Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  Krishna Menon resigned from the government. I got to know him well when he was in the wilderness. I once asked why he didn’t tell his side of the story. He said: ‘My story must die with me because I would have to lay the blame on Nehru, and I do not want to do so because of my loyalty to him.’

  Nehru was still awaiting the US response to a request for an air-umbrella. The inevitable fallout of seeking assistance from Washington and London was to accept their insistence on talks between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. I had seen this happening after every occasion when Washington and London had done New Delhi some favour. Whatever the reason, the West, particularly the US, tended to support Pakistan, even when ruled by military dictators who had staged coups against democratically elected governments.

  Kennedy’s personal envoy, Averell Harriman and Duncan Sandys, secretary of state for Commonwealth relations and the son-in-law of Winston Churchill, who were in New Delhi assessing India’s military requirements, urged Indian leaders to talk to Pakistan on Kashmir. They tried to play Shastri against Nehru by giving the former the impression that he was more forthcoming and that they counted more on him than Nehru. Sandys, however, assured India that there was no question of handing over the Valley of Kashmir to Pakistan. What he had in mind were only marginal changes.

  The then high commissioner to Pakistan wrote from Karachi (Shastri received a copy) that all the officials he had met had told him that India and Pakistan could be friends if the Kashmir problem was solved. He warned that India might have to part with some part of the Kashmir Valley.

  Nehru and Ayub Khan jointly issued a statement (29 November 1962) to announce that their ministers would meet to make a renewed effort to resolve ‘outstanding differences’. This provoked Khrushchev to send a personal note to Nehru regretting that India was raking up the subject of Kashmir every now and again to its detriment.

  The Indo–Pak talks could hardly have been held at a worse time. New Delhi, after its defeat by China, was not prepared for further concessions, and Pakistan’s morale was high because of its friendship with Peking. The demand in Pakistan was that a political settlement ‘must be one which, when implemented, will see its flag hoisted on every housetop in Kashmir’.

  After the failure of the talks, the number of ceasefire violations in Kashmir increased. Pressure began mounting within Pakistan. Bhutto was in the front line to fan the fires of protest and frenzy. ‘Kashmir must be liberated if Pakistan is to have its full meaning,’ was the clarion call he sounded. Ayub warned India that Pakistan might enter into a military pact with China. True to its words, Rawalpindi signed on an agreement with Peking (August 1963) but it was limited to flights by the Pakistan International Airlines to Canton and Shanghai.

  Shastri was keen on representing India, and Pakistan too wanted him. However, Nehru nominated Swaran Singh, who he knew was adept in the art of talking for the sake of talking. The ministerial talks began in Karachi on 20 December 1962. Bhutto, then foreign minister, represented Pakistan. On 20 December itself, there was an announcement that Pakistan and China had reached an ‘agreement in principle’ on the alignment of the border between Sinkiang and Azad Kashmir. (Pakistan gave away 2,200 sq. m. of Gilgit–Balistan in Kashmir.) Some officials accompanying Swaran Singh suggested that he should break off talks on the grounds of Pakistan’s gift of land to China and return home. On the other hand, the UK and US envoys, ever present at the venue of the talks, argued with Swaran Singh that the talks should continue. He decided to stay on. After all, his brief was to keep the talks going without giving in on fundamentals.

  Ayub explained to me that it was only a coincidence that the announcement on the border settlement with China came on the day the Indo–Pakistan talks began. He said that the timing had been decided upon by China, and Pakistan had nothing to do with it. However, the impression I got from Bhutto’s associates was that the announcement was timed to convey to New Delhi that if the talks did not succeed both Pakistan and China might force a solution on India.

  Ayub said,

  You know, Nehru asked me for the copy of the Chinese border map on which we had based our claim and I sent him one, even though my officials were opposed to it on the ground that the enemy should not be given information on the terrain for defence reasons.

  Even before the first round of talks began, Ayub sent letters to both London and Washington that Nehru had agreed to talks under pressure and that nothing would come of them. Harold Macmillan then prime minister of the UK, in turn wrote to Nehru that a breakdown of the talks would dampen the enthusiasm of the people in the UK and US to support India. He also advised New Delhi not to prolong the talks lest the public get impatient.

  Nehru’s reply to Macmillan was on the same lines as that to Kennedy. He wrote: ‘Even if Kashmir were to be handed over to Pakistan on a platter, Pakistan would think of some other way to keep its quarrel with India alive because Kashmir was only a symptom of a disease and that disease was hatred for India.’

  John Kenneth Galbraith, then US envoy to India warned Kennedy that in his view ‘Kashmir is not solvable in territorial terms but it can be by holding up the example of the way in which France and Germany have moved to soften their antagonism by the common market and common instruments of administration’.

  Galbraith had undertaken what he called a Harvard Exercise (named after the university at which he had taught before taking up his assignment in New Delhi). He suggested the reopening of the road between Rawalpindi and Srinagar through Baramulla, Uri, and Murree, and the resumption of trade and tourist traffic, while India’s military rights in the Kashmir Valley were to remain intact. Strange, the suggestion that the road be opened and trade resume came largely true some forty years later.

  Sheikh Abdullah’s proposal was bolder. He told me in 1969 that the border should be ‘soft’ so that Pakistanis had easy access to the Valley. Bhutto more or less dittoed the idea of making the ceasefire line into a line of peace. He elucidated his proposal during an interview I had with him in March 1972 after the Bangladesh war.

  Nothing came of the six rounds of talks spread over six months (till 16 May 1963). The specific points which the two sides covered were: (a) Swaran Singh’s proposal that Poonch town and a few other places (about 3,000 sq. m.) be handed over to Pakistan; and (b) Bhutto’s suggestion of a boundary which would give India Jammu, plus a small tract of land in Kashmir.

  Would the presence of Sheikh Abdullah at the talks have made any difference? While it would have expanded the scope of the talks, the participation of Kashmiris might have helped reach a settlement. Abdullah was however in detention at that time.

  In the meanwhile, Pakistan renewed the demand for a plebiscite under the aegis of the UN. India warned that even a partial plebiscite would stoke the fires of Hindu–Muslim differences. It was argued that if the vote were to go in favour of Pakistan, Hindus would be annoyed with Muslims in India and this might even damage the concept of secularism. Nehru had drawn the attention of the world to the same danger after the Security Council’s last debate on Kashmir in 1957. India proposed a political settlement and suggested a readjustment of the ceasefire line. It was however made clear that the proposal should be regarded only as the beginning and that it did not represent India’s final position.

  A week before the breakdown of the talks, Bhutto said in Dhaka (9 May 1963) that Pakistan was firmly opposed to the partition of the Kashmir Valley or its joint control by India and Pakistan. Shastri too, when he was prime minister, was against dividing the Valley or having joint control over it.

  The proposal to divide Kashmir, as I discovered, was suggested by the US. The division of the Valley was to be carried out in such a way as to leave Srinagar in India to give it access to Ladakh. Earlier, the USIS in Delhi had issued a statement (20 December 1962) that:

  India’s only supply route to Ladakh, where so much is at stake, runs out of the vale of Kashmir. The old fortress city of Srinagar is a major supply base. For India, the fertile vale is th
e lifeline to Communist-threatened Ladakh…Any settlement of the Kashmir issue as a whole involves an agreement on access to the valley.

  Why the USIS, an information outfit, would issue such a statement was noted by New Delhi with suspicion.

  America’s other scheme was for a condominium over Kashmir, and this was mentioned (April 1953) by Walt Rostov, then US presidential adviser, to Nehru, who rejected it. Pakistan tried its best to sell India the UK suggestion for internationalization of the Valley, but India refused to entertain the idea. It repeated its basic objection that it could not allow any third-party intervention. (This is its current stand because Pakistan had agreed to the bilateral approach at Shimla in 1972).

  The issue on which the talks really failed at the fourth round in Calcutta (12 March 1963) related not to Kashmir but to the question of Pakistan’s boundary agreement with China. As Nehru put it, India could not agree to the boundary agreement between China and Pakistan over ‘the areas illegally occupied in Kashmir’.

  New Delhi’s quiet reply was to integrate Kashmir further with India. Article 370 of the constitution, which gave special status to Kashmir, underwent further erosion. The pattern of Kashmir’s representation in parliament, hitherto through nomination by the Jammu & Kashmir state assembly, was given up in favour of direct election by the people.

  Domestically, Nehru was smarting under the criticism by key cabinet ministers on his China policy when Congress President K. Kamaraj suggested he let his top cabinet members work in the organization to strengthen the party. My information was that Kamaraj was only mouthing Nehru’s sentiments. Morarji Desai and Jagjivan Ram, the two principal critics, and Shastri, were dropped from the cabinet to work for the party organization.

  I asked Shastri why he should have been ‘Kamrajed’ when he had been loyal to Nehru. Shastri said that Panditji had been obliged to do so because he did not want to be accused of using the Kamaraj Plan to get rid of his critics. According to Shastri, Punjab Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon was one of the state chief ministers who was to resign, but, apparently to Shastri’s disappointment, Nehru retained him at the last minute.

  On the day Shastri was asked to leave the government, I went to his bungalow in the evening as usual. We had developed a personal relationship and I wanted to remain in touch with him. It was dark at Shastri’s house, with only the drawing room lit. I thought he was not at home because the one-man guard was also not on duty.

  I found Shastri sitting in the drawing room all by himself, reading a newspaper. I asked him why there was no light outside. He said that from now onwards he would have to pay the electricity bill for his house himself, and could not afford extravagant lighting.

  From the absence of visitors at Shastri’s house, it was clear that he was no longer in office. My experience is that once a person is not in the kursi, people generally shun him as he is no longer in a position to be of any benefit to them. The trait is colonial in character and also reflects the days when we were ruled by emperors. Our instinct is to bow our heads before those in power, partly out of fear and partly out of greed. There is little respect for a person without authority, even though he may have served the country well. A worse fate meets academicians, economists, and scientists who retire. Politics has tarnished everything; every value.

  I was still with the home ministry when the new home minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, signed a document to assume charge at 11.55 a.m., as his astrologers had told him it was the most auspicious time. It was a comical scene because everyone, from the home secretary downwards, sat waiting with their eyes fixed on the clock in the room. Nanda signed a document before him at the fixed time although he put up an act to indicate he was in the midst of an animated discussion with ministry officials.

  After Shastri’s departure from the cabinet, I left the home ministry and had a brief stint in the Planning Commission as its information officer. The Planning Commission was a jungle of offices and statistics. Its members were supposed to be path finders in the economic wilderness in which India was. They were, however, quarreling among themselves all the time. There was a recurring battle between Tarlok Singh and V.K.R.V. Rao, the two senior members of the commission. Their differences would be over trivialities but they consumed many sittings of the commission.

  I thought that the cabinet secretary’s trip to Colombo to develop close relations with Sri Lanka was newsy. I rang Tarlok Singh to ascertain details and he felt insulted that a junior officer had rung him. He complained to the planning secretary who, in turn, admonished me for directly ringing up the cabinet secretary. What probably annoyed the secretary was that I did not address him as ‘Sir’. Although I had become a government servant, I had not imbibed the hierarchical culture of the bureaucracy because addressing a senior officer as ‘Sir’ is a British relic to which we have faithfully adhered.

  The journalist within me did not permit me to sit idle. I got hold of the report by Wolf Ladejinsky, a Ford Foundation hand. He had been deputed to assess the extent to which India had instituted land reforms. His report vehemently criticized the government for having reforms on paper but doing very little on the ground. Nehru had taken some steps to stop the zamindars from evicting the landless but Ladejinsky had found them ‘too inadequate’. Surprisingly, it was Nehru who had stopped the report from being made public. I made it public at a briefing to journalists attached to the Planning Commission. The leakage shocked the commission members. I was summoned by Deputy Chairman Chandu Lal Trivedi, who had been told that I had leaked the report. I did not deny the charge but argued that the report, front-paged by the press, would exert pressure on the government to take legal steps to institute early land reforms. In any event, I joined the United News of India (UNI), a news agency, the following day.

  Nehru abandoned the proposal to initiate drastic land reforms when he found that the states were opposed to the measure. This sent a wrong message to the country and proved yet again that he hated to join issue when vested interests were involved.

  I do not think that Nehru was a true socialist although he claimed to be one. His policies were at best Fabian. He was, however, keen that the Socialist Party, headed by Jayaprakash Narayan, already dubbed as Nehru’s second eleven much to their dismay, should merge with the Congress. Jayaprakash Narayan suggested to Nehru that he nationalize bank insurance and mines before the socialists could consider an alliance with the Congress. Nehru advised a pragmatic approach which they rejected. Little did they anticipate that his daughter, Indira Gandhi, would nationalize banks and insurance companies, albeit for political reasons.

  Nehru’s approach was ‘step by step’. He was not certain of the human material in the country to implement a Left-oriented programme. It was clear to the socialists that he wanted them in the party to destroy them and their agenda. They began levelling personal attacks on Jayaprakash Narayan. Nehru preferred to part company with him. Nehru realized that he had better consolidate the Congress because he found that many state chief ministers of his party were opposed to socialism. That may be why the Congress used the phrase of ‘Socialistic pattern of society’. It was clear to the party that in a country where the preponderant majority were poor, a posture of being Left went down well with the bulk of them.

  When relations between Nehru and the socialists were deteriorating Congress felt no compunction in winning over Tanguturi Prakasam and appointing him chief minister of a Telugu-speaking state separated from Madras. I met him when the state’s capital was Kurnool. He was a simple man, austerely dressed. He was sitting on a charpai. He said he was a socialist and did not see any contradiction in heading the Congress legislature party. His defence was that the Congress was at heart a socialist and praised Nehru for building socialism in the country.

  The Socialist Party reacted with hostility. Prakasam’s switch over to the Congress was the proverbial last straw for the socialists. They described the Congress and Prime Minister Nehru as the greatest enemies of the poor. Nehru too began attacking the Socia
list Party, without naming Jayaprakash Narayan (JP). Some twenty years later, JP picked up the thread where he had left it to join issue with Indira Gandhi.

  The curious thing is that both Nehru and JP were disillusioned by socialism towards the end of their lives. Nehru said that socialism was a means to an end and the not end which could provide welfare to man. A month before JP died, he rang me from Patna to ask me to bring together some economists and thinkers to devise an Indian way of development because he had concluded that ideologies like socialism and communism had lost their purpose because they had failed to uplift the people.

  Recollection of certain events is meaningful. One such was the second meeting of the National Development Council, sometime in the early 1950s. All the state chief ministers were present. Nehru was pushing the agenda which would combine his form of socialism with the private sector. No one at the meeting understood what he was getting at. The chief ministers and members of the Planning Commission requested Nehru to write the introduction to the Second Five Year plan, spelling out his vision for the future.

  In his piece, Nehru envisaged the commanding heights of the economy being in the hands of public sector undertakings and said that a poor country like India had no option but to turn towards the Left. After two years of the Second Five Year Plan he assured the nation: ‘I will not rest content unless every man, woman, and child in this country have a fair deal and attains a minimum standard of living.’ What struck me was his remark: ‘Wait for another ten years and you will see that our plans will change the picture of the country.’ Nehru lived nine years after that speech but the condition of the common man did not improve.

  I once asked JP whether Nehru was a socialist. He recalled how Nehru, while wanting the socialists back in the Congress fold had argued that ‘an attempt at premature leftism may well lead to reaction and disruption’. JP was critical of Nehru who, he said, wanted to build socialism with the aid of capitalism.