Unwise Method
A BASIC PRINCIPLE of success in life is that, in controversial matters, one should willingly accept whatever is available to one at the very outset. If we fail to do so in the initial stage in a bid to get more than what we are being offered, we only prolong the conflict. Then the conflict is bound to become more complicated. Consequently, we will lose even whatever was available to us in the first instance.
Let me cite an example to clarify this point. In 1917, the British drew up a plan, known as the Balfour Declaration, to partition Palestine. This division was clearly in favour of the Arabs. By the terms of this scheme, less than half of the land was to be given to the Jews and more than half to the Arabs, inclusive of the entire city of Jerusalem. However, the Muslim leaders of that time refused to accept this plan. If they had adopted a pragmatic and realistic approach and accepted whatever was being offered to them at the time, they could have then devoted all their energies and resources to constructive purposes. The condition of the Palestinians could, in consequence, have been much better than that of the Jews. However, owing to the unrealistic approach of the Muslim leaders, the Palestinians lost their all and had to face death and destruction.
Exactly the same has happened in the case of Jammu and Kashmir because of the utter ineptitude of the leaders of Kashmir and Pakistan.
On this score, the record of the injudiciousness of Muslim leaders is a very long one. I will allude to just one aspect of this here. In 1947, when India was partitioned, Pakistani leaders adopted a completely unrealistic stance and staked their claim to two Hindu-majority Indian princely states: Junagadh and Hyderabad. Had the Pakistani leaders adopted a sensible and pragmatic approach and not demanded that Junagadh and Hyderabad—which were far from the Pakistani borders and deep inside Indian territory—should accede to Pakistan, the issue of Kashmir would never have become so serious as it did. The issue of Kashmir could then have very easily been solved in favour of Pakistan. But the two-pronged thrust of the Pakistani leaders resulted in Pakistan getting neither Junagadh nor Hyderabad, and, at the same time, they also failed to acquire Kashmir.
Let me cite some facts to reinforce my point. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali was the Prime Minister of Pakistan in the period 1955-1957. Prior to this, he had been a senior minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan. In his voluminous book, Emergence of Pakistan, he relates that shortly after the Partition, the Muslim ruler of the Hindu-majority princely state of Junagadh declared that his state would accede to Pakistan. India refused to accept this decision and sent in its armed forces to take over the state and it was then incorporated into India. After this, a meeting was held in Delhi, attended by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, from the Indian side, and Liaqat Ali Khan and Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, from the Pakistani side. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali writes:
‘Sardar Patel, although a bitter enemy of Pakistan, was a greater realist than Nehru. In one of the discussions between the two Prime Ministers, at which Patel and I were also present, Liaqat Ali Khan dwelt at length on the inconsistency of the Indian stand with regard to Junagadh and Kashmir. If Junagadh, despite its Muslim ruler’s accession to Pakistan, belonged to India because of its Hindu majority, how could Kashmir, with its Muslim majority, be a part of India simply by virtue of its Hindu ruler having signed a conditional instrument of accession to India? If the instrument of accession signed by the Muslim ruler of Junagadh was of no validity, the instrument of accession signed by the Hindu ruler of Kashmir was also invalid. If the will of the people was to prevail in Junagadh, it must prevail in Kashmir as well. India could not claim both Junagadh and Kashmir.
‘When Liaqat Ali made these incontrovertible points, Patel could not contain himself and burst out: “Why do you compare Junagadh with Kashmir? Talk of Hyderabad and Kashmir, and we could reach an agreement.” Patel’s view at this time, and even later, was that India’s efforts to retain Muslim-majority areas against the will of the people was a source not of strength but of weakness to India. He felt that if India and Pakistan agreed to let Kashmir go to Pakistan and Hyderabad to India, the problems of Kashmir and of Hyderabad could be solved peacefully and to the mutual advantage of India and Pakistan.’ (Emergence of Pakistan, pp. 299-300)
Another relevant example appears in another book titled, The Nation That Lost its Soul, written by a well-known Pakistani leader, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan. This book, consisting of 460 pages, was originally written in English, its Urdu edition, titled Gum-gashta-e-Qaum was published from Lahore. We give below a quotation from this book.
“Later, during the attack on Kashmir, Mountbatten came to Lahore. At a dinner attended by Liaquat, Governor Mudie and the four Ministers of West Punjab, Lord Mountbatten conveyed the message from Patel, the strongman of India, asking Liaquat to abide by the rules over the future of Indian States previously agreed upon between the Congress and the Muslim League: that those States whose subjects made up of a majority of a community and the State was contiguous and adjoining a Dominion, would accede to the adjoining country. Patel had said that Pakistan could take Kashmir and let go Hyderabad Deccan which had a majority Hindu population and was nowhere near Pakistan by sea or land. After delivering this message, Lord Mountbatten went to sleep in the Lahore Government House. I, being overall in charge of the Kashmir operations, went to Liaquat Ali Khan. I suggested to him that, as the Indian Army had entered Kashmir in force and we would be unable to annex Kashmir with tribal mujahids, or even with our inadequate armed forces, we should make haste to accept Patel’s proposal.
“Nawabzada turned round to me and said, ‘Sardar Sahib, have I gone mad to give up Hyderabad State, which is much larger than the Punjab, for the sake of the rocks of Kashmir?’
“I was stunned by the Prime Minister’s reaction and ignorance of our geography and his lack of wisdom. I thought he was living in a fool’s paradise and did not understand the importance of Kashmir to Pakistan while hoping to get Hyderabad, which at best was only quixotic wishful thinking. It was not connected with Pakistan anywhere. As a protest, I resigned from the position I was holding in Kashmir operations.”
If one accepts the statements of Pakistani leaders, it is clear evidence that the conflict over Kashmir was created entirely by Muslim leaders and no one else. Here I will add that, according to the law of nature, it is not possible for an individual or a community to exact the price of its own mistakes from others. A person has himself to pay the price for his own folly, and this rule applies equally to communities. Pakistan is no exception to this rule.
