The Muslim community in India before partition stood in the ratio of one to four of the whole population. In almost every state they were a considerable number. They constituted then, as now, the majority in Jammu and Kashmir, and in certain areas their proportion is today much larger than even the national average, for instance in Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands (94.37%).[1] Scattered throughout the length and the breadth of the country, the Muslims are more than a protected minority; they are a significant community. In 1947, there was no longer a possibility of preserving a united India, and the British Labour Government took the bold decision of proclaiming the transfer of power into Indian hands. The only course left open was that of negotiations for the clear-cut demarcation of frontiers between the future state of Pakistan and the rest of the country.

Despite the advent of independence, rejoicing soon left its place to chaos and bloodshed between groups of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. A revolt broke out in Western Kashmir, followed by invasion of tribesmen from the Pakistan side, not necessarily helping their co-religionists, but indulging in pillage and plunder. These events led to the first Kashmir War and the accession of this princely state to India. The issue was brought to the United Nations, which heard the arguments of India and Pakistan, formed a special commission, passed several resolutions, established a cease-fire, and appointed several mediators. Bilateral relations took place off and on, and the two neighbors fought four wars over Kashmir, which even now stays as cut in two along the Line of Control.

Partition and Accession As Independence Day (15 August 1947) came closer, however, the two neighboring states found themselves in bloody chaos. There was not much point in investigating who started the carnage, but both the Hindus and the Muslims accused each other of taking first step. Riots flared up everywhere, especially in Punjab, Bengal, Bihar and Assam. Gandhi, an unbending opponent of violence, an “incarnation of Rousseau and Tolstoy”[2] who attempted to stop the outbreaks in some of the worst-affected areas, had almost no influence on the threatening monster of communalism poised to destroy freedom at birth. Perhaps it was Gandhi’s finest hour when this rallying point of sanity tortured his frail body with fasts of atonement. That spiritual giant with a national perspective fell to an assassin’s bullets. His martyrdom (30 January 1948) in the hands of a communalist group (hired trigger: Nathu Ram Godse), who turned on the one man at that hour with the humane consciousness of the Indian people, was the final atonement. [3] Partition, which was an economic absurdity, was justified as a process to steer clear of a full-fledged civil war. The Muslim League seemed “to anticipate with pleasure a collapse of India”. [4] While Hindus and Sikhs were fleeing from Pakistan, and Muslims from India, millions of refugees were in the process of being exchanged. Both Nehru and Jinnah[5] well knew that the Princely States like Jammu and Kashmir would be independent and sovereign entities on the termination of British Paramountcy and that they were free to decide to join India or Pakistan or remain independent. It is generally accepted that the falterings of Sir Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Kashmir, abruptly came to an end by the invasion of desperados and groups of the newly-formed Pakistan Army, some posing as volunteers, and that such soldiers wearing plain clothes, but equipped with modern arms, and lashkars (bands of tribesmen) were allowed to infiltrate into Kashmir territory raiding, burning and looting parts of the border area from Gurdaspur up to Gilgit, threatening invasion which had actually begun in Poonch, then spread to Sialkot and finally to Hazara. The Indian version, substained by General Akbar Khan in his book, was that this infiltration was planned and actively carried out by the Government of Pakistan, that the latter let loose the tribal people on Kashmir holding out to these newly-acquired poor citizens the alluring promise of land and plenty there, and also to kill the Pathanistan movement, thereby securing its own safety in an expanded Muslim society.[6] Major general Akbar Khan was the officer charged with the responsibility of organizing the raids. Communal riots and clashes in neighboring Punjab inevitably incited some Kashmiris, especially the predominantly Muslim inhabitants or Poonch, who had never resigned themselves to the Maharaja’s rule. Hindu and Sikh attacks on Muslim villages in Jammu, where there was large non-Muslim population, easily aroused irritable opinion both in Poonch and in Pakistan. Those Muslims who escaped to Pakistan related dreadful stories of the numerous outrages of some Hindus and Muslims. Even by the beginning of September, Poonch men, joined by “volunteers”[7] from the west bank of the Jhelum, had started standing up to the Kashmiri security forces. A certain Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, an elected Poonch representative in the J&K Legislative Assembly who had slipped away to Pakistan, established a command post at Murree near the Poonch border.[8] The Pathan tribesmen, who had been converging on the borders of J&K since early September, began infiltrating Kashmir proper, bolstered by modern equipment and transport facilities which only Pakistan could spare. Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, later a Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province (NWEP), rallied tribes to pass to the Kashmir side.[9] Lamp states that the Poonch rebels sought Pakistani assistance while the Maharaja was probing for Indian help. He adds that only after accession, could the Indians be defending their own land against invaders.[10] The infiltrators, moreover, murdered and looted their own co-religionists as well as the Hindus and Sikhs in many places. On 22 October 1947, a large force of armed raiders, probably still under the unofficial command of some Pakistani officers, entered Muzaffarabad in lorries or Srinagar.[11] Colonel (later Major-General) Akbar Khan destined to be a leading commander in this first Kashmir War,[12] apparently had consultations with some Pakistani leaders, possibly including Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.[13] Nehru probably knew nothing about the infantry battalion and the mountain artillery battery that the Sikh Maharaja of Patiala put at the disposal of Hari Singh. When Jinnah heard about the Sikh detachment, he asked General Sir Douglas Gracey, the acting Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, to send his own troops but was told that all British officers would have to resign from the Pakistan Army in order to discourage such a move, tantamount to an inter-Dominion war.[14]
Pakistan cut off food supplies, oil and some other essential commodities to Kashmir, whose government interpreted these moves as economic blockade. The Government of Pakistan, which officially explained the reduction in supplies to the reluctance of economic links with the southern centers like Karachi. The government in New Delhi, likewise, accentuated the economic benefits of union with India as well when the Nizam of Hyderabad [15] and the Nawab of Jungadah,[16] both Muslims ruling over predominantly non-Muslim inhabitants, personally oted for Pakistan. Indian troops intervened (1 November 1947) in Mangrol, causing no bloodshed however, and a plebiscite in Jungadah (20 February 1948) showed an overwhelming support for India.[17] Those voting for Pakistan in Junagadh with a population of nearly 700,000, mostly Hindus, were only a handful[18] One has to agree with the analogy that while in the cases of Hyderabad and Junagadh held out against accession to India, on the ground that under the Mounbatten seemed to deny the ruler his option in the case of J&K. The attack on Kashmir appears to have raised the vital issue of defence. Alarmed by the outstanding invasion and the prospect of repeated devastation, the Maharaja appealed to India on 24 October for military help. Losing control over parts of Kashmir, he entertained the idea of either eventually acceding to India or remaining Independent. His new Prime Minister, Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, supported by Sirdar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Indian Deputy Prime Minister also in charge of the States Department, had informed Nehru of the Maharaja’s intention.[19] Shekih Abdullah writes in his autobiography [20] that the was staying with Nehru at the latter’s York Road residence when the Maharaja’s Prime Minister arrived along with V.P. Menon, referring to the accession and requesting troops right away, otherwise he would go to Jinnah for reconciliation. Seeing Nehru furious. Sheikh Abdullah told him that the National Conference also indecisiveness may also have been his ‘castle in the air’, or his vision of the ‘Switzerland of the East, also shared by Sheikh Abdullah. It is quite possible that there were some planes on the Indian side, at least in Patel’s mind,[21] in the eventuality of an armed clash in or for Kashmir. When the Poonch insurgents declared (24 October) the formation of a secessionist Azad (Free) Kashmir,[22] R.L. Batra, the Deputy Prime Minister of the J&K Government, was sent to the Indian capital with a plea for military aid and an offer of accession, if need be.[23] A meeting of the Defence Committee took place in New Delhi under Mounbatten’s chairmanship. No troops could be sent “unless Kashmir had first offered to accede”.[24] While Sheikh Abdullah, released from jail on 29 September, flew to New Delhi to personally appeal to the Indian Cabinet to dispatch armed forces to repeal the invaders, V.P. Menon, the Secretary of the States Ministry and Patel’s right-hand man in accession matters,[25] went twice to Srinagar, returning with a signed accession and a request for troops.[26] In an official letter dated 26 October 1947, the Maharaja saw “no option but to ask for help from the Indian Dominion” and also decided to accede to the latter attaching “the Instrument of Accession for acceptance”. [27] The matters with respect to which the Dominion Legislature might make laws for Kashmir were listed as defence, external affairs, and communications. Mountbatten replied (27 October 1947) accepting the Instrument and stating that as soon as law and order were restored in Kashmir, the question of accession ought to be settled “by a reference to the people”.[28] He seemed convinced that Kashmir now being legally Indian territory, the appearance of Pakistani troops there would be an act of aggression. He mentioned to Jinnah that the issue could be settled with a plebiscite, but after the restoration of order. Beginning with morning of 27 October, initially two infantry battalions and eventually some 35,000 Indian troops were airlifted within a matter of a few days, seemingly a difficult process without previous preparation for such an eventuality.[29] For Nehru, Kashmir was not merely an ancestral home. It symbolized India’s succession to the British Raj no less than the legal justification of accession; it was of strategic importance for the defence of the Sub-continent; it was also a “powerful lever for secular sentiment”.[30] Nehru viewed an independent but weak Kashmir an invitation to trouble from all sides. For Jinnah its adherence to Pakistan would have greatly imperiled if Kashmir remained Indian. It would even challenge the legitimacy of the very idea of Pakistan. Jinnah’s dream of Kashmir as a “bridge” more or less connecting the two halves of the new country was the most vital link. But the existence of the Hindu and Buddhist majorities in large parts of the country, if they too would join Pakistan, was nothing more than a violation of the two-nations theory. The two approaches clashing, there ensured in Kashmir a desultory warfare for a little over a year (October 1947-January 1948). Kashmir was one of the first disputes brought to the United Nations.[31] While Pakistan denied involvement in the unfolding imbroglio, the representative of India to the United Nations stated (1 January 1948) that a situation coming under Article 35 of the U.N. Charter, continuation of which was likely to endanger international peace and security, existed between India and Pakistan resulting from the aid that the invaders were drawing from Pakistan for operations against Kashmir. He requested the Security Council to call on Pakistan immediately to stop giving such assistance, and if that country did not desist from such action, India might be compelled in self-defence to enter its neighbor's territory to take military action against the invaders.[32] Sir Zafrullah Khan, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, replied by leveling counter charges and calling upon the Council to take action. The main points concerned India’s undertakings in Kashmir, the occupation of Junagadh and other states by Indian forces, mass destruction of Muslims, and failure to implement agreements between the two countries. He related the situation in Kashmir as a popular revolt against the maharaja’s oppression. The resolution of the Council (17 January 1948) called upon India and Pakistan to take all measures to improve the situation and requested the Council be informed of “any material change” which occurred. When a United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) was dispatched to those countries, Sir Zafrullah Khan informed (5 July 1948) them in Karachi that three Pakistani brigades had been on Kashmiri territory since May. The UNCIP noted (13 August) that the presence of Pakistani troops in Kashmir constituted a “material change” in the situation. Part I of this basic resolution required a cease-fire. Under Part II, Pakistan had to withdraw all its forces while India was required to keep sufficient troops for the security of the state including the observance of law and order. Part III stated that India and Pakistan wished that kashmir’s future be determined in accordance with the will of the people and to that end, both governments agreed to create the conditions whereby such free expression would be assured. When supplementary resolutions were accepted both by India and Pakistan, a cease-fire was ordered. The Security Council or the Commission never having questioned the legality of Kashmir’s accession to India, the state was practically cut in two, and the military situation reached a stalemate. The United nations avoided to Joseph Korbel, a member of the UNCIP, “a perfectly plausible procedure under Article 96 of the Charter”, authorizing the Security Council with the right to request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question.[33] Although neither party asked for an advisory opinion it was perhaps more striking that Pakistan also did not raise the issue. India held the bulk of Kashmir Province, Jammu and a part of Poonch while Pakistan tool Baltistan, Gilgit, a narrow strip of Kashmir Province, and parts of Poonch and Mirpur in Jammu along the West Punjab border. The lines upon which the Cease-fire Agreement (27 July 1949) took effect remained unchanged until the outbreak Of the 1965 war. The UNCIP created a United Nations military presence which still continues on both sides of the cease-fire line. According to a prominent Indian Muslim, the Instrument of Accession formed “the cornerstone of the ambiguities on Kashmir”. [34] No matter how and exactly on which date it was signed, it did not discontinue, however, the Maharaja’s sovereignty or the validity of any Kashmiri law save as provided by the same document. It stipulated a minimal transfer of power to the Indian Government. What would be the constitutional relationship between that state and the Indian Union? Patel seems to have considered the Instrument as adequate and final. Nehru reflected that an acceptable sort of people’s ratification was indispensable. The J&K National Conference leadership also judged the Instrument only as a “formal act”. First and foremost, the existing 1939 Constitutions being extinct, the state needed a new administrative form to serve as a vehicle as the voice of the people. In the eyes of the National Conference, the state that they represented was a Muslim majority one, the existing arrangements between the Maharaja and India could not form the basis of the constitutional organization of Kashmir, and its future Constitution ought to be determined by fresh agreements. Sheikh Abdullah, who had first become the head of the J&K Emergency Government and appointed four months later (5 March 1948) Prime Minister as head of the Interim Government, informed Nehru that if the proposals of the Kashmiri Government were not accepted, his party, now engaged with frontal attacks on the Maharaja, would be unable to secure the support of the Muslims for accession to India. Although Nehru, during a long meeting with Sheikh Abdullah, conveyed his disagreements with many of the outrageous accusations against the Maharaja,[35] Patel, who invited Hari Singh to New Delhi, disclosed to him that they would like to see him leave Kashmir temporarily appointing his son, Yuvraj Karan Singh as Regent during his absence. [36] Abdullah’s first priority was a land reform, which every member of the ruling Dogra dynasty would find to be extreme. On Martyrs’ Day (13 July 1950), the government declared its policy of liquidating the big landed estates and transferring land to the tillers. The Act (17 October 1950) itself limited the right of ownership with 22 acres excluding orchards, grass and fodder farms. He accentuated governmental role in the development of industry and established a planning bureau, recalling in the minds of some commentators the Soviet five-year plans. [1] Kamalesh Kumar Wadhwa, Minority Safeguards in India: Constitutional Provisions and Their Implementation, New Delhi, Thomson Press Limited, 1975, p.14.
[2] Georges Fisher, “Romain Rolland and India”, World Affairs, New Delhi, I (December 1990), [3] Romesh Thapar, India in Transition, Bombay, Current Book House, 1956, pp. 18-19. [4] Amaury de Riencourt, The Soul of India, London, Jonathan Cape, 1961, p.345. [5] P.N.S. Mansergh et al., eds., Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: the Transfer of Power: 1942-47, Vol. XI, the Mountbatten Viceroyalty, Announcement and Reception of the 3 June Plan, 31 May-7 July 1947, London, H.M.S.O., 1982, p. 438. [6] Bamzai, op cit.,Vol. III, [7] A process had developed by which “generous leave was granted without much worry as to how and where the applicant took his holiday”. Small sub-units took their leave together and were of use in the “Azad” forces. Lord Birdwood, A Continent Decides, London, Robert Hale, 1953, pp. 229-230. [8] Alastair Lamb, Kashsmir, a Disputed Legacy: 1846-1990, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 124-125. Also: Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan. The Kashmir Saga, Lahore, Ripon Printing Press, 1965. [9] Hewitt, op. cit., [10] Lamp, op. cit., p. 155. Lamp states later (p.258), however, that the government of Pakistan “was innocent of the charges made against it by India” in 1947. Hewit records, on the other hand, that “Pakistan first denied any presence in Jammu and Kashmir, then refused to vacate areas occupied by its army, and demanded Indian withdrawal”. Hewitt, op. cit., p.78. Although in Alastair Lamb’s judgment his second telling of the Kashmir story, after the earlier (1966) book, blows away many cobwebs, this promise is not Tales from Kashmir”, The Kashmir Issue, London, High Commission of India, 1993, pp.153-163. Also in: Sunday Mail, 14-20 June 1992. [11] An amazing tale of horror and misery of a women, the wife of the District Officer in Srinagar, in the “Azad Kashmir” area after the raiders invaded Kashmir in 1947: Krishna Mehda, Chaos in Kashmir, Calcutta, Signet Press, n.d. [12] Akbar Khan fought under the pseudonym of “Tariq”, after the Muslim leader who had crossed the Gibraltar into Spain in the year 711. [13] Akbar Khan, Raiders in Kashmir: Story of the Kashmir War, 1947-48, Karachi; Islamabad, National Book Foundation, 1970; 1975, p.17. [14] General Gracey reversed his decision when the Indian troops approached the Poonch-West Punjab border. Lamp, op.cit., [15] On the development of imperial policy towards Indian princely states, especially Hyderabad: Bharati Ray, Hyderabad and British Paramountcy, 1858-1883, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1988; Philips Talbot, “Kashmir and Hyderabad”, World Politics, Baltimore, 1/3 (April 1949), “Kashmir and Hyderabad”, The Economist, London, 155/5476 (7 August 1948), Krishna Das, “Kashmir and Hyderabad”, The Organiser, New Delhi, I/23 (4 December 1947). [16] “Kashmir, Hyderabad, Jungadh”, India Today, New Delhi, October 1947. [17] G.N.S. Raghavan, Introducing India, New Delhi, Indian Council for cultural Relations, [18] Only 91 votes out of an electorate of 201, 719 favoured Pakistan. [19] Lamp, op, cit., Also: Mehr Chand Mahajan, Accession of Kashmir to India: the Inside Story, Sholapur, Institute of Public Administration, 1950; _______,Looking back, London, 1963.
[20] The original in Urdu: Aatesh-e Chinar, Srinagar, Ali Mohammad and Sons, 1988. A short English version: Flames of the Chinar: an Autobiography, abridged, translated from the Urdu and introduced by Khustwant Singh, London, Penguin Books, 1995. [21] Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Sardar Patel’s Correspondence: 1945-50, Vol. I, New Light on Kashmir, ed., Durga Das, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House, 1971. [22] M. Hafizullah, Towards Azad Kashmir, Lahore, Baram-I-Frogh-I-Adab, 1948. [23] Mahajan, op. cit., Lamb states that Batra “almost certainly did not show” the accession document to the Indian leaders: op. cit., [24] Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, London, Robert Hale, 1951 [25] From the pen of a leading architect of integration: Vapal Pangunni Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, Calcutta, Orient Longmans, 1956; New York, Arna, 1972. [26] On the military climax of October 1947: Lieut-Genral L.P. Sen, Slender Was the Thread: Kashmir Confrontations, 1947-48, Bombay, Orient Longmans, 1969; Major-General D.K. Palit, Jammu and Kashmir Arms: History of the J&K Rifles, Dehra Dun, Palit and Dutt, 1972. [27] These documents are available in a number of official and unofficial sources. For instance: Grover, op. cit., Vol III, P.L. Lakhanpal, ed., Essential Documents and Notes on Kashmir Dispute, New Delhi, International Books, 1965, J K Newsline, February 1994. [28] A noteworthy source on the validity of accession: Hari Om Agarwal, Kashmir Problem-Its Legal Aspects, Allahabad, Kitab Mahal, 1979. Although the official communications concerning military aid and accession and their dates have been accepted as true by virtually all observers, be they sympathetic or hostile to the Indian case, Lamb maintains in a brochure (The Myth of Indian Claim to Jammu and Kashmir: a Reappraisal, with no publisher and date indicated) that “these documents could only have been signed after the overt Indian intervention”. He argues in his book entitle target="_self"d Kashmir, that accession was legally invalid (because it violated the Standstill Agreement with Pakistan and disturbed an established understanding), that the Maharaja (overthrown by his own subjects and a ruler only in Jammu and Ladakh) was no longer competent to sign the Instrument, that it was conditional (committing him to consult his people) and that India annexed much of Kashmir by force (in consequence of conspiracy with the British). [29] The total number of tribesmen were probably between 2000 and 5000. Mohinder Bahl, Whither Kashmir, New Delhi, [30] Thapar. [31] Rahmatullah Khan, Kashmir and the United Nations, Delhi, Vikas, 1969; H.S. Gururaj Rao, Legal Aspects of the Kashmir Problem, Bombay; New York, Asia Publishing House, 1967; Surendra Chopra, Mediation in Kashmir: a Study in Power Politics, Kurukshetra, Vishal Publications, 1971. [32] United Nations. The Yearbook of the United nations: 1947-48, New York, 1949, Since it was quite monstrous to Nehru’s mind that the “invader” should be treated as equal to the “defender”,. Author Sheean maintains that India’s original appeal under the “Pacific Settlement of Disputes” (Article 35) rather than “Acts of aggression” (Article 39) of the U.N. Charter may be “due to a technical error”. Vincent Shean, Nehru: the Years of Power, London, victor Gollancz Ltd., 1960. Lamb upholds the view that the Indian side then took care not to call Pakistan an “aggressor”, at least in the United Nations. Lamb, [33] Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1954. [34] Riyaz Punjabi. “Kashmir Imbroglio: the Socio-Political Roots”, Contemporary South Asia, London, 4/1 (1995) [35] Nehru’s letter, dated 20 May 1948, to his daughter Indira: “[Sheikh Abdullah] came to see me. He was very depressed about everything…According to the Sheikh, the only solution is that H.H. should abdicate in favour of his son…” Sonia Gandhi, ed., Two Together: Letters between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, 1940-1964,London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992 [36] Karan Singh, Autobiography, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997. Home Page