Jammu and Kashmir: In the Shadow of Imperialism Home
Maharaj K. Kaul
[Taken from Essays in Inequality and Social Justice (Essays in honor of Ved Prakash Vatuk), Edited by Kira Hall, Archana Publications, Meerut, India, 2009]
INDEPENDENT KASHMIR AND THE U.S. ROLE
When everything else failed, America turned to Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the leader of the 1940s movement against autocracy in Jammu and Kashmir, which had been won with India’s support. After returning from Lake Success in 1949, Abdullah began distancing himself from Kashmiri communists, who had played a key role in the anti-Maharajah movement and helped the National Conference draft its New Kashmir Program of land to the tillers, workers’ rights, and women’s rights. Discussions began to take place among Abdullah loyalists within the National Conference on a ‘third way’ to the resolution of the Kashmir ‘problem.’ In an editorial on July 13, 1950, the National Conference’s own newspaper, Khidmat, wrote: “We could easily arrive at a settlement with the Americans but for the communists” (cited in Raina 1988:210). A full one-year campaign followed that sought to purge progressive elements within the National Conference. This witch hunt was one of the factors that killed the democratic core of the National Conference movement and strengthened communalist and opportunist elements in the party.
When Ambassador Loy Henderson met Sheikh Abdullah in September 1950, he brought up the idea of an independent Kashmir. This precipitated an immediate and marked change in the attitude of the Western Press towards Sheikh Abdullah. The Daily Telegraph, the Washington Post, the Manchester Guardian, and the New York Times all began showering praises on Abdullah’s leadership (Raina 1988). When the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir was convened on November 5, 1951, Michael James reported in the New York Times:
The ambitious and unprincipled Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah—a communalist in the early 1930s and a vacillating supporter of unity with a progressive India in the 1940s—fell in the 1950s to the temptation of an independent Kashmir supported by the United States.
In 1952, Chester Bowles, the U.S. Ambassador to India, visited a number of groups in Srinagar and is reported to have stated that UN armies should be brought into Kashmir to secure the stability needed for independence. According to the Italian newspaper Avanti, Bowles asserted that “the task of these armed forces consists in ensuring in the future a stable internal situation for the independent state of Kashmir, a stability which will naturally be closely bound up with the political, diplomatic, and military interests of the Americans in Central and South Asia” (Avanti, cited in Raina 1988:219). Moreover, soon after Eisenhower’s election in November of the same year, John Foster Dulles, Harold Stassen, and Adlai Stevenson planned similar visits to India. Stevenson visited Srinagar in May of 1953 and talked with Abdullah for three days (May 1 to 3); the last day’s meeting lasted seven hours. The Manchester Guardian reported that “On his world tour Mr. Stevenson visited Kashmir, and seemed to have listened to suggestions that the best solution for Kashmir could be independence from both India and Pakistan” (cited in Raina 1988:219).
Just three weeks after Stevenson’s visit, Abdullah placed before the Working Committee of the National Conference his plan for an independent Kashmir. The Working Committee meeting stretched to three weeks;ultimately, the independent Kashmir proposal was rejected, and accession to India was endorsed by a vote of 15 to 4. But that did not deter Abdullah. In a public meeting at Ganderbal on July 31, 1953, he hinted at his idea of an independent Kashmir. But what turned out to be the last straw was when he demanded the resignation of one of his Cabinet Ministers. This action turned the rift in his five-member Cabinet into a crisis. Three Ministers of his cabinet asked for his dismissal. On August 9, Abdullah was served dismissal notice as well as a warrant of arrest.
America’s interest in Kashmir during this time period is best summed up by Ambassador Bowles himself in his book An Ambassador’s Report:
Imperialist meddling worsened in the mid-1950s as Pakistan joined various military pacts in the imperialist camp. The Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement between Pakistan and the United States was signed on May 19, 1954. This was followed by Pakistan joining SEATO in September 1954 and the Baghdad Pact (later known as CENTO) on September 23, 1955. India knew that by these actions imperialism had strengthened a belligerent and hostile state in its neighborhood. This had a direct impact on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the Kashmir issue was debated year after year from 1948 through 1952. Various mediators appointed by the Security Council, whose work continued through 1958, kept Kashmir on the front burner. With the backing of imperialism, almost every event of any significance in the Valley was picked up by the Pakistani media and politicians and given extensive publicity in international forums, including the UNSC. In 1957, for instance, when the Constituent Assembly in JKI ratified Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India, Pakistan promptly protested and brought it to the notice of the Security Council.
A subsequent controversy regarding the disappearance of a Holy Relic in Srinagar in 1963 likewise became an opportunity for Pakistan to raise the Kashmir issue in the Security Council. The Relic, believed to be the hair of Prophet Mohammed and kept at a mosque in Srinagar, disappeared on December 26. Although the Relic was recovered shortly thereafter, approximately 15,000 Hindus lost their lives in East Pakistan two weeks later from communal savagery inspired by the incident. Half a million minorities fled to India. But Z. A. Bhutto, rather than expressing regret for the communal carnage in Pakistan, brought up the Holy Relic incident in the Security Council. In response to Bhutto’s long speech, a disgusted M. C. Chagla, who represented India, wondered why the Security Council was convened and observed that the Security Council had become a forum for Pakistan “to carry on its agitation against my Government and my country.” A new Prime Minister, Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq, took over in JKI in early 1964. This too became another opportunity for Pakistan to raise the Kashmir issue. But by this time, India was fed up with Pakistan’s rituals and refused to participate in the discussions.
This diplomatic war against India was supplemented by a covert war of sabotage, aimed at undermining the government authority in Jammu & Kashmir and obstructing the state’s integration with the Indian Union. Unable to achieve its goals, Pakistan invaded Jammu and Kashmir a second time in 1965. The invasion failed, but Pakistan would not give up. By 1971 terrorist cells had been planted in the Valley, and one of the first terrorist acts was committed by a new organization established in 1968, Al Fateh. An Indian Airlines aircraft was hijacked to Lahore in 1971, where Z. A. Bhutto personally greeted the hijackers at the airport. The aircraft was destroyed by Pakistani authorities. Towards the end of 1971 came another war between Pakistan and India. After a near-genocide of the Bengali population of East Pakistan, Pakistan lost its eastern half. Despite this major setback, Pakistan’s subversive activities in the Valley continued through the 1970s.
Then followed the 1980s’ fundamentalist war in neighboring Afghanistan, which was orchestrated by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Funding was provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia, weapons by the United States, and the driving Wahabbi ideology by the Saudis. Pakistan provided training and management. Jehadi culture, unknown to South Asia in its extent and intensity until then, spread and became a dominant industry of the region. Flush with the success of its jehad in Afghanistan, the military-mullah establishment of Pakistan then turned these terrorist forces east towards neighboring India. Hundreds of terrorist training camps were set up in PoK and Pakistan. Thousands of terrorists crossed over every year to engage in murder and mayhem in the state, while the officials of the Clinton Administration kept on denying the existence of Pakistan’s support of terrorism.
In 1993, Robin Raphael, the Assistant Secretary of State, South Asia Desk in the Clinton cabinet, went so far as to question the legality of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India, reviving, not too subtly, the Dulles-Stevenson era desires of the United States for an independent Jammu and Kashmir. However, with the establishment of U.S. military bases in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, as well as recent changes in Indian foreign policy, the independence of Jammu and Kashmir has now lost its relative importance. Yet the idea of an independent Kashmir under U.S. control guided American policy for almost six decades.
Hints have been made that once the Constituent Assembly begins to function, there is a possibility of creating an opposition to accession to India and the creation of what will be a popular independence movement. (Raina 1988:214)
When I was in Kashmir in the fall of 1952, some two-thirds of the officers on the cease-fire line were Americans, and not all of them handled themselves with discretion. The last negotiator appointed by the United Nations was a distinguished American, Frank Graham, and the administrator, who was selected by the United Nations to take charge of the plebiscite, if and when it was conducted, was still another American, Admiral Chester Nimitz. Despite the high caliber of these men, and all the good will in the world, the UN effort to achieve a Kashmir settlement inevitably took on the character of an American operation. (Bowles 1954:254)
