Kashmir Dispute - The
Myth
History vindicated Maharaja Hari
Singh's Stand
By Dr. M.K. Teng
Neither
the composition of the population of the Princely
States nor the self-determination of their peoples
was recognised by the British, the Muslim League
and the Indian National Congress, as the
determining factor of the future disposition for
the states in respect of their accession.
After the 3 June Declaration, envisaging the
partition of the British India, Nehru demanded the
right of the people of the Princely States to
determine their disposition in respect of their
accession Mohammad Ali Jinnah rejected Nehru's
demand as an attempt to thwart the process of the
partition. Shortly, before the transfer of power,
the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten
advised the Princess to keep in consideration the
geography and the composition of the population of
the States in reaching a decision on their
accession. Mountbatten proposed to the Muslim
League as well as the Congress to accept the
principles of the partition–geographical
contiguity and the composition of the population
as the criteria of their accession. While the
Congress leaders indicated their inclination to
accept the proposals, the Muslim League leadership
reacted sharply against the proposals and
characterised them as an attempt to interfere with
the rights of the Princes to determine the future
of the States. At that time the Muslim League was
deeply involved in shadowy maneuvers to support
the Muslim rulers of several major States to
remain out of India and align with Pakistan. It
has been pointed out in an earlier part of this
paper that Pakistan invoked the partition to
legitimize its claim to Jammu and Kashmir on the
basis of the Muslim majority character of its
population after the last two Muslim ruled States
of Junagarh and Hyderabad were integrated with
India.
There is enough historical evidence available,
which reveals that in persuading the Congress
leaders to accept the partition the British
assured the Congress leaders that after the Muslim
majority provinces and regions were separated to
form the Muslim homeland of Pakistan, the unity of
the rest of India, including the states would be
preserved and not impaired any further.
The Indian leaders rejected the claim Pakistan
made to the Muslim majority States as well as the
Muslim ruled States, but they dithered when the
time to act and unite the States with India
arrived. Instead of taking active measures to
bring about the unification of the States with
India, they resorted to subterfuge..
The Indian leaders turned to Mountbatten and not
the people of the States to bring about their
integration with India. Mountbatten steered the
States Department to accept a balance between the
Muslim ruled States and the Muslim majority
States. The largest of the Muslim ruled States
were deep inside the Indian mainland. Neither
Gandhi nor Nehru objected to the course, the
Indian States Department followed.
The Viceroy did not forgive Hari Snigh for having
disregarded his advice to come to terms with
Pakistan. He refused stubbornly to deal with Jammu
and Kashmir independent of the Muslim States and
in the long run did more harm to Jammu and Kashmir
than anybody else in India did. He was the main
proponent of the policy of isolation, the Indian
leaders followed towards Jammu and Kashmir. The
way Mountbatten acted as the Governor General of
India till 15 August 1947, and the way he acted as
the Governor General of the Indian Dominion after
15 August 1947, left wide space open for Pakistan
to claim a separate freedom for the Muslim of
Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the Muslim
majority character of its population. Not many
months after the Security Council adopted its
first resolution on Jammu and Kashmir in August
1948, the Muslims laid claim to a separate freedom
for them on the basis of the Muslim majority
character of the population.
The Government of India and the Indian political
leadership failed to rebut the claim made by
Pakistan and the Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir that
the state was on the agenda of the partition of
India. Not only that, the Government of India and
the Indian political leadership failed to refute
the claim made by the Muslims of the state to a
separate freedom, different from the freedom that
the Indian people were ensured by the Constitution
of India - a separate freedom which was determined
by the theological imperatives of Islam. The
Indian leaders overlooked the fact that the
conflict which led to the partition of India was
rooted in the claim the Indian Muslims made to a
separate freedom which drew its sanction from the
precept and precedent of religion.
The Muslim League followed a meticulously designed
plan to use the Muslim rulers of several major
Princely States, situated deep inside the Indian
mainland to bring about the fragmentation of
India. The Indian leaders walked into the trap
when they tried to balance the accession the
Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir with
the accession of the Hindu majority States ruled
by the Muslim Nawabs like Bhopal, Hyderabad and
Junagarh. The strategy to refer the issue of the
accession to the people of these States
tantamounted to the acceptance of the Muslim claim
to a separate freedom, the Two-Nation theory
envisaged. The Indian proposals to Pakistan to
refer the accession of Junagarh with that
Dominion, accomplished by the ruler of the State
on the eve of the transfer of power, was a tame
recognition of the Muslim claim to a separate
freedom. When Pakistan made a counter-proposal to
hold a plebiscite in all the three States, the
Government of India was suddenly faced with a
catastrophic choice. It promptly rejected the
proposals made by Pakistan.
The Indian Government, for unknown reasons,
separated its offer to refer the accession of the
State to its people i.e. the Muslims for their
endorsement. Why did not the Indian Government
propose to refer the accession of Bhopal and
Trancore to the Dominion of India, to the people
of the two States? The rulers of both the States
were opposed to join India and their people took
to the streets and forced them to accede to India.
Hardly ten months after the accession of the Jammu
and Kashmir while the Indian armies were still
fighting to drive out the invading forces, United
Nations foisted a resolution on India which
envisaged a plebiscite to determine its final
disposition in respect of its accession. The
resolution of the Security Council, virtually
underlined the repudiation of the accession of the
State to India and opened the option for the
Muslims of the State to exercise their choice to
join Pakistan. The Security Council Resolution was
the first step in the process of the
internationalization of the claim of the Muslims
of the State to a separate freedom. The
Government of India cried hoarse that it had
rejected the Two-Nation Theory inspite of having
accepted the partition of India. But its
commitment to refer the accession of the State,
accomplished by Hari Singh to its people was a
tacit recognition of the right to a separate
freedom, which underlined the demand for Pakistan.
Another ten months after the August resolution of
the Security Council was adopted the Indian
Government took a fateful step and formally
recognised the right the Muslims for Jammu and
Kashmir to a separate freedom, when in May 1949,
it agreed to exclude Jammu and Kashmir from the
constitutional organisation of India. In November
1949, the Constituent Assembly of India
incorporated provisions in the Constitution of
India which left out the State from the
constitutional structure which it had evolved for
the Dominion as well as the Princely States which
had acceded to India and after years of labour.
The special provisions for the State, embodied in
the Constitution of India, stipulated the
application of only Article if the Constitution of
India to the State. A blanket limitation was
imposed upon the application of the rest of the
provisions of the Constitution of India to the
State. The Union Government was empowered to
exercise powers listed in the Central list of the
Seventh Schedule of the India Constitution only in
respect of defence, foreign affairs and
communications which corresponded with the powers
delegated by the State to the Dominion Government
by virtue of the Instrument of Accession.
The Interim Government of the State, constituted
by the National Conference insisted upon the right
to frame a separate constitution for the State,
which fulfilled the aspirations of the Muslims who
constituted a majority of its population. The
Interim Government arrogated to itself
unrestricted powers and ruled the State by decree
and ordinance. Within six years of its tenure, it
completed the task of the Muslimisation of the
State by enforcing the precedence of Islam and the
Muslim majority in its social, economic and
political organisation. In 1953, the Interim
Government claimed a separate freedom for the
Muslim ‘nation’ of Kashmir. The Indian leaders had
conceded to the Muslims the right to constitute a
Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir on the
territories of India. Confronted by the demand for
a Muslim State outside the territories of India,
the Indian leaders were flustered. They refused to
countenance the Muslim demand for a separate
Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir, which did not
form a part of India. The Interim Government was
dismissed and the National Conference broke up.
Pakistan, the Muslim separatist and pro-Pakistan
Muslim flanks joined by a large section of the
leaders and cadres of the National Conference,
called for a plebiscite in the State, which
enabled the Muslims to exercise their right of
self-determination. They claimed that they had
acquired in consequence of the partition of India
and which India, Pakistan as well as the United
Nations had explicitly recognised.
The Muslim separatist movement led by the
Plebiscite Front, committed itself to an
ideological framework which was based upon the
distortions of the history of the partition of
India. The ideological commitments of the
Plebiscite Front underlined : (a) that the
right of the Muslims to a separate freedom enmated
from the partition of India and the creation of
the Muslim homeland of Pakistan; (b) that
the right of the Muslims to a separate freedom
transcended the accession of the State to India,
brought about by the ruler of the State; and
(c) that as a consequence of the partition of
India, the Muslims, constituting the majority of
the population of the State, had acquired an
irreversible right to exercise their option to
join the Muslim State of Pakistan.
In 1990, the Muslim Jehad initiated by Pakistan
and the Muslim separatist forces in the State,
claimed their aims to be the unification of Jammu
and Kashmir with Pakistan on the basis of the
Muslim majority character of its population to
complete the agenda of the partition of India. The
Jehad claimed that Muslims of the State, as the
Muslims elsewhere in India, had acquired a right
to a separate freedom which the Muslim struggle
for Pakistan had secured the Muslim nation of
India.
The Indian Government and the Indian political
class must realise that the Muslims of the State
did not acquire any right to separate freedom from
the partition of India, which brought Pakistan
into being and any attempts to arrive at a
compromise with the Muslim separatists forces will
lead straight to a second partition of India. The
Muslim claim to a separate freedom on the basis of
religious is a negation of the unity of India.
Of the many distortions of the history of the
transfer of power in India, which form a part of
the Kashmir dispute, the most conspicuous is the
distortion of the historical facts of the boundary
demarcation between the Dominion of India and
Pakistan in the province of the Punjab. After the
announcement of the partition plan on 3 June,
1947, a Boundary Commission was constituted by the
British to demarcate the boundary between the
Muslim majority zones and the Hindu-Sikh majority
zones in the two provinces of Bengal and the
Punjab. The Boundary Commission for the
demarcation of the Muslim majority zone in the
Punjab was constituted of four Boundary
Commissioners, two of them representing the
Muslims and two representing Hindus and the Sikhs.
Justice Din Mohammad and Justice Mohammad Munir
represented the Muslims and Justice Mehar Chand
Mahajan and Justice Teja Singh represented the
Hindus and the Sikhs respectively. A British
lawyer of great repute, Sir Cyril Radcliff was
appointed the Chairman of the Commission. Sir
Radcliff presided over the Boundary Commission
appointed for the demarcation of the boundary in
the province of Bengal as well.
The Boundary Commission was charged with the
responsibility of demarcating the Muslim majority
region of the Punjab from the Hindu-Sikh majority
region of the province on the basis of the
population and other factors, which were
considered to be relevant to the division of the
province. Justice Mohammad Munir and Justice Din
Mohammad refused to agree upon the criteria to
specifically identify the factors other than
population ratios. The Muslim Commissioners
insisted upon strict adherence to the population
proportions as the basis of the division of the
province.
Mehar Chand Mahajan and Teja Singh pleaded for a
balanced interpretation of the terms of reference
of the Boundary Commission and emphasised the need
to bring about harmonization between population
proportions and the "other factors", specified in
the terms of reference. They felt that the
division of the province of the Punjab was bound
to affect the lives of millions of people,
belonging to various communities living in the
province as well as the future of the two
Dominions, India and Pakistan. The Commissioners
pointed out to the Commission that the population
of the Hindus and Sikhs was unevenly distributed
over the province of the Punjab. They pointed out
that larger sections of the Hindu and Sikh
population were concentrated in relatively smaller
region of the East Punjab and the imbalance would
be reflected in demarcation of Hindu and Sikh
majority regions from the Muslim majority regions
of the West Punjab. They expressed the fears that
the territorial division of the Punjab on the
basis of population would earmark a smaller part
of the East Punjab, to the Hindu and Sikh
Community which would not commenserate with their
population in the province. The Hindus and the
Sikhs, Mahajan and Teja Singh pointed out to the
Commission formed 45 percent of the population of
the province and the territorial division of the
province on the basis of the population ratios
would leave them with less than 30 percent of the
territory of the Punjab.
Mahajan and Teja Singh pointed out to the
commission that fair distribution of river waters,
irrigation headworks and canal system and cultural
and religious centres could not be left out of its
consideration in the delimitation of the Muslim
majority and the Hindu and Sikh majority regions
of the province. They emphasized the necessity of
keeping in view the geographical contiguity of the
demarcated regions, the communications and the
viability of the borders of the two Dominions of
India and Pakistan. They told the Commission that
in the demarcation of the borders between the West
Punjab and the East Punjab balance would have to
be achieved to ensure a fair and equitable
division of the territories of the province
between the Muslim community and the Hindu and the
Sikh communities.
The most controversial and bitterly contested part
of the demarcation for the borders was the
division of the Doab, comprising the districts of
the Lahore Division. Of the four districts of
Lahore Division, the District of Amritsar was a
Hindu-Sikh majority district and the district of
Gurdaspur was a Muslim majority district with the
Muslims having a nominal majority of 0.8 percent.
Both Din Mohammad and Mohammad Munir insisted upon
the inclusion of the entire Lahore Division in the
West Punjab. The Muslim Commissioners were men of
great ability and legal acumen and had the
advantage of representing the majority community
of the Punjab. They knew that the inclusion of the
Lahore Division in the West Punjab would be of
crucial importance to the future of Pakistan. The
inclusion of the Lahore Division in the West
Pakistan would ensure the Muslim homeland a larger
share of water resources, irrigation headworks and
the canal system of the Punjab. It would also
close the only communication line; the Jammu-Madhopur
fair weather road, which ran between the Jammu and
Kashmir State and the Dominion of India. The
Muslim League leaders were keen to isolate Jammu
and Kashmir and build pressure on the ruler of the
State to compel him to come to terms with
Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir was not wholly
isolated from India and had a contiguous frontier
with Kangra and the Punjab Hill States, which had
acceded to India. The State Government could
construct an alternative communication route to
connect the State with India. The construction of
an alternative road between the State and the
Dominion of India would, however, be an arduous
task and take a long time, thus exposing the State
to more hardship. Logistically also the
construction of an alternative road would pose
many problems. The borders between the State and
the Indian Union running east of the Pathankot
tehsil in Gurdaspur district, through which the
Jammu-Madhopur road run, were mountainous and
rugged and largely snowbound. The closure of the
Jammu-Sialkot road and railway line and the Jhelum
Valley road, which linked Srinagar with Rawalpindi
had been closed by Pakistan and there was little
prospect of their being thrown open for transport
after the State joined India. By the time, the
Boundary Commission begun its work, Pakistan was
left with little doubt about the disinclination
for the ruler of the State Maharaja Hari Singh to
accede to that country.
Mahajan and Teja Singh pleaded for the inclusion
of the Division of Lahore in the East Punjab. The
two Commissioners raised fundamental issues with
unparalleled eloquence in respect of their claim,
which Sir Cyril Radcliffe could not overlook
altogether. The issues they raised, included:
i) the distribution of water resources between the
East and West Punjab, the location of the
irrigation headworks and the canal system;
ii) the continuation of the communication lines in
the East Punjab of which the Lahore Division
formed Centre;
iii) the demarcation of a viable and defensible
border of the India in the Punjab;
iv) the interests of the Sikh Community which had
its largest assets in the West Punjab and its main
religious and cultural centres in the Division of
Lahore;
v) the Indian interest in the road-link between
Jammu and Madhopur, arising out of its proximity
to Jammu and Kashmir State for the security of
that state as well as its future relations with
the Indian Dominion.
Both Mahajan and Teja Singh avoided the heavily
value-laden discourse of the Congress leaders, in
their presentation to the Commission. They
marshalled up concrete facts relevant to the
demarcation of boundary in the Punjab and
elucidated in detail the consequences -
geographic, economic, political and strategic, the
division of the province was bound to lead to and
their impact on the future of the Hindus and Sikhs
in the Punjab. Sir Radcliffe was a man of
independent outlook, sent down from his country to
draw the boundaries of the new Muslim State of
Pakistan, which the British had actively connvived
in creating. Sir Radcliffe knew little of the
cultural configuration of the Punjab, its economic
organisation and its history. Not only the Punjab,
Sir Radcliffe knew much less of the history and
culture and economic and political organisation of
Bengal, the other Indian province he was
commissioned to divide between the two
communities, Hindus and Muslims, on the basis of
population proportions.
Mahajan and Teja Singh were genuinely fearful of
the future of their communities in the Punjab. The
history of the Punjab had been shaped by Hindus
and the Sikhs. The Sikhs established a powerful
Kingdom in the Punjab, the borders of which
extended from Afghanistan to the eastern fringes
of Tibet. The Sikh state integrated the Himalayas
into the northern frontier of India. The
Himalayas, Sanskritised by the Hindus of Kashmir,
formed the civilisational frontier of India. The
establishment of the Sikh power put an end to the
long history of the invasion of India from the
north. The division of Punjab was bound to have
serious effect on the future of the Sikh
community. The Punjab was considered by the Sikhs
to be their homeland. The Sikh places of
pilgrimage were located in the eastern part of the
Punjab, mainly the Division of Lahore. The
responsibility of apprising the Boundary
Commission of the sociology of the Sikh religion
and its moorings in the Hindu civilisation of
India, fell upon the Hindu and Sikh Commissioners.
Teja Singh, ravaged by the anti-Hindu riots in the
Punjab, exhibited great courage and forbearance,
in defending the cause of his community.
The Muslim League carried on a strident campaign
to build pressure on the Commission to demarcate
the boundary between the east and the West Punjab
on the basis of the population proportions. The
British Governors of the Punjab and the North-East
Frontier province along with the British officials
posted in the two provinces acted in tandem to
influence the Commission.
The Boundary Commission was entrusted with the
historic task, of the demarcation of the Indian
frontier in the north. Jammu and Kashmir formed
the central spur of the warm Himalayan uplands and
the new configuration of power created by the
emergence of the Muslim state of Pakistan, was
bound to effect the security of the Himalayas.
There is no evidence to show that the Indian
leaders realised the importance of the crucial
changes, the emergence of Pakistan, would bring
about in the structure of power-relations along
northern frontier of India.
The Hindu and Sikh leaders of the Punjab evinced
serious interest in the boundary demarcation. Both
Mahajan and Teja Singh kept themselves in close
touch with the Hindu and Sikh leaders of the
Punjab. Among them were Sir Shadi Lal and Bakshi
Tek Chand. Both Sir Shadi Lal and Tek Chand were
in the confidence of Maharaja Hari Singh. The
Indian leaders had warbled notions about the
northern frontier of India. They were carried away
by the fraternal regard, the Asian conference held
in Delhi in 1946, symbolised. The Indian leaders
viewed the solidarity of the Asian people and the
emergence of the Asian nation from colonial
dominance as basis for coexistence and cooperation
among the Asian people. Gandhi disclaimed national
frontiers. He claimed commitment to vaguely
conceived concept of anarchism which formed a part
of the intellectual tradition of the early
twentieth century.
They had accepted partition of India, but they
refused to recognise its political implications.
They were unable to comprehend the significance of
the demarcation of the boundary between India and
Pakistan in the Punjab. Their inability to link
the boundary demarcation in the Punjab with the
security of the Northern Frontier of India exposed
Jammu and Kashmir and the entire Indian frontier,
stretching to its east, to foreign aggression.
Another man, whose future was linked with the de
marcation of the boundary in the Punjab, was
Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and
Kashmir. The Jammu-Madhopur fair weather cart-road
was the only communication link between the State
and India. The two major all weather motorable
roads, the Jehlum-Valley Road linking Srinagar
with Rawalpindi and the Jammu-Sialkot road ran
into the West Punjab. The railway line connecting
Jammu with Sialkot also ran into the West Punjab.
The border between the State and Kangra and the
Punjab Hill States, which had decided to accede to
India, was broken by rugged mountainous terrain.
An alternate road could be built via Mukerian to
connect Jammu with Kangra and via Doda with the
Punjab Hill States. Indeed, when Mahajan and Teja
Singh pointed out to the Commission the necessity
of securing access to Jammu and Kashmir through
East Punjab, Mohammad Munir and Din Mohammad
suggested the construction of an alternate land
route via Mukerian connecting Jammu with Kangra.
The Hindu and the Sikh Commissioners realised, as
did Hari Singh, the importance of the tehsil of
Pathankot to the viability and the defensibility
of the borders of India as well the Jammu and
Kashmir State.
Sir Shadi Lal and Bakshi Tek Chand kept Hari Singh
informed of the boundary demarcation in the
Punjab. They were close to Mehar Chand Mahajan and
had apprised him of the interest Hari Singh had in
the demarcation of the boundary in the Punjab.
Hari Singh was suspicious of Mountbatten, whose
mind he knew. He did not trust the Congress
leaders. He had received a communication from
States Minister, in which the latter had advised
him to release the National Conference leaders and
come to terms with them. Unsure of the course Sir
Radcliffe would follow in respect of his State, he
reportedly, conveyed to the British officials,
through some of his trusted British friends, his
interests in a balance border with the two
Dominions of India and Pakistan and the importance
of the Jammu-Pathankot road for the security of
his State. Reportedly, he conveyed to the British
authorities that in case he was not secured the
land route between Jammu and Pathankot he would
have no other alternative except to depend upon
the Dominion of India for the construction of a
new transit route, across the eastern borders of
the State with Kangra or with any of the Punjab
Hill States, which had already acceded to India.
The British were not averse to a balanced border
of the State with India and Pakistan, for they
were keen to avoid any diplomatic or political
lapse which would push the Maharaja into the lap
of India. Some of the British officials sincerely
believed that Hari Singh would opt for an
arrangement in which he was not required to accede
to any of the Dominions, if he was guaranteed
peace on his frontiers. Ram Chander Kak, out of
stratagem or straight devotion to his master, had
spared no efforts to assure the British, that Hari
Singh pursued a policy, which enabled him to
retain his independence, rather than join India
which was beset with serious difficulties.
In view of the extremely divergent views and deep
disagreement among the Hindu and Sikh
Commissioners and the Muslim Commissioners, the
Boundary Commission was unable to reach a mutually
acceptable agreement on the demarcation of the
boundary across the Lahore Division. In accordance
with the procedure laid down for the Boundary
Commission, in case of disagreement among the
Hindu, Sikh and the Muslim representation in the
Commission, it was decided by mutual agreement to
entrust the task of the demaracation to Sir
Radcliffe, the Chairman of the Boundary
Commission. The Commissioners, representing the
Hindus and the Sikh as well as the Muslims agreed
that the arbitral award made by Sir Radcliffe
would be binding on them.
History had cast a unique responsibility on Sir
Radcliffe, to lay down the future boundaries of
the nation of India, which was on the threshold of
freedom from centuries of slavery as well as
describe the future boundaries of an independent
Muslim state in India. The Congress leaders, were
perhaps, oblivious of the elemental change the
creation of Pakistan would bring into the
civilisational boundaries of India and the
far-reaching effect the establishment of a Muslim
power in India, would have on its northern
frontiers. Jammu and Kashmir formed the central
spur of the great Himalayan uplands poised as the
State was, it stood as a sentinel for any eastward
expansion of any power from the west as well as
the north.
Pakistan was, however, keenly conscious of the
strategic importance of Jammu and Kashmir. But the
Government of Pakistan was unable to judge the
ability of Maharaja Hari Singh to defeat their
designs. Hari Singh played a historic role in
persuading Sir Radcliffe to accept that his State
could not be completely isolated from the Indian
Dominion.
The Muslim League leaders did not trust Hari
Singh. They spared no efforts to convince the
British officials in the Government of India about
the necessity to ensure that the Boundary
Commission did not deviate from the principle of
the population proportions. The Muslim League
leaders were keen to acquire the
Ravi Headworks at Madhopur isolate the district of
Amritsar and seal the existing road-link
connecting Jammu and Kashmir with India.
The League leaders sent Chowdhary Mohammad Ali to
convey to the British officials in the Indian
Government their concern about the future of the
Lahore Division. Mohammad Ali met, Lord Ismay, the
Political Advisor to the Viceroy to convey to
Mountbatten the anxiety of the Muslim League
leaders about any deviation from the principle of
population-proportions the Boundary Commission may
resort to in the demarcation of the boundary in
the Punjab. Ismay told Mohammad Ali that the
Boundary Commission was an independent body of
which the functions were determined by its terms
of reference, and the Government of India had no
role in its function. Many years later, research
in Pakistan revealed that during his meeting with
Lord Ismay, Mohammad Ali showed the Political
Advisor a sketch map of the demarcation of the
boundary between east and west Punjab which was
not strictly based upon the principle of
population-proportions. Ismay, reportedly
expressed dissatisfaction with it.
The award of the Boundary Commission was announced
on 18 of August 1947, three days after the
transfer of power in India. Sir Radcliffe left
India the same day. The districts of Amritsar and
Gurdaspur were included in the East Punjab,
whereas the districts of Lahore and Sheikhopora
were included in the West Punjab. The entire
Muslim League leadership flared upon in anger
against the inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East
Punjab and blamed Sir Radcliffe of connivance in a
craftily devised plan to give India access to
Jammu and Kashmir and provide the Indian state the
strategic ground to grab the State. Communal riots
flared up in Lahore and spread to the whole of the
Punjab.
Sir Radcliffe followed uniform standards in the
delimitation of the boundary between India and
Pakistan in Bengal as well as the Punjab.
Evidently, he did not overlook the consideration
of other factors, specifically mentioned in the
terms of reference of the Boundary Commission in
the delimitation of the boundary between the East
and the West Punjab. He did take into
consideration the nominal majority, the Muslims
enjoyed over the Hindus and the Sikhs in Gurdaspur.
The Tehsil of Pathankote in the Gurdaspur district
had a distinct Hindu majority and it could not
have been included in the West Punjab by any
stretch of imagination. Sir Radcliffe had not
followed the district boundaries as the basis of
delimitation of the boundaries elsewhere in the
Punjab. Besides, the Ravi irrigation headworks
were located in Pathankot and they could not have
been excluded from the East Punjab, to ensure a
just and equitable distribution of water resources
in the Punjab between India and Pakistan.
undoubtedly, Sir Radcliffe did not overlook the
necessity of providing a balanced border to the
Jammu and Kashmir State, for which Mahajan and
Teja Singh had spiritedly pleaded. The security
of the Jammu and Kashmir State, which constituted
the central spur of the northern frontier of India
and which was crucial to the security of the
Himalays, could not be left out the consideration
of the Boundary Commission. The division of the
Punjab was a part of the partition of India and
the demarcation of the boundary between India and
Pakistan could not be undertaken in isolation from
its effects on the Indian States. The delimitation
of the boundary in the Punjab around the
Bahawalpur State, was undertaken with due
consideration of its future affiliations.
Bahawalpur joined Pakistan,.
Sir Radcliffe recognised the inclusion of the
district of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab as a
strategic requirement of the security of the
northern frontier of India, including the frontier
of India in the Punjab. He accepted in his report
that the inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab
was necessary for the security of the district of
Amritsar, which would otherwise he surrounded by
Pakistan. Perhaps, Radcliffe was aware of the
security of the northern Frontier of India, in
which the British were more interested than the
Congress leaders, who had warbled notions about
the security of the Himalayas. Unlike the other
officials of the Government of India, Radcliffe
was free of the trappings, the British officials
of the Indian Civil Service were strapped to. He
did not visualise the partition of India as the
British officials of the Indian Government did,
and he was guided by his own judgement. He
refused to recognise the claim to the geographical
expression of the Muslim nation of
Pakistan, the way the British officials of the
Indian Government did. He had little regard for
their colonial concerns or Jinnah's notions of the
ascendance of the Muslims power in India.
An important consideration which Sir Radcliffe had
in mind in dividing the Lahore Division was the
future of the Sikh Community, which was bound to
be adversely affected by the partition of the
Punjab. The land and the assets owned by the Sikhs
were largely situated in the west Punjab but a
larger section of their population lived in the
East Punjab. Besides, their main religious centres
and most sacred shrines, including the Durbar
Saheb, were located in the Lahore Division. The
division of the Punjab was bound to uproot them
from the West Pakistan and deprive them of their
land and assets. The claim laid by the Muslims to
the whole of Lahore Division, would divest them of
their sacred places and shrines. Lahore was the
seat of the Sikh empire of the Punjab, which had
changed the course of the history of India. The
demarcation of the boundary of the East Punjab was
therefore, crucial to the survival and future of
the Sikh community. Both Mahajan and Teja Singh
emphasised upon the need to consider the interests
of the Sikh community in the demarcation of the
boundary in the Punjab.
The inclusion of Gurdaspur in the East Punjab
mitigated, though only partially, the rigours of
the division of the Punjab.
The delimitation of the boundary in the Punjab,
Sir Radcliffe undertook, gave the Muslims, who
constituted 55 percent of the population of the
Province, 65 percent of its territory. The Hindus
and the Sikhs who constituted 45 percent of the
population got only 35 percent of the territory of
the Punjab. The Muslim League leaders had no
reason to grumble. Their reconstruction were
politically motivated and aimed to prepare ground
to launch a new form of Direct Action to reduce
the Jammu and Kashmri State.
Pakistan resorted to the distortion of the history
of the transfer of power in India, to justify its
claim on Jammu and Kashmir. Inside Jammu and
Kashmir the National Conference leaders who ruled
the State for decades after its accession to
India, resorted to the distortion of the history
of the accession of the State to India, to
legitimize their claim to a Muslim State of Jammu
and Kashmir inside India but independent of the
Indian Union and its political organisation. Not
only that. The Muslim separatists forces, which
dominated the political scene in the State after
the disintegration of the National Conference in
1953, also resorted to the fossilization of the
facts of the accession of the State to India.
Interestingly, the entire process of the
distortion of the history of the accession of the
State, spread over decades of Indian freedom
assumed varied expressives from time to time.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who headed the Interim
Government instituted in March 1948, disclaimed
the Instrument of Accession executed by Hari
Singh, as merely the Kagzi Ilhaq' or "paper
Accession" and claimed that the "real accession of
the state to India" would be accomplished by the
people of the State, more precisely the Muslim
majority of the people of the State. While the
Constitution of India was on the anvil and the
issue of the constitutional provisions for the
States came up for the consideration for the
Constituent Assembly of India, Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah claimed that the National Conference had
endorsed the accession of the State to India on
the condition that the claim the people of the
state had to a separate freedom was recognised by
India and the leadership of the National
Conference had been assured by the Indian leaders
that the people of Jammu and Kashmir would be
reserved the right to constitute Jammu and Kashmir
into an autonomous political organisation,
independent of the Indian constitutional
organisation.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and other National
Conference leaders, claimed that they had been
assured that Jammu and Kashmir would not be
integrated in the constitutional organisaion of
India and the assurances were incorporated in the
Instrument of Accession. They stressed that they
had agreed to the accede to India on the specific
condition that the Muslim identity of the State
would form the basis of its political organisation.
In his inaugural address to the Constituent
Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir convened in 1951,
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who was the Prime
Minister of the Interim Government of the State,
claimed that the Constituent Assembly was vested
with the plenary powers, drawn from the people of
the State and independent of the Constitution of
India. He claimed that the Constituent Assembly
was vested with the powers to opt out of India and
assume independence or join the Muslim state of
Pakistan.
Fifty years later the claims Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah made in the Constituent Assembly were
echoed in the first Round Table Conference,
convened by the Government of India in 2006, to
reach a consensus on a future settlement of the
Kashmir dispute.
Mr Muzaffar Hussain Beg, represented the People
Democratic Party in the Round Table Conference
which was a constituent of the coalition
government in the State, headed by the Congress
Party. Beg claimed, that the Instrument of
Accession was a treaty between two independent
states, the Dominion of India and the Jammu and
Kashmir State and the Constituent Assembly was a
sovereign authority, independent powers inherent
in its sovereignty.
The Government of India made no efforts to put the
record straight. Frightened at the prospect of
losing the support of the National Conference the
Indian leaders did not question the veracity of
the claims the Conference leaders made. Indeed,
they depended upon the support of the National
Conference to win the plebiscite which the United
Nations Organisation was hectically preparing to
hold in the State. The Indian leaders, overwhelmed
by their own sense of self-righteousness, helped
overtly and covertly in the falsification of the
history of the integration of the Princely States
with India and the accession of Jammu and Kashmir
with the Indian Dominion in 1947. Many of them
went as far as to link the unity of India with the
reassertion of the subnational identity of Jammu
and Kashmir, which the Muslim demand for separate
freedom for the Muslim symbolised.
The Indian Independence Act of 1947, laid down
separate procedures for the transfers of power in
the British India and the Indian Princely States.
The Princely States were left out of the partition
plan, which divided the British Indian provinces
and envisaged the creation of the Muslim state of
Pakistan. In respect of the Princely States, the
Indian Independence Act, envisaged the lapse of
the paramountcy - the power which the British
Crown exercised over the Indian States. The
British Government clarified its stand on the
future disposition of the States in the British
Parliament during the debate on the Indian
Independence Bill. It categorically stated that
the lapse of the Paramountcy would not enable the
Princes to acquire Dominion status or assume
independence.
The British Government made it clear that the
reversion of the Paramountcy to the rulers of the
States would inevitably lead to mutually accepted
agreements between the Dominions and the Princely
States which would involve their accession. The
Indian Independence Act did not envisage in the
procedure the accession of States. The Nawab of
Bhopal approached the Diplomatic Mission of the
United States of America in India to seek the
recognition of the Independence of his state. The
American Government snubbed the Nawab and refused
to countenance any proposals for the independence
of the Princely States in India. It was left to be
formulated by the two Dominions of India and
Pakistan.
The Political Department of the British Government
of India was divided into two separate Political
Departments – the Political Department of Pakistan
to deal with the Indian Princely States. The
Political Department of India was put in charge of
Sardar Vallabhai Patel and the Political
Department of Pakistan was put in charge of Sardar
Abdur Rab Nishtar. The procedure for the accession
of the States to the two Dominions was evolved
separately by their respective Political
Departments.
The Muslim League however, insisted upon the
independence of the Princely States in order to
enable the Muslim ruled states to remain out of
India. The Muslim League aimed to Balkanise the
Princely States and place the state of Pakistan in
a position which provided it a way to forge an
alliance with them. The Indian States spread over
more than one-third of the territory of India
constituted more than one fourth of the Indian
population. Some of the Muslim ruled Princely
States were largest among the Princely States of
India and several of them were fabulously rich.
The claim Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah made in his
inaugural speech to the Constituent Assembly of
the State that the States had the option to assume
independence was a reiteration of the stand the
Muslim League had taken on the future disposition
of the states following the lapse of the
Paramountcy. The lapse of the Paramountcy did not
underline the independence of the States. It did
not envisage the reversion of any plenary powers
to the Princes or the people of the states as a
consequence of the dissolution of the Paramountcy.
The states were not independent when they were
integrated in the British Empire in India. They
did not acquire independence when they were
liberated from the British Empire 1947. They were
not vested with any inherent powers to claim
independence to which Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
referred to in his inaugural address to the
Constituent Assembly.
The convocation of the Constituent Assemblies in
the States was provided for in the stipulations of
the Instrument of Accession that the Princely
States acceding to India, executed. The Instrument
of Accession devised by the States Department of
Pakistan for the accession of the States to that
country did not envisage provisions pertaining to
the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The
power to convene separate Constituent Assemblies
was reserved for all the major states the Union of
the States, which acceded to India.
The Jammu and Kashmir State was no exception. In
fact, Constituent Assemblies were convened, in the
states of Cochin and Mysore and the State Union of
Saurashtra, shortly after their accession to the
Indian Dominion.
The Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir was
a creature of the Instrument of Accession. It
exercised powers which were drawn from the state
of India and its sovereign authority. It did not
assess any powers to revoke the accession of the
State to India to bring about the accession of the
State to Pakistan or opt for its independence, as
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in his inaugural address
to the Constituent Assembly claimed or as Mr
Muzaffar Hussain Beg claimed in the Round Table
Conference.
The truth of what happened during those fateful
days of October 1947, when the accession of Jammu
and Kashmir to India was accomplished was
concealed by a irredentist campaign of
disinformation which was launched to cover the
acts of cowardice and betrayal, subterfuge and
surrender which went into the making of the
Kashmir dispute.
The National Conference leaders, were at no stage,
brought in to endorse the accession of the State
to India. No one among them was required to sign
or countersign the accession and none of them
signed or countesigned the Instrument of
Accession, executed by Maharaja Hari Singh. The
Indian Independence Act, an Act of the British
Parliament, which laid down the procedure for the
transfer of power in India, did not recognize the
right of self-determination of either the people
of the British India or the people of the States.
The transfer of power was based on an agreement
among the Congress, the Muslim League and the
British. The British and the Muslim League
stubbornly refused to recognise the right of the
people of the British India and right of the
people of the Princely State to determine the
future of the British India or the Indian states.
The Muslim League and the British insisted upon
the lapse of the Paramountcy and its reversion to
the rulers of the States. Accession of the States
was not subject to any conditions and the
Instrument of Accession underlined an irreversible
process the British provided for the dissolution
of the empire in India.
No assurance was given to the National Conference
leaders that the Constituent Assembly of the State
would be vested with plenary powers or powers to
ratify the accession of the State to India, revoke
it opt for its independence or its accession to
Pakistan. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the other
National Conference leaders did not seek the
exclusion of the State from the Indian political
organization as a condition for the accession of
the state to India. Nor did the Indian leaders
give any assurance to them that the Jammu and
Kashmir would be reconstituted into an independent
political organisation, which would represent its
Muslim identity.
At the time of the transfer of power in India, the
National Conference leaders and cadres were in
jail. They were released from their incarceration
after the proclamation of General Amnesty was made
on 6 September 1947. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the
Acting President of the National Conference who
had evaded arrest and taken refugee in the British
India in May 1946, arrived in Srinagar with
several other senior leaders of the National
Conference on 12 September 1947. Meanwhile,
Mohi-ud-Din Qara the Director General of the War
Council, which had been constituted by the
National Conference to direct the Quit Kashmir
Movement, surfaced from his underground quarters
alongwith some of his close aides. Onkar Nath
Trisal, who played a historic role in the defence
of Srinagar, when the invading armies of Pakistan
surrounded the city, was with him. Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah was released from jail on 29 September
1947.
Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad used the good offices of
Pandit Sham Sundar Lal Dhar, a personal aide of
the Maharaja to arrange a reconciliatory meeting
between Hari Singh and Sheikh Mohammd Abdullah.
The meeting did not go beyond usual formalities as
the two men who shaped the future of the State
looked at each other with cold distrust. Shiban
Madan, a close kin of Sham Sundar Lal Dhar, then a
man of younger years acted as a help. Shiban Madan
told the author in a interview held in Srinagar in
1978, that Hari Singh sat through the meeting
glumly. His Highness looked straight when the
usual presentation ceremony of the Nazarana was
completed. He sat glum and expressionless, his
haughty demeanour more than awkwardly visible. The
rest of the meeting was strictly formal."
Hari Singh was unable to judge the far-reaching
consequences of the end of the British empire in
India. Not only him, the other Princes too refused
to realise that their power, which had its
sanction in the British Paramountcy had virtually
suffered dissolution with its withdrawal. The
Princely rulers genuinely believed that the States
were their fiefs and the British had usurped their
right to rule them. They visualised the end of the
British Empire as an act of deliverance for them,
which they believed would enable them to regain
the unquestioned authority they had as the
sovereigns of the states.
They considered accession of their States to India
as a new arrangement with the Dominion of India,
by virtue of which they would part with the
specific powers of the defence, foreign affairs
and communications of the states and retain the
rest of the powers of the governance without the
encumbrances the Paramountcy entailed.
Hari Singh had been shaken by Mountabatten's
advice to come to terms with Pakistan when the
Viceroy visited Srinagar. Accession to Pakistan
was the last act, Hari Singh was prepared to
perform. However, when he turned to India and
conveyed to the Indian leaders his desire to
accede to India the Indian leaders advised him not
to take any perceptible action in respect of the
accession, till the transfer of power had been
accomplished. The Indian leaders advised Hari
Singh to end the distrust with the National
Conference, release the leaders and cadres of the
Conference and take them into confidence and
commence preparations to associate them with the
government of the State.
After the transfer of power in August 1947 Hari
Singh promptly ordered fresh recruitment to his
armed forces and reportedly sought to secure field
guns from Patiala and Hyderabad. Reports appeared
in the newspapers in Pakistan that he tried to
seek military assistance from India and wanted the
Indian Government to take up the conversion of the
fair weather road from Jammu to Madhopur, into a
national roadway.
He was alarmed by the establishment of the
Provisional Government of Pak-occupied-Kashmir at
Tran Khel in the district of Mirpur by Sardar
Ibrahim Khan on 30 August 1947. Hari Singh knew
that the proclamation of the Provisional
Government of Azad Kashmir had been made in
connivance with the intelligence agencies of the
Government of Pakistan and the leaders of the
Muslim League to build pressure on him to accede
to Pakistan.
Meanwhile Sham Sunder Lal Dhar helped to bridge
the differences between Hari Singh and the
National Conference leaders. Hari Singh agreed to
revive the Dyarchy he had introduced in the State
Government in 1944, and provide a wider share of
power for the National Conference and accept to
entrust a fairly large measure of responsibility
in the State Government to National Conference
leaders as members of his Council of Ministers.
The National Conference leaders had shown their
readiness to join the State Government.
For Hari Singh however, the difficulties he faced
in regard to the accession were not eased. Several
developments in the process of the integration of
the States complicated his situation further.
Junagarh, situated in the midst of the Kathiawad
States, which had acceded to India, acceded to
Pakistan on the eve of the transfer of power. The
Nawab of Hyderabad refused to join India and
secretly plotted with the leadership of the Muslim
League to align himself with Pakistan.
Not only that. Mountbatten was at the helm of
affairs in India, where he had been placed by the
Congress leaders probably, to earn them a
favourable disposition of the British. Hari Singh
knew that Mountbatten had not forgiven him for his
audacity to send him back to the Indian capital,
without having agreed to abide by his advice to
come to terms with Pakistan. It is hardly possible
that the Congress leaders must not report have
received the intelligence of what transpired
between the Viceroy and the Maharaja in Srinagar.
But how did they install him the first
Governor-General of the Dominion of India is an
enigma, which continues to remain unexplained.
Hari Singh was unsure of the Congress leaders as
well, who had, in unabashed self-conceit,
indicated their willingness to accept a settlement
on the Princely States on the basis of their
population and geographical location. Perhaps,
they sought to use the influence of the Viceroy to
ensure the accession of the Muslim ruled States,
inhabited by Hindu majorities and situated within
the territorial limits earmarked for the Indian
Dominion to India. It is hardly possible that they
did not know the mind of the Viceroy and perhaps
the strategic implications of the future
disposition of Jammu and Kashmir to the British
interests in Asia. A section of the Congress
leadership was not averse to the division of the
States on the basis of their population even after
the transfer of power. Some of them believed that
Mountbatten would be able extricate Junagarh from
Pakistan and bring about the integration of
Hyderabad with India. Their prestige in the whole
of the Kathiawad peninsula had plummeted down as
they had reacted to the accession of Junagarh to
Pakistan pussiliminously. The rulers of the
Kathiawad States had to send Jam Sahib of
Nawanagar to convince the Congress leaders that
Junagarh posed a serious threat to them and to
demand immediate and effective action to liberate
Junagarh, which was fast slipping into a civil
wear.
The Congress leaders looked up to Mountbatten, who
advised them restraint. Later admissions made by
him in his interviews and memoirs, prove that he
was keen to secure the interests of Pakistan and
his country, Britain, in Jammu and Kashmir, but he
had no mandate from the British Government to
secure the Indian interests in the Muslim ruled
States of Junagarh and Hyderabad. He disapproved
of any perceptible action for the reclamation
Junagarh and Hyderabad.
Hari Singh did not lose sight of the problems,
arising out of his enemity with Mountabatten and
the duplicity of the Congress leaders. Jinnah
scuttled the proposals to divide the States on the
basis of their population and scoffed at the
suggestions made by Mountbatten. Hari Singh knew
that if he took a false step, Mountbatten as well
as the Congress leaders would nor hesitate to
abandon him in a bargain with Pakistan.
This was the greatest act of betrayal committed by
the men in power in India. The Indian Government
crumbled in its resolve to set right the wrong in
Junagarh and rein in the Nawab of Hyderabad. The
Indian leaders looked upto Mountbatten to deliver
them from their predicament though experience had
shown to them that the major role in the
integration of the States had been played by the
States people who had struggled for the unity of
the States with India and the Hindu rulers of the
States who had acceded to India.
The Government of India should have made a bold
move to take Hari Singh into confidence, thrash
out the issues pertaining to the transfer of power
to the peoples representatives with him and helped
in removing the prevailing distrust between him
and the National Conference leaders. Instead the
Indian leaders sulked away. Gandhi had advised
Hari Singh to handover the State Government to the
National Conference leaders and entrust them the
responsibility to conduct elections to the Praja
Sabha, the State Legislative Assembly and empower
the elected representatives of the people to take
a decision on the accession of the State. Hari
Singh had refused to abide by Gandhi’s advice and
told him that such a course would enable
Pakistan to grab the State with the support of the
Muslim Conference and the other pro-Pakistan
flanks in the state. Later events proved that Hari
Singh had chosen the right course. Jammu and
Kashmir would have gone the way, North West
Frontier Province did if he had opted for
elections to the Praja Sabha.
The Indian Princely States were a part of the
Indian nation. Partition did not divide the
States, nor did the partition empower Pakistan to
grab Junagarh or claim Hyderabad on the basis of
being Muslim ruled States and annex Jammu and
Kashmir on the basis of its population. The Muslim
League as well as the British treated the States
as their personal preserve and sought to use them
to Balkanise India. The Princes as well as the
people of the States defeated their designs.
The role played by Mountbatten and VP Menon, in
the integration of the Indian States was only
marginal. The States’ Ministry did not draw up any
plans for the consolidation of the northern
frontier of India of which Jammu and Kashmir was
the central spur. Nor did the States Ministry
formulate any plans for the security of the
Himalayas against the threat of their de-Sanskritsation
which the creation of Pakistan posed.
Few in-depth investigations
and inquiries have
been undertaken so far to unravel the forces and
factors, which shaped the events in Jammu and
Kashmir, during the fateful days following the
transfer of power in India. No investigations were
ever carried out in the actions of men, who were
at the helm of affairs in India, Pakistan and
Jammu and Kashmir, their motivations and their
personal prejudices. Much of what happened those
days, has been covered under false propaganda by
the Government of India as well as the Government
of Pakistan and the Interim Government which was
instituted in Jammu and Kashmir after the
accession of the State to India. A widespread
disinformation campaign was launched by the
Interim Government in collusion with the
Government to find scapegoats for their failures
and to apportion blame, where it did not belong.
The sordid story of what happened in the state,
those days, is yet to be told.
Pakistan sought to bend the procedure laid down by
the Indian Independence Act for the transfer of
power in India, to grab the Muslim majority states
as well as the states ruled by Muslim Princes.
The Indian Government failed signally to
counteract the stratagem, subversion and military
intervention, Pakistan employed to achieve its
objectives. Perhaps the British, who had quit
India, still cast a shadow on the Indian outlook.
The Congress leadership with its liberalist
tradition which denied the civilisational
boundaries of the Indian nation, continued to play
the Muslim card, to prove that Jammu and Kashmir
would be more Islamic than the Muslim State of
Pakistan after its inclusion in the Indian
Dominion.
The Congress leaders wanted Maharaja Hari Singh to
follow what they did in collusion with
Mountabatten to retrieve Junagarh and bring round
the Nawab of Hyderabad to come to terms, with
India. Gandhi advised Hari Singh, during his visit
to Kashmir, towards the close of July 1947, to (a)
transfer the powers of the State Government to the
representatives of his Muslim subjects, who formed
a majority of the population of the state; (b)
hold fresh elections to the Praja Sabha, the State
Legislative Assembly, on the basis of universal
adult franchise and (c) entrust the Praja Sabha
with the task of taking a decision on the
accession of the state. The meeting between Hari
Singh and Mahatma Gandhi was held on the lawns of
the Gupkar Palace, situated on the eastern bank of
the Dal Lake in Srinagar. Maharani Tara Devi and
the Heir-Apparent Karan Singh were present in the
meeting. The only other man present in the meeting
was a senior officer of the state army, who acted
as an aide to the Maharaja and prepared the
situation report of the meeting for the military
archives of the state.
Gandhi had lost touch with the developments in the
princely states. He was not aware of the
dangerous situation in Jammu and Kashmir. He did
not know that an armed rebellion was brewing in
the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu
province, where arms and ammunition were being
dumped by the elements of the Muslim League from
a cross the border of the state with the Punjab.
He was hardly aware of the sharp divide between
the Kashmiri speaking Muslims and non-Kashmiri
speaking Muslims. He did not know that the
non-Kashmiri speaking Muslims, who constituted
nearly half the Muslim population of state along
with a small section of the Kashmiri-speaking
Muslims owing loyality to the Mirwaiz, the chief
Muslim divine of Kashmir, supported the Muslim
Conference, which spearheaded the struggle for
Pakistan. He was completely unaware of the fact
that the Kashmiri-speaking Muslims constituted
about half the population of the Muslims of the
State and together with the Hindus, the Sikhs and
the Buddhists they formed more than sixty percent
of the population of the State. The Hindus, the
Sikhs and the Buddhists, a million people,
constituted more than a quarter of the population
of the State. Gandhi was completely unaware of the
impact of the partition on the leaders and cadres
of the National Conference, which had its main
support bases in the community of the
Kashmiri-speaking Muslims, largely concentrated in
the Kashmir province. He did not know that an
influential section of the leaders and cadres of
the National Conference favoured a reconsideration
of the commitment of the National Conference to
the unity of India.
Gandhi believed that by seeking to divest Hari
Singh of his powers to determine the future
affiliation of the State in respect of its
accession and empowering his Muslim subjects to
take a decision on the accession of the state, he
would be able to create a precedent for the rulers
of the Muslim ruled states, to entrust their
powers to determine the future affiliations of
their states their Hindu subjects, who formed a
majority of their population. Nearly all the
Muslim ruled states, barring a few of them
situated within the territories delimited for the
Muslim State of Pakistan, nearly all the Muslim
ruled States in India, including the major states
of Hyderabad, Junagarh, Bhopal, were populated by
preponderant Hindu majorities.
Perhaps, Gandhi believed that the Muslims of Jammu
and Kashmir committed to support the accession of
the state to India, would opt to join India after
power was transferred to them and they were
empowered to determine the future affiliations of
the state. He was convinced that the transfer of
power in Jammu and Kashmir would provide him a
moral ground to bring round Pakistan as well as
Mountbatten to persuade the Muslim rulers to
abnegate from their power to determine the future
affiliations of their states and entrust their
subjects and of whom the Hindus formed a majority,
to opt for India.
Gandhi and the other Indian leaders did not even
get the wind of the secret preparations in
Pakistan for military intervention in the Jammu
and Kashmir State in the name of the Jehad for the
liberation of the Muslims from their subjection to
the Dogra Rule, while Gandhi went on a indefinite
fast to prevent communal violence in India which
threatened the Muslims, Pakistan prepared
feverishly for the invasion of the state. Pakistan
planned to reduce the state by military force and
then deal with India from a position of strength
in respect of Junagarh and Hyderabad. Junagarh had
acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad was plotting the
align itself with Pakistan to remain out of India.
Had Hari Singh accepted Gandhi's advice he would
have provided open ground for Pakistan and the
Muslim League to grab the state by stratagem and
force.
Gandhi's suggestion to hold the elections to the
Praja Sabha would have enabled the Muslim
Conference and the flanks of pro-Pakistan Muslim
activists, operating underground, to sabotage the
National Conference and use religious appeal for
Jehad to pack the Praja Sabha with the Muslim
Conference. Any stringent measures adopted by him
to prohibit religious propaganda in the elections
would have brought him the blame of having settled
the expression for the will of the Muslims. In
case he did not take effective measures to
prohibit the use of religious propaganda in the
elections he would virtually leave the field open
for the Muslim Jehad to take over.
Hari Singh had borne the ravages of Muslim
communalism. He had also faced the scourage of the
Paramountcy. The Congress leaders had installed
Mountbatten as the first Governor General of the
Dominion of India. Hari Singh had rebuffed
Mountbatten and refused to abide by his advice to
join Pakistan. Mountbatten, later events proved,
had not forgotten the slight Hari Singh had caused
to him. The Maharaja did not allow himself to be
arranged before the man, who had spared no efforts
to push his state into Pakistan for his
management. He refused to accept Gandhi's advice.
Hari Singh contested Gandhi's views on the
accession of the state and refused to abnegate
from his rightful obligation to determine the
future of his state. He told Gandhi, in measured
words in the presence of Maharani Tara Devi, who
regarded the Mahatma in awe, that the safety and
the security of the Hindus and the other
minorities in the state was uppermost in his mind,
and he would not abandon them at any cost. He
insisted upon the recognition of his rights as the
ruler of the state to determine the basis of his
future relations with India. He reminded Gandhi
that nor only had the lapse of the Paramountcy
vested in him the right to determine the future of
the State, the Indian States Ministry had
recognised the rights of the rulers of the States
as the basis of their accession to India and he
could not be treated in a manner different from
the way, the rulers of all other acceding states
had been treated.
Gandhi gave expression to his feelings in a
statement he gave to the press in Punjab, on his
way back to Delhi. He said that Jammu and Kashmir
was a Muslim state and therefore, its future must
be determined by Muslims who formed a majority of
its population. He denounced the treaties between
the Princes and the British as "parchments of
paper" and decried the claims made by the Princes
to any rights arising out of such treaties.
Hari Singh did not accept the surrender to a
Muslim majority identity as the basis of a
settlement of the accession of the state. He
refused to become part of the process to
consolidate the borders of the Muslim state of
Pakistan, which Mountbatten and the Congress
leaders visualised as the guarantee of the unity
of India.
Later events proved Hari Singh right. Pakistan
strove hard to hold Junagarh and openly supported
Hyderabad in its endeavour to remain out of India.
Pakistan invaded the State, irrespective of the
procedure laid down by the Indian Independence
Act, for the lapse of the Paramountcy, showing
little regard for the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir
and the people of Junagarh and Hyderabad.
Gandhi’s press statement administered a jolt to
Maharaja Hari Singh. Maharani Tara Devi favoured
reconciliation with the Congress leadership. She
cautioned Hari Singh against the isolation into
which the State was sinking fast. It is a lesser
known fact that the Maharani tried to bridge the
gulf between Hari Singh and the Indian leaders.
Shortly after Gandhi left Kashmir Hari Singh
removed Ram Chandra Kak from his office and
appointed General Janak Singh, one of his close
kin the Prime Minister of the state. Ram Chandra
Kak headed the State Government during the last
years of the British Raj in India. Kak served the
Maharaja with unflinching loyalty and devotion.
Kak belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community in
Kashmir, which played a pioneering role in the
growth of national consciousness in the State.
While in office, Kak acted as an interface for the
Maharaja with the British as well the Muslim
League, at a time, when the Princes were
struggling to place the State in between the
British Crown and an independent Indian nation.
The political Department of the British Govt. of
India, with conrad corfield, a diehard British
Civil Service officer, as its head, spared no
efforts to assure the Princes that the British
would not abandon the Princely India and would
ensure the continuity of the treaties between the
States and the Crown. Like the other Princes, Hari
Singh was suddenly brought on the crossroads, when
India was divided and the British Paramountcy was
withdrawn.
The British refused to continue the protection,
the Paramountcy had provided the States and the
Muslim League claimed Jammu and Kashmir for the
Muslim State of Pakistan on the basis of the
Muslim majority of its population.
During the days, the future of the constitutional
organization of India was taking shape, Ram
Chandra Kak was at the Centrestage of the
negotiations between the Princes, the British and
the Indian leaders. The Princes were not left with
the choice to seek a place outside the
constitutional organization of the two successor
Dominions of India and Pakistan. The
undersecretary of the State for India in the
British Government, clarified in the British
Parliament, during the debate on the Indian
Independence Bill, that the British Government
would not recognize the States as the Dominions of
the Commonwealth nor would extend it recognition
to their independence. Kak was no longer relevant
in the political context in which Jammu and
Kashmir was left with no choice except to join
India, the option to accede to Pakistan was not
acceptable to Hari Singh or Kak.
Hari Singh turned away from the British, when he
refused to abide by the advice of the Viceroy of
India tendered to him to come to terms with
Pakistan.
He earned the displeasure of the leaders of the
Muslim League, when he refused to grant permission
to Mohammad Ali Jinnah to visit Jammu and Kashmir,
during the days, the transfer of power in India
was in process of completion. Jinnah sent several
of his emissaries to persuade Hari Singh to accede
to Pakistan on conditions which he specified. A
second world war veteran Major General Shaukat
Hayat Khan, arrived in Kashmir with a peculiar
proposal from him.
Khan met Hari Singh in his palace. He told the
Maharaja that he had been commissioned by Jinnah
to convey to the Maharaja that he could lay down
any conditions that he chose, to accede to
Pakistan and that Pakistan would deposit a huge
amount of money in British currency worth hundreds
of millions of Sterling Pounds, in the Bank of
England, as guarantee against any breach of the
conditions laid down by him.
Hari Singh was slighted, but he did not lose his
poise. He told Shaukat Hayat that he would take a
decision on the accession of the State only in
consideration of the interests of his subjects.
Naseeb Singh, an Army officer, of the Signal
Corps, who was in attendance on the Maharaja those
days, told the author in an interview: "I heard
him (Shaukat Hayat) tell his aides, how strange of
the Maharaja it was to have turned down the offer.
As he saw me standing bye, he recoiled and fell
silent". Thakur Kartar Singh, a close kin of the
Maharaja and a former Revenue Minister of the
State, told the author in an interview in Jammu.
"His Highness was severely intolerant of any
suggestion about his relations with Pakistan.
He felt hurt by what happened around him. He had
given a long rope to Ramchandra Kak. He waited
patiently, though that was not in his habit, for
an opportunity to save the State from going to
Pakistan. Pakistan pressurized him to agree to
accede to that country, offering to accept any
number of conditions that he would lay to
safeguard his interests. But he "withstood all
pressures".
Hari Singh offered a Standstill Agreement to India
as well as Pakistan for which the Indian States
Department and the State Department of Pakistan
had provided the option. The Indian Government did
not take any action on the Standstill Agreement,
though it extended the period of accession by two
months for both the States - Jammu and Kashmir as
well as Hyderabad. Hyderabad was the other
Princely State, which did not accede to the Indian
Dominion by 15 August 1947.
That Pakistan had adopted a policy of
confrontation with the State Government was
signaled by the formation of the Provisional
Government of 'Azad' Kashmir, by pro-Pakistan
Muslim flanks and the cadres of the Muslim
Conference, at Trad Khel on 30 August 1947. Sardar
Ibrahim Khan founder of the Provisional Government
of 'Azad' Kashmir, took the salute of a contingent
of armed volunteers of the Provisional Government
which march passed before him in a military
formation. The volunteers were armed with the
rifles supplied to them from Pakistan.
Hari Singh proclaimed a general amnesty for all
political prisoners who were involved in the Quit
Kashmir Movement and against whom proceedings were
in process in the courts of the state. Bakshi
Ghulam Mohammad, the Acting President of the
National Conference, who had taken refuge in the
British India, during the Quit Kashmir Movement,
alongwith other leaders of the National
Conference, arrived in Srinagar on 12 September
1947. He received a tumultuous welcome, from the
people in Srinagar.
The leaders and cadres of the Conference who had
gone underground, had already begun to emerge from
their underground quarters. Mohi-ud-Din Qara the
Head of the War Council, which had been
constituted to direct the Quit Kashmir Movement,
came out of his underground quarters, alongwith a
number of his senior cadres. Among them was Onkar
Nath Trisal, a senior communist party activist,
who later played a memorable role in the defence
of Srinagar, when the invading armies of Pakistan
were pouring into its outskirts. Mohi-ud-Din Qara
addressed a number of public meetings, where he
impressed upon the people of the necessity to
maintain intercommunity peace and combat
communalism and subversion.
While the National Conference leaders and cadres
set out to reconstruct the organizational units of
the National Conference, which had been battered
by the Quit Kashmir Movement, Pakistan launched a
surreptitious campaign in the State to unite the
Muslims in support of its accession to that
country. The leaders and cadres of the Muslim
Conference and the sections of the Muslim
community which were ideologically committed to
the Muslim struggle for Pakistan, though they did
not support the Muslim Conference, carried on the
campaign with the support of the widespread
network of Pakistani agents, spies and
intelligence sleuths of the Government of Pakistan
which operated underground and in vast numbers,
Muslim League cadres and other political activists
who had slipped into the state unnoticed.
The creation of Pakistan symbolized the
realization of the desperation of the Muslim Ummah
in India and (a) religious obligation devolved on
the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir to support its
accession to Pakistan to consolidate the Muslim
power (b) the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir were
part of the Muslim Umah and therefore were bound
to Pakistan by the bond of Islam; (c) any
deviation from a commitment to the unity of the
Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir would be an
un-Islamic act. The National Conference had
spearheaded the Muslim struggle for liberation
from the Dogra Rule and now the only option for
the leaders and National Conference was to join
the struggle for the unification of the State with
Pakistan (d) India and the Hindus who formed the
main resistance to the struggle for Pakistan, were
trying their utmost to scuttle the freedom of the
Muslims in the Princely States, where the Muslims
were subject to severe repression and the ruler of
the State was waiting for an opportunity to join
India, scuttle the freedom of the Muslims and
perpetuate his power (e) the Muslim struggle for
Pakistan was not against the Maharaja and the
Muslims of the State had assured him that they
would recognize him as the constitutional head of
the State if he opted for Pakistan; (f) the
National Conference and its cadres and supporters
would be accommodated in the Muslim commonwealth
of Pakistan on the basis of equality and
brotherhood enjoined by Islam upon all the Muslims
irrespective of their language and the region
which they inhabited (g) any differences between
the National Conference leadership and the Muslim
leadership of the people of Pakistan could be
settled mutually and (h) the Muslims of Jammu and
Kashmir had to stand united in the struggle for
Pakistan in view of the efforts the enemies of
Islam were making in India to impair the unity of
the Muslims.
The police intelligence of the State reported that
it had received information about an underground
cell, involved in the raising of a militia, the
Muslim Guard, to defend the struggle for Pakistan
against any police or military action the State
Government resorted to. A woman volunteer of
Pakistan was charged with the tasks of recruitment
of local Muslim volunteers to the ranks of the
Muslims guard. The intelligence report about the
Muslim Guard reached the State Government and a
summary of the report was sent to Hari Singh as
well. As usual, Hari Singh sent it to the State
archives. But no action was taken against the
sabotage planned by the enemy agents to foment a
rebellion in the State, probably to coincide with
the invasion of State Pakistan was secretly
planning.
The Indian leaders took little notice of the
developments in the State. The States’ Minister
wrote a cryptic letter to Hari Singh, imploring
the Maharaja to bring all punitive measures
against the National Conference to an end, release
the Conference leaders and cadres from
imprisonment and seek their cooperation to meet
the challenge the State was faced with.
On September 3, 1947, an intelligence signal was
received in the Army headquarters at Delhi, that
armed infiltrators of Pakistan had raided a border
outpost, three miles inside the state territory.
The signal with the staggering import evoked
response from the Indian Government. The Indian
leaders received information about the border
raids and the heavy damage to life and property
the Hindus and the Sikhs suffered in the border
districts of the State. No voice was raised in
India against the depredation, the armed
infiltrators spread in the border districts of the
State.
Note: The Article, in this series are based upon
documentary sources in the Indian Archives,
Archives of the Jammu and Kashmir State, Sardar
Patel Papers; documents and Papers in Sapru House
Library, Indian Council of World Affairs, New
Delhi, Contemporary Newspaper Files and Interview.
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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