Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  Shastri’s simplicity was his forte. I thought I would help him to highlight that image through my dispatches for UNI on whose behalf I had gone to Cairo. As I had direct access to him, I found that his frugal meal was prepared in his hotel room. I sent a story that Shastri was cooking his own food at the Hilton in Cairo. The story boomeranged and the Hilton management issued a statement that it would sue the Indian prime minister for blackening the walls of the hotel room with soot.

  Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, came to the airport to bid goodbye to Shastri. Chou En-lai, the first premier of the People’s Republic of China was also at the airport at the same time, returning from an international conference. Nasser asked Shastri whether he would like to meet Chou En-lai, but Shastri declined the offer. He told me that he was tempted to meet him but feared the repercussions at home.

  Shastri was keen on projecting himself on the world stage. Before going to Cairo he received Chester Bowles, the US ambassador who extended President Lyndon B. Johnson’s invitation to Shastri to visit the US. Bowles added that the First Lady wanted to meet Lalita Shastri too. However, before Shastri could collect his thoughts on the US visit, Johnson withdrew the invitation. Pakistan had reportedly exerted pressure on the US not to enter the picture at a time when Ayub Khan was trying to build a new equation with India after Nehru’s demise. Shastri never forgave Johnson for the insult and rejected his subsequent invitation to stop in Washington when flying to Canada. Bowles told me that Johnson was sorry to have withdrawn the invitation to a person he described as ‘god’s man’.

  Shastri, instead, went to the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders were at home with ‘socialist Nehru’ but wanted to know more about Shastri because they prized their relationship with New Delhi. It was also apparent that Russia did not want all its eggs in India’s basket in the post-Nehru period and wished to normalize their relations with Pakistan.

  Shastri was specifically told that Soviet support to India on Kashmir would continue. A few years later, Moscow changed its stand when it stopped saying or publishing anything that might hurt Pakistan’s susceptibilities and damage their relations.

  Nonetheless, when overzealous Gulzarilal Nanda, then home minister, proposed to extend Articles 356–7 of the Indian constitution to Kashmir, there were loud protests in Pakistan that Shastri had ‘betrayed’ the promise to Ayub Khan. The two Articles were intended to enable the president of India to extend the Centre’s rule to Kashmir in the event of a breakdown in the constitutional machinery of the state and to empower parliament to make laws during that period. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs was, however, opposed to the changes because it feared that they would again attract the attention of the international community which had more or less accepted the status quo in Kashmir. Nanda, however, had his way and got Shastri to sign the papers which he had kept pending for many weeks.

  Pakistan called it an ‘annexation’ of Kashmir. Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was trying to build his image as a tough anti-Indian leader, prepared a working paper, which came to be known as the Bhutto Plan, to argue that if India was to be tackled at all, now was the time. He was able to impress the army with his plan for a war with India.

  The extension of the two Articles irritated the Kashmiris because it meant greater proximity to Delhi, which was anathema to them. Nibbling away at Kashmir’s autonomy, I think, was against the spirit of the accession. When Kashmir joined the Indian union, Srinagar gave New Delhi control over only three subjects: defence, foreign affairs, and communications. It was for Kashmir to expand these, not for the Union to unilaterally appropriate more. India’s one-sided steps created a lot of trouble for it many years later.

  Kashmir was not a priority for Shastri. He was more concerned about the language controversy. An enthusiastic official in the home ministry, with Nanda’s ( who was minister of home affairs) approval had issued a circular stating that Hindi would become the principal official language of the Union and English an additional language from 26 January 1965, a formula which the Parliamentary Committee on Language had devised but Nehru had rejected it outright. The Gazette of India appearing on that day for the first time had the Hindi masthead: Bharat Ka Raj Patra.

  A directive on greater use of Hindi in the central government departments indicated that notes on certain files would begin to be written in Hindi, although an English translation would be appended for the benefit of those who were not proficient in the language. A letter received in Hindi would be answered in Hindi. Official circulars and communiqués would be issued in both Hindi and English. It was an effort to establish the pre-eminence of Hindi as the national language.

  I considered the Gazette notification contrary to Nehru’s assurances to non-Hindi speaking states and feared trouble. I was not wrong. The southern states regarded the home ministry’s circular as a violation of Nehru’s undertaking that the switch over to Hindi would take place only when non-Hindi speaking states were ready for it. To appease the Hindi-speaking population, Nehru had said ‘English cannot be in India anything but a secondary language in future; in the nature of things, mass education will be in our language.’

  Ironically, the circular on language was issued on Republic Day when a 21-gun salute welcomed President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to a colourful parade in New Delhi. However, in his home state, Tamil Nadu, there were riots: in Madras, a youth burnt himself to death, a grim form of protest that most people had till then associated only with South Vietnam.

  The circular was not only withdrawn but also disowned. Shastri was personally in favour of Hindi because that was the language in which he felt most at home (unlike Nehru who, according to his colleague Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, muttered in English even in his sleep). In the face of the agitation in the south, which had primarily supported Shastri’s prime-ministership, he had no choice other than to give an ‘official assurance’ that the introduction of Hindi for ‘the official purposes of the Union’ would be regulated in a way that would not cause any hardship to people who did not know the language. C. Subramaniam, the union minister for food, resigned from the central cabinet in protest. He told me that it was Shastri, not Nanda, who had clandestinely tried to impose Hindi.

  When O.V. Alagesan, another cabinet minister from Madras state, submitted his resignation, Shastri said in a broadcast that Nehru’s assurance ‘will be honoured in letter and in spirit without any qualification or reservation’. Shastri told me that he had wanted to accept the resignation but ‘the two presidents [Radhakrishnan and Kamaraj] did not allow him to do so’.

  Waiting for an opportunity to strike at Shastri, Morarji said that giving legal sanction for the implementation of Nehru’s assurance extended at the time of the agitation in the south would be a ‘surrender to violence’. Forever seeking a consensus, Shastri then convened a meeting of chief ministers of all states. Those from the Hindi-speaking states clashed with those from the non-Hindi ones. As a concession, Shastri offered to fix a quota in the All India Central Services for each state so that knowledge of Hindi would not be an advantage for the Hindi-speaking states. The home ministry was asked to process the proposal which the union cabinet found ‘retrograde’ and ‘harmful’ to the country’s integrity. The riots subsided after Shastri’s assurance but the agitation of 1965 led to major political changes in Tamil Nadu – the Congress lost the 1967 assembly elections to the DMK and has not been able to regain power since.

  The language stir had barely subsided when Shastri and the country had a more vital problem to face: Pakistan’s incursions in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. The border in this area, which was a swamp for seven months a year, had remained un-demarcated.

  Pakistan’s action united the nation as the attack by China had done in 1962. New Delhi had known about the incursions since 25 January 1965 when a Gujarat police patrol had noticed a freshly laid 32 kilometre heavy-vehicle track 2.4 kilometre inside the Indian territory. It must have taken Pakistan some time to lay the track. This had a familiar ri
ng, because the Aksai Chin road built by the Chinese, north of Ladakh, was also discovered only when it was nearing completion after months of construction. There was, however, one difference. In the case of the Aksai Chin road, the government took five years to take the country into confidence, but in the case of the road in the Rann of Kutch, Shastri, who was all for good relations with Pakistan, did not keep the nation in the dark, as Nehru had done in order to foster friendship with China.

  Logistics favoured Pakistan because it had an airport near the border. Rawalpindi deployed a complete infantry division, one regiment each of medium and light tanks including some US Patton tanks, and some other paramilitary units. Pakistan also brought two squadrons of US F-86 fighter bombers to the nearby airport.

  When Islamabad brought in US fighters, New Delhi protested to Washington because the planes were obtained by Pakistan through the US military aid programme. In 1954 the US had supplied arms to Pakistan in a bid ‘to contain Communism’. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had written in a personal note to Nehru:

  What we are proposing to do and what Pakistan is agreeing to is not directed in any way against India and I am confirming publicly that if our aid to any country, including Pakistan, is misused and directed for aggression I will undertake immediate act in accordance with my constitutional authority, and take appropriate action both within and without the UN to thwart such aggression.

  Philip Talbot, then US assistant secretary of state, had assured B.K. Nehru, India’s envoy to Washington, that Pakistan was only authorized to use the arms against Communist aggression.

  India produced a photograph of Patton tanks on the Kutch border. Washington asked Rawalpindi to allow a US observer to visit the site of conflict. To this, Gen. Ayub Khan’s reply was that Pakistan was entitled to use all its arms to defend its territory. However, at a garden party in Karachi a few days later, Ayub Khan told Walter McConaught, then US ambassador to Pakistan: ‘You can send a military observer any time. We have nothing to hide.’

  At Shastri’s insistence, Washington did send a team and found the Pakistani brigade in the Rann equipped partly with the weapons that the US had sent. Had the US been firm at that time and told Pakistan not to use the arms they had supplied against India, the subsequent war between India and Pakistan might have been averted. Moscow’s post-Khrushchev policy to befriend Rawalpindi also encouraged Pakistan to flex its muscles. Russia had not yet supplied arms but the fact that the leader of the Soviet Union had welcomed Pakistani leaders to Moscow caused Rawalpindi to believe that if it ever came to a conflict between Pakistan and India, the USSR would remain neutral. New Delhi suspected that this might well happen, and I could see that Shastri was disturbed about the prospect.

  India claimed that Kanjarkot, Chhadbed, and Birabet in Kutch had always been part of its territory but Pakistan said that the Rann of Kutch was a disputed area and even according to international practice the boundary must run through the centre of a waterbody (the Rann).

  New Delhi wanted to go all out to recover the area but the army chief, Gen. J.N. Chaudhuri was against it. The army was not yet ready for a war against Pakistan, an eventuality that Chaudhuri embarrassingly faced. Dr Ram Subhag Singh, an articulate MP, one day chided Gen. Chaudhuri in his room: ‘You Bengalis are probably afraid to fight. We Biharis are not.’ Chaudhuri handed him a machine gun lying in his room, which Dr Singh found even difficult to lift!

  I knew that Shastri was not in favour of India–Pakistan hostilities. He had frequently told me so. At a cabinet meeting, while discussing the Rann of Kutch, he said he could not reconcile himself to a war between India and Pakistan. Harold Wilson, the British prime minister, used all his tact and pressure to persuade Shastri, who was then in London to attend the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, to agree to arbitration. For India to agree to the Rann of Kutch being labelled disputed territory and to accept a third party award was a great concession on it’s part. The award, announced on 18 February 1968 did not uphold India’s claim to the entire Rann of Kutch. Of a total of 3,500 sq miles, 350 sq. miles were given to Pakistan.

  Shastri felt that war would spell disaster for the subcontinent, and in fact repeated the offer of a no-war pact to Pakistan, as Nehru had done at one time. Pakistan, however, rejected the offer. All this seemed to have exhausted Shastri’s entire fund of goodwill for Pakistan during those days. He explained to me later:

  Pakistan mistook my desire not to fight as a sign of weakness. It thought that I would never go to war and Pakistan tried to take undue advantage in Kashmir. When it did so, I was convinced that Pakistan was not serious about good relations and peace with India. I decided to act.

  The award, criticized by the public and the press alike, also affected Shastri’s thinking. Hardly had the ink on the Kutch ceasefire agreement dried when incidents on the Kashmir border increased (to almost 300 a month). There were vague intelligence reports that Pakistan was training infiltrators to be sent into Kashmir. Each report was different from the other and therefore the government found it difficult to gauge the nature of Pakistan’s preparations. It was, however, inferred that something serious was brewing across the border.

  A top-level meeting of military officials, at which the army chief was himself present, was held in Srinagar on 2 August 1965 to study the situation. Surprisingly, they concluded that Pakistan posed no immediate threat. Two days later, the army received clear evidence of infiltration from Pakistan.

  Mohammad Din, a young farmer had reported to the police that while tending to his cattle near Gulmarg, 40 miles north of Srinagar, he had met two armed strangers wearing green salwar and kameez. They offered him Rs 400 for information on the location of Indian army posts. In Mendhar sector, Jammu, a few suspicious looking armed men had contacted another person, Wazir Mohammed. Both men, pretending to cooperate with the Pakistanis, had reported the matter to the Indian authorities.

  The army immediately sent patrols which encountered a few raiders who, after some resistance, fled back to the other side of the ceasefire line. Three days later, on 8 August, two Pakistani officers, both captains, Ghulam Hussain and Mohammed Sajjad, were captured. During interrogation, they admitted that a large scale infiltration was planned and that they were the lead team of the Pakistani forces planning to seize Jammu & Kashmir by force. This was corroborated by documents found in their possession.

  The documents revealed that the plan for massive infiltration was hatched as early as January 1965. At that time, through a presidential ordinance, a mujahid force was formally constituted, and its training began in May 1965 under the overall direction of Maj. Gen. Akhtar Malik, then general officer commanding Pakistan army’s 12th Infantry Battalion. The raiders were to enter the state in small groups between 1st and 5th August, gather at central points, and then attack the Valley from various directions. The raiders expected to mingle unnoticed with the thousands of people congregating to celebrate the festival of Pir Dastagir Sahib on 8 August.

  On the following day, which coincided with the anniversary of Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest by Nehru, the raiders were first to join a demonstration scheduled in Srinagar, and then to capture the radio station, airfield, and other vital centres. A few other columns of infiltrators were to cut the roads connecting Srinagar with other parts of the state in order to isolate the capital. Eventually the raiders were to form a ‘revolutionary council’, proclaim themselves the lawful government, and broadcast an appeal for recognition and assistance from all countries, especially Pakistan. A copy of the proclamation was to be broadcast over Radio Kashmir on 9 August. The ‘broadcast’ was to be the signal for Pakistan to move in for the kill.

  The early detection of infiltrators accentuated the pace of events. There was a spate of serious incursions throughout the Jammu & Kashmir border, all aimed at capturing the Valley. It appeared that the infiltrators had been given specific tasks such as destruction of bridges, disruption of lines of communication, attacks on military formations, and the distribution of a
rms and ammunition to local civilian sympathizers. The invaders set about their task, with missionary zeal and were confident of a spontaneous response from the people who they had come to ‘liberate’ but the local population kept themselves aloof.

  On 8 August the infiltrators managed to enter the suburbs of Srinagar. The state government panicked and suggested the Centre to impose martial law in Jammu & Kashmir. Accordingly, the central government asked the army to take control of the entire state. The army commanders, however, dissuaded the government from such an action and assured it that the situation was not as bad as had been painted by the state government.

  On the night of 8–9 August 1965, for the first time, the entire ceasefire line exploded with intensive and continuous firing from across the border. In the Poonch area, Pakistan shelled selected targets with 25 lb guns. The infiltrators, roughly 3,000 in the state, made a daring raid on the brigade headquarters but there were no casualties. Pakistan, through the press and radio, was at great pains to explain that the events in Jammu & Kashmir were ‘a spontaneous local insurrection’ in which it had no hand.

  During the night of 9–10 August there was a comparative lull in the Valley. That very night some infiltrators were fired upon when attempting to slip back into Pakistan. This was the first indication of the infiltration of traffic in the reverse direction. Once the infiltrators met with resistance, they withdrew. The operation had failed.

  Lt Gen. Harbaksh Singh, heading the Western Command, said in his report to the government:

  The Pakistanis borrowed a leaf from the teaching of Mao Tse-tung in their plan to instigate an insurrection in J&K under the guise of a spontaneous ‘Liberation Movement’. But it was in the implementation of the Chinese doctrine on the subject that the Pakistani leadership faulted and fell. To succeed in this form of subversive warfare, requires meticulous organization, detailed planning, a high standard of training, aggressive leadership, and universal local support. Without these basic essentials, a liberation movement is bound to fizzle out – as it did in J&K.