At the time of Partition in August 1947 the most popular leader of the strongest political party of Kashmir, Shiekh Mohammad Abdullah was in jail serving a sentence for challenging the Maharaja’s right to rule. Prompted by the award of Gurdaspur which furnished the only road link between Delhi and Kashmir, he decided to support India rather than Pakistan (p 376 Aatash-i-Chinar Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah). He rejected, so to say, the Two Nations Theory of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. On the contrary, he embraced the ‘secular nationalism’ as was propounded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. And he went a step further. He apologized, not once but twice, to his ‘beloved’ king, Maharja Hari Singh, for his “unruly behavior” of previous year. On September 13, 1947 he went to the palace, sought forgiveness and presented a gold coin to the king as a sign of loyalty (p 386 Aatash-i-Chinar ). On September 26, he sent a letter of apology to Hari Singh (p130 Sardar Patel’s Correspondence Vol I).
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 16:21:21 +0000
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