Jammu and Kashmir’s Accession to India Is Final

Jammu and Kashmir’s Accession to India Is Final

By Mahesh Kaul

The partition of the Indian subcontinent should be seen in the perspective of the Anglo-Muslim
alliance that was forged by the British to retain their strategic foothold in the Indian
subcontinent to have an access to the Russian activities and the appreciable influence on the
Central Asian region mainly in terms of oil reserves. As the oil reserves were in the domain
of the Central Asian and Middle Eastern Islamic countries and regions, the British encouraged
the separatist Muslim sentiment in India to impress the Muslim world and at the same time kept
the nationalist movement for the Indian independence under check, which the British viewed as
the ‘Hindu Nationalist’ upsurge.

Kashmir problem is the outcome of the ‘Great Game’ which the British played to keep the
separatist Muslim element alive to keep its stakes high even though World War II had changed
the dynamics of the strategic world order. This move was further meant to make the north-
Indian borders weak and pregnable forever and the result is the present Kashmir crisis. It was
a clear move to sow the seeds of the balkanisation of the Indian Union.

The process of maintaining the checks and applying brakes on the Indian nationalists had been
devised by the British well before 1947 and Jinnah was a British prop to materialise the
separatist Muslim claims for the partition of India.

These ploys and what was going on in the British mind has been revealed by Krishna Menon, who
was close to the British circles, in the following words to Lord Mountbatten well before the
partition on June 14, 1947, ”Is this frontier of (the northwest of India abutting Afghanistan
& Iran) still the hinterland of the Imperial Strategy? Do British still think in terms of
being able to use this territory and all that follows from it? There is considerable amount of
talk in this way; and if Kashmir, for one reason or another, chooses to be in Pakistan, that
is a further development in this direction. I do not know of British policy in this matter. I
do not know whether you know it either. But if this be the intent, this is tragic … As it
becomes more evident, the attitude of India would be resentful and Britain’s hold on Pakistan
would not improve it.” (pp.15-16, The Untold Story of India’s Partition)

Menon was pointing towards the British strategy of using West Pakistan as a base to stop the
Soviet expansion towards the Indian Ocean, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf and secondly he
implied that British policy was so ‘subterranean“ that even the Viceroy was ignorant of it?
These intrigues shaped the Kashmir problem and result is the present state of chaos and
desperation.

Accession of the Jammu & Kashmir State to the Indian Union needs to be understood by keeping
in mind the traits of the British and the separatist Muslim mindset of the Muslim League
nurtured by the imperial policy makers to divide India to suit their strategic hold on the
subcontinent.

There is a false premise on which Jammu & Kashmir’s accession to India is always understood by
certain vested interests: “That the Radcliffe Boundary Commission award giving Gurdaspur
District to the Indian East Punjab was announced on August 17, 1947, two days after the new
Dominions of India and Pakistan had already come into being.” This is totally absurd.

The demarcation of the areas that would go to Pakistan had already been decided by the British
well before 1947, the year of the partition. Its blueprint was prepared by the Viceroy Lord
Archbald Wavell in 1946 to forge an alliance with Jinnah’s Muslim League, the foundation of
this unholy alliance was laid in 1940-41 by his predecessor Linlithgow to project Jinnah as
the sole spokesman of ‘Muslim India’.

The same blueprint was kept under cover till the opportune time came in 1947 for the British
withdrawal. It was deliberately kept in abeyance so that the finger of suspicion for the
vivisection of India is not raised against the British Empire.

Narender Singh Sarila, who was an ADC to the last Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten, was a
witness to the British decisions and policy. Has observed candidly in his book The Untold
Story of India’s Partition that “secret archives cannot be depended upon to reveal the entire
picture. Many decisions that are taken by government are never committed on paper or, if so
committed, are not revealed even after the probationary period for keeping them under wraps
has lapsed. For instance, Lord Mountbatten’s reports to London, sent after August 15, 1947,
while he was the governor-general of India, have not been unsealed even after almost sixty
years, thereby depriving us of information surrounding British policy on Kashmir“.(pp.168,The
Untold Story of India’s Partition)

Lord Wavell was constantly in touch with the Secretary of State in London. His blueprint for
the partition was being taken seriously in London. On January 29, 1946, the Secretay of State
revealed the British policy by stating, in a telegram to Wavell, that ”It would help me to
know when I may expect to receive your recommendation as regards definition of genuinely
Muslim areas if we are compelled to give a decision to this (Partition)”. (pp.194-195,The
Untold Story of India’s Partition)

Gurdaspur district was not incorporated into the Indian Union after the partition, Wavell’s
partition plan forwarded to London on February 6-7, 1946 makes it clear as to what was in
store for millions of people of the Indian subcontinent. His partition plan which was
implemented by his successor Lord Mountbatten reads ”1) If compelled to indicate demarcation
of genuinely Moslem areas I recommend that we should include (a) Sind, North-West Frontier
Province, British Baluchistan and Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore Divisions of Punjab, Less
Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts … 2) In the Punjab the only Moslem–majority district that
would not go into Pakistan under demarcation is Gurdaspur. Gurdaspur must go with Amritsar for
geographical reasons and Amritsar being the sacred city of Sikhs must stay out of Pakistan…”
(pp.195,The Untold Story of India’s Partition)

Therefore it becomes clear that the decision regarding the Gurdaspur district was taken well
before partition and the argument regarding its inclusion in the Indian Union after the
partition does not hold any ground as it is far from the historical fact made amply clear by
Lord Wavell’s partition plan.

So the point raised by the fifth columnists and other left liberal intellectuals that
“Maharaja Hari Singh could not accede to the newly created Indian Dominion and the Indian
Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru could not accept such a request on or before August 15, 1947
because under the provision of July 1947 Indian Independence Act passed by the British
Parliament, Pathankot tehsil at that time, the only geographical link of Jammu & Kashmir, was
located in Gurdaspur District of west Punjab which had been notified under the aforesaid Act
as part of Pakistan“is falsification of the reality.

Another observation by these individuals that “The Maharaja Sahib had therefore no other
option than to think of Standstill Agreement with both new dominions of India and Pakistan and
making Jammu & Kashmir an Eastern Switzerland of Asia“ is another misinterpretation of
constitutional realities and the facts. As India under the British was composed of British
India and the Princely States which accepted the British rule, the rulers of these States were
thus bound to accede to one of the dominions and there was no provision for their independent
existence. The celebrated political scientist MK Teng, in the preface to his book titled
Kashmir: the Myth of Autonomy has cleared this misconception regarding the accession of Jammu
& Kashmir and other Princely States to the Indian Union. He writes, “The partition of India
did not envisage the accession of the Princely States to the dominion of India and Pakistan on
the basis British India was divided. The partition of India left the States out of its scope
and the transfer of power accepted the lapse of the Paramountcy: the imperial authority the
British exercised over the States. The accession of the States to India was the culmination of
a historical process which symbolised the unity of the people in the British India and the
Indian States”. (pp.VII, Kashmir-Myth of Autonomy)

It is a populist view in order to cover the truth regarding the accession that Maharaja Hari
Singh was trapped and was hence indecisive to accede to India. To clear this misconception
further Teng writes, ”In 1947, when Jammu & Kashmir acceded to India, the ruler of the State,
Maharaja Hari Singh signed the same standard form of the Instrument of Accession, which the
other major Indian States signed. The accession of the State to India was not subject to any
exceptions or pre-condition to provide for any separate and special constitutional
arrangements for the State. Neither Nehru nor Patel gave any assurances to Hari Singh or the
National Conference leaders that Jammu & Kashmir would be accorded a separate and independent
political organisation on the basis of the Muslim Majority character of its population.”
(pp.VII, Kashmir-Myth of Autonomy)

Thus it is crystal clear that the accession of the Jammu and Kashmir State to the Indian Union
is complete in the Constitutional manner.

******(Writer writes on geo political issues,Northern Frontier,Strategic Affairs,cultural
,historical,heritage and tourism related issues with special emphasis on Jammu and
Kashmir and territorial integrity of the Indian nation.He is pursing PhD from
SHTM(School for Hospitality and Tourism Management),Faculty of Business
Studies,Univeristy of Jammu,Jammu )