A Page from History : Pandit Premnath Dogra
| Vol. V, No. 24 MAGH 15, 2008 January 28, 1952 Four Annas – Air-/4/6 |
It is know on all hands that the Government of India appointed a Negotiating Committee to negotiate with the States in regard to adopting a suitable method for electing representatives from the States to the Indian Parliament, and the recommendations of the Committee adopted by the Government of India inter alia contained the most important observations, which should be borne in mind in matter of representation of a premier State like Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Parliament.
The Extract runs :- “We pointed out that in regard to two States viz. Hyderabad and Kashmir elections to their legislatures had been boycotted by important organizations representing the people of the States concerned and the legislatures therefore, could not be considered to represent the people, as they were intended to. In the cases of these two States we suggested that a suitable method of electing representatives for the Constituent Assembly should be devised.”
If the considerations of Kashmir National Conference weighed with the Negotiating Committee in electing members for the Indian constituent Assembly from Kashmir, simple because the national Conference had not been represented on the old Praja Sabha (State Assembly), it stands to reason that the same considerations should now weigh with the Government of India in matter of representation of the people of the State, because the State constituent Assembly was boycotted by and does not include any representative of the Praja Parishad, which is the people’s organisation and carries the confidence of the people, specially of the Province of Jammu. In this connection public attention is invited to the resolutions passed by the Pra Parishad and ratified at the historic convention held on November last by Fifty thousand people of all denominations, which demanded that the Government of India should Issue a directive to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to hold elections for sending representatives to the House of People and council of States, just as other Indian States and doing.
Jammu and Kashmir State is as a good a “B” class State as Hyderabad is. Hyderabadis are nowadays electing their representatives for the Houses of Parliament of India, and so is Cochin-Travancore State. While this very fundamental right of representation is being denied to us, the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
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It is true that Jammu and Kashmir State elected a Constituent Assembly. But the elections were conspicuous by denial of freedom to vote, freedom to elect and freedom to represent the people.
The only suitable method that now should be applicable for electing representatives to the House of the people and the Council of States is that free and fair elections in the State should ordered to be held, wherein the National Conference, the Praja Parishad and any other organization or party could participate without fear of suppression, intimidation or baiting.
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