Attlee’s instructions to Noel-Baker, as the latter prepared to leave for New York on 10 January, were to
(1) pressurize India through public debate in the Security Council to discourage it from attacking Pakistan;
(2) play on Indian respect for legal processes to make India accept the Security Council’s recommendations; and
(3) avoid giving Pakistan the impression that Britain was siding with India against it.25
The consideration of the entire issue in the Security Council can be broadly divided into four phases. First, the charge of the Ismay– Scoones heavy brigade led by the former professor, Noel-Baker, with Senator Warren Austin, the US delegate to the UN, happily galloping along ‘in glorious harness’, though at times outstripping his colleagues as an American would be wont to do. Second, the efforts in February 1948 by the US secretary of state, George Marshall, in Washington and Attlee in London to rein in the heavy brigade. The third phase saw the formation of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) without Britain participating in it. Finally, the ceasefire on the basis of the somewhat ambiguous UNCIP proposals at the end of the year.
Noel-Baker, accompanied by the two generals, reached New York hard on the heels of the Indian complaint lodged at the UN. Their first call was on Senator Austin on 8 January 1948. They told Austin that a UN decision should be firmly and promptly made and that military policing would be required for a plebiscite, for which the Pakistani troops would be the most suitable because peace in Kashmir had to guarantee the security of the Muslims there. ‘The whole affair, according to my visitors, started with the massacre of Muslims instigated by the Prince [Hari Singh]’, wired Austin to the US secretary of state on 8 January 1948.26
On 10 January 1948 the delegation shifted to Washington where Noel-Baker and Ismay met undersecretary of state, Robert Lovett. They suggested to him a joint Anglo–US approach at the UN based on the following points:
(1) Movement of Pakistan forces to the Northern Areas;
(2) the withdrawal of Indian troops to the southern (Hindu) part;
(3) a joint occupation of the [Kashmir] Valley by the Indian and Pakistani forces; and
(4) the establishment of an UN Commission in Srinagar, the military commander of which might exercise Interim Governmental administration in Kashmir [i.e., Abdullah to be out].
Noel-Baker told Lovett that ‘Kashmir would probably go to Pakistan under a fair plebiscite’. Lovett was cautious. He thought it should be enough at that stage to call on the parties to desist from military action, to affirm the intention expressed by both to hold a plebiscite at an early date and to establish a commission to that end.27
The support for Pakistan that developed in the Security Council in January 1948 was mainly the result of British lobbying based on the argument that since J&K had a 77 per cent Muslim population, it should ‘naturally’ go to Pakistan. The views of the ex-colonial powers were given due weight by the Western members of the Security Council.* The performance of the Indian delegate at the Security Council also swung opinion in favour of the accused. Gopalswami Iyengar thought that ‘high statesmanship’ required him not to condemn Pakistan directly for aggression. He took pains to differentiate between ‘the raiders’ and the armed forces of Pakistan, focusing on the former. In a further effort to appear ‘objective’, Ayangar made it appear as if the accession was absolutely conditional on the result of the plebiscite. This statement was taken as an indication that India would be willing to accommodate Pakistan. He failed to insist on a time-bound vacation of Pakistani aggression to be followed by a plebiscite and to make it clear that if the Security Council was unable to ensure such vacation, India would be forced to do so itself. Nor did he point out that the division of India had left millions of Muslims behind in India and was essentially a political settlement. In contrast, the Pakistani delegate, Sir Zafrullah Khan, accused India of obtaining the accession ‘by fraud and violence’ and went hammer and tongs to attack India on a variety of issues totally unconnected with India’s complaint. Whereas the Indian delegate’s statement was seen as apologetic, as if India had something to hide, Pakistan’s strident approach was taken as the cry of the wronged.
Sheikh Abdullah, who was a member of the Indian delegation, while talking to the Americans on 28 January 1948, raised the possibility of a third alternative, that of independence for Kashmir: ‘It would be much better if Kashmir were independent and could seek American and British aid for development.’ Austin did not encourage the idea.28*
The rethinking in Washington and London, on their pro-Pakistan stance at the UN, started after India sought an adjournment in the discussion on 9 February 1948 and the Indian delegation returned home. This move gave rise to the possibility of India withdrawing from seeking UN mediation. The debates and the manoeuvrings in the Security Council had caused outrage in India. Grady’s report to Washington on 28 February 1948 confirms this as follows:
Ayangar publicly accused both Governments [of the UK and the US] and the SC of bias…Nehru likewise has bitterly accused [the] SC without singling out HMG and USG. On the other hand, [Karachi’s] Dawn newspaper frequently indicates belief in successful outcome for Pakistan of Kashmir dispute at UN.… General feeling here is Abdullah has the confidence of people of Kashmir as no other Kashmiri could possibly have.29
Strong reaction in India even before this report was received in Washington had made the secretary of state, George Marshall, sit up and focus more carefully on the issue. On 29 February 1948, Marshall wired to Austin, outlining his views as follows:
We believe it highly doubtful that GOI…will acquiesce in or assist in implementation of British plan in present form contemplating as it does virtual UN trusteeship in Kashmir for indefinite period…. It provides no alternative to an acceptance by India of Pakistan troops in Kashmir, and by setting up UN Interim Government, which would completely supersede the present Kashmir regime; the British excluded any possibility of a compromise solution in which both parties would cooperate…. We question advisability of UN at the present stage attempting to assume broad responsibilities for interim civil and military administration in Kashmir as envisaged in the British draft as well as that of establishing “popular” government after plebiscite and transferring power thereto…it appears questionable that British scheme would receive necessary minimum of seven votes in SC; nor should the possibility of Soviet veto be overlooked.
We further believe that section on “Procedure for stopping the fighting” should be given more prominent place than is accorded it in British plan; also that accent given therein to communal aspects should be eliminated [italics added].… It would also be essential to include under this heading, provision for GOP…to withhold material assistance to tribal elements and Kashmir insurgents as part of general procedure for termination of hostilities.30
This stand differed from the one adopted so far by Austin, who had unquestioningly accepted Noel-Baker’s prognosis that pressure on India was necessary to make it accept a compromise and that the question was a communal one. Austin had gone so far as to tell Ayangar that there had to be a settlement between India and Pakistan ‘before [the] United States or its nationals could, with a sense of security, establish political and economic relations of a permanent character with India’.31
Marshall’s intervention resulted in the immediate dispatch of a British delegation to consult American officials in Washington. This delegation was headed by B.R. Curson of the Commonwealth Relations Office. The American team was led by Dean Rusk (the future secretary of state). Ismay and Scoones did not appear. When the British argued that Kashmir was a ‘territory in dispute’, Rusk corrected them by pointing out that ‘Kashmir was a State about which a dispute had arisen between India and Pakistan [italics added]’. Rusk also said that ‘they [the US] found it difficult to deny the legal validity of Kashmir’s accession to India’. He argued that ‘they were disturbed by the possibility [of] far-reaching implications of a Security Counc
il Resolution recommending the use of foreign troops from one party to a dispute in the territory of another party to the dispute’. The British answered that they were assuming ‘that India would in the last analysis agree to the induction of Pakistani troops in Kashmir but only if “morally compelled” to do so by virtue of a UN recommendation’. But ultimately conceded that ‘we had to proceed on the assumption for the time being at any rate [that] India had legal jurisdiction over Kashmir’. In response, Rusk said that ‘the farthest we [the US] could go would be to envisage the use of Pakistani troops as a result of an agreement between the Government of Kashmir and the Governments of India and Pakistan’.32 The British also appeared to have given up their objection to the continuation of Sheikh Abdullah.
On 4 March 1948, Marshall (through a telegram) cautioned Austin: ‘An Anglo–American split [on] this question must be avoided “but the SC cannot impose settlement under Chapter 6 [of the] UN Charter but can only make recommendations to parties. Such recommendations must necessarily be made in the light of India’s present legal jurisdiction over Kashmir”.’33 On the proposal for the partition of Kashmir, he said: ‘We shall certainly take no initiative in this regard but carefully consider proposals calling for partition by agreement between GOI and GOP.’34
Marshall wanted Austin and Noel-Baker to remain ‘yoked’ together but with the American setting the pace rather than the British, as had happened hitherto. Austin, however, failed to establish this ascendancy.
In London too there was a review of the UK policy. On 8 February Attlee received a message from Nehru complaining that Noel-Baker, in a conversation with Sheikh Abdullah, had dismissed as untrue that Pakistan had assisted the raiders:
You will forgive me if I say frankly…that the attitude revealed by this conversation cannot but prejudice continuance of friendly relations between India and the UK.35
Attlee’s impression that the British delegation to the UN had to be reined in was reinforced by a message from Patrick Gordon Walker, junior minister in the Commonwealth Relations Office, who had passed through Delhi. Walker warned: ‘The Indians will be mortally wounded if we put forward the idea of admitting Pakistani troops into Kashmir publicly….’ He added: ‘Grady [the American ambassador in New Delhi] was telling Indians that Warren Austin had been under pressure from the British delegation at the United Nations.’36
Mountbatten also sent a message to Attlee: ‘Everybody here [New Delhi] is now convinced that power politics and not impartiality are [sic] governing the attitude of the Security Council’ and hinted that this may result in India leaving the Commonwealth and falling ‘into the arms of Russia’.37
Attlee’s reply to this message was rather sharp: ‘Russia’s aim was to prevent a settlement of the Kashmir issue and then bring about anarchy and chaos throughout the subcontinent.’38* Attlee could not, however, so easily brush aside Marshall’s views. In early March 1948, the Commonwealth Affairs Committee of the cabinet was summoned to discuss the British delegation’s stand on Kashmir at the UN. Its minutes read as follows:
The US proposals…would be wholly unacceptable to the Government of India and that the relations between the HMG and the Government of India would be seriously prejudiced if the former were to support them…. These were the sort of terms which might be imposed on a defeated country.39
Now where was the question of any US proposals? All the proposals put forward were inspired by the UK delegation. Austin was taking the lead because of British pleas that the ex-colonial power should not come to the forefront. Marshall’s telegram of 20 February 1948 (quoted earlier) makes it abundantly clear that the plan that had been pursued was British and not American.
Attlee was actually trying to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, backtrack slightly by issuing revised instructions for supporting the withdrawal of the Pakistani raiders and leaving the Sheikh Abdullah Government in place, though insisting that India should abandon Poonch. And, on the other, to lay the blame for the course adopted so far on the US. As a cockney once put it:
Tis on’y ar-rmies fights in th’open.
Nations fights behind threes an’ rocks.40
Nehru was promptly informed of the cabinet decision, probably by Sir Stafford Cripps or Krishna Menon, who could be counted upon to embellish the supposed ‘mischief’ played by the US. In a conversation between the US ambassador to Pakistan and Jinnah on 10 April 1948 in Karachi, the latter attributed the British ‘somersault’ to ‘wire pulling instigated by Cripps whose operations…had many “wheels within wheels”’.41
Mountbatten has recorded: ‘I told him [Nehru] that I claim practically the whole credit for this change.… He smiled and said “I suspected as much”.’42 But nothing changed very much in the UN, as we shall shortly see.
On 27 January 1948, the Belgian ambassador to India, Prince de Ligne, told Nehru that ‘the US approach to [the] Kashmir issue would be influenced less by intrinsic merits than by effect of solution on broad considerations of American world strategy in [the] present state of tension between [the] USA and [the] USSR…. If Pakistan should be willing to cooperate similarly with the USA it is to be expected that the USA would try to befriend Pakistan in solution of her dispute with India over Kashmir’.43 The Belgian ambassador at the UN, Fernand van Langenhove, who was the president of the Security Council in January 1948, had been the closest collaborator with the British delegation. There is no record of American intentions to tie Pakistan to the West in early 1948. Therefore, it would appear that Prince de Ligne was roped in to help Attlee fight from ‘behind threes an’ rocks’. The ambassador’s words impressed Nehru. On 28 January 1948 he lashed out at Senator Austin. When Nehru met Patrick Gordon Walker, he vented his anger on the USA, without blaming the UK. He recounted to the British minister what ‘a foreign ambassador’ had told him, adding ‘that India was receiving a very rapid education in the field of international relations’.44
Kingsley Martin, the editor of the leftist New Statesman, visited Delhi in February 1948. There, he propounded the same thesis as Prince de Ligne: ‘American ideas on global strategy did indeed bulk much in the affair. Pakistan was believed to be staunchly anticommunist. India was at the best ambivalent; naturally the United States felt that the former’s cause over Kashmir should be given a favourable hearing.’ He went on to dismiss the attitude of the British delegation at the UN, stating that Noel-Baker was ‘in matters of high policy, weak as water’.45
Kingsley Martin also exchanged views with Mountbatten. In this context, Philip Ziegler writes:
He [Mountbatten] was concerned that Britain should continue to play the leading role in development of the Indian economy and in particular the US should be kept at bay. He told Sir Terence Shone [the British high commissioner to India]: “Mr Grady has been sent here for one purpose only as US Ambassador, and that was to sell the American industrialization to the Indians at the earliest possible moment.” Grady on the other hand complained to the State Department that Mountbatten was warning Indians against the perils of dollar imperialism…. What dictated [the attitude of] Mountbatten was not anti-Americanism but desire for the growth of Commonwealth ties.46
The truth emerges from Hugh Dalton’s (the chancellor of the exchequer in Attlee’s Government) diary, wherein he jotted down that Ernest Bevin attached importance to Pakistan’s role in his strategy of organizing the ‘middle of the planet’ and promoting cordial relations with the Arab states.47 Later in the year, Bevin did ask Liaqat Ali Khan to get in touch with the Arabs.
In March 1948, at the UN, it was the turn of the Chinese (Nationalist) delegate to assume the presidentship of the Security Council. On 10 March 1948 he submitted a draft, which sought to
(1) secure the withdrawal of the raiders;
(2) lay down the conditions for a plebiscite; and
(3) ensure that the plebiscite administrator appointed by the UN secretary-general would act “as an Officer of the J&K (Abdullah) Government” and the “interim government in
Kashmir would be expanded to take in other political groups”.
The US endorsed the first two points of the Chinese draft, but sought a tighter control by the UN Commission. The British delegation opposed the draft altogether. It continued to lobby for the induction of Pakistani troops into J&K and for the removal of Sheikh Abdullah.
On 6 April Krishna Menon conveyed to Attlee and Cripps Nehru’s strong feelings against Noel-Baker continuing to pursue his own line, despite assurances given to India by London that revised instructions were being sent to him. Noel-Baker explained to Attlee by alleging ‘that Ayangar had left him with the impression that India might well accept his suggestions if a little more pressure was applied’.48 Attlee answered as follows: ‘I find it very hard to reconcile the view which you express as to the attitude of the Indian delegation…with the representations I have received through the High Commissioner from India here…. [Christopher] Addison [a cabinet member] and Cripps share my view that all the concessions are being asked from India…’49
The Security Council resolution that was finally adopted after many revisions on 21 April 194850 constituted a five-member commission (UNCIP) that was to proceed immediately to the subcontinent in order to mediate between India and Pakistan. As guidelines, the Security Council recommended that
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 41