12051964 Text of the speech made by Mr. Chagla (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 1115 held on 12 May 1964.
12051964 Text of the speech made by Mr. Chagla (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 1115 held on 12 May 1964.
When I joined the Bar and started practicing more than forty years ago, I was given one important piece of advice, that if I had a bad case I should abuse my opponent as virulent as possible. I do not know what other qualifications of an advocate the Foreign Minister of Pakistan possesses, but he has certainly taken this particular advice to heart and has perfected it by practice, Half the speech of the representative of Pakistan was devoted to invective and abuse. I shall ignore it, more than a quarter of the speech was devoted to asking obstetrical questions, which the Pakistan Foreign Minister answered himself to his own complete satisfaction. Therefore, there is very little substance in the speech which I have to answer. I shall try to avoid repeating what I have said in my earlier statements before the Council. I reiterate and stand by every statement I have made on behalf of my Government in my earlier statements in the course of this debate.
I feel more and more that these debates on Kashmir are only exercises in futility. They lead nowhere and come to no conclusions. We have taken the stand from the very start that this meeting was both unnecessary and extremely untimely. When the two Ministers for Home Affairs of India and Pakistan are busy carrying on talks for the restoration of communal harmony, I have no doubt that the debate here, far from helping them, will only make their task more difficult and aggravate the situation prevailing in the two countries. Let me repeat that the Kashmir question, as indeed all the other outstanding differences between the two countries, can only be solved by bilateral talks between us and by the creation of an atmosphere conducive to such a settlement. The representative of Pakistan has made a charge that it is we who have made it impossible to create such an atmosphere. Facts speak differently. Our President made an appeal to the President of Pakistan and our Prime Minister from his sick bed made a similar appeal. Both the appeals were turned down with scant courtesy and even the talks now going on between the two Home Ministers were at the initiative of our Prime Minister.
The representative of Pakistan insisted on coming to this Council on flimsy charges to reopen the Kashmir question and, even after full and complete statements made by both sides, insisted on resuming the debate which is now going on. Lest memories be short, let me remind the members of the Council that it was our Prime Minister who appealed to President Ayub to issue a "no war" declaration, which would emphasize the peaceful intentions of both the countries. The offer was rejected.
The Pakistan representative has made an appeal to my people to transform the climate of our two countries. I have no doubt in my own mind that the peoples of Pakistan and India have no quarrels and they want to live in peace and amity. After all, only seventeen years ago the people of Pakistan were also the people of India. Ethnically and culturally they are the same. Millions in my country speak the languages which are the official languages of Pakistan. The history of Pakistan does not commence from 1947. It goes back thousands of years as does the history of India. The people of Pakistan have as much right as the people of India to take pride in the great civilization that India has developed. The Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Fatehpur Sikri, Ellora and Ajanta are the great monuments of India's greatness to which people of Pakistan can equally lay claim When Mr. Habibullah, Home Minister of Pakistan, came to India, he often talked of the old days when he had fought under Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, another great fighter for independence in the old days. The trouble with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, is that he is too young either not have participated in the struggle for freedom or even to remember it.
It will be noticed that in the long statement that the representative of Pakistan made he has perfunctorily and summarily dealt with the central issue which had been raised in my statement, namely the aggression of Pakistan which continues till today. Am I right in assuming that Pakistan has no answer to the charge? It is futile for the representative of Pakistan to talk of the principles of the Charter and of a scrupulous discharge of international commitments when his country has flagrantly violated the Charter and has perpetrated aggression upon another country in which she persists till today.It is equally obvious that Pakistan has failed to discharge her international commitments by not complying with the directives given by this Council to Pakistan to withdraw her troops from two fifths of Kashmir which she, even today, illegally occupies. Pakistan has failed to realize that the significance of her treaty with China, by which she gave 2,000 square miles of Kashmir, is not its territorial aspect nor the arithmetical calculation' by which we are told that Pakistan made a net gain, but the fact that Pakistan has no common frontier with China and in negotiating with her she was negotiating with regard to a territory to which internationally she has no claim and which is a part of India. In claiming an accretion of 750 square miles to Pakistan territory, Pakistan stands self-condemned of aggression, because in no view of the case is this territory part of Pakistan. I would like to know how Kashmir can express her self-determination when part of it has been given away to China. It is not correct to say that the treaty is provisional. As far as Pakistan is concerned. concerned, she is bound because the Treaty provides that if Kashmir comes to Pakistan, Pakistan is committed to the agreement which she has made with China.
The argument I advanced with regard to China's aggression against India is not irrelevant to the Kashmir issue as suggested by the representative of Pakistan. On the contrary, it is its most important aspect. It is no use saying that a look at the map of India discloses that there are other routes through which China can march into India. The patent fact remains that China attacked India through Ladakh, that she can do so again if she was so minded and that China today is in unlawful possession of a large part of Indian territory which can only be recovered if Kashmir remains a part of India and provides facilities for resistance to Chinese aggression.
It is ridiculous to suggest that this is a colonial or imperial argument and that we are subordinating the rights of the Kashmiri people to the needs of our defence. Through the centuries Kashmir has always been a part of India. The United Kingdom ruled both British India and the princely States, although with varying degrees of authority. Therefore, when India speaks of Kashmir being vital to her defence, she is not referring to a foreign country or trying to subject people of a different race or nationality in order to subserve her own requirements. In 1947 the only question that arose was whether Kashmir should secede to India or to: Pakistan. There was no question of either India or Pakistan acquiring a colony. It is an insult to the people of Kashmir even to suggest that her relationship to India is that of a colonial people to an imperial power. Kashmir decided legally and constitutionally to secede to India rather than to Pakistan. That was the end of the controversy. The controversy now is whether a part of India could be permitted to cede from her. It is in this connexion that the argument I advanced about the importance of Kashmir to India assumes significance. Let me point out that President Ayub Khan himself has spoken of Kashmir being vital to Pakistan's defence. In saying this is President Ayub looking upon Kashmir as a colony or her people as belonging to different races?
The Pakistan representative has insinuated that I have made an attack on Islam and the principles of Islam and that we in India resent the fact that the people of Pakistan practice that religion. This insinuation is totally baseless. In my own country, 50 million people practice Islam freely and without any opposition. I am conscious of the great principles for which religion stands: social equality, human dignity, tolerance and the value that every individual soul has in the eye of God. Our objection is not to the fact that the people of Pakistan are Muslims. Our objection is that the policy of the Government of Pakistan is entirely un-Islamic. There are many Muslim countries in the world which have non Muslims living in them. The non-Muslims look upon them as citizens with loyalty to that country just as much as the Muslims do. There is complete communal harmony in those countries and the non-Muslim religions are respected and receive complete toleration. Pakistan of late has been sending many delegations to different countries in the world. It would be worthwhile to send a delegation to these Muslim countries to find out how the principles of Islam are applied in the governance of these countries. Hatred of India, persecution of her minorities, the perpetual cry of a holy war against my country, are not precepts which Islam proclaims. It is not I, but Sheikh Abdullah, who stated, as I pointed out on the last occasion, that the Pakistanis claiming to be the protectors of Islam had killed and looted, desecrated the Koran and converted mosques into brothels.
The representative of Pakistan has charged India with pursuing a Machiavellian policy in adhering to the principles of non-alignment India was perhaps the first important country which declared its faith in non alignment. Non alignment means refusal to enter into military pacts or alliances to belong or to any power bloc. It also means maintaining friendly relations with all countries. You will remember that Mr. John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State of the United States, once called non-alignment an immoral policy. In our adherence to that principle, we withstood without flinching many violent attacks from the Western Powers, and today these very Powers realize that non-alignment is the only correct policy for the newly emerging countries to adopt. The United States played an important part in making Laos non aligned with France. with a sense of Gallic logic and realism, has now come to the conclusion that the only way to have peace in South East Asia is to remove it from the ambit of the cold war.
What has happened is that China, with which we were on friendly terms, suddenly and treacherously attacked us. Did we give up our policy of non-alignment? We certainly did not. It is to the credit of the Western Powers that they gave us military assistance because they realized that our cause was just and we were victims of a naked aggression. In obtaining this assistance from them. we entered into no military pact with them. But we did not receive assistance merely from the Western Powers. The USSR, making it clear that the border dispute between India and China should have been settled by peaceful means, and not by war-which China had unjustifiably waged against India-also gave up assistance. It was only Pakistan, our dear neighbour which not only did. not come to our assistance but did its utmost to prevent the Western Powers from coming to our rescue. It did more. It carried on a violent propaganda in the chancelleries of the world against India and justified the Chinese attack on our country.
The representative of Pakistan has made a slanderous attack on the Colombo Powers. He has suggested that, while we are maintaining a warlike attitude against China, we are simultaneously carrying on negotiations for a peaceful settlement by proxy-I am using his expression-through the Colombo Powers. This suggests that the Colombo Powers are our agents and our tools. The Colombo Powers-the United Arab Republic, Ceylon, Burma, Cambodia, Ghana and Indonesia-are important, respected and independent. countries. They, on their own initiative, intervened and wanted to bring about a peaceful settlement between India and China. For that purpose thy put forward certain proposals India accepted without qualification or reservation. China refused to do so, and it is because of this that China and India have not been able to come to the negotiating table. in order to settle their dispute.
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has charged India with a policy which is intended to annihilate or expel the 50 mil-. lion Muslims living in India, and for this purpose he has quoted extensively from a speech of Mr. Frank Anthony and a statement of Mr Jayaprakash Narayan. We do not deny. the disgraceful incidents which took place in India, in which atrocities were committed against the Muslim minorities, but let me set the record straight on this point.
In the first place, these atrocities were localized and were largely the result of the fact that the feelings of the majority community were influenced by the refugees coming over from East Pakistan with harrowing tales of what they and their families had suffered.
In the second place, communal disturbances in these parts were put down with a heavy hand poth by the State authorities and by the firm intervention of the Government of India.
In the third place, we have emphatically denounced these atrocities and expressed our shame that such things should happen in a secular country like India. The religious apartheid of which Pakistan is guilty consists of treating Muslims as a separate-and privileged-class from others. Pakistan's origin is indeed traceable to religious apartheid, the manifestation of which is a two-nation theory that is, that Muslims and others are separate nations, a theory we entirely reject and repudiate. The Sims concept governs Pakistan's internal policy today.
The 50 million Muslims of India have not appointed the Pakistan Foreign Minister as their representative or advocate to plead their cause here. On the contrary, they have denounced Pakistan's stand here, have expressed complete confidence in the Government of India, have emphasized the importance to secularism of Kashmir's remaining an integral part of India and their complete faith in the Government's safeguarding their religion and their rights as citizens. The Pakistan representative will perhaps be interested to learn that even the Muslim League, which was the most communal organization in India and which was really responsible for partition, has supported India's stand on Kashmir.
In the fourth place, I would like to emphasize one important aspect of the communal policy in my country and Pakistan. The position would be made clear if I drew an analogy between the United States of America and South Africa. We all know that there is racial discrimination in the United States, but we also know that the official policy of the Government of the United States is against such a policy and the American administration is doing its best to remove this blot from the record it has established through its Constitution and the principles of its revolution equality before the law and respect for human dignity. On the other hand, the official policy of South Africa is to support and strengthen racial apartheid. We have communal troubles and disturbances in our country, but our official policy, which we pursue with unflinching tenacity, is secularism and communal harmony. Pakistan's official policy, on the other hand, as witnessed by statements made by its responsible leaders and its press, to which I made reference in my previous statements, is open hostility to the minorities residing within its territories.
With regard to the Anglo-Indian community and what Mr. Anthony said, I have before me a large number of statements made by Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Indian associations totally repudiating the stand taken by him.
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has stated that we are responsible for the large migration of minorities from East Pakistan into India. In a dispatch that appeared in The New York Times on 10 May 1964 from Calcutta, the figure given of the refugees that have crossed over into India so far is 312,000 and about 10,000 had got through on 6 May 1964 in the largest we've so far. It is ridiculous to suggest that we are luring these refugees to our country. Does this Council realize what these figures mean in terms of human suffering and misery? These peoples are leaving their homes and hearths and leaving a country in which their forefathers lived for centuries in order to go out to a foreign land, to an uncertain future. We do not want these refugees. We realize that their proper place is in Pakistan.. We also realize that their advent will disrupt our economy. But what are we to do? Compassion demands that we should not refuse shelter to people who are fleeing from persecution and a sense of insecurity.
I am not going into the figures of the Indian Muslims who might have left India. I dare say when communal trouble took place in India some Muslims must have left because of fear and a sense of insecurity. But the unchallenged fact remains that after communal harmony was restored in India and the troubles put down, there has been no movement of Muslims from India into Pakistan. The movement is all the other way, and this is borne out not merely by Indians but by impartial foreign testimony. With regard to the figures given by the representative of Pakistan of Muslims who left India in the course of two years, these are not Indian nationals. After due legal process they have been found to be not the nationals of India but the nationals of Pakistan who have infiltrated into our country. They have been evicted and in doing so we have exercised the right of sovereignty that every country possesses of sending out of its country infiltrators who do not acquire citizenship of the country, and even here the numbers cited by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan are grossly exaggerated.
The representative of Pakistan has given a lame explanation about its attitude towards the African-Asian countries and colonialism. It is completely false to say that we have done any business with South Africa. In the document dated 5 March 1964, referred to by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, there are figures given of exports by India to South Africa. The fact of the matter is that products of Indian origin might have gone to South Africa from third countries. I repeat that there is and has been no trade between India and South Africa, We were the first to cut off diplomatic and commercial relations with that country. Suez was a turning point in the history of colonialism. Pakistan's representative did not say a word about the role played by his country on that question, nor has he said anything about Pakistan's continuing relations with Portugal. I sympathize with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. It is so difficult to be at the same time anticolonial and a distinguished member of SEATO and CENTO.
The representative of Pakistan has expressed indignation at my comparing Pakistan to a burglar who has entered the property of another person, squats in the ante-room and challenges the rightful owner to prove his title, and with a great show of injured innocence the representative has attempted to make the point that we are not dealing with the law of real property and that Kashmir is not a piece of property which has got to be disposed of in that way. But what about the two-fifths of Kashmir that is in the possession of Pakistan? Is it part of Pakistan property? Or does Pakistan just hold on to it, as the imperial Powers of old did with territories they seized in war as a part of their booty ? Let me refer to two points in brief. One is about Nagaland. The representative of Pakistan should have told the members of the Security Council that we have conferred upon Nagaland the status of a Constituent State of the Indian Union, and the people of Nagaland have accepted this status and have held free elections recently to establish a State Legislature in that part of the country. The other point is with regard to what happened at Djakarta. Pakistan opposed the invitation to the USSR to the African-Asian Conference on the ground that it was not an Asian power and compared it to Albania, it forgot that two-thirds of the USSR is in Asia and that 40 percent of the people of the USSR live on the Asian Continent.
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has again raised the question of Sheikh Abdullah being called before the Security Council. I have already pointed out in my last statement how untenable his contention is.. Sheikh Abdullah occupies no official position in Kashmir, and it would be a most dangerous precedent for this Council to lay down that any citizen in a country who holds a dissident opinion or belongs to an opposition party should have the right of audience here. In Kashmir itself there are various parties. If Sheikh Abdullah is to be called, then representatives of all these parties should also be called. And why not the representatives of 50 million. Muslims in India who have a vital stake in the future of Kashmir? The representative of Pakistan says that the whole of Kashmir is behind Sheikh Abdullah. Where does he get this fact? Is this his inference from the demonstrations held in favour of Sheikh Abdullah? Has he obtained the figures of the number of people who took part in these demonstrations ? Is he satisfied that the only demonstrations that take place in Kashmir are in favour of Sheikh Abdullah ? I have just received a telegram from Delhi which is very pertinent :
"High tributes were paid to the leader of the Indian delegation, Mr. Chagla, for his able handling of the Kashmir case in the Security Council at public rallies. held in all the three districts of Kashmir on 10 May", reports the Press Trust of India from Srinagar. I am very grateful for this tribute to me. I am sorry I have to read it out. I should be a little more modest, but I am reading out the telegram as I have received it.
Addressing a rally at Dyalgam in Anantnag district, this is again in the valley of Kashmir, Syed Hussain, a member of the Legislative Council of Kashmir and Mufti Mohammed Syeed, another member of the Assembly, said Chagla had very ably advocated "our case Against Pakistan's aggression. Chagla has voiced the feelings of the people of the entire country, especially the Kashmiris".
Ghulam Mohammed Lasjan, a former member of the Assembly and Abdul Rehman Rahat, Vice-Presi dent of the District National Conference, Srinagar, addressing another public rally at Mharmar, south of Srinagar, said that the people of the State were determined to march forward on the path of progress as an integral part of India. Any attempt to disturb the peace and stability in the State would be resisted.
Another rally was held at Babura in the Baramulla district; this is very near Srinagar. Speakers at the rally supported new Government policies-that is, the Government of Mr. Sadiq-and pledged support to the Government of India and the State Government.
Patriot's correspondent adds from Sridagar:
"Rallies, mostly peasant gatherings, confirmed the fact that the health of Kashmir was sound despite the secessionists' cry to reopen the Kashmir issue and undo the settled condition in Kashmir.
"Inspiring to watch was a ten thousand-strong rally held. at Myanmar forty miles away from Srinagar in the Kangan valley, where nomadic Gujjars travelling from far-off distances assembled to reiterate their resolve to defend the integrity and to extend their support to the policies of the new Government." So the demonstrations that are held in Kashmir, may I inform the Foreign Minister, are not all in support of Sheikh Abdullah; there are equally important demonstrations which are being held in support of the present Government of Kashmir headed by Mr. Sadiq, and also the party which wants Kashmir to remain an integral part of India.
Now, if I may continue with this question :
"Speakers at the rally included Bashir Ahmed, a popular Gujjar leader, Ghulam Mohammed Lasjan, a former member of the Legislative Assembly, and Dul Rehman Rahat, veteran peasant leader from Badgan and Vice President of the District National Conference, Srinagar.
"Thunderous cheers greeted Bashir Ahmed when he said that it was only because of India's generous help that Gujjars, ignored for centuries in the State, were advancing on a par with other sections of the society.
"If anything threatened this advance it was the continuing Pakistani aggression on the State's territory, and Chagla, by exposing Pakistani perfidy, had ably voiced Kashmir's sentiments.
"Both Lasjan and Abdul Rehman Rahat pinpointed the role of Western countries in keeping the so-called Kashmir issue alive. Rahat said that ever since Kashmir's freedom struggle started, imperialists had been particularly active to defeat its objectives. They had failed in the past and they would be defeated this time too because the entire country stood behind Kashmir, he said ''.
My Government, therefore, is emphatically opposed to an invitation being extended to Sheikh Abdullah to appear before this Council.
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has referred to the gallant deeds of Muslims in East Pakistan in giving protection to members of the minority community. These gallant deeds are not continued to East Pakistan. Similar gallant deeds were performed by Hindus in West Bengal. All honour to those who risk their lives in protecting those belonging to other faiths. This emphasizes what I said earlier in my statement, that the peoples of the two countries have no quarrel, that they may be swayed by passions but at heart they want to be friendly. and are not oblivious to the bonds that still bind them.
Let me, therefore, end on this note: that we treat the Kashmir problem as a human problem as much as a legal or political one. The question with which we should be concerned is what solution will lead to peace and happiness of the people of Kashmir, and maintain inter-communal unity, not only in that part of India, but in the rest of the country. I wish to state with all the confidence and emphasis I possess that any disturbance of the status of Kashmir, which has already been settled, will result in serious troubles, not only in Kashmir itself, but in the whole subcontinent of India.
If the Council is interested in the maintenance of peace and international relations, it should avoid any solution superimposed upon the two countries or intervene in any talks or discussions we might have with each other.
The Kashmir question will not be solved by interminable discussions and debates in the Council. It will be solved only when Pakistan realizes that Kashmir is not a political shuttlecock in the game of anti-Indian policies which it has for the time being adopted. The Kashmir question will be solved when Pakistan realizes that India wishes her well and has no designs on her independence and that, in the prosperity of the two countries, lies the prosperity of the whole sub-continent. In this prosperity the people of Kashmir must have a share as an integral part of India.
India has always stood, and stands, for a just solution, a peaceful solution, an early solution to the Kashmir question. It is Pakistan which has blocked the way to such a solution. There cannot be just a solution in international affairs if aggression is either condoned or rewarded. There can be no just solution of the Kashmir question if Pakistan does not vacate her aggression and while the Pakistan army still keeps two fifths of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in her unlawful possession.