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Journalism of Courage
J&K Election Results 2024: While the first election in Jammu and Kashmir since the constitutional changes of 2019 has gone the way of the National Conference-Congress alliance, the BJP could win the largest share of votes among all parties, and the majority of seats in the Jammu region.
At 3 pm on Tuesday, the BJP was leading at 12 seats and had won at 17, all in the Jammu region, which has 43 of the 90 seats for which elections have been held. (Another five seats in the Assembly will be filled by nomination.)
The BJP’s vote share stood at 25.68%, ahead of the National Conference’s 23.43%. Independents and others had won 24.77% of the vote.
The BJP will view its success as an affirmation of what it sees as an inalienable connection between the erstwhile state and its own inception as a party. To BJP leaders, this link is manifest most clearly in the person of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), whom the BJP describes on its website as “Our Inspiration”.
This is the story of Dr Mookerjee and the BJP’s “emotional connect” with Jammu and Kashmir.
Where does this story begin?
The story begins with the tortuous process of integration of Jammu & Kashmir with the Indian Union. The accession of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was conditional, and negotiations on the precise status of the (erstwhile) state vis-à-vis the Union continued until five years after Independence.
In July 1952, Sheikh Abdullah, who was then the “Prime Minister” of Jammu and Kashmir, met with Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi, and an agreement was drafted defining the contours of the autonomy of J&K.
It was agreed that the J&K flag would be flown side-by-side with the Tricolour; in case of internal disturbances, India would not be able to send in forces without permission from the state government; residuary powers which, in the case of all states lay with the Centre would, in the case of J&K, rest with the state; and no ‘outsider’ would be able to buy land or property in the state to ensure that the population profile of the state does not change.
However, Sheikh Abdullah wanted more. He declared that only J&K would decide what powers to give to India, and to what extent the writ of the Indian Supreme Court would run in the state.
He informed the young Karan Singh, the Dogra yuvraj who was the Head of State, that if he “did not break up with the reactionary elements”, he would be deposed like his father, Maharaja Hari Singh.
What did Sheikh Abdullah mean by “reactionary elements”?
By “reactionary elements”, the Sheikh meant the Hindus of Jammu, who were then agitating for full integration with India, raising the slogan “Ek desh mein do vidhaan, do pradhaan, do nishaan, nahin chalega, nahin chalega (There cannot be two laws, two leaders, and two flags in the same nation)”.
The Hindus of Jammu had been loyal subjects of the Maharaja. They also feared that Sheikh Abdullah would extend his socialist land reforms to Jammu — these reforms had already resulted in big (and mostly Hindu) landowners in Kashmir losing vast tracts of their land.
In Jammu, the agitation against the Valley-based National Conference (Sheikh Abdullah’s party) was led by the Praja Parishad, a political party that was founded in 1949 by the veteran local leader Prem Nath Dogra. Sheikh Abdullah was openly contemptuous of the Parishad, dismissing them as feudal reactionaries.
In 1951, the National Conference won all 75 seats in the J&K Constituent Assembly after the Parishad boycotted the election protesting against alleged unfair practices.
Where does Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee come in?
The voice of the Jammu Hindus was amplified in the rest of India by the support it received from Dr Mookerjee. Syama Prasad, the son of the legendary Bengali jurist and educationist Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, was himself a brilliant barrister and educationist. Syama Prasad had entered politics in 1929, and joined Nehru’s Cabinet in 1947.
Syama Prasad resigned from the government in 1950, protesting against a pact on refugees and rights of minorities that Nehru signed with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan that year. On October 21, 1951, Syama Prasad became the founder president of the BJS, the political arm of the RSS, and the predecessor and first avatar of the BJP.
In the first Lok Sabha election of 1952, the BJS won three seats in Parliament. In the House, Syama Prasad was scathingly critical of Nehru’s policy in J&K — and demanded to know who had made Sheikh Abdullah, a man with unacceptable “divided loyalty”, a “King of Kings”.
He demanded that J&K should be made a part of India with no special concessions and, to begin with, at least Jammu and Ladakh should be allowed to fully integrate with the Union. Syama Prasad visited Jammu and spoke in favour of the Praja Parishad’s “just and patriotic” agitation.
In the winter of 1952, as the government moved to Jammu from Srinagar, the Parishad intensified its protests, and there were repeated clashes with Sheikh Abdullah’s police. In January 1953, Syama Prasad wrote to Nehru, backing the Parishad’s “highly patriotic and emotional” movement to “merge completely with India”.
He asked Nehru how he proposed to get back the part of Jammu and Kashmir that had been illegally occupied by Pakistan, and declared that failing to do so would be “nothing short of national disgrace and humiliation”. He repeatedly asked both Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah to stop the crackdown on the Parishad, release its leaders from custody, and call a meeting of all stakeholders on J&K.
No. The Prime Minister continued to insist that the Parishad should call off its agitation before anything else, and Syama Prasad remained adamant that the government should first announce talks.
With matters deadlocked, Syama Prasad took the agitation to the streets in Delhi. Jana Sangh workers, along with those of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Ram Rajya Parishad, offered satyagraha outside police stations, and courted arrest. By April 1953, 1,300 protesters had been arrested, according to scholarship on that period.
On May 8, 1953, Syama Prasad started out for Jammu, with the intention of heading to Srinagar from there. Sheikh Abdullah’s government issued orders restricting his movement. When Syama Prasad proceeded regardless, he was arrested on May 11, 1953, and thrown into jail in Srinagar.
In jail, Syama Prasad read Hindu philosophy and wrote letters. In the beginning of June, he took ill, and complained of a fever and pain in his legs. On June 22, he suffered a heart attack, and passed away on June 23, 1953.
The BJP has ever since held up his “sacrifice” as the reason and inspiration for its goal of unitingJ&K fully with the Indian Union.
This is a revised and updated version of an explainer that was first published in August 2019.
