Kashmir suffered for years due to Jawaharlal Nehru's two major blunders: Amit Shah in Lok Sabha

On the third day of the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed the Lok Sabha during the ongoing discussion on the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill 2023 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2023 tabled on Tuesday. Defending the twin bills, Shah said that the reservation amendment bill will "provide justice to the deprived" and "give voice to them" in the legislative assembly.

New Delhi:Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday blamed India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "two major blunders" one declaring a ceasefire without winning the entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations. Shah said that Nehru's mistakes became the reason for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Amit Shah was replying to the debate on the the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill 2023 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2023 later passed by the Lok Sabha. "I support the word that was used here -- Nehruvian blunder. Because of the blunder that was committed during the time of Nehru, Kashmir had to suffer. With responsibility, I want to say that the two big blunders that happened during the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru, happened due to his decisions, because of which Kashmir had to suffer for years," Shah said.

"Kashmir had to suffer due to Nehruvian blunders. One was that when our Army was winning and as soon as Punjab area was reached, ceasefire was declared and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was born. If the ceasefire would have been (declared) three days later, PoK would have been part of India," the home minister said.

The union Home Minister's remarks about Nehru infuriated the opposition benches and they staged a walkout but returned later. With regard to the two bills, Amit Shah said that they were aimed at “provide justice to the deprived” in the region. Defending the twin J&K Amendment Bills, Shah, while participating in a debate over the bills, said that the J&K Reservation (Amendment) bill “pertains to doing justice to and providing rights to those against whom injustice was done (by previous dispensations)”.

The Union Home Minister said that such communities were “insulted and ignored” by the the previous dispensations. “The people who are deprived in any society should be brought forward. That is the basic sense of the Constitution of India. But they have to be brought forward in a way that doesn't reduce their respect. There is a huge difference between giving rights and giving rights respectfully,” he said.

Attacking the previous dispensations, Amit Shah said, “had terrorism been tackled at the beginning without considering vote-bank politics, Kashmiri Pandits would not have had to leave Kashmir Valley”. He said one of the bills “seeks to give representation in the assembly to those who had to leave Kashmir due to terrorism”. He said the bills were aimed at providing justice to the people who were deprived for the last 70 years.

Shah also lashed out at the Congress for talking about backward classes, saying that if any party has opposed backward classes and come in the way of their growth, it is the Congress. He said that PM Narendra Modi was “born into a poor family and became the prime minister and he knows the pain of the backward classes and the poor”.