Extract from the speech made by Mr. Ali, representative of Pakistan in the General Assembly meeting No. 1151 held on 12th October 1962.
Extract from the speech made by Mr. Ali, representative of Pakistan in the General Assembly meeting No. 1151 held on 12th October 1962.
Now as regards Kashmir I am surprised that the representative of India should have exhibited a pronounced type of allergy to the principle of self-determination which I had mentioned in my statement. My surprise would have been greater and more painful if it were not a fact that, in the case of some other major international issues also which have been before the Assembly at one time or another during the last several years, the Indian delegation has been fighting shy of any reference to this principle. These issues, incidentally, are those which were wisely and happily resolved on the basis of this principle alone.
The representative of India quotes a statement of the President of Pakistan to the effect that Kashmir is a matter of life and death to Pakistan and then asks the question: "How can anyone take Pakistan's solicitude for the self-determination of Kashmir seriously in the light of that statement ?" If his question is honest and not merely rhetorical I shall give him a straight answer. It is true that Pakistan has an enormous stake in Kashmir. It is true that our integrity and security are both seriously involved in Kashmir. We have never tried to conceal or minimize that fact. Nevertheless, we have said and we say now that regardless of our involvement in Kashmir, regardless of our historical, geographical, economic, cultural and human links with Kashmir, regardless of the fact that Kashmir should belong to Pakistan according to the self-same principles of partition to which both India and Pakistan owe their emergence as sovereign States, we shall accept the will of the people of Kashmir themselves, freely and impartially ascertained, with regard to the accession of their State to India or to Pakistan. We shall accept their verdict, wherever it may be, if it is their free verdict and if it is obtained without coercion or intimidation. That, I may inform the representative of India, is what we mean by demanding that the people of Kashmir should be given the opportunity to exercise their inherent right of self-determination. I may assure him that Pakistan has no intention of dating or abandoning this demand.
The representative of India has advanced certain contentions with regard to Kashmir. Shorn of rhet oric, his argument seems to be: (a) that the right to accede to either India or Pakistan was a right to be exercised by the Prince-that is, the fedual ruler-of a Strte, and not by its people; (b) that the accession of States had nothing to do with the principle according to which contiguous Muslim-majority areas were included in Pakistan and contiguous Hindu-majority areas were included in India; (c) that Pakistan impeded or blocked. the holding of a plebiscite in Kashmir, at first because at that time in the words of the representative of India -"a plebiscite would have been especially disastrous for Pakistan''; (d) that Pakistan had not carried out its part of the obligation jointly undertaken by India and Pakistan under the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan in August 1948 and January 1949.
It is only fair to the representative of India that I should meet each of his arguments directly.
As regards the first argument-whether the accession of a territory ruled by a Maharaja to either India of Pakistan was to be decided by the Maharaja or by the people--what does the representative of India say about the solemn affirmation of policy made at the time by the Government of India Let him remind himself of what the Government of India said in its White Paper issued on 10 August 1948 : itself ?
"The Government of India is firmly of the view that, whatever sovereign rights reverted to the States on the lapse of the Paramountcy, they vest in the people, and conditions must be created in every State for a free and unfettered exercise of these rights."
Again, the Indian representative to the Security Council said the following at the two hundred and sixty-fourth meeting of the Council:
"No doubt the Ruler, as the head of State, has to take action in respect of accession. When he and his people are in agreement as to the Dominion to which they should accede, he applies for accession to that Dominion. However, when he takes one view and his people take another view, the wishes of the people have to be ascertained. When so ascertained, the Ruler has to take action in accordance with the verdict of the people. That is our position."
Now, that statement had been preceded by the following declaration of the position of the Government of India made at the 227th meeting of the Security Council, when the Kashmir question was first brought before it :
"The question of the future status of Kashmir vis-a-vis her neighbours and the world at large, and a further question, namely, whether she should withdraw from her accession to India, and either accede to Pakistan or remain independent, with a right to claim admission as a Member of the United Nations-all this we have recognized to be a matter for unfettered decision by the people of Kashmir, after normal life is restored to them."
That these were not stray pronouncements but the expression of a policy proclaimed by the Government of India is apparent from numerous statements which are public record and of which the following statement made by the Prime Minister of India on 2 November 1947 is an example :
"We are anxious not to finalize anything in a moment of crisis and without the fullest opportunity to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It is for them ultimately to decide. And let me make it clear that it has been our policy all along that where there is a dispute about the accession of a State to either Dominion the accession must be made by the people of that State. It is in accordance with this policy that we have added a proviso to the Instrument of accession of Kashmir."
In the light of those unequivocal pronouncements of his own Government, does the representative of India still have the audacity to use his own epithet-to maintain that it was for the feudal Maharaja alone to decide the destiny of the 4 million people of Kashmir ?
As regards the second argument of the representative of India that the accession of Princely States to India or Pakistan was unrelated to the principle of partition of British India-what is anyone to make of the following protest made by the Government of India against the accession of the Princely State of Junagadh to Pakistan? This protest was. lodged in a telegram from the Governor-General of India to the Governor-General of Pakistan on 22 September 1947, and I quote from it as follows:
"Pakistan Government has unilaterally proceeded to action which, it was made plain, Government of India could never and do not acquiesce in. Such acceptance of accession by Pakistan cannot but be regarded by the Government of India as an encroachment on India's sovereignty and territory and inconsistent with friendly relations that should exist between the two Dominions. This action of Pakistan is considered by the Government of India to be a clear attempt to cause disruption in the integrity of India by extending the influence and boundaries of Dominion of Pakistan, in utter violation of the principles on which partition was agreed upon and effected. The possibility of Junagadu's accession to Pakistan Dominion, in the teeth of opposition from its Hindu population of over 80 per cent" and I stress the words ``in the teeth of opposition from its Hindu population of over 80 per cent"-"has given rise to serious concern and apprehension to the local population and all surrounding States which have acceded to the Indian Dominion."
Let me repeat the words of the Government of India-"in utter violation of the principles on which partition was agreed upon and effected" and "in the teeth of opposition from its Hindu population of over 80 per cent". Applied to the case of Kashmir, these quotations imply an answer to the question of the representative of India, namely, what is Pakistan's right in Kashmir, anyway? In the very words of the Government of India, Pakistan could never and does not acquiesce in the so-called accession of Kashmir to India, an act "inutter violation of the principles on which partition was agreed upon and effected" and "in the teeth of opposition" from the State's Muslim "population of 80 per cent".
As regards the third argument, that Pakistan at first. impeded or blocked the holding of a plebiscite in Kashmir because at that time it would have been disastrous to Pakistan, I wonder whether the representative of India would, on calmer reflection, advance that argument seriously. If so, then it would mean that, by the same token, India is blocking the plebiscite now because it would now be disastrous for India. Does he mean that, after fourteen years of the experience of Indian rule, the people of Kashmir are so surely oppressed by it and so utterly weary of it that they would now vote for accession to Pakistan ? Let him answer that question, and not be too much bothered by the verifiable fact that at no point of time, at no stage of the dispute, did Pakistan block the holding of a plebiscite in Kashmir. Indeed, not a single episode of these fourteen years can be cited which would show that Pakistan ever weakened or equivocated in demanding that the solution of the Kashmir problem must be according to the wishes of the people of Kashmir themselves.
This argument of the representative of India is linked with his allegation that Pakistan has not carried out its part of the obligation jointly undertaken by India and Pakistan under the Commission resolutions of August 1948 and January 1949 If the Indian representative is serious in making this allegation, why is it that India is not prepared to submit it to impartial scrutiny ? Why is it that no United Nations representative has ever said that Pakistan has been in default in fulfilling its obligations? Why is it that, when the Security Council suggested that the interpretation and execution of the obligations of the parties and the status of their fulfilment be submitted for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, India rejected that suggestion ? Why is it that when Ambassador Jarring of Sweden, then President of the Security Council, proposed that the facts of the implementation, or otherwise, by either party of its obligations be determined impartially, India rejected the proposal ? If India is serious and honest in its allegations, why is it not prepared to submit the question to arbitration by any impartial individual or agency?
I cannot do better here than to quote the statement made by the permanent representative of Pakistan at the 108th meeting of the Security Council:
"Pakistan is quite agreeable to any method that may be suggested of (a), determining the obligations of the parties under the UNCIP resolutions; (b), determining up progress on implementation; (c), determining whether either of the parties is in default with regarded to the fulfilment of its obligations, and (d), what needs to be done by either side to move the matter forward towards implementation.
"If a determination of (c) above, that is to say, whether either of the parties is in default with regard to the fulfilment of its obligations, should disclose that Pakistan is in default in any of these respects, the default would be rectified through the speedies; method at the earliest possible moment, so that the way be opened toward full implementation of the resolutions. This is an undertake ring that I submit to the Security Council on behalf of the Pakistan Government. I do trust and hope that India would be prepared to agree to the same."
Let me assure the representative of India that Pakistan adheres to this undertaking and hope that India will have the courage to meet its challenge.
Lastly, about Kashmir, may I remind the representative of India that the question of self-determination involved in the Kashmir problem is not the self-determination of a section of any country or a minority. Kashmir is not yet a section of any country, nor a minority in any country. The right of self determination of the people of Kashmir had been accepted and recognized by both India and Pakistan and by the United Nations. This acceptance and recognition is embodied in the Commission resolution of 5 January 1949, and there can be no confusion or misunderstanding of its meeting. Paragraph 1 of that resolution reads:
"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."
No analysis of the principle of self-determination and no attempt to shirk it can help India to escape the solemn obligation that this resolution, having been accepted by both India and Pakistan and thus constituting an international agreement, imposes on India as a State Member of the United Nations. This obligation, indeed, is aptly stated in the declaration of the Prime Minister of India made on 2 November 1947:
"We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given. not only to the people of Kashmir but to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it." Is the representative of India now trying to convince the Assembly that India is capable of backing out of this pledge ?