Author: Arabinda Ghose
Publication: BJP Today
Date: February 16-30, 2002
It may shock the peacemongers at
home and "restraintwalas" abroad, but the fact is that it was Jawaharlal
Nehru himself who had proposed in December 1947 that India should attack
bases within West Pakistan which provided sustenance to the "tribal raiders"
who were fighting Indian armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
In fact, Nehru had instructed the
Chief of Staff of the Indian Army-- a British officer -- to prepare a plan
for attacking the bases in Sialkot, Gujarat and Jhelum areas of West Pakistan
on December 20, 1947. However, Governor General Mountbatten had scuttled
the move and ultimately had led Nehru along the garden path to approach
the United Nations for resolving the issue.
This he did on January 1, 1948 through
a broadcast over All India Radio which Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel had tried
to stop and having failed to do so, had exclaimed: "Jawahar Pastayega"
(Jawahar will repent), according to a film by Ketan Mehta on the Sardar.
The fact that Nehru had mooted the
idea of attacking the invaders' bases in Pakistani territory, have been
revealed by former diplomat C. Dasgupta, in his recently-published book
"War and Diplomacy in Kashmir, 1947-48" (Sage Publications, Rs. 250) based
on documents available not only in India Office Records, London but also
from our own Nehru Memorial Library, Teen Murti Huse, New Delhi.
So when Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee declared at Raipur that the only topic to be discussed on Kashmir
with Pakistan was return of the portion of Jammu and Kashmir they have
forcibly occupied, he was not making any sensational disclosure. Nor was
his assertion at Patna on Feb. 3 that India would never accept the Line
of Control (LOC) as the international bolder. was a "warmongering" call.
Parliament on February 22, 1994, had already resolved on these lines.
Dasgupta writes (P.98): "Nehru came
to the conclusion that the solution lay in striking at invaders concentration
and lines of communications in Pakistan territory. He spelt out on December
19 his views in an incisive policy note".
"What is happening in Kashmir state
(Nehru wrote) is not merely a frontier raid but a regular war, on a limited
scale, with the latest weapons being used on the part of the invaders.
It is clear that the Pakistan Government is encouraging it in every way.
Army officers and men are helping the invaders in every way."
According to the author, after setting
the details of Pakistan's involvement, Nehru carried out a critical appraisal
of India's military response.
Nehru though : "It seems to me that
our outlook has been defensive and apologetic, as if we are ashamed of
what we were doing and we are not sure how far we should go. I see nothing
to apologise for and a defensive way of meeting raiders seems to me completely
wrong.
"The first thing to be understood
is that Kashmir is of most vital consequence to us and we are in deadly
earnest about it ... I realise fully the difficulties of the terrain and
the situation. Nevertheless, I cannot get over the feeling that our tactics
have been unsuccessful. There is a certain amount of heaviness in thought
and action which is peculiarly unsuited to a conflict of the type we are
waging ... We cannot go on carrying on this little war for months and months
and may be a year or more".
He drew the following conclusion:
"Are we to allow Pakistan to continue to train new armies for invasion
and allow its territory to be used as a base for these attacks? The obvious
course is to strike at these concentrations and lines of communications
in Pakistan territory. From a military point of view this would be the
most effective step. We have refrained from taking it because of political
considerations. We shall have to reconsider this position because a continuation
of the present situation is intolerable ... This involves a risk of war
with Pakistan. We wish to avoid war with Pakistan, but it is deluding ourselves
to imagine that we are avoiding war so long as the present operations are
continuing on either side" (Nehru's note on Kashmir, 19 December, 1947
Selected Sorks P.375-78).
Governor General Mountbattern got
alarmed on learning of this line of thought in Nehru's mind. Like the sly
fox he was, Mountbatten tried to dissuade Nehru from harbouring these views.
A meeting of the Defence Committee was held the next day, December 20.
"The Prime Minister", says Dasgupta,
"began by describing the overall situation as unsatisfactory and unacceptable.
He observed that a regular war was being waged in Indian territory from
bases in Pakistan. This situation could not be allowed to continue indefinitely.
As things were, a settlement did not seem likely. It was necessary, Nehru
said, to be clear about possible development which might result from a
political decision to conduct a limited strike into Pakistan. The Prime
Minister said this might mean Indian forces having to enter the districts
of Sialkot, Gujarat and Jhelum in order to deny the raiders the assistance
they had been getting at their bases. From an operation angle, he asked
the Chiefs of Staff to view Kashmir and West Pakistan as a single area.
Unfortunately, Mountbatten objected
to Nehru's directing the Chief of Staff on these lines, and to cut a long
story short, Nehru accepted the proposal by tile Governor General to approach
the United Nations. He, However., concluded that apart from referring Kashmir
issue to the United Nations, "complete military preparations to meet any
possible contingency that may arise" should be made. "If grave danger threatens
us in Kashmir or elsewhere on the West Punjab frontier, then we must not
hesitate to march through Pakistan territory towards the bases". (Nehru
to Mountbatten, 26 December, 1947, Selected Works).
Five days later, on January 1, 1948,
Nehru went to the UNO and that was the beginning of the end of Nehru's
brave words. Mountbatten and tile British had succeeded in their pro-Pakistani
game.
One might add that although Prime
Minister Clement Attlee was the architect of the Independence of India
Act, 1947 that brought the transfer of power to India and Pakistan, he
was not the "socialist" who was friendly to India. He, the Commonwealth
Relations Office chief Philip Noel Baker and Mountbatten himself were more
pro-Pakistan than pro-India and still thought in terms of the colonial
powers they were before August 15, 1947.
Nehru sent a telegram to Attlee
in which he once again asserted the right of India to attack bases in Pakistan.
The telegram said: "These developments have created a military situation
which is full of peril not only to Jammu and Kashmir State, but to us.
Unless Pakistan takes immediate steps to. stop all forms of aid to the
attackers, who are operating from bases in Pakistan and therefore strategically
enjoy a great advantage over us, out. only hope in dealing with them would
he in striking at their bases. This will involve our entering Pakistan
territory. Such a step would be justified in international law as we are
entitled to take it in self-defence...
The recent talks of "hot pursuit"
is not a move initiated by "Hawk" L.K. Advani, but Nehru himself in December
1947.
However, Attlee replied firmly:
"May I say -in all frankness that I am greatly disturbed by your assumption
that India would be within her rights in international law if she were
to send forces into Pakistan in self-defence .... It would, in my opinion,
place India definitely in the wrong in the eyes of the world; and I can
assure you that it would gravely prejudice India's case before UNO, if
after having appealed to the Security.
This is how the British played their
nefarious game. Had Nehru taken the steps he had mooted on December 19,
1947, there would have been no Kashmir issue today. Pakistan was in no
position then to defend itself against an Indian attack.
