Expert Explains | New row over Kashmir Accession: How Nehru’s naivete and Mountbatten’s dubious role led to the problem

Nehru had made a mistake in the beginning, and as time passed, he made a series of other mistakes to respond to the changing situation and evolving circumstances. The issue of Kashmir also became a victim of the politics of the Cold War, in which the aggressor, Pakistan, through the management of deft policy initiatives, managed to have the upper hand for some time.

Amid Pakistan’s aggression, India made that country a party to the Kashmir problem.

The story began with the Maharaja of Kashmir initially harbouring ambitions of independence, but after coming under attack from Pakistan, he had signed the Instrument of Accession unconditionally — which the Governor General of India had accepted unconditionally, recording “I do hereby accept this Instrument of Accession”. That had completed the accession, just like the accession of hundreds of other states.

The devil was in Mountbatten’s letter of 27 October 1947 to the Maharaja, conveying the acceptance of the state’s accession. In doing so, Mountbatten added that India would ascertain the wishes of the people of the state on the return of normal conditions.

On 27 October 1947, Nehru had told both Mehr Chand Mahajan, who had reached Srinagar as the new prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir days earlier, and Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the National Conference, of his decision to involve the United Nations to supervise the referendum to ascertain the people’s wishes.

Nehru did not stop there — he compounded the situation further when on November 3, he wrote to Liaquat Ali Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, that it was decided to ask “an impartial international agency like UN supervising any referendum”. Since Pakistan had denied its involvement in Kashmir at the time and had said that the raiders were tribal invaders, this was an opportunity for India to end Pakistan’s role in Kashmir. But India continued to deal with Pakistan on this issue, and made Pakistan a party to the Kashmir problem.

Nehru had appeared firm for a while, but he vacillated under Mountbatten’s advice.

For a while, Nehru had been determined — and he had told Mountbatten that “he intended to clear Kashmir with a sword whatever happened”, and give no space to Pakistan. But his determination vanished soon. Liaquat, not wanting to leave Kashmir alone, offered the withdrawal of the raiders if the Indian Army too withdrew from the state. He even suggested the appointment of a special and independent administrator for Kashmir in the interim period. All his suggestions were unacceptable to Nehru.

Mountbatten, in the meantime, was keen on an end of hostilities between the two armies commanded by British officers, of two countries both of whom were members of the British Commonwealth. Massaging Nehru’s ego, he suggested that if he agreed to refer the Kashmir question to the UN, it would “increase the prestige of India all over the world”.

Nehru, considering Mountbatten’s suggestion, told him that such a reference would be charging Pakistan of aggression in Kashmir. An Indian reference on Kashmir, even if accusing Pakistan of aggression, was welcome in Karachi — since it calculated that a reference would internationalise the Kashmir issue, and give Pakistan a toehold in Kashmir.

Not yet able to decide on a reference to the UN, a seemingly determined Nehru on 22 December 1947 warned Pakistan to stop all help to the raiders, failing which India would be free “to discharge their obligations to the government and the people of India”.

Reports from the war front, and Mountbatten’s assessment, nudged Nehru to go to the UN. 

Meanwhile, the reports from the war front were disorienting Nehru. Describing the situation as “dangerous”, he wrote to Mountbatten that “vast number of enemies are entering Kashmir at many points”, which showed that Pakistan, instead of checking the invasion, was pushing forward with all its might. He feared that the large concentrations that were forming on the West Punjab border, with their cry of “Dilli Chalo”, carried an “imminent danger of an invasion of India proper”.

In his letter of 28 December 1947 to the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, Nehru referred to the pressure that the Indian forces faced in Kashmir. Evidently, the Army had suffered some setbacks in Kashmir which had disoriented him.

In a separate letter to Gen. Roy Bucher, the then Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, he said, “There is every chance of the war spreading more and endangering our security.” His assessment, which he conveyed to the Army chief, was that, “We shall naturally continue our efforts in the political field, by reference to the UNO etc., to bring about some cessation of fighting if it is possible, but I am sure that this will not result in fighting stopping at present. Indeed, there is every chance of it spreading more and endangering our security.”

Mountbatten’s assessment of the war was equally worrying since he had told London over the GOI’s head through the British High Commission that there was an imminent danger of Indian troops suffering a major military defeat at the Uri and Naoshera fronts.

In the United Nations, India made mistakes, the price of which it paid for decades.

It was apparently under these adverse circumstances that Nehru decided to go to the United Nations in the hope

it would end the war and stabilise the situation. But having gone to the UN, India made another tactical mistake in offering to settle the Kashmir issue by a UN-conducted plebiscite. By this offer, New Delhi surrendered its sovereign right to an outside agency. In one go, Kashmir became an international issue, and Pakistan, the aggressor, was pitched on an equal footing as the other party to the dispute.

India found itself in the quagmire, from which it has found it difficult to extricate itself. Domestically, it adopted policies which, instead of integrating Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India, made the (erstwhile) state and its people a separate entity, creating a void in their daily life.

Nehru’s lack of appetite for war made him go to the UN and once there, India lost the plot altogether. The issue got internationalised, and over the years even the world has given up on it. But for domestic politics, it is a live issue, which gets revived periodically as per the needs of domestic politics. The 2019 abrogation of Kashmir’s special status has generated a new situation for tussle in the fractious politics of the country.

A S Bhasin a retired Director of the Historical Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, and the author of ‘India and Pakistan: Neighbours at Odds’, published by Bloomsbury in 2018. He has also produced a Documentary Study of ‘India-Pakistan Relations, 1947-2007’ in 10 volumes, published in 2012.