Kashmir Conspiracy Case and World Opinion

Abstract

During the ignominious Kashmir Conspiracy Case in 1958, the Ministry of Home Affairs [India] and its intelligence agencies worked assiduously to not just indict Akbar Jehan, the Sheikh, and their trusted colleagues, but to get them harshly convicted as well. In order to legitimize the crackdown on the blossoming political consciousness of Kashmir with unprecedented brutality, the Ministry of Home Affairs [India] in collusion with the Intelligence Bureau conspired to criminalize the political activities of the Sheikh, Akbar Jehan, and the Plebiscite Front. Ironically, the re-arrest of the Sheikh in 1958 and the harassment of Akbar Jehan created a constituency for his and Akbar Jehan’s politics in those parts of the world that had lent moral support to India’s glorious struggle for freedom in 1947. World opinion leaned toward equal rights and the self-determination of peoples.