25111948 Text of the Speech made by Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 382 held on 25 November 1948
25111948 Text of the Speech made by Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 382 held on 25 November 1948
Coming as I do to the table of this august Council for the first time, it is not unnatural that I should feel somewhat overpowered by the sense of my responsibility. The Security Council has power and it has authority. I hope that it will extend to me the indulgence and the patience that are due to a newcomer.
Before I deal with the military aspect of the situation and its implications as they have been described by the representative of Pakistan, I should like to associate myself with what he has said, and with what other members of the Security Council have said, regarding the very important work which the United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan has already accomplished.
You may remember that when the Security Council adopted its resolution of 21 April, objections were raised to that resolution by both sides. I think I am betraying no confidence when I say that the Commission was somewhat nervous of the reception which might be accorded to it when it reached the Indian subcontinent, I am happy to say that we lived up to our tradition of courtesy to all visitors, and I am even happier to record that our relations with the Commission were of the friendliest and very best. So long as that Commission continues to strive in a spirit of earnestness and energy to achieve a peaceful settlement of this unhappy dispute between us and Pakistan, so can it also count upon the cooperation of the Government and people of India.
The representative of Pakistan has referred to some statements which I made to the Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Lozano, a few days ago, about the military situation. These observations of mine were made on information which had reached me before I received the text of Sir Zafrullah Khan's letter to the Chairman of the Commission, in which he gives details of our military action, of the strengthening of our forces and of our military objectives. If I may venture to correct what the representative of Pakistan said, I did not say that the military action which the Government of India had taken in Kashmir was of a formal character. What I did say was that it was of a defensive character and that no major offensive had either been launched or was contemplated.
I wish, as much as the representative of Pakistan, to avoid saying anything that might make the task of conciliation more difficult, because we are believers in peace in India just as, I am sure, our friends on the other side are anxious to find a peaceful settlement. I wish to avoid any recrimination and I wish to say nothing that may adversely affect the activities of the Commission.
However, since a suggestion has been made that we even now are acting aggressively, it is only fair that I should draw. the attention of the Security Council to certain facts. The first of these facts is that since May, according to the statement that the representative of Pakistan made to the Commission of the Security Council, and perhaps somewhat earlier according to our own information, Pakistan forces have been and still are on the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which we regard as Indian territory.
In all our statements before the Security Council, we made it clear that we reserved to ourselves the right of self-defence, the right of expelling from our territory those who had no right to be there. However, the fact remains that, unlike what has been suggested just now-namely, that Pakistan's troops were on the territory of Jammu and Kashmir purely in a defensive role, and not playing any active military role at all-I should like to say here and now that for months past-and the Commission was in India, and we made this clear to the Commission, at the time-Pakistan forces, as also the forces of Azad Kashmir are under the operational control of the Pakistan High Command, have been attacking our positions in the North, in which the West, in the South. The representative of Pakistan has said that this was containing action. Well, I am not a military expert, and I do not know how one differentiates between containing action and an offensive action. My own view is that, if you are fighting somebody on his own territory, that is not containing action; it is offensive action. However, I do not wish to pursue that point any further. What I want to say is that the recent operations, both in Ladakh and in the Poonch area, have had the limited defensive objective of protecting the Valley of Kashmir against attacks from the North East, of relieving pressure on Leh in the Ladakh Valley, and of generally safeguarding our military situation in that part of Jammu and Kashmir,
Turning now to the South, our information-and this is not. based on what I told the Chairman of the Commission the other day, but on later information-was that the encircled garrison which we maintained in Poonch-and, under the protection of that garrison, thousands of refugees from other parts of Kashmir-that that garrison and its civilian population were being subjected to an intensified effort for to establish a stranglehold which would have made it impossible for us to supply either our garrison or the people under the protection of that garrison. The action which we have taken, including the capture of Mandhar, to which the representative of Pakistan referred has been designed exclusively to keep the supply line and the road to Poonch open.
A suggestion has been made that we have reinforced our air forces. I have it on the strength of a telegram received from my Government only this morning that no addition has been made to our air force in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the second place-and I am referring now to the letter which Sir Zafrullah has addressed to the Chairman of the Commission [8/1087) and which we are now considering it has been suggested that we have considerably reinforced our land troops or the army in this area.
Now, over a period of two months, all we have done is to send five thousand troops, partly for purposes of replacing old garrisons and partly in order to assist in the defensive action in Ladakh and in the Poonch area, as I have just tried to describe to you. Anything in the nature of new brigades or divisions, as mentioned here, have certainly not been sent to Jammu and Kashmir at all. The mention of brigades is possibly based on some misunderstanding of what is a purely organizational step -namely, the establishment of brigade headquarters for the old troops which happen to be in Jammu and Kashmir.
To repeat what I said when I started, though we maintain the right to exert all our military resources to rid Jammu and Kashmir of outsiders, actually we have started no major offensive; we are not contemplating any major offensive; we are anxious, as our friends on the other side are anxious, and as members of the Council are also, that nothing should be done to make the situation difficult from the point of view of negotiating a friendly settlement.
I do not think that it is necessary for me to expatiate at any greater length on the military situation. I have given you the acts which my Government have furnished to me in reply to the enquiries that I made after receiving Sir Zafrullah Khan's letter to the Chairman of the Commission.
The Chairman of the Commission said that he has been in communication with us and in communication, I believe, with the representative of Pakistan regarding the possibilities of further negotiation. I should only like to say that the informal proposals of principle regarding a plebiscite, which were handed to me, have been communicated to my Government. They were
handed me Saturday. They were communicated to the Government by telegram Sunday morning. They are important proposals, there has not been sufficient time to receive instructions from my Government. However, it is certainly my intention to explore possibilities of some kind of renewed and formal negotiations regarding a particular matter. This says not any commitment either on my own part or the part of Government of India, but as an index our desire make the fullest possible use of the good offices Commission friendly amicable settlement.
The representative of Pakistan said that has been purpose of India from the very beginning achieve military decision say that: Since we invoked good offices of Security Council to help us settling this amicably, we have not tried to achieve a solution the sword, and we not trying do now. have the fullest faith in the United Nations, and desire a friendly and peaceful settlement. I would, however, permit myself say that, are told, as we told letter, that because imagined offensive and alleged hostile intentions Government of India, there to be effort Pakistan counter-offensive, we must these circumstances naturally exercise prerogative belongs every Member of the Nations: prerogative self-defence.
I hope that the representative of Pakistan will misunderstand me, perhaps on the basis of inaccurate incomplete information, he has tried to present us in light of what has been expressed in a couple French verses:
"Cet animal est tres mechant,
Quand il attaque, il se défend."
We have done no more than to try and defend our position without prejudice to friendly solution negotiation and, certainly, with no whatsoever impeding the work of the Commission which the United Nations appointed.