13071948 Report Made by Sir Girja Bajpai, Representative of the Government of India, on his Statement Before the Commission at its 13th Meeting on 13 July 1948 (S/AC.12/Info.2)
13071948 Report Made by Sir Girja Bajpai, Representative of the Government of India, on his Statement Before the Commission at its 13th Meeting on 13 July 1948 (S/AC.12/Info.2)
14 July 1948
Mr. Vellodi and I met the United Nations Commission yesterday at 4.30 p.m. at Faridkot House. The meeting took place at the Commission's request. Besides the Chairman and members of the Commission, the alternates, the secretaries and other members of the staff were present.
The Chairman, Mr. E. Graeffe, welcomed us on behalf of the Commission and requested me to make a statement on the Kashmir issue. I thanked the Commission for its welcome and expressed the hope that the arrangements that the Government of India had made for its stay in Delhi had proved satisfactory. I added that, though there might be differences between the Council's approach to the Kashmir issue and The Government of India was anxious that the members of the Commission should have all the courtesy and hospitality to which, as representatives of the United Nations, they were entitled.
Turning to Kashmir, I said that the point of view of the Government of India had been placed repeatedly, and at length, before the Security Council. I assumed that men of the experience and industry of the members of the Commission and studied the records of the proceedings of the Security Council. Nevertheless, since human memories were apt to be short and, in these dynamic times, apt to be crowded with events, I would readily give the Commission a short resume of the Government of India's case.
Before dealing with Kashmir specifically, however, I said that I would like to deal with a delusion, widely held, and a fiction, equally widely believed in Pakistan, that India was determined to destroy Pakistan. This belief had actually been expressed in the form of a charge against the Government of India by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Since such propaganda as had been done in support of this belief was likely to influence the thinking of men, it seemed necessary to state the truth.
Had India desired to destroy Pakistan, those now in authority in India need have done no more, before Pakistan was created by the partition of India, than to have opposed partition. Though many in India disliked partition, and disliked it intensely, they had agreed to it in order to bring to India political freedom and the opportunity for its leaders to apply themselves to constructive national tasks. Far from there being any desire to destroy Pakistan, India was most eager to live in terms of friendship and peace with its new neighbour. Indeed, after the experience that we had of the interim Government, which came into being in September 1946, India's one anxiety was to avoid impending its own evolution by any kind of union with Pakistan even if Pakistan desired such union.
The Security Council had been informed that we had already paid to Pakistan Rs. 75 crores and, in accordance with the terms of the partition, done all that we could to deliver to it what was due in the way of stores, including military stores, This money and the military stores handed over to Pakistan were being used against us in Kashmir. In other words, we had supplied to Pakistan the sinews of war for waging war against us, if Pakistan were so minded. This, indeed, would be a strange means of encompassing Pakistan's destruction! The Commission must, as reasonable men, judge for themselves what truth there was in what I had already described as a delusion and a fiction.
I next took up the issue of Kashmir specifically. I said that we had been accused of obtaining the accession of Kashmir by force and fraud. The Commission must be aware that, after the transfer of power to India and Pakistan on 15 August 1947, each Indian State which had previously had treaty relations with the Crown became free to accede to India or to Pakistan. Kashmir had approached both us and Pakistan with proposals for a standstill agreement. Pakistan had entered into such an agreement. Aware of the intricacies of the position of Kashmir, we had not acceded to Kashmir's request for a standstill agreement. Further, there was no iota of evidence to suggest that, before the invasion of Kashmir by the tribesmen created an unprecedented situation, we had made any attempt to obtain the accession of Kashmir. Where, then, was the evidence in support of the change that accession had been obtained by fraud ?
As regards force, the position was that, from September, we had heard of incursions into Jammu and Kashmir State from the Pakistan border. On 24 October, we received news of the invasion of the Kashmir valley by tribesmen. The facts of this invasion had already been reported to the Security Council and must be known to the members of the Commission. The invasion was one by barbaric hordes who respected neither life nor honour. With them, they brought fire and sword to the inhabitants of the peaceful valley of Kashmir. Faced with this menace to the State's very existence, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir State, as also the leader of the most representative popular party, the National Conference, appealed to the Government of India for military aid and also asked that the State be allowed to accede to
India. Both requests were accepted. The accession took place on 26 October; India's troops landed in Kashmir the following morning.
As regards the military aid that India rushed to Kashmir, this was not only in discharge of a constitutional obligation which it undertook when it accepted the accession of Kashmir; it was also in response to a moral obligation, namely the obligation of every civilized nation to protect the life, honour and territory of a neighbour which had been suddenly attacked and whose destiny the perpetrators of this unprovoked aggression sought to determine by methods practised by gangsters. On both sides of the border, communal passions were at feverish heat at this time. Those who were attempting to coerce Kashmir into accession to Pakistan were also raising the cry, "On to Delhi''. Had they succeeded in their aim in Kashmir, India would have been the next victim. India had, therefore, sent its forces to Kashmir under the triple obligation of a constitutional and a moral duty to a neighbour and friend and the obligation of self-defence.
But, though India had accepted the accession of Jammu and Kashmir, it had voluntarily declared to the world that, once peace was restored the question to India or to Pakistan would be settled by the freely expressed will of the people of the State, by means of a plebiscite under neutral auspices such as those of the United Nations. This offer of a plebiscite had been made, not to please Pakistan but in conformity with the declared policy and principle of the Government of India that, in these people of a State, the will of the people should prevail.
We had approached the Security Council, at the beginning of the present year, with the request that Pakistan, which was aiding and abetting the raiders who were invading Kashmir, should be asked to withdraw this aid. The forms in which the raiders were being helped had been clearly stated in our complaint. The action that we desired the Council to take, namely to require Pakistan to stop this aid immediately, had been equally clearly stated. In the four months' debate that had followed, the issue raised by us had got lost in a miasma of dialectics. I added that I said this in no spirit of disrespect to the Council but merely stated a fact.
In the resolution which the Council had adopted on 21 April, there was no mention either of Pakistan's complicity in the fighting in Kashmir or of its obligation to put an end to this complicity immediately.
Since the Council had passed its resolution, a great change had occurred in the situation. Our troops in Kashmir were no longer-fighting tribal raiders-their numbers had greatly diminished - or the insurgents who, it was said, had risen in revolt against the Government of the Maharajah in order to win their liberty. Our troops were fighting the regular armed forces of Pakistan on all fronts in and around Jammu and Kashmir State. We had abundant evidence of this. If the Commission so desired, this evidence would be tendered by our military advisers. What was in progress today was an undeclared war between India and Pakistan. It was for the Commission to judge whether, in the face of these facts, it was India that could be accused of using force to secure the accession of Jammu and Kashmir, or Pakistan.
Continuing, I said that I had referred earlier to the moral motive which had inspired us to go to the rescue of Jammu and Kashmir. It was to this, the moral issue, that we attached the highest importance; unfortunately, it was the moral issue which the Security Council had ignored. Either our charge of Pakistan's complicity, now complicity in the shape of an undeclared war against us, was true or untrue. If it were untrue, we were prepared to face the obloquy of condemnation of the civilized world. On the other hand, fait were true, then the Council of the United Nations was under an obligation to demand that Pakistan should cease hostilities against us, deny all aid to the raiders and withdraw its own troops as well as the outside from the State territory. We had nothing to hide and there was nothing of which we were ashamed, or need be ashamed. But, I repeated, we attached the highest importance to the declaration of Pakistan's guilt and, if this guilt were proved, to Pakistan being directed to do what, seven months ago, we had asked the Council that Pakistan should be asked to do. Until this matter was settled, there could be no question of discussing the details of a plebiscite. Continuing, I reminded the Commission that we had offered a plebiscite on the issue of accession to India or Pakistan, spontaneously and voluntarily. We had made the offer in the hope that the Kashmir issue would be settled peacefully and quickly. This had not happened. The military campaign, with the increasing participation of Pakistan, had assumed greater violence. What began in unprovoked violence continued in mounting violence and the present prospects were that force alone would decide the issue.
If the future of Jammu and Kashmir was to be determined by the arbitrament of the sword, then, without in any way wishing to utter a threat, or use the language of menace, I should like the Commission, as realists, to recognize that the offer of plebiscite could not remain open. If Pakistan wanted a decision by force and that decision went against Pakistan, it could not invoke the machinery of the United Nations to obtain what it had failed to secure by its chosen weapon of force. This did not mean that the Government of India would in any way coerce the people of Kashmir. After hostilities had ceased and peace had been restored, the people of Kashmir would be free to determine both the form of their internal Government and the nature of their relations with India, but Pakistan could have no part or part in this process.
Thus I concluded my statement. I offered to answer questions but none was asked. The Chairman thanked me for my clarification of the Government of India's position and asked that Mr. Vellodi and I should meet the Commission again this afternoon at 4.30 p.m.