Delhi Chalo
[Organiser, 8 August, 1965]
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, General Secretary, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, has called upon the people to really in Delhi in their lakhs to register a massive popular protest against the Kutch agreement.
In his statement the Jana Sangh leader has also made a fervent appeal to Members of Parliament to throw out the agreement. “All opposition parties except the Communists and the Swantantra (for obvious reasons) have opposed it. Even the Congress has not endorsed it,” Shri Upadhyaya said.
The text of his statement runs as follows:
The Ignoble Kutch Agreement was signed on 30 June, 1965 simultaneously at New Delhi and Rawalpindi. It was an act of gross betrayal of national rights and interests. Its terms are derogatory to self respecting nations. The Indian Government succumbed to pressures and signed the agreement under duress.
Members of Parliament, Throw Out the Kutch Pact: Says Deendayal Upadhyaya
Status Quo Post-Aggression
Pakistan committed an act of want on aggression and go back unscathed and triumphant with an agreement recognising her right to patrol Indian territory and a dispute over 3,500 square miles of territory in the Kutch, to be arbitrated by an international tribunal. And what did India get? Restoration of status quo as on January 1965.
The Government of India had insisted on it. They got it. But it turned out to be not status quo ante aggression but status quo post aggression. Now we are told that Pakistan had intruded into that area even before 1 January, 1965. Evidently either the Government was ignorant, or it deliberately deceived the people. Our borders were neither guarded nor defended. There has been criminal negligence on the part of the government in the discharge of a primary duty. A government which cannot defend the borders has no right to exist.
While the nation was sought to be hypnotized into a sense of relief and achievement at the signing of the agreement, Bharatiya Jana Sangh could see the real nature of the pact and its dangerous implications. It refused to be either bemused or benumbed. It reacted sharply on the very day the agreement was staged at the Foreign Office. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Shri R.V. Bade, both MPs, and forty others, were arrested.
The people’s protest against this agreement started. On 4 July public meetings and demonstrations were held throughout the country demanding abrogation of the pact. On 10-11 July the Karya Samiti of Bharatiya Jana Sangh met at Jabalpur and decided to carry on a relentless agitation against this anti-national agreement. The electorate in every Lok Sabha constituency was asked to mobiles opinion and issue a mandate to their own representative to throw out this pact when it comes before parliament.
23 July to 1 August was cheered as a period of mass pledges by the people to defend the country’s integrity at all costs. The indomitable spirit of Lokmanya Tilak, whose birth and death anniversaries fell on these two dates, respectively, guided and inspired the people. Tilak gave us the slogan; “Freedom Is Our Birth-Right and We Shall have it,” Today the people’s full-throated slogan is, “Freedom Is Our Birth-Right and We Will Defend It.”
Constitution Violated
And now comes another phase of the programme. From the four corners of the country people will gather literally in hundred thousands to demonstrate in front of parliament House when parliament commences its monsoon session on 16 August. Demonstrations before the parliament have been many before. But this will be a demonstration with a difference. The people on 16 August are not coming to the parliament with a beggar’s bowl to beseech, but to bestow and restore what has been taken away from it. In size the demonstration is bound to far exceed any that has been organised in the past. But its unique character will be its discipline and the purpose for which the people are assembling. 16 August, 1965 would be a landmark in the history of democratic India.
This Will Be A Demonstration With A Difference
The Kutch agreement is not only an abridgement of India’s sovereignty; it negatives India’s democratic institutions. It violated the Constitution. The executive has arrogated to itself powers which it does not enjoy under the Constitution. The Supreme Court had held in its judgment on the reference of the Nehru-Noon Agreement stipulating transfer of Berubari and other areas to Pakistan, that neither the Government nor the Parliament was competent to transfer India’s sovereign rights to any other State. The agreement in this respect violates the Constitution.
Now that the executive’s powers have been so specifically determined by the Supreme Court we cannot for give the government for transgressing its limits and compromising the nation’s sovereignty. They are not ignorant, but indulgent to aggressor. They have got to be shown their place. Allowing Pakistan to patrol Indian territory is recognising their sovereignty in that area. There cannot be dual sovereignty in any given area. To agree not to send out troops in our own territory or not to set up our police posts is a limitation on our sovereignty. And to agree to refer our soveregin rights over 3,500 square miles of territory to an outside authority is a clear surrender of our sovereignty. No, this cannot be permitted.
The Government has acted not only unconstitutionally but also arbitrarily. It did not think it proper to seek the verdict of parliament. Shri Vajpayee asked the Prime Minister to call parliament; the Prime Minister turned down the suggestion. He was asked to consult opposition leaders before negotiating this pact; he did not respond. Only a totalitarian authority can be expected to act like that.
Parliament has been ignored. It has been reduced to merely a stamping body. Will the honourable members of parliament rubber-stamp this dishonorable pact and thus show to the world that they have all mortgaged their rights and judgement to the syndicated few? Even if they wish, the people will not allow them to do so. It is for this purpose that they will be coming to the parliament House on 16 August. If we love democracy, and have faith in it, we have to restore the parliament to its constitutional powers. Today the parliament House has become a house of mere stone and mortar and Government is treating MPs as if they were its salaried entourage. We cannot allow the grey at institution to perish. He must be resurrected Throw the Damn Thing Out.
Bharatiya Jana Sangh might have initiated that movement but now it is no longer a party’s programme. It has become a mass movement. Except for Communists and the Swatantra party (for obvious reasons) all other parties have rejected the pact. Even the Congress has not endorsed it. At the Bangalore session of the AICC no resolution to this effect could be adopted. Evidently Congress members in the parliament are therefore not bound even by party discipline to support the pact. There should therefore be no whip. There must be a free vote. Let them throw out the pact. Let them not be anxious about the fate of the government. It is better that a government fall rather than that the country may fall.
Remember governments will come and governments will go but the country will remain for ever. Members of parliament will come and go but the great institution should live for ever. Let the honourable Members of parliament rise to the occasion and preserve the dignity of the people they represent, of the House they are members of, and the Constitution in which they have solemnly affirmed faith. Do not look to the Prime Minister; look to the people who are the fountain of all strength and all sovereignty. The people are there at the gates to assure and support you. Do not fail them. Do not fail the Nation.
On 15 August the national flag will be hoisted everywhere but not in areas of the Rann of Kutch. Sardar post and Vigokot and Kanjarkot will not fly the Indian flag. Probably in Kanjarkot it will be a Pakistani flag that will be jousted. All this makes an empty vaunt of our Independence Day celebrations. In India Relly Independent?
Are we really independent? Then come to the parliament House on 16 August to assert that we intend to be independent. We will not be satisfied with mere slogans. We want the real content of freedom. We did not wrest freedom from the British to mortgage it to the fumbling few who only implement what the British decide for them. We will not allow India and the Government of India to succumb to international pressures. The Prime Minister might have fallen into the trap of Anglo-American diplomacy, but the people did not.
Whatever the Prime Minister might say, this agreement, if it stands, will become a precedent for similar “agreements” on Kashmir, Ladakh etc. Interested forces have already begun their machinations. At home and abroad they are likely to gather momentum if people do not take steps to thwart them. There is an old English proverb. “A stitch in time saves nine”. Let us rise now if we want to avert a major catastrophe in the future.
There are some who feel that the agreement has averted a war. It has not. In fact it has only brought it near or. There could not have been any war over Kutch. But there certainly will be one over Kashmir. Emboldened by its gains in Kutch, Pakistan is now itching for a similar show down in Kashmir. What is the way to avert it? Be firm. Do not appease. Do not surrender. Don’t be afraid of war if it comes. Pakistan has more to fear than we. Let up scrap this “agreement”.
Friends, you have faith in democracy, you love freedom, you have self-respect; you want to resist international machinations. Then come one, come all, to Delhi on 16 August to show to the world what real India is, Delhi Chalo.