Kashmir: The Bitter
Truth
by Dr. M. K. Teng, C. L. Gadoo
(Joint Human Rights Committee WA-88,
Shakarpur, Delhi - 110092)
India That
the Princely States of India, including Jammu and Kashmir State, were on
the agenda of the partition of India in 1947, is a travesty of history
and a part of the diplomatic offensive, Pakistan has launched to mislead
the international opinion about its claim to Jammu and Kashmir. The matter
of the fact is that the lapse of Paramountcy was a consequence of the dissolution
of the British empire in India and the political imperatives of the authority,
the British Crown exercised over the princely States. The withdrawal of
the Paramountcy was not a concomitant or a consequence of the Indian partition,
and neither the June 3 Declaration of 1947, nor the independence of India
Act, embodied any provision by virtue of which the partition of India affected
the Princely States or the British Paramountcy.
The British colonial empire
in India was divided into two separate and different political organisations,
the British India constituted of the British Indian Provinces and the India
of Princes. The British India was directly governed by the British Government
through the Governer-General of India, with each of the Provinces in charge
of a Provincial Governor, who in the old British tradition, administered
the Provinces, with the help of the Indian Civil Service.
The Princely States were ruled
by local potentates, who had carved their independent fiefs and kingdoms
in the long and atrocious process of the British expansion in India. Five
hundred and sixty two in number, the Indian States formed a conglomerate
of widely disparate identities in their territories, population and government.
The Princes were British feudatories, who accepted the supremacy of the
British Crown, which was symbolized in the person of the Crown Prince,
or the Viceroy of India. The relations between the British Crown and the
States were governed by what the British called, the "Paramountcy'. Paramountcy
in real terms, described the extent of the authority the British exercised
over the States.
Apparently, the rulers of the
States were vested with the powers to rule their States, but in actual
practice, the States were administered by the British officers, whose functions
were determined by the Viceroy, the Political Department of the Government
of India and the British Residents posted in the States. The Princes represented
the best of the oriental splendour, with their treasuries held by the British,
and their privy purses plentifully provided.
The Partition of India, which
loomed larger on the horizons after the failure of the Cabinet Mission
and the campaign of "Direct Action" launched by the Muslim League, suddenly
pushed the States into the fore-front. Interspersed in the British Indian
Provinces, the States were spread over more than one third of the territory
of India and constituted about a hundred million people, almost a quarter
of the population of India.
The British, the Muslim League
as well as the Indian National Congress, for their own interests, did not
favour the inclusion of the Princely States, in the constitutional reforms,
the Indian liberation movement idealised. The British held the States as
a personal preserve, protected the Princes against their people and harnessed
the resources of the States to promote the interests of their empire. The
Princes, of their privileges and unrestricted power over their subjects,
supported the British, to isolate themselves from any constitutional change
which prejudiced their position.
The Indian renaissance evoked
a widespread response in the Princely States, and the liberation movement
in India received as much support from the people of the States as it did
in the British Indian Provinces. In fact, the revolutionary struggle, which
followed the Swadeshi Movement in the aftermath of the stormy session of
the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 1906, grew in the States, where
numerous revolutionaries received quarter.
The Congress leaders, however,
on the insistence of the Princes and the Muslim League, withdrew its movement
from the States, and till almost the end of the British rule, refused to
integrate the people's movements in the States avowedly inspired by the
liberation of India, with the national struggle against the British in
the Provinces. The Congress leaders were neither prepared to displease
the Princes, who were the mantle of Indian nativity, nor did they dare
to disregard the Muslim League leaders, who made the exclusion of the hundred
million people of the Princely States, a precedent condition to any compromise
on the constitutional reforms in lndia. The League leaders knew that the
inclusion of the people of the States, predominantly Hindu, would reduce
the weightage of the Muslim population in the British India in any future
scheme of constitutional change.
Throughout the long decades,
the Indian national movement evolved, the Congress leadership remained
divided on the anti- imperialist struggle in the States and the All-lndia
Congress Committee did not formalise its opinion on the States till the
Udaipur session of the All-India States People's Conference held in 1946.
By that time, however, much precious time had been lost. The States had
almost been isolated from the mainstream of the national movement and stood
vulnerably exposed to the machinations of the British, the Muslim League
and the Princes to balkanise India.
The Muslim League policy on
the States was more involved and shifting, which concealed the designs
of the League to grab the Muslim ruled Hindu majority States as well as
the Muslim majority States for the separate Muslim State of Pakistan, the
League demanded for the Muslims in India. The All-India States Muslim League,
an appendage of the Muslim League, constituted to co-ordinate the Muslim
movements for Pakistan in the States, demanded in 1940, the integration
of all such Indian States in the Muslim homeland of Pakistan as were ruled
by the Muslim rulers as well as all such States .as were inhabited by Muslim
majorities. The Lahore Resolution of the League, claimed a separate homeland
for the Muslims in India, which was constituted of the Muslim majority
Provinces of Sindh, the Punjab, Bengal, North-west Frontier, the Chief-Commissioner's
Province of Baluchistan and the Hindu majority Province of Assam for its
geographical contiguity to Bengal, besides the Princely States which were
either ruled by the Muslim rulers or populated hy Muslim majorities.
The Congress awoke to the dangerous
consequences of the isolation of the States almost after it had virtually
accepted the partition, when it realised that the British, in collaboration
with the Muslim League, were conspiring to break up India into several
imbecile political entities with the Muslim State of Pakistan strategically
placed at their epicentre. That was precisely what Jinnah, Conrad Corfield,
and the Political Department of the Government of India visualised as the
future constitutional composition of India. The Cabinet Mission Plan also,
by and large, envisaged the division of India into several political identities
which were confined within the territorial jurisdiction of a united Indian
Dominion. The Cabinet Mission precisely accepted the separate identity
of the Princely States and rejected any proposition to transfer the Paramountcy
to the federal government. The Mission insisted upon the agreements between
the federal authority and the Princely States, as a basis for any future
relations between the States and the Indian Union which would follow their
accession and withdrawal of the Paramountcy.
At the time, when the British
and the Muslim League settled down to decide the fate of India, the Congress
turned to the people in the States, whom they had neglected throughout
the long history of Indian struggle against the British. Once again the
Congress leaders fell prey to their own indecision and made a half-hearted
plea for the right of the people of the States to determine their future.
Not backed by conviction, the Congress demand made little impression upon
the British and the League. The Princes were disparaged and opposed the
right of the people in the States to determine their future. The League
leaders turned the bend at the most appropriate time and in an astute move,
pledged their support to the British designs to exclude the States from
the constitutional arrangements envisaged by the partition and the withdrawal
of the Paramountcy, to restore to the Princes, the powers which the British
Crown exercised over them. The Muslim League realised that most of the
States were populated by Hindu majorities and any arrangements to transfer
Paramountcy to the two Dominions, would definitely place them in India.
After the lapse of the Paramountcy, the Muslim League shared the optimism
of British about independence of the States and their eventual alignment
with the Muslim State of Pakistan, as a counterweight against India.
The Congress resolve, having
been broken by the partition and the Congress leaders, still groping for
a new rationale of the Indian freedom, after their basic commitment to
the unity of India was abandoned, did not stick to their demand for the
right of the State's people to determine the future disposition of the
States. Instead they acquiesced, without demur, with the British proposals
to terminate the Paramountcy and restore the Princes the powers to decide
their future affiliations with the two successor Dominions of India and
Pakistan. The States were thus removed from the agenda of the Indian partition
on the insistence of the British, the machinations of the Muslim League
as well as the unconditional acceptance of the lapse of Paramountcy by
the Congress.
The conspiracy proved to be
deeper and though the British Government refused to accord the status of
British Dominions to the Princely States, it left the door open for separate
negotiations with their rulers. Mountbatten informed the Princes, that
he would forward to the British Government any requests from anyone of
them to establish direct relations with Great Britain.
When Jinnah met Mountbatten,
a day before the acceptance of the partition plan was announced, he was
triumphant. He had after all, carved out a Muslim State and also destroyed
the bond of unity between British India and the Princely States. Jinnah
did not conceal his satisfaction on the vivisection of India, which the
Partition Plan, in fact envisaged." His delight was unconcealed", Mountbatten
reported to London. "The Long campaign" the Viceroy mentioned in his report,
"was virtually over There would be no Hindu government of an undivided
India."
In fact, not only Jinnah, but
the entire Muslim League accepted the creation of Pakistan on the terms
the British offered. In the League Council, the Muslim League accepted
by 400 votes to 8, the separation of the Muslim majority regions and the
British provinces into an independent and separate Muslim State. The League
Council did not include the Princely States in the settlement with the
British which created Pakistan.
So clear was the line drawn
in the Partition Plan, between the division of the British India Provinces
and the Princely States, that the Secretary of the State for India, refused
to accept any interference with the lapse of the Paramountcy or its consequence
on the States or the two Dominions. The Viceroy wrote to the Secretary
of the State to insert a clause into the Indian Independence Bill, limiting
the powers of the Princely States which would revert to them with the lapse
of the Paramountcy. The Secretary of State, straightway rejected the suggestion
to the satisfaction of both the Political Department of the Government
of India as well as Muslim League. The British as well as the Muslim League,
sought the reversion of Paramountcy to the Princes, as a part of the transfer
of power, to leave any future alignments in India, in which the Princes
would participate to be determined primarily by them, of course, with the
Muslim State of Pakistan backing them up in what they decided to do.
The partition plan, envisaged
by the June 3 Declaration, did not apply to the Indian States, which were
left out of its procedure as well as its consequences. States were never
placed on the agenda of the Partition of India, and therefore, the claim
made by Pakistan to complete the agenda of the partition, by forcing India
to cede the Muslim majority State of Jammu and Kashmir to it, has no historical
or political relevance. Neither Pakistan nor India, laid any claim, to
any Princely State on account of the partition, which was strictly limited
to the agreement between the British, the Congress and the Muslim League
to divide the boundaries of the British India and create the State of Pakistan.
The transfer of powers of India
in 1947, involved the division of the British Indian Provinces, into two
dominions, India and Pakistan and the liberation of the Indian States from
the British Paramountcy. The two processes were distinctly separate and
underlined political change, which led to different consequences. The Provinces
were reorganised into two independent dominions; the States were released
from the obligations of the Paramountcy and the rulers of the States were
empowered to adhere to either of the two Dominions, irrespective of the
communal division, the Indian partition underlined. The State Departments
of India and Pakistan, headed by Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Sardar Abdur
Rab Nishtar respectively, opened negotiations with the Princes, for separate
political settlement, with them. Neither Patel nor Nishtar demanded, at
any time, the adherence of any State to either of the Dominions on the
basis of the partition of the British India.
Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar offered
whole-hearted support to the independence of the States, including the
State of Jammu and Kashmir and strongly opposed any political arrangements,
which were sought to be reached with the Princes on the basis of the division.
The Hidden Hand
It was again the invisible
hand of the British, which sought to alter the balance and this time, it
was no other person than Mountbatten himself, who, perhaps, having realised
the force of the States People's movements for unity with lndia, sought
to prepare the ground for a division of the Princely States between the
two Dominions on the basis of the partition. Mountbatten realised that
none ot the Princes, whose States were geographically situated within the
territories of the Indian Dominion, would be able to hold out against the
will of his subjects and the States would sooner or later join the Indian
Dominion. He did not share the optimism of the British officers in India
and at home and the leaders of the Muslim League, to save the Muslim rules
States from India. Instead he feared that the tide of the events would
wipe off the Princes and India would absorb the States, perhaps sooner
than anticipated.
He was more concerned about
the Princely States, situated within the proposed boundaries of Pakistan,
among which the ruler of the Kalat State, refused to accede to Pakistan.
He was also apprehensive of the Jammu and Kashmir State, which would be
left with contiguous borders with both the Indian Dominion and Pakistan
and of which the ruler was not favourably disposed towards settlement with
Pakistan. His fears about Jammu and Kashmir were confirmed by Hari Singh,
the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, who refused to accept his advice to arrive
at an agreement with Pakistan.
Mountbatten went to the extent
of ensuing India a viable border with Pakistan and played safe in the division
of the Upper Bara Doab, and favoured the inclusion of the districts of
Amritsar and Gurdaspur in India. On the States, Mounbatten had a different
commitment, which was dictated by the interests of the British empire.
By the close of the month of July 1947, while the partition had begun to
assume effect, Mountbatten was convinced that the borders of India should
be confined to the Punjab, leaving the northern frontier of Jammu and Kashmir
in safer and more friendly hands of Pakistan.
In his last address, he delivered
to the Princes on 25 July 1947, in Delhi, Mountbatten spelt out certain
broad guidelines for them to follow in the determination of the future
disposition of their States. He advised the Princes to accede to either
of the two Dominions on the basis of the geographical contiguity of their
States and the composition of their population. In his endeavour to extend
the partition to the States, he utilised V.P. Menon, who had a few months
earlier prepared the blue-print for the partition of India, which formed
basis of the transfer of power.
The Muslim League leaders scoffed
at the advice of the Viceroy to the Princes and secretly counselled the
Muslim Princes to ignore his address. They communicated to the Princes
their readiness to support them in their independence. The Indian leaders,
with V. P. Menon pulling the strings from behind, walked into the trap
and entrusted the task of the negotiation with the Princes to Menon and
Mountbatten. Mountbatten, deliberately avoided to take a bold initiative
on the Muslim-ruled States and Jammu and Kashmir to bring about their integration
with India. Junagarh acceded to Pakistan; Hyderabad refused to join India
and Jammu and Kashmir was pushed into the oblivion. Menon succeeded where
the going was easy, with Mountbatten adding an element of diplomatic intrigue
to an otherwise versatile comedy which the Princes enacted to accede to
India. Mountbatten provided a long handle to Pakistan which that country
is still using in Kashmir with devastating effect.
The British were no votaries
of the Indian Unity and in the negotiations with the Indian leaders, preceding
the acceptance of the partition of India, they kept the door open, for
the Princes, to form a third, fourth and even a fifth estate in India,
which in the new balances of power, between the two Dominions. Conrad Corfield
and the Political Department of the Government of India as well as the
Secretary of the State, were determined to keep the States apart from the
division of the British India and the transfer of power to the two Dominions.
The record indeed is straight.
The lapse of Paramountcy released the Prince from the British tutelage
and they were ensured the right to determine the future of their States
by the British which assumed effect with their withdrawal from India. Pakistan
had no right to any claim the Princely States which did not form a part
of the British India. The Indian leaders in fact should have decisively
claimed the States as a part of the colonial empire liberated from the
British tutelage. They knew that Princes were only the shadows of their
British masters, and they would neither dare to join Pakistan nor remain
out of India after the British had boarded their ships for home. The only
factor, which the Dominion of India could not overlook in regard to the
States was the geographical location of several Princely States, within
the territories, of which Pakistan was proposed to be constituted. No Government
of India could have consciously taken the responsibility of seeking islands
of territory inside the boundaries of Pakistan with all the military responsibility
any such possession would entail. The Indian leadership, understandably
made no efforts to save the State of Kalat, where the ruler refused to
accede to Pakistan and sought the help of the Indian leaders to save him
from being swallowed by the League. Kalat was eventually smothered into
submission by the continued pressure of the British, who backed Pakistan
to acquire the States, contiguous to its territories which incidentally,
included Bahawalpur as well.
Jinnah and the other leaders
of the Muslim League had greater stakes in the States ruled by the Muslim
Princes than they had in the Muslim majority of the Jammu and Kashmir State.
They sought to keep the option open for the Muslim rulers to join Pakistan.
And they did not close the option for the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir either.
In fact, they offered to support Maharaja Hari Singh, in case he decided
to opt for the independence of the State. Hari Singh saw through the game
and refused to be used as a pawn in the British-League plan to keep the
Muslim ruled States out of India.
Accession to India
The Jammu and Kashmir state
was contiguous to both India and Pakistan and had hundreds of miles of
contiguous border with East Punjab and the Punjab Hill States, which had
already decided to join India. Pakistan's propaganda has considerably clouded
the real facts of the division of the Punjab. The division of the East
Punjab from the west Punjab was not subject to the whims and caprices of
the League leaders. They could not be ceded all the territories in the
Punjab on which they laid their hands. They perpetrated a myth that the
inclusion of the district of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab, contrary to
their claims, was aimed to open up Jammu and Kashmir to India.
The division of the Punjab
was entrusted to an independent Boundary Commission which the British constituted
and which was headed by an Englishman, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer of
considerable repute. Besides its Chairman, the Commission constituted of
four other members, two of them Din Mohamad and Mohamad Munir who represented
the Muslims, Mehar Chand Mahajan represented the Hindus and Teja Singh
represented the Sikhs whose culture, history and religious heritage were
inextricably linked with the Punjab.
The Commission could not follow
standards different in demarcating the Muslim majority regions in the west
of the Punjab and the Hindu majority regions in the east of the Punjab.
Pathankot, was a Hindu majority Tehsil and it could not have been included
in West Punjab by any stretch of imagination. The district boundaries were
not strictly adhered to by the Boundary Commission as the basis of the
division of the Punjab and there was evidently no reason why a Hindu majority
Tehsil, which was contiguous to the Punjab Hill States should have been
excluded from the East Punjab.
Pathankot apart, the whole
of the district of Gurdaspur was strategically important not only from
the view-point of a defensible Indian border, a major consideration, the
Boundary Commission recognised in demarcating the boundaries of the East
Punjab form the West Punjab but also in view of the future of the district
of Amritsar which would be almost isolated into an island of Indian territory
in the West Punjab. Amritsar was by no means a Muslim majority district
and it could not be separated from the east Punjab for its significance
to the Sikh Community. Amritsar symbolised the principal centre of the
Sikh religion. Sikhs were by far the more important of the parties to the
partition of the Punjab, because, a major part of their population was
uprooted from the West Punjab where their main assets and lands were located
and secondly the most sacred of their religious shrines were situated in
the Muslim majority districts, which could not be retained in the East
Punjab Gurdaspur formed the most strategic flank of the district of Amritsar.
The ruler of the Jammu and
Kashmir State, Maharaja Hari Singh, had his own interests in the final
delimitation of the new boundaries of the east and the west Punjab. Several
of the Hindu leaders in the Punjab, among them notably Sir Shadi Lal and
Bakhshi Tek Chand, kept him intimately informed of the proceedings of the
Boundary Commission. The British were apprehensive about him, but through
many of his British contacts, he had managed to convince the Political
Department that he would not take any precipitate action, which would bring
him into conflict with Pakistan. Hari Singh, did not hide his interest
in a balanced order with India and Pakistan and open access to the two
Dominions. He conveyed to the British Resident and the Political Department
a veiled threat that he would be forced to deal directly with the Indian
Government, if any attempts were made to isolate his state in the boundary
demarcation of the Punjab, irrespective of the consequences his actions
would have.
The Muslim Commissioners, Justice
Din Mohamad and Justice Mohamad Munir insisted upon the division of the
Upper Bari Doab, with a view to assume control over the Ravi Canal head-works
at Madhopur and encircle the district of Amritsar and also cut off the
fair weather track between Madhopur and Jammu.
The Radcliffe award was announced
three days after the transfer of power. Expectedly Gurdaspur was included
in the east Punjab. Pakistan raised a hue and cry on the decision of the
Boundary Commission, though the accredited Muslim members of the Commission
had committed themselves to accept the award.
The actual game plan of Pakistan
to grab the Muslim ruled States with the support of the British and the
Muslim majority States with the support of their Muslim subjects unfolded
on 14 August, 1947, the day power was transferred in Pakistan and the Nawab
of Junagarh, a Hindu majority State situated in the midst of the Kathiawar
States, acceded to Pakistan. Pakistan had secured the accession of all
the Princely States, situated within its territorial limits, including
the State of Kalat, which had resolutely resisted accession to the new
Muslim State. A secret understanding had also been reached with the Nawab
of the Hyderabad, to support him against India till the Nawab was able
to accede to assume independence and then align himself with Pakistan.
The Indian leaders failed to
respond to the threat Pakistan posed to the Kathiaward States and instead
of trying immediate counter- action against the Nawab of Junagarh, they
feebly complained to Pakistan against the decision of the Nawab and proposed
that the final disposition of the Junagarh State be determined by a reference
to the people of the State. The bogey of referendum was actually raised
by Mountbatten to enable him to execute his design; to divide the States
on the basis of the partition.
The Congress leaders walked
into the trap. Perhaps, unsure of the British reaction and unable to face
Mountbatten, they did not dare take advantage of the people's wrath against
the rulers of Junagarh and Hyderabad. In Hyderabad, feverish preparations
were afoot to declare the independence of the State and a secret understanding
had already been reached between the Nawab of Hyderabad and the League
leaders, which assured the Nawab, the support of Pakistan for an independent
Hyderabad. Contrary to the avowedly pro-Pakistan stand of the rulers of
Junagarh and Hyderabad, Hari Singh maintained scrupulous silence on the
issue of accession. Hari Singh told the Viceroy as well, and in plain terms,
that he would take such a decision on the accession of the State as would
be in the interests of his people. Indeed, Mountbatten denounced him for
his indecision and accused him of stupidity in reacting to the situation
in a way which the British did not approve. Hari Singh offered a standstill
agreement to both the Dominions on 12 August 1947.
India had a claim to all the
three States, mainly because of their geographical contiguity to the Indian
Dominion and their strategic importance to its security and territorial
integrity. Neither the partition nor Pakistan was a factor in this determination
of the future of Junagarh and Hyderabad which were embedded in the heart
of the Indian Dominion and Jammu and Kashmir, which formed the traditional
frontier of India in the north.
The indecisiveness of the Congress
leaders to act promptly in Junagarh had a far-reaching impact on the Kathiawad
States. Some of the rulers warned the Government of India that its prestige
in Kathiawad had been irreparably impaired by its inability to save Junagarh
and the two smaller States of Babriawad and Mangrol. The warning administered
a jolt to the Indian leaders. Mountbatten Laughed in his sleeves, for he
realised that Pakistan had assumed the initiative in using Junagarh as
a pawn for a bargain on Jammu and Kashmir as well as Hyderabad. Pakistan
followed the course Mountbatten had visualised. Acceptance of a plebiscite
would, in effect mean the deferment of the accession of Hyderabad and Jammu
and Kashmir and the continuation of the status-quo in Junagarh indefinitely,
for how would the proposed plebiscite be conducted and by whom, more specially
in a situation when the Nawabs of Junagarh and Hyderabad, were under no
obligation to accept an agreement between the two Dominions which impinged
upon their rights.
The Indian leadership was broken
into factions which were led by decrepit and small men, who had lost the
courage to face the problems, the partition had created. Nehru put himself
at the mercy of the Viceroy, who exhibited determination to tackle the
problems of the partition, which Nehru himself, was hardly prepared to
face. Gandhi had obsolete views on the States and had lost contact with
the stupendous developments, which rocked the Princely India.
Inside the Congress, the debate
on the viability or otherwise of non-violence and non-intervention, immobilised
whatever initiative India still possessed to retrieve the situation in
the States of Junagarh, Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir, which were still
outside the fold of the Indian Dominion. For India, the question of the
Princely States was crucial, after the Muslim majority provinces and regions
of the British India had seceded to form a separate Muslim State.
The further separation of the
States into a third confederacy, Jinnah had visualised, was bound to balkanise
India sooner or later. Junagarh with a long sea-coast, which provided it
access to Pakistan, posed a grave threat to whole Kathiawad peninsula Hyderabad
was in the heart of India, and was boiling in internal distrust, which
had dangerous portent for the country in the south. Jammu and Kashmir formed
a part of the warm Himalayan hinterland, and if it was lost to Pakistan,
the whole of the Indian frontier in the north, would suddenly disintegrate.
The Jammu and Kashmir State was crucial to the existence of India and not
Pakistan, the one basic fact, the Indian leadership failed to emphasise.
After the transfer of power
in India, the Dominion Government of India extended the time for accession,
to the two States of Jammu and Kashmir and Hyderabad, which had offered
a standstill agreement, to continue the relationship already subsisting
between the States and the British India. The standstill agreement was
of the same standard pattern, which the State Department of India had evolved
for all the States. The standstill agreements, it needs to be noted, had
no political implications and were restricted to the continuation of arrangements,
which had governed the relation between the Princely States and the British
Government of India.
While Pakistan kept the fire
hanging in Jungarh, it prepared fast to deliver another stunning blow to
India. On 21 October 1947, hardly fourteen days after Pakistan had sternly
warned India against any intervention in Junagarh. It launched a massive
invasion of the Jammu and Kashmir State. Thousands of armed tribesmen and
irregulars, led by the crack Tochi Scouts, easily identified by their brown
tunics, stormed into the State, with the twin objective of occupying the
Kashmir Valley and attacking Jammu from across the Sialkot border to cut
off the only communication line connecting the State with Madhopur in the
Punjab, which the State Government had ordered to be repaired into a more
serviceable highway for cornmunication with India. Even at that time, Pakistan
claimed that the invading forces were the Muslim subjects of the State,
who had risen in revolt against the Dogra rule and the Afridi and the other
tribesmen had only joined their brethren in the war of their liberation.
Junagarh was already in Pakistan.
The Nawab of Hyderabad was eagerly waiting for the crucial movement to
sneak into its protectorate. The Tochi troops and the Afridi tribesmen,
who had delivered a blitzkrieg attack on Jammu and Kashmir, were close
to their military objectives. After Jammu and Kashmir was reduced, Pakistan
could negotiate a settlement on Junagarh and Hyderabad from a position
of strength. M.A. Jinnah, had forestalled Mountbatten in his bid to divide
the States on the basis of the partition. No one in Pakistan, not even
the Governer-General of that Country had any intention to invoke partition
as a basis for any settlement of the Princely States, including Jammu and
Kashmir.
Hari Singh upturned the whole
gameplan of Pakistan. He offered accession to India, while the invading
armies of Pakistan were fast converging on the capital city of Srinagar.
The Government of India, which had received the reports of the invasion
in the morning of 22 October 1947, took five long days to accept the accession
of the state and send military help to Kashmir to save it from the invading
forces poised to launch the final assault on the State capital. Mountbatten
opposed on expeditious military decision, mainly to delay the deployment
of the Indian troops in the state and allow Pakistan to complete the occupation
of, at least, the Kashmir Valley and the frontier of Battistau and Ladakh.
The Indian leaders allowed precious time to pass bye in squabbles among
themselves and with Hari Singh on how the authority of the government would
be transferred to the National Conference, which opposed the accession
of the State to Pakistan and exercised powerful influence among the Kashmir-speaking
Muslims in the State. Together with the Hindus and the other minorities,
a million in number, the Kashmir-speaking Muslims in the state. Together
with the Hindus and the other minorities a million number, the Kashmir-speaking
Muslims constituted almost the two thirds of the population of the State.
While V. P. Menon, The Secretary
of the state in Department of the Government of India, ran back and forth
from Srinagar to Delhi to finalise a settlement with Hari Singh, the real
batter for the State was fought by the troops of the State army. Already
depleted by the desertion of its Muslim ranks, the state army offered dogged
resistance to the invading hordes at held them at bay till their last hour,
earning moments of reprieve for Menon as well as the Maharaja Brigadier
Rajinder Singh, the commander of the state army and his valiant men laid
down their lives in the battle but cut off the advance of the enemy till
25 October 1947. The invaders entered Baramullah, the next day and settled
down to regroup for their final assault on Srinagar. On the morning of
27 October 1947, airborne Indian troops arrived in Srinagar. Few men of
the Indian soldiers of the First Sikh, who went into action that day, returned
home.
The Indian Government threw
away the initiative, the accession of the State had earned it, when it
offered to refer the accession of the state to its people, a principle
which the Indian leaders had been forced to abandon by the British as well
as the Muslim League.
The lapse of the British Paramountcy
and the right of the Princes to determine the disposition of their states
was a precedent condition which the British and the Muslim League had recognised
as a part of the transfer of power in the states. The Congress leaders,
unnerved by Hyderabad and Junagarh sought to build a balance between Jammu
and Kashmir on the one side and Hyderabad and Junagarh on the other, a
policy inspired by Mountbatten, which ultimately proved disasterous for
India.
While the Indian armies were
fighting back the invasion, the Government of India committed another,
blunder and invoked united Nations intervention to end the aggression committed
by Pakistan against Jammu and Kashmir, little realising that united Nations
intervention would involve the internationalisation of not only Kashmir,
but Hyderabad and Junagarh as well. The British pulled the strings from
behind the curtain. Jammu and Kashmir was strategically importance for
the defence of their interests and the interests of their western allies,
because the steady advance of the communists in China confronted them with
a new danger, which a combine of the communist, regimes in Asia posed.
In the Security Council, India
found itself fact to face with a world in which the sense of self-righteousness
with which Gopalaswami Ayangar pleaded the Indian case, had little credibility.
Pakistan triumphed and the Security Council foisted a resolution on India
which envisaged a plebiscite to determine the final disposition of Jammu
and Kashmir. In January 1949, a cease-fire agreement was concluded between
India and Pakistan. Almost half of the State was left under the occupation
of the enemy.
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