MY SPEECH IN THE RAJYA SABHA ON JAMMU AND KASHMIR ON 10/8/2016

MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: He will not stop in one minute. ...(Interruptions)...Naqvi ji, he will not stop. ...(Interruptions)... After disposing of all these names, if time is there, I will call you. ...(Interruptions)... Please sit down. ...(Interruptions)... Now, Shri Ram Jethmalani. Before that, let me request all the remaining Members to please take five minutes each. Please start.

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI (BIHAR): Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir, apart from the fact that probably I am the oldest Member in this House

MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: How can it be a maiden speech?...(Interruptions)... He is the oldest Member. ...(Interruptions)...

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI: Sir, it is my maiden speech so far as my representation of the State of Bihar is concerned. . I have been now elected from that State and I am entitled to the benefit of one maiden speech, and, that is the one which I am delivering just now. However, Sir, I leave it to you. When you want me to stop, give me three minutes' notice. Sir, I must start by paying a tribute to the only speech which I thoroughly enjoyed from the first word to the last word, and that is the speech of the BJP Member from Jammu. I am sorry, if I do not know your correct name but, I think, you are Gopal Yadav. Is it? ...(Interruptions)... No? What is his name? ...(Interruptions)... Okay. Mr. Jitendra Singh. My apologies but I must say that I was terribly impressed by the speech, which you delivered, and, I am much wiser with that.

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI (contd.): Sir, I don't wish to repeat the contents of any other Member's speech, not because I have not enjoyed them but because of lack of time, and, Sir, I hope I will not repeat a word which has already been spoken. I must tell you that I probably had no intention of coming and speaking on this subject in this House. But, yesterday, when I got up in the morning -- and I was in Mumbai, attending a very great festival in my home; I was celebrating the 60th birthday of my elder son -- and read the newspapers which contained the statement of the Hon. Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir. I have regarded that lady as a younger sister of mine, and I have treated her with respect and affection. But I must tell you that I cut short my stay in Bombay, came to Delhi, immediately wrote a very strong letter to her and saw to it that it was delivered to her on the e-mail and probably repeated in the morning by the normal mail. Sir, that letter of hers contained what I regard as some very, very mischievous suggestion. The mischievous suggestion was, “please now start a new dialogue, like the dialogue which Atalji had with Pakistan”. We shall have no dialogue with Pakistan but we are prepared to have every dialogue with the people of Jammu & Kashmir and we shall surrender to them many things which they may not even deserve . But that is our love and affection for them. So far as Pakistan is concerned, Sir, the Kashmir problem has been solved more than once. It has been settled at least four times in the political history of India. Sir, first of all, let me point out to you one great mistake which Pakistan committed. Fortunately, they did not get the benefit of it. You know that when India was finding its independence, question arose as to the sovereignty of the British Crown , the States, the multitudes of States we had. To whom shall it go? And I believe that the Congress Party took a very correct role. They said it shall revert to the people of India. Even many Muslim politicians in joined this except the strict one in the Muslim League. They said, "No; the sovereignty shall not go to the people, but it shall go to the ruler of the State." Now, there was a plan behind this. The plan behind it was that they thought, "Kashmir is a small State, we will be able to conquer it by force at any time". They said, therefore that; the sovereignty must go to the Princes because they had their eyes on the State of Hyderabad. It was a Non- Muslim majority State and His Highness, the Nizam of Hyderabad, was ruling the State by that great army of Razakars, like whom one has not seen so far as military ethics and character are concerned. However, the Indian Army, under the control of Sardar Patel, one of the greatest politicians and sensible people that India had produced, was marching into Hyderabad when Pandit Nehru got some qualm of conscience and he tried to stop it, and Sardar Patel had to tell him a lie that the Army had already entered Hyderabad. And, if Pandit Nehru had his way and Sardar Patel had failed, take it from me, we will today be facing the problem of Hyderabad and India ..(Interruptions)..

SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH: This is simply not true, Sir. ..(Interruptions).. This is simply not true.

SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH (CONTD.): This is falsifying history. ...(Interruptions)... This is a canard. ...(Interruptions)... This is a propaganda. This is simply not true. ...(Interruptions)... I have seen the archives. ...(Interruptions)... I have written a book on...(Interruptions).. He is misleading the House. ...(Interruptions).. He is misleading the House. ...(Interruptions)... He is a very senior Member. I respect him. I respect him as a human being, as a lawyer...(Interruptions)... But on this, he is completely, comprehensively wrong. ...(Interruptions)...

DR. K. KESHAVA RAO: Which part of it is wrong? ...(Interruptions)...

SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH: Don’t interfere...(Interruptions)...

MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Okay. All right. Keshava Raoji, both are on record. ...(Interruptions)... You sit down. ...(Interruptions)... No, no. Both are on record. ...(Interruptions)... What Mr. Ram Jethmalani said and what Mr. Jairam Ramesh said...(Interruptions)...

THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION (SHRI GHULAM NABI AZAD): Sir, today, we should not go into the history. All of us, the Congress Party, the BJP and all other parties, decided not to dig out the past. We should talk about the present.

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI: We are not digging out the past. We are talking about some historical ...(Interruptions)...truths

SHRI GHULAM NABI AZAD: We will have it when we will have discussion on archives. That time we will have this discussion. ...(Interruptions)...We are discussing the current problem. ...(Interruptions)...

MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Ram Jethmalaniji, the issue is that Kashmir is burning. We want some solution. We are racking our brains for a solution as to what to do. So, rather than going back to history, give suggestion for that. ...(Interruptions)...

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI: Yes, Sir. Sir, I personally wish to tell this House that the solution offered yesterday in the Press by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir is not a solution to be considered at all. You must reject it. We must be careful about giving this kind of advice which the Chief Minister gave because this particular matter had been decided four times. As I told you, the sovereignty had to reside in the people. I wish to cite one incident. When Hyderabad was lost, the raiders, the armed military people of Pakistan in concealed identity and posing to be tribals to attack Kashmir and they had...(Time-bell)...

MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Now you have to conclude. Please conclude. You have already taken nine minutes.

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI: Sir, out of nine minutes, you deduct those seven minutes. ...(Interruptions)... All right, Sir. My appeal to this House is that the Kashmir problem has been solved with Pakistan more than three times. One point towards which I would particularly like to draw your attention is that in the 60s, Pakistan started a war of aggression believing full well that they are attacking us. While we were unarmed and weak . But the Indian Army completely mastered that aggressive attack and that led to another great action of one of the greatest Prime Ministers which India had and he was Lal Bahadur Shastri. What happened was that we got Tashkent Declaration. The Tashkent Declaration had two clauses. One was that neither party shall change the present status quo by force or by violence. And the second one was that neither party shall even carry on any propaganda for changing it. (Time-bell) If Pakistan wishes to go back on the Tashkent Declaration and other settlements that have taken place, be sure that you will tell Pakistan that it will lose its claim to half of Jammu and Kashmir which Indian generosity had given to it for good.

SHRI RAM JETHMALANI (CONTD.): But, we are prepared that we will take it back. (Time-bell) Sir, I want no talks with Pakistan on this issue. All that you must tell them is that if they want to fight that issue with us, let us go to the International Court of Justice or let us go to the Security Council; and, be sure that they will lose there. Tell them that if they succeed there, we will succumb to the decision of the international community. Today, Sir, please do not carry on with any kind of dialogue with Pakistan, but do carry on every kind of dialogue with the people of Jammu and Kashmir. (Time-bell) They are our kith and kin, and they are as dear to us as anybody else can be. Sir, so far as I am concerned, you may be pretty sure that I will give my life to keep the people of Jammu and Kashmir as friends of India and I will see to it that the Indian Union with that State is appreciated by everybody including the entire civilized world. I shall spend there a few years of my life that remain. I am running today the 93rd year of my life. I will devote the remaining part of my life to see that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are happy and that they remain happy, live long and be friends of this country. Thank you.