THE KASHMIR PROBLEM A Historical Survey ALASTAIR LAMB FREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publishers N E W Y O R K \VASFIINGTON B O O K S THAT MATTER Published in the United States of America in 1967 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers 1x1 Fourth Avenue, New Tork, N. T . 10003 All rights reserved 0 1966 by Alastair Lamb Originally published by Routledge &? Kegan Paul in London under the title Crisis in Kashmir, 1947 to 1966 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number : 67- I I 660 Printed in Great Britain Contents Acknowledgements page vii I The Indian Princely States, Paramountcy and Partition Page I 2 Kashmir State and the Establishment of Dogra Rule Page I 7 3 Partition and the Accession Crisis, I947 page 35 4 Kashmir and the United Nations, 1947 to 1964 page 5 2 5 Inside Kashmir, 1947 to 1965 page 66 6 Plebiscite and the Cold War, 1951 to 1957 page 80 7 China and the Road to War, 1957 to 1965 page 92 Contents 8 The Rann of Kutch, War and Tashkent 1965 to 1966 page I I 2 g Conclusions and Prospects page '35 A Select Bibliography page I5 I Index Page I55 M A P S Jammu and Kashntir State pages viii-ix Kashmir and its Neighbours page 2 Stages in the Creation of Jammu and Kashtnir State page 18 Communal Distribution in Jammu and Kashmir State page 136 Acknowledgements This book is not intended to be a comprehensive study of the Kashmir question. So much has been said and written about Kashmir over the last two decades that to deal with it all would produce a work of prodigious size. My aim has been to present a brief outline of an historian's view of this tragic quarrel be- tween the two successors to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent. I have kept footnotes to the minimum and have made no reference to the bulk of the material in newspapers and journals which I have consulted. Without the help of D. I could not have done the research on which this book is based; but I would like to make it clear that she is in no way responsible for the views which I have expressed. I would also like to acknowledge the help which I received from Mr. C. H. Curtis, Bibliographical Officer in the Hertfordshire County Library, who went out of his way to provide me with material when I needed it. Finally I would like to thank Margaret and Ashley Havinden and Alison and Hope Bagenal who at various times provided me with room in which to get on with my writing. A.L. Roxford and Leaside, Hertindordbury May 1966 J a m u and Kashmir State L The Indian Princely States, Paramountcy and Partition Twice in the last two decades the Kashmir dispute, the question of the future of this unhappy State which on the eve of inde- pendence in the subcontinent possessed a Muslim majority ruled by a Hindu dynasty, has brought India and Pakistan to unde- clared war. In the first Kashmir crisis, in 1947 to 1949, actual fighting was confined to the disputed region: but in the second great crisis, during August and September 1965, the clash of men and arms spread from Kashmir all along the borders of West Pakistan, and there were reports of air operations in East Pakistan as well. Had not a cease-fire been arranged on 23 September 1965 by the United Nations (assisted no doubt by a Chinese ultimatum), it seems more than probable that the Kashmir issue would have escalated into a general Indo-Paki- stani war of formidable proportions. Such a war, despite the de'tente under Russian auspices which was secured at Tashkent in early 1966, may yet break out. There has been a cease-fire in the subcontinent; but it cannot be said that any final settle- ment of the Kashmir problem is at present in sight. The Kashmir dispute has guaranteed that a state of tension should continue in being between the two great powers of the Indian subcontinent. India and Pakistan at the outset had a great deal in common. They shared many of the same cultural traditions and languages. Their leaders had been members of the same government service or had at some period been allies in the political struggle against the same opponent, the British. Indians and Pakistanis knew each other and understood each Tashkent I N D I A T I B E T b /** I J '. ! '. !*..#.4 I ! i ! \ '. .#,-.*.L* '. 4 \. \ i o Urumchi "- I r' . J .**' ,.-.' ...-- S I N K I A N G Kashmir and its Neighbours The Indian Princely States, Paramountcy and Partition other. Many observers in 1947 hoped and believed that, once the first difficult days of independence were over, India and Pakistan would settle down together in some kind of joint harness, combining their resources and their talents to solve the vast social and economic problems facing the subcontinent. In the event, such hopes were not fulfilled. India and Pakistan have grown steadily apart over the years. The common British legacy has evolved in quite different ways in the two States. Far from co-operating, the two Powers have felt themselves obliged to maintain large military forces to defend themselves against each other. Their foreign policies have followed fluctuat- ing and divergent paths, oscillating between the major Power blocs in the Cold War. Behind all this, perhaps not as the sole factor but without doubt as a most important one, lies the problem of Kashmir. What is to be the future of this region where, by a chapter of historical accidents, a Muslim majority entered the age of Asian independence under the leadership of a Hindu ruler? This is a question for which, after nearly twenty years of argument, India, Pakistan, the United Nations and the leaders of a number of major World Powers have all failed to find an effective answer. In one sense the Kashmir problem can be seen as a conse- quence of the British failure to find a satisfactory method for the integration of the Princely States into the independent India and Pakistan which succeeded the British Raj. There were 562 Princely States in British India by the time of the transfer of power, and they covered over one-third of the total area of the Indian Empire. Some States were tiny, controlling but a frw acres of land: others were large indeed. Hyderabad and Kash- mir, the most extensive of all the States, each occupied more than 80,000 square miles; and each contained more land than England and only a little less than the entire United Kingdom. The Princely States came into being as a result of a series of historical accidents during the progress of formation of the British Indian Empire. Some Indian rulers werc not only con- quered by the British but also deprived of their estates and their political power: others, by good fortune or skilfi~l diplomacy, 3