08101965 Text of the speech made by Mr. Bhutto (Pakistan) in the Security Council meeting No. 1247 held in 8 October 1965.
08101965 Text of the speech made by Mr. Bhutto (Pakistan) in the Security Council meeting No. 1247 held in 8 October 1965.
We have heard the procedural debate with great interest and we are happy that it has been satisfactorily resolved in the high interests of the Security Council itself.
Many impartial observers have attested to the fact that almost simultaneously with the cease-fire, India let loose a reign of terror in the occupied portion of Jammu and Kashmir In a letter addressed to the President of the Security Council on 8 October 1965 (S/6801), the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations drew attention to the situation which prevails in that unfortunate land. He quoted from dispatches sent by the correspondents of a number of reputable and well known newspapers to show the brutality with which the Indian occupation authorities have set upon the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
As the Council can visualize, there are stringent restrictions on Press dispatches from Srinagar; yet stories are beginning to trickle out which give us some idea of the extreme measures employed by India-the representatives of which are absent this evening because they do not want to hear the truth-to wreak vengeance upon the people of Jammu and Kashmir. A dispatch by the special correspondent of the Paris daily Le Figaro contains the following account of his meeting with some of those who have escaped the Indian terror:
"An angry young man grabbed my arm and told me the story of his village, Mandi, somewhere in the vicinity of Punch. 'Indians have cut off the breasts of our girls and held them up, saying, "Here is your Pakistan". Seven members of my family have been taken by the soldiers and butchered', he went with tears in his eyes. on Another man interrupted: 'They locked people in their houses and set fire to them. The whole village has been burnt'. "This morning I visited another refugee camp further up in the north. Here again I had the same accounts from fleeing villagers. One of them, a bearded man, told me how his village had risen against the Indians five or six months ago.Twenty men of our village were participating in action against the Indian Army. What kind of action ? Sniping at passing soldiers, blowing up bridges. Eighteen days ago the Indians launched an attack against our village, and after a fight they entered it and burned all the houses, killing everyone in sight'. He said he had escaped with his two sons, his daughter and his wife. He did not know where the others were and how many survived."
And that is why the Indian representative is not here this evening to hear this tragic story. The correspondent of Le Figaro, who has no direct interest in the subcontinent, continues :
"A little girl, aged about twelve, was standing beside a tall man wearing a blue shirt. She was firmly gripping the man's hand. 'We found her wandering alone in the jungle', he told me. She was keeping the cattle when the Indians came up and burned her village. So she fled alone, without knowing what happened to her brothers and sisters and family."
And that is why the Indian representative is not here tonight to hear these stories, these tales of woe, to hear what they are perpetrating against the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The same correspondent says that the refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir keep asking questions, and he quotes them :
"Why are we treated like that? What have we done ? Who has given you the right to behave with us in such manners? Why do you help India ? All we want is to be free from India and to go back to our homes and to our honour.
This is what was told to the correspondent of Le Figaro, and this is why the Indian representative is not here tonight to hear the truth.
The magazine Newsweek, of New York, in its issue of 11 October 1965 reports a tour of camps of refugees from Indian held Jammu and Kashmir by its correspondent. The journal writes:
"There, reported our correspondent, he heard tale aftertale of Indian atrocities against Moslems in Jammu and Kashmir. 'I talked to the people at random and they all told stories of India's butchering Moslem families, burning down villages, raping and torturing villagers." And that is why the whole Indian delegation is not here tonight-because impartial observers are talking of the rape, the burning of villages, the genocide and the horrors that are being perpetrated. That is why they have left your chamber tonight in an unprecedented fashion.
The Newsweek article continues :
"A ten-year-old girl told me she saw her parents shot. One woman, sobbing and hysterical, said her small children were cut into pieces and her husband taken away when Indian troops attacked her village."
That is why India is absent tonight: because they do not want to hear the truth, they do not want to hear of the ghettos and of the horrors that have been taking place in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Delhi correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, in a dispatch about Indian-occupied Kashmir, said this on 12 October 1965, "Resentment and hatred are growing against the Indian army in Kashmir as it is burning the houses of those persons who are charged with helping and hiding guerrillas."
That is why the Indian delegation is absent tonight.
The facts are so overwhelming in their detail that it is impossible for me to do them justice in this presentation. What has been reported in the Press is inevitably only a fragment of the reality which, were it visualized here, would so stir the Council's conscience as to bring immediate condemnation on India. And India, fearing that all the truth would be told, brought about an unusual and extraordinary procedural debate in which it had no right to be a party. For the first time in the history of the Security Council, it brought about a procedural debate to thwart the disclosure of the truth, to suppress the facts, to make reality out of the falsehood of its policies. That is why they are not here tonight-not because of procedural technicalities or legal niceties, but because under the bright lights of the Security Council they cannot stand the truth, they do not want to know what they are doing to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. They are not prepared to hear of their atrocities; that is why their seats are vacant. They do. not have the courage to hear of the atrocities and the barbarism they are perpetrating against the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It is not because of the procedure, it is not because of the procedure, it is not because use in their conscience and in their hearts they know that they are following a barbaric, a Nazi-like policy against the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The harrowing tales which are related of Indians murder ing all the young men and abducting the women are cor roborated by the fact that the refugees pouring into Azad Kashmir are by and large old men, and women and children below the age of ten. Young men and women are conspicuous by their absence in the Azad Kashmir refugee camps. The people of Rajouri District, who had declared for freedom after the call to arms by the Revolutionary Council, are being subjected to unheard-of atrocities. The borders of this district and Mendhar area have been almost sealed by the Indians and the entire population is facing the prospect of annihilation at the hands of Indian soldiers.
It must be recalled here that, in the month of August, Indian troops burnt down the town of Mandi and twelve adjoining villages. Three families of Muslims in village Bedar Balnoi were burnt alive in their houses and many Muslims were shot down by Indian soldiers in cold blood in the presence of their families. Several girls were also abducted in the same village. Similar barbarians were committed in other villages in Muzaffarabad, Rawalkot and Mirpur sectors. And because the Indians have no answer, that is why they are not here tonight.
The entire Batam in the suburb of Srinagar inhabited by Muslims was set on fire and razed to the ground. Many Muslims were burnt alive in this suburb by the Indian Army. This burning was reported by the correspondent of the Washington Star in the paper's issue of 1 September 1965:
"During the past three weeks hundreds of Kashmiri houses have been burned to the ground-about 440 in Srinagar alone and scores of others in from fifty to seventy villages scattered throughout the valley...
"Indian officials claim Pakistani infiltrators started fires, But both extremist and moderate Kashmiris and the victims themselves, interviewed while digging in the smouldering wreckage, claim the Indian army was responsible."
The Indian army was responsible for the destruction and devastation and for setting Kashmiri towns and villages ablaze, for abducting women and children and for tearing the breasts off women I do not say that as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan: that is what the Washington Star says, a United States newspaper of a country which is friendly to both India and Pakistan and which would like to see a settlement.
What is the difference between the extermination of the Jews in Europe by Hitler and the extermination of Muslims by Indian bayonets in Asia? Is there any difference? Do we have a double standard ? After twenty years of the ghettos of Poland we are still reminded of the horrors and atrocities committed against the people of Europe by Hitler. Men, women and children were killed, torture was inflicted. Is torture in Europe different from torture in Asia ? Is death in Europe different from death in Asia? If people die in Europe is it different from people dying in Asia? Are they not human beings in Asia? Do they not feel the same pain? Mr. President it is for you and your august Council to answer these questions.
This explains why there has been an exodus of about 75,000 Kashmiris so far from Indian-occupied Kashmir. There are extremist fanatical organizations in India, called the RSS and Jon Sangh, and the ruffians and hooligans in their service have been armed by Indian authorities to carry out the heinous design of exterminating those who resist the Indian occupation. If this is a falsehood, the Indian Foreign Minister. should be here to deny that charge. I say with all solemnity and with all the sovereignty of 100 million people of Pakistan that that is not a false charge. There is not a jota of exaggeration in this charge. If this is incorrect, the Indian Foreign Minister should be sitting here to deny this charge on behalf of his people. But the Indian representatives have fled. Why have they fled? Is the Indian delegation not capable of answering these charges ? The Indians are very good at forensics. They are philosophers. We know that they are very capable of using pretty words. Why are they not here? They are not here because they cannot answer the charges of the Government of Pakistan or of the people of Pakistan, they cannot satisfy the conscience of mankind about these atrocities and barbarous acts, about the tragedy and the upheaval that they have brought about on the subcontinent of Asia, about the trouble that they have created in Asia. They are not here because they have no conscience, they have no integrity, they have no words. They are stopped from answering for what they have done to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
As I have said, more than twenty years have passed since the Nazis executed their programme of exterminating the Jews in Germany. We still read the stories of those horrors and the world tries to solve its conscience by description and dramatization of those bestial acts. Today, despite the existence of the United Nations, despite the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, despite all the talk, with its intervals of ten minutes, about the sacredness of human life, India is perpetrating similar acts in Jammu and Kashmir, Will the world remain unmoved. Will it refuse to stir because the people involved are so distant from the air-conditioned Headquarters of the United Nations? Are we all to be so shackled by our inhibitions, so bogged down in expediencies and so crippled by our calculations of power interests that the blood that is being shed in Jammu and Kashmir, the families that are being torn apart and out asunder, the voices that are being throttled, will bring forth no response from us? The ghettos of Poland live as a painful and fearful memory, but the ghettos of Jammu and Kashmir are stinking to high heaven with human flesh, ripped asunder by a monstrous and habitual aggressor, determined to destroy, like a bloodthirsty barbarian, all that stands in his way-the beauty and the life of Kashmir, the living and the dead, the truth and the reality.
Pakistan will not stand by and allow India to carry on these monstrous acts in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, where 5 million people live. If the United Nations remains unmoved and unconcerned, Pakistan will take up the challenge and will be prepared for the ultimate consequence of life or destruction, of honour or extermination.
This attempt by India to take advantage of the cease fire in order to exterminate the population of certain areas in Jammu and Kashmir is one part of the human reality which is unfolding before us. The other is the resistance movement in the Indian held area and the barbarous response to it from the Indian Government. Let me now give the Security Council an idea of the situation in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in the valley of Kashmir, which has deteriorated rapidly since the cease-fire. This is why the Indian Foreign Minister has absented himself from the deliberations of the Council meeting, although he has come all the way from Delhi. The Indian representatives do not want to hear the truth. The Guardian at London stated on 22 October:
"Day by day come reports from Srinagar-many of them attested by Indian sources-of student demonstrations, riots, police firing, use of tear gas, throwing of grenades, closing of schools and colleges,"
Mr. President, you are an academician connected with a University, and here we see that schools and colleges are being closed in order to perpetuate Indian terror. The article continues:
"The Indian Government, having earlier this month arrested more fiery opposition leaders in Kashmir, yesterday turned its attention to Maulana Masoodi and Mr. Karra who want Kashmiris to use non-violent means of persuading the Indian Government to consult them about who they want to be ruled by. Now all leaders, disunited about methods as they have been, are united in being prisoners."
The correspondent of The Times of London stated on 22 October :
"Leaders of all political groups opposed to present Indian policies in Kashmir are behind bars: Sheikh Abdullah", whose son sits in my delegation-"overtly pro-Pakistani leaders, and now those who have tried for years to steer the Valley away from violence and who have sought some middle way, where, in fact, there was none,"
The dispatch in The New York Times on the same date commented that the arrests had virtually wiped out the leadership of the Kashmiri people. It quoted authoritative sources as saying that "the Government had 'ample evidence' that the men had been maintaining close ties with Pakistani infiltra-. tors". The same dispatch added: "In an interview last week, D.P. Dhar, Kashmir's Home Minister, said the Government had no evidence that Mr. Masoodi and Mr. Karra were guilty of collaboration with the infiltrators."
If one examines the reports of Indian statements regarding the so-called infiltrators which have appeared in the world Press, a pattern emerges which is revealing of the truth about the resistance movement in Jammu and Kashmir. Since this movement encompasses the entire population of Jammu and Kashmir and involves both the Azad and the Indian-occupied territories, it is natural that the Indian Government should get involved in perpetual contradictions when it seeks to establish that all the trouble is the work of agents from Pakistan. At first they said that the guerrillas had no local support. Then they conceded indirectly that they had some local support, because otherwise the battles fought by guerrillas near Srinagar and the alleged existence of ammunition dumps in mosques, could not have been explained. Then they began to assert that some of the leaders of the resistance movement were collaborating with the guerrillas but a few were not. Then they said that those other leaders-the few of them-also were in collaboration with the guerrillas.
Now, judging from a report in The New York Times of 23. October, they say that these leaders of the people of Kashmir are Pakistani agents themselves. The next logical step would be to condemn the entire Muslim population of Jammu and Kashmir as consisting of Pakistani agents, which would mean condemning 90 per cent of 5 million people. All this would have been ludicrous if its effects were not so deadly. The Indian allegations about infiltration are now seen to be not merely a canard, but the means by which India supplies itself with a pretext to crush all vocal opposition to its hated occupation. Let me quote a report from Delhi in the Baltimore Sun of 11 October, I am quoting American newspapers friendly to both India and Pakistan. The report says:
"The reports of demonstrations and arrests were the first official confirmation of substantial unrest in Srinagar. since the troubled state went onto what amounts to a war footing early in August. Mr. Dhar blamed the incidents of the city on the remnants of the Pakistani guerrillas and their agents among the local population. His remarks constituted the first admission by a Government official, that is, the Home Minister-"that the guerrillas were receiving significant cooperation from the people of Jammu and Kashmir."
If an impartial outsider reads reports happenings in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir which are published in the world Press, the question will naturally arise in his mind: how deep, how widespread, is the opposition of the people to Indian occupation ? He will, of course, remember that the Press reports cannot possibly convey the full dimensions of the revolt because of manifold restrictions, because of censorship, barriers of language, and the difficulty of foreign reporters obtaining access to humbler folk. All the same, he will come across numerous indications which can be pieced together and from which a coherent picture will emerge. Let me now mention some of these.
On 13 October, The New York Times reported that three boys, sixteen years old, were killed by the Indian police in Srinagar. That is why the Indian Foreign Minister is not here. He knows the repression that his armies and his police are committing against the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian delegation is absent because they cannot face the reality of the truth of the slaughter of men, women and children, of rape, of people being destroyed, of people's souls being subjected to terror.. That is why they have absented themselves for the first time in the twenty years of the history of the United Nations.
Because there is a parallel between what they do in Jammu and Kashmir and what the Portuguese are doing in Angola and Mozambique, or what Mr. Ian Smith does in Southern Rhodesia. The Southern Rhodesians, and the Indians, and the Portuguese, want to destroy the spirit of Asia and Africa. The spirit of Asia and Africa cannot be destroyed.
Asia and Africa are vibrant; they are youthful; they are full of life. We must achieve our objectives. The age of domination. has come to an end throughout the world and that is why they cannot face the fact that they are dominating 5 million people.
As I have said, sixteen-year old boys and girls were killed by Indian soldiers and Indian bayonets. Commenting on the slaughter of the innocents, the Home Minister of the Indian-sponsored Government in Srinagar is reported to have said that the firing could not have been avoided because "for a small group of police to move around in the narrow lanes of the old city in the present atmosphere is just to invite trouble". What does this statement mean except that the population of Srinagar is totally hostile to India's army and police and will not hesitate to battle with it wherever it can ?
The same newspaper, that is The New York Times-very much respected and quoted by the Indian delegation in the General Assembly; The New York Times was quoted in the General Assembly by the Indian delegation as if it were a bible, and I am now quoting this bible-on 14 October repor ted that Muslim girls at a college had played a significant role "in a new wave of agitation that has been sweeping" Srinagar. It mentions an eighteen-year girl, who had hitherto lived a cloistered life, as having stood on a stage at a public meeting and shouted "Indian dogs go home".
It quotes the girl as saying "We must show how we feel. We Muslims here are tired of Indian rule. We want to be with Pakistan". Of course they want to be with Pakistan. They are part of us; they are our flesh and blood.
It is conceivable that a movement would absorb the passion and dedication of boys and girls of that age unless it was rooted in the heart and soul of an entire people?
News dispatches about the situation in Indian-occupied Jammo and Kashmir report that shops are closed in Srinagar and there is no traffic in the streets. The New York Times of 13 October reported that only armed policemen and army patrols are seen moving in the streets of Srinagar.
The Financial Times of London of 8 October said: "Only the very prejudiced can deny that mass opinion in Kashmir is now overwhelmingly anti-Indian,"
The Foreign Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, an eye-witness in Srinagar, reported on 10 October: "At least 30.0.0 policemen and soldiers have turned Srinagar into a huge army camp." On 19 October he further reported how street battles developed between the people and Indian police when unarmed demonstrations demanded a plebiscite and an end to Indian brutalities. When he drove through Srinagar he saw crowds of protestors everywhere asking for a plebiscite and shouting curses at "Indian barbarians and Indian dogs."
These developments in Indian occupied Kashmir reached a climax on 23 October when the Indian puppet regime in Kashmir decided to assume control of Muslim trusts, mosques and shrines, and to post police guards at these places. The same day there were reports of widespread demonstration in Baramulla and Shopian against the desecration of a revered shrine in Chrar Shareef. It can be imagined how deep must be the hostility of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to the regime of the occupying Power when the latter finds it necessary to deny them free access to their places of worship where it is natural for them to congregate and worship and pray to Allah, The extreme nature of this act can be understood by anyone in East or West who remembers that the act of worship touches the deepest and most intimate aspect of a people's personal life and no Government will dare encroach upon it unless it is utterly desperate before mass opposition.
The situation in Srinagar and the Valley is brought out in the dispatch published in The New York Times of today. It confirms what I have said above and bears out the fact that the news stories are tightly censored. The newspaper's correspondent, reporting from Srinagar yesterday, had this to say:
"The Indian Government is seeking to destroy the Kashmir self-determination movement with virtually all the means at its disposal.
"In the last few weeks, the Government's policy has shifted from a selective pruning of the movement's most radical elements to all-out suppression (of the people of Jammu and Kashmir).
"The large Indian police and armed forces in the state have been used liberally to break the back of the movement's organization and to dissuade its members and sympathizers from further activity."
"To break the back of the movement of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. And that is why the Indian Foreign Minister has absented himself in an unprecedented way from the deliberations of this meeting.
The correspondent goes on to say that the goals in Jammu and Kashmir "are crammed with those who demand a plebiscite to determine Kashmir's future". The goals of Jammu and Kashmir are crammed with people who demand self-determination. That is why the Indian delegation is absent here because it does not want to hear the truth. The correspondent continues:
"Last Friday, policemen and soldiers blocked all roads. to the Hazratbal shrine, turning away thousands of Moslems who tried to go there for their weekly worship.
"Srinagar Moslems said it was the first Friday in 350 years..."
Imagine, the first time in 350 years that a people should be told that they cannot go and worship. They cannot go and pay homage to their God. There must be something very extraordinary that the people should be denied this for the first time. Can you imagine Catholics being told for the first time in centuries that they should not go to St. Peters and worship their God? Can you imagine the Jews being told that they cannot go to a synagogue to worship their God ? But the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir, for the first time in 350 years, were stopped from going to their most holy shrine because the situation was such that India could not tolerate the 4 million people of that country going to worship their own God.
"The Government said that it had to take the unusual action"-they regard it as an unusual action-"to prevent a repetition of the violent demonstrations that took place at the shrine last Monday.
"Action has also been taken to prevent Moslem merchants in Srinagar from showing support for the self determination movement."
This is the report published in The New York Times. The report confirms the tight news censorship imposed by the Indian authorities. It says:
"The Government has also taken steps to prevent news of the unrest and its countermeasures from reaching the outside world"-that is, from reaching you, Mr. President, and from reaching members of the Security Council.
"Several correspondents who tried to transmit articles. The situation from here last week had the articles returned by the cable office marked 'Objectionable".
"One high-ranking official in the state government said,
'We are not going to let any news out of here which is not favourable to our position".
This is the secularism of India which boasts to the Western countries that India is the only democracy in Asia. The only secular democracy which butchers its own minorities, which suppresses its own people, which destroys the soul of its own society, which has untouchables and which defies the Security Council. This is the secular democracy of India which is supposed to receive support from other democracies in the West. And this secular democracy of untouchables, where we, as non-Hindus, are regarded as subhuman, says today that we will not allow any news to go out of here which is unfavourable. This is the democracy of India which does not allow any unfavourable news concerning India to get out of Jammu and Kashmir. And they come here and sit and talk with great forensics and with a great deal of eloquence of their democracy. They pontificate and lecture to us as to what is the meaning of democracy. We know the meaning of democracy; you know the meaning of democracy; we all know. But they come here and tell us what secular Indian democracy, which has a caste system, which has people who are suppressed because they are born different, which has people who are killed and destroyed because they are different from them. Then they come and tell you that they are a democracy and that they must be supported. Yet that same democracy refuses to let news out-leave alone destruction, chaos, burning of villages, raping of women and children. These people do not want news to trickle out of their secular democracy. You here, Mr. President, have determined these problems.
The report in The New York Times is confirmed by a dispatch appearing in The Observer of London of 24 October. It says:
"Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar, from where in December 1963 an uprising in Kashmir sparked off, might once again see the same. For at Hazratbal on Monday, a clash occurred between police and a mob of Kashmiri students which Government spokesmen say might have terrible consequences."
These are Government spokesmen saying that it will have terrible consequences.
The report continues :
"Hazratbal has become a symbol for the right of self determination campaign and a last desperate throw by Kashmiris. It is clear that the plebiscite campaign in Srinagar has been taken over completely by students and has become a kind of children's revolt terrifying in its innocent determination."
When there is an almost general strike in a city, when all popular leaders of a people are thrown behind bars, when the police dare not move about in small numbers, when the Government is driven to obstruct the people's prayer congregations, when schools and colleges are closed, when the young are in the forefront of the opposition movement, it will be but a heartless soul who does not conclude that this is an extreme situation which cannot possibly be allowed to continue. The people of Jammu and Kashmir, themselves, are unarmed, they are fighting their oppressors with only the weapons which the weak have always used against the strong.
The editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine and the correspondent of The New York Times whom I have quoted have both said that people in Srinagar came to them and pleaded, "Please tell our story to the world. Please tell them what you have seen here. You are now our only hope." That means, Mr. President, please tell the story to you and to the members. of your Council because you are now their only hope.
As I read these words, I am driven to ask the question: are we here so hardened in our hearts, so deadened in our conscience, so morally bankrupt, that we will be deaf to this piteous pleading of a people groaning under the oppressor's heel ?
The truth of the reports I have quoted can be verified by a visit to any part of Indian-c
Jammu and Kashmir by any impartial observer from any country in the world.
In the letter from the representative of Pakistan addressed to you, Mr. President, on 18 October 1965 (S/6801], my Government suggested that the Secretary-General send immediately his personal representative to visit the Indian-occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir and gather a first-hand account of the situation. My Government believes that what is happening in the occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir today should be brought under the scrutiny of the whole world. This is, above all, a human problem Irrespective of the measures that the Council may eventually decide to take in order to bring about or facilitate a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, it is the Council's duty to succour a people. whose fate has been the subject of its deliberations for nearly two decades and who are today subjected to untold hardships under its very gaze. The people of Jammu and Kashmir are a part of Pakistan. We cannot and we shall not stand by as silent spectators while India, with seeming impunity, proceeds to wreak vengeance upon them.
I repeat with all the solemnity at my command that the 100 million people of Pakistan will not and shall not allow Indian tyranny and oppression to be perpetrated against the people of Kashmir. We shall face extinction rather than allow these Indian warlords to perpetrate horrors on the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a part of our duty and faith, our religion, and tradition; it is a part of our culture that we shall honour our commitments to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This you must know. And then do not say that we spread trouble or that we are the cause of your anguish and anger. We have gone through torment. Young women and children killed, lacerated. I speak this evening with a bleeding heart. I come from the battlefields of Pakistan, where we have fought a monstrous and a habitual aggressor, and I tell you that we are prepared for the ultimate consequences, but we shall never surrender our honour and self respect. The Security Council must know this, the Members of the United Nations must know that Pakistan will face decimation but we shall honour our pledge.
I would like formally to reiterate the request of my Government that a fact-finding committee, or the Secretary General, should without further delay visit the embattled State of Jammu and Kashmir in order to see what is happening there, report the facts to the Council, and suggest prompt and effective measures to end this intolerable situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
The situation in Jammu and Kashmir today, with its passion and poignancy, its suffering and tragedy, should serve to restore some perspective to the Council's consideration of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. It is all very well for people to listen to arguments on the two sides and say, "Oh, well, it is a very complex question". It is all very well for world Powers to go through careful calculations of their interests and opine, "Oh, it is a very delicate problem". But to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the people who are involved in it, whose life and honour are at stake, whose happiness and aspirations are threatened, whose very existence as a people is jeopardized, there is nothing complex or delicate about this problem. What is so complex in an issue of freedom or enslavement? What is so delicate in a choice between security and torture? I have assumed that the members of the Council are aware of numerous reports which all say that the huge demonstrations in Srinagar have just one slogan: "Our demand is plebiscite". This shows that, however it may look in a debating chamber of the Security Council, the plebiscite is eminently feasible to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After all, it is their judgement which is of supreme importance.
Is the Council aware that Jammu and Kashmir is larger in size and population than several Members of the United Nations? Its 5 million people have never been a part of India ``What they seem to resent simply", a reporter wrote in The Irish Times of 11 October, "is their belonging to India being taken for granted by New Delhi." For India to say that there is an issue of national integrity involved here is preposterous because the national integrity of India comprises the territory which was included in the Dominion of India at the time of its establishment as an independent State on 15 August 1947 and those territories which acceded to it without dispute, By no stretch of imagination can Jammu and Kashmir be included in either of these categories.
How, when and where did Jammu and Kashmir become an integral part of India ? Not when India came to the Secu Tity Council saying that-and I quote from India's letter to the President of the Security Council of 1 January 1948:
"It was imperative on account of the emergency that the responsibility for the defence of the Jammu and Kashmir State should be taken over by a government capable of discharging it. But, in order to avoid any possible suggestion that India had utilized the State's immediate peril for her own political advantage, the Government of India made it clear that once the soil of the State had been cleared of the invader and normal conditions restored, its) people would be free to decide their future by the recog. nized democratic method of a plebiscite or referendum which, in order to ensure complete impartiality, might be held under international auspices."
These are the words and the commitment of the Government of India. Jammu and Kashmir did not become part of India when India accepted the resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan on 5 January 1949, which states:
"The question of the accession of the State of Jammu. and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through. the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite".
Jammu and Kashmir did not become an integral part of India when, in later years, the Indian representative assured the Council that India was committed to the resolution of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan and that no decision of a so-called constituent assembly in Srinagar would come in the way. Then, how and when did Jammu and Kashmir become an integral part of India ? By the decision of the people of Jammu and Kashmir ? Certainly not. time have these people been consulted. They have been held At no by the Indian bayonets and by the Indian horror and by the Indian atrocities.
Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India only by the fiat and by the arrogance and by the chauvinism of the Government of India. Is this a position which the Council will accept? Pakistan will certainly not accept it, even if the Council were to accept it.
Colonialism, in its classical form, is on the wane. Only a small number of Powers continue to hold on to their possessions, justifying their action by the fiction that the territories in question form part of the metropolitan nation. This is the position which India has taken in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.
It is interesting to see how one colonial Power, speaking of its colonies in Africa, interpreted the Government of India's position vis-a-vis Kashmir. Speaking in the General Assembly on 11 October 1965, the Foreign Minister of Portugal said:
"We have here two points of the utmost importance : first, foreign countries or outside organizations cannot request that a plebiscite be held in a territory which is part of another nation; and second, integration of a territory by a constitutional provision or clause is considered to be legitimate and final, and should be so accepted by all..."
The Portuguese Foreign Minister, who was defending his Government's policy in Angola and Mozambique, went on to say:
"Let us see whether the Indian Government from now on will dare to ask for the implementation of other and different criteria when other Governments are involved."
India, which herself has only just emerged from ten centuries of foreign domination for 800 years under Muslims and for 200 years under the British-has joined the dwindling ranks of colonial Powers and deals with occupied Jammu and Kashmir as if it were a colonial possession. The atrocities that are being perpetrated on the defenceless people. Jammu and Kashmir is no less cruel than those which the people of other colonial territories have had to suffer. The Repressive laws through which India seeks to cow the people of Jammu and Kashmir are no different in their character and effect from those which the Rhodesian minority employs to prevent the people of Southern Rhodesia from exercising their right of self-determination. If the Government of South Africa has sent hundreds of leaders of the South African people to prison without trial, then the Government of India is acting no differently in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
The General Assembly adopted, only the other day, a resolution on the situation in Southern Rhodesia (General Assembly resolution 2012(XX)). The Council will shortly meet in order to consider the South African question. should come as no surprise to the world that, as Government of South Africa has done in the case of apartheid, the Govern ment of India now pleads that discussion of Kashmir in the Security Council compromises the internal sovereignty of India by raising matters which are within her domestic jurisdiction. Mr. Shastri speaks the language of Mr. Ian Smith when he asserts that any concern of the United Nations in the fate of the people of Jammu and Kashmir constitutes interference with India's internal affairs and infringement of India's sovereignty.
The minority clique which today rules Southern Rhodesia, against the will of its people, on the basis of a constitution specially made to perpetuate alien rule, would like nothing better than to be left alone in the possession of the land which they have stolen from the real people of the country. The Government of India constantly complains that there is little sympathy and understanding in the world for its case on Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian leaders should ponder this fact and try to understand the reason why they can seek support for their policy on Jammu and Kashmir only from the Ian Smiths of the world.
The Security Council gave a pledge to the people of Jammu and Kashmir that they would not be placed under a sovereignty which was sought to be imposed on them by an imperial army of occupation. On 20 September 1965 the Council committed its prestige and power to going to the heart of the problem and to securing a just and honourable. settlement of the dispute. The question is: should the Council allow either party to veto its efforts? If so, then one must be candid and say that the United Nations, this Organization which we look upon as the custodian of humanity's conscience, is now destitute of courage and drained of all its powers and its moral resource. The long history of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute is sufficient proof of how India's willfulness has been encouraged by the seeming helplessness of the Security Council.
Should this process have no end? Is the Council power full enough to tell Pakistan, "The blood you have shed shall be in vain", and so powerless as to tell India that it cannot come to a settlement? Either you are powerful enough to put your force, morality, strength, will and law behind the settlement or else you tell us, "We cannot settle the problem; it is beyond our competence; we cannot do it, unless the Indians agree". In that case, why do you stop us from the ultimate sacrifice? If you have the power to stop us, to bring about a settlement', with all the experience that you have of the dispute, then you should have the strength and courage to fulfil your promise and your pledge and bring about a settlement between the people of India and the people of Pakistan by settling the dispute in Jammu and Kashmir. Why these double standards-one standard applicable to Pakistan and the other applicable to India, because India is big, India is resourceful. India has certain interests? Well, Pakistan is not small either, Pakistan is not without resources either. Pakistan also has a place in Asia. Pakistan is in the forefront of the Asian movement.
If one is to go by the criterion of justice, of what is right, one does not go by the size of Pakistan or the size of India or by what your vital interests in India are or what your vital interests in Pakistan are. Your vital interests are best served by bringing about a just and honourable settlement. Therefore the Security Council is committed by its resolution 211 (1965) to bring about an honourable and equitable settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. This it is committed to bring about the interests of the Security Council, of the United Nations, of the great Powers, of world peace and of peace in Asia. Do not tell us, "Pakistan, stop, because we have the power to force you to stop", and tell India, "Do not stop, because we do not have the power to stop you." Do not tell Pakistan, "Accept the solution", and tell India, "Do not accept the solution." Both countries must be treated in the same way. The two countries have fought against each other. We have established our equality for all time with India, because India, a habitual predatory aggressor, committed aggression against Pakistan, and we repelled that aggression. We established Pakistan because we were on a basis of equality. There is complete equality between the people of India, and the people of Pakistan. On the basis of equality, deter mine the issue on the morality of the situation and on the basis of international law and international agreements.
It is impossible to think of this dispute without recalling the many instances in history of the small or the weak being pitted against the strong. The betrayal of Ethiopia when it was pitted against Italy brought death and dishonour to the League of Nations. How can the consequences for the United Nations of the betrayal of Jammu and Kashmir be much different? The betrayal of Czechoslovakia before Hitler's hordes involved the world in a disastrous war. The calculations of power interests in the case of Jammu and Kashmir may point differently today, but, whilst these are bound to be ephemeral, the moral laws are eternal and inexorable.
We are being counselled patiently today. Hasn't Pakis tan shown patience in the past? More than that, have we not demonstrated in full measure our willingness to co-operate in seeking a peaceful and honourable settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute ? Even today, after repeated evidence of India's abduracy-even to the point of leaving the Security Council chamber-Pakistan is prepared to go forward in search of a settlement of the dispute through the peaceful methods laid down in the Charter of the United Nations. The Council has called upon both parties to have recourse to these methods, pending the Council's own consideration of the
steps needed to bring about a final settlement of the dispute. We have accepted this advice. But what is the response from India ?
According to a New Delhi dispatch of 3 October published in the New York Herald Tribune the next day, the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Shastri, said that India wanted peace with Pakistan but that this time it must be on India's terms. Peace with Pakistan on India's terms! We are not interested in peace on any terms. If it were a question of obtaining any kind of peace, there would be no need for the Security Council, there would be no need for the United Nations. Why not have a Hitler's peace ? Why not have Genghis Khan's peace? You can have peace on the terms of the victor, you can have a dishonourable peace at any time. Why should there have been a San Francisco Conference, at which you, Mr. President, represented Uruguay and put your signature on the Charter ? You came there with enthusiasm, with the belief that we were going into a brave new world based on justice. Was that your concept when you went as representative of Uruguay to the San Francisco Conference-that there should be peace on any terms ? Peace on any terms is always easy to achieve. Peace on any terms is something that can be achieved without war. It can be achieved on the basis of dishonour, on the basis of surrender. But the United Nations came into being, with its Charter, to achieve not peace on any terms but
a just and lasting peace. Mr. Shastri said: "This time it must be settled on India's terms." It will never be settled on India's terms. That is out of the question. Who is Mr. Shastri to say that peace in the subcontinent will be settled on India's terms? Have we lost ourselves ? Are we completely destroyed? We cannot allow peace to be settled on India's terms. We who have ruled India for 800 years, we who have dominated India for 800 years and who are responsible for the civilization of India, for all the Delhis and the Taj Mahals and for all the grandeur and glory of India, are we today in the twentieth century to accept peace on India's terms? One hundred million people to accept peace on India's terms? It is out of the question. It is for you to know that we will never accept peace on India's terms. It is preposterous, it is scandalous, it is a dishonour to us, to accept peace on India's terms when we have always established our equality and our spirit and have stood for an honourable and dignified world. The Muslims of Pakistan cannot accept that. It is out of the question. It is preposterous that this time it must be settled on India's terms. It is out of the question.
Here the Council has a clear indication of India's attitude. "Peace on India's terms" is something which no war lord in history could possibly have improved upon. I crave the Council's indulgence to contrast this with what I stated earlier, at the plenary meeting of the General Assembly on 28 September;
"If the United Nations works for a settlement, not on our terms, but in terms of the Charter, in terms of the international agreement accepted by both parties, then Pakistan will not stint its cooperation in the slightest measure."
I stand by those words. That is the issue, without verbiage or embroidery. The Council here witnesses a clear confrontation, not between two Powers, not between two nations, but between two attitudes and policies which directly impinge upon the value and effectiveness of the United Nation. Anyone might prefer to be neutral when it comes to a clash. between two national interests; but who can be neutral when it comes to a clash between the attitude of compliance with the Charter and the attitude of defiance ? No one can say, "Let us help one party to defy the Charter a little and the other party to obey it a little."
It is impossible to comprehend how it can be within. the bounds of human reason to remain neutral between these two attitudes. In fact, neutrality between them is actually an endorsement of the negative and defiant attitude, because it amounts to an acquiescence in it, an encouragement of it. Need I say that such neutrality is an abdication of the function of the Security Council, that it undermines all the principles of the Charter?
The present situation brings out the stark reality of the issue. Immediately after the cease-fire when the world was beginning to feel a renewal of hope in the effectiveness of the United Nations, India lost no time in putting us all on notice that such hopes were ill founded. The education Minister of India is reported to have said in the Indian Parliament that the Government of India is prepared to have discussions with Pakistan, but only on the clear understanding that Jammu and Kashmir is a closed chapter. If Jammu and Kashmir is a closed chapter, then what is Pakistan supposed to discuss? And what is the problem the Security Council is trying to resolve?
That is the essence of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. If one looks at it as a collision of national interests and claims, it would be quite understandable that one might not like to take sides. But it is not merely a clash of interests. It is, I repeat, an opposition of two philosophies and two attitudes towards the first and foremost purpose of the United Nations, which, under Article 1, paragraph 1, of the Charter, is to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes which might lead to a breach of the peace.
In regard to India's commitment to a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, I have cited at earlier meetings by the late Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India. These are on the record of the Security Council, as well as of the General Assembly. But the source of that commitment is not only the Government of India and its architect and first Prime Minister, Mr. Nehru. It is also the father of the Indian nation, the late Mr. Gandhi, for whom I had great respect. We who stood for Pakistan nevertheless respected Mr. Gandhi, who was regarded as the great Mahatma, the man of peace. We still have respect for Mr. Gandhi. He was assassinated by the bullet of a bigot-and that bigot was not a Muslim, but a Hindu.
I have never quoted Mr. Gandhi since I have been Foreign Minister of Pakistan, I have quoted Mr. Nehru, who was the son of Mr. Gandhi, the father of India's democracy and secularism, but I have refrained-in spite of the emotions of the Kashmir dispute-from quoting Mr. Gandhi. However, we have reached the high tide; we have reached a crucial stage; and I am compelled to quote even Mr. Gandhi on Kashmir.
And what did Mr. Gandhi-the father of Indian nationalism and of the renaissance in the subcontinent, a man whom all of us respect-have to say? I would like to quote from a biography of Mr. Gandhi written by his private secretary, Mr. Pyarelal. Gandhi was on his way to Kashmir and had detailed talks separately with the Maharajah and his Prime Minister on 1 August 1947 in Srinagar. On 3 August, a deputation of Kashmiris asked Gandhi at Jammu:
India will be free on the 15th August, what of Kashmir?'... 'That will depend on the people of Kashmir', Gandhiji replied. They all wanted to know when Kashmir would join the [Indian) Union or Pakistan. 'That again', answered Gandhiji, should be decided
by the will of the Kashmiris" Those were the words of Mahatma Gandhi. He said. that it was for the people of Kashmir to decide.
In all the eighteen years in which this dispute has been discussed here we have never quoted Mr. Gandhi. We did not want to make him a controversial figure in this issue. We have quoted what the Prime Minister of India said about the will of the people of Kashmir. The representative of India is absent from this meeting because he doesn't want to hear what the father of the Indian nation had to say about the future of Jammu and Kashmir. The whole delegation of India is absent from this meeting because they do not have the courage, or the conscience, or the heart or the eyes to face the truth and the stark reality of an indefensible position, a chauvinistic position, the position of an aggressor. That is why, as I have said I am constrained at this high tide to quote what Mr. Gandhi himself had to say on the future of Jammu and Kashmir-namely, that the future of Jammu and Kashmir must be decided, not by the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir by whom the Indian Government sets such great store; not on the basis of the arbitrary will of a Maharajah who was on the run, fleeing his State, but on the basis of the will of the 5 million people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It was to spare the Indian rulers embarrassment that we never before quoted Mr. Gandhi in this context. We do so now because we have discovered that it is well-nigh impossible to subject India to the kind of embarrassment to which those who are sensitive and have some sense of honour are easily susceptible. But the Prime Minister of India, who claims to be a disciple of his, should show some respect for the words of Mahatma Gandhi.
Whether Mr. Shastri does so or not, it is the duty of the Security Council to rise above the interests and demands of the parties to the dispute, to act independently and look at the issue in its human and moral reality. Jammu and Kashmir is not a piece of real estate. Its future is not a problem to be viewed only in the context of the rights and wrongs of India and Pakistan. It cannot be condemned to a kind Ku Klux Klan administration. A leading collaborator of Mahatma Gandhi, a prominent Minister of the late Mr. Nehru's cabinet, a contestant against Mr. Shastri for the Prime Ministership of India, none other than Mr. Morar Ji Desai, is reported to have said recently that the South Indian city of Madras would be razed to the ground if the people of the South sought secession from India. That may be his conception of how Indian unity can be strengthened. But Jammu and Kashmir is not "Madras or Bihar or Gujarat"-and those are the words of the late Prime Minister, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru. Jammu and Kashmir is not a part of India and therefore cannot be condemned to be a victim of Indian oppression. To sum up, it is apparent that, as in January 1949, the Government of India has once again agreed to cease hostilities. with a perverse mental reservation. In the light of the events. of the thirty two days which have elapsed since the cease-fire formally went into effect, there can be little doubt that the great anxiety manifested at the time by the Indian Government for a cessation of hostilities was not prompted by any desire to eschew the path of force and aggression and to return to the methods of peaceful settlement for resolving its dispute with Pakistan.
Only four days after the cease fire went into effect, I had the occasion to place before the Council a number of facts which indicated that India was using the cease-fire to re-estab lish its authority in Indian-occupied Kashmir and to crush the Jammu and Kashmir liberation movement. The Council has also been apprised of the various military measures taken by India to improve the tactical position of its forces and to re-capture territory lost to Pakistan during the war.
In recent weeks there have been large-scale movements of Indian troops from other parts of India to Jammu and Kashmir and the borders of Pakistan. A mountain division equipped by the United States has been moved from the North East Frontier Agency area to Ferozepur, and another such division from Ladakh to Tithwal. Augmentation of forces amounts to a grave violation of the cease-fire and gives the lie to India's assurances of peaceful future behaviour.
Pakistan accepted the Security Council's call for a cease fire in good faith and stands ready to carry out its obligations without reserve. We stopped fighting in order to avert further bloodshed and the danger of a more widespread conflict in the subcontinent, and perhaps beyond. However, Pakistan can not be expected to exercise endless restraint in the face of India's patent and proven aggressiveness. Pakistan cannot permit India to continue to nibble away at its positions and to obtain, under the cover of a cease-fire, what it failed to gain on the battlefield-namely, a position of military advantage from which it can dictate terms to Pakistan and forces us to abandon our support for the right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine their own future in freedom.
Pakistan has complied with the Security Council's call for a cease-fire on the basis of the solemn assurances given by the Council and, in particular, by the four great Powers, that the future of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have for eighteen years borne the burden of India's tyrannical and hated. occupation, would at last be the subject of a final settlement, based on justice and honour.
Paragraph 4 of Security Council resolution 211 (1965) commits the Council to consider steps which it might take to bring about such a settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. More than a month has gone by since the cease-fire went into effect, a cease-fire which the Council regarded as the first step towards a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. The withdrawal of armed forces called for in resolution 211 (1965) has not even commenced and, from what I stated a short while ago, it is to be feared that the Government of India will delay as long as possible the withdrawal of its troops, with the object of averting or delaying consideration by the Council of the political problem underlying the Indo Pakistan conflict.
In the light of experience, there cannot be any doubt that India will not of its own volition do anything to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, The history of the last eighteen years has shown that India will use every argument-and even run away from the Council and will exploit every event and happening in the world to prevent the people of Jammu and Kashmir from exercising their right of self-determination. India will comply only when it realizes that the Council will not tolerate any dilatory tactics and will insist on strict implementation of all parts of its resolution 2:1 (1965).
As I appear before the Council today, it would be unfair to the world community if I did not point out that Pakistan does not come here as a supplier. In signifying our willingness to stabilize the cease-fire and to withdraw our troops in conformity with the Security Council resolution, in assuring the Council of our readiness to cooperate in the search for a just and honourable settlement, Pakistan is adhering to the self-same path which it has followed all these eighteen years. It is the only path of honour. We believe in the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council, and in so doing we take the rough with the smooth. We do not flinch from sacrificing a position of advantage if justice so requires. We are fortified by the faith that, despite India's arrogance and obduracy, despite its flouting of all canons of civilized conduct, despite the armed might which it deploys against Kashmir's helpless people this long drawn-out tragedy can end only in the victory of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and in the vindication of our stand.
We are committed to honour our pledges We shall honour our pledges irrespective of the consequences. It is only when a nation is prepared to stand by its word, by its commitments, by its honour and by its pledges that it can serve its people, that it can serve the cause of peace..
It is not a question here of unequals pitted against each other, with the Security Council trying to bring about a certain equilibrium. It is more than that. You have to go back to the
very quest of mankind for a just and honourable future. That is what has brought about revolutions in the world.
And we tell you, Mr. President, we shall face destruction rather than dishonour our pledge. We shall fight for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and we shall honour that pledge irrespective of what the great Powers do. This is a part of our faith; it is ingrained and enshrined in our very civilization. And we know it-each and every Pakistani knows, men, women and children. That is why we are able to face aggression from a country six times our size. We have fought it heroically, bravely; and when the history of that is written, it will be enshrined in the annals of mankind.
We stand for a righteous cause; we fight for justice. And finally and ultimately, whatever you do, we must triumph; we must succeed because justice is with us. And those who have left this chamber will leave us also. They will run away from Jammu and Kashmir in the same way that they have run away from the Security Council Chamber.