Rijiju blames Nehru for Kashmir issue, sparks political row

NEW DELHI: Union law minister Kiren Rijiju has stirred a row by accusing India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of committing “five blunders” that he said hobbled India and created the Kashmir problem, sparking angry rebuttals from Opposition parties.

In an article for News 18 marking Shaurya Diwas, to commemorate the landing of Indian troops at Srinagar airport on October 27, 1947 to evict Pakistan-backed tribesmen from the Valley, Rijiju also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was attempting to right the mistakes of the past by effectively abrogating Article 370 and integrating the region with the rest of India. “Seven decades were lost due to these Nehruvian blunders & India paid a heavy price… finally history took a turn in 2019 when India First was the only guiding principle,” tweeted Rijiju, referring to the August 2019 decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcate it into two Union Territories.

In his article, Rijiju claimed that the five mistakes made by Nehru were “rejecting Maharaja Hari Singh’s request for accession in July 1947 itself to advance a personal agenda, declaring the eventual accession as Provisional, approach UNO under Article 35 and NOT Article 51, letting the myth perpetrate that UN mandated plebiscite was in any way an open question and institutionalizing the separatist mindset by creating Article 370”. “What our first PM Nehru did with Kashmir has caused so much tragedy. It has drained the national wealth. It has taken away the unaccounted lives of the jawans and the civilians. And, because of that blunder, today, Kashmir has unnecessarily become an issue,” he told ANI.

Several Union ministers, including Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Pralhad Joshi, and other BJP leaders such as Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis backed Rijiju.

Hitting back, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said BJP leaders were students of “WhatsApp nursery” and there was a need for them to revisit history classes. “If all that they are saying is true, how is it that during the Manmohan Singh era targeted killings stopped and 75% of the people participated in the democratic process of elections in the state? We would be happy to get the answer to that,” Khera said.

Kiren Rijiju