(By: Dr. Rajesh Bhat)

Signing of the Instrument of Accession by Maharaja Hari Singh of the then Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir on October 26, 1947 was the worst shock for Pakistan and that country is still not able to reconcile to this fact!

Even on the day of accession, huge displeasure was witnessed by Pakistani media, who used the choicest of invectives against one and all, especially targeting Maharaja Hari Singh, India and Sheikh Mohd Abdullah.

When Consternation Swept Pakistan

Eminent lawyer and writer, K L Gauba in his famous Book “Inside Pakistan’’ (1948) says following the news of accession of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Dominion, “consternation swept Pakistan’’.  “I remember the day at Lahore High Court Bar Association. I have never seen longer and more dismal countenances. The faces that had a glow of Pride while  Shahami Gate  and Rang Mahal were on fire, were no longer lit with Pakistan pride’’, Gauba gives the first-hand account of  that day in Pakistan.

 Ferocious write-ups against India

Gauba  mentions how ferocious articles flowed from the press rooms under the caption “Treachery’’, and “Pakistan Times’’ taking the leading role through its series of editorials “denouncing’’ the accession that had come as a rude shock for Pakistani military establishment and her leadership.

Kashmir Rechords is reproducing one of the Editorials of   “Pakistan Times’’, carried by K L Gauba in his book “Inside Pakistan’’.

Even greater wrath was stored for Sheikh Abdullah.  “Pakistan Times” in another editorial had mentioned: “The author of the `Quit Kashmir’ Movement has suddenly been converted to the slogan of `Do not Quit Kashmir’, and the Dogra House that was yesterday the worst enemy of the Kashmiri people has now become, in the Sheikh’s eyes, its only saviour’’.

 Sheikh Abdullah  was accused of  “maneuvering himself into a position where the only role he can play is to help in the butchery of his own people and be an ineffective second fiddle to the Maharaja and his helpers from abroad’’.

The Pakistani Press had accused both Nehru’s Government and the leader of the National Conference “guilty of treachery’’. In its journey of 76 years, Jammu and Kashmir has moved ahead and progressed leaps and bounds, but the Pakistani media all these years continues to spit venom against India with the same intensity and frustration.