The 1974 cession of Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka by India has sparked renewed scrutiny into the country’s historical attitudes towards sovereignty
So it has been revealed that Katchatheevu island off the coast of Tamil Nadu was given away by India to Sri Lanka in 1974. Much earlier in 1961, Jawaharlal Nehru had earlier opined, perhaps in Indira Gandhi’s knowledge, that he attached “no importance at all”, to this little island. “I would have no hesitation in giving up our claims to it” India’s first Prime Minister had said.
It was with similar casualness that Nehru in the late 1950s on the floor of the Lok Sabha had stated: “It is true that China has built a road in Aksai Chin connecting Tibet with Sinkiang (now Xinjiang). True, Aksai Chin is part of Indian territory, but not a blade of grass grows there”, obviously implying that the region was of no importance. It is with the same cavalier attitude that Nehru had obeyed Viceroy Mountbatten’s advice to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations Organisation. He did this merely because Sheikh Abdullah, called Sher-e-Kashmir (Lion of Kashmir), was a lion only in those parts of J&K where Kashmir-speaking people resided.
Abdullah’s charisma did not extend to the Punjabi-speaking Muzaffarabad and Mirpur, and he did not want them to be a part of his future domain. We have PoK as a consequence. When China invaded Arunachal Pradesh in 1962 (then called North Frontier Agency), for most Indians, it was a national humiliation. But except for the then defence minister Krishna Menon-who was responsible for the 1962 disaster-no one showed even the basic courtesy of a resignation. This clearly showed that in the early years of our independence, loss of territory was taken rather casually. This is a symptom of a half, and not sovereign state. Certainly, we did not understand the responsibilities of sovereignty.
The US declaration of independence in 1776 was the first document to enunciate sovereignty as an essential element of the new state. French Constitution of 1791 stated: “Sovereignty is one, indivisible, unalienable and imprescriptible; it belongs to the nation: no group can attribute sovereignty to itself nor can an individual arrogate it to himself.” The conceit was first thought of by Jean Bodin of 16th century France to signal the progress from feudalism to nationalism.
Mamata Banerjee, when she was part of late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA once threw a sheaf of papers at the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha to protest at the delimitation of constituencies in West Bengal. In many constituencies, she had discovered Bangladeshi nationals listed in Indian rolls. The same lady as chief minister of West Bengal today doesn’t mind West Bengal becoming another Bangladesh. What is happening in West Bengal isn’t accidental. It has been the policy of the Congress and the Left Front to encourage infiltration for expanding their vote-banks. Mamata has only copied their strategy.
The story in Jammu & Kashmir before the advent of Narendra Modi was the same. Years ago, Parliament had resolved that the whole of J&K is an integral and unalienable part of India. This includes PoK. Yet, Article 370 of the Constitution continued for an entire 70 years. The state had a separate constitution. A Kashmiri could freely buy property in any part of the country, but non-Kashmiri Indians couldn’t do so in J&K.
Yet, pre-Modi regimes expected people to believe that we were a sovereign state. Meanwhile, those regimes felt no embarrassment in negotiating autonomy in Jammu & Kashmir with all and sundry, including separatists and jihadi terrorist-supporters, not minding Kashmiri separatists from hobnobbing with Pakistani diplomats or visiting dignitaries from Islamabad. It took the iron hand of a truly nationalist Government, with firm commitment to sovereignty, to end this toxic charade. The Congress has always been pro-Muslim. This is clear from the fact that waqfs and Muslim personal law still remain on the statute. Collectively, the waqf properties represent the biggest urban landlords in India.
The demand for Ta1 Mahal by the UP Sunni Wakf Board and that for Bibi ka Maqbara at Aurangabad by the Maharashtra Wakf Board is on the ground that these contain graves. A sovereign state should nationalise all their properties as they are deemed to belong to Allah, who is supreme and above any country. Similarly, Muslim personal laws still continue to exist in a country whose Constitution proclaims it to be a ‘secular’ country. There have also been vociferous demands from the Muslim community to set up Sharia courts known as Darul Qaza to adjudicate on matters concerning marriage, divorce, etc.
The apparent conclusion would be that India is a half-sovereign state. This concept was innovated by the German jurist on international law, J.J. Moser, who lived in the l8th century. India has some attributes of sovereignty like its belonging to the nation and not to any individual; it being also imprescriptible. But till Sharia, personal and waqf are allowed to remain as law, sovereignty will be shared and not absolute. The India before 2014 confirmed to this conclusion.
Sovereignty cannot be shared with anyone. Many Muslim countries have nationalised their waqfs. Fortunately, India after 2014 has had a Government which believes in absolute national sovereignty and has been acting in the manner befitting it.
(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal)
