“Very literally in our first year of Independence, we put our trust in multilateralism and took the Kashmir aggression issue to UN and others (read Pakistan) made it into an accession issue and they did it for geopolitical reasons.”
S. Jaishankar, external affairs minister, February 22, 2024, at the Raisina Dialogue
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s own relentless criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru for taking the Kashmir issue to the UN since its founding, and even more severe in the past decade, did not prevent external affairs minister Jaishankar from wisely citing Nehru’s Kashmir act 77 years ago during the Raisina Dialogue to stress the Modi government’s commitment to multilateralism. Clearly, a reappraisal of how a reluctant Nehru was compelled to take the Kashmir issue to the UN is called for on India’s 77th independence day.
The accession of Jammu and Kashmir blew up as a major issue testing the Indian leadership, more particularly prime minister Nehru, even as violence, refugee resettlement and several critical issues faced the nation. The accession of the princely states to independent India after the lapse of paramountcy was among the most complex tasks following the transfer of power.
The dilemma of Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, the state with proximity to both India and Pakistan, regarding accession to either dominion laid the foundation of a lasting zone of conflict in the sub-continent. His proposal to sign a ‘standstill agreement’ with both his ‘neighbours’ as a middle ground was accepted by the Pakistan government immediately. But by the time the letter reached the Indian government, Pakistani ‘tribal hordes’ invaded the state on the night of October 24. Marching towards Srinagar, pillaging the habitations en route, Pakistan attempted an early advantage. A panicked Maharaja requested help; Nehru briefed Patel comprehensively on September 27 regarding the difficulty arising because of his reluctance to sign the treaty of accession.
Nehru advised the Maharaja to invite incarcerated pre-eminent Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah to form a popular provisional government and to announce fresh elections to move towards accession to India in order to secure Kashmir from Pakistani incursion. His aim was to use Kashmir as a living demonstration that a distinctively Muslim community would survive and prosper in the democratic secular atmosphere of the new India.
The Indian Defence Committee decided to send arms to the Kashmir Government immediately. Mountbatten’s advice of a temporary accession of J&K to India pending a plebiscite before deploying Indian troops did not appeal either to Nehru or Patel. Nehru insisted that the Maharaja associate Abdullah with the entire process to signal the onset of democracy in the State. Prime Minister of Kashmir Mehr Chand Mahajan met Nehru with a request to send Indian troops to Kashmir, but no final decision could be taken on these vital questions till October 25. VP Menon was sent to Srinagar at once to find out the true position there.
A reluctant Nehru was persuaded by Mahajan, Patel and Abdullah to send troops immediately to Srinagar despite the indecision of the Maharaja. As the tribal columns kept advancing, the Maharaja felt compelled to sign the Instrument of Accession on October 26. Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India.
Pashtun warriors from different tribes on their way to Kashmir and Gilgit during Indo-Pakistan war of 1947-48. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Pakistan Army/
Jinnah was not pleased and escalated the conflict. Seeing the designs of Jinnah and a tilting British establishment, Nehru ordered the Army to drive out the tribals from Kashmir. His resolve could be seen from his statement that he felt like throwing up ‘his prime ministership and take a rifle himself, and lead the men of India against the invasion.’ Any compromise on Kashmir was not on his mind at all. A desperate Jinnah attempted to convince Field Marshal Auchinleck to a full-scale war. An alarmed Auchinleck and Ismay used the threat to persuade Mountbatten to pressurise Nehru to take the matter to the UNO. Despite clear evidence that Pakistan was supporting the tribal invasion in Kashmir, Nehru was unagreeable to the UN suggestion.
Seeing Jinnah’s impertinence in escalating war, Auchinleck called Mountbatten from Lahore to persuade Nehru for a talk with Jinnah in Lahore. Nehru initially agreed, but intense reservations amid acute domestic pressures made him practically collapse when he reached home following a meeting one day and had to be put to bed. He cancelled his visit, and Mountbatten eventually travelled alone. Jinnah denounced India, indicated his implicit complicity in the tribal raids. He agreed to ‘call the whole thing off’ if India agreed to withdraw her troops, and rejected a plebiscite conducted by the UN.
Mountbatten, who was then advising both Nehru and Patel, had to be tenaciously persistent to persuade a reluctant Nehru on the UN reference under Article 35 of its Charter that enabled the world body to settle such a dispute. Showing signs of wilting under this pressure, Nehru was not to share the draft with Liaqat Ali Khan. Nehru’s priority was a determined effort to drive the infiltrators out and “see this Kashmir business through. We do not believe in leaving things half-done.”
Since both Gandhi and Patel expressed their reservations against a UN reference openly then and later, Mountbatten resolutely attempted to get their nod too. Nehru firmly expressed his reservation to Mountbatten on December 26, 1947:
… on no account would we submit to this barbarity whatever the cost …. I am convinced that any surrender on our part to this kind of aggression would lead to continuing aggression elsewhere …. We are dealing with a State carrying on an informal war. The present objective is Kashmir. The next declared objective is Patiala, East Punjab, and Delhi … we must not carry on our own operations in a weak defensive way which can produce no effective impression on the enemy. We have refrained from crossing into Pakistani territory because of our desire to avoid complications leading to open war …. To surrender to this invasion will involve a complete degradation of India which I could not possibly tolerate …. There is an imminent danger of an invasion of India proper. We have taken enough risks already; we dare not take any more ….
Significantly, at that moment commander-in-chief of India Gen Francis Bucher cautioned Nehru that India was not in a position to withstand continued military operation in Kashmir and advised a political compromise. On November 28, 1948, he advised that an ‘overall military decision was no longer possible’ the Indian troops in Kashmir were fatigued, ‘Army personnel evince two weaknesses, lack of training in the junior leaders, tiredness and ennui in the other ranks ….’ On December 28, Bucher explicitly said: ‘I am afraid we cannot take military action to stop every road-building operation by Pakistan.’
Then only a ‘concerned’ US Chargé de Affairs’ telegram to the Secretary of State in Washington DC on January 2, 1948, confirms the US government’s inclination towards Pakistan:
‘General Bucher Commander-in-Chief Indian Army told me last night no steps had been taken to prepare Indian Army for offensive action against GOP. He said one month necessary for such steps and he had informed Nehru that he (Bucher) would not hesitate inform HMG that all British officers should be transferred from active operational duties to advisory capacities if war seemed imminent.’
Foreseeing the eruption ‘of a holocaust on the Indian subcontinent arising from the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir’ and since ‘(n)either side can back down’, Philip Noel-Baker, Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations ‘expressed the opinion that only the voice of international authority can prevent war.’ Britain said it will take off the British officers from active service in case of a war incited by either side.
Hence the pressure on Nehru was not only from a tenacious Mountbatten. The British and the US governments were together in their efforts to avert a possible ‘holocaust’. No wonder, Nehru ended up conceding Mountbatten’s advice, albeit reluctantly. His December 31 letter to the Security Council stated:
The Government of India request the Security Council to call upon Pakistan to put an end immediately to the giving of such assistance which is an act of aggression against India. If Pakistan does not do so, the Government of India may be compelled, in self defence, to enter Pakistan territory, in order to take military action against the invaders. The matter is, therefore, one of extreme urgency and calls for immediate action by the Security Council for avoiding a breach of international peace.
The later developments during discussions and manoeuvres in the Security Council convinced Nehru of the suspicious designs of both the British and the US governments. Noel-Baker firmly told the Indian delegation that he was convinced that Pakistan had provided no assistance to the raiders.
Nehru wrote to sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit, “I must say that prepared as I was for untoward happenings, I could not imagine that the Security Council could possibly behave in the trivial and partisan manner in which it functioned …. The United States and Britain have played a dirty role, Britain probably being the chief actor behind the scenes.”
S. Gopal has observed, “It was unfortunate – and Nehru was later deeply to regret it – that Mountbatten, who had no clear understanding of international affairs, had succeeded in persuading Nehru to bring the United Nations into the picture.” But what other options did Nehru have?
Professor Ajay K. Mehra is a political scientist. He was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21 and Principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College, Delhi University (2018).
