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BOOK REVIEW
Perfidious Albion and the first Kashmir war
By Sreeram Chaulia
(A Review of Chandrashekhar Dasgupta’s War and Diplomacy in
Kashmir, 1947-48 Sage Publications, New Delhi. 2002. ISBN:
0-7619-9588-9. Price: US$17.75. 239 pages)
Peace will come only if we have the strength to resist invasion and
make it clear that it will not pay.
- Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Governor General Louis Mountbatten,
December 26, 1947
Having won accolades for more than 30 years as one of the brightest and
best Indian Foreign Service officers, the legendary Chandrashekhar
Dasgupta has once again proved his mettle by writing a highly original,
revelatory and myth-shattering book on the genesis of the Kashmir
imbroglio. No competent historian until now has been able to portray the
undeclared 1947-8 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir from the standpoint of
British strategic and diplomatic calculations.
It comes as no surprise that the Promethean "CD" (as Dasgupta is
admiringly called by the "old boys" of his St Stephen’s College, Delhi,
and in the diplomatic corps) decided to fill the gap with a lucid and
well-referenced treatise on the perfidies of Whitehall and its
representatives who remained in authoritative positions on the
subcontinent even after formal transfer of power to the domains of India
and Pakistan.
While the origins of the Kashmir conflict are highly contested by both
the claimant parties and this debated history has produced several
partisan as well as impartial accounts, Dasgupta’s work is the first to
unearth the complex military and diplomatic decision-making in the
crowded 15-month war that was influenced and distorted by Britain.
British aces on the eve of the Kashmir crisis
Immediately after Indian and Pakistani independence, by a peculiar quirk
of circumstances, Britain had a number of "men on the spot" at its
disposal to protect and buttress its interests. First, the
governor-general and head of state in India was Lord Louis Mountbatten
of the British Royal Navy. True to his blue-blooded lineage and
decorated career rendering yeoman service to "His Majesty, the King of
England", Mountbatten took regular "appreciations" and advice on his
role in India from Clement Attlee, Defense Minister Alexander Albert,
the UK chiefs of staff, British high commissioners in Delhi and Karachi,
and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Noel Baker. In
the words of Mountbatten’s aide, Ismay, anything that brought the two
dominions, India and Pakistan, into a crisis "was a matter in which the
instructions of His Majesty the King should be sought [by the
Governor-General]" (p 21).
Second, Field Marshall Auchinleck remained supreme commander of the
British Indian army even after August 15 1947, and closely conferred
with Commanders-in-Chief Rob Lockhart and Roy Bucher, Air Chief Marshall
Thomas Elmherst and a host of other generals in both India and Pakistan.
Their importance as trump cards for guaranteeing British strategic
objectives was underlined by the Commonwealth Affairs Committee in
London, which proclaimed that in an emergency involving India and
Pakistan, "the Minister of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary
of State for Commonwealth Relations, should send instructions to the
Supreme Commander" (p 33). Throughout the Kashmir war, Nehru and Patel
had occasions to be furious with the solicitation of external
instructions by British commanders who owed primary loyalties to London.
With nationals of a third country leading the opposing armies and top
executive structures of India and Pakistan, the Kashmir war of 1947-8
was unique in the annals of modern warfare, yet fell into the
predictable pattern of third world conflicts that were "moderated" or
"finessed" by great power pressures. Without full national control over
respective armies, India and (to a lesser extent) Pakistan were unable
to determine the course and outcome of the war as their political elites
wished.
Twin British 'instructions' and the fatal tilt
Two broad British interests, conveyed and acted out through Mountbatten
and other operatives, were at stake in an India-Pakistan war. One was
integrity of the commonwealth and avoidance of inter-dominion warfare.
Reduced to a "half great power" by 1945, London foresaw immense prestige
and economic and political merit in retaining both India and Pakistan in
its sphere of influence and knew the dangers inherent in taking sides,
irrespective of the legality or morality of the Indian or Pakistani
case. In July 1947, Whitehall issued a "Stand Down" instruction to
British authorities if hostilities broke out between the two dominions
"since under no circumstances could British officers be ranged on
opposite sides" (p 19). Averting open war thus became a sine qua non
of British purpose, regardless of the relative rectitude of the two
sides.
"Stand Down" was not, however, meant to be neutrality, leave alone
benevolent neutrality, for the larger geopolitical reassessment
conducted by British planners in 1946-7 was clear that "our strategic
interests in the subcontinent lay primarily in Pakistan" (p 17). Hopes
of a defense treaty with India were present but not deemed as vital as
the retention of Pakistan, "particularly the North West", within the
commonwealth. The bases, airfield and ports of the North West were
invaluable for commonwealth defense. Besides, the UK chiefs of staff
reasoned that Pakistan had to be kept on board to preserve British
"strategic positions in the Middle East and North Africa". Employing
typical communal logic, the former colonial masters also felt that
estranging Pakistan would harm Britain’s relations with the "whole
Mussulman bloc", a premise that would be fatal when the Kashmir war came
up before the UN Security Council. Briefed that the "area of Pakistan is
strategically the most important in the continent of India and the
majority of our strategic requirements could be met … by an agreement
with Pakistan alone" (p 17), Mountbatten and the British personnel on
the ground knew whom not to displease if it really came to a choice
between India and Pakistan.
Prelude in Junagadh
A curtain-raiser to this tilt came over the disputed accession of
Junagadh in September 1947, when British service chiefs tried to falsely
convince Nehru and Patel that the Indian army was "in no position to
conduct large-scale operations" to flush out the Nawab’s private army
from neighboring Mangrol. Patel rebutted bitterly to Mountbatten,
"senior British officers owed loyalty to and took orders from Auchinleck
rather than the Indian government" (p 26). The governor-general, who
constituted a defense committee of the cabinet during the stand-off
appointing himself, not Nehru, as the chairman, backed off and allowed
Junagadh’s incorporation into the Indian union, not before cheekily
suggesting "lodging a complaint to the United Nations against Junagadh’s
act of aggression". Kashmir would be a different kettle of tea because
Pakistan had a much greater interest in it and the British were wary of
the dangers of "losing" Pakistan from their grand strategic chessboard.
Constraining India at war
Before the Pakistani "tribal" invasion of Kashmir in October 1947,
General Lockhart was secretly informed by his British counterpart in
Rawalpindi of the preparations underway for the raids. The
commander-in-chief shared the crucial information with his two other
British service chiefs but not with the Indian government (Nehru
discovered this delinquency only in December, leading to Lockhart’s
dismissal). After the invasion and the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to
India, Lockhart and Mountbatten worked feverishly behind the scenes to
prevent inter-dominion war, which in fact meant restraining Indian armed
retaliation against the invading Pakistani irregulars.
Patel’s directive that arms be supplied urgently to reinforce the
Maharaja’s defences "was simply derailed by the commander-in-chief
acting in collusion with Field Marshal Auchinleck". (p 42). Mountbatten,
privately chastising Jinnah for actively abetting the tribal invasion,
publicly advised the Indian government that it would be a folly to send
munitions to a "neutral" state since Pakistan could do the same and it
would end up a full-scale war. Nehru and Patel were certain than an
informal state of war already existed and urged an airlift of Indian
armed forces to relieve Srinagar from the rampaging Pathans. The service
chiefs warned that an airlift involved "great risks and dangers", but
Nehru refused to be deterred. In November, as the situation worsened in
the Jammu-Poonch-Mirpur sector and Nehru asked for immediate military
relief, Mountbatten and Lockhart painted somber pictures of the
incapacity of the Indian armed forces. When Nehru still insisted on
action to "rid Jammu of raiders", the British slyly changed the order to
mean merely "evacuating garrisons".
In the absence of Pakistani "appeals" to the raiders to withdraw and
with more evidence of invader brutalities in Kashmir, the Indian cabinet
exhorted more and more forceful policies - air interdiction of Afridi
invasion routes and even a counter-attack into West Pakistan to "strike
at bases and nerve centres of the raiders". A desperate Moutbatten then
mooted complaint against the tribal invasion to the United Nations as
the proper course of action and simultaneously promised full military
preparations for a counter-attack. Nehru accepted this in good faith,
hoping the British service chiefs would keep their part of the
agreement. "This proved to be a fatal error. The Governor-General was
determined to thwart the cabinet" (p 101). General Bucher saw to it that
no measures were made for a lightning strike across the border and
Britain also imposed a sudden cut in oil supplies in early 1948, with
serious implications for India’s capacity to carry out military
operations in Kashmir.
Ismay, Mountbatten’s chief of staff and British high commissioner to
India, Shone, reported to London that Pakistan was "the guilty state
conniving in actual use of force in Kashmir" (p 58). Attlee was, of
course, unprepared to alienate Pakistan and "the whole of Islam" and
accepted the latter’s contention that Karachi could appeal to the tribal
invaders only after a "fair" solution was reached in Kashmir. Noel Baker
marshalled this thinly veiled pro-Pakistan approach at the Commonwealth
Relations Office and then transferred his communal bias to the UN
Security Council (UNSC) in the early months of 1948.
British skullduggery at the UN
Around the same time, the partition of Palestine earned bitter Arab
recriminations against Britain and America, and the Foreign Office in
London decided, "Arab opinion might be further aggravated if British
policy on Kashmir were seen as being unfriendly to a Muslim state" (p
111). Aneurin Bevin’s pro-Pakistan line, shared by Noel Baker, meant
that British proposals in the Security Council were supportive of
Pakistan on every major point. Kashmir’s accession to India was ignored
and the problem of irregular invasion pushed under the carpet. "The only
yardstick used by Bevin and Noel-Baker was acceptability to Pakistan.
Indian reactions, not to mention legal or constitutional factors, were
hardly taken into account" (p 114).
Close British allies America, Canada, and France were brought around to
supporting the Pakistani stand, but not before US Secretary of State
George Marshall plainly stated that his government “found it difficult
to deny the legal validity of Kashmir’s accession to India” (p 121). But
in the desire not to present a rival proposal and thus convey to the
USSR divisions in the “Anglo-Saxon camp”, Washington reluctantly
followed the British agenda. American ambassador to India, Grady, went
on record saying the US “would have adopted a more sympathetic attitude
to India, had it not been for the pressure exerted by the British
delegates”. Even as loyal a Briton as Mountbatten had to record, “power
politics and not impartiality are governing the attitude of the Security
Council” (p 123). Attlee himself was disturbed at the undue discretion
Noel Baker was exercising in New York and wrote: “all the concessions
are being asked from India, while Pakistan concedes little or nothing.
The attitude still seems to be that it is India which is at fault
whereas the complaint was rightly lodged against Pakistan” (p 129).
Following a rethink by the major players, the April resolutions of the
UNSC, despite Noel Baker’s best efforts, called for withdrawal of the
invaders from “Azad Kashmir” for which “Pakistan should use its best
endeavours”, to be followed by a plebiscite as Nehru had agreed. The
August 1948 UNCIP (United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan)
resolution restated the sequential de-escalation with greater clarity.
The Bucher-Gracey deal
Baker’s pitch that “stabilization” of the situation required the
induction of regular Pakistani army soldiers into Jammu and Kashmir,
though not succeeding in the UNSC, found another votary in General Roy
Bucher, Lockhart’s replacement as commander-in-chief of the Indian army.
Behind the back of his government, Bucher had top-secret confabulations
with his British counterpart in Pakistan, Douglas Gracey, in March 1948.
An informal truce was agreed upon (with the assent of Pakistan premier
Liaqat Ali Khan) where Bucher promised not to launch any offensive into
territory controlled by the “Azad Kashmir” forces and to withdraw Indian
troops from Poonch town and the environs of Rajouri. “Each side would
remain in undisputed military occupation of what are roughly their
present positions … and it will be essential for some Pakistan Army
troops to be employed in the Uri sector” (p 139). Upon learning of this
scheme, Nehru and Patel flatly rejected it as unauthorized contradiction
of their aim of expelling occupants from the entire territory of Jammu
and Kashmir.
The Bucher-Gracey deal never materialized, but it presaged Pakistan’s
unilateral push of its regular battalions into raider-held areas in May,
a crucial movement known to Bucher in advance but conveniently hidden
from Nehru until it was too late. Noel Baker hush-hushed the violation
of “Stand Down” when Gracey personally ordered the influx of the
Pakistani army with British officers into Kashmir, citing threats to
British interests: “Pakistan might leave the Commonwealth; the hostility
of the Muslim population of the world to the UK might be increased” (p
160).
A 'very secret' alliance
In September 1948, as an Indian advance into Mirpur looked imminent,
Pakistan sent its deputy army chief to London on a “very secret mission”
to negotiate a defense treaty with Britain. Attlee welcomed Liaqat’s
demarche and the preliminary discussions “served to enhance the
pro-Pakistan tilt in British policy” (p 170). As a reward for Pakistan’s
eagerness to join the West, London offered the Pakistan army “hints”,
“tips” and “assurances” about Indian army plans in the last three months
of the Kashmir war. Most appallingly, while maintaining the fa?ade of
neutrality, the UK High Commission in Karachi noted, “from London,
assurance had now been given by H M G that an attack by India on west
Punjab would not be tolerated” (p 171, emphasis original). Bucher
restricted Indian offensive action to the utmost and relayed all vital
intelligence to his opposing number in Pakistan, allowing the latter to
relocate forces in most vulnerable sectors. Attlee also bent the rules
of “Stand Down” in favor of Pakistan, what with British officers
planning and executing “Operation Venus” in Naoshera.
Besides military aid, Pakistan’s offer of a defense pact elicited Noel
Baker’s promise to return the Kashmir question to the UNSC before India
evacuated invaders from the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. In November,
Britain tried mobilizing support in the UNSC for an “unconditional
ceasefire”, freezing the trench lines but permitting Pakistan to retain
troops in Jammu and Kashmir. America turned it down as “inappropriate”
and inconsistent with UNCIP and UNSC resolutions. John Foster Dulles
complained, “the present UK approach to Kashmir appears extremely
pro-Pakistan as against the middle ground” (p 195). The final UNCIP
proposals, reaffirming the earlier resolutions, fell short of Indian
expectations, but Nehru had no other option than accepting them since
Bucher and his cohorts had convinced the cabinet with their “superior
expertise” that India was “militarily impotent”.
Conclusions
Drawing upon recently declassified British Foreign Office archives, “CD”
has dug out some of the most telltale and hermetically sealed secrets of
Whitehall malfeasance during the first Kashmir war. The much-trumpeted
British “sense of fairness” comes unstuck in this damning book, inducing
the reader to wonder what kind of neutrality it was that caused General
Cariappa to remark he was “fighting two enemies - army headquarters
headed by Roy Bucher and the Pakistani army headed by Messervy” (p 137).
What kind of impartiality was it that the British high commissioner in
India could upbraid the British chief of the Indian Air Force for
“foolish, unnecessary and provocative action” (p 209)? The
counter-factual conclusion one gleans from War and Diplomacy in
Kashmir is that the history of Kashmir and of the subcontinent would
have been a lot different had Britain not toyed with facts and legality
to serve its ulterior ends through eminences grises in India and
Pakistan or had America taken a keener interest in the region and not
left the nitty-gritty in the hands of its “Anglo-Saxon ally”.
Incidentally, “CD”’s research has also demythified Nehru’s alleged
pacifism, feebleness and “softness” towards Pakistan. The Indian prime
minister emerges from the narrative as, to use a term he disapproved, a
courageous “realist” who thoroughly understood the geopolitical and
military context of Kashmir. It has, of late, become fashionable in
Indian politics to demean Nehru as a dreamy utopian who practiced
appeasement and squandered Indian advantages in foreign policy. “CD” has
shown that whatever mistakes India made in 1947-8 had to do with the
sabotage of external agents who kept Nehru in the dark on several
outstanding counts.
In terms of policy relevance, this book should be read by those who
currently advocate “third party arbitration” to solve South Asian
disharmony. It is useful to know from history that facilitators and
mediators had and have their own gooses to cook in Kashmir.
[Sreeram
Sundar Chaulia studied History at St.Stephen’s College, Delhi, and took
a Second BA in Modern History at University College, Oxford. He
researched the BJP’s foreign policy at the London School of Economics
and is currently analyzing the impact of conflict on Afghan refugees at
the Maxwell School of Citizenship, Syracuse, NY.] |
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