of the country as well the High Courts on several occasions have specifically laid down that Article 370 of the Constitution is not a temporary provision. In Kumari Vijaya Lakshmi Jha vs. Union of India (2017), Delhi High Court rejected a petition claiming that Article 370 was temporary. In 2018, the Supreme Court stated that Article 370 is not a temporary provision. Similarly the Supreme Court in SBI vs Zaffar Ullah Nehru (2016) held that Jammu and Kashmir has a special status and that Article 370 is not temporary.
The ruling party at the Centre cannot carry on with its chest thumping on the abrogation of Article 370. Whereas, the much needed discussions on poverty, unemployment, hate crimes, cow lynching, uniform civil code in marriage, no child policy per family for checking the abnormal rise in over population are left untouched. Why not “Wage War” on these issues? Dr. B.R. Ambedkar once said “However good the Constitution may be it is sure to turn out bad, because those who are called upon to work it happen to be a bad lot”.
There have been four days in the Republic of India on which the “The idea of India Unity” has been shaken since the January 26, 1950. Firstly, the Indian Air Force bombarded Lushai Hills of Assam for the first time on March 1, 1966 and following days, in retaliation for their uprising against the country on February 28, 1966. The news was blacked out. Nobody knew it elsewhere in the country except the people of Lushai Hills who bore the brunt thereafter. Secondly, it was on June 25, 1975 when Emergency was declared for the whole country and many of our Fundamental Rights were suspended. Thirdly, it was on December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was destroyed in totality by the religious revivalists. Fourthly, we have August 5, 2019 when the Constitution of India was subverted in spirit if not in letter before one billion people of India.
It seems that federalism in our country is now shoved aside and the rights of the eight million Kashmiri people have been stamped on. All the deeds and misdeeds of our rulers have been passing into the pages of history. Quo Vadis, the idea of India; of unity in diversity.