The Kashmir problem A Historical Survey - Alastair S Lamb

170 Pages·2020·6.6 MB·English

THE KASHMIR
PROBLEM

A Historical Survey

ALASTAIR LAMB

FREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publishers

N E W Y O R K
\VASFIINGTON

B O O K S THAT MATTER

Published in the United States of America in 1967

by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers

1x1 Fourth Avenue, New Tork, N. T . 10003

All rights reserved

0
1966 by Alastair Lamb

Originally published by Routledge &? Kegan Paul in London
under the title
Crisis in Kashmir, 1947 to 1966

Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number : 67- I I 660

Printed in Great Britain

Contents

Acknowledgements
page vii

I The Indian Princely States,
Paramountcy and Partition

Page I

2 Kashmir State and
the Establishment of Dogra Rule

Page I 7

3 Partition and the Accession Crisis, I947

page 35

4 Kashmir and the United Nations, 1947 to 1964

page 5 2

5 Inside Kashmir, 1947 to 1965
page 66

6 Plebiscite and the Cold War, 1951 to 1957

page 80

7 China and the Road to War, 1957 to 1965

page 92

Contents

8 The Rann of Kutch, War and Tashkent
1965 to 1966
page I I 2

g Conclusions and Prospects

page '35

A Select Bibliography

page I5 I

Index

Page I55

M A P S

Jammu and Kashntir State
pages viii-ix

Kashmir and its Neighbours

page 2

Stages in the Creation of Jammu and Kashtnir State
page 18

Communal Distribution in Jammu and Kashmir State

page 136

Acknowledgements

This book is not intended to be a comprehensive study of the
Kashmir question. So much has been said and written about
Kashmir over the last two decades that to deal with it all would
produce a work of prodigious size. My aim has been to present
a brief outline of an historian's view of this tragic quarrel be-
tween the two successors to the British rule in the Indian
subcontinent. I have kept footnotes to the minimum and have
made no reference to the bulk of the material in newspapers
and journals which I have consulted. Without the help of D.
I could not have done the research on which this book is based;
but I would like to make it clear that she is in no way responsible
for the views which I have expressed. I would also like to
acknowledge the help which I received from Mr. C. H. Curtis,
Bibliographical Officer in the Hertfordshire County Library,
who went out of his way to provide me with material when I
needed it. Finally I would like to thank Margaret and Ashley
Havinden and Alison and Hope Bagenal who at various times
provided me with room in which to get on with my writing.

A.L.

Roxford and Leaside, Hertindordbury
May 1966

J a m u and Kashmir State

L

The Indian Princely States,

Paramountcy and Partition

Twice in the last two decades the Kashmir dispute, the question
of the future of this unhappy State which on the eve of inde-
pendence in the subcontinent possessed a Muslim majority ruled
by a Hindu dynasty, has brought India and Pakistan to unde-
clared war. In the first Kashmir crisis, in 1947 to 1949, actual
fighting was confined to the disputed region: but in the second
great crisis, during August and September 1965, the clash of
men and arms spread from Kashmir all along the borders of
West Pakistan, and there were reports of air operations in East
Pakistan as well. Had not a cease-fire been arranged on 23
September 1965 by the United Nations (assisted no doubt by
a Chinese ultimatum), it seems more than probable that the
Kashmir issue would have escalated into a general Indo-Paki-
stani war of formidable proportions. Such a war, despite the
de'tente under Russian auspices which was secured at Tashkent
in early 1966, may yet break out. There has been a cease-fire
in the subcontinent; but it cannot be said that any final settle-
ment of the Kashmir problem is at present in sight.
The Kashmir dispute has guaranteed that a state of tension
should continue in being between the two great powers of the
Indian subcontinent. India and Pakistan at the outset had a
great deal in common. They shared many of the same cultural
traditions and languages. Their leaders had been members of
the same government service or had at some period been allies
in the political struggle against the same opponent, the British.
Indians and Pakistanis knew each other and understood each

Tashkent

I N D I A

T I B E T

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S I N K I A N G

Kashmir and its Neighbours

The Indian Princely States, Paramountcy and Partition

other. Many observers in 1947 hoped and believed that, once
the first difficult days of independence were over, India and
Pakistan would settle down together in some kind of joint
harness, combining their resources and their talents to solve the
vast social and economic problems facing the subcontinent. In
the event, such hopes were not fulfilled. India and Pakistan
have grown steadily apart over the years. The common British
legacy has evolved in quite different ways in the two States.
Far from co-operating, the two Powers have felt themselves
obliged to maintain large military forces to defend themselves
against each other. Their foreign policies have followed fluctuat-
ing and divergent paths, oscillating between the major Power
blocs in the Cold War. Behind all this, perhaps not as the sole
factor but without doubt as a most important one, lies the
problem of Kashmir. What is to be the future of this region
where, by a chapter of historical accidents, a Muslim majority
entered the age of Asian independence under the leadership of
a Hindu ruler? This is a question for which, after nearly twenty
years of argument, India, Pakistan, the United Nations and the
leaders of a number of major World Powers have all failed to
find an effective answer.
In one sense the Kashmir problem can be seen as a conse-
quence of the British failure to find a satisfactory method for the
integration of the Princely States into the independent India
and Pakistan which succeeded the British Raj. There were 562
Princely States in British India by the time of the transfer of
power, and they covered over one-third of the total area of the
Indian Empire. Some States were tiny, controlling but a frw
acres of land: others were large indeed. Hyderabad and Kash-
mir, the most extensive of all the States, each occupied more
than 80,000 square miles; and each contained more land than
England and only a little less than the entire United Kingdom.
The Princely States came into being as a result of a series of
historical accidents during the progress of formation of the
British Indian Empire. Some Indian rulers werc not only con-
quered by the British but also deprived of their estates and their
political power: others, by good fortune or skilfi~l diplomacy,

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