by B Krishna
In a circular letter of 1 April 1947, the Maharaja of Bikaner told his brother princes, “The only safe policy for the States is to work fully with the stabilising elements in British India to create a Centre . . . which would safeguard both the States and British India in the vacuum that would be created by the withdrawal of the British Government.” His appeal to them was: “Let the Princes of India rise to the occasion to be hailed as co-architects of the structure of India’s independence and greatness.”
In the proceedings of the States Negotiating Committee on the issue of princes joining the Constituent Assembly, Bhopal’s was an anti-Indian role: browbeating weak, vacillating princes by prophesising “bloodshed and chaos” in the states if a time-limit on their joining the Constituent Assembly were imposed. He tried to influence them by word of mouth, besides pressing into service his chancellor’s Pakistani-dominated secretariat, to make them adopt a policy of “wait and see”.
Patel outmanoeuvred Bhopal, and made him suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Maharajas of Bikaner and Patiala. Equally so through a vocal opposition built up within and outside the chamber by the states prime ministers— diwans Mirza Ismail of Mysore, V. T. Krishnamachari of Udaipur, Panikkar of Bikaner, and B. L. Mitter of Baroda. This resulted in the weakening of Bhopal’s position. Yet, because of Corfield’s support, and inspiration from Jinnah, Bhopal continued, undeterred, to persuade the princes sitting on the fence to keep off the Bikaner-Patiala group.
Panikkar and some other diwans believed that Bhopal was “acting as an agent of Pakistan”; and that “Bhopal came forward as the standard-bearer for Hyderabad”, having entered into “a compact with the Nizam whereby the former [Bhopal] agreed to use the Chamber to rally Hindu Princes to undermine Hindu power in India and the Government of Hyderabad was to finance this devious scheme”.5
Bhopal believed, like Jinnah, that “a government in India, weakened by the hostility of the Hindu Princes to the Congress, would not dare to offend Muslim public opinion and impose its will on the Nizam”. He was of the firm opinion that Hyderabad, as large as England and having a population of 17 million and revenue of Rs. 20 crore, would survive; and his “tiny island in a Hindu ocean” could do so “in association with Hyderabad”.6
The 3 June plan delivered a shattering blow to Bhopal’s dreams. With its announcement he resigned from the chancellorship of the Chamber of Princes, but clung to the hope that “Bhopal State would, as soon as Paramountcy is withdrawn, be assuming an independent status”.7 He went so far as to say that Bhopal would negotiate directly with the successor governments of India and Pakistan. Bhopal felt so embittered by the 3 June plan that he did not attend the meeting of the rulers and states representatives called by Mountbatten on 25 July in his capacity as the Crown representative. Bhopal dismissed it with the contemptuous remark that the rulers had been “invited like the Oysters to attend the tea-party with the Walrus and the Carpenter”. Mountbatten regretted his attitude with the remark: “I have spent more time on Bhopal’s case than on all the other States put together . . . it would be a tragedy if he were to wreck the State by failing to come in now.”8
As 15 August drew nearer, Bhopal realised that his game was up. He also realised that in losing the battle to Patel, and not to Mountbatten, he might lose all in the end. He found himself in “an anomalous and difficult position”. He approached Mountbatten to find out whether he could sign a standstill agreement without acceding to India. He perhaps wanted to see how strong Patel would be after the transfer of power. He wanted to formulate his strategy accordingly. He was told this was not possible. Thereupon, he sent his constitutional adviser, Zafrullah, to V. P. Menon to seek clarification of the terms of accession. Menon told him that Bhopal could not be an exception. Bhopal met Mountbatten on 11 August, four days prior to the transfer of power, and sought his help to save face. Could his accession be announced ten days after the transfer of power, i.e. by 25 August? Patel was generous to grant Bhopal’s request.
Since accession had to precede, not follow, transference of power, Bhopal’s was an unconstitutional request. No other prince had asked for it. Patel was, however, gracious to a pro-Pakistani Muslim ruler in granting him grace-time to find out his chances of succeeding Jinnah in Pakistan. Bhopal’s claim lay in his having served Jinnah as a faithful emissary in his efforts to wean strategically located Indian states to his side. In many cases he had nearly succeeded but for Patel playing a Chanakya. As a devout Muslim, Bhopal aspired, according to Wavell, “to fight to the death for the Muslim cause”.9 This, he thought, he could do best from Pakistan as head of state.
According to Hodson, “three days before the period of grace expired”, Bhopal, after a long talk with Patel, saw Mountbatten and explained the reasons for his hesitation: “he had ambitions to play a big role in the Muslim world in the future, and he feared that if he acceded, Jinnah would denounce him as a traitor to the Muslim cause”.10 Bhopal had flown to Karachi to meet Jinnah, who, though “sufficiently magnanimous” towards the Nawab, must have by then seen opposition from Liaquat Ali and other Muslim leaders. It was thereafter, on his return from Pakistan, that the state of Bhopal acceded to India.
After his accession on 25 August, Bhopal wrote to Patel on the twenty-sixth:
By the time you receive this letter, you will have heard the news that I have decided to join the Union of India . . . I do not disguise the fact that while the struggle was on, I used every means in my power to preserve the independence and neutrality of my State. Now that I have conceded defeat, I hope that you will find that I can be as staunch a friend as I have been an inveterate opponent . . . I now wish to tell you that so long as you maintain your present firm stand against the disruptive forces in the country and continue to be a friend of the States as you have shown you are, you will find in me a loyal and faithful ally.
Patel was generous in his reply:
Quite candidly, I do not look upon the accession of your State to the Indian Dominion as either a victory for us or a defeat for you. It is only right and propriety which have triumphed in the end, and in that triumph, you and I have played our respective roles. You deserve full credit for having recognised the soundness of the position and for the courage, the honesty and the boldness of having given up your earlier stand, which, according to us, was entirely antagonistic to the interests as much of India as of your own State.11
With this, the anti-Indian front of the princes, that Bhopal had built, collapsed. There followed total confusion among the rulers of his group. They were completely “routed” and were so crestfallen that they sought interviews with Patel, looking for some saving-grace in his forgiveness. One such ruler was the Maharaja of Indore, Bhopal’s closest ally. Erratic and bad-mannered, he did not, like Bhopal, attend the rulers’ meeting Mountbatten had called on 25 July. On the thirtieth, Mountbatten sent six of his fellow Maratha princes, headed by Baroda, to Indore with “a personal letter from the Viceroy urging the Ruler of Indore to come to Delhi”.12 The Maharaja insulted his brother princes by declining to see them. Baroda told Menon that “all of them were waiting in the Maharaja’s drawing-room when he came in and went past them on his way upstairs as though they did not exist”.13 With Bhopal’s having fallen from his earlier “high” position, Indore realised his position too was no longer safe. Along with Bhopal, he saw Mountbatten on 4 August, and was given “a dressing-down of painful severity”.14 Thereafter, Indore called upon Patel. He had a similar dressing down—and an abject surrender.
Bhopal’s surrender was a great victory for Patel. It brought to an end the Political Department’s plans to balkanise the country through the creation of a “Third Dominion”. Patel also gave burial to the Churchillian proposal to create Princestan: a confederation of over 560 princely states.
Junagadh Nawab’s accession to Pakistan
In Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan on 15 August, Patel saw “the first danger sign for splitting India again”. He stated: “After Partition, we
had a huge problem. Those who partitioned the country had mental reservations. They thought that this Partition was not the last word, and they started the game immediately thereafter. Among Kathiawar States, they went to Junagadh and got its accession to Pakistan . . . We woke up in time and those who tried to play that game saw that we were not sleeping.”1
In Junagadh, Patel was presented with a fait accompli. Mountbatten recognised Junagadh as “Pakistan territory” in his report to the king: “My chief concern as Governor-General was to prevent the Government of India from committing itself on the Junagadh issue to an act of war against what was now Pakistan territory . . . my own physical presence as Governor-General of India was the best insurance against an actual outbreak of war with Pakistan.”2 Mountbatten confessed to Nehru: “Pakistan is in no position even to declare war, since I happen to know that their military commanders have put it to them in writing that a declaration of war with India can only end in the inevitable and ultimate defeat of Pakistan.”3
Mountbatten’s role in Junagadh was against India’s interest. He had no control over Junagadh’s actions, nor over Pakistan’s. He, nevertheless, assumed that he could use his position as governor-general in averting a war with Pakistan by binding India to three conditions: reference of Junagadh to the UNO; preventing Indian troops from entering Junagadh territory; and an offer of holding a plebiscite in Junagadh. Reluctantly, Patel agreed to a plebiscite, even when Jinnah had not asked for it. He rejected the first two. The first would have given Pakistan locus standi in Junagadh, and thereby internationalised the issue, as it happened later in the case of Kashmir.
Mountbatten failed to consider that in Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan would lie “Jinnah’s tactical shrewdness. He must have seen—or, if he did not, it certainly turned out—that the accession of Junagadh to Pakistan placed India in an acute dilemma from which any escape could be turned to the advantage of Pakistan”.4 There was also the danger of Pakistan securing a foothold in Junagadh by landing troops through its port of Veraval. Once on Junagadh soil, India could not have dislodged Pakistan from there. Mountbatten faced opposition, not from Nehru, but from Patel, with unfailing determination.
Patel refused to oblige Mountbatten in two respects. He objected to “forcible dragging of our 80 percent of Hindu population of Junagadh into Pakistan by accession in defiance of all democratic principles”.5 He was also concerned about accession setting up a dangerous precedent. Junagadh’s accession, according to Campbell-Johnson, was “a direct challenge to the essential validity of the whole accession policy, with disastrous effects both upon the Kathiawar States and upon the Hyderabad negotiations”.6
What supported India’s claim was that Junagadh, unlike Jodhpur, had no contiguity with Pakistan by land, though it could establish a direct link with Karachi through its port of Veraval—just 300 miles away. Landlocked Junagadh was separated from Pakistan by the territories of Kutch, Baroda, Nawanagar, Porbandar, and Gondal. Junagadh’s map, according to H. V. Hodson, had “absurd complexity . . . fragments of other States were embedded in Junagadh, and fragments of Junagadh were embedded in other States, while an arm of Junagadh separated one substantial outlying portion of the Maratha State of Baroda from another and from the sea”.7
Patel called Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan an act of perfidy. As early as 11 April 1947, the Muslim ruler had camouflaged his real intentions by stating that “what Junagadh pre-eminently stands for is the solidarity of Kathiawar, and would welcome the formation of a self-contained group of Kathiawar States”.8 He deliberately omitted any reference to Pakistan. His diwan, Abdul Kadir Mohammed Hussain, categorically repudiated, on 22 April, allegations that Junagadh was thinking of joining Pakistan. He left for Europe in May for medical treatment, handing over charge to Shah Nawaz Bhutto, whose son, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, later became prime minister of Pakistan.
Nabi Baksh, Junagadh’s representative at the rulers’ conference on 25 July, told Mountbatten that his intention was to advise the Nawab to accede to India. He had also given a similar impression to Patel when he called upon him, as also to the Jamsaheb of Nawanagar, his neighbour. Junagadh had, on the other hand, secretly recruited to the state forces, Baluchis and Hurs from Pakistan, and a decision had been taken that the local Bahauddin College was to be affiliated to the Sind University in Karachi.
According to H. V. Hodson, handling of Junagadh was “full of traps, and there was good reason to suspect that some of those traps had been deliberately laid by Pakistan”. Hodson believes that Bhutto obeyed Jinnah’s advice, given on 16 July, “to keep out under all circumstances until 15 August”.9 With the termination of paramountcy, Bhutto would have been entitled to take an independent decision. Meanwhile, Jinnah assured Bhutto that he would not allow Junagadh to starve as “Veraval is not far from Karachi”. This was in response to Bhutto’s fears that “Junagadh stands all alone surrounded by Hindu Rulers’ territories and British Indian Congress provinces”.
Bhutto’s hopes lay in his belief: “We are, of course, connected by sea with Pakistan. If geographical position by land was fairly considered, Kutch, Jamnagar and other territories adjoining Junagadh geographically should be considered connected with Pakistan, as they once in the past actually formed part of Sind. Though the Muslim population of Junagadh is nearly 20% and non-Muslims form 80%, seven lakh Muslims of Kathiawar survived because of Junagadh. I consider that no sacrifice is too great to preserve the prestige, honour and rule of His Highness and to protect Islam and the Muslims of Kathiawar.”10
The Jinnah-Bhutto conspiracy had dangerous implications. If Junagadh were allowed to accede to Pakistan, V. P. Menon thought that “its detachment would turn it into a hothouse plant with no powers of survival”. What worried Menon most was “the immediate potentialities for turmoil when stability was the crying need of the hour. The Nawab’s action would have undesirable effects on law and order in Kathiawar as a whole. It would extend the communal trouble to areas where at present there was peace.
There was also the fear that it would encourage the intractable elements in Hyderabad”.11
Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan had been kept a closely guarded secret. Even Mountbatten as the Crown representative was kept in the dark by the Political Department, the residents and agents keeping mum. The government of India, which had no inkling about it, found out on 17 August from newspaper reports. On enquiry, Junagadh simply confirmed the news. Pakistan having not yet formally accepted the accession, India moved into the matter constitutionally by inviting the attention of the Pakistan high commissioner to India to the invalidity of accession on grounds of Junagadh’s geographical contiguity to India, the composition of its population, and the need for consulting the views of the people. Pakistan remained discreetly silent. Even a reminder sent on 6 September evoked no response.
Jinnah expected that Mountbatten would not let India take precipitate action, while Nehru would show hesitancy in taking a firm decision, pursuing his usual policy of soft peddling. On Nehru’s suggestion, a telegram addressed to the Pakistan prime minister, Liaquat Ali, indicated India’s willingness to abide by the people’s verdict. Lest India’s message was ignored like the earlier ones, the telegram was personally carried by Ismay to Karachi. He also carried Mountbatten’s message to Jinnah, that if Pakistan accepted Junagadh’s accession, it would lead to a dispute between the two dominions, and that if Jinnah wanted any state to accede to Pakistan, he could not have chosen a worse state. Pakistan merely telegraphed on 13 September confirming acceptance of Junagadh’s accession.
The Junagadh crisis, according to Campbell-Johnson, erupted as if from “a wholly unexpected quarter”, and “in the welter of great events immediately before and after the transfer of power, Junagadh was simply overlooked”.12 Patel rejected Nehru’s suggestion that “it would be desirable for us to send a message to the British Government about the Junagadh affair” with the polite comment: “I am not quite sure whether we need say anything to the British Governm
ent at this stage.”13
Junagadh’s decision sent a wave of indignation and protest among the people and rulers of Kathiawar—Nawanagar, Bhavnagar, Morvi, Gondal, Porbandar, and Wankaner—all of whom strongly condemned it. The Junagadh affair made the rulers turn to Patel to handle the situation. The Maharaja of Dhrangadhra asked the Nawab of Junagadh, in a personal letter, to reconsider the decision as it was opposed to geographical compulsions and was against the wishes of the people, adding that failure to reverse it would cause disruption of Kathiawar.
The Nawab’s reply was: “The Indian Independence Act did not, and does not, require a Ruler to consult his people before deciding on accession. I think we are making an unnecessary fetish of the argument of geographical contiguity. Even then, this is sufficiently provided by Junagadh’s sea coast with several ports which can keep connection with Pakistan.”14
The Jamsaheb rushed to New Delhi to tell Patel that the rulers and people of Kathiawar were greatly agitated over Pakistan’s attempt to encroach on Indian territory, that it would be difficult to restrain the people of Kathiawar from retaliating, and that, if the government of India did not take “immediate and effective steps”, the Kathiawar states would “lose faith in the will and ability of the Indian Dominion to carry out all the obligations arising from their accession to India”.15
Mountbatten and Ismay seemed concerned not so much with Pakistan’s perfidy as with how to deter India from any physical action. Mountbatten had long talks with Nehru and Patel. He easily carried conviction with Nehru; with Patel he could not. According to Campbell-Johnson, Mountbatten “reiterated Ismay’s thesis that the whole manoeuvre was almost certainly a trap and part of a wider campaign which Jinnah might be expected to launch for the express purpose of presenting Pakistan to the world as the innocent weak State threatened by the ruthless aggressor”.16