No, this is not an alternative solution to Kashmir issue. It was how Dadra & Nagar Haveli came into India!What if a government was to declare an Indian Administrative Service officer the Prime Minister of some territory for a day just to get him to sign an instrument of accession with India? There would be howls of outrage and protest, marches, appeals to the Supreme Court and a veritable social media explosion.No, this is not a scoop exposing what was being contemplated in our newly created Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. It is what actually happened decades ago in order to secure the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli , two colonial enclaves that the Portuguese stubbornly refused to surrender, just like Goa.Indian readers and viewers have been treated to long—and presumably erudite— treatises featuring facets of history from all parts and periods to substantiate arguments about the recent state of our nation. Yet most of us Indians remain in the dark about our own recent history, forget about our much-maligned past.Indeed, most Indians would be surprised to realise that the map of India has been almost in a state of permanent flux. The role of Sardar Patel in strong-arming Junagarh and Hyderabad soon after Partition are well known. Internal reorganisations have led to more changes. Goa and Sikkim added to India’s territory.But little Dadra and Nagar Haveli ( DNH ) also joined India as a Union Territory as late as 11 August 1961 by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. And as an avid student of history I am embarrassed I had no idea about the singularly dramatic events that played out in those two little enclaves for years preceding it.The modern day echoes of what transpired in that forgotten nook of western India are truly amazing and riveting. And the out-of-the box solution arrived at by the government led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in June-August 1961 for DNH was as unexpected as what happened on 5 August 2019 in J&K.Faced with an intransigent colonial power, Goan nationalists had turned their attention to the two tiny landlocked Portuguese enclaves, then entirely surrounded by Bombay State, now ensconced between Maharashtra and Gujarat. DNH was deemed to be easier to ‘liberate’ than heavily defended Goa.So the protesters against Portugal organised meetings in the primarily tribal dominated villages and small towns of the two enclaves. In fact, reading up on the events also provides a possible clue about why the DNH liberation is glossed over by eminent historians today: the major role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).But movement to free all Portuguese territories began even before 15 August 1947, and gained momentum every year after that. And leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan provided political heft. Even Goa native Lata Mangeshkar sang at a fundraiser for the liberationists in Pune in 1954!The National Liberation Movement Organization (NLMO), the Azad Gomantak Dal (AGD) and volunteers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) planned an armed assault to free DNH. They reconnoitred the area in 1953, met local leaders and a year later formed the United Front for Liberation of territories.Meanwhile the United Front of Goans (UFG), also made similar plans helped by JD Nagarwala, India’s DIG of the Special Reserve Police just across the border. And on 22 July 1954, the UFG attacked the police station in Dadra, killing a subinspector and declaring it a free country the very next day.On 28 July 1954 AGD volunteers reached Naroli and asked the Portuguese policemen to surrender. They complied. Village after village fell to the pro-India ‘raiders’ of the UFG, AGD and RSS. With the ‘fall’ of Silvassa on 2 August 1954, Dadra and Nagar Haveli became an independent country!From 1954 to 1961, the ‘Varishta Panchayat of Free Dadra and Nagar Haveli’ held sway and the matter reached the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In April 1960 ICJ ruled that Portugal had sovereign rights over Dadra and Nagar Haveli. It was clearly time for a lasting solution to this vexed special status.Anxious DNHians asked India for help and IAS officer KG Badlani was sent as the administrator. The Varishta Panchayat, having already voted to join India that June, appointed Badlani as the Prime Minister, putting him on par with Nehru, and a legal signatory to the document of accession to India on 11 August 1961!With Goa annexed and DNH ‘acceded’ in 1961, Nehru had reason to smile, but the ‘international community’—never very quick on the uptake—only recognised this takeover in 1974. At least by then he had learnt not to run to the UN or else we may have had an addition to Article 371 if not Article 370 And to think all this—including independence— happened right inside independent India just over 50 years ago, at a place that many of us have difficulty placing on a map. Pondicherry and even Auroville have their own tale of rebellion and independence as do Sikkim and Goa. All had unusual and clever solutions.Come to think of it, over these past seven decades, the Indian government has had tremendous experience and success in such matters of sovereignty and governance. The only new entrant has been social media. Will that prove to be an enhancer or a provocateur, however, is not quite clear.