[Reader-list] Kashmir Dispute, The Myth - Part V

[Pawan Durani]

*Kashmir** Dispute, The Myth-V*

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*By Dr. M.K. Teng*

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At the time of the transfer of power in India, the National Conference
leaders and cadres were in jail. They were released from their incarceration
after the proclamation of General Amnesty was made on 6 September 1947.
Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Acting President of the National Conference who
had evaded arrest and taken refugee in the British India in May 1946,
arrived in Srinagar with several other senior leaders of the National
Conference on 12 September 1947. Meanwhile, Mohi-ud-Din Qara the Director
General of the War Council, which had been constituted by the National
Conference to direct the Quit Kashmir Movement, surfaced from his
underground quarters alongwith some of his close aides. Onkar Nath Trisal,
who played a historic role in the defence of Srinagar, when the invading
armies of Pakistan surrounded the city, was with him. Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah was released from jail on 29 September 1947.

Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad used the good offices of Pandit Sham Sundar Lal Dhar,
a personal aide of the Maharaja to arrange a reconciliatory meeting between
Hari Singh and Sheikh Mohammd Abdullah. The meeting did not go beyond usual
formalities as the two men who shaped the future of the State looked at each
other with cold distrust. Shiban Madan, a close kin of Sham Sundar Lal Dhar,
then a man of younger years acted as a help. Shiban Madan told the author in
a interview held in Srinagar in 1978, that Hari Singh sat through the
meeting glumly. His Highness looked straight when the usual presentation
ceremony of the Nazarana was completed. He sat glum and expressionless, his
haughty demeanour more than awkwardly visible. The rest of the meeting was
strictly formal."

Hari Singh was unable to judge the far-reaching consequences of the end of
the British empire in India. Not only him, the other Princes too refused to
realise that their power, which had its sanction in the British Paramountcy
had virtually suffered dissolution with its withdrawal. The Princely rulers
genuinely believed that the States were their fiefs and the British had
usurped their right to rule them. They visualised the end of the British
Empire as an act of deliverance for them, which they believed would enable
them to regain the unquestioned authority they had as the sovereigns of the
states.

They considered accession of their States to India as a new arrangement with
the Dominion of India, by virtue of which they would part with the specific
powers of the defence, foreign affairs and communications of the states and
retain the rest of the powers of the governance without the encumbrances the
Paramountcy entailed.

Hari Singh had been shaken by Mountabatten's advice to come to terms with
Pakistan when the Viceroy visited Srinagar. Accession to Pakistan was the
last act, Hari Singh was prepared to perform. However, when he turned to
India and conveyed to the Indian leaders his desire to accede to India the
Indian leaders advised him not to take any perceptible action in respect of
the accession, till the transfer of power had been accomplished. The Indian
leaders advised Hari Singh to end the distrust with the National Conference,
release the leaders and cadres of the Conference and take them into
confidence and commence preparations to associate them with the government
of the State.

After the transfer of power in August 1947 Hari Singh promptly ordered fresh
recruitment to his armed forces and reportedly sought to secure field guns
from Patiala and Hyderabad. Reports appeared in the newspapers in
Pakistanthat he tried to seek military assistance from
India and wanted the Indian Government to take up the conversion of the fair
weather road from Jammu to Madhopur, into a national roadway.

He was alarmed by the establishment of the Provisional Government of
Pak-occupied-Kashmir at Tran Khel in the district of Mirpur by Sardar
Ibrahim Khan on 30 August 1947. Hari Singh knew that the proclamation of the
Provisional Government of Azad Kashmir had been made in connivance with the
intelligence agencies of the Government of Pakistan and the leaders of the
Muslim League to build pressure on him to accede to Pakistan.

Meanwhile Sham Sunder Lal Dhar helped to bridge the differences between Hari
Singh and the National Conference leaders. Hari Singh agreed to revive the
Dyarchy he had introduced in the State Government in 1944, and provide a
wider share of power for the National Conference and accept to entrust a
fairly large measure of responsibility in the State Government to National
Conference leaders as members of his Council of Ministers. The National
Conference leaders had shown their readiness to join the State Government.

For Hari Singh however, the difficulties he faced in regard to the accession
were not eased. Several developments in the process of the integration of
the States complicated his situation further. Junagarh, situated in the
midst of the Kathiawad States, which had acceded to India, acceded to
Pakistan on the eve of the transfer of power. The Nawab of Hyderabad refused
to join India and secretly plotted with the leadership of the Muslim League
to align himself with Pakistan.

Not only that. Mountbatten was at the helm of affairs in India, where he had
been placed by the Congress leaders probably, to earn them a favourable
disposition of the British. Hari Singh knew that Mountbatten had not
forgiven him for his audacity to send him back to the Indian capital,
without having agreed to abide by his advice to come to terms with Pakistan.
It is hardly possible that the Congress leaders must not report have
received the intelligence of what transpired between the Viceroy and the
Maharaja in Srinagar. But how did they install him the first
Governor-General of the Dominion of India is an enigma, which continues to
remain unexplained.

Hari Singh was unsure of the Congress leaders as well, who had, in unabashed
self-conceit, indicated their willingness to accept a settlement on the
Princely States on the basis of their population and geographical location.
Perhaps, they sought to use the influence of the Viceroy to ensure the
accession of the Muslim ruled States, inhabited by Hindu majorities and
situated within the territorial limits earmarked for the Indian Dominion to
India. It is hardly possible that they did not know the mind of the Viceroy
and perhaps the strategic implications of the future disposition of Jammu
and Kashmir to the British interests in Asia. A section of the Congress
leadership was not averse to the division of the States on the basis of
their population even after the transfer of power. Some of them believed
that Mountbatten would be able extricate Junagarh from Pakistan and bring
about the integration of Hyderabad with India. Their prestige in the whole
of the Kathiawad peninsula had plummeted down as they had reacted to the
accession of Junagarh to Pakistan  pussiliminously. The rulers of the
Kathiawad States had to send Jam Sahib of Nawanagar to convince the Congress
leaders that Junagarh posed a serious threat to them and to demand immediate
and effective action to liberate Junagarh, which was fast slipping into a
civil wear.

The Congress leaders looked up to Mountbatten, who advised them restraint.
Later admissions made by him in his interviews and memoirs, prove that he
was keen to secure the interests of Pakistan and his country, Britain, in
Jammu and Kashmir, but he had no mandate from the British Government to
secure the Indian interests in the Muslim ruled States of Junagarh and
Hyderabad. He disapproved of any perceptible action for the reclamation
Junagarh and Hyderabad.

Hari Singh did not lose sight of the problems, arising out of his enemity
with Mountabatten and the duplicity of the Congress leaders. Jinnah scuttled
the proposals to divide the States on the basis of their population and
scoffed at the suggestions made by Mountbatten. Hari Singh knew that if he
took a false step, Mountbatten as well as the Congress leaders would nor
hesitate to abandon him in a bargain with Pakistan.

This was the greatest act of betrayal committed by the men in power in India.
The Indian Government crumbled in its resolve to set right the wrong in
Junagarh and rein in the Nawab of Hyderabad. The Indian leaders  looked upto
Mountbatten to deliver them from their predicament though experience had
shown to them that the major role in the integration of the States had been
played by the States people who had struggled for the unity of the States
with India and the Hindu rulers of the States who had acceded to India.

The Government of India should have made a bold move to take Hari Singh into
confidence, thrash out the issues pertaining to the transfer of power to the
peoples representatives with him and helped in removing the prevailing
distrust between him and the National Conference leaders. Instead the Indian
leaders sulked away. Gandhi had advised Hari Singh to handover the State
Government to the National Conference leaders and entrust them the
responsibility to conduct elections to the Praja Sabha, the State
Legislative Assembly and empower the elected representatives of the people
to take a decision on the accession of the State. *Hari Singh had refused to
abide by Gandhi’s advice and told him that such a course would enable **
Pakistan** to grab the State with the support of the Muslim Conference and
the other pro-Pakistan flanks in the state. Later events proved that Hari
Singh had chosen the right course. **Jammu and Kashmir** would have gone the
way, **North West** **Frontier** **Province** did if he had opted for
elections to the Praja Sabha.*

The Indian Princely States were a part of the Indian nation. Partition did
not divide the States, nor did the partition empower Pakistan to grab
Junagarh or claim Hyderabad on the basis of being Muslim ruled States and
annex Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of its population. The Muslim League as
well as the British treated the States as their personal preserve and sought
to use them to Balkanise India. The Princes as well as the people of the
States defeated their designs.

*The role played by Mountbatten and VP Menon, in the integration of the
Indian States was only marginal. The States’ Ministry did not draw up any
plans for the consolidation of the northern frontier of **India** of which *
*Jammu and Kashmir** was the central spur. Nor did the States Ministry
formulate any plans for the security of the **Himalayas** against the threat
of their de-Sanskritsation which the creation of **Pakistan** posed. *

* - (To be continued)*

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*Source*: Kashmir Sentinel