Jammu all set to celebrate accession day
By IANSMonday, October 25, 2010
JAMMU - Big hoardings have come up at almost all major points in Jammu as this winter capital city is all set to celebrate the 63rd anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is celebrating Tuesday as ‘Vijay Divas’ or Victory Day. It was on this day 63 years ago - Oct 26, 1947 - when the last Dogra king Maharaja Hari Singh signed the instrument of accession, when he was faced with an invasion of the state by Pakistani army regulars and raiders.
Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party also is celebrating Oct 27 as Vijay Divas, when the accession was finalised. Other groups, like the Jammu Bar Association, Jammu Traders Association, Jammu State Morcha too have come forward to celebrate the accession day.
This is for the first time that the celebrations are being organised on such a large scale.
This time, Jammu has chosen to celebrate the state’s accession to rebuff the separatists and some of the leaders of mainstream parties who have questioned the finality of the accession with India.
It is in particular response to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s assertion in the assembly in Srinagar Oct 6 that the “accession” was accompanied with certain conditions. He also chastised those who were persistently calling the state as an integral part of India.
“Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, we have said it, we say it and we will continue to say it and let it be clear to one and all that the accession is final and no power on earth can change this reality,” thundered Harshdev Singh, who heads the legislative wing of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, at a rally of party workers held as part of the celebrations Monday.
“We are proud of being Indians and our (the state’s) accession with India is final,” said Jammu Bar Association president Sunil Sethi.
Karan Singh, the son of Maharaja Hari Singh and a former union minister, had last week said that the accession signed by his father “was the same that was signed by the rulers of other princely states”, and he had stressed that “J&K is an integral part of India”.
