19041948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 285 held on 19 April 1948

 

19041948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 285 held on 19 April 1948

l desire at the outset to render thanks on my own behalf and -on that of my delegation and my Government to the President and his predecessors in the presidential chair for the time, labour and trouble they all have given to a study and under­standing of the problem which we brought to the notice of the Security Council [document SJ628]. your approach has been objective throughout, and you have drawn unstintingly upon your diplomatic gifts and experience for helping the disputant countries to reach an amicable settlement here at Lake Success, if possible. if that settlement has not yet finally been reached, the responsibility for the failure cannot be attached to any one of the four Presidents personally. India is grateful to them all for the consideration, courtesy and help shown throughout the debates in the Security Council, as well as in the private consultations.

India is a peace-loving nation, and is determined always to act, both in national and international affairs, so as to live up to that description of a Member of the United Nations. Its faith in the principles, ideals and hopes that inspire the Charter, particularly in that part of it which relates to the peaceful settlement of international disputes, is sincere and wholehearted. It will continue to be so unless and until it is shattered by the compelling logic of facts arising from the actual functioning of the organs of the United Nations over a continuous period and in respect of a number of cases.

We in India take the Charter seriously. We should not otherwise have come here. We fondly hoped that the final response to our transparent and simple trust in this Security

council's utility for achieving pacific settlement would sustain both Our faith and our judgment.

We have been asking this question for nearly four months. Towards the end of our debates in the first phase—comprising the dark days not only of January but of the early part of February —I felt that the trend of opinion in the Security council on what we regarded as fundamentals was such that, if it had then been allowed to crystallize itself into a resolution, the result would have been an impasse. I therefore asked for and, after some hesitation, obtained, a temporary interruption of the consideration of the question by the Security Council. The adjournment not only gave me and my delegation the opportunity we badly wanted for a personal discussion with our Government, but, as subsequent indications have shown, it also enabled members of the Security Council to study the problem afresh and at leisure during the interval, and to review their previous reactions to its different aspects.

The result was that when we resumed the discussion in March the prospects seemed distinctly more hopeful. In appraising the Security Council of the results of my consultations with my Government, I said, on 10 March [266th meeting], that our stand on fundamentals would continue to be the same as before my departure for India. I stressed, however, our readiness to consider any suggestions for ensuring to the maxi­mum degree possible the freedom and impartiality of the-plebiscite, and I indicated that this should be quite possible without affecting our stand on fundamentals. Between 10 March and 18 March, Mr. Tsiang, who was then President of the Security Council, held informal consultations with the delega­tions of the two parties, as well as—I have reason to believe — with the representative's of two or three other delegations of Security Council members.

The outcome of these consultations was the draft resolution, which Mr. Tsiang placed before the Security Council for consideration on 18 March [document SJ699]. He explained its principal features in a speech which was followed by a short debate [269th meeting]. The Security Council then adjourned and the question was placed on the agenda again only a month later. The interval has been employed in further informal consultations and consequent successive revisions of Mr. Tang's draft, the last of which is the one now under consideration.

If I may permit myself to say so, Mr. Tang's draft resolution of 18 March was a valiant attempt at a just com­promise, embodied in draft articles of settlement to be accepted by both parties. It broke away courageously from the January-February ruts of argument and opinion. However, it was by no means above justifiable criticism from our side. It would have required some amendments before we could have accepted it in its entirety but, subject to these, [ straightaway accepted it in substance, since it did not commit us to any departure from our fundamentals. My Government has since endorsed this acceptance and has authorized me to repeat it to the Security Council.

The cardinal features of this scheme were the following. First, Pakistan should effectively cease giving help in men, material, bases and transit to invaders and rebels in Jammu and Kashmir. Secondly, India, while reducing the strength of its army in Jammu and Kashmir after the fighting had ceased, was to retain a minimum number of troops which would be sufficient for defence, as well as for supporting the civil power. There was to be no provision for any other army. Thirdly, the Interim Government of Jammu and Kashmir was to include representatives of major political parties. Fourthly, separate plebiscite machinery was to be set up as a formal branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Government; while deriving its authority from that Government, the plebiscite machinery was to be administered by a director and a number of deputies nominated by the Secretary-GeneraI of the United Nations and , functioning with the maximum of independence.

This scheme exhibited a happy combination of healthy lectures. It avoided any unnecessary or improper encroach­ment by outside authorities on the sovereign powers exercisable 'n the State by the Jammu and Kashmir Government and by The Government of India within their respective constitutional spheres. It respected constitutional properties in the relations which, in a federal structure, should subsist between the Government of India and the Government of a State which had deeded to India. Above all, in the arrangements it contemplated, it gave due recognition to the obvious requirements of administrative workability.

'It is a matter of profound disappointment and regret to us that in the subsequent conferences held informally by the President with his colleagues of the Security Council-including the representatives of the United States of America and the United Kingdom-Mr. Tsiang's scheme has been twisted out of shape in essential particulars. The approach has been altered. in important respects. Practically every amendment of substance to the 18 March resolution which has been made by way of alteration or addition is, from our point of view, a definite worsening of our position, and constitutes a breach-in some cases, a violent one-in our fundamentals. The scheme of 18 March has thus been so attenuated in the draft resolution presently before the Security Council, that it is not now possible for us to agree to the draft resolution.

As pointed out by Mr. Tsiang [284th meeting], there were three earlier drafts of the present draft resolution. We attempted to get each of them so amended as to bring it into accord with our fundamentals. Our attempts were unsuccessful. Therefore we do not, at the present stage when a majority of the members of the Security Council have pledged their support. to the resolution, propose to suggest any specific amendments.

If we were free and felt inclined to do so, there are amendments which we would like to see made in practically all the clauses: in some, amendments of substance; in others, of drafting. I have, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, decided to content myself with stating our main objections of substance to the draft resolution, and with placing before you and on record my strong opposition to its adoption by the Security Council as it stands.

Perhaps the most unsatisfactory feature of the draft resolution now before the Security Council is the scant consideration given in it to the issue on which we invoked the jurisdiction of the Security Council under the Charter, the issue the satis factory handling of which by the Security Council is essential for avoiding the threat to the maintenance of international peace and security.

 

Sanguinary fighting has been in progress in the territories of the Jammu and Kashmir State for six months now between the Indian army and the State forces on the one side, and armed tribesmen and other Pakistani nationals, together with the local rebels against the State Government, on the other. It is India's case that the fighters against constituted authority in the State derive all manner of help-men, arms, ammunition, other supplies, motor and other transport, bases of operation, transit facilities, gasoline-from or through Pakistan territory, and that the Pakistan Government has directly or indirectly allowed all this assistance to be given, and has done nothing of an active nature to stop it or to prevent this invasion of Jammu and Kashmir State from and through Pakistan.

The number of tribesmen and other fighters from the outside has run into many thousands for several months. The number of tribesmen alone is estimated even now at over 20,000, and accounts for half the strength of the enemy, the other half being composed of Pakistani nationals and local insurgents. Apart from the accounts of eye-witnesses, the geographical and physical factors compel the conclusion that armed hordes of this magnitude could not have entered the State of Jammu and Kashmir except from or through Pakistan territory, and that neither they, nor even the local insurgents, could have sustained the fighting for so long were it not for the arms, ammunition, supplies and transport they had been getting from Pakistan. Short of obtaining an official declaration of war by the Pakistan Government and the use of their regular army openly for conducting military operations in Jammu and Kashmir, the fighters have been and are obtaining all other help and assistance on Pakistan territory.

These conditions contain the potentialities of an armed conflict breaking out any day between the two Dominions; and inasmuch as Pakistan's active complicity, or even its passive acquiescence, in this affair is an unfriendly act whose continuance might precipitate a war, even in circumstances in which India might be acting legitimately in dealing with those who raid the State, we sought the intervention of the Security O Council. The threat of war is by no means diminished. Its imminence is as great now as it was at the end of December last.

During the last few days, military operations have intensified as the result of the advance of the Indian Army in its campaign for recapturing areas now under the control of the raiders and expelling them from the State. This advance is making the tribesmen, in their defeat, more brutal in their treatment of the local civilian population.

Much against my inclinations, I wish here to refer to what happened in a place called Rajaori within the last few days. Yesterday, I had the unique honour of receiving a cabled message from the head of the Azad Kashmir Government. That message reads as follows:

"Rajaori, a town in Jammu Province, captured by the Indian Army. Indian Army resorting to atrocities unknown to the civilized world. Four thousand Muslim civilians put to death mercilessly in the surrounding area in Rajaori Town and Rajaori itself.

"Eyes of the people are put out to victimize and terrorize them. One hundred thousand people were driven out of these areas in two days. They have been rendered homeless and are without food, exposed to death and destruction."

The Security Council must come to some judgment as to the veracity of the details sent to me in this telegram by the head of the Azad- Kashmir Government. Fortunately, I have in my possession reports which had reached me previous to my receipt of this particular telegram. I shall first read to the Security Council a few extracts from the account of a special correspondent of a leading newspaper in Delhi, The Hindustan Times, who happened to visit Rajouri after this incident. In a dispatch dated 14 April from Rajaori, described as the "granary of Jammu Province'' where the Emperor Jehangir died on his way back from Srinagar, the correspondent writes:

"This is a story of a death town of horrible and ghastly tragedy, which the advancing Indian troops, in spite of their best efforts, have been unable to prevent and of which they are mere helpless spectators. Here is the sequence. First, the raiders and their officers order the town inhabitants to collect in the public square together with all their movable belongings and cattle. Then the raiders take charge of all cattle and drive the animals into the hills. Next the Muslim inhabitants are ordered to separate themselves from non-Muslims. As soon as this is done, the Muslims are ordered to flee into the interior along a particular route taking their movable belongings with them in bullock carts, and the non-Muslims are ordered to form themselves into a line. Then there begins a systematic massacre of all the males except those between the ages of 25 and 30 who are healthy and strong. These were formed into a slave-labour gang and ordered to dig new positions for the raiders in the nearby hills and regions. The women and their belong­ings are distributed by the tribesmen between themselves.

"No accurate estimate of the numbers of people massacred in cold blood at Rajouri by the retreating tribesmen is yet possible, but there can be no question that it has been a massacre on a major scale. One or two people who have now managed to make their way into the Indian lines declare the town had a population well over 5,000 a week ago. I have just been talking with Khuda Bux, a former resident of Rajouri, who has managed to escape from the clutches of the raiders, and he declares that the people in the area want nothing more than to get rid of the raiders.

"Indian Army troops found the streets littered with bodies. Horror-stricken people told them how, on the night before our entering the village, the raiders turned their fury on the unarmed population and indulged in the wildest excesses of barbaric cruelty. Large sections of people were killed, houses were burned and women were abducted. In Rajouri it has not yet been possible to make an exact estimate of damage and atrocities committed by retreating raiders. But three big pits full of bodies-which remind us of the well in Palest.nc-now have been located on the outskirts of the town. In addition to the wholesale massacre of Indian nationals, the racers, according to local reports, have abducted 700 women from here. '

Further on the dispatch states:

"According to reports reaching here, large numbers of motor vehicles, apparently bringing supplies and ammunition, have been pouring across the Pakistan border into Mirpur during the last few days."

That is the account of a newspaper correspondent who visited Rajouri after it had been recaptured by the Indian Army.

Perhaps I could convey greater conviction to the Security Council if I read two official reports addressed to me. One, from the Defence Ministry in New Delhi, dated 15 April, states:

"Reports received from Rajaori state that raiders, on retreating, adopted a scorched earth policy leaving houses burning in their wake. Report also states that the tribal element massacred local Hindus as well as Muslims during their retreat, and the numbers of such dead are heavy. Three large pits, approximately fifty yards square, full of dead bodies have been discovered just north of Rajouri. Locals who fled to the hills when massacres started are struggling in now so shaken by their suffering that interrogation is difficult." I shall read also an extract from a later telegram dated 16 April, addressed to me by the Prime Minister of India:

"The raiders indulged in large-scale massacre of the civilian population and abduction of women and wholesale destruction of property. In fact, their behaviour in Rajouri before they were compelled by our troops to evacuate was even worse than the behaviour of the raiders in Baramulla. You may point out to the Security Council that you find it difficult to understand how to deal with such creatures on any known level.``

I leave the Security Council to choose between the facts or the allegations sent to me by the head of the Azad Kashmir Government and the account which I have received from my own Government, as well as the account which I have read by a newspaperman.

With reference to the last observation of my Prime Minister in his telegram, I would only say that wild animals in human shape recognize none of the restraints which civilization imposes on human conduct, even in war. Perhaps some might be tempted to say: even civilized nations, for example Germany, did not recognize them during the Second World War; why expect tribesmen to avoid such exhibitions altogether? But the real question for our purpose here is this: is Pakistan not blameworthy in letting these fiends loose on the innocent Muslim and non-Muslim population of Kashmir? One looks in vain in the draft resolution under consideration. for even a mere mention of Pakistan's dereliction of duty in this regard. It does not appear even in the preamble: somewhat anemic reference to it in the preamble of the draft of 30 March has now been dropped out.

It has been said that sub-paragraph 1 (a) of the revised draft resolution recommends that Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavours to prevent any intrusion of these hostile elements into the State, and it is suggested that that is a sufficient answer to the demand that we made in our complaint. However, I wish to point out that one does not confer such a duty upon a Government in a resolution of this type unless it is preceded by a recital that Government-in this case, Pakistan has failed in that respect in the past. There is no such recital in this resolution. This omission is calculated to give the impression that, under sub-paragraph 1(a), Pakistan is shouldering an onerous service in the cause of world peace and security, rather than that in the future at least -it will be fulfilling the obligation which has always lain upon it and which it has not so far discharged during the past six months.

Indeed, this might be the impression which a person un acquainted with the facts might obtain from what was said even by my distinguished friend from the United Kingdom. His words were as follows:

"Third, the draft resolution imposes a heavy duty on Pakistan in helping to stop the fighting and to prevent it from breaking out again [284th meeting].

I am sure that the representative of the United Kingdom, fully acquainted as he is with the facts, did not intend the possible implication of his words, namely, that the duty to be undertaken by Pakistan is a creation for the first time of this resolution. I have stressed this international obligation in the debates we have previously had, and I should like, on this occasion, to refer only to one statement of that obligation made before the General Assembly of the United Nations by no less a person than Secretary of State Marshall of the United States. In his address to the General Assembly on 17 September 1947, speaking on the Greek question, he said:

"The extent or effectiveness of such assistance to the Greek guerrillas is not the point at issue here. It is a uni­versally accepted principle of international law that for one nation to arm or otherwise assist rebellious forces against another Government is a hostile and aggressive act. Not only has this principle been upheld in a number of famous cases in international law, but it has also found expression in international agreements. The majority of the members of the Security Council have recorded their support of this principle by their action in this case."

If, as the Security Council and the General Assembly have already agreed in the Greek case, this is so well recognized as an international obligation, should Pakistan not have begun to discharge it, at least after the Security Council's resolution of 17 January [document Sj'65/]? In that resolution, the Security Council called upon the Government of Pakistan "to refrain from . . . doing or causing to be done or permitting any acts which might aggravate the situation."

The Government has made no attempt since that resolution "to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State". On the other hand, bases for the raiders still exist in Pakistan. The establishment on Pakistan territory of a factory for the manufacture of certain arms and ammunition to be supplied to the raiders and rebels, has recently come to our attention. Men in large numbers and material in large quantities pass daily through Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir; they are transported in hundreds of lorries. Two hundred shells from three howitzers were recently fired into Poonch Town from a neighboring hill. No howitzers have been lost by the Indian Army and howitzers do not grow on trees near Poonch or anywhere else in the Jammu and Kashmir State.

A responsible officer of ours, possessing facilities for obtaining local information in Pakistan, reported to us some time ago as follows: "A mountain artery of the Pakistan Government, in civilian dress, has been sent to the front. It consists of some 1,300 personnel, out of which about 600 have been sent to the Nowshera front via Bhimber and 700 to the Poonch front via Palandri."

This battery has been observed in action by our troops at one of these fronts. I would not worry the Security Council by giving further details of this description.

Should not this continuing breach of an obvious international obligation, and the active sustenance and encouragement it gives to the continuance and intensification of the fighting in the State, find mention somewhere in the resolution? The Security Council cannot refrain from doing so on the grounds that it does not have to pass upon any issue of fact, or that this resolution is not an award. The Security Council did not neglect to do so in the case of Greece. The General Assembly, following the majority opinion of the Security Council's Commission of Investigation, said in paragraph 3 of its resolution 109 (II) that the Commission had found:

"... that Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia had given assistance and support to the guerrillas fighting against the Greek Government."

Even as recently as three days ago [283rd meeting], in the Security Council's resolution on the Palestine truce, The Security Council said the same thing, by necessary implication, in the following words:

"Refrain from bringing and from assisting and encouraging the entry into Palestine of armed bands and fighting person­nel, groups and individuals, whatever their origin [document S/723]."

Why is it that the sponsors have omitted from the revised draft resolution, sub-paragraph 1(6), the following words which were in the draft resolution of 18 March 1948 and in all the redrafts of it prior to that of 30 March? The words are:

... by denying transit through, and the use of any bases in, Pakistan territory . . , [document S/699]."

The substance of a similar directive appears in the resolu­tion on Greece. I know that an amendment, importing a similar specific directive to offending parties into the Palestine truce resolution, which was submitted by the USSR representa­tive, was turned down by the Security Council. I wonder if this indicates a change of policy on the part of the Security Council, commencing with the final draft in our case, which had been prepared earlier than the day on which the truce resolution was considered?

It has been argued that the words "to prevent" will also cover all these cases. But may I suggest that the original words were probably omitted because they might imply a remote reference to past delinquency? "To prevent", again I take it, is something more positive than "to discourage".

In Pakistan's answer to our complaint, the following words occur:

". . . the Pakistan Government has continued to do all in their power to discourage the tribal movement by all means short of war [document SJ646]."

Even this milk-and-water policy is said to have caused better resentment throughout Pakistan, but despite a very serious risk of large-scale internal disturbances, the Pakistan Government claims that they have not deviated from it. Can the use of the words "to prevent", in the revised draft resolution now before the Security Council, be interpreted as a clear commitment on the part of Pakistan that if it is unable, by peaceful means, to prevent the movement of tribesmen and others into Jammu and Kashmir for fighting, it will use armed force against them for discharging the obligation under sub-paragraph 1(6) of the draft resolution?

Unless this commitment is unequivocal, the undertaking "to prevent" is not of any practical value. I am not interested in obtaining from the Security Council a verdict of "guilty" against Pakistan in this matter- The world is fully seized of the facts. Neither do I object to deferring to the susceptibilities of a party when such deference does not affect vital issues. The failure to mention the persistent and continuing breach of an international obligation and to call upon Pakistan to repair that breach is, however, a grave one because, first, the Security Council is charged with responsibility in this regard and should not fail to promote compliance with such obligations, especially in circumstances in which a breach of these obligations threa­tens international peace and security; and secondly, the omission strengthens the false notion promoted in the present case that the undertaking of this obligation by Pakistan is a quid pro quo for India and Kashmir, and gives it and gives even the tribes­men, satisfaction as to the arrangements for the plebiscite on the question of accession. The two are altogether unconnected, and though, for the purpose of an amicable settlement, we should be willing to agree to both the issues being dealt with in the same resolution, we cannot agree that the one is, or need be, really dependent on the other.

This cold shouldering of our main complaint has hurt us, our Government and my nation deeply. India brought before the Security Council a Plain simple, straightforward, factually fool-proof issue, and the action that we suggested the Security Council should take was inescapable. The Security Council has not escaped it either after all this delay Instead of taking that action earlier, India's complaint was placed in cold storage for nearly four months, four months of continued bloodshed and economic ruin. And at the end of it all we are exhorted, in appealing language, to agree to a resolution niggardly in its recognition of the merits of the matter, vague and indefinite in the wounding of the action to be taken by Pakistan. And in the interpretation of that language the Security Council has gone even further and been apologetic to Pakistan for reminding it of its duty. India cannot, in honour, agree to this treatment of its case,

The attempt, at the sacrifice of reason and justice, to establish for the Security Council a reputation for holding the scales even between the two disputing parties, has led the sponsors of this revised draft resolution to juxtapose India with Pakistan in a context which tars us with the same brush and makes us look like co-accused. Notable illustrations of this are the second paragraph of the preamble of the revised draft resolution, which places us both on a par for doing the "utmost to bring about a cessation of all fighting": sub-paragraph 2(a), which enjoins that our forces should start withdrawal simultaneously with the withdrawal of the tribal and other raiders paragraph 5, which suggests that the Commission may find it necessary to requisition Pakistan troops for the work of pacification in the State; and paragraph 10(e), which makes it the duty of the Plebiscite Administrator, an officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Government, administering the plebiscite in their name, to address communications direct to the Government of Pakistan-even to its representative with the Commission bringing to their notice, at his discretion, "any circumstances. which may tend, in his opinion, to interfere with the freedom of the plebiscite."

These are not provisions which we can-with any sense of self-respect, or any regard for our dignity as an independent nation and a sovereign Government-honourably accept. The Security Council can hold the scales even between two disputants so long as the dispute is in the stage of investigation. It cannot always do so, without offence to truth and fairness, when it has to take a decision, to suggest measures for action, or even to state its opinion. The transition between these two stages is a matter of passing from mere courtesy and avoidance of prejudgment to one of justice and fairness on the merits of the case.

I would now proceed to review briefly some of the detailed provisions of the draft resolution presently under consideration. By way of anticipating a possible claim from the other side, I desire to say a few words on the question of accession. In three places in the draft resolution, there occur the words, "whether the State of Jammu and Kashmir is to accede to India or Pakistan." The contention has been advanced that the accession is for a temporary period and a limited purpose, and when that period elapses and that purpose has been served, it ceases to be operative.

We, on our side, repudiate this claim. The accession which took place on 26 October 1947 was both legal and lawful. It has been followed up by India in the discharge of all the obligations that her acceptance of the accession has imposed upon her. She has saved the Jammu and Kashmir State from disintegration. She is now resisting those who are attacking that integrity even today. She is protecting the State's large population. from the unfriendly attentions of raiders from outside.

The accession therefore subsists today and will subsist even after the fighting ceases and peace and order have been restored. It will subsist until the plebiscite comes to be taken and the plebiscite goes against India. Until then, Pakistan has no constitutional position in Jammu and Kashmir; and we therefore put it forward as one of our fundamental contentions that, in regard to the arrangements which we make for the plebiscite under international auspices, there is no case for allowing the intervention of Pakistan at any stage. We are willing to give all the guarantees and safeguards which would satisfy an international body like this Security Council, but those safeguards cannot introduce into the State such a position for Pakistan that it could interfere as a matter of right..

After the fighting ceases, the whole of the State will have to come under one Government. By the whole of the State, I include also the area which is now under the control of the rebels and raiders. When the whole of the State thus comes under one administration-and that, the administration of the State of Jammu and Kashmir-India's garrisons will need to be planted at her outer frontiers on the west of the Jammu and Kashmir State. This planting is necessary for enabling India to discharge her obligations for the defence of the State which she has taken over under the Instrument of Accession.

There are vague implications here and there in the draft resolution that it does not contemplate this development. It is necessary for us to make it perfectly clear that, after the fighting ceases and peace and order are restored, the accession will still continue; India's obligations will still continue, both for defence and the maintenance of law and order, until the plebiscite comes to be taken.

Next, I wish to say a few words on the question of the Interim Government now functioning in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. This is dealt with in paragraph 6 of the draft resolution, which reads as follows:

The Government of India should undertake to ensure that the Government of the State invites the major political groups to designate responsible representatives to share equitably and fully in the conduct of the administration at the Ministerial level, while the plebiscite is being prepared and carried out."

The Government of India is unable to agree to this paragraph as it stands. It contemplates a coalition government in which all major political groups will find equitable and full representation, and this representation will be by persons who are to be designated by the political groups themselves.

Coalition governments of this type are all right when there is some major political issue, like war, on which all political parties are agreed as to the action to be taken. Such governments would work mischief if they were brought into existence at a time when the major political issue before the country is one on which those groups violently differ. To think of a coalition government in such circumstances is to invite a paralysis of the Kashmir administration during the period that is in contemplation.

We have had bitter experience in India of the working of the coalition governments. Neither we nor Kashmir would Like to repeat that experience in Kashmir. We, however, are prepared to agree, as we have already indicated more than once, that some representation should be found for these other political groups in the Government that is now functioning under a constitution which has been lately revised under a proclamation of His Highness, the Maharajah.

The selection of representatives of other political groups must, both under the constitution under which the State is now working and on reasonable grounds, be left to the Prime Minister of the State, and in order to demonstrate to the Security Council that the present Prime Minister of that State is all-out for implementing the spirit of the undertaking which we have already given in this respect, I should like to read a message which he has sent to me about the policy which he is pursuing, a message which be has given me discretion to use in any manner I like. I think it is appropriate that I should read *hat message to the Security Council. It is as follows:,m"I stand by my assurance that the Ministry should be broad-based. The condition, however, is that only those elements can be taken in by the Ministry who are not enemies of the State or in sympathy with raiders whose main objective is to turn this land destitute. I should not be supposed to include in my Ministry persons who directly or indirectly are a party to wholesale destruction of our villages and towns, abduction and rape of women, loot and plunder, which have been going on in the name of the so-called Liberation Movement. This, however, does not mean that I should not include those who have ideological differences with the National Conference, and would like to Support accession to Pakistan. As a matter of fact, I have in my Ministry today, Colonel Pir Mohammed Khan, who is a member of the Working Committee of the Muslim Conference, and President of the Anjuman-I-Islam, Jammu." we are , therefore, strongly opposed to paragraph 6.

I have a few words to say about the provisions relating to the Indian Army. References to it are to be found in paragraphs 2, 5 and 9 of the draft resolution. It was a matter of some surprise to me that Mr. Noel Baker repeatedly referred to the Indian Army in Kashmir as an army of occupation [284th meeting]. That army is there in pursuance of legitimate duties cast upon it by the constitutional position which India holds in Kashmir. To describe it as an army of mere occupation is doing less than justice not only to that Array but to the Government of India, it I may take the liberty of saying so.

There are four different kinds of armed forces referred to in this draft resolution. First, in sub-paragraph 2(a), the Indian Army is referred to. Paragraph 3 refers to State forces. Para­graph 4 refers to personnel locally recruited, and paragraph 5 refers to the possibility of the Pakistan Army being allowed to take a hand in this affair.

With regard to the Indian Army, the case of India is that after the fighting ceases, the strength of its forces in Kashmir necessarily will be reduced. But the reduction should not carry the strength of that Army below the minimum required not only for the maintenance of law and order, as provided in this draft resolution, but also for defence against external aggression.

In the draft resolution before us, this constitutes one of the major deteriorations from the draft resolution for which. Mr. Tsiang made himself responsible on 18 March last. A great deal was said by him on 17 April [284th meeting] to reconcile us to this deterioration.

His argument was, in effect, that if the arrangements provid­ed in the draft resolution are carried out, the chances of external aggression will become nil; the need for the Indian Army operating in Kashmir for purposes of defence against that aggression will not be felt.

He proceeded to say that even if such a need arose, there was, I believe under Article 51 of the Charter, an indefeasible right for individual and collective self-defence conceded to every Member of the United Nations. Did he suggest that, under those circumstances, if there was such external aggression, the Indian Army could march into the State for the purpose of preventing it? If'' so, why is it that the draft resolution did not recognize that fact in so many words, when it took the trouble of mentioning the question of maintenance of law and order? Assuming that that were possible, would it not be more in accord with the obligations of the federal Government in a frontier unit that it should maintain on the borders of that unit portions of the army sufficient in strength for repelling possible invasions of that territory? Are we asking for anything illegiti­mate or unreasonable when we say that the minimum strength should be sufficient, not only for Jaw and order, but for defence also? We shall not be willing to abdicate our paramount duty of defending Jammu and Kashmir so long as the accession lasts. It is on this ground that, in regard to sub-paragraph 2(a), we find ourselves unable to give our agreement.

Then, there are other parts of this paragraph which are somewhat difficult to understand. It speaks of "base areas" and "forward areas". "Forward" with reference to what? It will be a matter for conflicting interpretations later on. I rather think that that section of the paragraph which relates to "base" and "forward" areas has been lifted out of some other scheme which was more comprehensive than the one which has found expression in the draft resolution. That is why it looks so incongruous.

With regard to the State forces, the relevant paragraph is number 3. It says:

'The Government of India should agree that until such time as the plebiscite administration referred to below finds it necessary to exercise the powers of direction and super­vision over the State forces and police provided for in para­graph 8 they will be held in areas to be agreed upon with the Plebiscite Administrator."

This paragraph refers not only to the State forces but to the police as well, and it refers to a period prior to the Plebiscite Administration's feeling the need for directing and supervising these forces and the police . it is somewhat difficult for an administrator of some experience like myself to understand why this is necessary during the period prior to the plebiscite. The police are referred to. The police are all over the State; they are engaged every day in the maintenance of law and order. Why-should the Plebiscite Administrator prior to the plebiscite have the right to place a veto upon the disposition of the police in the interests of the maintenance of law and order? Apart from this, I should like to point out to the Security Council that both the State forces and police are governed essentially by discipline. If discipline has to be enforced, there must be unity of control. You cannot divide control, direction, or supervision, for that matter, in the case of disciplinary personnel of this type,. between two sets of authorities.

The suggestion in paragraph 3, to my mind, is an adminis­trative enormity. Then, paragraph 4'speaks of "...personnel recruited locally..." I take it that this refers to additional police that may be required. There is no harm in recruiting from local personnel whatever additional police may be required, but the mischief is in paragraph 5 which says:

"If these local forces..."—I take it these words refer to the forces raised under paragraph 4—"should be found to be inadequate, the Commission, subject to the agreement of both the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan, should arrange for the use of such forces of either Dominion as it deems effective for the purpose of pacification."

Pacification is an act having reference to local citizens of Kashmir. The task of pacification is essentially one which should be shouldered by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. It has its police at its disposal; it has its forces at its disposal. If these are insufficient, sub-paragraph 2(a) permits the retention of such numbers of the Indian armed forces as may be necessary for the maintenance of law and order. What need is there to provide for the requisition of additional outside forces for the purpose of pacification? It is a roundabout method of trying to introduce Pakistan forces into the Jammu and Kashmir State. The introduction of those forces is fraught with incalculable risk. India can never agree to paragraph 5 as it stands.

I should like to refer to the paragraphs regarding the plebiscite Administration. Our objections to this part of the resolution concern paragraph 8, which vests the direction and supervision of State forces and police in the Plebiscite Adminis­trator, even though "for that purpose only"; sub-paragraph ]Q(c), which gives the Plebiscite Administrator the right to ask for the creation of special magistrates and to nominate persons to those offices; and last, but by no means least, sub-paragraph I0(e), which permits the Plebiscite Administrator to communi­cate with the Government of Pakistan or with the represen­tative of that Government with the Commission. The Plebiscite Administrator is, as I have said, an officer of the State, and it is against all ideas of both political substance and administrative propriety that such an officer should be given the liberty of communicating directly with an outside Government on a matter for which his own Government is the sole responsible authority.

I do not wish to go further into the details of the resolution. I would urge only that India's conduct in this case has been absolutely correct from beginning to end. It has been correct legally; it has been correct constitutionally; it has been correct, as well, in high-principled, ethical statesmanship. As the draft resolution now stands, India definitely has to express her strong opposition to it. If, however, the draft resolution is carried, in spite of our objections and opposition, it will be for my Government to decide its course of action in the circumstances so created. It will be for my Government to decide its course of action regarding the stoppage of the fighting in Kashmir as soon as possible, and the holding of a plebiscite thereafter.

The moving and eloquent appeal which the representative of the United Kingdom made on 17 April [284th meeting] caused a temporary stir in my emotions. The procedural flexibilities to which the representative of the United States drew our attention at the same meeting gave rise to certain hesitations in my mind. I have, however, since had the opportunity to read and study both speeches in cold type. That study has not, I regret to say, inclined me toward any revision of my attitude to the draft resolution before us.

I have spoken with some bitterness, but not in anger. however I wish it to go into the record on behalf of the great peace-loving nation which I have the honour to represent, that the non-acceptance of this unsatisfactory draft resolution—if that is the decision of my Government after full consideration— does not necessarily mean war. We shall persevere and explore all other possible means of avoiding a war with Pakistan unless and until it becomes inevitable. In the case of hundreds of other disputes we have reached a pacific settlement with Pakistan without coming to the Security Council. The possibi­lities of an honourable, pacific settlement are not exhausted by the methods and measures suggested in this draft resolution. When, after this draft resolution is passed by the Security Council, both India and Pakistan go Back home, the wiser for our experience here, it may be that other methods and measures for a pacific settlement might be discovered which would prove acceptable to us.

We can only hope that our search for such other pacific methods will not prove to be barren and that we shall not be driven irresistibly to the arbitrariness of armed conflict between the two Dominions.