The messy divorce

 

Close on the heels of independence followed a massive influx of refugees from India. Hardly a month had elapsed when the specter of Kashmir started breathing down Pakistan’s neck. The Pakistan Army was still struggling to create a semblance of its General Head Quarters. Units and equipment apportioned to the nascent army had slowly begun to move from the cantonments and depots located in India.

A frail government, smarting from the wounds of partition and the massive challenges of establishing refugee camps, lacked the political will and military power to address the problem. This was the beginning of the evolution of a particular mindset that would henceforth govern the decision-making process in Pakistan.

 

Pakistani politicians and bureaucrats often complain that whereas Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first governor general had declared that the future relations between India and Pakistan would be like those between the U.S. and Canada, Indian leadership never reciprocated in kind and never missed a chance to harm Pakistan. To substantiate their grievance, they cite Indian occupation of the Muslim princely states of Jammu & Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Junagarh, withholding Pakistan’s share of civil and military assets and stopping the canal water flow through the head works located in India. On the face of it, the argument is neat and logical. What they miss or feign not to understand is that the partition of the Hindustan Peninsula was a bloody and macabre event that resulted due to a messy divorce.

 

The leaders on both sides of the political divide had remained daggers drawn throughout the struggle for independence. Short of abusing, they used all sorts of derogatory epithets against each other. Jinnah called Nehru a Peter Pan*(Wolpert, 2005). Nehru repaid by stating that Jinnah was not a properly educated person as he did not have a university education and that success had come very late to him in life (Bolitho, 1954). And this hatred was transformed into a mass frenzy when partition approached nearer. Both sides accuse each other of the blood bath, rape, plunder, and arson heralded by the partition. However, neither side accepts that the death dance immediately before and after the partition was jointly choreographed by both sides.

*Allegory to a mischievous character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie – a daydreaming person who never grows up.

Out of the five hundred-plus princely states which had separate treaties with the British, Jammu & Kashmir was the only state over which Pakistan and India fought their first war soon after independence. The complex demography of Jammu & Kashmir rested on overlapping fault lines which often slipped, producing ethnic and communal tremors from time to time.

 

Whereas Pakistan entered the first Kashmir war on the premise that, being a Muslim-majority state, Jammu & Kashmir should have logically acceded to Pakistan, the situation was not that simple. Kashmiris, the largest ethnic group in the state, was a much-persecuted people. They had suffered almost equally under the Moghul, Afghan, Sikh, and Dogra rule. Notwithstanding the political leanings of their leaders, ordinary Kashmiris were too preoccupied with grappling with their grinding poverty to bother about which direction the wind blew.

 

Jinnah thought that Kashmir was the jugular vein of Pakistan, for, without the river waters that are the lifeline of Pakistan’s agrarian economy, Pakistan is but a vast desert. He, therefore, inferred that Pakistan had a legitimate right to control the waters of the Indus and its tributaries. It was thus vital for Pakistan to control the sources of river waters flowing into Pakistan from Kashmir. And Pakistani leadership took measures of sorts to achieve this national objective, albeit half-heartedly, and in a confused and hush-hush manner. It was soon clear to the entire world that the tribesmen abetted by the Pakistani government had invaded the Valley, yet the government of Pakistan remained in a state of denial. What was the reason?

 

While deciding how the war would be planned and fought, it seems there were three major considerations before Pakistani leadership: (1) military asymmetry with India. (2) the Supreme Command of the Indian Army, headed by Field Marshall Auchinleck, with its headquarters in New Delhi, should not be offended by an overt invasion. (3) A proxy war through reservists, army officers on leave,

and tribesmen should be waged for a few months till India was forced to seek a political solution.

 

While the government of Pakistan, including its GHQ, feigned ignorance, this war was masterminded and executed (with the tacit approval of Pakistan’s prime minister) by two serving colonels of the Pakistan army. When the war started, colonels Akbar Khan and Sher Khan were serving as Director Weapons & Equipment and Deputy Director Military Intelligence respectively at GHQ.

 

 Unbeknownst to the General Headquarters (read Generals Gracey and Messervy), Colonel Akbar Khan (later promoted to the rank of major general) of the Pakistan Army, was tasked by the Pakistani premier to set up a covert command headquarters to organize and execute the operations in Jammu & Kashmir. Colonel Sher Khan was subsequently promoted to the rank of brigadier, and the future Director of Military Intelligence (Nawaz, 2008), was to assist him.    For this purpose, Akbar Khan was to coordinate with the Muslim Conference led by Sardar Ibrahim, a Poonchi lawyer hailing from Rawalakot.

 

Mountbatten and Nehru prevailed upon the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir to sign the instrument of accession on 26^th October. On 27^th October, using the tribal invasion as a pretext, India attacked Kashmir. Mustering all the military and civilian passenger planes it could lay its hands on, India undertook a massive airlift of troops and equipment to Srinagar to counter the invasion (Sinha, 2002).

 

 

By December 1948 the Indian Army was firmly in control of the Jhelum Valley, Poonch, and Ladakh. Pakistani political and military leadership now feared that emboldened by their successes, the Indians would try to eliminate the sliver of Jammu & Kashmir territory which remained with Pakistan. So the Pakistan Army formally intervened to prevent the Indian Army from breaching the line Uri-Poonch- Naushera. At 23:59 hours on 1^st January 1949, Pakistan accepted the cease-fire.

 

Indians captured two-thirds of the disputed state but failed to get the mountain barrier separating the Valley from the Potohar plateau vacated by the raiders/Pakistan Army. It also could not dislodge the enemy from Gilgit and Baltistan. Even when things were going in favour of the Indian Army, Nehru, being a very cautious man, knocked at the United Nations door.

 

During all the operations in 1947-1949, National Conference volunteers, particularly in the Valley, acted as guides, spies, and political commissars for the Indian Army. They would sneak into the villages, motivate the villagers to support the Indians, and tie up the logistics for the projected operations. On the heels of every major Indian attack followed Sheikh Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad, D.P. Dhar, and other National Conference stalwarts to give pep talks to the inhabitants of the villages secured by the Indians (Singh, 2000).

 

 

This war heralded the birth of Pakistan’s undeclared but de facto Doctrine of Borrowed Power. The doctrine owes its evolution partially to Pakistan’s inability, as a lesser power, to militarily solve its territorial disputes with India, and partially to a shaky political and military leadership. This doctrine reinforced the collective civil and military psyche to lean on to the United States and (later) China and attempt at using Borrowed Power to resolve its disputes with India.

 

Major Conclusions

 

1.     Integration of Jammu and Kashmir state with Pakistan was not possible without taking the risk of employing the Pakistan Army.

2.     Non–state actors may create a lot of nuisance, but lack the discipline and resilience to achieve military objectives.

3.     Relying on multiple centres of gravity is counterproductive. Akbar Khan, disillusioned by the political and military leadership, joined the communists and tried to topple the government in the famous Rawalpindi Conspiracy. This was the beginning of Bonapartism in Pakistan.

4.     Having wrested the Kashmir Valley, the plum in the cake, Nehru wanted an end to the war because prolonging the war was tarnishing his image as an emerging world leader.

5.     Pakistani civil and military leadership was mentally exhausted by the war and also wanted an end to it.

6.     Any future attempt by Pakistan to attack the Indian-controlled Kashmir will result in an Indian response across the international border (During the 65 and Kargil Wars, Pakistan repeated the mistakes it had committed during the First Kashmir War – it used non-state actors to achieve its military objectives and failing to do so, knocked at the door of the United Nations (White House in case of the Kargil War).

 

 The Way Forward 

During the First Kashmir War, Pakistan lost the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and the Poonch Valley when India airlifted its army to Srinagar and IAF started strafing the roads and tracks along which the tribesmen were advancing towards Srinagar. The tribesmen were routed in a tank charge at the Shelateng plains, near Srinagar. Almost 76 years on, India has firmly integrated IHK into the Indian Union. As for the Kashmiri freedom movement, around a dozen separatist movements are going on in India, at least seven of them since 1947, in northeast India. These separatist movements are not more than pinpricks for India.

 

In 1965, the Kashmiris didn't respond to the awkward and sluggish Pakistani attempt to liberate Kashmir through another choreographed infiltration. In 1971, they remained indifferent to what was going on between India and Pakistan. Similarly, the Kargil War was a disaster. Presently, a bankrupt Pakistan is fighting for its existence. Bhutto, during the Simla summit, had told Indira he would, in due course, transform the LoC into an international border. Let us now stop hurting ourselves further and let Pakistan live in peace. Kashmiris in IHK, a majority of them, have accepted the reality of living with India. This year, India will be hosting the G-20 Summit in Srinagar. China is one of the members of the G-20. Saudi Arabia and UAE have offered to invest $100 billion in Jammu &Kashmir region if Pakistan and India accept to recognize Loc as the international border. These are the vibes at the global level. Pakistan should look inward for most of the 21^st Century and consolidate itself, even as the Japanese did after Commodore Perry blockaded Tokyo Bay on 8^th July 1853. It was only after building up its industrial and military power that Japan emerged as a developed and powerful country.

 

Saleem Akhtar Malik

The author is a Pakistan Army veteran who regularly writes on national and international affairs, defence, military history, and military technology. His talks on these subjects are aired on his YouTube Channel "The Observation Post". His blog "Sam1953.blogspot.com" features his articles. Tweets @saleemakhtar53.