Re: Nehru: The Lotus Eater From Kashmir, by D.F. Karaka
Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:44 am
Part 2 of 2
Naturally the Indian press and the people showed great concern over this unbridled outburst of Sheikh Abdulla, and Pandit Nehru hurriedly sent for his protege to the capital for discussion and consultation! Unlike other occasions when the two had met and run into each other’s arms in fond embrace, there was no such cordiality reported in the Indian press. ‘Misunderstandings’ were soon cleared up, however, and, as a wag observed: ‘It is extremely gratifying to find that the exalted Abdulla has been graciously pleased to condescend to accept the accession of India to Kashmir!’1 [1. Vivek in The Times of India, 30th July, 1952.] According to the compromise arrived at, Sheikh Abdulla agreed to fly the Indian flag, but his claim to fly the flag of the state of Kashmir also was agreed to by Pandit Nehru.
On what basis this was agreed to by the Indian Prime Minister, no one knows. Even the old flag of Mysore state can now only be flown by the ruler over his own house and not by the state. Likewise, the various other states which have acceded to the Indian Union have been given no preferential treatment. They have all merged into the pattern of the Indian Union and they salute only one flag, that of the Republic of India. The exception made in the case of Kashmir has met with much adverse criticism. Pandit Nehru attempted to explain it away by saying that the Indian Union flag was supreme in Kashmir and that the state flag was in no sense a rival to it. This lame apologia was not becoming to the Liberator of Asia, and his staunchest admirers blushed at seeing the great Nehru eat crow at Sheikh Abdulla’s hands.
Nehru, despite the provocation offered by Sheikh Abdulla, unequivocally reiterated that Kashmir should not be coerced; it would have a full choice to decide whether it should join the Indian Union or not, irrespective of the ex-Maharaja’s earlier accession. But, said the Prime Minister, lamely upholding the dignity of the Union, if Kashmir did decide to join us, it would have to adopt our constitution, recognise the jurisdiction of our Supreme Court, and have common citizenship with us. Sheikh Abdulla, however, had different views on the subject. Bloated with the power and the prestige which Pandit Nehru’s extravagance of utterances had pumped into him, the Sheikh now fancied himself in no way inferior to the President of India. He spoke of claiming the right of granting pardons, which clearly cuts across the prerogative of the Indian President. He also thought he would like to have a Supreme Court of his own, and, from what we could understand, he visualised a dual citizenship for Kashmir. As Vivek1 [1. In The Times of India.] pointed out, the complete security in which the Kashmiris live now, because of the presence of Indian troops, had emboldened them.
All these factors were most disturbing, and to no one so much as to the Prime Minister himself, who was rudely shocked by one of his protege getting too big for his boots. But there was very little he could do in the matter now. Sheikh Abdulla was using his trump card in the negotiations that followed. He said he would take no responsibility for the plebiscite if his demands were not fully met.
The plebiscite is important to Nehru’s prestige in the world. He had assumed, somewhat rashly, that the people of Kashmir as a whole would come to us. He had based this assumption on the fact that the tribes which plundered and looted the Kashmiri people did so with the connivance of Pakistan, and in some cases with arms and ammunition which bore the marks of the Pakistan army. So how could Kashmir want to go over to those who had plundered it? But the Moslem mind does not think along those logical lines. Political observers were inclined to believe that the two provinces of Jammu and Ladhakh would very likely vote in favour of joining India, but they were equally certain that the Pakistan-held portion of Kashmir would likewise vote for Pakistan. In between there lay the valley of Kashmir, which was the plum, and the focal point of the whole action. This included the fertile plains around the Jhelum river, and it was in this crucial spot that the prestige of India and, in particular, that of its Prime Minister was at stake. While no one was in a position to state categorically how the valley would vote, there was growing fear amongst certain well-informed Indians that India would lose the valley on a straight, fair and uninfluenced vote. To lose the valley would mean the abandoning of the passes beyond, which guarded it, and that would mean abandoning Kashmir itself and taking up some line of defence far behind the Indian border, which would make our defence position most vulnerable in the vital sector of the north. The danger on paper was in terms of Pakistan only, but those who took a longer view foresaw the possibility of Russia and China, both of which had a common frontier with Kashmir, marching into that state without much opposition. The communists would then stand four square on the border of India proper.
This was the dilemma in which India found itself when Sheikh Abdulla, who had all along professed his gratitude to India for the protection it had offered his people, spoke of Kashmir as an independent state ‘with no strings attached’.
‘How to patch up?’ has become the motto of Nehru’s India, and some sort of compromise had to be effected quickly. It was agreed that all Kashmiris would be full citizens of India, but Indian citizenship did not correspondingly entitle the Indian to reciprocal treatment in Kashmir. No non-Kashmiri would be permitted to own property in Kashmir, and the entry of an Indian into the Kashmir state service was also banned. Pandit Nehru agreed to all this. He had to; his earlier emotional impetuosity had committed us to pledges which, in the context of our defence, we really would be foolish to redeem.
We can agree to no plebiscite in Kashmir until India is sure that the whole of Kashmir will vote for us. This is not likely to happen in our lifetime. Contemporary history has proved on more than one occasion that the Moslem, because of ties of religion, prefers to cast his lot with his Islamic brothers rather than forsake that tie and join a secular state, predominantly Hindu, even though the secular state offers more to him economically, socially and politically. Look at the classic example of the North-west Frontier province of India, which once virtually worshipped Mahatma Gandhi. Its two local Congress leaders, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Dr Khan Saheb, were heroes in their day. But when the referendum was held, the very people who shouted ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai' went solemnly to the ballot boxes to vote for going over to Pakistan by an overwhelming majority. Nor did these erstwhile followers of the Congress raise even a ripple of protest when Pakistan, soon after taking control of this province, pushed their tried and trusted leaders, Gaffar Khan and Khan Saheb, into jail, where they have remained all these years, patiently enduring the loss of freedom which jail life entails. The late Mr Jinnah had, in an exclusive interview, warned me that this would happen, and history proved him to be right.
The situation in Kashmir today is much the same as what it was in the North-west Frontier following the partition. It would be suicidal for Pandit Nehru to risk a plebiscite now; the only way it can go in our favour is if it is conducted under the aegis of our own army! But who would ever agree to that?
That is the plain truth. We cannot afford to lose Kashmir, and therefore we cannot afford to hold a plebiscite, whatever may be our Prime Minister’s pronouncements on the subject. No one minds Pandit Nehru paying lip service to democracy and espousing the cause of self-determination in every unit of India; flowery tributes to freedom are his speciality. But, no matter how many new formulas the United Nations commissions may produce, we would be ill-advised to withdraw from the cease-fire line or abandon the passes which we now control.
This explains why we periodically go to United Nations conferences on Kashmir and agree to nothing that can produce a settlement. Our official attitude on the Kashmir problem is that Pakistan is the aggressor, and that therefore Pakistan must first withdraw from Kashmir before we can move further in the matter of the plebiscite. Pakistan is not likely to agree to this; at present she is at least in possession of a part of Kashmir, however small, which she fears she will lose forever. But her attitude suits India, because it gives us an opportunity to proclaim to the world that our amour propre is offended, and it justifies our holding on to the present cease-fire line, a position which is strategically most favourable to us. But if Pakistan were naive enough to withdraw, what then? India still dare not hold a plebiscite under the aegis of a third power; the only plebiscite we can ever hold is one in which the vote will be assured of going in our favour.
At the last conference held in Geneva, over which Dr Graham presided, Pakistan arrived with its huge contingent of military experts and high-ranking officials. They trooped into the conference room and entrenched themselves behind a rampart of official files. India was represented by our Defence Minister, Mr Gopalaswamy Ayyangar, and General Thimayya. Thimayya carried with him only his tin of cigarettes, and as he sat down he smiled at the opposite side and put the tin of cigarettes in front of him. The General knew that our real defence position was not at Dr Graham’s conference table; it was in the passes that guarded the Kashmir valley.
The conference ended, as was expected, with India still maintaining that unless the Pakistan army completely withdraws out of Kashmir, no further negotiations and no plebiscite are possible. The alternative is the status quo, the maintenance of the present cease-fire line by which we continue to hold the valley and the passes that guard it, and Pakistan held on to their portion, which includes Gilgit and barren rocks.
Kashmir is the lotus-eaters’ paradise; ‘... the narrow and lonely valleys ...the Zoji-la pass with the rich verdant mountainsides below ...the bare bleak rock ...the snow-covered mountain tops ...the little glaciers creeping down ... the cold wind and the clear air ...the loneliness . . . trees and vegetation . . . this wild and desolate haunt of nature . . . full of energy and a feeling of exultation,’ Nehru had said. The eating of the lotus flower produces this sensation. Back in the capital city of New Delhi, where Mogul emperors once held sway, and where later the Viceroys of India came to live and rule from this majestic north the humbler plains of the vast subcontinent, there now sits in the office of Prime Minister a Kashmiri Pandit, in no way inferior to the Moguls or the Viceroys who preceded him. Nehru’s ancestor was only the kotwal of Delhi; his great-grandson, Jawaharlal, was the emperor himself. Even his critics have to concede that his is no inferior sway.
Naturally the Indian press and the people showed great concern over this unbridled outburst of Sheikh Abdulla, and Pandit Nehru hurriedly sent for his protege to the capital for discussion and consultation! Unlike other occasions when the two had met and run into each other’s arms in fond embrace, there was no such cordiality reported in the Indian press. ‘Misunderstandings’ were soon cleared up, however, and, as a wag observed: ‘It is extremely gratifying to find that the exalted Abdulla has been graciously pleased to condescend to accept the accession of India to Kashmir!’1 [1. Vivek in The Times of India, 30th July, 1952.] According to the compromise arrived at, Sheikh Abdulla agreed to fly the Indian flag, but his claim to fly the flag of the state of Kashmir also was agreed to by Pandit Nehru.
On what basis this was agreed to by the Indian Prime Minister, no one knows. Even the old flag of Mysore state can now only be flown by the ruler over his own house and not by the state. Likewise, the various other states which have acceded to the Indian Union have been given no preferential treatment. They have all merged into the pattern of the Indian Union and they salute only one flag, that of the Republic of India. The exception made in the case of Kashmir has met with much adverse criticism. Pandit Nehru attempted to explain it away by saying that the Indian Union flag was supreme in Kashmir and that the state flag was in no sense a rival to it. This lame apologia was not becoming to the Liberator of Asia, and his staunchest admirers blushed at seeing the great Nehru eat crow at Sheikh Abdulla’s hands.
Nehru, despite the provocation offered by Sheikh Abdulla, unequivocally reiterated that Kashmir should not be coerced; it would have a full choice to decide whether it should join the Indian Union or not, irrespective of the ex-Maharaja’s earlier accession. But, said the Prime Minister, lamely upholding the dignity of the Union, if Kashmir did decide to join us, it would have to adopt our constitution, recognise the jurisdiction of our Supreme Court, and have common citizenship with us. Sheikh Abdulla, however, had different views on the subject. Bloated with the power and the prestige which Pandit Nehru’s extravagance of utterances had pumped into him, the Sheikh now fancied himself in no way inferior to the President of India. He spoke of claiming the right of granting pardons, which clearly cuts across the prerogative of the Indian President. He also thought he would like to have a Supreme Court of his own, and, from what we could understand, he visualised a dual citizenship for Kashmir. As Vivek1 [1. In The Times of India.] pointed out, the complete security in which the Kashmiris live now, because of the presence of Indian troops, had emboldened them.
All these factors were most disturbing, and to no one so much as to the Prime Minister himself, who was rudely shocked by one of his protege getting too big for his boots. But there was very little he could do in the matter now. Sheikh Abdulla was using his trump card in the negotiations that followed. He said he would take no responsibility for the plebiscite if his demands were not fully met.
The plebiscite is important to Nehru’s prestige in the world. He had assumed, somewhat rashly, that the people of Kashmir as a whole would come to us. He had based this assumption on the fact that the tribes which plundered and looted the Kashmiri people did so with the connivance of Pakistan, and in some cases with arms and ammunition which bore the marks of the Pakistan army. So how could Kashmir want to go over to those who had plundered it? But the Moslem mind does not think along those logical lines. Political observers were inclined to believe that the two provinces of Jammu and Ladhakh would very likely vote in favour of joining India, but they were equally certain that the Pakistan-held portion of Kashmir would likewise vote for Pakistan. In between there lay the valley of Kashmir, which was the plum, and the focal point of the whole action. This included the fertile plains around the Jhelum river, and it was in this crucial spot that the prestige of India and, in particular, that of its Prime Minister was at stake. While no one was in a position to state categorically how the valley would vote, there was growing fear amongst certain well-informed Indians that India would lose the valley on a straight, fair and uninfluenced vote. To lose the valley would mean the abandoning of the passes beyond, which guarded it, and that would mean abandoning Kashmir itself and taking up some line of defence far behind the Indian border, which would make our defence position most vulnerable in the vital sector of the north. The danger on paper was in terms of Pakistan only, but those who took a longer view foresaw the possibility of Russia and China, both of which had a common frontier with Kashmir, marching into that state without much opposition. The communists would then stand four square on the border of India proper.
This was the dilemma in which India found itself when Sheikh Abdulla, who had all along professed his gratitude to India for the protection it had offered his people, spoke of Kashmir as an independent state ‘with no strings attached’.
‘How to patch up?’ has become the motto of Nehru’s India, and some sort of compromise had to be effected quickly. It was agreed that all Kashmiris would be full citizens of India, but Indian citizenship did not correspondingly entitle the Indian to reciprocal treatment in Kashmir. No non-Kashmiri would be permitted to own property in Kashmir, and the entry of an Indian into the Kashmir state service was also banned. Pandit Nehru agreed to all this. He had to; his earlier emotional impetuosity had committed us to pledges which, in the context of our defence, we really would be foolish to redeem.
We can agree to no plebiscite in Kashmir until India is sure that the whole of Kashmir will vote for us. This is not likely to happen in our lifetime. Contemporary history has proved on more than one occasion that the Moslem, because of ties of religion, prefers to cast his lot with his Islamic brothers rather than forsake that tie and join a secular state, predominantly Hindu, even though the secular state offers more to him economically, socially and politically. Look at the classic example of the North-west Frontier province of India, which once virtually worshipped Mahatma Gandhi. Its two local Congress leaders, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Dr Khan Saheb, were heroes in their day. But when the referendum was held, the very people who shouted ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai' went solemnly to the ballot boxes to vote for going over to Pakistan by an overwhelming majority. Nor did these erstwhile followers of the Congress raise even a ripple of protest when Pakistan, soon after taking control of this province, pushed their tried and trusted leaders, Gaffar Khan and Khan Saheb, into jail, where they have remained all these years, patiently enduring the loss of freedom which jail life entails. The late Mr Jinnah had, in an exclusive interview, warned me that this would happen, and history proved him to be right.
The situation in Kashmir today is much the same as what it was in the North-west Frontier following the partition. It would be suicidal for Pandit Nehru to risk a plebiscite now; the only way it can go in our favour is if it is conducted under the aegis of our own army! But who would ever agree to that?
That is the plain truth. We cannot afford to lose Kashmir, and therefore we cannot afford to hold a plebiscite, whatever may be our Prime Minister’s pronouncements on the subject. No one minds Pandit Nehru paying lip service to democracy and espousing the cause of self-determination in every unit of India; flowery tributes to freedom are his speciality. But, no matter how many new formulas the United Nations commissions may produce, we would be ill-advised to withdraw from the cease-fire line or abandon the passes which we now control.
This explains why we periodically go to United Nations conferences on Kashmir and agree to nothing that can produce a settlement. Our official attitude on the Kashmir problem is that Pakistan is the aggressor, and that therefore Pakistan must first withdraw from Kashmir before we can move further in the matter of the plebiscite. Pakistan is not likely to agree to this; at present she is at least in possession of a part of Kashmir, however small, which she fears she will lose forever. But her attitude suits India, because it gives us an opportunity to proclaim to the world that our amour propre is offended, and it justifies our holding on to the present cease-fire line, a position which is strategically most favourable to us. But if Pakistan were naive enough to withdraw, what then? India still dare not hold a plebiscite under the aegis of a third power; the only plebiscite we can ever hold is one in which the vote will be assured of going in our favour.
At the last conference held in Geneva, over which Dr Graham presided, Pakistan arrived with its huge contingent of military experts and high-ranking officials. They trooped into the conference room and entrenched themselves behind a rampart of official files. India was represented by our Defence Minister, Mr Gopalaswamy Ayyangar, and General Thimayya. Thimayya carried with him only his tin of cigarettes, and as he sat down he smiled at the opposite side and put the tin of cigarettes in front of him. The General knew that our real defence position was not at Dr Graham’s conference table; it was in the passes that guarded the Kashmir valley.
The conference ended, as was expected, with India still maintaining that unless the Pakistan army completely withdraws out of Kashmir, no further negotiations and no plebiscite are possible. The alternative is the status quo, the maintenance of the present cease-fire line by which we continue to hold the valley and the passes that guard it, and Pakistan held on to their portion, which includes Gilgit and barren rocks.
Kashmir is the lotus-eaters’ paradise; ‘... the narrow and lonely valleys ...the Zoji-la pass with the rich verdant mountainsides below ...the bare bleak rock ...the snow-covered mountain tops ...the little glaciers creeping down ... the cold wind and the clear air ...the loneliness . . . trees and vegetation . . . this wild and desolate haunt of nature . . . full of energy and a feeling of exultation,’ Nehru had said. The eating of the lotus flower produces this sensation. Back in the capital city of New Delhi, where Mogul emperors once held sway, and where later the Viceroys of India came to live and rule from this majestic north the humbler plains of the vast subcontinent, there now sits in the office of Prime Minister a Kashmiri Pandit, in no way inferior to the Moguls or the Viceroys who preceded him. Nehru’s ancestor was only the kotwal of Delhi; his great-grandson, Jawaharlal, was the emperor himself. Even his critics have to concede that his is no inferior sway.