Jammu & Kashmir, history: 1947-48

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=A timeline: Political history=
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=Accession to India: an overview=
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==A==
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[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jammu/part-1/2-story-of-jk-accession-with-india/articleshow/87482762.cms?utm_source=latest-news&utm_medium=afternoon18-20&utm_campaign=mweb-87482762-india&utm_term=slot11  Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: ''The Times of India'']
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[[File: Kashmir Map Pre 1947.jpg|Kashmir Map Pre 1947 <br/> From: [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jammu/part-1/2-story-of-jk-accession-with-india/articleshow/87482762.cms?utm_source=latest-news&utm_medium=afternoon18-20&utm_campaign=mweb-87482762-india&utm_term=slot11  Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]
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The state of Jammu and Kashmir as it exists today was created by the British in 1846. To further ‘weaken the Sikh’s after their defeat at Sobraon, the British government separated Kashmir from the Sikh empire and ‘sold’ it to Raja Gulab Singh, ruler of Jammu. The treaty of Amritsar -notoriously referred to in Kashmir as the sale deed of Kashmir- the British government made over to Raja Gulab Singh and the heirs male of his body forever and in independent possession, the state of Jammu and Kashmir for a consideration of 75 lakhs of British Indian rupees.
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Gulab Singh’s Dogra dynasty ruled Kashmir till 1947, till the attack by Pathan tribesmen, which was masterminded by the Pakistan army and led by its senior officer Akbar Khan. The British had succeeded in forging an uneasy peace with the tribes of the North-West Frontier but after the British withdrew, Pakistan incited the tribesmen into launching their attack. By Oct. 1947, about 5,000 tribesmen had entered Kashmir.
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The tribesmen transited through Pakistan carrying modern military gear. The first standoff was at Muzaffarabad where they faced a battalion of Dogra troops, capturing the bridge between Muzaffarabad and Domel, which itself fell to the attackers the same day. Over the next two days, they took Garhi and Chinari. The main group of attackers then proceeded further towards Uri.
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''' Battle of Uri '''
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At Uri, Brigadier Rajinder Singh, who led J&K state forces, was killed. “He and his colleagues will live in history like the gallant Leonidas. The battle at Uri holds significance in accession history as it likely helped Maharaja Hari Singh avoided capture and bought the Indian government valuable time to bring in more forces. After the battle, the tribesmen invaders travelled down the Jhelum River to Baramulla, the entry point into the Kashmir Valley.
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On October 24, the Maharaja made an urgent appeal to the Indian government. He waited for a response, while the Cabinet’s defence committee met in Delhi. V. P. Menon, administrative head and secretary of the state’s department, was instructed to fly to Srinagar on October 25. Menon’s priority was to get the Maharaja and his family out of Srinagar. There were no forces left to guard the capital and the invaders were at the door. The ruler left the Valley by road for Jammu.
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On October 26, after a Cabinet defence committee meeting, the government decided to fly two companies of troops to Srinagar. Menon himself took a plane to Jammu where the ruler was stationed.
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Governor-general Mountbatten had contended it would be the 'height of folly' to send troops to a neutral state without an accession is completed, "but that it should only be temporary before a referendum." Neither Nehru nor Sardar Patel attached any importance to the “temporary” clause, but Menon was carrying a message for the ruler: he had to join the Union if he wanted to ward off the invasion. The ruler agreed to accede.
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In fact, according to Menon’s memoirs, he had left word with an aide that if Menon did not return with an offer, he was to shoot the ruler in his sleep. Hari Singh signed the Accession letter regretting that the invasion had left him with no time to decide what was in the best interest of his state, to stay independent or merge with India or Pakistan. Mountbatten while accepting the request for Accession, mentioned that referendum would be held in the state when the law-and-order situation is restored.
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Sheikh Abdullah took charge of an emergency administration in Kashmir. Nehru appointed the former Kashmir Prime Minister N Gopalswamy Ayyangar as a cabinet minister to look after Kashmir affairs. Ayyangar was one of the chief architects of Article 370.
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The article allowed the state a certain amount of autonomy - its own constitution, a separate flag and freedom to make laws. Foreign affairs defence and communications remained the preserve of the central government.
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As a result, Jammu and Kashmir could make its own rules relating to permanent residency, ownership of property and fundamental rights. It could also bar Indians from outside the state from purchasing property or settling there. The constitutional provision has underpinned India's often fraught relationship with Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority region to join India at partition.
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The Instrument of Accession is a legal document executed by Maharaja on October 27, 1947. By executing this document under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947, he agreed to accede to the Dominion of India.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party had from the inception long opposed Article 370 and revoking it was its political agenda and in the party's 2019 election manifesto, it was more specifically promised to the voters.
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They argued it needed to be scrapped to integrate Kashmir and put it on the same footing as the rest of India. After returning to power with a massive mandate in the April-May general elections, the government lost no time in acting on its pledge, and on August 5th,2019 by a Constitutional amendment the Article 370 was made inoperable and Article 35-A was scrapped and the State of Jammu & Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories.
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==B==
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[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jammu/part-2/2-story-of-jk-accession-with-india/articleshow/87482759.cms Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: ''The Times of India'']
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''' Mountbatten accepts Accession '''
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In a letter sent to Maharaja Hari Singh on October 27, 1947, Lord Mountbatten accepted the accession with a remark, "it is my government’s wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people. Lord Mountbatten's remark and the offer made by the Government of India to conduct a plebiscite or referendum to determine the future status of Kashmir led to a dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the legality of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir. India claims that the accession is unconditional and final while Pakistan maintains that the accession is fraudulent.
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The accession to India is celebrated on Accession Day, which is held annually on October 26.
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The legal ruler Maharaja Hari Singh has explicitly mentioned that he is acceding to Indian Union.
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“And whereas the Government of India Act, 1935, as so adapted by the governor-general, provides that an Indian State may accede to the Dominion of India by an Instrument of Accession executed by the Ruler thereof. Now, therefore, I Shriman Inder Mahander Rajrajeswar Maharajadhiraj Shri Hari Singhji, Ruler of Jammu and Kashmir State, in the exercise of my sovereignty in and over my said State do hereby execute this my Instrument of Accession and I hereby declare that I accede to the Dominion of India with the intent that the governor-general of India, the Dominion Legislature, the Federal Court and any other Dominion authority established for the Dominion shall, by this my Instrument of Accession but subject always to the terms thereof, and for the purposes only of the Dominion, exercise about the State of Jammu and Kashmir (hereinafter referred to as "this State") such functions as may be vested in them by or under the Government of India Act, 1935, as in force in the Dominion of India, on the 15th day of August 1947, (which Act as so in force is hereafter referred to as "the Act,” read the document signed by him.
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The document further stated: “I hereby assume the obligation of ensuring that due effect is given to the provisions of the Act within this state so far as they are applicable therein by this my Instrument of Accession. I accept the matters specified in the schedule hereto as the matters concerning which the Dominion Legislatures may make laws for this state.
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I hereby declare that I accede to the Dominion of India on the assurance that if an agreement is made between the Governor-General and the ruler of this state whereby any functions about the administration in this state of any law of the Dominion Legislature shall be exercised by the ruler of this state, then any such agreement shall be deemed to form part of this Instrument and shall be construed and have effect accordingly.”
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Nothing in this Instrument shall empower the Dominion Legislature to make any law for this state authorizing the compulsory acquisition of land for any purpose, he agreed to provide facilities to the Indian government to exercise suzerainty over Jammu and Kashmir.
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''' Accession empowers Indian Union '''
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“I hereby undertake that should the Dominion for a Dominion law which applies in this state deem it necessary to acquire any land, I will at their request acquire the land at their expense or if the land belongs to me transfer it to them on such terms as may be agreed, or, in default of agreement, determined by an arbitrator to be appointed by the Chief Justice Of India. Nothing in this Instrument shall be deemed to commit me in any way to acceptance of any future constitution of India or to fetter my discretion to enter into arrangements with the Government of India under any such future constitution.
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Nothing in this Instrument affects the continuance of my sovereignty in and over this state, or save as provided by or under this Instrument, the exercise of any powers, authority and rights now enjoyed by me as Ruler of this state or the validity of any law at present in force in this state. I hereby declare that I execute this Instrument on behalf of this state and that any reference in this Instrument to me or the ruler of the state is to be construed as including to my heirs and successors,” read the document signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on Octo. 26, 1947
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Some scholars have questioned the official date of the signing of the accession document by the Maharaja. They maintain that it was signed on October 27 rather than October 26. However, the fact that the Governor-General accepted the accession on October 27, the day the Indian troops were airlifted to Kashmir, is generally accepted. An Indian commentator, Prem Shankar Jha, has argued that the accession was signed by the Maharaja on October 25 1947, just before he left Srinagar for Jammu. Before taking any action on the Maharaja's request for help the Govt. of India decided to send Mr V.P. Menon, representing the Government of India who flew to Srinagar on the (25.10.1947). On realizing the emergency, V.P Menon advised the Maharaja to leave immediately to Jammu to be safe from invaders.
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''' Pluralists, democratic heads needed to support the crown '''
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The Maharaja did the same and left Srinagar for Jammu that very night (25.10.1947) while Menon and Mr Meher Chand Mahajan Prime Minister flew to Delhi early next morning. (26.10.1947). On reaching New Delhi, the Indian government assured Menon and Mahajan that they will militarily rescue Jammu and Kashmir State only after the signing of the accession instrument. Hence Menon flew back to Jammu immediately with the Instrument of Accession. On reaching Jammu he contacted the Maharaja who was in sleep at that time after a long journey. He woke up and at once signed the Instrument of Accession.
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V.P Menon flew back immediately on October 26 to Delhi along with the legal documents, completing the proper and legal Accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union.
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Since then, Jammu and Kashmir are a shining crown on the head of Bharat Mata or Indian Union. It is an utmost duty for every citizen to protect this crown, its pride and glory. The glory of Jammu and Kashmir is associated with the splendour of India. Neither there should be any attempts to truncate this crown, nor there should be a venture to narrow the head of Bharat Mata. A pluralistic, democratic liberal, accommodating head of the Indian Union is best in the interests to support this crown.
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(Written by Shri Ashok Bhan, who is a senior advocate at Supreme Court of India and distinguished fellow USI, Chairman-Kashmir (Policy & Strategy) Group. He can be reached at: ashokbhan@rediffmail.com. The views expressed in the above advertorial are personal, BCCL and its group publications disassociate from the views expressed above)
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Disclaimer: Content Produced by Samrudh Bharat Social Welfare Foundation
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=Accession: Nehru, Patel, Hyderabad, Junagadh, the UN, the ceasefire and J&K=
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[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/nehru-blunders-kashmir-amit-shah-ceasefire-un-9059327/ Yashee, Dec 16, 2023: ''The Indian Express'']
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''' Nehru, Patel, and accession '''
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After the British left, two important princely states refused to join either India or Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir had a Hindu ruler in a Muslim-majority state. Hyderabad had a very high-profile and very rich Muslim ruler in a Hindu-majority state. Both wanted independence.
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Nehru was firm that Kashmir should be a part of India. Patel, while very clear that a hostile Hyderabad would be a “cancer in the belly of India”, believed that “if the Ruler [of Kashmir] felt that his and his State’s interest lay in accession to Pakistan, he would not stand in his way” (from My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel, by V Shankar, his political secretary). Patel’s opinion about Kashmir changed on September 13, 1947, when Pakistan accepted the accession of Junagadh.
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Before we move on to the first India-Pakistan war, its ceasefire, and India going to the UN (Nehru’ supposed “blunders”), let’s look at the accession of Junagadh and Hyderabad.
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''' Accession of Junagadh '''
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Junagadh, in the Kathiawar region of Gujarat, was ruled by Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III. Initially, the Nawab had given indications of joining India. However, months before Independence, he got a new prime minister, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto (father of Pakistan’s future PM, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto).
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Upon Bhutto’s persuasion, the Nawab on August 14, 1947, announced he would join Pakistan, though most of his subjects were Hindu and Junagadh had no direct land link to the new country. Pakistan accepted the accession.
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Incensed, India sent a small military to support two of Junagadh’s tributary states that did not agree with the Nawab’s decision. Junagadh’s residents too rose in protest. By November, the Nawab had fled to Karachi and Bhutto had to ask India to take over the province. A plebiscite was held, where 91% of the voters chose to stay in India.
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''' Accession of Hyderabad '''
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Adhir Ranjan in Parliament mentioned Victoria Schofield’s book. Here’s what it says about the proposed “barter”, “Corfield had suggested that if Hyderabad, second largest of the princely states, with its Hindu majority and Muslim ruler, and Kashmir, with its Hindu ruler and Muslim majority, were left to bargain after independence, India and Pakistan might well come to an agreement. ‘The two cases balanced each other . . . but Mountbatten did not listen to me… Anything that I said carried no weight against the long-standing determination of Nehru to keep it [Kashmir] in India.’”
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Hyderabad joining Pakistan was never a practical proposition. However, Patel gave Nizam Mir Usman Ali a long rope, partially because of the prestige he enjoyed in the Muslim world — his sons were married to the daughter and niece of the deposed Caliph of Ottoman, Abdulmejid II, who even wanted his daughter’s heir to succeed him as the Caliph. Till three months after Independence, all India had with Hyderabad was a stand-still agreement, which meant ties remained as they were under the British. Negotiations continued.
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However, soon, the situation on the ground demanded faster action. Revolt against the Nizam’s rule was widening, for democracy as well as against large landholdings, forced labour, and excessive tax collection. An outfit meant to cement the Nizam’s position, the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, was getting more violent, with its paramilitary wing called the ‘razakars’ brutally attacking all opponents.
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Finally, on September 13, 1948, the Indian Army was sent to Hyderabad under Operation Polo. In three days, the Nizam’s forces surrendered.
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''' Accession of Jammu and Kashmir '''
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Maharaja Hari Singh refused to accede to either dominion, preferring independence. In September, lorries carrying petrol, sugar, salt, clothes, etc. for J&K were stopped on the Pakistan side of the border, possibly to create pressure for accession. Meanwhile, a revolt broke out in Poonch against Hari Singh, not a very popular ruler.
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On September 27, 1947 [India after Gandhi, by Ramachandra Guha], Nehru wrote to Patel that the situation in J&K was “dangerous and deteriorating”. Nehru believed Pakistan planned to “infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some big action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter” [Schofield]. The infiltrators came in October.
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India maintains they were armed and sent by Pakistan. Pakistan claims these were tribesmen acting on their own, “to avenge atrocities on fellow Muslims”. Hari Singh asked India for military help, and to secure this help, acceded.
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Indian troops quickly secured Srinagar, and then began driving out the infiltrators from other parts.
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''' Nehru’s “blunders” '''
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This is where we come to the “blunders” of Nehru mentioned by Shah. Why did India go to the UN, instead of defeating Pakistan in battle?
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First, it was under pressure from Louis Mountbatten, then Governor-General of India, and the British government. British PM Clement Attlee had written to Nehru: “I am gravely disturbed by your assumption that India would be within her rights in international law.”
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Second, there was the risk of the war spilling outside Kashmir and into Punjab, which had just suffered the brutalities of Partition. Third, the war was costing India dearly: Patel himself, addressing locals at a library opening in Delhi in December 1947, had said, “You must realise that nearly Rs 4 lakh are being spent every day on the Kashmir operations alone.” Fourth, the Indian government seems to have believed that a ‘neutral’ forum like the United Nations would agree with its position, and the Kashmir issue would be resolved once and for all.
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Instead, India was shocked by British and American hostility. The US had seen in Pakistan a valuable asset against the Soviet Union. Britain, after having just partitioned Palestine, did not want to oppose another Muslim country. Soon, Nehru himself regretted ever going to the UN. He told Mountbatten that “power politics and not ethics” were driving the UN, “which was being completely run by the Americans” [Guha]. He went on to resist all demands of a plebiscite — from the UN to the Commonwealth — till all Pakistani intruders were out of Kashmir.
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As for the ceasefire, it was supervised by the UN. While many in India continue to see it as an opportunity lost, Pakistan had then seen it as favouring India. “The ceasefire was imposed on us at a time when it suited the enemy most,” wrote Colonel Abdul Haq Mirza, who fought as a volunteer from October 1947, as quoted by Schofield. “Four months of operational period was allowed to the Indians to browbeat the ill-equipped Mujaheddin and to bring back vast tracts of liberated territories in their fold.”
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=1947-90: A timeline=
 
August 14, 2008
 
August 14, 2008
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[[File: India Today , September 1,2016 .jpg| India Today , September 1,2016 |frame|500px]]  
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[[File: India Today , September 1,2016 1.jpg| India Today , September 1,2016 |frame|500px]]  
 
'' From the archives of “The Times of India”: 2008 ''
 
'' From the archives of “The Times of India”: 2008 ''
  
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''' 1990-present ''': Armed militancy and terrorism, with international jihadi elements entering the arena, stalk the valley. Elections in 1996 and 2002, especially the latter, bring back some legitimacy to the democratic process but violence continues
 
''' 1990-present ''': Armed militancy and terrorism, with international jihadi elements entering the arena, stalk the valley. Elections in 1996 and 2002, especially the latter, bring back some legitimacy to the democratic process but violence continues
  
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=UN intervention in 1948=
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==From Britain’s Pakistan bias in 1947 to Zia’s 1980s Wahhabisation==
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[https://www.rediff.com/news/interview/how-the-british-schemed-to-give-kashmir-to-pakistan/20191205.htm?sc_cid=emailshare&invitekey=94a10d9ea2bb0976eb5072bcab16a411&err_accptd=1, Rashme Sehgal, Dec 5, 2019 ''Rediff'']
  
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The Times of India, Oct 17, 2011
 
  
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''' UN intervention in 1948 gave J&K its present shape '''
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Kashmir's Untold Story Declassified has not come a day too soon given that no state -- now a Union Territory -- has witnessed so much turmoil and received so much attention in the last 70 years.
  
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From the Durranis and Mughals, the Kashmir Valley passed to the Sikh rulers who conquered the region in the early 19th century. Gulab Singh played a vital role in this campaign and Maharaja Ranjit Singh made him the king of Jammu. Later, Gulab Singh captured Ladakh and Baltistan and merged them into Jammu. After the first Anglo-Sikh war, the Sikhs ceded Kashmir, Hazarah and all the hilly regions between the Indus and Beas to the East India Company. In 1846, Gulab Singh and the company signed a treaty in which he purchased the Valley from the British.
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Written jointly by Iqbal Chand Malhotra and Maroof Raza , the book  looks at why the Kashmir valley has been in a state of turmoil for 72 years and why China and its client State Pakistan will continue to back militancy in the years to come.
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==What happened in 1947?==
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After Independence, the princely states were given the option of joining India or Pakistan. The ruler of J&K, however, delayed his decision. He was a Hindu while a majority of his subjects were Muslims. In October 1947, ‘tribals’ from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, supported by the Pakistan army invaded J&K, instigating communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the state. Unable to control the situation, the king requested India for armed assistance.
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==When did the Indian army intervene?==
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The government of India offered a temporary accession and promised to carry out a referendum later on, ensuring that India would control external affairs, defence and communications in J&K. Indian troops were airlifted into Srinagar on October 27, 1947. The fighting continued for over a year and in 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru asked the UN to intervene. A UN ceasefire was declared from December 31, 1948. By now, two-thirds of the state was under the control of India, while one-third came under Pakistan’s control. The ceasefire was laid out by a UN resolution requiring Pakistan to withdraw its troops while India was allowed to keep its forces to maintain law and order in the state. A plebiscite was supposed to take place once peace was restored.
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== Why did the plebiscite never take place? ==
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Both sides blame each other for that. While Pakistan blames India for not carrying out the referendum, India counters by saying that Pakistan never withdrew its forces, thereby making it impossible for India to hold a referendum in the entire territory.
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=The dispute=
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Malhotra, chairman of AIM Television, produced several documentaries on Kashmir before he and Raza, a strategic affairs expert who anchors a programme on this subject for the Times Now television channel, got down to the task of putting this book together.
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[[File: Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in brief.jpg|Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: In brief; Graphic courtesy: [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=INDIA-WANTS-ALL-OF-POK-BACK-15082016028011 ''The Times of India''], August 15, 2016|frame|500px]]
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[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=ANATOMY-OF-THE-JK-DISPUTE-15082016028013 ''The Times of India''], Aug 15 2016
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"By sustaining the militancy and hybrid war currently on in Jammu and Kashmir, China is seeking to permanently thwart India's attempts to use modern hydrology, to prevent us from tapping into the 19.48% of the waters of the Indus that we are entitled to," Malhotra tells Rediff.com Contributor Rashme Sehgal.
  
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''' How India, Pakistan describe parts of J&K under Pak control '''  
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'''Your book  highlights how a conspiracy was hatched around the erstwhile maharaja of J&K Hari Singh  to ensure that he acceded to Pakistan and not India. Why did this plan prove to be a  failure?'''  
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The British deep state of which Lord Hastings Ismay (Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten's chief of staff) and  NWFP (North West Frontier Province) Governor Sir George Cunningham were a part  wanted the whole principality of Jammu and Kashmir to accede to Pakistan.
  
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What India calls PakistanOccupied Kashmir (POK) is part of the former princely state of J&K -areas under Islamabad since Oct 22 1947, after Pakistan-backed tribal militia invaded and Hari Singh acceded to India. Islamabad divided this region into GilgitBaltistan (G-B) and the areas south of it, including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.
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As long as the principality's prime minister Ram Chandra Kak was in the saddle, they were confident that Kak would steer the state towards accession with Pakistan.
  
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''' How is POK in the Mirpur sector administered? '''
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Once Kak was dismissed by Maharaja Hari Singh and accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel  respectively  to foil possible accession to India.
  
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Before 1970, the MirpurMuzaffarabad sector had different administrative arrangements. In 1970, voting rights were introduced, a presidential system adopted.This worked for four years.Then, through legislation, a socalled parliamentary system was brought. This, with amendments, is in place. Since 1975, the region has elected a `prime minister'. It also has a 6-member council chaired by the Pakistan PM. Three are ex-officio; five nominated by the Pak PM. In theory, the council's assigned functions like defence, security, foreign affairs, currency, to Islamabad. Experts often question the pretenseautonomy in these places.
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Operation Gulmarg failed because the invaders were denied British leadership.
  
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''' What about G-B? '''
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This happened because Major Onkar Singh Kalkat, a Sikh officer, gained access to the British devised invasion  plans.
  
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Pakistan considers the regions disputed territory; G-B's status was vague until recently. To protect its claim in global fora that it supports freedom of the people in this region that it occupies, Islamabad couldn't declare G-B as its territory.For long, this region had no specified status in Pakistan's constitution. Through the “G-B Order, 2009“, a governance model similar to that in the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad sector was set up. The region is a defacto Pakistan province, but doesn't participate in electoral politics.
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Major Kalkat was waiting to hand over charge of the brigade  when a demi-official letter arrived from General Sir Frank Messervy stationed at the general headquarters in Rawalpindi.
  
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''' The Indian experts' view '''  
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Attached to the letter was an appendix titled 'Operation Gulmarg - The Plan for the Invasion and Capture of Kashmir' with the operations expected to commence on October 20 1947.
  
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India's IDSA says administration of POK only nominally under “elected“ govts. Real power is with Islamabad; army presence is overwhelming. When Islamabad ceded large tracts of POK territory to China, it undermined the pretense of the region's autonomy. The area has seen demographic changes, with Pakhtuns encouraged to settle here.
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Major Kalkat managed to escape from the frontier settlement of Mir Ali Mirali by the skin of his teeth, arriving in Delhi on October 18 1947.
  
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=Late 1989- early 1990: A militant movement begins=
+
He informed then defence minister Sardar Baldev Singh of this plan on October 19, 1947.
−
==The ideology behind the uprising==
+
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[http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/front-page/hizb-leader-zakir-warns-hurriyat/249174.html  Hizb leader Zakir warns Hurriyat | IANS| May 13 2017| Greater Kashmir]
+
  
 +
Sardar Baldev Singh asked the British staffed intelligence directorate to verify Major Kalkat's account, but they paid no heed to it.
  
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[In May 2017, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Zakir Musa] asserted that his outfit was clear in its motives of "fighting to impose a Shariat in Kashmir and not resolving the Kashmir issue by calling it a political struggle".  
+
It was only after the invasion had started in full swing that Major Kalkat's warning was taken seriously. He was   taken to meet  Pandit Nehru only on October 24, 1947.
  
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Zakir [added]: "I am warning all those hypocrite Hurriyat leaders. They must not interfere in our Islamic struggle. If they do, we will cut their heads and hang them in Lal Chowk".
+
It is my guess that  it was  this snafu regarding Major Kalkat that made the British mercenaries, who were originally expected  to  lead the Kabailis or Pathan invaders, to  stand down and not lead the invasion.
  
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"Those leaders should know that the struggle is for Islam, for Shariat," he was heard saying in [an] over five-minute audio clip. IANS [could] not confirm the authenticity of the audio clip.
+
The rest is history.
  
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Urging the people of Kashmir to unite against the Hurriyat's "hycocrisy", Zakir says: "We all should love our religion and we should realise that we are fighting for Islam. If the Hurriyat leaders think it is not so, then why have we been hearing the slogan 'Azaadi ka matlab kya? - La ilaha il Allah' [‘Pakistan say rishta kya? La ilaha il Allah']’ , why have they (Hurriyat groups) been using mosques in their politics?" [Additional input from Nadeem Nadu, Journalist, on whatsapp, 12 May 2017]
+
'''The plan for Operation Gulmarg actually started in 1943.'''  
  
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The Hizbul Mujahideen has been waging a silent battle to upstage the Hurriyat Conference since the 2016 uprising. [In May 2017], the militant outfit also released a statement asking women protesters to not come on the roads to protest.
+
Yes, planning for Operation Gulmarg started way back in 1943.
  
 +
The British were certain Kashmir would go to Pakistan  and pulled out all the stops in advance to ensure this.
  
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[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/burhan-wani-successor-zakir-bhat-targets-hurriyat-brass/articleshow/58651619.cms  M Saleem Pandit | Call it Islamic struggle or die: Hizbul Mujahideen to Hurriyat |TNN | May 13, 2017  | IndiaTimes/ ''The Times of India''] adds:
+
Cunningham , in his second term  as governor of NWFP, had initiated the forming of the Tucker  committee  in 1944  that recommended that regular Indian army troops  be withdrawn from the Razmak, Wana and Khyber Pass garrisons and be replaced with scouts and khassadars.
 +
The northern boundaries  of British India  were to be defended by Muslim staffed Frontier Scouts and Frontier Constabulary.
  
−
Hizbul Mujahideen [leader] Zakir Bhat succeeded Burhan Wani after his killing in an encounter [in 2016].
+
In 1943, the British withdrew the army from the north western borders and the withdrawal was completed by 1946.
  
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In a strongly worded audio message to separatists shared on social media, Zakir Bhat, aka Moosa, said: " Hum kufr ko chhod kar pehley aap ko latkayeingey. Lal Chowk mein inkey galey kateingey ! (Before we kill the disbelievers [kufr literally means ‘infidel’], we'll hang you... your heads will be chopped at Lal Chowk)."
+
They were replaced by khassadars with  basic detachments of  2,000 of these paramilitary troops being officiated by British officers  called district officers.
  
−
Zakir insisted that the 27-year-old armed movement in Kashmir was an Islamic struggle, not a political fight, and also warned separatists not to meddle in the setting up a caliphate in J&K along the lines of the rule established by [Daesh/ the] Islamic State.
+
There were around 25,000 khassadars with 20 to 40 British officers overseeing them.
  
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He warned them against using mosques and other Islamic symbols and slogans if they believed that Kashmir was a political struggle.
+
They would have achieved success had it not been for the show of courage shown by Major Kalkat.
  
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Hurriyat's Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik stress on resolution of the Kashmir issue+ by seeking the right to "self-determination".
+
'''Your book also highlights how the British deep state was active in ensuring Gilgit was taken over by Pakistan. Its strategic importance was something Indian rulers seemed oblivious of. '''
  
−
The Mirwaiz, who is the custodian of the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, demands the implementation of UN resolutions of 1947 regarding Kashmir every Friday.
 
  
−
Geelani, on the other hand, roots for Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. Addressing them, Zakir said, "You are our big problem... if you have to run this dirty politics, run it in your homes... if we have to implement the shariat, we have to implement it on ourselves."
+
Unfortunately, the Indian political leadership of that time led by Pandit Nehru were singularly obsessed with the mistaken notion that Sheikh Abdullah called all the shots.
  
−
Zakir, a native of violence-infested Tral in Pulwama district, was studying to be an engineer in a Chandigarh college before picking up arms in July 2016.
+
However, Abdullah only represented the valley and no more.
  
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"I am not an ulema (sic), but scholars here are corrupt... fearful of crossing limits that they may be imprisoned. That is why we have to come forward," Zakir said, quoting a verse from the Quran. "They are actually political leaders and they can't be our leaders," Zakir said. "Our fight is purely for the sake of Islam, and we shall implement the shariat in Kashmir, insha-Allah," he said.
+
Abdullah was unacceptable in the other four regions of the state, namely Gilgit, Ladakh, Jammu and Muzaffarabad.
  
−
==Influencing the mind: 1989-2017==
+
Gilgit shared an international border with Afghanistan,  Xinjiang  and Tibet. 
−
[[File: Influencing the mind.jpg| Schools of faith popular in the Valley of Kashmir, especially during 1989-2017 |frame|500px]]
+
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[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=How-mosques-and-mobiles-are-radicalising-Kashmir-09072017010016    Aarti Singh | How mosques and mobiles are radicalising Kashmir | Jul 09 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)]
+
  
 +
'''How was Gilgit actually given over to Pakistan?'''
  
−
The Valley has been succumbing to a hardline Wahhabi Islam, which is displacing or co-opting the more syncretic schools
+
The conglomeration of the vassal States of Gilgit,  Puniyal, Koh-e-Khizr, Yasin,  Yashkoman and Chitral were called Gilgit Agency.
  
−
Last month, in a south Kashmir mosque, Mufti Shabir Ahmad Qasmi fiercely defended former Hizbul commander Zakir Musa's call for Islamic jihad. For the first time, a cleric, using his religious pedestal, was exhorting believers to support Kashmir's most wanted terrorist, who had recently aligned ideologically with al-Qaida. The mufti's speech was widely circulated on online messaging platforms in the Valley .
+
In 1943, Colonel Roger Bacon took over as political agent in Gilgit.
  
−
Kashmir's mosques have always been used for religio-political ends, and for separatism since 1989 when the militancy broke out. But the character of the mosque has changed dramatically in the last decade.
+
 Lord Mountbatten announced after becoming viceroy of India that the Gilgit lease would be rescinded on July 31 1947 so that it be returned to  Maharaja Hari Singh.
  
−
HanafiBarelvi Islam, the traditionally moderate school followed by the majority in Kashmir, is being replaced by the radical Ahl-e-Hadith, the local moniker for Saudi-imported Salafism or Wahhabism. Though many Hanafi clerics like Moulana Abdul Rashid Dawoodi are resisting their Wahhabi competitors, “the attendance in annual fairs of all major Sufi shrines has been decreasing,“ said Muzamil, a Sufi practitioner. Of the roughly six million Muslims in the Valley , the once-marginal Ahl-e-Hadith now has over a million followers, claimed its general secretary , Dr Abdul Latif.
+
But Lord Ismay, Colonel Bacon and Major Brown in Gilgit had other plans.
  
−
Arab-funded Wahhabism finds convergence with already-established conservative strains of Islam, such as the Deobandi and Jamat-e-Islami movements in Kashmir. The mufti who made a plea for Musa is a Deobandi from a Jamati household. Such religious intersections are not limited to fundamentalists. Last year, Sarjan Barkati, a selfproclaimed Sufi, earned epithets like `Pied Piper of Kashmir' and `Freedom Chacha' for mobilising people and glorifying the Hizbul commander Burhan Wani who had wanted to establish an Islamic Caliphate. These mutations from moderate to radical have been happening insidiously and manifested themselves in the mob that lynched deputy SP Ayub Pandith on Shab-e-Qadr.
+
Major Brown asked the then governor Ghansara Singh, an appointee of Maharaja Hari Singh, to step down which he refused.
  
−
The coalescing of all the schools of Sunni Islamic thought in Kashmir is result of a “common broad-based platform, Ittehaad-e-Millat, created to resolve differences“ not only among the puritanical groups but also with syncretic Barelvi outfits, said Jamat-i-Islami Amir chief Ghulam Mohammad Bhat. IeM was actively involved in organising protest rallies in favour of Wani last year. Way before Wani was killed, the signs of Wahhabised radicalisation had already begun to emerge. Maulana Mushtaq Ahmad Veeri, for example, was already popular in south Kashmir by 2015 for sermons in which he praised the IS and Caliph Al Baghdadi. “It was only a matter of time before the youth started waving IS flags while pelting stones, or Wani or Musa declared jihad for the Caliphate.Ironically, many moderate Kashmiri Muslims claim that IS has been created by the US and Israel to malign Muslims,“said a student of religion from Bijbehara.
+
This made way for Operation Datta Khel on the night of  November 4 , 1947 where Major Brown and his troops took siege of the governor's residence.
  
−
Official sources said that there are over 7,500 mosques and seminaries in Kashmir, of which over 6,000 are Hanafi and around 200 are syncretic Sufi shrines.Ahl-e-Hadith, Deoband and Jamat put together have just over 1,000 mosques and charity based seminaries, of which Ahle-Hadith has the largest number. “ Ahl-eHadith mosques are popular for their modern furnishing and facilities,“ said Shahnawaz, a Barelvi follower in Anantnag, adding that the organisation also funds several orphanages, clinics and medical diagnostic centres.
+
A fierce gun battle followed and the governor and his staff were forced to surrender.
  
−
Sources said Ahl-e-Hadith mosques and seminaries have doubled in the last 27 years. FCRA annual reports show that top donors to India among the Salafist Islam practising states are the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Although it is not clear who the top donor and recipient in J&K is, the state has received between 10 and 100 crores as foreign funds each year in the last decade.
+
On November 17 , 1947, a Pakistani flag was flying over the governor's flag staff.
  
−
Ahl-e-Hadith played a role in the separatist movement as a part of the joint Hurriyat Conference until it was split in 2003. The organisation is known to share a relationship with Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen, which is closely associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba. The TuM is a part of the PoK-based United Jihad Council headed by Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Salahuddin, who in 2014, had declared support for al-Qaida's entry into Kashmir.
+
It is obvious this operation was the brain child of the British deep state.
  
−
However, security officials believe that the influence of Wahhabi discourse through the Internet, social media and messaging platforms is far more dangerous than the mosques and literature.“Kashmir has around 2.8 million mobile internet users. Even if there is one Salafist preacher glorifying Burhan Wani or Zakir Musa and the clip is circulated over smartphones, it has a dangerous multiplying effect over a huge population,“ a senior police official said.
+
'''This seems to be a common chord  -- call it indifference or unawareness about the strategic importance of the regions around J&K
For example, when China acquired a large chunk of Aksai Chin, alarm bells should have rung in the Indian establishment, but this did not happen.'''
  
−
Mobile data usage, officials claim, is higher in Kashmir than other parts of the country because of lack of other sources of entertainment. Cinemas, bars and discotheques were shut in Kashmir in the early 1990s when militant groups issued diktats against all things “un-Islamic“.
+
The Government of India knew about the Chinese intrusions and purported annexation in Aksai Chin from 1952 onwards.
  
−
=1990: The situation in April =
+
Why then did the Indian government sign the Pancheel Agreement with China in 1954?
−
[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/terrorism-takes-a-perilous-turn-in-kashmir/1/315063.html  Inderjit Badhwar, Kashmir: Perilous turn, April 30, 1990 | ''India Today'']
+
  
−
''' The militant-fundamentalist sway over the Kashmir valley is complete, and the country's administrative control has been almost totally nullified. The situation is critical, and the time for soft options over. '''
 
  
 +
'''Why did India surrender its consulates in Kashgar, Sinkiang and Gartok in Tibet?'''
  
−
'' Islam ki buniyad pe yeh mulk bana hai, ayega is mulk mein Islam ka dastoor, is mulk mein toofan ayega '' (The hurricane of Islam will blow through this land). -Refrain from an underground cassette
+
The Chinese followed the annexation of Sinkiang and Tibet by annexing a large chunk of Aksai Chin.
  
−
Kashmir is at war with India. It is a declared war with open moral, financial, and logistical support from Pakistan.
+
 The central leadership  chose to ignore it and in fact bent over backwards to cede further sovereign territory in Tibet to China.
  
−
Its first phase is over. And the brutal reality to which the country must awake is that the initial round has already been won by the militants. The enormity of the situation - with the latent challenges it poses for the continued existence of the rest of India as a secular state - does not seem to have dawned fully on New Delhi or even on the rest of the nation.
+
 This was the principality of Minsar.
  
−
And notwithstanding the predictable knee-jerk cries of repression and "reign of terror'' against the state administration by liberal groups like the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the stark truth is that the Indian state is barely fighting back.
+
'''China had in 1959, wanted a part of the Gilgit Agency and especially the Shaksgam Valley with its 250 glaciers making it the most glaciated region in the world to be part of China.
Were the Chinese conscious even then of the importance of  water that saw them push their expansionist design?'''
  
−
The reins of the reign of terror are squarely in the hands of the separatists. Through kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, religious blandishments and press censorship - aided not least of all by the virtual abdication of governance by the Farooq Abdullah government during the last two years - the secessionists have virtually achieved the administrative and psychological severance of the valley from India. And their tentacles are now spreading into Doda, Kistwar, Rajauri and Poonch.
+
That is obvious, otherwise they wouldn't have entered into a territory swap with Pakistan in 1963;  they wouldn't have chosen Lop  Nor lake in Xinjiang for their nuclear testing site and they wouldn't have annexed the Aksai lake in Aksai Chin  having a catchment area of 8,000 sq  km  as compensation for their planned degradation of Lake Lop Nor  with nuclear waste. 
  
−
In a cartographic and military sense, Kashmir remains with India. There's Ladakh in the north. Jammu in the south. And the Indian Army all along the actual line of control. But within this circumference now lies an island, a virulently non-Indian entity called Kashmir easily vulnerable to Pakistani manipulation.
+
'''Subsequent  to  this was that China attacked India on October 20,  1962 because they needed greater strategic depth to build the Aksai Chin highway. '''
  
−
In Kashmir nobody, either out of fear or out of the total alienation that pervades the region, now talks for India or even a settlement with the Centre. That part is over. Done with. The movement has now arrived at a different crossroads. The debate is now whether they choose independence or Pakistan.
+
The attack on October 20, 1962 by China was to politically consolidate their pre-existing annexation of Indian territory from 1952 onwards.
  
−
The 'Indian dogs', as it were, have mostly gone home. From Srinagar, Baramula, Tral, Pulwama, Anantnag, Kupward, Handwara, Bandipore. Businessmen, bankers, retired servicemen, hoteliers, tour operators. And Kashmiri pundits. Those who remain are men in uniform, or the Indian officials sitting as soft targets for terrorist hit lists in Srinagar's Raj Bhawan, or the mini winter secretariat. Lonely outposts of the Indian Union.
+
They were  primarily interested in avenging the Treaty of Chushul signed in 1842 between the Sikh empire, Tibet  and the  Daoguang  emperor of China, wherein China had conceded vast tracts in Tibet and Ladakh to the Sikhs.
  
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In what is surely one of the greatest refugee migrations in recent Indian history, some 90,000 Kashmiri pundits and other members of the minority community of a total of about 1,40,000 (4 per cent of the population) living in the valley have fled their homes leaving property worth crores behind. Rows of large houses in Munshibagh and Rawalpura are deserted.
+
The Chinese were interested in overthrowing the Treaty of Chushul which had caused them great humiliation and also emboldened the British officered Indian Army to storm the gates of the imperial capital Nanjing and submit the Daoguang emperor to yet another humiliation in the form of The Treaty of Nanjing signed also in 1842.
  
−
And now, the 30,000-odd Sikh shopkeepers and farmers of Tral, Sopore and Baramula have begun to cry for protection if they, too, are not to migrate. Some have already started moving out.
+
'''Making India bleed with a thousand cuts was not a strategy put in place by either  Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Zia-ul Haq , but had its origins in the tenure of Pakistan's  longest serving ISI chief Major General  Robert Cawthome. '''
  
−
Securitymen keep vigil on the empty boulevard along Srinagar's Dal Lake, that was once the hub of the valley's throbbing tourist activity and traffic
+
Major General  Cawthome  was ISI chief from 1949 to 1959 and devised and institutionalised the strategy of 'continuous proxy war' against India. It  was  he who established the fact that India was an existential threat to Pakistan.
  
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The few local papers that circulate under terrorist benevolence regularly attribute the migration to exaggerated Indian propaganda. The educated elite - yesterday's moderates, today's separatists - tell the eager ideologues of the puce just what they want to hear: that their movement is secular and the fleeing Hindus are just puppets of BJP propaganda. But to a family taking flight from its roots, property, value system and the familiarity of everyday existence, this is just so much nonsense.
+
It was he who reciprocated the overtures of China's chief spymaster in the 1950s, Kang Sheng.
  
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Ask Mrs Dar, a doctor whose family has lived in downtown Srinagar for generations. She fled under fundamentalist threats a month ago to Jammu with her family. She and her sisters returned last fortnight - the men were too scared to accompany them - disguised under burkhas and fell at the feet of a government official begging help to recover their belongings from the house they hurriedly padlocked before fleeing.
+
'''How successful was Zia-ul Haq's  operation? To turn Kashmiris away from sufism to hard line  Wahhabi Islam as also to cleanse  non-Muslims  from the  Kashmir valley?''' 

  
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Or a retired subedar major whose tenant, K. Kaul, is mercilessly gunned down on April 5 in Karan Nagar. The subedar receives a death threat shortly afterwards while he is at work. He does not even go back to his house. His daughters rent a truck within a few hours and load it with their belongings. They pick him up at an appointed place and drive straight to a refugee camp in Jammu.
+
'''Why were the  valley's leaders and the central establishment napping through all these tumultuous developments? '''
  
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That same day Subedar Bhushan Lal bursts into the room of a commanding officer inside the cantonment in Srinagar, breaks down and cries like a baby. He was on leave to see his family in Big Behara, a 45-minute drive from Srinagar, but has been hounded out by gangs of roving militants.
+
Zia-ul Haq's strategy of converting Kashmiris to Wahhabi Islam has been almost 90% successful.
 +
His successors were  almost  100% successful in ethnically cleansing the valley of all Kashmiri Pandits. 
  
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[[File: Scenes from a widely-circulated propaganda Videocassette showing a policeman greeting demonstrators.jpg| Scenes from a widely-circulated propaganda Videocassette showing a policeman greeting demonstrators |frame|500px]]
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'''In your book you state that militancy in Kashmir is set to intensify.'''
  
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He, too, begs for protection for his mother and two daughters whom he left behind in Bij Behara when he fled in the early hours of the morning. All he wants is that they be safely escorted out. They will never go back. It doesn't matter that he is leaving behind his life savings - a small orchard and a house he had managed to build.
+
China is never going to give up on the waters of the Indus river.
  
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They are not fleeing for nothing. Kashmir has seen upheavals in 1953 and in 1964. There was no mass migration. This was largely because the separatist forces had identifiable leaders who espoused secularism and there were few, if any, terrorist assassinations of innocents.
+
By sustaining the militancy and hybrid war currently on in Jammu and Kashmir, China is seeking to permanently thwart India's attempts to use modern hydrology, to prevent us from tapping into the 19.48% of the waters of the Indus that we are entitled to. 
  
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But today, the movement is dominated by the money provided by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and the muscle power of the pro-Pakistan, fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami and its Hizbul Mujaheddin and Allah Tiger terror groups. The Jamaat is supposed to be strong in Baramula and Sopore and the "secular" Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in Srinagar and Anantnag. But this is now merely semantics.
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For what once used to be a mass movement for the preservation of ethnic identity, of Kashmiriyat, of which Article 370 was supposed to be the symbolic guardian, has been consumed by a fundamentalist fury that gives the movement sustenance and spiritual guidance. The liberal spirit of sufism that had so infused the valley has now been exorcised.
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The movement is now largely conducted from the mosques from where thousands of loudspeakers preach jehad in a terrifying cacophony. And the fundamentalist cultural aggression has spread into everyday life. People must sport beards and wear the traditional Kashmiri garb. Wristwatches, as in Pakistan, must be worn on the right hand and the time set back a half-hour to correspond with that of Pakistan.
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Cinema halls, beauty and video parlours, symbols of Indian "decadence" have remained closed for six months. Friday, not Sunday, is now observed as the day of rest. Indian newspapers are not circulated any more. In Kupwara, street dogs were affixed with discs around their necks with the inscription, "Indian dogs," and in Khak, nearby, effigies of Indian soldiers are hung from trees. In nearby Sopore, militants impose their own road tax on civilian vehicles.
+
=1947, Jan- Aug=
 +
==The British help Pakistan get Gilgit==
 +
[https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/op-ed/170517/retrofit-how-some-brits-helped-pak-grab-gilgit-in-1947.html  SANDEEP BAMZAI, May 17, 2017: ''The Times of India'']
  
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Almost everywhere in the valley, Indian institutions have been rendered redundant. In Srinagar, the Bank of Baroda has closed down, many of its officers have fled. The Canara Bank has virtually no staff to handle payments. And the militants have even knocked down the signboard of the State Bank of India near Srinagar's Batwara Chowk.
+
An empire which is toppled by its enemies can rise again, but one that is toppled from within crumbles that much faster. It could be a Trojan or a saboteur who brings it to its knees. History is replete with such examples — from Achilles in Troy (in Greek mythology, he was a hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad) to Mir Jaffar in the decisive Battle of Plassey (who assembled his troops to assist Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah against a much smaller force led by Robert Clive, but did not lead them into combat, thus neutralising the Nawab of Bengal’s fighting efficacy, leading to his rout and subsequent death). The reprobate British did their best to prevent decolonisation as many of them played their part to the hilt in order to serve the Churchillian diktat of keeping a bit of India, using cunning and subterfuge to blindside Indians, as they were ordered to leave the subcontinent after the Second World War. However, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and even Lord Louis Mountbatten fixed the subversive political department under the wily Sir Conrad Corfield.
  
−
The banking system is virtually shut down. At the post offices tens of thousands of letters are piled up with no one to deliver them. Lawyers have boycotted the courts.
+
There were many deceitful characters floating around in those uncertain times. F. Paul Mainprice was one such gadfly. He came from London’s Bexhill and joined the Indian Civil Service in the late 1930s, serving in Assam and Madras provinces. Towards the end of his service, he was transferred to the political department and served as political agent for the states in Assam and later in the crucial areas of Gilgit and Chilas. In 1947, he was acting political agent in Gilgit, from where he was relieved in August when Gilgit was handed back to the Kashmir government.
  
−
And Muslim government servants now in the winter capital of Jammu have threatened to strike unless moved back to Srinagar. Conversely, minority community officials are balking at having to go to Srinagar when the capital shifts there in summer.
+
He reportedly reached Srinagar around August 26-27 and stayed at the famed Nedous Hotel. After about a week, he left for Delhi. He had lots of boxes full of papers with him. In Delhi, it is learnt he contacted Mahatma Gandhi, to whom he gave a certain note on Gilgit, probably on the lines that Gilgit should remain under the Indian government or that of Pakistan. It is further learnt a copy of that note was passed on by him to Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner. He then reportedly left for Kalimpong, as his address there was “Care of Mrs Shariff, Tashiding”.
  
−
Agriculture continues, with paddy cultivation in full swing, but trade and commerce are at a standstill. The transport, sheet metal, machine tool and lumber industries have ceased to function.
+
As we now know, Pakistan got possession of Gilgit-Baltistan through the connivance of two British military officers. In 1935, the Gilgit agency was leased for 60 years by the British from the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir because of its strategic location on the northern borders of British India. It was administered by the political department in Delhi through a British officer. With impending Independence, the British terminated the lease, and returned the region to the Maharaja on August 1, 1947.
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[[File: We are fighting a holy war.jpg| This was the sentiment since the earliest m onths of the movement: '' We are fighting a holy war '' |frame|500px]]
+
  
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The hotels lie empty. The once proud Oberoi Palace has lost half its executive staff. And Mercury Travels Manager, Raj Awasthi, for the first time closed shop and left Srinagar, bags, baggage and all signalling the end of the tourist season even before it started. The house boats and shikaras bob aimlessly on the waters of the Dal and Nagin lakes like so much driftwood.
+
The Maharaja appointed Brig. Ghansara Singh of the J&K state forces as governor of the region. Two officers of Gilgit Scouts, Maj. W.A. Brown and Capt. A.S. Mathieson, along with Subedar Major Babar Khan, a relative of the Mir of Hunza, were loaned to the Maharaja at Gilgit. But as soon as Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India on October 26, 1947, Maj. Brown imprisoned Brig. Ghansara Singh, and informed his erstwhile British political agent, Lt. Col. Roger Bacon, who was then at Peshawar, of the accession of Gilgit to Pakistan. The conspiracy saw Maj. Brown on November 2 officially raising the Pakistani flag at his headquarters, and claimed he and Mathieson had opted for service with Pakistan when the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of India.
  
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Life is one curfew after another with periods of relaxation. When it is relaxed people mill furtively in the streets for a little bit of shopping. Cigarettes are scarce, meat rarely available, fresh vegetables a treat if one can find them. Even though the people have begun to feel the pinch, there's still enough to eat. Every September, the Kashmiri begins stocking up on rice and dried tomatoes and other provisions.
+
Earlier, Mainprice had arrived in Srinagar on June 13, 1948. He stayed for some time at Nedous Hotel, then moved into a houseboat. From the beginning, his activities came under the notice of the police. He visited Bandipur, Baramulla and Sopore in the beginning, and then at Baramulla tried to take some photographs and came under the Army’s notice. He was eventually stopped from doing so. He came into very close contact with Dr Edmunds, principal of the local missionary high school, who was incidentally known for his pro-Pakistan sympathies.
  
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These will last until May when there are fresh earnings through tourism, carpet weaving and casual labour. But even though this prospect looks bleak the people take heart from regularly beamed Pakistani propaganda that Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was recently shown supporting a thousand-year struggle to "liberate" Kashmir, will raise crores of rupees in relief money.
+
Remember this was an extremely fluid and dangerous time. He accompanied him to Mahadev on a trekking expedition. During his stay in Srinagar, he had a close association with Capt. Annette and other Europeans, who were also seemingly pro-Pakistan. He tried to establish contact with local people and was observed trying to get information from them on military movements and the working of the government. It seemed his purpose of staying on in Srinagar was to wait for United Nations Kashmir Commission to arrive and to supply them with data. During the commission’s stay in Srinagar, he first tried to approach the commission, in which he did not succeed, but then contacted Mr Symonds, secretary to the commission, and also he tried through his other European friends to influence the commission through Mr Symonds in favour of the state’s accession to Pakistan.
  
−
During curfew relaxation, life appears superficially normal. But life is not normal even in the sanctuary of the army cantonment. Army schools have been closed down and parents given transfer certificates for their children: And the corps commander has declared downtown areas oat of bounds for army personnel and their families.
+
When his activities got absolutely objectionable, the government was forced to pass an order against him under the Defence Rules to leave the state, but he refused to obey it, calling it a ridiculous and scandalous order. However, under the Defence Rules, the DIG, Kashmir Range, was deputed to inform him he would have to leave the state, and if he refused to do so he would be forced to leave and put on the aircraft. When the DIG reached his houseboat, he was found to be absent and closeted with Capt. Annette in the latter’s boat. He was sent for by the DIG and told he had to leave that day, as the time limit given to him was about to expire. To this he replied that he was not going. The DIG told him the order would have to be carried out and he would have to leave.
  
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It is during curfew relaxation that the gunmen strike. The strategy is simple. Fire, or hurl bombs at security personnel, assassinate a soft target and duck. Force the security forces to return the fire in which innocent civilians are often killed, fuelling further anti-Indian sentiments.
+
At this Mainprice got excited and made a sudden assault on the DIG, knocking off his hat and spectacles, and tried to grapple with other police officers. However, he was overpowered and driven to the airport, where he was put on a plane bound for Delhi. After he left, a magistrate was asked to make an inventory of all his belongings, so that these could be handed over to Capt. Annette, in accordance with Mainprice’s wishes. While making this inventory, some papers were found that indicated Mainprice had been busy writing a note on the happenings in Jammu in a very exaggerated manner, and also a note on the history of Kashmir, including Gilgit; possibly for the benefit of the commission on how the state actually came under Dogra rule.
  
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[[File: Number and Nature of Casualties.jpg| Number and Nature of Casualties till mid-April 1990|frame|500px]]
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He also seemed to be trying to compile a census of the population of different communities in various districts of the state. He was busy telling people that he was private secretary to Sir Walter Monckton, constitutional adviser to His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad (one of those opposed to the unification of India and the merger of the princely states with the two dominions). He was also expressing a desire to be closely associated with the UN commission on Kashmir to give them all the information he had collected.
  
−
According to government estimates, anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 automatic weapons, mostly Chinese-made AK-47s, have been smuggled into the valley. The number of trained insurgents is about 600.
+
Further, it was discovered he had some links with a certain Anglo-Indian officer of the Royal Indian Air Force, and through him had managed to take some aerial photographs of the state of J&K. It was thus obvious how Mainprice, like so many other assorted characters who were floating around after the British had officially handed over India to Indians, continued to obfuscate and frustrate us.
  
−
But with a network of sympathisers now spreading into virtually every village in the valley with sophisticated information cells', they spell a formidable problem for the roughly 20,000 men of the paramilitary and police forces deployed mostly in large towns.
+
==1947, Oct 23-26==
 +
[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2019%2F08%2F06&entity=Ar01204&sk=E3F2A730&mode=text  August 6, 2019: ''The Times of India'']
 +
[[File: The Sikh Regiment in Kashmir, 1947.jpg|The Sikh Regiment in Kashmir, 1947 <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2019%2F08%2F06&entity=Ar01204&sk=E3F2A730&mode=text  August 6, 2019: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]
  
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Among of, biggest challenges for the security forces is that the activists, both armed and unarmed, include PWD workers, irrigation engineers, schoolteachers, storeowners, doctors, lawyers, former MLAs and, most important, members of the Jammu & Kashmir Police who have been active in recruiting terrorists, arranging border crossings, and even driving their vehicles.
+
[[File: Times of India edition on October 27, 1947.jpg|Times of India edition on October 27, 1947 <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2019%2F08%2F06&entity=Ar01204&sk=E3F2A730&mode=text  August 6, 2019: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]
  
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Separatist targets are not just anybody found sympathetic to India but, increasingly, Indian Army installations. The subversive arsenal now includes antitank mines, rocket launchers and remote detonation devices. In several places army communication channels have been sabotaged. Civilian personnel working at army installations in Kupwara have received death threats.
 
  
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How did the situation take such a precipitous turn for the worse? The answer is, it was not sudden. As the official record has shown, Governor Jagmohan was near prophetic in his warnings to Rajiv Gandhi during 1988-89 that the Farooq Abdullah government had collapsed even while it was in power and that separatist militancy, no matter what its immediate roots, was exploding. The warnings were ignored.
 
  
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It is possible to pinpoint some events that helped fuel the insurgency. First, at a time when militancy was peaking, Farooq's government released 70 of the most experienced, Pakistani-trained terrorists whose detention had been confirmed by the Advisory Board headed by the chief justice of the state high court (see box). Even though they were on parole, they are now untraceable.
+
The Four Eventful Days That Decided The Fate of Kashmir
  
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The separatists saw this as an important victory. Their morale got a major boost when the V.P. Singh Government agreed to free 5 hardcore detenus in exchange for the release of Dr Rubaiya Sayeed. The files show that the decision to release the terrorists was taken by the Farooq government not after negotiations with the terrorists but on the very day of her kidnapping.
+
1 RAID ON KASHMIR (the final week of October 1947)
  
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''' Districts of south Kashmir have been the main centres of secessionist activity '''
+
The attack on Kashmir by Pathan tribesmen was masterminded by Pakistan army and led by senior Pakistan army officer Akbar Khan. The British had succeeded in forging an uneasy peace with the tribes of the North-West Frontier but after the British withdrew, Pakistan incited the tribesmen into launching their attack. By the last week of October 1947, about 5,000 had entered Kashmir
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[[File: Districts of south Kashmir have been the main centres of secessionist activity.jpg| Districts of south Kashmir have been the main centres of secessionist activity |frame|500px]]
+
  
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Softliners in the Government had hoped that this would bring some of the extremists to the bargaining table. But the action achieved just the opposite. It swung the power pendulum away from the Government and squarely into the separatist camp. So far as the separatists were concerned they had won the first phase of their battle against India. There was nothing to negotiate. And they escalated their terror.
+
2 INVADERS’ ROUTE (October 23)
  
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The crisis flared out of hand with the appointment of Jagmohan, not because the governor was unwilling to act. but because New Delhi seemed to have no clear direction in its Kashmir policy and tied the new administration's hands following the January 21 clashes in which securitymen killed violent pro-Pakistani demonstrators. The Government has appeared to falter, and that has given heart to the terrorists.
+
The tribesmen transited through Pakistan carrying modern military gear. The first standoff was at Muzaffarabad where they faced a battalion of Dogra troops, capturing the bridge between Muzaffarabad and Domel, which itself fell to the attackers the same day. Over the next two days, they took Garhi and Chinari. The main group of attackers then proceeded towards Uri
  
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From the secessionists' viewpoint, the insurgency has the Indian Government exactly where it wants it - divided in dealing with the problem.
+
3 THE GALLANT 300
  
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There are now three centres of power dealing with Kashmir: Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, a man with very little credibility in his home state, who veers between a hardline law-and-order approach and reviving the Assembly as a stopgap measure; Kashmir Affairs Minister George Fernandes - a novice as far as the intricacies of Kashmir politics are concerned - who believes that the Centre should deal with the militants as well as with some National Conference leaders; and Governor Jagmohan who is asking for a free hand to restore the state's administrative apparatus. The Mufti and Fernandes do not get along, and Fernandes goes about openly snubbing Jagmohan.
+
At Uri, Brigadier Rajinder Singh, who led J&K state forces, was killed. “He and his colleagues will live in history like the gallant Leonidas and his 300 men who held the Persian invaders at Thermopylae,” writes civil servant VP Menon. The battle at Uri holds significance as it likely helped Maharaja Hari Singh avoid capture and bought the Indian government valuable time to bring in more forces. After the battle, the tribesmen travelled down the Jhelum river to Baramulla, the entry point into the Valley
  
−
''' For the first time, 'wanted' lists are being circulated '''
+
4 THE FLIGHT OF HARI SINGH (October 24-25)
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[[File: For the first time, 'wanted' lists are being circulated.jpg| For the first time, 'wanted' lists are being circulated |frame|500px]]
+
  
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When he visits the valley, ostensibly to contact the underground, Raj Bhawan is informed neither of his movements nor of whom he talks to. And some of his actions have effectively served to reverse the tough decisions taken by the Jagmohan administration.
+
On October 24, the maharaja made an urgent appeal to the Indian government. He waited for a response, while the Cabinet’s defence committee met in Delhi.VP Menon, administrative head and secretary of the states department, was instructed to fly to Srinagar on October 25. Menon’s first priority was to get the maharaja and his family out of Srinagar. There were no forces left to guard the capital and the invaders were at the door. The king left the Valley by road for Jammu
  
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For example, on April 2, after the state administration opposed a mass rally for the burial of Ashfaq Majid, a slain terrorist, Fernandes negotiated with a team of self-proclaimed representatives of the extremists and allowed a procession that swelled into a crowd of three lakh at which several of the most wanted militants were given a pulpit. Fernandes also met controversial government officials - like the jail superintendent sacked by the governor.
+
5 TROOPS INDIAN FLY INTO THE VALLEY
  
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The Centre sees this as a carrot-and-stick policy of keeping all channels open. But it is creating an impossible situation for the state administrators who believe that when lobbyists can bypass the system and seek audiences with Fernandes or appeal to the Mufti who has his own political interests in the state, it will be hard to crack down on corrupt officials and collaborators.
+
On October 26, after a Cabinet defence committee meeting, the government decided to fly two companies of troops to Srinagar. Menon himself took a plane to Jammu where the king was stationed
  
−
Even finding a quick political fix in today's situation is a pipe dream. The National Conference, whose members have defected in droves is a spent force. Its MPs dare not enter the valley without massive security escort. And the grave of its founding father, Sheikh Abdullah, is guarded round the clock by two security companies because the militants have threatened to defile it. Even Maulvi Farooq lives in a fortress which he insists should be guarded by not state police but Central security forces.
+
6 SIGNING OF INSTRUMENT OF ACCESSION (October 26)
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[[File: Some of the prominent Pandits killed between Dec 89 and the first week of April 1990.jpg| Some of the prominent Pandits killed between Dec 89 and the first week of April 1990 |frame|500px]]
+
  
−
Militants openly issue calls to boycott Fernandes when he comes to the valley. And those with whom he has attempted contact - lawyer Mian Qayyoom, Imam Gul Baxi of Batamaloo, G. N. Hagroo, a civil rights activist, and journalist Sanaullah Butt - are hardly pro-Indian. Qayyoom says Kashmir cannot be held captive to the Simla agreement; his demand is nothing short of independence. And it is unclear whom these people represent.
+
Governor-general Mountbatten had contended it would be the “height of folly” to send troops to a neutral state without an accession completed “but that it should only be temporary prior to a referendum.” Neither Nehru nor Sardar Patel attached any importance to the “temporary” clause, but Menon was carrying a message for the maharaja: he had to join the Union if he wanted to ward off the invasion. The king was ready to accede. In fact, according to Menon’s memoirs, he had left word with an aide that if Menon did not return with an offer, he was to shoot the king in his sleep. Hari Singh signed the accession letter regretting that the invasion had left him with no time to decide what was in the best interest of his state, to stay independent or merge with India or Pakistan
  
−
The bottom line of the militants is secession. And the bottom line of the Indian Government cannot go outside the Constitution. The two positions are irreconcilable. The time for theorising, post-mortems and historical regurgitations is over. New Delhi's writ in the valley runs from Raj Bhawan through Gupkar Road to the nearby winter secretariat. Two hundred yards on each side is terrorist territory. Consider, for example, just one fact. When the administration wanted to relax curfew from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. the militants imposed their own curfew. Not a soul came out into the streets.
+
7 FINAL ACT (October 27)
  
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The bulk of the people follow whatever institution wields the big stick. Today, that stick is in the hands of the militants. The primary task before the Government is to re-establish its writ and show that it has the political will to do so. To demonstrate that the country will not compromise an inch of its territory. It was the absence of this message during the Farooq regime, and a lack of clarity of purpose under V.P. Singh's Government that has hobbled the state administration and given a certain strategic advantage to the secessionists.
+
Menon returned to Delhi on October 27 with both the letter and Instrument of Accession. The Cabinet defence committee accepted the accession, subject to a provision that a referendum would be held in the state when the law and order situation allowed it. Sheikh Abdullah took charge of an emergency administration in Kashmir. Nehru appointed the former Kashmir PM N Gopalswamy Ayyangar as a cabinet minister to look after Kashmir affairs. Ayyangar was one of the chief architects of Article 370
  
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Confusion and delay in regaining India's lost administrative turf in Kashmir will simply give Pakistan and the militants the most precious resource they can ask for - time. Their strategy is to wear New Delhi down to such an extent that the cost of maintaining Kashmir will become an impossible burden; or to keep a ready-made Pakistan inside India to be used by Pakistan to create constant problems.
+
Source: Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States by VP Menon
  
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The view from New Delhi is that in the long run, time is on its own side because in the peaks and valleys that characterise terrorism all over the world, the fundamentalists, when they realise that they can't really break loose of India's grip, when they begin suffering economically, will wear down and seek a solution with the Centre. But this is precisely the kind of thinking that led to escalating violence in Punjab.
 
  
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In Kashmir the wait-and-wear-down attitude, considering how perilous the situation already is because of years of fence-sitting, is bound to make the problem even more intractable. The longer, for example, that security forces wait for orders to hit known training centres inside the valley's villages - so far more or less out of bounds - the more powerful will terrorist cadres become.
+
=1947, Sept=
 +
==Nehru links accession to the installation of popular government in J&K==
 +
[https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-baseless-blame-game-8319182/  Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, Dec 16, 2022: ''The Indian Express'']
  
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''' Of the nearly 90,000 refugees who have fled the Kashmir valley, many have come to Delhi '''
+
Nehru had been urging the Maharaja to induct Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the secular National Conference, into the state government in order to ensure popular support for the administration. The Maharaja indicated that he was not prepared to do so
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[[File: A makeshift camp of the migrant Pandits.jpg|  In Jammu, and to a lesser extent in Delhi, school classrooms and other government buildings were converted into makeshift camps for the migrant Pandits. Every large room would accommodate several migrant Pandit families, who would spread thin mattresses and blankets on cold January floors.  |frame|500px]]
+
  
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They will have more time to .import more deadly weapons (they now have Stinger missiles as well), increase their finances, recruit cadres, mobilise international opinion, and increase their base and morale.
 
  
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The longer the wait, the greater the forces and firepower of the secessionists, the more deadly and bloody any future confrontation. This would not only cause unpredictable international repercussions but also dangerously affect the mood of India's 98 million Muslims - as Operation Bluestar did in the case of Sikhs in India - who so far have remained unsympathetic to the fundamentalist cause in Kashmir.
 
  
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Right now, much can be achieved through low-level, sustained pressure. Last week, the governor began by sacking 75 government servants involved in subversive activities, mounting weapons searches, raids on training camps, indefinite curfews, and arresting over 200 people trying to cross the border. He also refused to compromise with the kidnappers of the vice-chancellor of Kashmir University. For the time being, it seems, New Delhi is backing stern measures to stop the drift.
+
Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir was one of the few princely rulers who had held out against accession to either India and Pakistan before the partition of British India. In June 1947, a couple of months prior to the partition, the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, visited Srinagar in an attempt to persuade the Maharaja to opt for one or the other of the two states, offering him an assurance from Sardar Patel that India would raise no objection if the ruler were to opt for Pakistan. The Maharaja entertained his guest in regal style but evaded any discussion on the political issue, pleading a stomach ailment. Hari Singh evidently hoped that, with the lapse of British paramountcy, he would become the ruler of an independent and sovereign state.
  
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But the task ahead is Herculean. Lost ground will have to be recovered inch by inch even in the face of hostile international opinion, and pressure from internal political lobbies. Government offices, banks, transport, hotels, post offices will have to be opened, forcibly if necessary even if it means handing them to security forces or government officials from outside as in Assam in 1983.
+
These hopes were dashed shortly afterwards by two developments — an uprising in Poonch assisted by Pakistani elements and an undeclared economic embargo imposed by the Pakistani authorities. Since Kashmir’s main trade exchanges in those days were with Pakistan, the unofficial embargo resulted in great hardship.
  
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''' Subedar Bhushan Lal abandons his home in Kashmir '''
+
At this stage, the Maharaja revised his position on accession. He asked Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, his prime minister-designate, to convey to Nehru the terms on which he was prepared to accede to India. The Maharaja was not agreeable to introducing immediate reforms in the administration of the state. Nehru had been urging the Maharaja to induct Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the secular National Conference, into the state government in order to ensure popular support for the administration. The Maharaja indicated that he was not prepared to do so, at least at this stage. When Mahajan conveyed these terms to Nehru in the third week of September, the latter reiterated that Abdullah should be freed from prison and associated with the governance of the state.
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[[File: Subedar Bhushan Lal abandons his home in Kashmir.jpg| Subedar Bhushan Lal abandons his home in Kashmir |frame|500px]]
+
  
−
And New Delhi must also realise that indirectly its coffers are funding the separatist movement, through the subsidised petrol and the telephone networks with which the subversives communicate. The question to be asked is whether the state should continue to provide those who have declared war against it the wherewithal for mobility and communications.
+
Why did Nehru insist on bringing Sheikh Abdullah into the administration? Nehru anticipated armed intervention by Pakistan in Kashmir and foresaw that this could be repulsed only by a government that enjoyed popular support. He set out his views in a letter to Sardar Patel on September 27, 1947, nearly a month before the tribal invasion. This remarkable letter has not received the attention it deserves. “The Muslim League in the Punjab and the NWFP are making preparations to enter Kashmir in considerable numbers. The approach of winter is going to cut off Kashmir from the rest of India,” he wrote. “I understand that the Pakistan strategy is to infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some major action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter… I rather doubt if the Maharaja and the State forces can meet the situation by themselves without some popular help… Obviously the only major group that can side with them is the National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership.”
  
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Should it continue to keep on its payroll government servants who refuse allegiance to the Constitution? Should it continue to supply electricity to mosques that use loudspeakers to preach jehad against the state? These are the hard decisions to be made if India's writ is to run again in the valley.
+
Nehru, therefore, concluded that the only acceptable course was for the Maharaja to seek the cooperation of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference while acceding to India. This was the only effective way of countering Pakistani designs.
  
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In Kashmir - where the Centre has invested some Rs 70,000 crore in subsidies, what to say of the blood of Indian soldiers in two wars - the nation faces what is perhaps the gravest challenge to the ideas on which its integrity is moored. There are no soft options left. And temporary reverses must not be allowed to reverse the process of a sustained reclamation. The country can no longer afford to behave like a tenant put on notice to vacate somebody else's property.
+
We must also recall that developments in Kashmir were unfolding against the backdrop of Junagadh. On August 15, the Nawab of Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan and subsequent events had demonstrated the folly of taking such decisions without popular support. In this context, India proposed to Pakistan on September 30 that all cases of disputed accession should be settled by a plebiscite or referendum. This was the course India followed in Junagadh and it had obvious implications also for Kashmir.
  
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===TERRORISTS RELEASED BY FAROOQ ABDULLAH GOVERNMENT ===
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Why did Nehru insist on bringing Sheikh Abdullah into the administration? Nehru anticipated armed intervention by Pakistan in Kashmir and foresaw that this could be repulsed only by a government that enjoyed popular support. He set out his views in a letter to Sardar Patel on September 27, 1947, nearly a month before the tribal invasion. This remarkable letter has not received the attention it deserves. “The Muslim League in the Punjab and the NWFP are making preparations to enter Kashmir in considerable numbers. The approach of winter is going to cut off Kashmir from the rest of India,” he wrote. “I understand that the Pakistan strategy is to infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some major action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter… I rather doubt if the Maharaja and the State forces can meet the situation by themselves without some popular help… Obviously the only major group that can side with them is the National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership.”
  
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Between July and December 1989, 70 hardcore terrorists were released by the Farooq Abdullah government. Below is a partial list. All detentions had been confirmed by the Advisory Body headed by the chief justice of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court.
+
Nehru, therefore, concluded that the only acceptable course was for the Maharaja to seek the cooperation of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference while acceding to India. This was the only effective way of countering Pakistani designs.
  
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Mohammed Afzal Sheikh of Trehgam
+
We must also recall that developments in Kashmir were unfolding against the backdrop of Junagadh. On August 15, the Nawab of Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan and subsequent events had demonstrated the folly of taking such decisions without popular support. In this context, India proposed to Pakistan on September 30 that all cases of disputed accession should be settled by a plebiscite or referendum. This was the course India followed in Junagadh and it had obvious implications also for Kashmir.
  
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Crossed over to Pakistani territory. Stayed in the home of his brother-in-law, Mohammed Wani, in POK at Athmuqam. Went to Peshawar for training. Met Javed Maqbool Butt and Showkat Maqbool Butt, sons of the hanged JKLF leader Maqbool Butt, with the help of JKLF Chairman Amanullah Khan, in Muzaffarabad. Took oath of allegiance to POK, with a thumb impression using his blood. Was responsible for bomb blast damaging two buses.
+
It is significant that at the end of the 1947-48 war, the areas on our side of the Kashmir ceasefire line were, broadly speaking, the areas where the National Conference enjoyed wide support.
  
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Rafiq Ahmed Ahangar
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Far from being a blunder, Jawaharlal Nehru’s insistence on linking accession to the installation of a popular government in Jammu and Kashmir bears testimony to his foresight and statesmanship.
  
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Went to Pakistan on August 22,1988 via Leepa. Trained in handling explosives. Involved in several bombings.
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Mohammad Ayub Najar
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=1947, Oct-Nov=
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==‘Standstill agreement’ with India and Pakistan==
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[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL/2021/10/10&entity=Ar00402&sk=F4100C3B&mode=text  Oct 10, 2021: ''The Times of India'']
  
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Arrested following crossfiring incident near Jamia Masjid on August 25,1989. Was detained under Public Safety Act. On December 8, 1989, the day of the kidnapping of Dr Rubaiya Sayeed, it was decided in the office chamber of agriculture minister, Mohammed Shafi, that he would be released with 45 others.
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[[File: Indian troops take up positions on the Baramulla Road to push the tribal invaders away from Srinagar on November 9, 1947.jpg|Indian troops take up positions on the Baramulla Road to push the tribal invaders away from Srinagar on November 9, 1947 <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL/2021/10/10&entity=Ar00402&sk=F4100C3B&mode=text  Oct 10, 2021: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]
  
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Farooq Ahmed Ganai
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[[File: Indian troops rolling back Kashmir troops.jpg|Indian troops rolling back Kashmir rebels (invaders, actually) <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL/2021/10/10&entity=Ar00402&sk=F4100C3B&mode=text  Oct 10, 2021: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]
  
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Went to Pakistan under the code name of Khalid. Took courses in creating internal disturbances. Mission was to target army, police, the CRPF and BSF, and assassinate dignitaries. Met Amanullah Khan in the house of Raja Muzaffar Khan at Muzaffarabad. Involved in bombings, arson and looting.
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The princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state led by a Hindu ruler, was among only a handful that chose against joining either India or Pakistan after Independence. J&K shared borders with both newly formed countries, making it a key strategic region. So when Maharaja Hari Singh — who wanted J&K to be the “Switzerland of the East” — refused to accede to either dominion, the state became another early source of instability as India grappled with the violence stemming from Partition and other obstinate princes.
  
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Ghulam Mohammed Gujri
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Just days ahead of Independence, Singh sought a ‘standstill agreement’ with India and Pakistan, which would temporarily maintain its existing agreements with the British government. Pakistan signed on but India refused. While Pakistan believed that signing the standstill agreement would eventually result in J&K joining it, India held out hope that its strong ties to popular local leaders like National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru’s Kashmiri roots would lead to accession in its favour.
  
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Entered Pakistan in August 1988 via Bungna Bala, Kupwara district, for sophisticated arms training. Crossed with help of two POK guides, stayed for the night in the house of one Ghulam Mohammed Wani, originally a resident of Kupwara but settled in Pakistan at Athmuqam (POK). This house was being used as a transit camp for the trainees. He was issued one Kalashnikov gun, two magazines, 200 rounds of ammunition, and detonators. Arrested following involvement in a bombing.
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But the stalemate continued through October amid growing strife within J&K. Despite signing the standstill agreement, Pakistan urged Singh to accede to it, saying failing to do so would lead to “gravest possible trouble”. J&K complained of Pakistani incursions across the border but Pakistan shot back accusing the princely state of making incursions into Sialkot. At the same time, an anti-establishment campaign in Poonch turned into a secessionist movement to join Pakistan. As relations with the maharaja worsened, Pakistan began to fear the princely state would accede to India, prompting a military operation to take J&K by force.
  
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Farooq Ahmed Malik
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On October 22, 1947, Pakistan launched ‘Operation Gulmarg,’ sending in thousands of Pathan tribal fighters across the North-West Frontier Province into J&K. Singh was ill-prepared to fend off the raiders, who descended into the Jhelum valley, taking Uri and Baramulla, and cutting off power supply to Srinagar. Left with no other choice, on October 24, Singh sought assistance from India. On October 25, India’s Defence Committee recommended swift action against the raiders while Lord Louis Mountbatten, India’s last viceroy, said intervention should be conditional on accession. As tribal fighters neared Srinagar, Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on October 26. India then airlifted troops to Srinagar, and defended the capital and repelled the raiders. The fighting carried on through November with Indian forces pushing the tribal fighters as far back as Uri until the arrival of winter snows.
  
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Entered Pakistan with the help of Abdul Ahad Waza via Rashanpur for arms and explosives training. Met Amanullah Khan. Arrested after bomb blast in Telegraph Office, Srinagar.
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In January 1948, India took the matter to the United Nations, hoping it would help clear the Pakistani occupation in northern J&K. But in May 1948, the first Indo-Pakistan war broke out with Pakistan sponsoring a government of ‘Azad Kashmir’ across what is now the Line of Control. In August 1948, the UN passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and a plebiscite. The ceasefire was agreed to on January 1, 1949, bringing an end to hostilities after more than a year.
  
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Nazir Ahmed Sheikh
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==Mehr Chand Mahajan (month not stated, perhaps Oct)==
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[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/what-this-forgotten-insiders-account-says-about-partition/articleshow/96374322.cms?from=mdr  Sugata Srinivasaraju, Dec 20, 2022: ''The Times of India'']
  
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Entered Pakistan for arms training. Was taken to the house of Raja Muzaffar Khan. Met Amanullah Khan. On return, was arrested for role in Anantnag bombing.
 
  
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Ghulam Mohi-Ud-Din Teli
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Hardcore Jamaat-e-lslami. Key co-conspirator in an espionage ring. Under his guidance, two Handwara residents went to Pakistan to be trained to spy on Indian Army. Information passed to Pakistani intelligence.
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If there is a highly credible eyewitness account that survives as to how the Maharaja of Kashmir finally signed the accession treaty with India, and how the principal players of the time from Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Jinnah and Sheikh Abdullah moved their Kashmir cards, it is to be found in this book.
  
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Riyaz Ahmed Lone
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To the blame game that constantly erupts between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on the role of Nehru in Kashmir, this autobiographical work can play a neutral umpire. It offers a blow-to-blow account of an insider who highlights the precocious, yet impatient role played by Nehru. Justice Mahajan was negotiating with Nehru directly, on behalf of Maharaja Hari Singh.
  
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Trained in Pakistan. Involved in several bombings.
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The neutrality of the account is somewhat established when it does not offer a positive portrait of Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru’s friend and ally: “This was my first good look at Sheikh Abdullah and my impression was that he was out to gain power at any cost. To acquire it he would try to influence his friend, the Prime Minister of India, but would not disdain the use of any other means such as creating some kind of uprising in the State.”
  
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Farooq Ahmed Thakur
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One particular episode, when Mahajan is seeking military help from Nehru to ward off Pakistani raiders is interesting. It shows how Nehru was deeply invested and dependent on Sheikh Abdullah to get Kashmir to accede to India: “As a last resort I said, ‘Give us the military force we need. Take the accession and give whatever power you desire to the popular party [National Conference]. The army must fly to save Srinagar this evening or else I will go to Lahore and negotiate terms with Jinnah.’ When I told the Prime Minister of India that I had orders to go to Pakistan in case immediate military aid was not given, he naturally became upset and in an angry tone said, ‘Mahajan, go away.’ I got up and was about to leave the room when Sardar Patel detained me by saying in my ear, ‘Of course, Mahajan, you are not going to Pakistan.’ Just then, a piece of paper was passed over to the Prime Minister, he read it and said in a loud voice, ‘Sheikh Sahib also says the same thing.’ It appeared Sheikh Abdullah had been listening to all this talk while sitting in one of the bedrooms adjoining the drawing room where we were.”

  
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Arrested following a Shootout with security forces near Jamia Masjid on August 25, 1989. Considerable amount of arms and ammunition recovered from him.
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''' The Lahore question '''
  
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=1990: Role of government servants in the separatist movement=
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As insightful and interesting in the book are Mahajan’s exchanges with Radcliffe on the Boundary Commission that partitioned India: “I myself did not know what the award of Lord Radcliffe would be [because all four judges on the commission had disagreed and had written separate reports and Radcliffe as head had to arbiter the final award] but I had some hope on the basis of the talks and arguments that I had with him for a whole day that Lahore might remain in India.
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''' When Naeem Akhtar and 4 others were dismissed for being ‘threat to India’s security, sovereignty and integrity’ '''
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But while we were discussing the award at the hotel, Lord Radcliffe had once exclaimed: ‘How can you have both Calcutta and Lahore?
  
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Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, _Published in STATE TIMES, Oct 21, 2016
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What can I give to Pakistan?’ I protested against this non-judicial observation. Thereafter throughout our talk he seemed to agree to most of my arguments when I urged that Lahore should be included in India and not in Pakistan. It was on this basis that I told some people who came to see me on the 9th of August that there was some likelihood of Lahore remaining in India…Most of the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab had hypnotized themselves into belief that Lahore would remain in India.”
  
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There is no reference to the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute because the book stops at 1963.
  
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With the volcanic eruption of armed insurgency, coupled with a separatist political movement, the administrative machinery was falling brick by brick January through March in 1990. Hundreds of thousands—and once a full million—of the Kashmiris used to march to the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan at Sonwar, demanding separation from India and implementation of the UN resolutions on Plebiscite.
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This enormously accomplished man, whose birth anniversary happens to fall on December 23, was declared as “highly inauspicious” by astrologers at birth and was given away to a poor peasant family. He was born to a rich family of Mahajan Sahukars: “When I became four years old I was assigned the duties that a peasant boy has to perform, look after the family goats and sheep, take the cattle for grazing, sit on the water mill and the furrows.” He was accepted back by his original family after he turned 12. The partitions of his own life, it appears, were equally wrenching.
  
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Suddenly the separatist movement received a shot in the arm when [six] senior IAS officers, including the stalwarts Hindal Haider Tayyabji, Ashok Jaitly, M.L, Kaul and Mohammad Shafi Pandit, signed and issued an appeal to the UN [Indpaedia believes that it was addressed to the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and was also signed by Sheikh Ghulam Rasool and Sushma Chaudhary] to intervene and stop human rights abuse by security forces in the Valley. Historic political developments took place when Vishwanath Pratap Singh was Prime Minister, Mufti Mohammad Union Home Minister and Jammu and Kashmir was under Governor’s, followed by President’s rule, in 1990. Many of Kashmir’s bureaucrats besides civil and Police officers became part and parcel of the secessionist movement.
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Deputy Commissioner Excise Naeem Akhtar’s official residence at Government Quarter No: J-22 became the postal address of the movement as almost all the separatist politicians had been detained and lodged in different jails outside the Valley. Trade unions merged into a coordination committee which chose former Chief Engineer of Power Development Department Abdul Hamid Matoo as its President and Muzaffar Ahmad Khan as General Secretary.
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==When did the Indian army intervene?==
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The government of India offered a temporary accession and promised to carry out a referendum later on, ensuring that India would control external affairs, defence and communications in J&K. Indian troops were airlifted into Srinagar on October 27, 1947. The fighting continued for over a year and in 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru asked the UN to intervene. A UN ceasefire was declared from December 31, 1948. By now, two-thirds of the state was under the control of India, while one-third came under Pakistan’s control. The ceasefire was laid out by a UN resolution requiring Pakistan to withdraw its troops while India was allowed to keep its forces to maintain law and order in the state. A plebiscite was supposed to take place once peace was restored.
  
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Senior KAS officers like Muzaffar Ahmad Khan, then RTO Kashmir and General Manager with J&K Bank, Abdul Rashid Mubarki, additional Secretary Khizar Mohammad Wani and other prominent faces of the Kashmir Administrative Service came to be seen as the “real representatives of the Kashmir cause and sentiment”.
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In months of the IAS officers’ memorandum, around 250 J&K officers, many of them between the ranks of Deputy Secretary to Commissioner-Secretary, issued another passionate appeal to the ‘Citizens of the World’. Believed to have been drafted by Akhtar in his Queen’s English, it called for Plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir under the UN resolution — euphemism for Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan. The Kashmiris named it ‘Azadi’. It created ripples in India and abroad.
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Governor Girish Chander Saxena declared five senior and influential officers — Abdul Hamid Matoo, Naeem Akhar, A.R. Mubarki, Abdul Salam Bhat and Muzaffar Ahmad Khan — as threat to the State’s security, sovereignty and integrity and ordered their dismissal from service. Within an hour, the dismissed officers and their colleagues, holding key positions in the Government, held a meeting at Akhtar’s official residence in Jawahar Nagar. The coordination committee called for an indefinite strike, making a host of demands. Not one was conceded by Saxena’s government.
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The 72-day-long employees’ strike, that started on September 15, 1990, crippled the services in Kashmir. On behalf of Governor Saxena, Advisor (Home) Mehmood Ahmad Zaki (who later retired as GOC of Srinagar-based 15 Corps of Army) and Additional Chief Secretary Home Mehmood-ur-Rehman called on senior IAS officer Sheikh Ghulam Rasool (then Financial Commissioner Revenue, who was emerging as potential contender for the coveted position of Chief Secretary) and asked him to use his good offices to resolve the crisis.
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There was no breakthrough till VP Singh’s regime ended and Chander Shekhar took over as Prime Minister on November 10. Governor Saxena and Chief Secretary R.K. Takkar did strongly refuse to revoke the five officers’ dismissal and their reinstatement.
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=UN intervention in 1948=
  
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President of the coordination committee Matoo had earlier played a key role in persuading the legendary Policeman and retired Director General of Police Ghulam Hassan Shah against accepting Jagmohan’s offer of appointment as Advisor to Governor. Shah did not join Jagmohan’s government even as the order of his appointment was reportedly issued after seeking his consent. Matoo’s daughter was married to Shah’s son.
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==UN intervention in 1948 gave J&K its present shape==
  
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One day in October, days before the annual Durbar Move, Sheikh Ghulam Rasool called over 50 officers to his Sonwar residence and urged them to bring home to Matoo, Naeem and others that shutting down entire services and systems could lead to miseries of the common people and poor employees, making it hard for them to sustain the agitation. Even the pharmacies and ration depots had not been exempted from the strike.
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''' UN intervention in 1948 gave J&K its present shape '''
  
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It was decided in the meeting that three officers — Ghulam Abbas (DC Srinagar), Aijaz Ahmad Malik (PCCF) and Ghulam Ahmad Lone (Law Secretary) — would meet the employees coordination committee members at Matoo’s residence near Al-Farooq Masjid in Jawahar Nagar.
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The Times of India, Oct 17, 2011
  
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On their return from Matoo’s house, the three senior officers narrated to Sheikh Ghulam Rasool that the coordination committee members were “extremely discourteous and rude”. “Sir, they treated us as traitors of the Kashmir cause and agents of the Government of India. They alleged that we are hobnobbing with Governor to fail the freedom struggle. Naeem said what nonsense of ration are you talking about. Kashmiris want freedom”, one of the them told Rasool.
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From the Durranis and Mughals, the Kashmir Valley passed to the Sikh rulers who conquered the region in the early 19th century. Gulab Singh played a vital role in this campaign and Maharaja Ranjit Singh made him the king of Jammu. Later, Gulab Singh captured Ladakh and Baltistan and merged them into Jammu. After the first Anglo-Sikh war, the Sikhs ceded Kashmir, Hazarah and all the hilly regions between the Indus and Beas to the East India Company. In 1846, Gulab Singh and the company signed a treaty in which he purchased the Valley from the British.  
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==What happened in 1947?==
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After Independence, the princely states were given the option of joining India or Pakistan. The ruler of J&K, however, delayed his decision. He was a Hindu while a majority of his subjects were Muslims. In October 1947, ‘tribals’ from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, supported by the Pakistan army invaded J&K, instigating communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the state. Unable to control the situation, the king requested India for armed assistance.  
  
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“Sir we made it clear to them that Abbas Sahab is here in his personal capacity, not as DC Srinagar, so are two of us. We conveyed to them Zaki Sahab’s and Rehman Sahab’s assurance that they would be reinstated immediately after they call off the strike. But they didn’t relent. They addressed us as if they were the Governors and Chief Ministers and we were the class 4th employees”, another officer told Rasool.
 
  
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Commissioner Secretary ARI & Training Nazir Ahmad Kamili told Rasool that he and some other officers had also received threats on phone. “They posed as militants but we are sure they were our own colleagues trying to intimidate us”, Kamili said.
 
  
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The matter didn’t end there. Matoo and his team in their speeches at Srinagar Municipality and other places alleged that some officers were out on the mission of failing the employees’ strike and the freedom struggle. Then only functional newspaper, late Mohammad Yousuf Qadri’s Afaaq, carried a story on such whispers. It was decided in Rasool’s meeting with the officers that three officers would go to editor of Afaaq and publish a statement about their failure to convince the coordination committee members on suspending the strike. “If all of them want to carry on, we will say that we too are with it”, said Sheikh and others.
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A group of three officers was deputed to Qadri Sahab. They boarded the red-cross marked vehicle of Director Health Services and handed over their “clarification” to the editor’s son, Jeelani Qadiri, at his office near Abi Guzar. Jeelani agreed to publish but told the officers that he would need his father’s approval as it was a “sensitive matter”. Soon the trio arrived at the editor’s home in Balgarden.
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=== Why did the plebiscite never take place? ===
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Both sides blame each other for that. While Pakistan blames India for not carrying out the referendum, India counters by saying that Pakistan never withdrew its forces, thereby making it impossible for India to hold a referendum in the entire territory.
  
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Director Health Services Dr Muzaffar-uz-Zamaan Drabu, who lived in Karan Nagar neighbourhood, went in to meet Qadiri Sahab who obliged the officer. While he was still with Qadiri Sahab, some residents gathered around the vehicle and asked its driver about the officers meeting the editor. As he narrated everything with naiveté and honesty, the small group of residents began saying loudly that someone should make an announcement on the mosque’s PAS that the “traitors” were meeting Qadri Sahab. Someone was heard saying that they should set the vehicle on fire and beat up the “traitors”. Law Secretary Lone, who was inside the vehicle, turned pale.
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== Sangh’s stand on J&K plebiscite==
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[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2018%2F01%2F12&entity=Ar01710&sk=DAFEA0AC&mode=text  Swati Mathur, National Archives displays Sangh’s stand on J&K plebiscite, January 12, 2018: ''The Times of India'']
  
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However, as the motley gathering of the residents witnessed Dr Drabu emerging out of the editor’s home, they saluted him. He made it clear to them that none of the officers was working against the interests of the Kashmiris or the employees’ strike.
 
  
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Immediately after VP Singh’s and Mufti Sayeed’s government at the Centre ended and Chander Shekhar took over as Prime Minister, senior National Conference leaders Dr Farooq Abdullah and Prof Saifuddin Soz persuaded him to withdraw the dismissal of the five Kashmiri officers as a “goodwill gesture”. They assured the new PM that it could initiate a process of resolving the crisis by understanding and dialogue. On November 26 the employees’ strike was called off as Saxena, on PM’s instruction, revoked the dismissal orders.
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A month-long exhibition on J&K, which opened at the National Archives on Thursday, seeks to highlight just how the founding president of Jan Sangh, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, warned former PM Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah about the far reaching consequences of the signing of Kashmir’s Instrument of Accession.
  
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Among the reinstated officers and bureaucrats, Abdul Salam Bhat later functioned as DC in Udhampur and Srinagar, Muzaffar Khan headed several departments including Handicrafts and Estates before his retirement. Naeem Akhtar functioned as Secretary Tourism before holding a tenure as Secretary to Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. For some time, when R.K. Jerath was on leave, Akhatr also held charge of the key portfolio of General Administration Department. Ultimately, in 2013 he became PDP’s Member in Legislative Council and in 2015 Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed inducted him as Minister of Education. He retained his berth and portfolio in Mehbooba Mufti’s Cabinet in 2016.
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Drawing from documents and videos obtained from the ministry of defence, the films division and the British Pathe, the exhibition includes rare documents like The Treaty of Lahore of March, 1846, The Treaty of Amritsar, and the Instrument of Accession signed in October 1947. The exhibition also contains a section titled ‘Syama Prasad Mookerjee on J&K issue and on the agitation which sought full integration of the state with India’.
  
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= All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)/ 1993- =
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Four letters written by Mookherjee, two each to Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, are also on display. In one such letter to Nehru on January 9, 1953, Mookerjee wrote, “It is high time that both you and Sheikh Abdullah should realise that this movement will not be suppressed by force or repression...The problem of J&K should not be treated as a party issue. It is a national problem and every effort should be made to present a united front.”
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==Hurriyat: Its History, Role and Relevance ==
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[http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/hurriyat-its-history-role-and-relevance/    Muzamil Jaleel | August 31, 2015, Indian Express]
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Warning against the dangers of a “general plebiscite on a highly controversial issue”, Mookerjee also predicted the rise of communal passions in J&K. His letter to Abdullah also exposes the schism between the Jan Sangh and the National Conference over the rule of J&K shifting hands from the ‘Hindu Dogras’ to the ‘Kashmiri Muslims’. In a letter dated February 13, 1953, Mookerjee refers to Abdullah’s opposition to Praja Parishad, a political outfit with close ties with
  
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New Delhi has now twice made high-level dialogue with Islamabad conditional upon Pakistan not talking to the separatists. Who are the Hurriyat? What is their politics? Do they speak for the people of the Valley?
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the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and which campaigned for the integration of Jammu & Kashmir with India, and opposed the special status granted to the state under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
  
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Inaugurating the exhibition, culture minister Mahesh Sharma said the purpose of curating the exhibition is to educate the youth about how Kashmir became a part of India. “Maharaja Hari Singh, when he signed this instrument (of accession), only after that, I repeat, only after that, the Indian forces went to that area. This needs to be showcased,” Sharma said.
  
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While the reason for the cancellation of talks between the National Security Advisers (NSAs) of India and Pakistan was New Delhi’s insistence on keeping Kashmir off the table and discussing only terrorism, the decision to disallow a customary meeting between Kashmiri separatist leaders and Pakistani officials in New Delhi ahead of the bilateral became a key chapter in the fiasco.
 
  
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The Pak High Commission had invited both factions of the Hurriyat, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik, and Shabir Shah for a meeting with Pak NSA Sartaj Aziz. New Delhi’s new red line, excluding the Kashmir issue and terming the separatist leadership as the “third party”, and Islamabad’s refusal to accept these conditions, has refocussed attention on the Hurriyat, the political platform of the separatist movement for more than two decades now.
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==Why India sought UN intervention==
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[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/nirmala-sitharaman-nehru-united-nations-pakisitan-kashmir-dispute-7834191/?utm_source=newzmate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explained&utm_content=6386461&pnespid=DOck8UpYsT5NiA6b7cjBF1FUv00i3KtlqhlIRK5fMIHK5qZSORemW9gUNK.lnnWtf36DYQwk  March 27, 2022: ''The Indian Express'']
  
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This is the second time that talks have been called off over the issue of Pak officials meeting Kashmiri separatist leaders. New Delhi had called off a Foreign Secretary-level engagement for this reason last year.
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It is well documented that both the British government and Lord Mountbatten, who was the first Governor General of India after Independence from August 15, 1947 to June 21, 1948, believed that the then newly-founded UN could help resolve the Kashmir dispute. Mountbatten suggested this to Muhammad Ali Jinnah at a meeting between the two men in Lahore on November 1, 1947.
  
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''' Birth of the Hurriyat '''
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After Nehru met Liaquat Ali Khan in Lahore the following month, Mountbatten was convinced that an intermediary was needed. He recorded his views: “I realised that the deadlock was complete and the only way out now was to bring in some third party in some capacity or other. For this purpose I suggested that the United Nations Organisation be called in.” (Victoria Schofield, ‘Kashmir in Conflict’, quoting Mountbatten in H V Hodson, ‘The Great Divide’)
  
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The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was formed on July 31, 1993, as a political platform of the separatist movement. It was an extension of the conglomerate of parties that had come together to contest Assembly polls against a National Conference-Congress alliance in 1987 — an election that was widely alleged to have been rigged. The conglomerate of disparate ideologies was held together by their common position that Jammu & Kashmir was “under occupation of India”, and the collective demand that “the wishes and aspirations of the people of the state should be ascertained for a final resolution of the dispute”.
 
  
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At a time when militancy was at its peak, this conglomerate represented the political face of the militant movement, and claimed to “represent the wishes and aspirations of the people”. It had brought together two separate, but strong ideologies: those who sought J&K’s independence from both India and Pakistan, and those who wanted J&K to become part of Pakistan. Most of the groups that were part of the Hurriyat had their militant wings, or were linked to a militant outfit.
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''' Reference to UN '''
  
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Before the formation of the APHC, there was another political platform — the Tehreek-i-Hurriyat Kashmir (THK). It was headed by the advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom, and consisted of 10 groups: the Jamat-e-Islami, JKLF, Muslim Conference, Islamic Students’ League, Mahaz-e-Azadi, Muslim Khawateen Markaz, Kashmir Bar Association, Ittehadul Muslimeen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat and Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadees. But this first separatist political platform did not have much influence.
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Initially, while Liaquat “agreed to refer the dispute to the UN”, Victoria Schofield wrote in her seminal history of the Kashmir dispute, “India was not prepared to deal with Pakistan on an equal footing”. However, “when the two prime ministers met again in Delhi towards the end of December [1947], Nehru informed Liaquat Ali Khan of his intention to refer the dispute to the UN under article 35 of the UN Charter…”.
  
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On December 27, 1992, the 19-year-old Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who had taken over as chairman of J&K Awami Action Committee (J&KAAC) and become the head priest of Kashmir after the assassination of his father Mirwaiz Farooq, called a meeting of religious, social and political organisations at Mirwaiz Manzil. The aim of this meeting was to lay the foundation of a broad alliance of parties that were opposed to “Indian rule” in J&K. Seven months later, the APHC was born, with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as its first chairman.
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Consequently, on December 31, 1947, Nehru wrote to the UN secretary general (then Trygve Lie of Norway) accepting a future plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir.
  
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The APHC executive council had seven members from seven executive parties: Syed Ali Shah Geelani of Jamat-e-Islami, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq of Awami Action Committee, Sheikh Abdul Aziz of People’s League, Moulvi Abbas Ansari of Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat of Muslim Conference, Yasin Malik of JKLF, and Abdul Gani Lone of People’s Conference.
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He said: “To remove the misconception that the Indian government is using the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir to reap political profits, the Government of India wants to make it very clear that as soon as the raiders (Pakistan-backed tribesmen who had entered the Kashmir Valley) are driven out and normalcy is restored, the people of the state will freely decide their fate and that decision will be taken according to the universally accepted democratic means of plebiscite or referendum.”
  
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Of these leaders, Sheikh Aziz was killed in police firing near Sheri in Baramulla in August 2008. Abdul Gani Lone was killed by militants in May 2002.
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''' Issue in the UN '''
  
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The Hurriyat also had a 21-member working committee. This included the seven members of the executive council, plus two members from each of the seven parties.
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The UN Security Council took up the matter in January 1948. The jurist Sir Zafrullah Khan spoke for five hours in favour of the Pakistani position. India was unhappy with the role played by the British delegate, Philip Noel-Baker, who it believed was nudging the Council towards Pakistan’s position. V Shankar, private secretary to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, noted in his unpublished memoirs (quoted in Schofield):
  
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There was also a general council, with more than 23 members, including traders’ bodies, employee unions, and social organisations. The membership of the executive council couldn’t be increased as per the APHC constitution, but the general council could accommodate more members. The Hurriyat had observer status at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
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“The discussions in the Security Council on our complaint of aggression by Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir have taken a very unfavourable turn. Zafrullah Khan had succeeded, with the support of the British and American members, in diverting the attention from that complaint to the problem of the dispute between India and Pakistan over the question of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s aggression in the State was pushed into the background due to his aggressive tactics…as against the somewhat meek and defensive posture we adopted to counter him.”
  
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''' The Battle Within '''
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On January 20, 1948, the Security Council passed a resolution to set up the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the dispute and to carry out “any mediatory influence likely to smooth away difficulties”.
  
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Because the Hurriyat was such a mixed bag of ideologies and personalities, infighting was a near permanent feature. Disagreements often came out in the open.
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There is evidence to believe Sardar Patel was uncomfortable with Nehru taking the matter to the UN, and thought it was a mistake. “…Not only has the dispute been prolonged, but the merits of our case have been completely lost in the interaction of power politics,” he wrote. (July 3, 1948, quoted in Schofield)
  
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In September 2003, the Hurriyat split on the questions of its future strategies, the role of militancy in the separatist movement, and dialogue. The Syed Ali Shah Geelani-led group was firm that talks with New Delhi could take place only after the central government accepted that J&K was in dispute, while the group led by Mirwaiz wanted talks.
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''' Article 35 of UN Charter '''
  
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Geelani hasn’t departed from his stance that “the struggle will continue till complete freedom” or a “referendum in accordance with UN resolutions”. The Mirwaiz group backed former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula that envisaged suzerainty and a joint mechanism between the two parts of J&K, without changing any existing boundaries. The Mirwaiz group also entered into a dialogue directly with New Delhi during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, and held talks with the then Deputy PM, L K Advani, in 2004.
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There has been some debate on whether India chose the wrong path to approach the UN. In 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah said that had Nehru taken the matter to the UN under Article 51 of the UN Charter, instead of Article 35, the outcome could have been different.
  
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The leaders of the Mirwaiz faction, along with Yasin Malik (who was no longer a part of Hurriyat by then), visited Pakistan through the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road in June 2005 to hold talks with various Muzaffarabad-based Kashmiri separatist leaders and the Pakistan establishment. This visit was facilitated by the Vajpayee government, which had come up with Srinagar-Delhi, Delhi-Islamabad and Srinagar-Islamabad tracks as part of its Kashmir peace process.
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According to UN records, India reported to the Security Council “details of a situation existing between India and Pakistan owing to the aid which invaders, consisting of nationals of Pakistan and tribesmen from the territory immediately adjoining Pakistan on the north-west, were drawing from Pakistan for operations against Jammu and Kashmir”.
  
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Though there were stark ideological differences within the two factions of the Hurriyat, the trigger for the split came on the question of fielding proxy candidates by a Hurriyat constituent, People’s Conference, in the 2002 Assembly polls. Geelani vehemently criticised the decision, and sought the eviction of the party led by Abdul Gani Lone’s sons, Bilal Lone and Sajjad Lone.
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India pointed out that J&K had acceded to India, and that the “Government of India considered the giving of this assistance by Pakistan to be an act of aggression against India…” Therefore, “the Government of India, being anxious to proceed according to the principles and aims of the Charter, brought the situation to the attention of the Security Council under Article 35 of the Charter.”
  
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On September 7, 2003, the Geelani faction removed the then Hurriyat chairman, Abbas Ansari, and replaced him with Masarat Alam as interim chief. They also suspended the seven-member executive council, and set up a five-member committee to review the Hurriyat constitution.
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Articles 33-38 of the UN Charter occur in Chapter 6, titled “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”.
  
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Geelani also left the Jamaat-e-Islami, and formed his own party, the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir, in August 2004.
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These six Articles lay out that if the parties to a dispute that has the potential for endangering international peace and security are not able to resolve the matter through negotiations between them, or by any other peaceful means, or with the help of a “regional agency”, the Security Council may step in, with or without the invitation of one or another of the involved parties, and recommend “appropriate procedures or methods of recommendation”.
  
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The Mirwaiz faction split in 2014, when four of its leaders — Democratic Freedom Party president Shabir Ahmad Shah, National Front chairman Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Mahaz-e-Azadi chief Mohammad Azam Inqlabi and Islamic Political Party chief Mohammad Yousuf Naqash — left.
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Specifically, Article 35 only says that any member of the UN may take a dispute to the Security Council or General Assembly.
  
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''' The Hurriyat Constitution '''
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Article 51, which occurs in Chapter 7, titled “Action With Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression”, on the other hand, says that a UN member has the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence” if attacked, “till such time that the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”.
  
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The APHC constitution, describes it as a union of political, social and religious parties of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, set up to:
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* Wage a peaceful struggle to secure for the people of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the UN charter and the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, the exercise of the right to self-determination, which shall include the right to independence.
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=Nehru’s role=
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==A==
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[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/jawaharlal-nehru-kashmir-accession-india-8204442/?utm_source=newzmate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explained&utm_content=6386461&pnespid=Grww.1BG5DwAz0mK64vZDUpFoBg0nOYtpB0URvgMMZDKEwS_VORZBxkuWDDsUORSzH9J8fA8  Adrija Roychowdhury, Oct 13, 2022: ''The Indian Express'']
  
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* Make endeavours for an alternative negotiated settlement of the Kashmir dispute amongst all the three parties to the dispute — India, Pakistan and people of the Jammu and Kashmir — under the auspices of the UN or any other friendly country, provided that such settlement reflects the will of the people.
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''' Kashmir before Independence '''
  
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* Project the ongoing struggle in the state before nations and governments of the world in its proper perspective, as being a “struggle directed against the forcible and fraudulent occupation of the state by India”.
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When the British decided to exit the Indian subcontinent, the fate of the 500-odd princely states was yet to be decided. The Congress had announced its decision of integrating the princely states within the Indian union by the late 1930s itself. Consequently, a new states department was set up with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as its head and V P Menon as the secretary. They worked together under the guidance of Lord Mountbatten to strategise and convince the princely states to accede to the Indian union.
  
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''' Relevance of Separatists '''
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Of the 500 princely states, the most important was Jammu and Kashmir. It was the largest in India and also the most strategically located, sharing borders with both the newly born dominions of India and Pakistan. The state with a predominantly Muslim population was being ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, a Dogra king who ascended the throne in September 1925. The king, however, is known to have spent most of his time in race courses and hunting.
  
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The separatist leadership across the ideological divide represents a major political constituency in J&K, which will likely remain relevant for as long as the issue is not resolved. This political reality on the ground can be understood by looking at the public political agendas of the two major pro-India political groups — the ruling People’s Democratic Party and the opposition National Conference. These two parties share the support of the largest chunk of the electorate that takes part in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. While the NC seeks autonomy and a return to the 1953 position where New Delhi had authority only over Defence, Communications and Foreign Affairs, the PDP’s declared political agenda has been self-rule, wherein they seek autonomy, plus a joint mechanism between two parts of J&K to turn the region into a fusion of India and Pakistan.
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By the 1930s, the Kashmiri political scene saw the emergence of Sheikh Abdullah, son of a shawl merchant, who graduated from Aligarh Muslim University with a degree in science. Abdullah’s inability to find a government job in Kashmir led him to question the treatment of Muslims in the state administration which was dominated by Hindus. “We constituted the majority and contributed the most towards the state’s revenues, still we were continually oppressed…I concluded that the ill-treatment of Muslims was an outcome of religious prejudice,” he is known to have said as quoted by historian Ramachandra Guha in his book, ‘India after Gandhi’.
  
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These political agendas, which are widely publicised during election campaigns, border on separatist politics. There is, in fact, very little difference between the larger political framework for the resolution of the Kashmir issue that is publicly envisaged by the Mirwaiz faction and the PDP. The difference is that the Mirwaiz group has not agreed to join the electoral battle prior to a solution.
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In 1932, Abdullah along with other Muslims of the state opposed to the ruler formed the All-Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference that later became the ‘National Conference’. It consisted of Hindus and Sikhs apart from Muslims, and demanded a representative government based on universal suffrage. During this time, Abdullah came into contact with Jawaharlal Nehru and they warmed to each other instantly, mainly on account of their shared ideological commitment to Hindu-Muslim harmony and socialism.
  
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It is obvious that if the two major pro-India political groups seek votes for an agenda that seeks different degrees of separation from the Indian Union, the separatist political discourse remains relevant. Besides, there is an inherent flaw in an assessment that seeks to judge the relevance of separatist leaders by the same yardstick that is applied to leaders participating in electoral politics.
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Through the 1940s, Abdullah’s popularity in Kashmir kept increasing. He demanded the Dogra dynasty to quit Kashmir, and the Maharaja responded by sending him to jail on more than one occasion. In 1946 when he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for sedition, Nehru rushed to his rescue, but was prevented from entering the state by the Maharaja’s men.
  
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The separatists are relevant because of a sentiment, which is not voted on in any election. The other reason why they remain relevant is their utility to the state at times of crises. When Kashmir was up in arms during the public agitations from 2008-10, New Delhi sent high-level delegations to speak to the separatists in a bid to calm tempers.
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''' The accession of Kashmir to India '''
  
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The fact that Pakistan considers the separatists as representatives of the people is also an important reason to think of them as relevant on the ground.
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When the question of Kashmir’s accession to India or Pakistan arose, the Maharaja made clear his intention of remaining independent. “He loathed the Congress, so could not think of joining India. But if he joined Pakistan the fate of the Hindu dynasty might be sealed,” wrote Guha. The Maharaja disliked Nehru, who was openly supporting Abdullah’s ‘Quit Kashmir’ movement.
  
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===PAK CONNECTION===
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But for Nehru, the issue of Kashmir was a most crucial one. While the responsibility of convincing the states to join India was left in the hands of Patel, a task that he performed with near full autonomy, in the case of Kashmir, Nehru was personally involved.
  
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New Delhi drew the red line on Islamabad talking to the Hurriyat in August 2014, and reiterated its position this month. However, Pakistani officials have been talking to the separatists around the time of India-Pak dialogues for 20 years now MAY 1995: Pakistan’s President Farooq Ahmad Leghari met separatist leaders in New Delhi when he came to attend the SAARC meeting. It was Leghari who began the tradition of meeting the separatists.
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Geographer Simrit Kahlon in her article, ‘Kashmir and Nehru: Contours of a troubled legacy’ (2020) noted Nehru’s fondness for Kashmir in his writings which included both his personal and well as official correspondence. In a letter to Abdullah in September 1947, Nehru wrote, “For me Kashmir’s future is of the most intimate personal significance.”
  
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JULY 2001: General Pervez Musharraf met separatist leaders in New Delhi before the Agra summit with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
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In the days preceding Independence, however, it was Mountbatten who tried to convince the Maharaja to accede to India. An old acquaintance of the Maharaja, he set off for Kashmir in June 1947, largely to forestall Nehru or Gandhi from doing so. In Srinagar, Mountbatten first met the prime minister Ramchandra Kak, who reiterated the state’s decision to remain independent. Mountbatten then fixed a private meeting with the Maharaja on the last day of his visit. However, on the day of the appointment, Hari Singh stayed in bed with an attack of colic, most probably a way to avoid the encounter. Hari Singh’s son, Karan Singh, in his autobiography has described this decision of his father to avoid meeting Mountbatten as a “typical feudal reaction to a difficult situation”. “Thus the last real chance of working out a viable political settlement was lost,” he wrote.
  
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APRIL 2005: President Pervez Musharraf again met separatist leaders from Kashmir in New Delhi
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On August 15, Kashmir had neither acceded to India or Pakistan, but it offered to sign standstill agreements with both countries to allow movement of people and goods across borders. While Pakistan agreed to sign the agreement, India decided to wait and watch. However, Kashmir’s relations with Pakistan began deteriorating as the latter expected its accession on account of a largely Muslim population.
  
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APRIL 2007: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met separatist leaders at Pakistan House on his visit to New Delhi. Aziz visited India as head of SAARC, and also had a separate meeting with Prime minister Manmohan Singh.
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Guha in his book noted that while Nehru always wanted Kashmir to be part of India, Patel at one time was inclined to allow the state to join Pakistan. But he changed his mind on September 13, when Pakistan decided to accept the accession of Junagadh, a Hindu-majority state in the Kathiawar region with a Muslim ruler.
  
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JULY 2011: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar met delegations led by Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq at the Pakistan High Commission. Khar was on a visit to New Delhi to meet her Indian counterpart S M Krishna
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On September 27, Nehru wrote to Patel about the ‘dangerous and deteriorating’ situation in Kashmir and that there were rumours of Pakistan preparing to send infiltrators. He also wrote that releasing Abdullah was a necessity now to ensure popular support for the Maharaja.
  
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NOVEMBER 2013: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Advisor on Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz met with Kashmiri separatist leaders at the Pakistan High Commission
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Soon after Abdullah was released, he announced his demand for a popular government in Kashmir consisting of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. The Maharaja, on the other hand, was still harbouring thoughts of an independent government. “The only thing that will change our mind is if one side or the other decides to use force against us,” he is known to have said.
  
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===The Hurriyat Top Three ===
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Two weeks later, several thousand armed men crossed into the state from the north, making their way to the capital. The fact that these were Pathans from Pakistan has remained undisputed, but why they came and on whose orders has remained at the heart of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. While India believed that these were Pakistani infiltrators sponsored by the state, Pakistan denied any involvement. They claimed that these were Pathans who rushed to the aid of Muslims in Kashmir being persecuted by a Hindu administration.
  
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'''  Syed Ali Shah Geelani ''' 
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As the tribesmen marched on killing and looting everything in sight on their way to Srinagar, the Maharaja wired the Indian government for military assistance. On October 25, V P Menon flew down to Srinagar and advised Singh to move to Jammu for his safety. Once Menon flew back to Delhi, a Defence committee meeting was convened consisting of Nehru, Mountbatten, Patel and Abdullah. It was decided that India would immediately send troops to Kashmir, but before that it would secure Hari Singh’s accession to India.
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The following morning, Menon flew to Jammu where the Maharaja had taken refuge. The Maharaja, exhausted from his turbulent escape, agreed to sign the instrument of accession immediately.
  
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Veteran hardliner faces challenge from a harder line
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From October 27, several planes carrying Indian soldiers and supplies left from Delhi to Srinagar to fight back the infiltrators and restore peace in the valley.
  
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The octogenarian Geelani is the most prominent public face of the separatist struggle in Kashmir. Geelani was a primary school teacher employed by the J&K education department when he became a member of Jamat-e-Islami in 1959. Thirteen years later, he contested the 1972 Assembly elections from his home constituency Sopore, and won. He was re-elected to the Assembly in 1977 as a Jamat-e-Islami candidate.
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''' Kashmir after accession '''
  
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In 1987, Geelani was instrumental in bringing together the Jamat-e-Islami and several other social and religious outfits in the Muslim United Front, which fought the elections. It is widely believed that the elections were massively rigged and triggered armed militancy in Kashmir, Geelani managed to win for the third time.
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The entry of Indian troops into Kashmir left the Pakistan government fuming. When Mountbatten met Jinnah in Lahore in November 1947, the former described Kashmir’s accession to India as being based on ‘fraud and violence’. Mountbatten, however, suggested that the aggression had come from raiders from Pakistan.
  
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After the armed resistance began in 1989, Geelani resigned from the Assembly and took a lead role in separatist politics. When the Hurriyat was formed, he became its member, and later its chairman.
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With the Indian military securing Srinagar and clearing infiltrators from the other parts of the valley, the focus of the Indian government shifted to the internal politics of Kashmir. Nehru wrote to Singh asking him to place full confidence in Abdullah and make him head of the administration. With the support of Gandhi, Nehru was able to get Abdullah appointed as head of an emergency administration by the Maharaja.
  
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In 2002, when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed became Chief Minister, Geelani was in jail. On his release, he accused People’s Conference leader Sajjad Lone of fielding proxy candidates in the Assembly elections, and called for his expulsion from the Hurriyat. When the Hurriyat didn’t accept his demand, Geelani broke away and formed his own faction. A few months later, he divorced the Jamaat-e-Islami, his organisation for 45 years, to form the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.
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As far as the impasse with Pakistan was concerned, Nehru suggested a plebiscite be conducted to decide on which dominion the people of the state wanted to join. Guha noted in his book that Nehru was also open to an independent Kashmir or the state being divided with Jammu and the valley being with India and the rest of the territory going to Pakistan.
  
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Though an ardent supporter of Pakistan, Geelani vehemently opposed President Musharraf’s four-point formula for resolution of the Kashmir issue, calling it “surrender”. At that time, the Mirwaiz faction was favoured by both India and Pakistan, who gave it the central role in Kashmir. By 2008, however, the Hurriyat moderates were marginalised, as they failed to deliver on the ground.
+
With no decision being taken on the matter, On January 1, 1948, India decided to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations on the advice of Mountbatten who was then the governor-general of India. But at the UN, India was surprised to see the British support for the Pakistan position. Nehru deeply regretted taking the matter to the international stage. Meanwhile, the Pakistan and Indian armies engaged in battle through the later months of 1948 in the northern and western parts of Kashmir.
  
−
A heart patient who lives on a pacemaker and a malignant kidney, Geelani started to re-emerge as an important leader in 2008, when he launched an agitation opposing the transfer of government land to the Amarnath shrine board. The agitation was repeated in 2010.
+
Abdullah, who had by now become the most important political figure in Kashmir, insisted on the ties that Kashmir shared with India. In May 1948 he organised a weeklong celebration of freedom in Srinagar, in which several leading figures of the Indian government were invited.
  
−
Geelani’s strength is seen in his successful mix of a “consistent and uncompromising political stance on Kashmir” and organised street resistance. With his Jamaat background, religion is an important part of Geelani’s worldview and politics. He also enjoys substantial influence over the militant movement.
 
  
−
For the first time in decades, it now seems Geelani’s authority has come into question from the new breed of militants with more hardline views. Geelani has been publicly critical of the ISIS and its methods, and has questioned the wisdom behind a group of Kashmiri youths raising Daesh flags during protests in Srinagar. Geelani had earlier opposed the entry of al-Qaeda into Kashmir.
+
==B: ‘Nehru consulted his generals,’ say papers declassified in 2023 ==
 +
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/08/kashmir-letters-cast-doubt-claims-nehru-blundered-agreeing-ceasefire  Anisha Dutta, 8 Mar 2023: ''The Guardian'']
  
−
'''  Mirwaiz Umar Farooq ''' 
 
  
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Chief cleric of Kashmir prefers negotiations
+
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was urged by his most senior general to agree to a ceasefire with Pakistan in 1948, the Guardian can reveal after viewing letters on Kashmir that have been kept classified in India for decades.
  
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Kashmir’s head priest carries a great deal of weight on his young shoulders. The head preacher of Jamia Masjid, Srinagar, Umar was anointed the head of the Awami Action Committee (AAC), a constituent of the Hurriyat, at just 17, after the assassination of his father, Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq, in May 1991. Considered a moderate, Umar favours resolution of the Kashmir issue through peaceful negotiations. Though he has never denounced the armed struggle, he maintains a safe distance from militant groups. Though the AAC was once considered pro-Pakistan, Umar has preferred to remain non-committal on whether he supports accession to Pakistan or independence.
+
The correspondence from the then commander-in-chief, Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, will have significant political ramifications for the current nationalist government in Delhi, which has discredited Nehru’s decision to come to a compromise on the status of disputed Kashmir as an ill-informed “blunder”.
  
−
'''  Yasin Malik '''
+
Narendra Modi’s government has used that reasoning to justify stripping Kashmir of special status in 2019 and tightening its grip over the region.
  
−
Militant commander turned non-violent activist
+
However, a series of letters – which Modi’s administration has sought to keep classified – show Nehru was in fact acting on advice from his most trusted adviser in the army, who warned India would not be able to withstand continued military operation in Kashmir for long, and a political compromise was needed.
 +
In his message to Nehru dated 28 November 1948, Bucher warned of fatigue among Indian troops in Kashmir, adding that an “overall military decision was no longer possible”.
 +
“Army personnel evince two weaknesses, lack of training in the junior leaders, tiredness and ennui in the other ranks … In brief, the army needs respite for leave, training, and vitalising.”
 +
Nehru, in response, raised concerns over reports that Pakistan intended within weeks to bomb Indian positions from the sky. Meanwhile, Pakistan was building roads to maintain and advance its positions.
 +
In another letter to Bucher sent on 23 December 1948, Nehru wrote: “It is clear to me that we cannot rely on Pakistan remaining on the defensive.” He added: “In the event of Pakistan continuing their persistent shelling and offensive operation and our not being able to check this there, there is every likelihood of war taking place with Pakistan.”
 +
In a later letter dated 28 December, Bucher made his position clear: “I am afraid we cannot take military action to stop every road-building operation by Pakistan. May I suggest a political approach to this problem.”
  
−
From a top commander and pioneer of the militant movement in Kashmir, Yasin Malik has come a long way. He gave up arms and decided to follow the path of non-violence as the only means of struggle.
+
The war ended on 1 January 1949 with a ceasefire arranged by the United Nations, and later that year Nehru provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, giving the region autonomy.
  
−
Yasin Malik was one among the several Kashmiri youth who crossed to Pakistan in the late 80s for arms training. In fact, he was one among four area commanders, the others being Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Ajid and Javid Mir. The ‘HAJY’ group, as it was known, was allegedly tortured in police custody for its support to Muslim United Front (MUF) candidate Mohammad Yousuf Shah in the 1987 elections. Mohammad Yousuf Shah, of course, is now better known as Syed Salahuddin, chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen. Malik’s stint as a militant was short-lived — in 1991, he was arrested and jailed for three-and-a-half years.
+
Over the decades, India and Pakistan have fought three more wars over the Kashmir issue and the ensuing border dispute. However, the measures in article 370 provided by Nehru were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the India-controlled parts of the Muslim-majority state, and also reduced tensions with Muslim-majority Pakistan.
  
−
After his release on May 17, 1994, Malik changed his ways and became an ardent advocate of non-violence. He is now in favour of a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue, but not until Kashmiris get a place on the Indo-Pak bilateral table.
+
But in 2019, under the leadership of Hindu nationalist Modi, Delhi formally revoked the state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India. The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment.
  
−
=2014-July 2016: Lions in hibernation wake up, Burhan becomes icon=
+
The ruling Bharatiya Janata party justified its decision by suggesting Nehru had made a mistake, blaming him for not seeking to grab more territory from Pakistani forces. The India home affairs minister, Amit Shah, in 2019 said the decision to reach a UN-mediated compromise was Nehru’s “biggest mistake”, criticising it as a “Himalayan blunder”.
−
[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Mehbooba-Muftis-inheritance-of-loss-How-Burhan-Wani-30072016022035 By Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, ''The Times of India''], Jul 30 2016
+
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[[File: People killed post 8th July 2016, India Today , September 1,2016 .jpg| People killed post 8th July 2016, India Today , September 1,2016 |frame|500px]] 
+
−
'' Mehbooba Mufti's inheritance of loss: How Burhan Wani grew to iconic status in the Valley ''
+
  
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Burhan Wani, the 23-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen militant cutting his teeth with India's glamorous social media, achieved what only the charismatic Sheikh Abdullah had to his credit in Kashmir's history ­ a sizeable swarm of people at his funeral prayers, anything between the army's drone figure of 15,000 and some journalists' 2,00,000. Over a million had joined the Sheikh's in 1982 ­ by far the largest. Many of the 48 youths killed in the clashes triggered by the July 8 encounter died on the day of the funeral.
+
“What was the need to announce a ceasefire when we were about to win the war?” Shah said.
  
−
Funerals of even the iconic militants and separatists have been invariably ignored as their charm faded out the same day .Some pulled a thousand, someone even five or ten thousand. In 20 years, Kashmir has witnessed two massive funerals: around 20,000 attended Mustafa Khan's during Farooq Abdullah's regime in Tangmarg and around 30,000 Badshah Khan's in Kulgam when Mufti Sayeed was chief minister.
+
However, the Bucher papers, as they are known in India, suggest Nehru was acting on informed advice from his military officers.
  
−
It didn't take Kashmiris long to forget even top separatist leaders Abdul Gani Lone and Sheikh Abdul Aziz ­ one shot dead by gunmen in Srinagar in 2002 and another killed in security forces' firing in Baramulla in 2008. Masarat Alam, unparalleled protagonist of the 2010 street turbulence faded into oblivion within days of his arrest. More significantly, nobody died for high profile separatist Afzal Guru whose execution in 2013 was “murder of an innocent“ for the average Kashmiri.
+
Bucher, a British officer, was chosen by post-independence India to become commander-in-chief of the Indian army due to his familiarity with Indian military operations and his ability to bridge the gap between British and Indian military personnel. He served between 1948 and 1949 until his retirement and was the last non-Indian to hold the top military post.
  
−
So what made Burhan a legend whose death triggered a chain of clashes and left around 50 people dead, hundreds injured and a bustling tourist season that has already suffered losses of hundreds of crores of rupees punctured?
+
The Guardian revealed last month that Modi’s government was seeking to prevent the declassification of some of the Bucher papers, describing them as “sensitive”.
  
−
'''Mufti M. Saeed'''  After the Sheikh's dismissal in 1953 and his successor Farooq Abdullah's in 1984, no J&K politician has embarrassed New Delhi beyond a point. Mufti alone, who cultivated Congress and floated his own PDP to neutralise Sheikh's National Conference (NC), took liberties. His detractors insist he had Delhi's “licence“ that eventually made him the only Muslim home minister.
+
A recent foreign ministry document, seen by the Guardian, said the contents of the papers should not be declassified yet. It said the papers broadly examined the “state preparedness of Indian armed forces stationed in Kashmir, in the backdrop of the India-Pakistan war (1947-48)” and “concerns expressed by Nehru regarding offensive military actions undertaken by Pakistan”.
  
−
His brief tenure as Union home minister witnessed a fringe insurgency explode with the release of JKLF militants in exchange for his kidnapped daughter Rubaiya in 1989, followed by Kashmiri Pandits' mass migration in 1990. His outcry over the Ghulam Nabi Azad government's allotment of land to a Hindu shrine board divided people irretrievably on regional and communal lines in ''' 2008, ''' when secessionism had ebbed and the Valley was blooming with tranquillity .
+
For several decades, the papers have been kept in New Delhi at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, an autonomous body under India’s culture ministry since 1970. Over the years, several unsuccessful attempts have been made by activists to declassify the papers.
  
−
With a mission to demolish Abdullah's NC, Mufti and daughter Mehbooba left no stone unturned to discredit and demonise `India' ­ its body politic, democracy , systems and institutions. With both UPA's and NDA's unfettered permission, he laid the `road to Rawalpindi'. It won him a chunk of votes and helped him become chief minister twice, but at a price Delhi will have to pay for ages.
+
Some copies of parts of the Bucher correspondence are also kept at the National Army Museum of London.
  
−
For over a decade Mufti and his party only whetted the sense of victimhood and betrayal in the Valley which, in the process, grew rabidly anti-Indian ­ some of them ferociously Islamist.Omar Abdullah's deficits of domicile, language and culture forced him to toe Mufti's line and both, in competition, began discrediting “Indians“.
+
==C==
 +
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/14/india-trying-prevent-declassification-sensitive-kashmir-papers  Anisha Dutta, 14 Feb 2023: ''The Guardian'']
  
−
At the end of the day , nobody in Kashmir respects or loves India. Anybody perceived to be soft on India runs huge risks, such as those meted out to the residents of Kokernag after the July 8 encounter. Their houses were torched and orchards destroyed. The government remained a mute spectator.
+
''' India trying to prevent declassification of ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers '''
  
−
The irony is that Kashmir was pushed back to the abyss when complaints of rape, custodial killings and fake encounters against the security forces had dipped to the lowest level of 25 years and India's best held assembly elections had happened in J&K in 2014.Nobody knew Burhan who was then three years into militancy.
 
  
−
But Mufti didn't wait much to ride the tiger. He freed Masarat and permitted him to hold a massive pro-Pakistan demonstration in front of J&K police headquarters. It woke up all the lions in hibernation. Within days a young school dropout emerged as an icon of jihad for Kashmir's Generation Next.
+
India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian.
  
−
Meanwhile, Mufti's ally continued to stoke fires. A frenzied group of cow vigilantes killed a Kashmiri Muslim trucker in Udhampur. BJP leaders and friends filed petitions to terminate the state's flag and special position. The tinderbox needed just a matchstick that came in handy with Burhan's death.
+
The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for a ceasefire with Pakistan and provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
  
−
''The writer is a senior journalist ''
 
  
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=Polarised views, polarised thinking and rumours=
+
For decades the region in the foothills of the Himalayas was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence. Those measures were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the Muslim-majority state.
−
==1994/ Innocent tailor; 2016/ The girl who was not molested==
+
−
[Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, In Kashmir’s polarised polity, it’s all down to who you believe in the battle of narratives, April 21, 2016, The Times of India]
+
  
−
When, in 1994, a sizeable crowd dragged a youthful tailor out of his home in the congested Nawab Bazar neighbourhood in downtown Srinagar and stoned him to death for the ‘rape’ of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl, an investigation by Kashmir Times established that the accused had not even touched the tiny tot. It was probably the first Taliban-type execution in Kashmir. The tailor’s body was thrown into the Jhelum.
+
But in 2019, under the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the government in Delhi formally revoked the disputed state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India.
  
−
This does not suggest that every rumour or outcry in the Valley is unfounded. It does, however, underscore the need of a credible investigation into the street allegation of a 16-year-old girl student’s molestation by a soldier in Handwara. Unfortunately, neither the media today nor any magistrate – police itself has become a party after releasing the girl’s video – retains credibility.
+
The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment as a three-decade armed revolt continued to rage.
  
−
If an enquiry finds the soldier guilty, it will vindicate the pro-separatist civil society. Army will dismiss it as ‘a conspiracy to deprecate the security forces’. Contrarily, if an enquiry gives a clean chit to the anonymous soldier civil society, including mainstream politicians thriving on pseudo-separatist tirades, would call it ‘a fudged one to protect the forces and denigrate the Kashmiris’. The accusation, though debunked by the girl in disputed conditions, has already claimed five civilian lives in Kupwara district.
+
The Bucher papers refer to communications between Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, who served as second commander-in-chief of the Indian army between 1948 and 1949, and government officials, including Nehru.
  
−
The world witnessed how an outcry of ‘rape and murder’ of two young women in Shopian set the Valley on fire in 2009. Even CBI – whose investigations in the infamous Pathribal fake encounter and Srinagar sex scam had been widely appreciated – failed to find takers for its conclusion in this case. It established that neither rape nor murder had happened. Exhumation of the unmarried girl’s body, followed by a thorough examination by a team of doctors and forensic experts from AIIMS and FSL, found her hymen and septum intact. But by then, Shopian had taken its toll.
+
Over the years, several attempts have been made by activists to declassify the papers to throw light on the reasoning for article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir its special status.
  
−
Police have not been able to investigate even 2% of the over 60,000 militancy-related FIRs filed in the last 25 years. Allegations of sexual abuse and rape against non-state actors have often gone unnoticed, unreported and unquestioned. When the father of 2009 IAS topper Shah Faesal counselled a non-Kashmiri guerrilla against shaking his hand forcibly with a neighbour’s daughter, it proved to be the last day of the poor teacher’s life.
+
A recent foreign ministry document seen by the Guardian said the contents of the papers should not be declassified yet. The papers contain “military operational matters in Kashmir and correspondences amongst senior government leaders on sensitive political matters on Kashmir”, the document said.
  
−
Security forces too enjoyed considerable impunity as few of them were punished over a delinquency or crime. From Kunan-Poshpora (1991) to Handwara (2016), the army has faced allegations of rape and molestation scores of times. Enjoying immunity under AFSPA, it has not been held accountable. Even the first – and till date the last – investigation by the Press Council of India (in the Kunan-Poshpora case) was not acceptable to civil society in the Valley as it exonerated the army and was conducted by a journalist known for his linkage to the then army chief’s father.
+
The papers have been kept at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, an autonomous body under India’s culture ministry.
  
−
As the army provided institutional support to the accused even in cases like Pathribal, the Valley’s intelligentsia and civil society which was already tilted towards the separatists and militants, found it convenient to compromise neutrality and professionalism. When over 20 non-Kashmiri students were injured in the police lathi charge at NIT Srinagar, neither the agencies nor newspapers in Srinagar carried a line of reporting till it exploded in New Delhi.
+
According to a source with knowledge of the matter, they reveal that Nehru was aware and informed of the military development in Kashmir, including Pakistan’s attempts to use external military assistance to escalate the situation.
  
−
People have little hesitation to admit that many of the journalists, human rights activists, judges and lawyers, even police officers, are obsessively inclined to one side and selectively pick up on matters that have potential to malign the Indian state, its systems, institutions and icons.
+
“Roy Bucher suggested a political approach to solve the escalating situation given military fatigue faced by Indian troops due to 13 months of military deployment, including taking the matter before the United Nations,” the source said.
  
−
Now the battle lines are drawn. Rumour and perception have taken precedence over news. In the battle of narratives, which gets intensified by New Delhi’s licence to competitive separatism and an unbridled social media, the Valley would support the Handwara ‘victim’ only if she complains against the soldier. And the rest of India will be on her side only if she omits the soldier and proceeds against the two Kashmiri youths who created the scene.
+
That advice may have influenced Nehru’s decision to grant Kashmir special status. In 1952, the prime minister argued that the aspirations of the people of Kashmir should be respected. “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir,” he told India’s parliament. “We are not going to impose ourselves on them on the point of the bayonet.”
  
−
Unscrupulous players have turned the teenager into a political football to strengthen their narrative. Nobody seems to care for her safety, dignity and future.
+
The Bucher papers were handed over by India’s external affairs ministry to the Nehru museum and library in New Delhi in 1970, with a note saying they should be kept “classified”. They have remained in the library’s closed collection since then, the foreign ministry document said.
  
−
== Aug- Oct 2016: 20 educational institutes destroyed==
+
An Indian activist, Venkatesh Nayak, has filed multiple appeals to declassify the papers, a move that was initially rejected. However, in 2021 the Indian information commissioner ruled it was in the “national interest” but fell short of ordering the disclosure of the crucial documents. The order advised that the library may seek the foreign ministry’s permission to declassify the papers for academic research.
−
[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Taliban-type-offensive-against-schools-in-JK-27102016017031  Saleem Pandit, Taliban-type offensive against schools in J&K, Oct 27 2016 : The Times of India]
+
  
 +
In a letter dated 12 October 2022 that has been reviewed by the Guardian, the chair of the museum and library, Nripendra Misra, wrote to India’s foreign secretary arguing the papers “are very important for scholarly research” and requested declassification.
  
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20 Institutes Wrecked In Last 3 Mths [Aug- Oct 2016]
+
“We have read the contents of the Bucher papers. Our view is that the papers need not remain ‘classified’ beyond the reach of academicians. We are opening papers of other important public figures also,” Misra argued.
  
−
Almost like Taliban's offensive against education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, terror groups in Kashmir are destroying schools and ensuring their continued shutdown. According to official figures, seventeen government schools and three private schools have been wrecked in the last three months of unrest.
+
India typically allows the declassification of archival documents after 25 years.
  
−
The schools in Valley have remained shut since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8. Officials said that around two million students have been prevented from going to schools across the Kashmir Valley . The students of border areas like Gurez, Tangdhar and Uri in Kashmir, and Jammu and Ladakh regions have been attending schools without disruption though. Separatist influence is limited to the Valley.
+
The foreign ministry argued in the document that the disclosure of the papers should be put in “abeyance” for the time being and advised that the “sensitivity of Roy Bucher papers and the likely implications of their disclosure” should be examined further.
  
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Pakistan-sponsored stone-pelting brigades set two more government schools on fire on Tuesday , one at Noorbagh area of Srinagar city and a higher secondary at Aishmuqam in Anantnag district.The closure of schools and colleges has also been enforced by the diktats issued by the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat and militant outfits.
+
Sources say the government has yet to take a final decision on the matter.
  
−
Lashkar-e-Taiba issued a warning to J&K education minister Naeem Akhtar on September 27 for trying to resume schools and colleges in the Valley. Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi quoted LeT operation chief Mehmood Shah and said, “...Kashmiris are educated enough to decide what is good or bad for them. If Naeem Akhtar does not budge, we will initiate action against him.“ Later, in an open letter, Akhtar asked pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to allow educational institutions to run. But his plea had no effect on separatists or terror groups.
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Hundreds of parents have sent their wards to Jammu and Delhi for studies after they lost three months of schooling.
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=The dispute=
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[[File: Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in brief.jpg|Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: In brief; Graphic courtesy: [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=INDIA-WANTS-ALL-OF-POK-BACK-15082016028011 ''The Times of India''], August 15, 2016|frame|500px]]
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[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=ANATOMY-OF-THE-JK-DISPUTE-15082016028013 ''The Times of India''], Aug 15 2016
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''' How India, Pakistan describe parts of J&K under Pak control '''
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What India calls PakistanOccupied Kashmir (POK) is part of the former princely state of J&K -areas under Islamabad since Oct 22 1947, after Pakistan-backed tribal militia invaded and Hari Singh acceded to India. Islamabad divided this region into GilgitBaltistan (G-B) and the areas south of it, including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.
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''' How is POK in the Mirpur sector administered? '''
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Before 1970, the MirpurMuzaffarabad sector had different administrative arrangements. In 1970, voting rights were introduced, a presidential system adopted.This worked for four years.Then, through legislation, a socalled parliamentary system was brought. This, with amendments, is in place. Since 1975, the region has elected a `prime minister'. It also has a 6-member council chaired by the Pakistan PM. Three are ex-officio; five nominated by the Pak PM. In theory, the council's assigned functions like defence, security, foreign affairs, currency, to Islamabad. Experts often question the pretenseautonomy in these places.
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''' What about G-B? '''
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Pakistan considers the regions disputed territory; G-B's status was vague until recently. To protect its claim in global fora that it supports freedom of the people in this region that it occupies, Islamabad couldn't declare G-B as its territory.For long, this region had no specified status in Pakistan's constitution. Through the “G-B Order, 2009“, a governance model similar to that in the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad sector was set up. The region is a defacto Pakistan province, but doesn't participate in electoral politics.
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''' The Indian experts' view '''
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India's IDSA says administration of POK only nominally under “elected“ govts. Real power is with Islamabad; army presence is overwhelming. When Islamabad ceded large tracts of POK territory to China, it undermined the pretense of the region's autonomy. The area has seen demographic changes, with Pakhtuns encouraged to settle here.
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Latest revision as of 20:55, 5 January 2024

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.




Contents

[edit] Accession to India: an overview

[edit] A

Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: The Times of India

Kashmir Map Pre 1947
From: Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: The Times of India

The state of Jammu and Kashmir as it exists today was created by the British in 1846. To further ‘weaken the Sikh’s after their defeat at Sobraon, the British government separated Kashmir from the Sikh empire and ‘sold’ it to Raja Gulab Singh, ruler of Jammu. The treaty of Amritsar -notoriously referred to in Kashmir as the sale deed of Kashmir- the British government made over to Raja Gulab Singh and the heirs male of his body forever and in independent possession, the state of Jammu and Kashmir for a consideration of 75 lakhs of British Indian rupees.

Gulab Singh’s Dogra dynasty ruled Kashmir till 1947, till the attack by Pathan tribesmen, which was masterminded by the Pakistan army and led by its senior officer Akbar Khan. The British had succeeded in forging an uneasy peace with the tribes of the North-West Frontier but after the British withdrew, Pakistan incited the tribesmen into launching their attack. By Oct. 1947, about 5,000 tribesmen had entered Kashmir.

The tribesmen transited through Pakistan carrying modern military gear. The first standoff was at Muzaffarabad where they faced a battalion of Dogra troops, capturing the bridge between Muzaffarabad and Domel, which itself fell to the attackers the same day. Over the next two days, they took Garhi and Chinari. The main group of attackers then proceeded further towards Uri.

Battle of Uri

At Uri, Brigadier Rajinder Singh, who led J&K state forces, was killed. “He and his colleagues will live in history like the gallant Leonidas. The battle at Uri holds significance in accession history as it likely helped Maharaja Hari Singh avoided capture and bought the Indian government valuable time to bring in more forces. After the battle, the tribesmen invaders travelled down the Jhelum River to Baramulla, the entry point into the Kashmir Valley.

On October 24, the Maharaja made an urgent appeal to the Indian government. He waited for a response, while the Cabinet’s defence committee met in Delhi. V. P. Menon, administrative head and secretary of the state’s department, was instructed to fly to Srinagar on October 25. Menon’s priority was to get the Maharaja and his family out of Srinagar. There were no forces left to guard the capital and the invaders were at the door. The ruler left the Valley by road for Jammu. On October 26, after a Cabinet defence committee meeting, the government decided to fly two companies of troops to Srinagar. Menon himself took a plane to Jammu where the ruler was stationed.

Governor-general Mountbatten had contended it would be the 'height of folly' to send troops to a neutral state without an accession is completed, "but that it should only be temporary before a referendum." Neither Nehru nor Sardar Patel attached any importance to the “temporary” clause, but Menon was carrying a message for the ruler: he had to join the Union if he wanted to ward off the invasion. The ruler agreed to accede.

In fact, according to Menon’s memoirs, he had left word with an aide that if Menon did not return with an offer, he was to shoot the ruler in his sleep. Hari Singh signed the Accession letter regretting that the invasion had left him with no time to decide what was in the best interest of his state, to stay independent or merge with India or Pakistan. Mountbatten while accepting the request for Accession, mentioned that referendum would be held in the state when the law-and-order situation is restored.

Sheikh Abdullah took charge of an emergency administration in Kashmir. Nehru appointed the former Kashmir Prime Minister N Gopalswamy Ayyangar as a cabinet minister to look after Kashmir affairs. Ayyangar was one of the chief architects of Article 370. The article allowed the state a certain amount of autonomy - its own constitution, a separate flag and freedom to make laws. Foreign affairs defence and communications remained the preserve of the central government.

As a result, Jammu and Kashmir could make its own rules relating to permanent residency, ownership of property and fundamental rights. It could also bar Indians from outside the state from purchasing property or settling there. The constitutional provision has underpinned India's often fraught relationship with Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority region to join India at partition.

The Instrument of Accession is a legal document executed by Maharaja on October 27, 1947. By executing this document under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947, he agreed to accede to the Dominion of India.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had from the inception long opposed Article 370 and revoking it was its political agenda and in the party's 2019 election manifesto, it was more specifically promised to the voters. They argued it needed to be scrapped to integrate Kashmir and put it on the same footing as the rest of India. After returning to power with a massive mandate in the April-May general elections, the government lost no time in acting on its pledge, and on August 5th,2019 by a Constitutional amendment the Article 370 was made inoperable and Article 35-A was scrapped and the State of Jammu & Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories.

[edit] B

Mediawire, Nov 2, 2021: The Times of India

Mountbatten accepts Accession

In a letter sent to Maharaja Hari Singh on October 27, 1947, Lord Mountbatten accepted the accession with a remark, "it is my government’s wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people. Lord Mountbatten's remark and the offer made by the Government of India to conduct a plebiscite or referendum to determine the future status of Kashmir led to a dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the legality of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir. India claims that the accession is unconditional and final while Pakistan maintains that the accession is fraudulent.

The accession to India is celebrated on Accession Day, which is held annually on October 26.

The legal ruler Maharaja Hari Singh has explicitly mentioned that he is acceding to Indian Union.

“And whereas the Government of India Act, 1935, as so adapted by the governor-general, provides that an Indian State may accede to the Dominion of India by an Instrument of Accession executed by the Ruler thereof. Now, therefore, I Shriman Inder Mahander Rajrajeswar Maharajadhiraj Shri Hari Singhji, Ruler of Jammu and Kashmir State, in the exercise of my sovereignty in and over my said State do hereby execute this my Instrument of Accession and I hereby declare that I accede to the Dominion of India with the intent that the governor-general of India, the Dominion Legislature, the Federal Court and any other Dominion authority established for the Dominion shall, by this my Instrument of Accession but subject always to the terms thereof, and for the purposes only of the Dominion, exercise about the State of Jammu and Kashmir (hereinafter referred to as "this State") such functions as may be vested in them by or under the Government of India Act, 1935, as in force in the Dominion of India, on the 15th day of August 1947, (which Act as so in force is hereafter referred to as "the Act,” read the document signed by him.

The document further stated: “I hereby assume the obligation of ensuring that due effect is given to the provisions of the Act within this state so far as they are applicable therein by this my Instrument of Accession. I accept the matters specified in the schedule hereto as the matters concerning which the Dominion Legislatures may make laws for this state.

I hereby declare that I accede to the Dominion of India on the assurance that if an agreement is made between the Governor-General and the ruler of this state whereby any functions about the administration in this state of any law of the Dominion Legislature shall be exercised by the ruler of this state, then any such agreement shall be deemed to form part of this Instrument and shall be construed and have effect accordingly.”

Nothing in this Instrument shall empower the Dominion Legislature to make any law for this state authorizing the compulsory acquisition of land for any purpose, he agreed to provide facilities to the Indian government to exercise suzerainty over Jammu and Kashmir.

Accession empowers Indian Union

“I hereby undertake that should the Dominion for a Dominion law which applies in this state deem it necessary to acquire any land, I will at their request acquire the land at their expense or if the land belongs to me transfer it to them on such terms as may be agreed, or, in default of agreement, determined by an arbitrator to be appointed by the Chief Justice Of India. Nothing in this Instrument shall be deemed to commit me in any way to acceptance of any future constitution of India or to fetter my discretion to enter into arrangements with the Government of India under any such future constitution.

Nothing in this Instrument affects the continuance of my sovereignty in and over this state, or save as provided by or under this Instrument, the exercise of any powers, authority and rights now enjoyed by me as Ruler of this state or the validity of any law at present in force in this state. I hereby declare that I execute this Instrument on behalf of this state and that any reference in this Instrument to me or the ruler of the state is to be construed as including to my heirs and successors,” read the document signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on Octo. 26, 1947

Some scholars have questioned the official date of the signing of the accession document by the Maharaja. They maintain that it was signed on October 27 rather than October 26. However, the fact that the Governor-General accepted the accession on October 27, the day the Indian troops were airlifted to Kashmir, is generally accepted. An Indian commentator, Prem Shankar Jha, has argued that the accession was signed by the Maharaja on October 25 1947, just before he left Srinagar for Jammu. Before taking any action on the Maharaja's request for help the Govt. of India decided to send Mr V.P. Menon, representing the Government of India who flew to Srinagar on the (25.10.1947). On realizing the emergency, V.P Menon advised the Maharaja to leave immediately to Jammu to be safe from invaders.

Pluralists, democratic heads needed to support the crown

The Maharaja did the same and left Srinagar for Jammu that very night (25.10.1947) while Menon and Mr Meher Chand Mahajan Prime Minister flew to Delhi early next morning. (26.10.1947). On reaching New Delhi, the Indian government assured Menon and Mahajan that they will militarily rescue Jammu and Kashmir State only after the signing of the accession instrument. Hence Menon flew back to Jammu immediately with the Instrument of Accession. On reaching Jammu he contacted the Maharaja who was in sleep at that time after a long journey. He woke up and at once signed the Instrument of Accession.

V.P Menon flew back immediately on October 26 to Delhi along with the legal documents, completing the proper and legal Accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union.

Since then, Jammu and Kashmir are a shining crown on the head of Bharat Mata or Indian Union. It is an utmost duty for every citizen to protect this crown, its pride and glory. The glory of Jammu and Kashmir is associated with the splendour of India. Neither there should be any attempts to truncate this crown, nor there should be a venture to narrow the head of Bharat Mata. A pluralistic, democratic liberal, accommodating head of the Indian Union is best in the interests to support this crown.

(Written by Shri Ashok Bhan, who is a senior advocate at Supreme Court of India and distinguished fellow USI, Chairman-Kashmir (Policy & Strategy) Group. He can be reached at: ashokbhan@rediffmail.com. The views expressed in the above advertorial are personal, BCCL and its group publications disassociate from the views expressed above)

Disclaimer: Content Produced by Samrudh Bharat Social Welfare Foundation

[edit] Accession: Nehru, Patel, Hyderabad, Junagadh, the UN, the ceasefire and J&K

Yashee, Dec 16, 2023: The Indian Express

Nehru, Patel, and accession

After the British left, two important princely states refused to join either India or Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir had a Hindu ruler in a Muslim-majority state. Hyderabad had a very high-profile and very rich Muslim ruler in a Hindu-majority state. Both wanted independence.

Nehru was firm that Kashmir should be a part of India. Patel, while very clear that a hostile Hyderabad would be a “cancer in the belly of India”, believed that “if the Ruler [of Kashmir] felt that his and his State’s interest lay in accession to Pakistan, he would not stand in his way” (from My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel, by V Shankar, his political secretary). Patel’s opinion about Kashmir changed on September 13, 1947, when Pakistan accepted the accession of Junagadh.

Before we move on to the first India-Pakistan war, its ceasefire, and India going to the UN (Nehru’ supposed “blunders”), let’s look at the accession of Junagadh and Hyderabad.

Accession of Junagadh

Junagadh, in the Kathiawar region of Gujarat, was ruled by Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III. Initially, the Nawab had given indications of joining India. However, months before Independence, he got a new prime minister, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto (father of Pakistan’s future PM, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto).

Upon Bhutto’s persuasion, the Nawab on August 14, 1947, announced he would join Pakistan, though most of his subjects were Hindu and Junagadh had no direct land link to the new country. Pakistan accepted the accession.

Incensed, India sent a small military to support two of Junagadh’s tributary states that did not agree with the Nawab’s decision. Junagadh’s residents too rose in protest. By November, the Nawab had fled to Karachi and Bhutto had to ask India to take over the province. A plebiscite was held, where 91% of the voters chose to stay in India.

Accession of Hyderabad

Adhir Ranjan in Parliament mentioned Victoria Schofield’s book. Here’s what it says about the proposed “barter”, “Corfield had suggested that if Hyderabad, second largest of the princely states, with its Hindu majority and Muslim ruler, and Kashmir, with its Hindu ruler and Muslim majority, were left to bargain after independence, India and Pakistan might well come to an agreement. ‘The two cases balanced each other . . . but Mountbatten did not listen to me… Anything that I said carried no weight against the long-standing determination of Nehru to keep it [Kashmir] in India.’”

Hyderabad joining Pakistan was never a practical proposition. However, Patel gave Nizam Mir Usman Ali a long rope, partially because of the prestige he enjoyed in the Muslim world — his sons were married to the daughter and niece of the deposed Caliph of Ottoman, Abdulmejid II, who even wanted his daughter’s heir to succeed him as the Caliph. Till three months after Independence, all India had with Hyderabad was a stand-still agreement, which meant ties remained as they were under the British. Negotiations continued.

However, soon, the situation on the ground demanded faster action. Revolt against the Nizam’s rule was widening, for democracy as well as against large landholdings, forced labour, and excessive tax collection. An outfit meant to cement the Nizam’s position, the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, was getting more violent, with its paramilitary wing called the ‘razakars’ brutally attacking all opponents.

Finally, on September 13, 1948, the Indian Army was sent to Hyderabad under Operation Polo. In three days, the Nizam’s forces surrendered.

Accession of Jammu and Kashmir

Maharaja Hari Singh refused to accede to either dominion, preferring independence. In September, lorries carrying petrol, sugar, salt, clothes, etc. for J&K were stopped on the Pakistan side of the border, possibly to create pressure for accession. Meanwhile, a revolt broke out in Poonch against Hari Singh, not a very popular ruler.

On September 27, 1947 [India after Gandhi, by Ramachandra Guha], Nehru wrote to Patel that the situation in J&K was “dangerous and deteriorating”. Nehru believed Pakistan planned to “infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some big action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter” [Schofield]. The infiltrators came in October.

India maintains they were armed and sent by Pakistan. Pakistan claims these were tribesmen acting on their own, “to avenge atrocities on fellow Muslims”. Hari Singh asked India for military help, and to secure this help, acceded.

Indian troops quickly secured Srinagar, and then began driving out the infiltrators from other parts.

Nehru’s “blunders”

This is where we come to the “blunders” of Nehru mentioned by Shah. Why did India go to the UN, instead of defeating Pakistan in battle?

First, it was under pressure from Louis Mountbatten, then Governor-General of India, and the British government. British PM Clement Attlee had written to Nehru: “I am gravely disturbed by your assumption that India would be within her rights in international law.”

Second, there was the risk of the war spilling outside Kashmir and into Punjab, which had just suffered the brutalities of Partition. Third, the war was costing India dearly: Patel himself, addressing locals at a library opening in Delhi in December 1947, had said, “You must realise that nearly Rs 4 lakh are being spent every day on the Kashmir operations alone.” Fourth, the Indian government seems to have believed that a ‘neutral’ forum like the United Nations would agree with its position, and the Kashmir issue would be resolved once and for all.

Instead, India was shocked by British and American hostility. The US had seen in Pakistan a valuable asset against the Soviet Union. Britain, after having just partitioned Palestine, did not want to oppose another Muslim country. Soon, Nehru himself regretted ever going to the UN. He told Mountbatten that “power politics and not ethics” were driving the UN, “which was being completely run by the Americans” [Guha]. He went on to resist all demands of a plebiscite — from the UN to the Commonwealth — till all Pakistani intruders were out of Kashmir.

As for the ceasefire, it was supervised by the UN. While many in India continue to see it as an opportunity lost, Pakistan had then seen it as favouring India. “The ceasefire was imposed on us at a time when it suited the enemy most,” wrote Colonel Abdul Haq Mirza, who fought as a volunteer from October 1947, as quoted by Schofield. “Four months of operational period was allowed to the Indians to browbeat the ill-equipped Mujaheddin and to bring back vast tracts of liberated territories in their fold.”

[edit] 1947-90: A timeline

August 14, 2008

India Today , September 1,2016

From the archives of “The Times of India”: 2008

As Jammu & Kashmir slips into another spell of anarchy, here’s a look at the history and social indicators of the scenic state that was once known for its unique syncretic culture where diverse faiths prospered in peace.

Ancient Era  : According to mythology recorded in Rajatarangini, the history of Kashmir written by Kalhana in the 12th century, the Kashmir Valley was formed when sage Kashyapa drained a lake. It became a centre of Sanskrit scholarship and later a Buddhist seat of learning

14th century  : Islam becomes the dominant religion in Kashmir. The Sufi-Islamic way of life of Muslims here complements the ‘rishi’ tradition of Kashmiri Pandits, leading to a culture where Hindus and Muslims revere the same local saints

1588  : Akbar invades Kashmir and the region comes under Mughal rule

Early 19th century : Sikhs take control of Kashmir. Maharaja Ranjit Singh had earlier annexed Jammu. Scion of the Dogra clan, Gulab Singh, made raja of Jammu in 1820. Singh soon captures Ladakh and Baltistan

1846  : After partial defeat of the Sikhs in the First Anglo-Sikh War, Kashmir is given to Gulab Singh for Rs 75 lakh. Thus the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu (as it’s then called) is formed

Post-1857  : After the first war of independence, kingdom comes under the reign of British Crown. Gulab’s son, Ranbir Singh, becomes ruler

1925  : Hari Singh, Ranbir’s grandson, ascends the throne. His rule is generally considered unpopular

Oct 1932  : Kashmir’s first political party, the Muslim Conference, is formed with Sheikh Abdullah as president. It is renamed National Conference in 1938

August 1947  : At the time of partition, India and Pakistan agree that rulers of princely states will be given the right to opt for either nation. To put off a decision, Maharaja Hari Singh signs a ‘standstill’ agreement with Pakistan to ensure that trade, travel and communication continue

October 1947  : Pashtun raiders from Pakistan’s NWFP invade Kashmir. Hari Singh appeals to Governor General Mountbatten for help. India assures help on condition Hari Singh signs Instrument of Accession. He does, and Indian troops repulse assault from across border. UN invited to mediate and insists opinion of Kashmiris be ascertained. India initially says no to referendum until all raiders are driven out but Nehru two months later agrees to a poll. Pakistan contests accession, claims Indian army illegally entered Kashmir

Jan 1, 1948  : India declares unilateral ceasefire. Under Article 35 of the UN Charter, India files complaint with UN Security Council

Jan 20, 1948  : Security Council establishes a commission and adopts a resolution on Kashmir accepted by both countries. Pakistan is blamed for invading Kashmir and asked to withdraw its forces. A year later, UN passes resolution calling for plebiscite

March 17, 1948  : Sheikh Abdullah takes oath as prime minister of J&K

Jan 1, 1949  : India and Pakistan conclude a formal ceasefire

1949  : Article 370 granting special status to J&K is inserted in Constitution

Aug 9, 1953 : Sheikh Abdullah arrested and imprisoned. His dissident cabinet minister, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, appointed PM. Abdullah jailed for 11 years, accused of conspiracy against the state in the ‘Kashmir Conspiracy Case’

1965 : Pakistan attacks India in operation codenamed Gibraltar. Following Pakistan’s defeat, Tashkent Agreement signed

March 30, 1965  : Article 249 of Indian Constitution extended to J&K. Designations like prime minister and president of the state replaced by chief minister and governor.

1972  : India and Pakistan sign Simla Agreement, promising to respect Line of Control until Kashmir issue resolved

Feb 1975  : PM Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah sign accord. J&K made a ‘constituent unit’ of India. Abdullah becomes CM

1977  : National Conference wins the first post-Emergency elections

1982  : Abdullah dies after naming son, Farooq, successor. Allegations of rigging surface during state elections in the 1980s

1987  :Street protests and demonstrations in Srinagar against inefficiency and corruption against the state government turn into anti-India protests

1989  : Armed militancy erupts. Kashmiri Pandits flee valley. State brought under central rule next year as Army fights Pak-trained militants

1990-present : Armed militancy and terrorism, with international jihadi elements entering the arena, stalk the valley. Elections in 1996 and 2002, especially the latter, bring back some legitimacy to the democratic process but violence continues

[edit] From Britain’s Pakistan bias in 1947 to Zia’s 1980s Wahhabisation

Rashme Sehgal, Dec 5, 2019 Rediff


Kashmir's Untold Story Declassified has not come a day too soon given that no state -- now a Union Territory -- has witnessed so much turmoil and received so much attention in the last 70 years.

Written jointly by Iqbal Chand Malhotra and Maroof Raza , the book  looks at why the Kashmir valley has been in a state of turmoil for 72 years and why China and its client State Pakistan will continue to back militancy in the years to come.

Malhotra, chairman of AIM Television, produced several documentaries on Kashmir before he and Raza, a strategic affairs expert who anchors a programme on this subject for the Times Now television channel, got down to the task of putting this book together.

"By sustaining the militancy and hybrid war currently on in Jammu and Kashmir, China is seeking to permanently thwart India's attempts to use modern hydrology, to prevent us from tapping into the 19.48% of the waters of the Indus that we are entitled to," Malhotra tells Rediff.com Contributor Rashme Sehgal.

Your book  highlights how a conspiracy was hatched around the erstwhile maharaja of J&K Hari Singh  to ensure that he acceded to Pakistan and not India. Why did this plan prove to be a  failure?   The British deep state of which Lord Hastings Ismay (Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten's chief of staff) and  NWFP (North West Frontier Province) Governor Sir George Cunningham were a part  wanted the whole principality of Jammu and Kashmir to accede to Pakistan.

As long as the principality's prime minister Ram Chandra Kak was in the saddle, they were confident that Kak would steer the state towards accession with Pakistan.

Once Kak was dismissed by Maharaja Hari Singh and accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel  respectively  to foil possible accession to India.

Operation Gulmarg failed because the invaders were denied British leadership.

This happened because Major Onkar Singh Kalkat, a Sikh officer, gained access to the British devised invasion  plans.

Major Kalkat was waiting to hand over charge of the brigade  when a demi-official letter arrived from General Sir Frank Messervy stationed at the general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Attached to the letter was an appendix titled 'Operation Gulmarg - The Plan for the Invasion and Capture of Kashmir' with the operations expected to commence on October 20 1947.

Major Kalkat managed to escape from the frontier settlement of Mir Ali Mirali by the skin of his teeth, arriving in Delhi on October 18 1947.

He informed then defence minister Sardar Baldev Singh of this plan on October 19, 1947.

Sardar Baldev Singh asked the British staffed intelligence directorate to verify Major Kalkat's account, but they paid no heed to it.

It was only after the invasion had started in full swing that Major Kalkat's warning was taken seriously. He was   taken to meet  Pandit Nehru only on October 24, 1947.

It is my guess that  it was  this snafu regarding Major Kalkat that made the British mercenaries, who were originally expected  to  lead the Kabailis or Pathan invaders, to  stand down and not lead the invasion.

The rest is history.

The plan for Operation Gulmarg actually started in 1943.

Yes, planning for Operation Gulmarg started way back in 1943.

The British were certain Kashmir would go to Pakistan  and pulled out all the stops in advance to ensure this.

Cunningham , in his second term  as governor of NWFP, had initiated the forming of the Tucker  committee  in 1944  that recommended that regular Indian army troops  be withdrawn from the Razmak, Wana and Khyber Pass garrisons and be replaced with scouts and khassadars. The northern boundaries  of British India  were to be defended by Muslim staffed Frontier Scouts and Frontier Constabulary.

In 1943, the British withdrew the army from the north western borders and the withdrawal was completed by 1946.

They were replaced by khassadars with  basic detachments of  2,000 of these paramilitary troops being officiated by British officers  called district officers.

There were around 25,000 khassadars with 20 to 40 British officers overseeing them.

They would have achieved success had it not been for the show of courage shown by Major Kalkat.

Your book also highlights how the British deep state was active in ensuring Gilgit was taken over by Pakistan. Its strategic importance was something Indian rulers seemed oblivious of. 


Unfortunately, the Indian political leadership of that time led by Pandit Nehru were singularly obsessed with the mistaken notion that Sheikh Abdullah called all the shots.

However, Abdullah only represented the valley and no more.

Abdullah was unacceptable in the other four regions of the state, namely Gilgit, Ladakh, Jammu and Muzaffarabad.

Gilgit shared an international border with Afghanistan,  Xinjiang  and Tibet. 

How was Gilgit actually given over to Pakistan?

The conglomeration of the vassal States of Gilgit,  Puniyal, Koh-e-Khizr, Yasin,  Yashkoman and Chitral were called Gilgit Agency.

In 1943, Colonel Roger Bacon took over as political agent in Gilgit.

 Lord Mountbatten announced after becoming viceroy of India that the Gilgit lease would be rescinded on July 31 1947 so that it be returned to  Maharaja Hari Singh.

But Lord Ismay, Colonel Bacon and Major Brown in Gilgit had other plans.

Major Brown asked the then governor Ghansara Singh, an appointee of Maharaja Hari Singh, to step down which he refused.

This made way for Operation Datta Khel on the night of  November 4 , 1947 where Major Brown and his troops took siege of the governor's residence.

A fierce gun battle followed and the governor and his staff were forced to surrender.

On November 17 , 1947, a Pakistani flag was flying over the governor's flag staff.

It is obvious this operation was the brain child of the British deep state.

This seems to be a common chord  -- call it indifference or unawareness about the strategic importance of the regions around J&K
For example, when China acquired a large chunk of Aksai Chin, alarm bells should have rung in the Indian establishment, but this did not happen.

The Government of India knew about the Chinese intrusions and purported annexation in Aksai Chin from 1952 onwards.

Why then did the Indian government sign the Pancheel Agreement with China in 1954?


Why did India surrender its consulates in Kashgar, Sinkiang and Gartok in Tibet?

The Chinese followed the annexation of Sinkiang and Tibet by annexing a large chunk of Aksai Chin.

 The central leadership  chose to ignore it and in fact bent over backwards to cede further sovereign territory in Tibet to China.

 This was the principality of Minsar.

China had in 1959, wanted a part of the Gilgit Agency and especially the Shaksgam Valley with its 250 glaciers making it the most glaciated region in the world to be part of China.
Were the Chinese conscious even then of the importance of  water that saw them push their expansionist design?

That is obvious, otherwise they wouldn't have entered into a territory swap with Pakistan in 1963;  they wouldn't have chosen Lop  Nor lake in Xinjiang for their nuclear testing site and they wouldn't have annexed the Aksai lake in Aksai Chin  having a catchment area of 8,000 sq  km  as compensation for their planned degradation of Lake Lop Nor  with nuclear waste. 

Subsequent  to  this was that China attacked India on October 20,  1962 because they needed greater strategic depth to build the Aksai Chin highway. 

The attack on October 20, 1962 by China was to politically consolidate their pre-existing annexation of Indian territory from 1952 onwards.

They were  primarily interested in avenging the Treaty of Chushul signed in 1842 between the Sikh empire, Tibet  and the  Daoguang  emperor of China, wherein China had conceded vast tracts in Tibet and Ladakh to the Sikhs.

The Chinese were interested in overthrowing the Treaty of Chushul which had caused them great humiliation and also emboldened the British officered Indian Army to storm the gates of the imperial capital Nanjing and submit the Daoguang emperor to yet another humiliation in the form of The Treaty of Nanjing signed also in 1842.

Making India bleed with a thousand cuts was not a strategy put in place by either  Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Zia-ul Haq , but had its origins in the tenure of Pakistan's  longest serving ISI chief Major General  Robert Cawthome. 

Major General  Cawthome  was ISI chief from 1949 to 1959 and devised and institutionalised the strategy of 'continuous proxy war' against India. It  was  he who established the fact that India was an existential threat to Pakistan.

It was he who reciprocated the overtures of China's chief spymaster in the 1950s, Kang Sheng.

How successful was Zia-ul Haq's  operation? To turn Kashmiris away from sufism to hard line  Wahhabi Islam as also to cleanse  non-Muslims  from the  Kashmir valley? 


Why were the  valley's leaders and the central establishment napping through all these tumultuous developments? 

Zia-ul Haq's strategy of converting Kashmiris to Wahhabi Islam has been almost 90% successful. His successors were  almost  100% successful in ethnically cleansing the valley of all Kashmiri Pandits. 

In your book you state that militancy in Kashmir is set to intensify.

China is never going to give up on the waters of the Indus river.

By sustaining the militancy and hybrid war currently on in Jammu and Kashmir, China is seeking to permanently thwart India's attempts to use modern hydrology, to prevent us from tapping into the 19.48% of the waters of the Indus that we are entitled to. 

[edit] 1947, Jan- Aug

[edit] The British help Pakistan get Gilgit

SANDEEP BAMZAI, May 17, 2017: The Times of India

An empire which is toppled by its enemies can rise again, but one that is toppled from within crumbles that much faster. It could be a Trojan or a saboteur who brings it to its knees. History is replete with such examples — from Achilles in Troy (in Greek mythology, he was a hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad) to Mir Jaffar in the decisive Battle of Plassey (who assembled his troops to assist Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah against a much smaller force led by Robert Clive, but did not lead them into combat, thus neutralising the Nawab of Bengal’s fighting efficacy, leading to his rout and subsequent death). The reprobate British did their best to prevent decolonisation as many of them played their part to the hilt in order to serve the Churchillian diktat of keeping a bit of India, using cunning and subterfuge to blindside Indians, as they were ordered to leave the subcontinent after the Second World War. However, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and even Lord Louis Mountbatten fixed the subversive political department under the wily Sir Conrad Corfield.

There were many deceitful characters floating around in those uncertain times. F. Paul Mainprice was one such gadfly. He came from London’s Bexhill and joined the Indian Civil Service in the late 1930s, serving in Assam and Madras provinces. Towards the end of his service, he was transferred to the political department and served as political agent for the states in Assam and later in the crucial areas of Gilgit and Chilas. In 1947, he was acting political agent in Gilgit, from where he was relieved in August when Gilgit was handed back to the Kashmir government.

He reportedly reached Srinagar around August 26-27 and stayed at the famed Nedous Hotel. After about a week, he left for Delhi. He had lots of boxes full of papers with him. In Delhi, it is learnt he contacted Mahatma Gandhi, to whom he gave a certain note on Gilgit, probably on the lines that Gilgit should remain under the Indian government or that of Pakistan. It is further learnt a copy of that note was passed on by him to Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner. He then reportedly left for Kalimpong, as his address there was “Care of Mrs Shariff, Tashiding”.

As we now know, Pakistan got possession of Gilgit-Baltistan through the connivance of two British military officers. In 1935, the Gilgit agency was leased for 60 years by the British from the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir because of its strategic location on the northern borders of British India. It was administered by the political department in Delhi through a British officer. With impending Independence, the British terminated the lease, and returned the region to the Maharaja on August 1, 1947.

The Maharaja appointed Brig. Ghansara Singh of the J&K state forces as governor of the region. Two officers of Gilgit Scouts, Maj. W.A. Brown and Capt. A.S. Mathieson, along with Subedar Major Babar Khan, a relative of the Mir of Hunza, were loaned to the Maharaja at Gilgit. But as soon as Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India on October 26, 1947, Maj. Brown imprisoned Brig. Ghansara Singh, and informed his erstwhile British political agent, Lt. Col. Roger Bacon, who was then at Peshawar, of the accession of Gilgit to Pakistan. The conspiracy saw Maj. Brown on November 2 officially raising the Pakistani flag at his headquarters, and claimed he and Mathieson had opted for service with Pakistan when the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of India.

Earlier, Mainprice had arrived in Srinagar on June 13, 1948. He stayed for some time at Nedous Hotel, then moved into a houseboat. From the beginning, his activities came under the notice of the police. He visited Bandipur, Baramulla and Sopore in the beginning, and then at Baramulla tried to take some photographs and came under the Army’s notice. He was eventually stopped from doing so. He came into very close contact with Dr Edmunds, principal of the local missionary high school, who was incidentally known for his pro-Pakistan sympathies.

Remember this was an extremely fluid and dangerous time. He accompanied him to Mahadev on a trekking expedition. During his stay in Srinagar, he had a close association with Capt. Annette and other Europeans, who were also seemingly pro-Pakistan. He tried to establish contact with local people and was observed trying to get information from them on military movements and the working of the government. It seemed his purpose of staying on in Srinagar was to wait for United Nations Kashmir Commission to arrive and to supply them with data. During the commission’s stay in Srinagar, he first tried to approach the commission, in which he did not succeed, but then contacted Mr Symonds, secretary to the commission, and also he tried through his other European friends to influence the commission through Mr Symonds in favour of the state’s accession to Pakistan.

When his activities got absolutely objectionable, the government was forced to pass an order against him under the Defence Rules to leave the state, but he refused to obey it, calling it a ridiculous and scandalous order. However, under the Defence Rules, the DIG, Kashmir Range, was deputed to inform him he would have to leave the state, and if he refused to do so he would be forced to leave and put on the aircraft. When the DIG reached his houseboat, he was found to be absent and closeted with Capt. Annette in the latter’s boat. He was sent for by the DIG and told he had to leave that day, as the time limit given to him was about to expire. To this he replied that he was not going. The DIG told him the order would have to be carried out and he would have to leave.

At this Mainprice got excited and made a sudden assault on the DIG, knocking off his hat and spectacles, and tried to grapple with other police officers. However, he was overpowered and driven to the airport, where he was put on a plane bound for Delhi. After he left, a magistrate was asked to make an inventory of all his belongings, so that these could be handed over to Capt. Annette, in accordance with Mainprice’s wishes. While making this inventory, some papers were found that indicated Mainprice had been busy writing a note on the happenings in Jammu in a very exaggerated manner, and also a note on the history of Kashmir, including Gilgit; possibly for the benefit of the commission on how the state actually came under Dogra rule.

He also seemed to be trying to compile a census of the population of different communities in various districts of the state. He was busy telling people that he was private secretary to Sir Walter Monckton, constitutional adviser to His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad (one of those opposed to the unification of India and the merger of the princely states with the two dominions). He was also expressing a desire to be closely associated with the UN commission on Kashmir to give them all the information he had collected.

Further, it was discovered he had some links with a certain Anglo-Indian officer of the Royal Indian Air Force, and through him had managed to take some aerial photographs of the state of J&K. It was thus obvious how Mainprice, like so many other assorted characters who were floating around after the British had officially handed over India to Indians, continued to obfuscate and frustrate us.

[edit] 1947, Oct 23-26

August 6, 2019: The Times of India

The Sikh Regiment in Kashmir, 1947
From: August 6, 2019: The Times of India
Times of India edition on October 27, 1947
From: August 6, 2019: The Times of India


The Four Eventful Days That Decided The Fate of Kashmir

1 RAID ON KASHMIR (the final week of October 1947)

The attack on Kashmir by Pathan tribesmen was masterminded by Pakistan army and led by senior Pakistan army officer Akbar Khan. The British had succeeded in forging an uneasy peace with the tribes of the North-West Frontier but after the British withdrew, Pakistan incited the tribesmen into launching their attack. By the last week of October 1947, about 5,000 had entered Kashmir

2 INVADERS’ ROUTE (October 23)

The tribesmen transited through Pakistan carrying modern military gear. The first standoff was at Muzaffarabad where they faced a battalion of Dogra troops, capturing the bridge between Muzaffarabad and Domel, which itself fell to the attackers the same day. Over the next two days, they took Garhi and Chinari. The main group of attackers then proceeded towards Uri

3 THE GALLANT 300

At Uri, Brigadier Rajinder Singh, who led J&K state forces, was killed. “He and his colleagues will live in history like the gallant Leonidas and his 300 men who held the Persian invaders at Thermopylae,” writes civil servant VP Menon. The battle at Uri holds significance as it likely helped Maharaja Hari Singh avoid capture and bought the Indian government valuable time to bring in more forces. After the battle, the tribesmen travelled down the Jhelum river to Baramulla, the entry point into the Valley

4 THE FLIGHT OF HARI SINGH (October 24-25)

On October 24, the maharaja made an urgent appeal to the Indian government. He waited for a response, while the Cabinet’s defence committee met in Delhi.VP Menon, administrative head and secretary of the states department, was instructed to fly to Srinagar on October 25. Menon’s first priority was to get the maharaja and his family out of Srinagar. There were no forces left to guard the capital and the invaders were at the door. The king left the Valley by road for Jammu

5 TROOPS INDIAN FLY INTO THE VALLEY

On October 26, after a Cabinet defence committee meeting, the government decided to fly two companies of troops to Srinagar. Menon himself took a plane to Jammu where the king was stationed

6 SIGNING OF INSTRUMENT OF ACCESSION (October 26)

Governor-general Mountbatten had contended it would be the “height of folly” to send troops to a neutral state without an accession completed “but that it should only be temporary prior to a referendum.” Neither Nehru nor Sardar Patel attached any importance to the “temporary” clause, but Menon was carrying a message for the maharaja: he had to join the Union if he wanted to ward off the invasion. The king was ready to accede. In fact, according to Menon’s memoirs, he had left word with an aide that if Menon did not return with an offer, he was to shoot the king in his sleep. Hari Singh signed the accession letter regretting that the invasion had left him with no time to decide what was in the best interest of his state, to stay independent or merge with India or Pakistan

7 FINAL ACT (October 27)

Menon returned to Delhi on October 27 with both the letter and Instrument of Accession. The Cabinet defence committee accepted the accession, subject to a provision that a referendum would be held in the state when the law and order situation allowed it. Sheikh Abdullah took charge of an emergency administration in Kashmir. Nehru appointed the former Kashmir PM N Gopalswamy Ayyangar as a cabinet minister to look after Kashmir affairs. Ayyangar was one of the chief architects of Article 370

Source: Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States by VP Menon


[edit] 1947, Sept

[edit] Nehru links accession to the installation of popular government in J&K

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, Dec 16, 2022: The Indian Express

Nehru had been urging the Maharaja to induct Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the secular National Conference, into the state government in order to ensure popular support for the administration. The Maharaja indicated that he was not prepared to do so


Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir was one of the few princely rulers who had held out against accession to either India and Pakistan before the partition of British India. In June 1947, a couple of months prior to the partition, the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, visited Srinagar in an attempt to persuade the Maharaja to opt for one or the other of the two states, offering him an assurance from Sardar Patel that India would raise no objection if the ruler were to opt for Pakistan. The Maharaja entertained his guest in regal style but evaded any discussion on the political issue, pleading a stomach ailment. Hari Singh evidently hoped that, with the lapse of British paramountcy, he would become the ruler of an independent and sovereign state.

These hopes were dashed shortly afterwards by two developments — an uprising in Poonch assisted by Pakistani elements and an undeclared economic embargo imposed by the Pakistani authorities. Since Kashmir’s main trade exchanges in those days were with Pakistan, the unofficial embargo resulted in great hardship.

At this stage, the Maharaja revised his position on accession. He asked Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, his prime minister-designate, to convey to Nehru the terms on which he was prepared to accede to India. The Maharaja was not agreeable to introducing immediate reforms in the administration of the state. Nehru had been urging the Maharaja to induct Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the secular National Conference, into the state government in order to ensure popular support for the administration. The Maharaja indicated that he was not prepared to do so, at least at this stage. When Mahajan conveyed these terms to Nehru in the third week of September, the latter reiterated that Abdullah should be freed from prison and associated with the governance of the state.

Why did Nehru insist on bringing Sheikh Abdullah into the administration? Nehru anticipated armed intervention by Pakistan in Kashmir and foresaw that this could be repulsed only by a government that enjoyed popular support. He set out his views in a letter to Sardar Patel on September 27, 1947, nearly a month before the tribal invasion. This remarkable letter has not received the attention it deserves. “The Muslim League in the Punjab and the NWFP are making preparations to enter Kashmir in considerable numbers. The approach of winter is going to cut off Kashmir from the rest of India,” he wrote. “I understand that the Pakistan strategy is to infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some major action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter… I rather doubt if the Maharaja and the State forces can meet the situation by themselves without some popular help… Obviously the only major group that can side with them is the National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership.”

Nehru, therefore, concluded that the only acceptable course was for the Maharaja to seek the cooperation of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference while acceding to India. This was the only effective way of countering Pakistani designs.

We must also recall that developments in Kashmir were unfolding against the backdrop of Junagadh. On August 15, the Nawab of Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan and subsequent events had demonstrated the folly of taking such decisions without popular support. In this context, India proposed to Pakistan on September 30 that all cases of disputed accession should be settled by a plebiscite or referendum. This was the course India followed in Junagadh and it had obvious implications also for Kashmir.

Why did Nehru insist on bringing Sheikh Abdullah into the administration? Nehru anticipated armed intervention by Pakistan in Kashmir and foresaw that this could be repulsed only by a government that enjoyed popular support. He set out his views in a letter to Sardar Patel on September 27, 1947, nearly a month before the tribal invasion. This remarkable letter has not received the attention it deserves. “The Muslim League in the Punjab and the NWFP are making preparations to enter Kashmir in considerable numbers. The approach of winter is going to cut off Kashmir from the rest of India,” he wrote. “I understand that the Pakistan strategy is to infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some major action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter… I rather doubt if the Maharaja and the State forces can meet the situation by themselves without some popular help… Obviously the only major group that can side with them is the National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership.”

Nehru, therefore, concluded that the only acceptable course was for the Maharaja to seek the cooperation of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference while acceding to India. This was the only effective way of countering Pakistani designs.

We must also recall that developments in Kashmir were unfolding against the backdrop of Junagadh. On August 15, the Nawab of Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan and subsequent events had demonstrated the folly of taking such decisions without popular support. In this context, India proposed to Pakistan on September 30 that all cases of disputed accession should be settled by a plebiscite or referendum. This was the course India followed in Junagadh and it had obvious implications also for Kashmir.

It is significant that at the end of the 1947-48 war, the areas on our side of the Kashmir ceasefire line were, broadly speaking, the areas where the National Conference enjoyed wide support.

Far from being a blunder, Jawaharlal Nehru’s insistence on linking accession to the installation of a popular government in Jammu and Kashmir bears testimony to his foresight and statesmanship.

[edit] 1947, Oct-Nov

[edit] ‘Standstill agreement’ with India and Pakistan

Oct 10, 2021: The Times of India

Indian troops take up positions on the Baramulla Road to push the tribal invaders away from Srinagar on November 9, 1947
From: Oct 10, 2021: The Times of India
Indian troops rolling back Kashmir rebels (invaders, actually)
From: Oct 10, 2021: The Times of India

The princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state led by a Hindu ruler, was among only a handful that chose against joining either India or Pakistan after Independence. J&K shared borders with both newly formed countries, making it a key strategic region. So when Maharaja Hari Singh — who wanted J&K to be the “Switzerland of the East” — refused to accede to either dominion, the state became another early source of instability as India grappled with the violence stemming from Partition and other obstinate princes.

Just days ahead of Independence, Singh sought a ‘standstill agreement’ with India and Pakistan, which would temporarily maintain its existing agreements with the British government. Pakistan signed on but India refused. While Pakistan believed that signing the standstill agreement would eventually result in J&K joining it, India held out hope that its strong ties to popular local leaders like National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru’s Kashmiri roots would lead to accession in its favour.

But the stalemate continued through October amid growing strife within J&K. Despite signing the standstill agreement, Pakistan urged Singh to accede to it, saying failing to do so would lead to “gravest possible trouble”. J&K complained of Pakistani incursions across the border but Pakistan shot back accusing the princely state of making incursions into Sialkot. At the same time, an anti-establishment campaign in Poonch turned into a secessionist movement to join Pakistan. As relations with the maharaja worsened, Pakistan began to fear the princely state would accede to India, prompting a military operation to take J&K by force.

On October 22, 1947, Pakistan launched ‘Operation Gulmarg,’ sending in thousands of Pathan tribal fighters across the North-West Frontier Province into J&K. Singh was ill-prepared to fend off the raiders, who descended into the Jhelum valley, taking Uri and Baramulla, and cutting off power supply to Srinagar. Left with no other choice, on October 24, Singh sought assistance from India. On October 25, India’s Defence Committee recommended swift action against the raiders while Lord Louis Mountbatten, India’s last viceroy, said intervention should be conditional on accession. As tribal fighters neared Srinagar, Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on October 26. India then airlifted troops to Srinagar, and defended the capital and repelled the raiders. The fighting carried on through November with Indian forces pushing the tribal fighters as far back as Uri until the arrival of winter snows.

In January 1948, India took the matter to the United Nations, hoping it would help clear the Pakistani occupation in northern J&K. But in May 1948, the first Indo-Pakistan war broke out with Pakistan sponsoring a government of ‘Azad Kashmir’ across what is now the Line of Control. In August 1948, the UN passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and a plebiscite. The ceasefire was agreed to on January 1, 1949, bringing an end to hostilities after more than a year.

[edit] Mehr Chand Mahajan (month not stated, perhaps Oct)

Sugata Srinivasaraju, Dec 20, 2022: The Times of India


Maharaja Hari Singh. Mahajan was picked as the PM of J&K when the maharaja had to make a choice between India and Pakistan (Photo: TOI)
From:

If there is a highly credible eyewitness account that survives as to how the Maharaja of Kashmir finally signed the accession treaty with India, and how the principal players of the time from Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Jinnah and Sheikh Abdullah moved their Kashmir cards, it is to be found in this book.


To the blame game that constantly erupts between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on the role of Nehru in Kashmir, this autobiographical work can play a neutral umpire. It offers a blow-to-blow account of an insider who highlights the precocious, yet impatient role played by Nehru. Justice Mahajan was negotiating with Nehru directly, on behalf of Maharaja Hari Singh.

The neutrality of the account is somewhat established when it does not offer a positive portrait of Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru’s friend and ally: “This was my first good look at Sheikh Abdullah and my impression was that he was out to gain power at any cost. To acquire it he would try to influence his friend, the Prime Minister of India, but would not disdain the use of any other means such as creating some kind of uprising in the State.”


One particular episode, when Mahajan is seeking military help from Nehru to ward off Pakistani raiders is interesting. It shows how Nehru was deeply invested and dependent on Sheikh Abdullah to get Kashmir to accede to India: “As a last resort I said, ‘Give us the military force we need. Take the accession and give whatever power you desire to the popular party [National Conference]. The army must fly to save Srinagar this evening or else I will go to Lahore and negotiate terms with Jinnah.’ When I told the Prime Minister of India that I had orders to go to Pakistan in case immediate military aid was not given, he naturally became upset and in an angry tone said, ‘Mahajan, go away.’ I got up and was about to leave the room when Sardar Patel detained me by saying in my ear, ‘Of course, Mahajan, you are not going to Pakistan.’ Just then, a piece of paper was passed over to the Prime Minister, he read it and said in a loud voice, ‘Sheikh Sahib also says the same thing.’ It appeared Sheikh Abdullah had been listening to all this talk while sitting in one of the bedrooms adjoining the drawing room where we were.”


The Lahore question


As insightful and interesting in the book are Mahajan’s exchanges with Radcliffe on the Boundary Commission that partitioned India: “I myself did not know what the award of Lord Radcliffe would be [because all four judges on the commission had disagreed and had written separate reports and Radcliffe as head had to arbiter the final award] but I had some hope on the basis of the talks and arguments that I had with him for a whole day that Lahore might remain in India. But while we were discussing the award at the hotel, Lord Radcliffe had once exclaimed: ‘How can you have both Calcutta and Lahore?

What can I give to Pakistan?’ I protested against this non-judicial observation. Thereafter throughout our talk he seemed to agree to most of my arguments when I urged that Lahore should be included in India and not in Pakistan. It was on this basis that I told some people who came to see me on the 9th of August that there was some likelihood of Lahore remaining in India…Most of the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab had hypnotized themselves into belief that Lahore would remain in India.”

There is no reference to the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute because the book stops at 1963.


This enormously accomplished man, whose birth anniversary happens to fall on December 23, was declared as “highly inauspicious” by astrologers at birth and was given away to a poor peasant family. He was born to a rich family of Mahajan Sahukars: “When I became four years old I was assigned the duties that a peasant boy has to perform, look after the family goats and sheep, take the cattle for grazing, sit on the water mill and the furrows.” He was accepted back by his original family after he turned 12. The partitions of his own life, it appears, were equally wrenching.

[edit] When did the Indian army intervene?

The government of India offered a temporary accession and promised to carry out a referendum later on, ensuring that India would control external affairs, defence and communications in J&K. Indian troops were airlifted into Srinagar on October 27, 1947. The fighting continued for over a year and in 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru asked the UN to intervene. A UN ceasefire was declared from December 31, 1948. By now, two-thirds of the state was under the control of India, while one-third came under Pakistan’s control. The ceasefire was laid out by a UN resolution requiring Pakistan to withdraw its troops while India was allowed to keep its forces to maintain law and order in the state. A plebiscite was supposed to take place once peace was restored.

[edit] UN intervention in 1948

[edit] UN intervention in 1948 gave J&K its present shape

UN intervention in 1948 gave J&K its present shape

The Times of India, Oct 17, 2011

From the Durranis and Mughals, the Kashmir Valley passed to the Sikh rulers who conquered the region in the early 19th century. Gulab Singh played a vital role in this campaign and Maharaja Ranjit Singh made him the king of Jammu. Later, Gulab Singh captured Ladakh and Baltistan and merged them into Jammu. After the first Anglo-Sikh war, the Sikhs ceded Kashmir, Hazarah and all the hilly regions between the Indus and Beas to the East India Company. In 1846, Gulab Singh and the company signed a treaty in which he purchased the Valley from the British.

[edit] What happened in 1947?

After Independence, the princely states were given the option of joining India or Pakistan. The ruler of J&K, however, delayed his decision. He was a Hindu while a majority of his subjects were Muslims. In October 1947, ‘tribals’ from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, supported by the Pakistan army invaded J&K, instigating communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the state. Unable to control the situation, the king requested India for armed assistance.

[edit] Why did the plebiscite never take place?

Both sides blame each other for that. While Pakistan blames India for not carrying out the referendum, India counters by saying that Pakistan never withdrew its forces, thereby making it impossible for India to hold a referendum in the entire territory.

[edit] Sangh’s stand on J&K plebiscite

Swati Mathur, National Archives displays Sangh’s stand on J&K plebiscite, January 12, 2018: The Times of India


A month-long exhibition on J&K, which opened at the National Archives on Thursday, seeks to highlight just how the founding president of Jan Sangh, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, warned former PM Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah about the far reaching consequences of the signing of Kashmir’s Instrument of Accession.

Drawing from documents and videos obtained from the ministry of defence, the films division and the British Pathe, the exhibition includes rare documents like The Treaty of Lahore of March, 1846, The Treaty of Amritsar, and the Instrument of Accession signed in October 1947. The exhibition also contains a section titled ‘Syama Prasad Mookerjee on J&K issue and on the agitation which sought full integration of the state with India’.

Four letters written by Mookherjee, two each to Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, are also on display. In one such letter to Nehru on January 9, 1953, Mookerjee wrote, “It is high time that both you and Sheikh Abdullah should realise that this movement will not be suppressed by force or repression...The problem of J&K should not be treated as a party issue. It is a national problem and every effort should be made to present a united front.”

Warning against the dangers of a “general plebiscite on a highly controversial issue”, Mookerjee also predicted the rise of communal passions in J&K. His letter to Abdullah also exposes the schism between the Jan Sangh and the National Conference over the rule of J&K shifting hands from the ‘Hindu Dogras’ to the ‘Kashmiri Muslims’. In a letter dated February 13, 1953, Mookerjee refers to Abdullah’s opposition to Praja Parishad, a political outfit with close ties with

the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and which campaigned for the integration of Jammu & Kashmir with India, and opposed the special status granted to the state under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.

Inaugurating the exhibition, culture minister Mahesh Sharma said the purpose of curating the exhibition is to educate the youth about how Kashmir became a part of India. “Maharaja Hari Singh, when he signed this instrument (of accession), only after that, I repeat, only after that, the Indian forces went to that area. This needs to be showcased,” Sharma said.


[edit] Why India sought UN intervention

March 27, 2022: The Indian Express

It is well documented that both the British government and Lord Mountbatten, who was the first Governor General of India after Independence from August 15, 1947 to June 21, 1948, believed that the then newly-founded UN could help resolve the Kashmir dispute. Mountbatten suggested this to Muhammad Ali Jinnah at a meeting between the two men in Lahore on November 1, 1947.

After Nehru met Liaquat Ali Khan in Lahore the following month, Mountbatten was convinced that an intermediary was needed. He recorded his views: “I realised that the deadlock was complete and the only way out now was to bring in some third party in some capacity or other. For this purpose I suggested that the United Nations Organisation be called in.” (Victoria Schofield, ‘Kashmir in Conflict’, quoting Mountbatten in H V Hodson, ‘The Great Divide’)


Reference to UN

Initially, while Liaquat “agreed to refer the dispute to the UN”, Victoria Schofield wrote in her seminal history of the Kashmir dispute, “India was not prepared to deal with Pakistan on an equal footing”. However, “when the two prime ministers met again in Delhi towards the end of December [1947], Nehru informed Liaquat Ali Khan of his intention to refer the dispute to the UN under article 35 of the UN Charter…”.

Consequently, on December 31, 1947, Nehru wrote to the UN secretary general (then Trygve Lie of Norway) accepting a future plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said: “To remove the misconception that the Indian government is using the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir to reap political profits, the Government of India wants to make it very clear that as soon as the raiders (Pakistan-backed tribesmen who had entered the Kashmir Valley) are driven out and normalcy is restored, the people of the state will freely decide their fate and that decision will be taken according to the universally accepted democratic means of plebiscite or referendum.”

Issue in the UN

The UN Security Council took up the matter in January 1948. The jurist Sir Zafrullah Khan spoke for five hours in favour of the Pakistani position. India was unhappy with the role played by the British delegate, Philip Noel-Baker, who it believed was nudging the Council towards Pakistan’s position. V Shankar, private secretary to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, noted in his unpublished memoirs (quoted in Schofield):

“The discussions in the Security Council on our complaint of aggression by Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir have taken a very unfavourable turn. Zafrullah Khan had succeeded, with the support of the British and American members, in diverting the attention from that complaint to the problem of the dispute between India and Pakistan over the question of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s aggression in the State was pushed into the background due to his aggressive tactics…as against the somewhat meek and defensive posture we adopted to counter him.”

On January 20, 1948, the Security Council passed a resolution to set up the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the dispute and to carry out “any mediatory influence likely to smooth away difficulties”.

There is evidence to believe Sardar Patel was uncomfortable with Nehru taking the matter to the UN, and thought it was a mistake. “…Not only has the dispute been prolonged, but the merits of our case have been completely lost in the interaction of power politics,” he wrote. (July 3, 1948, quoted in Schofield)

Article 35 of UN Charter

There has been some debate on whether India chose the wrong path to approach the UN. In 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah said that had Nehru taken the matter to the UN under Article 51 of the UN Charter, instead of Article 35, the outcome could have been different.

According to UN records, India reported to the Security Council “details of a situation existing between India and Pakistan owing to the aid which invaders, consisting of nationals of Pakistan and tribesmen from the territory immediately adjoining Pakistan on the north-west, were drawing from Pakistan for operations against Jammu and Kashmir”.

India pointed out that J&K had acceded to India, and that the “Government of India considered the giving of this assistance by Pakistan to be an act of aggression against India…” Therefore, “the Government of India, being anxious to proceed according to the principles and aims of the Charter, brought the situation to the attention of the Security Council under Article 35 of the Charter.”

Articles 33-38 of the UN Charter occur in Chapter 6, titled “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”.

These six Articles lay out that if the parties to a dispute that has the potential for endangering international peace and security are not able to resolve the matter through negotiations between them, or by any other peaceful means, or with the help of a “regional agency”, the Security Council may step in, with or without the invitation of one or another of the involved parties, and recommend “appropriate procedures or methods of recommendation”.

Specifically, Article 35 only says that any member of the UN may take a dispute to the Security Council or General Assembly.

Article 51, which occurs in Chapter 7, titled “Action With Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression”, on the other hand, says that a UN member has the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence” if attacked, “till such time that the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”.

[edit] Nehru’s role

[edit] A

Adrija Roychowdhury, Oct 13, 2022: The Indian Express

Kashmir before Independence

When the British decided to exit the Indian subcontinent, the fate of the 500-odd princely states was yet to be decided. The Congress had announced its decision of integrating the princely states within the Indian union by the late 1930s itself. Consequently, a new states department was set up with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as its head and V P Menon as the secretary. They worked together under the guidance of Lord Mountbatten to strategise and convince the princely states to accede to the Indian union.

Of the 500 princely states, the most important was Jammu and Kashmir. It was the largest in India and also the most strategically located, sharing borders with both the newly born dominions of India and Pakistan. The state with a predominantly Muslim population was being ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, a Dogra king who ascended the throne in September 1925. The king, however, is known to have spent most of his time in race courses and hunting.

By the 1930s, the Kashmiri political scene saw the emergence of Sheikh Abdullah, son of a shawl merchant, who graduated from Aligarh Muslim University with a degree in science. Abdullah’s inability to find a government job in Kashmir led him to question the treatment of Muslims in the state administration which was dominated by Hindus. “We constituted the majority and contributed the most towards the state’s revenues, still we were continually oppressed…I concluded that the ill-treatment of Muslims was an outcome of religious prejudice,” he is known to have said as quoted by historian Ramachandra Guha in his book, ‘India after Gandhi’.

In 1932, Abdullah along with other Muslims of the state opposed to the ruler formed the All-Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference that later became the ‘National Conference’. It consisted of Hindus and Sikhs apart from Muslims, and demanded a representative government based on universal suffrage. During this time, Abdullah came into contact with Jawaharlal Nehru and they warmed to each other instantly, mainly on account of their shared ideological commitment to Hindu-Muslim harmony and socialism.

Through the 1940s, Abdullah’s popularity in Kashmir kept increasing. He demanded the Dogra dynasty to quit Kashmir, and the Maharaja responded by sending him to jail on more than one occasion. In 1946 when he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for sedition, Nehru rushed to his rescue, but was prevented from entering the state by the Maharaja’s men.

The accession of Kashmir to India

When the question of Kashmir’s accession to India or Pakistan arose, the Maharaja made clear his intention of remaining independent. “He loathed the Congress, so could not think of joining India. But if he joined Pakistan the fate of the Hindu dynasty might be sealed,” wrote Guha. The Maharaja disliked Nehru, who was openly supporting Abdullah’s ‘Quit Kashmir’ movement.

But for Nehru, the issue of Kashmir was a most crucial one. While the responsibility of convincing the states to join India was left in the hands of Patel, a task that he performed with near full autonomy, in the case of Kashmir, Nehru was personally involved.

Geographer Simrit Kahlon in her article, ‘Kashmir and Nehru: Contours of a troubled legacy’ (2020) noted Nehru’s fondness for Kashmir in his writings which included both his personal and well as official correspondence. In a letter to Abdullah in September 1947, Nehru wrote, “For me Kashmir’s future is of the most intimate personal significance.”

In the days preceding Independence, however, it was Mountbatten who tried to convince the Maharaja to accede to India. An old acquaintance of the Maharaja, he set off for Kashmir in June 1947, largely to forestall Nehru or Gandhi from doing so. In Srinagar, Mountbatten first met the prime minister Ramchandra Kak, who reiterated the state’s decision to remain independent. Mountbatten then fixed a private meeting with the Maharaja on the last day of his visit. However, on the day of the appointment, Hari Singh stayed in bed with an attack of colic, most probably a way to avoid the encounter. Hari Singh’s son, Karan Singh, in his autobiography has described this decision of his father to avoid meeting Mountbatten as a “typical feudal reaction to a difficult situation”. “Thus the last real chance of working out a viable political settlement was lost,” he wrote.

On August 15, Kashmir had neither acceded to India or Pakistan, but it offered to sign standstill agreements with both countries to allow movement of people and goods across borders. While Pakistan agreed to sign the agreement, India decided to wait and watch. However, Kashmir’s relations with Pakistan began deteriorating as the latter expected its accession on account of a largely Muslim population.

Guha in his book noted that while Nehru always wanted Kashmir to be part of India, Patel at one time was inclined to allow the state to join Pakistan. But he changed his mind on September 13, when Pakistan decided to accept the accession of Junagadh, a Hindu-majority state in the Kathiawar region with a Muslim ruler.

On September 27, Nehru wrote to Patel about the ‘dangerous and deteriorating’ situation in Kashmir and that there were rumours of Pakistan preparing to send infiltrators. He also wrote that releasing Abdullah was a necessity now to ensure popular support for the Maharaja.

Soon after Abdullah was released, he announced his demand for a popular government in Kashmir consisting of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. The Maharaja, on the other hand, was still harbouring thoughts of an independent government. “The only thing that will change our mind is if one side or the other decides to use force against us,” he is known to have said.

Two weeks later, several thousand armed men crossed into the state from the north, making their way to the capital. The fact that these were Pathans from Pakistan has remained undisputed, but why they came and on whose orders has remained at the heart of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. While India believed that these were Pakistani infiltrators sponsored by the state, Pakistan denied any involvement. They claimed that these were Pathans who rushed to the aid of Muslims in Kashmir being persecuted by a Hindu administration.

As the tribesmen marched on killing and looting everything in sight on their way to Srinagar, the Maharaja wired the Indian government for military assistance. On October 25, V P Menon flew down to Srinagar and advised Singh to move to Jammu for his safety. Once Menon flew back to Delhi, a Defence committee meeting was convened consisting of Nehru, Mountbatten, Patel and Abdullah. It was decided that India would immediately send troops to Kashmir, but before that it would secure Hari Singh’s accession to India. The following morning, Menon flew to Jammu where the Maharaja had taken refuge. The Maharaja, exhausted from his turbulent escape, agreed to sign the instrument of accession immediately.

From October 27, several planes carrying Indian soldiers and supplies left from Delhi to Srinagar to fight back the infiltrators and restore peace in the valley.

Kashmir after accession

The entry of Indian troops into Kashmir left the Pakistan government fuming. When Mountbatten met Jinnah in Lahore in November 1947, the former described Kashmir’s accession to India as being based on ‘fraud and violence’. Mountbatten, however, suggested that the aggression had come from raiders from Pakistan.

With the Indian military securing Srinagar and clearing infiltrators from the other parts of the valley, the focus of the Indian government shifted to the internal politics of Kashmir. Nehru wrote to Singh asking him to place full confidence in Abdullah and make him head of the administration. With the support of Gandhi, Nehru was able to get Abdullah appointed as head of an emergency administration by the Maharaja.

As far as the impasse with Pakistan was concerned, Nehru suggested a plebiscite be conducted to decide on which dominion the people of the state wanted to join. Guha noted in his book that Nehru was also open to an independent Kashmir or the state being divided with Jammu and the valley being with India and the rest of the territory going to Pakistan.

With no decision being taken on the matter, On January 1, 1948, India decided to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations on the advice of Mountbatten who was then the governor-general of India. But at the UN, India was surprised to see the British support for the Pakistan position. Nehru deeply regretted taking the matter to the international stage. Meanwhile, the Pakistan and Indian armies engaged in battle through the later months of 1948 in the northern and western parts of Kashmir.

Abdullah, who had by now become the most important political figure in Kashmir, insisted on the ties that Kashmir shared with India. In May 1948 he organised a weeklong celebration of freedom in Srinagar, in which several leading figures of the Indian government were invited.


[edit] B: ‘Nehru consulted his generals,’ say papers declassified in 2023

Anisha Dutta, 8 Mar 2023: The Guardian


India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was urged by his most senior general to agree to a ceasefire with Pakistan in 1948, the Guardian can reveal after viewing letters on Kashmir that have been kept classified in India for decades.

The correspondence from the then commander-in-chief, Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, will have significant political ramifications for the current nationalist government in Delhi, which has discredited Nehru’s decision to come to a compromise on the status of disputed Kashmir as an ill-informed “blunder”.

Narendra Modi’s government has used that reasoning to justify stripping Kashmir of special status in 2019 and tightening its grip over the region.

However, a series of letters – which Modi’s administration has sought to keep classified – show Nehru was in fact acting on advice from his most trusted adviser in the army, who warned India would not be able to withstand continued military operation in Kashmir for long, and a political compromise was needed. In his message to Nehru dated 28 November 1948, Bucher warned of fatigue among Indian troops in Kashmir, adding that an “overall military decision was no longer possible”. “Army personnel evince two weaknesses, lack of training in the junior leaders, tiredness and ennui in the other ranks … In brief, the army needs respite for leave, training, and vitalising.” Nehru, in response, raised concerns over reports that Pakistan intended within weeks to bomb Indian positions from the sky. Meanwhile, Pakistan was building roads to maintain and advance its positions. In another letter to Bucher sent on 23 December 1948, Nehru wrote: “It is clear to me that we cannot rely on Pakistan remaining on the defensive.” He added: “In the event of Pakistan continuing their persistent shelling and offensive operation and our not being able to check this there, there is every likelihood of war taking place with Pakistan.” In a later letter dated 28 December, Bucher made his position clear: “I am afraid we cannot take military action to stop every road-building operation by Pakistan. May I suggest a political approach to this problem.”

The war ended on 1 January 1949 with a ceasefire arranged by the United Nations, and later that year Nehru provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, giving the region autonomy.

Over the decades, India and Pakistan have fought three more wars over the Kashmir issue and the ensuing border dispute. However, the measures in article 370 provided by Nehru were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the India-controlled parts of the Muslim-majority state, and also reduced tensions with Muslim-majority Pakistan.

But in 2019, under the leadership of Hindu nationalist Modi, Delhi formally revoked the state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India. The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata party justified its decision by suggesting Nehru had made a mistake, blaming him for not seeking to grab more territory from Pakistani forces. The India home affairs minister, Amit Shah, in 2019 said the decision to reach a UN-mediated compromise was Nehru’s “biggest mistake”, criticising it as a “Himalayan blunder”.

“What was the need to announce a ceasefire when we were about to win the war?” Shah said.

However, the Bucher papers, as they are known in India, suggest Nehru was acting on informed advice from his military officers.

Bucher, a British officer, was chosen by post-independence India to become commander-in-chief of the Indian army due to his familiarity with Indian military operations and his ability to bridge the gap between British and Indian military personnel. He served between 1948 and 1949 until his retirement and was the last non-Indian to hold the top military post.

The Guardian revealed last month that Modi’s government was seeking to prevent the declassification of some of the Bucher papers, describing them as “sensitive”.

A recent foreign ministry document, seen by the Guardian, said the contents of the papers should not be declassified yet. It said the papers broadly examined the “state preparedness of Indian armed forces stationed in Kashmir, in the backdrop of the India-Pakistan war (1947-48)” and “concerns expressed by Nehru regarding offensive military actions undertaken by Pakistan”.

For several decades, the papers have been kept in New Delhi at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, an autonomous body under India’s culture ministry since 1970. Over the years, several unsuccessful attempts have been made by activists to declassify the papers.

Some copies of parts of the Bucher correspondence are also kept at the National Army Museum of London.

[edit] C

Anisha Dutta, 14 Feb 2023: The Guardian

India trying to prevent declassification of ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers


India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian.

The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for a ceasefire with Pakistan and provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.


For decades the region in the foothills of the Himalayas was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence. Those measures were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the Muslim-majority state.

But in 2019, under the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the government in Delhi formally revoked the disputed state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India.

The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment as a three-decade armed revolt continued to rage.

The Bucher papers refer to communications between Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, who served as second commander-in-chief of the Indian army between 1948 and 1949, and government officials, including Nehru.

Over the years, several attempts have been made by activists to declassify the papers to throw light on the reasoning for article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir its special status.

A recent foreign ministry document seen by the Guardian said the contents of the papers should not be declassified yet. The papers contain “military operational matters in Kashmir and correspondences amongst senior government leaders on sensitive political matters on Kashmir”, the document said.

The papers have been kept at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, an autonomous body under India’s culture ministry.

According to a source with knowledge of the matter, they reveal that Nehru was aware and informed of the military development in Kashmir, including Pakistan’s attempts to use external military assistance to escalate the situation.

“Roy Bucher suggested a political approach to solve the escalating situation given military fatigue faced by Indian troops due to 13 months of military deployment, including taking the matter before the United Nations,” the source said.

That advice may have influenced Nehru’s decision to grant Kashmir special status. In 1952, the prime minister argued that the aspirations of the people of Kashmir should be respected. “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir,” he told India’s parliament. “We are not going to impose ourselves on them on the point of the bayonet.”

The Bucher papers were handed over by India’s external affairs ministry to the Nehru museum and library in New Delhi in 1970, with a note saying they should be kept “classified”. They have remained in the library’s closed collection since then, the foreign ministry document said.

An Indian activist, Venkatesh Nayak, has filed multiple appeals to declassify the papers, a move that was initially rejected. However, in 2021 the Indian information commissioner ruled it was in the “national interest” but fell short of ordering the disclosure of the crucial documents. The order advised that the library may seek the foreign ministry’s permission to declassify the papers for academic research.

In a letter dated 12 October 2022 that has been reviewed by the Guardian, the chair of the museum and library, Nripendra Misra, wrote to India’s foreign secretary arguing the papers “are very important for scholarly research” and requested declassification.

“We have read the contents of the Bucher papers. Our view is that the papers need not remain ‘classified’ beyond the reach of academicians. We are opening papers of other important public figures also,” Misra argued.

India typically allows the declassification of archival documents after 25 years.

The foreign ministry argued in the document that the disclosure of the papers should be put in “abeyance” for the time being and advised that the “sensitivity of Roy Bucher papers and the likely implications of their disclosure” should be examined further.

Sources say the government has yet to take a final decision on the matter.

[edit] The dispute

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: In brief; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 15, 2016

The Times of India, Aug 15 2016

How India, Pakistan describe parts of J&K under Pak control

What India calls PakistanOccupied Kashmir (POK) is part of the former princely state of J&K -areas under Islamabad since Oct 22 1947, after Pakistan-backed tribal militia invaded and Hari Singh acceded to India. Islamabad divided this region into GilgitBaltistan (G-B) and the areas south of it, including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.

How is POK in the Mirpur sector administered?

Before 1970, the MirpurMuzaffarabad sector had different administrative arrangements. In 1970, voting rights were introduced, a presidential system adopted.This worked for four years.Then, through legislation, a socalled parliamentary system was brought. This, with amendments, is in place. Since 1975, the region has elected a `prime minister'. It also has a 6-member council chaired by the Pakistan PM. Three are ex-officio; five nominated by the Pak PM. In theory, the council's assigned functions like defence, security, foreign affairs, currency, to Islamabad. Experts often question the pretenseautonomy in these places.

What about G-B?

Pakistan considers the regions disputed territory; G-B's status was vague until recently. To protect its claim in global fora that it supports freedom of the people in this region that it occupies, Islamabad couldn't declare G-B as its territory.For long, this region had no specified status in Pakistan's constitution. Through the “G-B Order, 2009“, a governance model similar to that in the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad sector was set up. The region is a defacto Pakistan province, but doesn't participate in electoral politics.

The Indian experts' view

India's IDSA says administration of POK only nominally under “elected“ govts. Real power is with Islamabad; army presence is overwhelming. When Islamabad ceded large tracts of POK territory to China, it undermined the pretense of the region's autonomy. The area has seen demographic changes, with Pakhtuns encouraged to settle here.

[edit] See also

Jammu & Kashmir, history: 1846- 1946

Jammu & Kashmir, history: 1947-48

Jammu & Kashmir, history: 1989-

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