Nisar Ahmed Thakur
October occupies a particularly significant place in Kashmir’s chequered history, marked by incidents of betrayal, deceit and political intrigue. It was in this month that the state’s political future entered its most dangerous phase, culminating in India’s illegal military intervention in Jammu and Kashmir on 27 October, 1947. What happened on that fateful day was not a sudden turn of events; rather, it was the culmination of political developments that had begun months earlier.
Following the passage of the Indian Independence Act in July 1947, which provided for the transfer of power, Jammu and Kashmir—a Muslim-majority state ruled by a Hindu Maharaja—stood at a critical crossroads. The Maharaja’s indecisiveness and failure to act in line with the majority’s aspirations left the state’s future uncertain and opened the floodgates to external intervention.
As the transfer of power approached, Indian leaders began paying increasing attention to Kashmir. The Congress leadership, including MK Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel maintained close liaison with the Maharaja of Kashmir.
Gandhi visited the region on 1 August 1947, while Nehru’s involvement became particularly significant in the case of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, who had been imprisoned by Maharaja for his role in 1946 Quit Kashmir movement.
Sensing the danger of an emerging rebellion against the Maharaja in the Muslim-majority areas, Nehru pressed for Abdullah’s release in order to secure his cooperation and pacify Muslim population in the Valley where he enjoyed considerable support. Nehru’s letter to Sardar Patel, dated September 27, 1947, substantiates this argument.
Nehru’s insistence on Abdullah’s release, however, stemmed less from any personal affection for Abdullah than from the political imperative of manufacturing consent for India’s ambitions in Kashmir.
With Nehru’s blessings, Abdullah, the “Lion of Kashmir”, was finally released on September 29. Before his release, he had assured the Maharaja of his and his party’s loyalty and support—something that stood in striking contrast to his earlier political struggle. Sadly, Nehru’s political craft had tamed the “Lion of Kashmir” into a lamb; his transformation from a revolutionary leader to a mere political pawn raises serious questions about his political integrity.
Anyways, bringing together two bitter rivals, who had been sworn enemies only months earlier, in a carefully cultivated political arrangement that, in the long run, served India’s interests more than those of the people of Kashmir, demonstrated Nehru’s mastery of Machiavellian manoeuvring.
The dismissal of Ram Chandra Kak and the installation of Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, marked another decisive step in Indian leaders’ efforts to influence Kashmir’s political future. Patel had persuaded him to accept the position in the larger interest of India.
Mahajan, a non-state subject from Kangra (now in Himachal Pradesh), formally assumed office on 15 October, less than two weeks before Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar. Mahajan the Patel’s wonder-boy is said to have played a key role in convincing the Maharaja to sign the so-called “Instrument of Accession”—which India has failed to produce to this day.
This shameful record of illegal and unjustified interventions by Indian leaders and their hobnobbing with key Kashmiri leaders at that critical juncture reshaped the political equation within the state, even as the question of Kashmir’s accession to either of the two dominions, in accordance with the principles of the Two-Nation Theory, remained unresolved.
Similarly, the Indian leadership actively sought Lord Mountbatten’s favour in its efforts to secure Kashmir for India. Nehru pressed for changes to the Radcliffe Award, seeking the allocation to India of territory in East Punjab, including Muslim majority Gurdaspur District through which the land route to the Kashmir Valley passed. These areas had initially been shown on an earlier boundary map as falling within Pakistan’s territory.
Likewise, Mountbatten’s visit to Kashmir in June 1947 has been censured by many historians as an attempt to influence the Maharaja’s thinking on the state’s future political status. Alastair Lamb argues that his intervention can be read as an attempt to steer the Maharaja towards India.
This was the kind of political skulduggery at play on a much larger scale, revealing how prominent figures were involved in political manoeuvres aimed at securing Kashmir for India.
In his memoir “The Nation That Lost Its Soul”, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan argues that Pakistan lost Kashmir because Mountbatten intervened at the eleventh hour to alter the Radcliffe Award in India’s favour. His account gains significance when read alongside the later statements of Christopher Beaumont, an Indian Civil Service officer who served as Secretary to the Punjab Boundary Commission under Sir Cyril Radcliffe. In 1992, Beaumont confessed that Mountbatten persuaded Radcliffe to change his decision concerning the Ferozepur and Zira sub-districts, on grounds of political expediency.
These developments together contributed to the evolving situation in Kashmir. However, a seismic shift in the region’s politics came in late October, when India, under the garb of the IoA allegedly signed by the Maharaja, airlifted its forces to Srinagar Airport.
Pakistan denounced the move as an illegal intrusion, maintaining that the State’s accession to India had been secured through fraud. The ensuing conflict erupted into the first Indo-Pakistani war, and the dispute landed in the UN when India referred the Kashmir question to the United Nations Security Council on 1 January 1948.
In the follow-up, the UN constituted a commission (UNCIP) to address the dispute. After a month of deliberations, the UNCIP proposed a roadmap for resolving the dispute, envisaging a ceasefire, the demilitarisation of the State and, ultimately, a free and impartial plebiscite to determine its future in accordance with the wishes of its people.
Both countries accepted the resolution in its entirety. A ceasefire came into effect on 1 January 1949, followed by the establishment of a ceasefire line. Yet, despite the passage of nearly eight decades, the promised plebiscite has never been held.
Initially, the Indian leadership maintained that the state’s future would ultimately be determined in accordance with the wishes of its people once law and order had been restored. However, soon after consolidating its colonial grip over the region, the Indian leaders reneged on the very promises they had made to the people of Kashmir and the international community.
Rather than creating an atmosphere conducive to a peaceful resolution, the so-called secular leaders of newly decolonised India—who had themselves struggled for years to free their country from imperial rule—copied all the elements of Britain’s colonial playbook and deployed them to advance their colonial agenda in Kashmir. They resorted to Machiavellian machinations of deceit and deception, apparently to evade the promised referendum in the state.
Writer is director media and communications at Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) and can be reached via email;nissarthakur@gmail.com
