The first of a two-part series from War and Diplomacy in Kashmir 1947-48 by India’s former Ambassador to China and the EU, C Dasgupta
As early as 1 February 1948, Patrick Gordon-Walker, the junior minister in the Commonwealth Relations Office, had warned that the ‘‘Indians will be mortally offended if we put forward the idea (of admitting Pakistani troops into Kashmir) publicly’’ and had urged a more balanced approach in which the first step would be to call on the Pathan raiders to withdraw from Kashmir.
India’s strong reaction to (British minister Philip) Noel-Baker’s one-approach at the UN gave grounds for concern about its consequences for Indo-British relations. Nehru originally suspected that the Western bias was the result of America’s search for military and economic concessions in Pakistan; but after Ayyangar’s briefing about the moves in New York, he realised that Noel-Baker was the ‘villain of the piece in spite of his pious professions’.
Nehru complained angrily to Attlee that Noel-Baker had, in a conversation with Sheikh Abdullah, dismissed as untrue the charge that Pakistan had assisted the raiders. ‘You will forgive me if I say frankly’, he cabled. ‘that (the) attitude revealed by this conversation cannot but prejudice continuance of friendly relations between India and the UK’. Though Noel-Baker denied the charge, Attlee was left in no doubt that his minister’s initiatives in New York were casting a long shadow on Indo-British relations.
The Soviet card
BAJPAI, the Secretary-General in the External Affairs Ministry played on the Soviet factor with characteristic skill. He told Gordon-Walker that he did not want to appear to be using a threat — and indeed India was in no position to do so — but the fact was that Indian policy was at a watershed between the East and the West: there would be a powerful popular pro-Russian sentiment if the Soviets at a critical moment were to cast a veto in India’s favour. Gordon-Walker warned his minister that though India was ‘fundamentally anti-Russian’, the ‘danger of a reaction against us in favour of Russia should not be lightly dismissed.’
Ministers who had a long-standing interest in the subcontinent were deeply concerned about the line taken by Noel-Baker in New York. Among these were Sir Stafford Cripps, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Viscount Addison, the Lord Privy Seal, Prime Minister Attlee shared many of their misgivings and in mid-February he instructed his Secretary for Commonwealth Relations to return to London for discussions.
On 27 February, the Commonwealth Affairs Committee of the British Cabinet discussed the Kashmir question for the first time. There was a wide divergence of views and during the next six days the Committee held three more meetings on the same subject. Defending his initiatives, Noel-Baker maintained that the Security Council offered the best means for obtaining a settlement. As usual, he made light of India’s objections to his proposals, claiming that there were new signs of a more accommodating temper on India’s part as a result of the Security Council debate. This contention was vigorously challenged. Gordon-Walker, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in his own ministry, who had recently returned from an extended tour of the subcontinent, reported the disappointment and bitterness which the Security Council discussions had produced in India. He said that Grady, the American Ambassador in New Delhi, had spread the report that the American delegation would have adopted a more sympathetic attitude to India, had it not been for the pressure exerted by the British delegates. Gordon-Walker favoured ‘a completely nuclear’ attitude on the part of the UK; any deviation from this, he said, might drive out either India and Pakistan from the Commonwealth.
Under the Committee’s direction, officials drew up a formula on the following lines:
* Pakistan was to take all possible steps to secure the withdrawal of the raiders from the state and to prevent new infiltration from her territory. She should also ensure that no help was given to those fighting in Kashmir.
* After the cessation of all fighting, India was to withdraw her forces from Poonch, Mirpur and Muzaffarbad, including the garrison in Poon town. Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir were to be reduced in number and concentrated in garrisons.
* The Abdullah government was to continue in office but would invite representatives of other parties to join them in the normal administration of the state. For maintenance of law and order and for carrying out the plebiscite, they would rely on local personnel in each district.
* The UN Commission was to be invited to appoint liaison officers to report on the implementation of the truce. The state government was to delegate to the Commission all powers required for holding the plebiscite.
* An Advisory Council (composed of equal members of Indian and Pakistani nominees) was to be set up to advise the Commission.
The Baker block
NOEL-BAKER attempted to shift the discussion to a different track. He observed that the difficulty in the Committee’s proposals lay in the fact that it envisaged exclusive reliance on impartial local forces for the maintenance of law and order. These forces were not capable of carrying out the task. For this reason, he would have preferred to employ regular forces from both India and Pakistan. Noel-Baker said that the US proposals sought to overcome this difficulty, while in other respects they bore a close substantive resemblance to the Committee’s proposals. He admitted that the Americans doubted whether India would agree to induction of Pakistani troops in Kashmir, adding that their proposals specifically required agreement of the two countries for employment of India or Pakistani forces.
Noel-Baker’s attempt to secure cabinet support for the ‘American’ proposals — which, in fact, reflected the concessions he had been able to extract from the State Department — proved unsuccessful. The general view of the ministers was that India would react strongly to the suggestion that Pakistani troops should be brought into Kashmir and would reject any proposal incorporating the idea. At least one minister expressed his views with great force in the impersonal language of the British Cabinet minutes:
The view was expressed that the United States proposals ... would be wholly unacceptable to the Government of India and that the relations between His Majesty’s Government and the Government of India would be seriously prejudiced if the former were to support them. The United States document made no mention of the undoubted fact that the tribesmen had passed through Pakistan territory before entering Kashmir, or of the failure of the Pakistan Government to prevent this; it provided for a United Nations administration to be superimposed on the administration in Kashmir; it mentioned the possibility that Pakistan troops may be permitted to enter Kashmir; and it was suggested that the Indian troops should be placed under the command of the Plebiscite Marshall (sic). These were the sort of terms which might be imposed on a defeated country.
US in a bind
YET there were reservations in the Committee about its own proposals. Tentative soundings in London with Mohammed Ali and H M Patel raised doubts about the acceptability of the proposed package to the two governments. It was finally agreed that the British delegation at the United Nations should ‘undertake informal and exploratory discussions’ on the basis of the Committee’s proposals to ascertain whether they offered a basis for an agreed settlment. The delegation was instructed to support any proposal for an interim resolution calling for the withdrawal of the raiders and requiring Pakistan to prevent infiltration across her border and to stop assistance to the raiders. It was also decided to inform the American delegation of the reasons why the UK was unable to support its proposals.
These decisions required a major reversal of Noel-Baker’s policy in New York. The Cabinet recognised the primary importance of requiring Pakistan to deny all assistance to the raiders, without necessarily linking it to a simultaneous agreement on the plebiscite terms. The Cabinet rejected Noel-Baker’s proposition that Pakistani troops should be brought into Kashmir. Finally, London saw no reason for replacing the Abdullah government; the Cabinet felt it would be quite sufficient if the state government were to include representatives of rival groups and to delegate to the UN Commission such powers as they required to ensre a fair plebiscite.
The UK delegation was asked to inform the Americans that the draft was not acceptable since (a) it contained no language to show that the Indian complaint against Pakistan had been taken into account; (b) it would take administration out of the hands of the state government and reconstitute it under instructions from the Security Council; (c) it envisaged the presence of Pakistani troops in Kashmir; and (d) it would place Indian troops under the virtual control of the UN Plebiscite Marshal.
The US position had largely evolved under Noel-Baker’s influence. Indeed, the Americans themselves had questioned the propriety of bringing in Pakistani forces into territory that was legally Indian. They had reluctantly agreed to include a formulation which would allow the introduction of Pakistani troops provided India agreed and had made it clear that this was the furthest they would go to accommodate the British. If the UK delegation was to faithfully carry out the Cabinet’s decision it would have to admit to the Americans that Noel-Baker’s earlier initiatives had not been authorised by London.
—To be continued
(War and Diplomacy in Kashmir 1947-48
by C. Dasgupta, Sage Publications, 239 pages, Rs 440)