After Mountbatten left India in June 1948, from July to September that year, Nehru wrote as many as eleven fairly lengthy letters on the situation in India, including Kashmir, to him.*
On 15 August 1948, Mountbatten warned Nehru as follows:
There was no alternative to the UN approach; if war came the world would blame India because Pakistan was seen as too weak to seek belligerency; war would mean the Indian leaders abandoning all they have stood for; if the UN declares India an aggressor, even India’s best friends would have to conform to the world body’s decision; war would result in a communal carnage inside India; and, finally, India did not have the means to prevail on its own. “What have you got? A few old Dakotas…”**
Mountbatten then wrote: ‘You might feel that this [the ceasefire] would give an unfair advantage to Pakistan. But will it? If there were any competent and honest observers…they can prevent any form of consolidation by Pakistan, or at least report any infringement, which would finally put Pakistan out of court before UNO and the world’.67 Did Mountbatten really believe that Britain would support putting Pakistan in the dock if that country tried to consolidate its hold on Kashmir?
General K.M. Cariappa had planned to reconquer Mirpur and Muzaffarabad situated on the Pakistan frontier in November. Bucher in Delhi, with the concurrence of the Defence Committee had, however, denied Cariappa fresh troops for carrying out the assault. The argument used was that such an attack would expose East Punjab (India) to a Pakistani counterattack.
On 20 November 1948, Graffety Smith, the British high commissioner to Pakistan, wired the Commonwealth Relations Office in London as follows: ‘Bucher will meet Gracey in Karachi on…26 November for Joint Defence talks and might be able to propose a formula [for ceasefire] acceptable to both sides…’68
Graffety Smith followed this up by informing London that Bucher had told Gracey: ‘There would be no (repeat no) attack on Mirpur or any stage (repeat stage) attack on Kotli or Bhimbar…. After much difficulty he [had] succeeded in getting one RIAF [Royal Indian Air Force] Squadron withdrawn from Jammu.’69
On 26 November General Nye informed the CRO that Bucher had warned Nehru, in writing, that the Army was running seriously short of transport and lacked spares as well as certain types of ammunition. Nehru thereupon conceded that ‘Muzaffarabad and Mirpur are out of our reach at present…Kotli is of somewhat different category.’70 Thus, despite Cariappa’s plan to capture all the above three towns, the advance was made only towards Kotli.
To reinforce its diplomatic moves for a ceasefire, Pakistan, on 14 December 1948, launched an offensive, termed ‘Operation Venus’,* in the Naoshera area. This offensive succeeded in badly mauling the strategically important bridge at Beri Patan. The Pakistanis had withdrawn troops in West Punjab for this offensive, thereby taking the great risk of exposing themselves in the Sialkot–Lahore area – a risk that the stronger Indian Army had refused to take in East Punjab. According to the Indian generals, India could have taken back most of Pakistan-occupied territory in the southwest despite the latter’s improved defence preparations, if more troops had been available. However, the warning sounded by Nye and earlier by Mountbatten (and possibly by others when he visited the UK) kept ringing in Nehru’s ears.
By this time, the Pakistanis were agreeable to a ceasefire, something they had rejected when speaking to the UNCIP in July. They were also now willing to drop their demand for the removal of Sheikh Abdullah. Therefore, the chances of their accepting the UNCIP proposals for the withdrawal of their forces from Kashmir and for an early plebiscite had improved, or so the Indians thought. Even if two-thirds of the inhabitants there and in western Jammu voted for India, the plebiscite could be won.
This change in the Pakistani position had come largely because the Americans had remained adamant that the Pakistanis had to pull out. On 23 November 1948, John Foster Dulles, the acting chairman of the US delegation to the UN (who was in Paris), sent the following message to the secretary of state in Washington:
Strong UK pressure past two weeks for early SC meeting on Kashmir. They [the UK] are not keen on August 13 provision [the UNCIP resolution] regarding withdrawal Pakistan troops…. Present UK approach to Kashmir problem appears extremely pro-GOP [Pakistan].71
The secretary of state wired back the next day:
Re: withdrawal Pakistan troops we continue feel this aspect so essential acceptable overall settlement that failure its inclusion as integral part plan would probably certainly prejudice GOI [India] acquiescence in plan.72
On 7 December 1948, Dulles reported to Marshall that the British were still holding out. They had proposed a draft of a resolution, on which Dulles commented as follows:
In effect UK resolution in present form is to tie both parties formally to ceasefire against present benefit GOP; to leave GOI without any definite commitment re withdrawal GOP troops.73
It was on 27 December 1948 that Pakistan eventually gave in. On that day the American chargé d’affaires in Pakistan wired to the secretary of state:
He [Zafrullah Khan] asked me what I thought about the matter [the UNCIP resolution]. I told him that in my opinion Pakistan was over a barrel and they had better accept the proposal…. Sir Zafrullah then said that he himself had arrived at that conclusion.74
But Pakistan did not yield before it had succeeded in resisting the provisos for an absolutely unconditional withdrawal.
The ceasefire came into effect on 1 January 1949.
It was only after the Cold War started in real earnest and ‘pact mania’ gripped American foreign policy that mutually agreed terms could be found for a defence pact between Pakistan and the Western powers. In the first such alliance, known as ‘the Baghdad Pact’ (which was signed in February 1955), Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey joined Britain and created the ‘brick wall’ to thwart Soviet ambitions. This concept was first thought of by Sir Olaf Caroe. A few years later, in 1959, this defence pact was translated into CENTO (Central Treaty Organization), the US taking over command from Britain as the captain of the Western team against the Soviets in the old Great Game that had by then assumed global dimensions and had come to be called the Cold War.
Notes and References
1. Colonel James Todd, Annals and Antiquities of Rajputana (Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2001).
2. Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten (New Age Publishers, Delhi, 1994, diary entry of 11 November 1947).
3. MBI/E/193/2, Broadlands Archives (BA), University of Southampton.
4. Ibid. Message to Gandhiji from Attlee.
5. Ibid. Mountbatten to Gandhiji, 29 September 1947.
6. H.V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan (Oxford University Press edition, Delhi, 2000, p. 381).
7. MBI/D4, Interview No. 43, 16 September 1947, BA, University of Southampton.
8. MBI/E/193/3, 29 October 1947, BA, University of Southampton.
9. Stanley Wolpert, Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny (Oxford University Press, New York, 1996, p. 426, Nehru to Rajagopalachari, 26 October 1947).
10. Campbell-Johnnson, op. cit., diary entry 18 December 1947.
11. Jinnah–Isfahani correspondence September 1947, pp. 525–26. Cited in Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan, ninth edition (Oxford University Press, London, 2002, p. 348).
12. Record of governor-general’s Interview No. 80, 12 January 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
13. Mountbatten’s interview with Sardar Baldev Singh, 23 January 1948. Cited in Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India (Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1985, p. 126).
14. MBI/E/193, BA, University of Southampton.
15. Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Works, Vol. IV (Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, pp. 391–92).
16. File L/WS/1/1139, IOR, London, cited in telegram from Terence Shone to CRO, 28 December 1947.
17. Jawaharlal Nehru, op. cit., pp. 399–403, 24 December 1947.
18. File L/WS/1/1140, IOR, Lond
on. Cited in C. Dasgupta, War and Diplomacy in Kashmir: 1947–1948 (Sage, New Delhi, 2002, p. 105).
19. Jawaharlal Nehru, op. cit., pp. 411–12.
20. US FR 1947, Vol. III, p. 185, 29 December 1947.
21. Ibid., p. 190, 30 December 1947.
22. Ibid., p. 192.
23. File FO 80/470, CRO, London. Minute, 6 January 1948, to prime minister.
24. MBI/D/241, BA, University of Southampton.
25. File L/WS/1/1148, Attlee to Noel-Baker, 10 January 1948 (OIC, British Library, London).
26. US FR 1948, Vol. V, p. 274, 8 January 1948.
27. Ibid., pp. 291–92, 28 January 1948.
28. Ibid., pp. 308–09, 28 February 1948.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p. 300, 29 February 1948.
31. Austin’s cable to Ayangar, 22 January 1948, referred to in Ayangar’s cable No. 25-S to Nehru, 22 February 1948 in Jawaharlal Nehru, op.cit., Vol. V.
32. US FR 1948, Vol. V, p. 306, 27 February 1948.
33. Ibid., p. 311, 4 March 1948.
34. Ibid.
35. Jawaharlal Nehru, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 211. Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 122.
36. File L/WS/1/1148, Walker to Carter, 1 February 1948, IOR, London. Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 122.
37. File L/WS/1/114, Mountbatten to Attlee, 8 February 1948, IOR, London. Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 123.
38. Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (Collins, London, 1985, p. 450). Governor-general’s personal Report No. 9, 19 March 1948, D 88, BA, University of Southampton.
39. File CAB/134/55, Public Relations Office (PRO), London, minutes of CAC meeting of 5 March 1948.
40. Wavell’s collection of notes and ideas 1939–46 (privately printed). The verse is attribute to one Dooley.
41. US FR 1948, Vol. V, pp. 327–28.
42. Ziegler, op. cit., p. 451. Governor-general’s Interview No. 129, 20 March 1948, D 77, BA, University of Southampton.
43. Nehru’s cable to Ayangar. Jawaharlal Nehru, op.cit., Vol. V, p. 188.
44. File L/P&9/13/1865/O/R, 28 January 1948 (OIC, British Library, London).
45. According to governor-general’s Interview No. 108, 17 February 1948, D 76, BA, University of Southampton.
46. Ziegler, op. cit., p. 467.
47. Hugh Dalton’s diary entry dated 15 October 1948. Quoted in S. Gopal, Nehru (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2003, p. 35).
48. Noel Baker to Attlee, 2 April 1948, FO 800/470, PRO, London, p. 129. Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 129.
49. Ibid., 4 April 1948, Attlee to Noel-Baker. Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 129.
50. Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir (Oxford University Press, New York and Karachi, 2002, p. 307).
51. Mountbatten’s letter to Walker, 27 February 1948, No. 72, BA, University of Southampton.
52. Attlee’s letter to Nehru, 11 March 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
53. Nehru’s personal letter to Attlee, 18 April 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
54. Korbel, op. cit., p. 121.
55. Ibid., p. 129.
56. Ibid., p. 312.
57. File Prem 8/997, PRO, London.
58. US FR 1948, Vol. V, p. 419.
59. Ibid.
60. MBI/F40, Carter to Mountbatten, 8 October 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
61. Ibid., Mountbatten to Noel Baker, 25 October 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
62. File Prem 8/997, PRO, London. Note by Cumming Bruce, 26 September 1948 and extract from minute of COS (48)/36 meeting, 4 September 1948.
63. US FR 1948, Vol. V, pp. 435–36.
64. Ibid.
65. File L/WS/1/1144, Attlee to Liaqat Ali Khan (OIC, British Library, London). Cited in Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 180.
66. Ibid., General Nye to CRO, 22 November 1948 (OIC, British Library, London).
67. MBI/F40, Mountbatten to Nehru, 15 August 1948, BA, University of Southampton.
68. File L/WS/1/1144, 20 November, 1948 (OIC, British Library, London).
69. Ibid.
70. Jawaharlal Nehru, op.cit., Vol. V, p. 87.
71. US FR 1948, Vol. V, pp. 459–60.
72. Ibid., p. 461.
73. Ibid., p. 471.
74. Ibid., pp. 481–82.
* In 1931, on coming back to India from the First Round Table Conference held in London, my father avoided the ritual dip by agreeing to have some drops of Ganga water sprinkled on him, thereby denoting that the custom was being gradually eroded.
* Mountbatten’s own comment on Gandhiji’s proposal (in a letter to Lord Ismay) was as follows: ‘He seems to ignore the fact that if we expelled Pakistan from the Commonwealth, Russia would obviously step in or if we expelled India, America might.’
** S. Gopal in Nehru, Vol. I (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2003, p. 361) calls this ‘an absurd story’. But Hodson was meticulous in his research and had access to Mountbatten while writing his book The Great Divide in the 1960s. Hodson said that the Mahatma possibly wanted Patel to lead the recast Congress Party that he was then planning.
† Patel believed that ‘the Government would not be able to produce a sufficient number of trained and educated administrators to run the nationalized industry. The Government without the credit to raise loans would not be able to finance all these great schemes’. (Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1985, p. 113).
* Mountbatten posed the same question to Patel: ‘I then asked how my own going to Lahore would be harmful? He replied that I must remember that I had been invited by the Government of India to be their constitutional governor-general. Thus, I represented the honour of the state and, being an Englishman, should be all the more careful not to act in an unconstitutional manner against the advice of the whole cabinet who were one and all bitterly opposed to my going.’ (This, not Gandhiji’s, was the correct response.)
** C. Rajagopalachari, a prominent Congress leader from South India, succeeded Mountbatten as the governor-general of India.
† These constraints did not prevent Jinnah from ordering a ‘cavern green’ Cadillac super limousine for $6000 and a Vicker’s Armstrong aircraft whose price it was noted ‘was not unreasonable’ (exact price withheld) compared to a converted B23 beach craft he wanted (costing more than £150,000). These are 1947 prices; for equivalent prices today, multiply the figures by fifty.11
* Besides the USA, the USSR, China (Nationalist), the UK and France, which were permanent members with veto power, the non-permanent members in 1948 were Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Syria and Ukraine.
* Abdullah raised the same proposition with the US ambassador, Henry F. Grady, in Delhi on 21 February 1948, except that this time he whittled down his demands to ‘internal independence with defence and foreign affairs controlled by India and Pakistan’. (US FR 1948, Vol. V, p. 292). Josef Korbel (a member of the UNCIP) has confirmed that when the commission visited Srinagar in July 1948, Abdullah suggested the ‘division of the country’. According to Korbel, the Kashmiri leader asserted that ‘if this is not achieved the fighting will continue…and our people’s suffering will go on’. The UNCIP was perplexed whether he was speaking on his own or reflecting the latest Indian view. [Korbel, Danger in Kashmir (Oxford University Press, New York and Karachi, 2002, p. 147).]
* Mountbatten did not take this response lying down: ‘I later replied [to Attlee] that I could not believe that Russia would consider her interests well served by this as by the emergence of a strong, stabilized India activated by a deep feeling of gratitude and admiration towards Russia.’
* The abstaining members were Argentina, Syria, the Soviet Union and Ukraine.
** Its members were from Argentina (nominated by Pakistan), Czechoslovakia (nominated by India), Columbia and Belgium (selected by the Security Council) and the USA (nominated by the Security Council president). India selected a Czechoslovakian but does not appear to have verified the credentials of its nominee. Dr Josef
Korbel was an émigré to the US from his country. His book, Danger in Kashmir, shows that he was vehemently anti-Soviet and not particularly friendly to India. He was replaced in 1949 by a Czech from Czechoslovakia. According to Korbel his replacement was the cause of the UNCIP being wound up.
* On 3, 8, 21 and 28 July; on 1, 4, 9, 23 and 29 August; and on 10 and 18 September.
** The argument about communal carnage was disproved during the 1965 and 1971 Indo–Pak wars.
* ‘Operation Venus’ was carried out under the command of Major General Loftus Tottenham and several British officers were responsible for planning and executing the attack.
14
Postscript
BRITAIN’S ‘PAKISTAN STRATEGY’ SUCCEEDED BRILLIANTLY. PAKISTAN, together with Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Britain, joined the Baghdad Pact and later, CENTO, which the US also joined, to form the defence barrier against Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. In 1954 Pakistan entered into a bilateral pact with Britain’s ally, the USA, and, in 1958, provided an air base in Peshawar to the CIA for U-2 spy planes to keep a watch on military preparations in the Soviet Union. Then, in the 1970s, Pakistan helped the US establish relations with China, to pressurize the Soviet Union from the east. And, in the 1980s, Islamabad provided the forward base from which the US could eject the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, precipitating the collapse of the USSR and altering the world balance of power.
On the other hand, the ‘Pakistan strategy’ did not prevent the Soviet Union from reaching out to India. This it did by supporting India against Pakistan, which had the backing of the Western powers, on Kashmir, in the 1950s. In August 1971 an Indo–Soviet treaty, with a defence-related clause in it, was signed. This treaty restrained China from interfering in the forthcoming Indo–Pakistan war on Bangladesh. Treaties may be like flowers and young girls that last while they last, as Charles de Gaulle said, but the process of India purchasing Soviet arms on rupee payment and barter that started in the early 1960s has become an important and longstanding feature of Indo–Soviet relationship. Would the collaboration between these two countries have developed but for partition?
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 43