Tragedy of Kashmir that bleeds us to this day

Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir and Sardar Patel

My article Tragedy of Kashmir that bleeds us to this day appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.

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One fateful decision taken by Nehru seventy years ago, much against the advice of Sardar Patel, is still creating ripples in the Indian sub-continent. India continues to suffer for the Kashmir mistake

Seventy years is a long time, but a blunder which took place in the last days of 1947, is still creating ripples in the sub-continent. I am speaking of Kashmir. On October 20, 1947, the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir was invaded by tribesmen and Pakistani nationals from bases inside the Pakistan territory.
Six days later, Maharaja Hari Singh offered to sign the instrument of accession of his State to the Indian Union. The following day, on October 27, the British Governor-General of India accepted the offer; thereafter, the State became an integral part of India.
In a separate letter to the ruler, Mountbatten expressed a wish that the people of the State should be given the right to decide whether they should remain in India or not. This was to take place at a future date when law and order had been restored and the soil of the State cleared of the invaders.
In the following weeks, the situation continued to worsen; on December 19, in a note on Kashmir, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru noted: “there has been a progressive deterioration and the initiative appears to have been with the enemy most of the time.”
Even the pacifist Prime Minister realised the seriousness of the situation: “What is happening in Kashmir State is not merely a frontier raid but a regular war, on a limited scale, with the latest weapons being used on the part of the invaders.” Nehru continued: “This type of operations can continue for months and months and years without bringing any result. The longer they continue the greater harm they cause to India.”
He agreed that only solution for India was a military action which meant hitting at the raiders, their bases and supply lines in Pakistan.
When Lord Mountbatten, the Governor General, realised the possibility of a change in India’s policy, he decided to act quickly. Since the beginning of the crisis in Kashmir, he had wanted to give the United Nations a say in the matter. But for India, the mere fact of appealing to the United Nations meant creating a ‘dispute’ where there was no dispute; the Kashmir maharaja, like more than 500 other rulers, had acceded to the Indian Union. The fact that Pakistan has organised an armed invasion of Kashmir was a separate issue; the accession of Kashmir was indeed legal, Mountbatten had himself accepted it in writing.
But if India was to declare a war on Pakistan, it would have many consequences for Great Britain and Mountbatten’s career. First, the British officers, serving in the armies of the two dominions, would have to resign; the ‘stand down’ order issued by London was clear on this. The British generals were not vital for India, since the indigenisation of the Army had made great strides since August 15; however, it would have serious consequences for the Pakistanis who were totally dependent on the British officers.
Another consequence was that Mountbatten would probably lose his job, it was impossible for a Briton to be the Head of a State at war against another member of the Commonwealth (ie Pakistan).
As Mountbatten started putting pressure on Jawaharlal Nehru to refer the issue to the United Nations, a distressing incident took place in Delhi. Though legally, the issue of Jammu & Kashmir was under the Ministry of States headed by Sardar Patel, Nehru decided to take over the Kashmir file. We shall see the consequences.
On December 23, using the excuse of 150 motor vehicles being sent from East Punjab to Kashmir by the States’ Ministry, the Prime Minister wrote to Patel: “I do not appreciate the principle which presumably the States Ministry has in view in regard to its work. That Ministry, or any other Ministry, is not an imperium in imperio, [a state with the State] jealous of its sovereignty in certain domains and working in isolation from the rest.”
This was totally unfair to Patel.
But Nehru argued that Kashmir was connected with international, military and others issues “which are beyond the competence of the States Ministry as such.”
Patel immediately decided to resign; he told Nehru that the latter’s letter “has caused me considerable pain …In any case, your letter makes it clear to me that I must not or at least cannot continue as a Member of Government and hence I am hereby tendering my resignation.”
Unfortunately, on Gandhi’s intervention, Patel had to withdraw his resignation, but thereafter he had no say on important decisions on Kashmir. This would have tragic consequences.
Once Patel was out of the way, Mountbatten could act; he asked the British High Commissioner in Delhi to inform Attlee of the catastrophic military situation for India and that if Uri and Naushara fell, there would be nothing he could do “to stop the Indian forces from marching in West Pakistan.”
The problem was that Mountbatten, as Chairman of the Defence Committee, was privy to all Delhi’s decisions. He could not tell Attlee, the British Prime Minister, to directly write to Nehru, by referring to plans that Attlee was not supposed to know. Mountbatten, therefore, suggested that Nehru should himself keep Attlee informed of the situation.
Naively, the Indian Prime Minister wrote to Attlee to explain to him that India had no alternative but to attack Pakistan; the last thing His
Majesty’s Government wanted to see was the end of Pakistan as Attlee knew very well that as soon as the war would break out, all British officers would have to leave both dominions.
He replied the same day to Nehru that his Government was very much disturbed by the fact that India believed it had the right to enter Pakistan, even in self-defense. Attlee knew Nehru well enough to play on a very sensitive point: That world opinion would condemn him and India.
Probably also influenced by Edwina Mountbatten, Nehru fell into the trap; he wrote a complaint to the United Nations. But by accepting Mountbatten’s suggestion to unveil India’s plans to Attlee, Nehru committed a major blunder, and Patel could not intervene anymore.
On December 28, 1947, in a letter to Lord Mountbatten, Nehru wrote: “In view of the great importance of the step we are contemplating regarding a reference to the United Nations, we had a special meeting of the Cabinet today to consider it.” A ‘draft reference’ was approved and a copy sent to the British Prime Minister.
The next day, Vallabhbhai Patel was informed “I am sending you separately a copy of a telegram sent yesterday to the Prime Minister, UK, in regard to Kashmir. We held a meeting of the Cabinet yesterday afternoon when we considered this telegram and the draft reference to UNO.”
Patel had been sidelined and the harm was done. Seventy years later, India is still suffering from the blunder then committed.
Such a tragedy!

India must not forget bitter partition lessons while tackling Kashmir

19470-48

My article India must not forget bitter partition lessons while tackling Kashmir appeared in Mail Today.


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When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, he said that “to ensure durable bilateral ties, and steady development, it is of paramount importance that we respect each other’s aspirations, concerns and strategic interests.”
Later External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup explained: “You can pretty well understand that when we talk of strategic interests and aspirations, it is not as if China is unaware of our strategic concerns and aspirations or we are unaware of their concerns.”
Modi had not only the Valley in mind, but also Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir (POK).

Concerns
In his August 15 speech, the Prime Minister had asserted: “The people of Balochistan, the people of Gilgit, the people of POK have thanked me in such a manner, from places that I have never been and never had a chance to meet, they have sent wishes to the people of India and thanked us... I am grateful to them.”
On the previous day, Pakistan’s Independence Day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had dedicated his country’s independence to the “freedom of Kashmir from Indian rule”.
During the previous weeks, Pakistan had been bringing the Kashmir issue on the world scene.
Two issues forced India to take a tougher position to defend its interests: the current unrest in the Valley, but also the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), cutting across POK, in which Beijing plans to invest $46 billion.

To get proper historical perspectives of the current situation, it is necessary to go back to the year before the British left the jewel of their empire.
The British Empire, born from a trading company, was a sea-empire.
But at the beginning of the 20th century, two new factors appeared on the strategic scene: one was aviation (whose role was masterfully demonstrated by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour in 1941) and petrol, and therefore, the importance of the Middle East.
When the British Chiefs of Staff were ordered to submit a report on the strategic consequences of the departure from the subcontinent, the generals agreed that Pakistan was more important than India; they foresaw the possibility of installing air bases in the north of Pakistan to control Russia and naval bases opening to the Arabian Sea in the south.
Another argument was that Mohammed Ali Jinnah was extremely keen to remain within the Commonwealth while the Indian National Congress had not made up its mind.
Jinnah once forcefully told Mountbatten: “You can’t kick us out.”
Subsequently, London’s policy was meticulously implemented; as the time of Independence came, while Jinnah insisted on becoming the first Governor- General of Pakistan, the Congress big-heartedly offered the job in India to the Viscount.
This was the first of a long series of blunders. Then, when soon after Independence, the issue of Junagadh and Hyderabad came up, the Cabinet had to create a defence committee.
Who became its chairman? A Britisher, the same Mountbatten. Second blunder.

Mistakes
This was a surrealistic situation: two dominions, one with a Pakistani Governor- General, the other with a British; two armies, both commanded by British generals.
The ‘Indian’ British generals took orders from the British Governor- General and not from the Indian government; the Defence Committee being chaired by a Briton, often overrode the Cabinet’s decisions and a ‘stand-down’ order stated that British officers would not fight one another.
As a result, India could not defend itself. Such was the situation when the raiders trained, equipped and directed by Colonel Akbar Khan, military adviser of the Pakistani Prime Minister, entered Kashmir at the end of October 1947.
The story is too well known to be recounted here, but the interesting point is that the British constantly played a double game.
For example, General Douglas Gracey, the Pakistani Army Commander, knew of the raiders’ attack beforehand, but he did not ‘inform’ his ‘Indian’ British counterpart.
Another mega blunder: as the Indian Army was ready to chase back the raiders and the Pakistani regulars, Jawaharlal Nehru unnecessarily referred the issue to UN… on the advice of Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister… and Mountbatten.

Outlook
The invasion of J&K by Pakistani regular forces on May 8, 1948, was in contravention of all international laws.
Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs, wrote: “When even direct aggression failed, (Pakistan) began to clamour for a plebiscite, thereby hoping to achieve by other means what she had failed to obtain by force.”
Bajpai remarked that for the first time in its Resolution of August 13, 1948, the UN “recorded one major change in the situation as contemplated by the Security Council during its deliberations in the early part of that year, namely, the presence of Pakistan troops in the state of J&K.”
In this condition, the plebiscite never took place. It is important to keep this in mind, when one goes through the recent developments in the region.
It is essential to look at these events in their historical context. The large presence of Chinese ‘workers’ on a territory that was legally part of the India Union, and also the joint patrols conducted by PLA frontier defence troops and the Pakistani Khunjerab Security Force south of the Khunjerab pass (“aiming to offer security guarantee to the construction of the CPEC”), are naturally a serious concern for India.
Let us hope that China is now aware of India’s strategic concerns and aspirations in the region.