Mountbatten and Kashmir

By P. KODANDA RAO, M.A.

In his book “Mission with Mountbatten”, Mr. Alan Campbell Johnson gives a fascinating account of Mountbatten’s Mission in India, including Kashmir. As regards Kashmir, Mr. Campbell-Johnson gives credit to Mountbatten for the following steps. While pressing the Maharaja of Kashmir, along with other Indian Rulers, to make up his mind about accession prior to the transfer of power, Mountbatten exerted his maximum influence to prevent the Maharaja from making up his mind about accession without ascertaining the will of his people in the first instance, either by a plebiscite, referendum, or election, and if these be considered impracticable, by representative public meetings. Secondly, when in the face of grave and imminent danger, the Maharaja pleaded with independent India for help to repel the raiders, Mountbatten pressed the view that accession of Kashmir should precede India’s help. Thirdly, when the Maharaja signed the accession document, Mountbatten persuaded India to make a unilateral declaration that the accession was temporary and was subject to a plebiscite to be held when peace was restored. Fourthly, when Mr. Jinnah insisted that the plebiscite should be preceded by the suspension of the administration of Sheikh Abdullah to ensure an impartial plebiscite, Mountbatten suggested that the United Nations should be invited to supervise the plebiscite to ensure its impartiality. Fifthly, when India and Pakistan could not agree on the terms precedent to the plebiscite, Mountbatten suggested that the dispute should be referred to the United Nations as a third party. Sixthly, when the United Nations side-tracked India’s main complaint that Pakistan was guilty of aggression and concentrated attention on the conditions for the plebiscite and appointed the Kashmir Commission, Mountbatten persuaded India to accept it.

Why was Mountbatten so particular that in the case of Kashmir alone the Ruler should consult the people before making up his mind about accession? He did not insist on such consultation in the case of other Indian States. It is obvious that he was not influenced by the democratic sentiment that the people alone, and not the Rulers, should decide the issue of accession. Did he anticipate or fear a difference of opinion between the Kashmir Ruler and his people? If so, would he have ed up the Ruler or his people? Were Mountbatten and the Maharaja unaware of the overwhelming influence of Sheik Abdulla in Kashmir or of his preference for the secular democracy of India as against Mr. Jinnah’a two-nation theory and Islamic Pakistan? Were they not aware that Abdulla had politically chased Jinnah out of Kashmir, and Jinnah wept bitter tears over his expulsion? Knowing Jinnah as they did, were they unaware that one, if not the main, reason for Jinnah’s cupidity for Kashmir was to avenge his defeat at the hands of Sheik Abdulla? The Maharaja and Mountbatten could not have been in any doubt that the prevailing representative opinion was that of Abdulla and he would join India rather than Pakistan. If there were a conflict between the Maharaja and Abdulla, it could only mean that the Maharaja wished to accede to Pakistan, while Abdulla wished to accede to India. If such were the case, should not Mountbatten have ed Abdulla as against the Maharaja?

According to Campbell Johnson, India, with the full consent of Sardar Patel, put no pressure on the Maharaja to accede to India; indeed, India went so far as to assure the Maharaja that if he decided to accede to Pakistan, his action would not be considered an unfriendly act. On the other hand, Pakistan was putting pressure on Maharaja to accede to it, and even after signing the Standstill Agreement, applied economic sanctions to that effect. All the pull was exerted by Pakistan and none by India. If the Maharaja was himself inclined to accede to Pakistan, there was nothing to prevent him, particularly when Abdulla was still in jail. Nevertheless, the Maharaja would not make up his mind.

Campbell Johnson blamed the Maharaja for his chronic indecision and noted that in the three States of Hyderabad, Bhopal and Kashmir, which had not acceded, the Rulers and their peoples belonged to different religions, as if there was some correlation between the two. In so far as religion influenced the situation, was it likely that the Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir would have preferred to accede to Muslim Pakistan than secular India, particularly when Muslim Sheik Abdulla was himself in favour of the latter? Why, then, did Mountbatten use his maximum influence, when be was still Viceroy, to prevent the Maharaja from making up his mind about accession without a plebiscite? Did he anticipate that, in spite of Abdulla, the Muslim majority in Kashmir would plump for Muslim Pakistan? Or, did he desire it for other reasons? And did Mountbatten himself advice or press the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan? There was a strong rumour in Delhi at the time that Mountbatten had so advised the Maharaja, that the Maharaja lacked courage to reject the advice and therefore marked time with a Standstill Agreement. If this be true, it was Mountbatten, and not the unfortunate Maharaja, that was responsible for the chronic indecision that led to the subsequent tragic developments.

Events subsequent to the transfer of power also indicate that the Maharaja was not likely to be in favour of accession to Pakistan. On the 24th October 1947 Mountbatten was told in Delhi that Kashmir was invaded by raiders from across the Pakistan frontier, and that they travelled along the Rawalpindi Road in Pakistan. On the 25th a message from the Pakistan Army Headquarters notified that about five thousand tribesmen were within thirty-five miles of Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and more were following. The Maharaja sought the help of India to repel the invaders. Pakistan was in a better position to help him, if only by denying passage through her territory. Nevertheless the Maharaja did not seek the help of Pakistan. He would have done so if he had any good feeling towards Pakistan or was convinced that Pakistan was unconcerned in the tribal invasion. He turned to India for help, though time and terrain made it more difficult for India to respond.

Mountbatten also must have realised that Pakistan was neither neutral nor friendly towards the Maharaja. In fact, he came to know that Jinnah had ordered the Pakistan army to march into Kashmir and was himself waiting at Abottubad to march in triumph into Srinagar, and that he was prevailed upon by Gen. Auchenleck to desist, because in the meanwhile the Maharaja had acceded to India and thereby legalised India’s help to Kashmir.

When the helpless and hapless Maharaja appealed to independent India for help to repel the invaders, Mountbatten took the legalistic view that it would be improper for India to send troops into Kashmir without the accession of Kashmir to India. Without accession Kashmir was a neutral country, and if India entered neutral Kashmir, Pakistan might plead the same excuse and enter Kashmir. He seems to have overlooked the vital difference between the two. After the transfer of power, and before accession, Kashmir was an autonomous State. Was it not open to an autonomous State to invoke help of another autonomous State in case of need, without any previous commitment or by a temporary alliance and without accession? Further, India responded to a request from the Ruler of the state, while Pakistan would trespass against the wish of the Ruler. North Korean entry into South Korea was aggression, while American entry into South Korea was a friendly act. Insistence on accession at that moment as a condition precedent to help was perhaps unnecessary. Even if accession had satisfied the legal conscience of Mountbatten and Auchenleck, it made no such impression on Jinnah. It only provided him with a handle which he exploited to the full against India and Mountbatten himself. Jinnah promptly repudiated the accession as based on fraud and violence, and stuck to it, notwithstanding Mountbatten’s protestations that the fraud and violence were on the side of Pakistan, and not India.

Jinnah was influenced, not by the legal implications of accession, but by the military achievements of the Indian Army and Air Force. Incidentally, it may be noted here that, according to Mr. Campbell-Johnson, both Mountbatten and the Army High Command, mostly British, opposed on professional grounds the proposal to rush help to Kashmir, but were over-ruled by the Indian Cabinet, which took grave risk in doing so. But the events justified the civilian as against the military view. Mountbatten gallantly acknowledged that the brilliant performance of the Indian Army left his own SEAC operations standing.

When, in order to satisfy the legal conscience of Mountbatten, the Maharaja acceded to the Indian Union as a condition precedent to India’s help, Mountbatten returned to his earlier insistence that succession should be conditional on a popular plebiscite. But, as the rush of events did not permit of a plebiscite preceding accession, it should follow it. And, according to Campbell-Johnson, he persuaded the Indian Cabinet to volunteer the unilateral statement that accession by the Maharaja was temporary and provisional, and was subject to a plebiscite after normal conditions were restored. Neither the Maharaja nor the Indian Cabinet suggested it or wanted it, but Mountbatten did. Campbell-Johnson was positive that the legality of the accession was beyond doubt. Nevertheless, Mountbatten threw moral doubts on it and persuaded the Indian Cabinet to do likewise and walked into the parlour of Jinnah, who promptly seized on it and exploited it to the full, to the discomfiture and disappointment of Mountbatten himself. Mountbatten’s insistence on a plebiscite was a windfall in favour of Mr. Jinnah, and his moral doubts of the validity of the Maharaja’s accession was another. Foiled in his effort to conquer Kashmir by force of arms, Jinnah turned to his special brand of diplomacy to secure the practical annulment of accession by laying down conditions to that effect, namely, the withdrawal of Indian troops and the suspension of Abdulla’s administration as a preliminary to an impartial plebiscite.

Mountbatten took yet another step to appease Jinnah, notwithstanding the latter’s ‘impossible’ diplomacy. He offered that the plebiscite would be held under the supervision of the United Nations to ensure its impartiality. But Jinnah insisted that Indian troops should be practically withdrawn and Abdulla’s administration suspended. Mountbatten then realised that he was no longer acknowledged by Jinnah as a benevolent, neutral, and judicial third party with the necessary moral authority to compose differences between India and Pakistan, that his mission as a bridge between the two failed, He appealed to the British Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, to intervene, but received a polite refusal. Finally, he threw up the sponge and passed the problem to the United Nations as the highest third party, with the reluctant consent of Nehru.

Mountbatten suffered another defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the United Nations. The original complaint of India that Pakistan had committed an act of aggression which threatened international peace was side tracked, and attention was concentrated on the plebiscite and its precedent conditions. Mountbatten was disappointed with the attitude of Britain and America at the United Nations which vindicated Pakistan and discredited him and India.

When the United Nations ignored India’s complaint of Pakistan’s admitted aggression, and appointed a commission to promote the Plebiscite, Nehru, indignant with disappointment, declined to receive the Commission. Mountbatten persuaded him to receive it. The commission left the problem worse confounded, and widened the gulf between India and Pakistan.

With regard to Kashmir, Mountbatten’s mission was to link accession with a plebiscite and to keep the peace and prevent war between India and Pakistan. In retrospect, it would seem that, if he had not been obsessed with the plebiscite idea, and had not prevented the Maharaja from making up his mind about accession without a plebiscite, the Maharaja would in all probability have acceded to India well before the transfer of power. His conduct gave room for the view that he had pressed the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan, much against the latter’s wish. If even at the stage of the Maharaja’s accession, ofthe legalityof which he was satisfied, Mountbatten had not tagged on the plebiscite and thereby thrown moral doubts on the validity and finality of accession, his mission might have been more successful.

Jinnah would have greatly hesitated to try an armed conflict with India then. Pakistan was militarily weaker than India and would have suffered more by the withdrawal of British officers. The brilliant performance of the Indian Army in flying troops to Kashmir and rolling the invaders at the nick of time must have sobered Jinnah’s ardour for a military clash with India. Today Pakistan is in a much better position; she is better equipped and has besides the moral support of the Anglo-American bloc, and may even get their military support if the United Nations frown on India.

Mountbatten sacrificed himself, Nehru and India to appease Jinnah and Pakistan, and failed to appease them either. It is easier to be wise after the event and speculate on might-have-beens. But statesmen are judged not only by their intentions but also by their prescience in anticipating events.