PARTITION 1947 PART 3

 PARTITION 1947

 Mountbatten and Kashmir can at this stage be offered. Mountbatten disliked the prospect of independence for the State of Jammu and Kashmir after the Transfer of Power. While publicly declaring that the Maharaja was perfectly entitled to accede either to Pakistan or to India, the documents cited here do rather suggest that he personally favoured a solution where the Maharaja left the decision to Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference which appeared to him to be representative of the people of the State as a whole; and, as Nehru's Note suggested, Sheikh Abdullah would surely opt for India. This outcome would in his view not only be politically just but also geopolitically desirable in that it ensured that the Gilgit Agency and the defence of the Northern Frontier would remain in Indian hands. We can never be absolutely certain; but that is what the balance of probabilities would indicate. This leaves the second half of the first question, whether Mountbatten appreciated the importance of the Gurdaspur District. Only if the three eastern tehsils of Gurdaspur were awarded to India by the Boundary Commission would the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India be a practicable proposition, as opposed to a theoretically desirable one (at least, according to the conventional wisdom of the day). The answer here is unequivocal: Mountbatten did appreciate this fact. As he said to the Nawab of Bhopal and the Maharaja of Indore on 4 August 1947, the State of ~ammb and Kashmir was "so placed geographically that it could join either Dominion, provided part of Gurdaspur were put into East Punjab by the Boundary om mission"." In other words, only by giving Gurdaspur to India would the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir be presented with a free choice: to give Gurdaspur to Pakistan was effectively to guarantee that the State of Jammu and Kashmir would sooner or later fall to that Dominion. This leads to the second question. Was the final award of the Boundary Commission influenced in any way by Mountbatten (or his close advisers) for "political" ends? The published documents provide some evidence which, if not conclusive, is certainly circumstantial. In the original proposals for Partition it was generally understood by the Pakistan side, and probably by at least the majority of the Indian side as well (despite a strong hint by Mountbatten to the contrary on 4 June when he observed that "it is unlikely that the Boundary Commission will throw the whole of the . . . [Gurdaspurl . . . district into the Muslim-majority areas")," that Gurdaspur i+.;ls a Muslim-majority District in the Punjab which would go to Pakistan in its entirety. This conclusion was indicated in the notional between India and Pakistan with which the Boundar\, Commission started in July 1947, derived from the First Schedule of the India11 Independence Act of 18 . Julv , 19-17, ivhicli also pointed to n Alr~slimrnajorit! salient along the soiithern edge ot' ,-\mrits;~~- I)ist~.ict in the  Lahore region of Pakistani territory jutting into the Indian part of the ~unjab.'~ Together, this southern salient and Gurdaspur resulted in Muslim-majority territory which almost surrounded Amritsar, a city of supreme importance to the Sikhs; and the attitude of the Sikhs presented by far the greatest immediate problem for Partition in the Punjab. The Sikh problem has not gone away; but, fortunately, it need not detain us here beyond noting that it could of itself provide a sound "political" reason for the alteration of the boundary around Amritsar to include not only some of the southern salient but also Gurdaspur (or, at least, its eastern teluils) in India. This Sikh component has complicated greatly the interpretation of the records by those in quest of answer to the mysteries of the origins of the Kashmir dispute. On 8 August 1947 there emerged from Sir Cyril Radcliffe's establishment a provisional boundary map on which, there is strong evidence to indicate, the southern salient had been modified in what seemed to be Pakistan's favour by substituting for a small portion of the Lahore District (the tip of the original salient, created by the need to somehow transfer the Indo-Pakistan border from the line of the Ravi to that of the Sutlej, which it could be argued on this particular alignment encroached more than it was absolutely necessary upon what the Sikhs regarded as their special land around Amritsar) the adjacent Ferozepore and Zira tehsils of Ferozepore District, thus extending Pakistan to the eastern side of the ~utlej.~~ The same map also indicated that the three eastern tehsils of Gurdaspur District were now located on the Indian side of the Partition line.25 Sir George Abell, Mountbatten's Private Secretary, immediately communicated the contents of this map to Stuart Abbott, Secretary to Sir E. Jenkins; the Governor of the Punjab, through whose Province the new boundary would run. Jenkins also received at this time a memorandum of some kind on the question of the boundary award from Christopher Beaumont, a member of Sir Cyril Radlciffe's staff. Thus several members of the Punjab Government were aware of the current state of Radcliffe's thinking on partition by 9 ~u~ust.'" So, also, it would seem were many other people. There was, for example, immediate objection from the Indian side to the location of the Ferozepore and Zira tehsils in Pakistan, it being clearly impossible to confine such a secret to the inner circle of Viceroy's House, New Delhi, and Government House, Lahore. Not only were several Rulers whose States depended upon irrigation works cut by the proposed Radcliffe line much disturbed by the dangers which they detected in the Boundary omm mission's proposals. hut also a wide selection of officials, not all of them of parricular seniority or major importance, found cause for concern." .Thus on $1 Aiigr~st 1947 Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to ~ountbatten enclosing ;I memorandum by A.N. Khosla, Chairman. central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission, reporting various items of gossip, including the account of an eavesdropped lunchtime conversation between Sir Cyril Radcliffe and his Commissioners, to the effect that the award to Pakistan of the Ferozepore and Zira tehsils to Pakistan was a compensation for the award of the three eastern tehsi1s of Gurdaspur to 1ndiam2' Khosla pointed out that, if true, this arrangement would be most undesirable on technical irrigation grounds: Ferozepore and Zira, as well as Gurdaspur, would have to be in India if certain canals were to operate adequately. Jawaharlal Nehru's letter of 9 August is intriguing. If a relatively junior official like Khosla could pick up confidential discussions on Boundary matters by Radcliffe and his colleagues, it did-not say much for the secrecy in which the Radcliffe Commission was alleged to have carried out its task. Moreover, why should Nehru have chosen to convey this titbit of information to the Viceroy at this particular time? Was he trying to influence the Radcliffe Commission by way of Mountbatten in at least three ways, to ensure that the Ferozepore tehsils did not go to Pakistan, to guarantee that whatever decision was in the air concerning the award to India of the three eastern tehsils of Gurdaspur was adhered to, and to provide reasons for both these decisions which could be argued to be "judicial" rather than "political"? Mountbatten politely rebuked Nehru for this letter. "I hope you will agree", he wrote, "that I should not do anything to prejudice the independence of the Boundary Commission, and that, therefore, it would be wrong of me even to forward any memorandum, especially at this stagev.'" All the same, on 10 or 11 August 1947 the Governor of the Punjab, Jenkins, received a telegram from Viceroy's House. New Delhi, which told him to "eliminate salient", in other words, delete from Pakistan (as shown in the earlier version of the partition proposals which he had received on 8 August) the Ferozepore and Zira t~hsils, and put them in ~ndia."' oreo over, in the final award (which was ready on 12 August) the location of the Ferozepore and Zira t~hsils in India was justified on grounds of good irrigation policy, as was, also, the Indian possession of the three eastern trh,vils of (;uI-daspur in India (which had already been shown on the map of 8 August). On 8 or- 9 August 1947 news of the award of the three eastern tc>hsil.~ of C;urdaspur to India reached Liaquat Ali Khan (Finance h,linister in the Interim Government and the closest of R/l.;l\. Jinnah's associates), who up to this time (as also the two hluslini (:on~missionel-s on the Punjab Boundarv Commission) had no reason to doubt [hat all of C;urdaspur District \\lould go to Pakistan Sollo~ving the logic of the principles of' Partiti011 in that this lvas n hlt~slini-~nnjo~.it\. District contiguoi~s with 31 the Mi~slim-majo~.it\. part of the Pulljab: at once protested to Lord Isma! that the reported dec.isiou \\.;is PARTITION 1947 "political" which, if so, was "a grave injustice which will amount to a breach of faith on the part of the ~ritish".~~ Lord Ismay replied thus: you surely do not expect the Viceroy to suggest to Sir Cyril Radcliffe that he should make any alteration. Still less can I believe that you intend to imply that the Viceroy has influenced this award. I am well aware that some uninformed sections of public opinion imagine that the award will not be Sir Cyril Radcliffe's but the Viceroy's, but I never for one moment thought that you, who are completely in the know, should ever imagine that he could do such a thing. Liaquat Ali Khan, who was destined to be Pakistan's first Prime Minister, and who had to deal with some of the consequences for his country of the Gurdaspur award, clearly thought that the Viceroy was capable of just that. On 11 August 1947, at this crucial stage between the Radcliffe Commission's provisional award of 8 August and the final document of 12 August (but which was not to be published until after the Transfer of Power on 15 August), the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Pandit Kak, was dismissed ("sacked" was Mountbatten's term) by the Maharaja and replaced by a soldier in the Maharaja's service (and kinsman), Major-General Janak ~in~h.~~ Te Maharaja, Mountbatten noted in his Personal Report dated 16 August 1947 (but, perhaps, written earlier), "now talks of holding a referendum to decide whether to join Pakistan or India, provided that the Boundary Commission give him land communication between Kashmir and India", that is to say Gurdaspur; and hence "it appears, therefore, as if this great problem of the States has been satisfactorily solved within the last three weeks of British rule".34 This was certainly evidence that Mountbatten appreciated the link between the award of Gurdaspur and the future of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Is there, however, in all this a conspiracy? We certainly do have hints that the Radcliffe Commission was not operating in complete purdah. Common sense suggests that it is very improbable that certain British officials, if not Mountbatten then some of his advisers like Lord Ismay, were not keeping an eye on the Radcliffe Commission proceedings.3%iven the importance of these deliberations (not least, as we have seen, for the future security of the Northern Frontier), it would have been irresponsible if there had not been such a watch. Common sense also indicates that those same British officials would do what they could to ensure that the three eastern 1eh.d~ of (;urdaspur District would be awarded to India, if only to present the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir with a genuine choice. AS has already been noted, to award them to Pakistan was, in the current (limate of opinion, tantamount to directing the State of Jammu and K:~rtlmir to join Pakistan, To award them to India, on the other hand.  still left open in theory the question of the future of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. If this is so, then it rather looks as if the business about the Ferozepore District tehsils was an abortive attempt to find some sop to Pakistan in recompense for the loss of the Gurdaspur tehsils, an attempt which foundered on several rocks, not least that of the Sikhs, who needed a great deal of persuading to accept the redefinition of their homeland which was involved in Partition. What it also suggests is a process of modification or final adjustment in the Radcliffe Commission award taking place in anything but total secrecy and isolation from politically interested parties, as witness the comments of Khosla on the basis of gossip picked up here and there. Behind all this there may well have been some last minute endeavour to persuade the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir to make up his mind to follow the anticipated advice of his prisoner, Sheikh Abdullah, and accede to India before the actual Transfer of Power. For such a step there seemed to be two prerequisites, the removal of Pandit Kak as Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (an action within the power of the Maharaja) and the guarantee (which, it could be argued, Mountbatten could alone deliver) of a practicable land link between the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of India. It is possible that one reason for the delay in the publication of the Kadcliffe awards, which were to hand in their final version on 12 August 1947, was to leave the Maharaja in doubt about Gurdaspur until he had made up his mind to take the final step, accession to India, possibly with Sheikh Abdullah at the head of his Government. It could well have appeared to Mountbatten that if the future of Gurdaspur seemed to be as yet undecided the Maharaja might be induced to turn to India before the Transfer of Power on the grounds that if he did not do so then Gurdaspur might still be gi\ren to Pakistan. A Pakistani Gurdaspur would surely be the signpost pointing towards a Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir and the end of the Dogra Dynasty. .Also, of course, if the Maharaja did accede to India before the publication of the Kadcliffe award then the British could hardly be accused of having manipulated that award to bring about such an accession. In the event, the Maharaja did not accede to India while the British Raj was still in being for its last fe\v da\*s; and with the publication of the awards. which could hardl, be de~a\.ed for more than a day (.)I- so after the Transfer of' Po\vet- \\.as complete. this pal-ticular inducement for the Maharaja to make up his mind \vo~ld have lost its ti)rre. Once published. the hlaharaja knelt. that tl1e1.e were no practicable difficulties in the \\.a\. of his joining India sho~ld he so rvish: and he could atti)rd to take his time in ~iiakillg i~p his mind. The use of the delibe~.ations OF the K;~dclit'fr (:orn~nissiou ;IS ;I Ie\re~- in the negotiations o\w the h1;rharnj;r's ;~c.c.ession to India would not, in the real world of politics, have been particularly discreditable. Its public exposure, however, would have revealed that the independence of the Commission was something of a charade. That it was just this is, of course, highly probable. Mountbatten, in the run up to the Transfer of Power, still believed that he might have a part to play as Governor-General of both India and Pakistan, perhaps, indeed, in this role being able to undo some of the damage wrought by the very process of Partition (over which he had presided) to the structure of a united polity in the subcontinent (in which case, of course, who got Gurdaspur would not matter very much). If so, he could not allow himself to be blamed for the many hard decisions which Partition involved with the possible suggestion of bias towards either India or Pakistan. It was vital that Mountbatten appeared to be impartial, neutral and above party in all his actions during the birth process of the two Dominions. Here the Radcliffe Commission, seeming to act in total independence, was an extremely useful scapegoat. Any claimed injustices could be blamed upon Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a man who not only had no previous involvement in Indian affairs but, on the very day of the Transfer of Power and before his awards had been published, would remove himself from the subcontinent never to return. Sir Cyril's value in this particular respect, however, would disappear the moment that the slightest hint of Viceregal interference with the Commission's deliberations was allowed to escape. This could explain, at all events, Moutbatten's dogged defence for the rest of his life of the reputation for total independence of the Radcliffe Commission, and his refusal to comment on the growing corpus of documentary evidence to the contrary. The most serious charge against the last Viceroy's handling of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the final weeks of the British Raj, if there is any merit in the speculations outlined above, is the degree to which Mountbatten (or his advisers) seem to have accepted Jawaharlal Nehru's views about Kashmiri politics and to have failed to explore the Muslim dimension. The records reveal no checking of Nehru's Note of 17 June 1947 by the seeking of other opinions. The names of Ghulam Abbas and Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah simply do not appear in the briefing papers available to Mountbatten who was presented with but a single view, that Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference represented the overwhelming majority of the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. When M.A. Jinnah raised the question of the Muslim Conference, as he did, for example, on 13 July 1947, he was not, it would seem, taken serio~sl~.~"ethe matter was clearly not lacking in importance. If the Muslim ConFerence really had been representative of the opinion of the Muslim rrlajority in the State of Jammu and Kashmir (or even a significant porrion of it). then the policy of backing Sheikh Abdullah was fraught with dangers both short term and long term. At the very least the matter should have bee0 investigated; but the available evidence seems to be that it was not. The main point, of course, which is apparent in the documents pblished in the three final volumes of The Transfer of Power, is that Mountbatten got on well with Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he both admired and trusted; and he had no great personal affection for M.A. Jinnah. This fact, which was well known at the time, was to lead to a great deal of speculation and many rumours of scandal which did nothing to make the decisions of Partition easier to accept by those who felt they were not on the favoured side. It is hard to reject the suspicion that Nehru's Note on Kashmir of 17 June 1947 greatly reinforced Mountbatten's subsequent attitude, already influenced by the question of the future defence of the Northern Frontier, towards the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the place that would now be occupied by Sheikh Abdullah; and this because Mountbatten unhesitatingly trusted what Nehru had to say. Had a Note on this subject, regardless of its contents, been written by M.A. Jinnah or Liaquat Ali Khan, one cannot help wondering, would it have had anything like the same impact upon Mountbatt