Kashmir Dispute: Procedural Aspects of the Problem of the Accession of Indian States to India and Pakistan

Procedural Aspects of the Problem of the Accession of Indian States to India and Pakistan (Preliminary Version)

OIR Report No. 4586 (PV)

January 21, 1948

Department of State

Division of Research for Near East and Africa

OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH

CONFIDENTIAL

[excerpted]

*    *    *    *    *

India's Conditional Acceptance of Kashmir Affiliation

        Before India and Pakistan had made any substantial progress toward settlement of the Junagadh issue, Kashmir was invaded in late October by a mixed group of tribesmen from the North West Frontier and Muslims from Pakistan, apparently in support of Muslim League sympathizers in Kashmir.

Background Events to Kashmir Invasion

        The Kashmir Muslim Conference, organized in the early 40's under Muslim League sponsorship as a rival to the National conference has, until very recently, supported the Maharajah, and a number of its members enjoyed governmental appointments under him.[1]  The leaders of the Kashmir National Conference, on the other hand, who were demanding that the Maharajah turn over power to the people simultaneously with the British transfer of power, were jailed in 1946.[2]  The Muslim Conference welcomed the Maharajah's declaration of independence in July, 1947, and proceeded in August to campaign for Kashmir's affiliation with Pakistan. It overreached itself, however, when it appealed to National Conference followers on the ground that affiliation with Pakistan would itself be the means by which responsible government would be achieved. The Maharajah, alarmed over the presumption of the Muslim Conference leaders, jailed them, whereupon their followers began to demand responsible government.

        During the course of the communal massacres in the Punjab and NWF Province in September, Pakistan papers began to report a number of more or less spontaneous raids into border areas of Kashmir, the raider demanding Kashmir's affiliation with Pakistan. Simultaneously, an uprising of obscure origin against the Maharajah broke out in the Punjabi-speaking area around Poonch.[3]  At the end of September, the Maharajah released form prison the National Conference leader, Sheikh Abdulla, presumably as a means of counteracting Muslim Conference pressure. About the same time a "Free Provisional Government for Kashmir" [4] was reported to have been established just within the border of the state near Muzzafarabad, demanding Kashmir's affiliation with Pakistan.

        Formal Kashmir protests to Pakistan over the border raids and the apparent campaign to force the state's affiliation with Pakistan resulted in early October in the sending of a Pakistan delegation to Srinagar to consider the whole question of Kashmir-dominion relations. It is not known what the delegation proposed,[5] but no effective move was made to quell the raids. At this juncture (October 15) the Maharajah dismissed his pro-Pakistan prime Minister. The new prime minister reiterated Kashmir's protests to Pakistan over the raids, but also announced that if the Pakistan government made no effort to check them Kashmir would have to appeal for aid from other quarters, presumably India.

        Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdullah took advantage of the in Delhi Maharajah's difficulties to insist publicly that full responsible government was a necessary precedent to Kashmir's decision on affiliation with either India or Pakistan.[6] Abdulla also condemned communalism vigorously attacking the Sikh states as well as Pakistan on this issue. He declared connections were more important than its ties with India, it never would abandon its non-communalist policy. Abdulla had just returned to Srinagar when the Valley was invaded from the Pakistan side of the border in support of the group who had organized the "Free Kashmir Government" at Muzzafarabad. The political objectives of the invaders are not fully known.

Kashmir Affiliates with India

        The Maharajah's appeal for military aid from India was apparently the result of his conviction that Pakistan would be unable or unwilling to take action against the raiders. Possibly he concluded that Pakistan threatened both his power as a ruler and the integrity of his state,[7] whereas he hoped India would welcome this opportunity of accepting Kashmir's affiliation and not insist on its earlier conditions of a plebiscite and some recognition of the popular movement. India protested the resort to violence be the Pakistan sympathizers as a means of determining the affiliation issue and accept the Hindu Maharajah's request. This acceptance, however, was made conditional on the installation of Kashmir's National Conference leader, Sheikh Abdulla, as head of an Emergency Government[8] under the Maharajah, and also subject to the determination of the question of ultimate affiliation be popular plebiscite once law and order had been restored.
Pakistan Protests Kashmir's Affiliation

        Pakistan protested Kashmir's affiliation with India at first insisting that the Kashmir invasion was simply a tribal raid which Pakistan was unable to control and rejecting India's proposal for a plebiscite on the grounds that so many Muslims (presumably Muslim Conference partisans) had left Kashmir that a plebiscite would not be fair. It is possible that the Pakistan government at Karachi was ignorant of how deeply interested persons in the Punjab and NWF Province were involved in supporting the invaders.

Counter Claims of the two Dominions

        The official explanation of the situation by the Pakistan Government is that the Maharajah deliberately launched a terrorist program on a communal basis against all who wished to affiliate with Pakistan, provoking retaliation from the Muslim population in order to provide himself with an excuse for affiliating with India. Thus by fraud and violence obtained Kashmir's affiliation. India claims, on the other hand, that it was always prepared to accept the affiliation of any princely ruler, providing that such affiliation had popular support in the state. It charges that Pakistan officials have been supporting the attack on Kashmir by providing both personnel and equipment. While Pakistan admits that dominion personnel is involved in the fighting, it claims that they are merely individuals helping brother Muslims resist Hindu oppression and that no official personnel or equipment are involved.

        Neither dominion has made any reference to the principle of geographic proximity in connection with the Kashmir dispute. Nehru apparently regards the state as a border case where the two dominions'[9] geographical spheres overlap, a claim which Pakistan cannot make with reference to Hyderabad. India's plebiscite suggestion and Pakistan's reiteration of its claims to Junagadh, indicate that both dominions take the position that other considerations favorable to their respective claims take precedence over the geographical.

        The mutual suspicion of the two dominions promises to be the most serious barrier in arranging the necessary military and administrative supervision of a plebiscite. The Pakistan government charges that a plebiscite with the Dominion of India in control would be a farce. It insists on three main conditions: (a) that all Indian troops and personnel (as also Pakistan personnel) be withdrawn, (b) that those who have left their homes return, and (c) that the Emergency Government of Sheikh Abdulla be replaced by a "responsible," "representative" and "impartial" administration to be organized. India, on its side, apparently feels that the Pakistan government will take resort to every stratagem to prevent a state with a Muslim majority from voting to join India. (a) It fears that if Indian troops are withdrawn Pakistan personnel will infiltrate back over the border to intimidate the population or to work up communal frensy. [sic] (b) India will also be suspicious that non-Kashmiris will enter the state on the pretense of having previously fled their homes. (c) Finally, it is not likely to agree that any Kashmir administration would be "responsible," "representative" or "impartial" unless it included the Kashmir National Conference leadership. Neither dominion has commented on the feasibility or acceptability of forming a purely Kashmir all-party coalition adminstration [sic] cooperating with an international commission to supervise elections, and supported by combined Indian-Pakistan forces charged only with controlling the border.

        In closing it may be pointed out that the India-Pakistan struggle over the states will not be ended until the future of Hyderabad as well as of Kashmir is settled. Many Indians fear that in the event Kashmir should elect to join Pakistan, that dominion would begin to give serious support to Hyderabad's claims to independence. The suggestion has also been raised in certain quarters that the whole states' issue may be reopened in the event that India leaves the Empire or adopts a different constitution.[10]

_______________________
1. Many of these were presumably still holding office at the time of the invasion.
2. Gandhi and Nehru publicly supported this demand assuring the Conference that when British paramountcy ended the Congress Party would continue its support for the popular movement and demands for plebiscites in determining the state's affiliation issue.
3. It is not clear (a) whether, as alleged by India, this uprising started simply as another popular revolt against the Maharajah which was subsequently exploited by groups in West Pakistan as part of their general campaign to force Kashmir's affiliation with Pakistan; (b) whether, as insisted by the Pakistan Government, it originated in protest to communal violence on the part of Hindu and Sikh refugees form Pakistan aided and abetted by local official, or (c) whether it was simply the result of the rising tide of communalism spreading form the Muslims in the Pakistan district of Hazara to their relatives in Poonch.
4. On October 24, 1947 the Pakistan Times announced that a "Free Kashmir Government" had been formed "a few weeks ago."
5. The Pakistan Government reports that the representatives sent to Srinagar were not heard by the Kashmir prime minister, while the new October-appointed prime minister insists he talked with the representatives. Neither side has indicated what Pakistan's suggestions were.
6. This demand was made at the States Peoples' Conference held in Delhi during the third week of October.
7. Kashmir was the only ruler whose right to the throne the Muslim League questioned. From certain comments of Punjab leaders it would appear that a number of Leaguers felt Kashmir should become another province of Pakistan while a number of Pathans in the NWF Province were reported to be urging a claim of their own to Kashmir.
8. It was subsequently announced that the government would be modeled on the Mysore State Constitution, where although the Maharajah's prime minister retains considerable control, the popular representatives exercise as much authority as in any of the states.
9. A non-Asiatic observer who was in a good position to know the facts has reported through the Department that the invaders were led by some 500 Pakistan officers "on leave" from the army and that material aid was supplied by local government officials.
10.Whereas the argument has been raised that inasmuch as the Instruments of Accession were signed with the Dominion of India functioning under the 1935 Act and not with the emerging "Government" of India the states would not be bound to participate under the new constitutions, this circumstance would seem hardly likely to affect the international status of the states unless some future British Conservative Government wished to recognize the sovereign status of Hyderabad, for example, as a means of bringing pressure on an independent India.

From: US Department of State.  Division of Research for Near East and Africa, Office of Intelligence Research.  Procedural Aspects for the Problem of the Accession of Indian States to India and Pakistan. OIR Report No. 4586 (PV), January 21, 1948, 9-14.