EXCKYSUVE SERIES
9
New Research on Kashmir
October 1947 RAKESH ANKIT
An action-packed, perilous month full of dramatic personalities and remarkable events of immediate, intermediate and long-term significance, October 1947 was a milestone in the modern history of not one but two and perhaps three nations. Those 31 days achieved nothing but desperation and defeat – for the raiders; for Pakistan; for the old (Hari Singh) and the new (Sheikh Abdullah) Kashmir(s) and, not the least, for India.
T
o paraphrase Bismarck, the hinges of history are loosened on some dates. For Jammu and Kashmir, October 1947 is such a pivotal date. It opened with a provisional republic government being established at Muzaffarabad by the Muslim Conference with Mohammad Anwar at its head and ended with a provisional emergency administration being established at Srinagar by India with Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference at its head. In between, it saw the beginnings of a daring raid and the sad end of a dynasty; collapse of negotiations between Srinagar and Karachi and signing of accession between Srinagar and Delhi. In the process, it made de facto the de jure division of the territory of the state. The first event of any note in that fateful month occurred on the 6th when Sheikh Abdullah was released from prison in Srinagar and set off to meet Nehru in Delhi. Simultaneously, Maharaja Hari Singh removed Messers Banbury and Powell from their command of Kashmir Armed and Police Forces and replaced them by Hindu officers. These were widely perceived as 'a clearing of the decks for action as soon
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as the Maharaja feels that he can rely on new road from Pathankot for supplies and possibly military assistance from India'.i However, on the 10th, came reports that the Maharaja is bargaining for better terms with Pakistan by making it appear that he contemplates joining India.ii Three days later, on the 13th, Norman Cliff – special correspondent with News Chronicle – confirmed the worst kept secret since 9 September that Pakistan had cut off Kashmir's supplies of petrol, sugar, salt and kerosene as well as stopped trade in timber, fruits, fur and carpets in spite of the standstill agreement signed in August as well as the trade agreement of 1870. He also mentioned, almost in passing, that Soviet posts had advanced 20 miles through what had previously been no man's land in the areas adjoining Gilgit in present-day Tajikistan. In the first fifteen days of October, then, the proverbial lull before the storm prevailed in Kashmir. Outwardly there was a tense calm and quiet apart from Poonch and Gilgit which were plainly slipping out of Srinagar's hands. Meanwhile, Chitral, Swat, Dir and the Pir of Manki Sharif warned Hari Singh against accession to India which was
Vol. 4, Issue 11
sure to shatter the already thin veneer of stability and legitimacy of the Dogra dynasty. The next ten days from the 15th to the 25th saw a hectic traffic of telegrams between Srinagar on one hand and Karachi and London on the other with New Delhi conspicuously absent, hard as it may appear to believe now, during this round of accusations and counter-accusations. Srinagar turned first to distant London with its litany of complaints against Karachi/Rawalpindi than the nearby New Delhi. One can now see what these were – the last-ditch attempts at negotiations which were doomed to failure given the digging of heels by all parties in an atmosphere which was thick with mistrust, misapprehensions and mistakes. On the 15th, Mehr Chand Mahajan, Hari Singh's third Prime Minister in three months, wrote similar letters to Liaquat Ali Khan and Clement Attlee. It complained against 'permitting threats [alluded to above]to invade Kashmir to be made from Pakistani territory'; 'actively conniving at armed incursions into the Poonch area'; 'arming the border peoples' and, finally, 'permitting the murder or wounding, in cold blood, of the majority of a party of 200-odd state sub-
Epilogue, November 2010