Nehru and the J and K Cease Fire

Colonel S K Bose (Retd)

The timing of cease fire in the 1948 war with Pakistan raise the old and oft speculated issue for a debate. If only Nehru had waited for another two months. This has been a common refrain. Nehru had been blamed and roundly condemned for asking for a cease fire when India was in an advantageous position. The same view was expressed by General V P Malik, former Army Chief, speaking at the Convocation of the Indian Institute of Modern Management at Pune on 23 January 2003. He termed the taking of the Kashmir issue to the UN as "one of the biggest blunders committed by our rulers." How much was Nehru to blame? Was there something more in it than meets the eye? One fact that is generally forgotten is that at the time of the 1948 war and the cease fire, both Indian and Pakistani Army Chiefs were serving British officers. There are other facts as well to be considered, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Thus when seemingly innocuous isolated facts are taken together they tell a different story entirely that the whole thing was a put up job, stage managed by the British and Nehru was neatly manipulated and made a scapegoat.

Lieutenant General James Wilson is a man of great integrity says Lieutenant General M L Chibber, himself a man of impeccable integrity. Therefore what they have said is to be taken seriously.¹ General Wilson's narrative is very important because it presents the 1948 Indo-Pak war from the Pakistan side.

Major James Wilson, as he was then, arrived at Rawalpindi with a batch of Indian Military Academy (IMA) cadets in October 1947, to be inducted in the Personal Staff of the British Commander in Chief (C-in-C) of the Pakistan Army General Frank Messervy. Soon afterwards General Messervy left and General Douglas Gracey took over as the C-in-C. Major Wilson, then 26 years old, was given a temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel and appointed as Personal Secretary (PS) to the C-in-C. This is a tribute to his professional capabilities but at his age he seems to have been politically naive. Thus many things of political importance escaped his notice. It is a moot point whether he speculated over those facts later in his life, but at that time he believed whatever his senior officers told him, being an honest man himself. His professional competence saw him rise to the rank of Lieutenant General.

In his review article² of the book The Battles of Zojila, Lieutenant General Raghavan says, "In India's wars since independence no battle was more vital than securing the Zojila Pass in 1948." He goes on to say, "It was only a matter of time before Pakistani raiders and soldiers disguised as raiders would be evicted from the valley. What could not be prevented was the fall of Skardu and Gilgit, which were Kashmiri territory and had been taken by treachery and murder. That British military officers were involved either directly or indirectly, is now beginning to be known after confidential documents have become public in recent years". The battle for the Pass had commenced as early as the snow conditions permitted in 1948 and the Pass was secured by November 1948. It was a spectacular victory by the Indian forces. Why then did cease fire take place on 1 January 1949?

Just after the battle for Zojila ended in a resounding victory for India, another battle occurred, which had several peculiar and inexplicable features. Lieutenant General Wilson says, "Early in December 1948 surprisingly the Indians, for several months content to sit quietly in Jammu, began to move forward towards Poonch". He further says, "Fortunately the Indian advance towards Poonch provided the right military circumstances for Pakistan to make their point". He describes the Indian advance under Major General Kalwant Singh as "untidy and unbalanced". He further says, "We learnt afterwards that Kalwant had been pushed into the operation against his will". He adds that Major General Kalwant's move on Poonch was aimed by Delhi (Army HQ) to warn Pakistan off further adventures in the northern sector. This may have been the official reason but the real reason seems to have been quite different.

For the Indian advance the key was Jhangar, which was nothing more than a small, unimportant road centre. According to Lieutenant General Wilson "The Indian advance had made it a traffic shamble with far too many lorries and establishment crammed into a confined space. It was an obvious artillery target and being only just inside the Kashmir border, could be engaged from gun positions from Pakistani territory".

This situation was fully exploited by Pakistan. In Lieutenant General Wilson's words, "Pakistan's one Army Group Artillery, three field and three regiments of medium artillery, numbering some 200 guns, were quickly assembled. Quietly the target was registered and the necessary ammunition placed in position". One morning, without warning, Pakistan artillery opened up. In Lieutenant General Wilson's words, "The result was devastating and the consequences immediate. That very afternoon Roy Bucher, the British C-in-C in Delhi, came on the telephone. He told us that he had the Indian Governments' approval to suggest an immediate cease fire in Kashmir on existing positions : he proposed a meeting on 1 January 1949 between the two Cs-in-C and their staffs to record these arrangements and convert the truce into a formal cease fire pending outcome of the negotiations for the future of Kashmir through the United Nations Commission". What General Sir Roy Bucher perhaps did not mention over the telephone was that 1 January 1949 also happened to be the day on which he was handing over charge to General Cariappa, the first Indian Chief of the Indian Army in waiting.

The whole Jhangar misadventure brings out the following facts :-
 

From an analysis of the facts it seems quite clear now that Major General Kalwant Singh was set up and led like a lamb to slaughter by General Roy Bucher, the British C-in-C of the Indian Army, so that the gains of the Zojila Pass victory would be offset and an alarming situation would be projected to Nehru and a cease fire proposal extracted from him before he, General Roy Bucher, relinquished charge. It is extremely improbable that the movement of Pakistani guns and ammunition on such a large scale would not have been known to the Indian Army HQ when the Pakistani Army knew all about the Indian move to Jhangar. Why then did Kalwant Singh walk into the death trap? Evidently, the information regarding movement of Pakistani artillery had been withheld from him and he was pushed to an unimportant objective because it was an ideal killing ground from Pakistan's point view. Thus surprise would be total and the result devastating. Now all this could only have taken place which General Roy Bucher was still C-in-C. Hence the advance towards Poonch had to take place at a time which General Wilson found "surprising". It is also obvious that General Roy Bucher could not have acted alone. General Douglas Gracey must have been a participant. It is also obvious that, because of its long term political implication, the plan must have been drawn up jointly by the British military and political bosses.

The diabolical deviousness of the plan takes one's breath away. As Lieutenant General Raghavan has pointed out, the involvement of British officers in the fall of Skardu and Gilgit, which had been taken by treachery and murder, is only now coming to be known after confidential documents have become public in recent years. It is the height of hypocrisy that while this plan was being implemented in a cold blooded and calculated manner, with total disregard for scruples and morals, Nazi "War Criminals" were being tried at Nuremberg. As an example of double standards, this would be hard to beat.

Once the cease fire became operative, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson had to be removed from the scene at the earliest since he was an honest soldier and had probably seen or heard too much. Moreover, this had to be done in a manner which would not arouse suspicions. That explains why the Indian C-in-C, General Roy Bucher took aside young Lieutenant Colonel Wilson and 'walked up and down the lawn' with him after lunch on 1 January 1949 and "kindly" asked Wilson about his future plans, letting slip that Wilson would almost certainly be selected for the 1950 Camberley Staff College course. This was news to Wilson as he had not expected to get such an early vacancy. General Roy Bucher also advised young Wilson to get back to the British Army, however briefly, before he went to Camberley. It is indeed surprising that the C-in-C of the Indian Army should show so much consideration to the young PS of the C-in-C of the Pakistan Army, that too since they were not from the same regiment nor did they have any past association. This was an extremely clever bit of manipulation and ensured young Lieutenant Colonel Wilson's admiration, gratitude and loyalty. In his article Lieutenant General Wilson goes on to say, "Bucher nevertheless had played an important role in keeping the Kashmir war within reasonable bounds and much of the credit for the cease fire should go to him for recognising that the political conditions were right for a truce". This is an extraordinarily naïve statement. Lieutenant General Wilson probably still does not realise the full impact of his words. General Roy Bucher kept the Kashmir war within "reasonable bounds". What is the definition of reasonable, and reasonable for whom? It is clear that General Roy Bucher "controlled" the progress of the Kashmir war to a large extent and ensured that India did not succeed in driving Pakistan out of Kashmir. This policy decision must have been taken by the British Government in the early days of the war. The most damning piece of news is that much of the so called "credit" for the cease fire should go to General Roy Bucher. This really lets the cat out of the bag. Here then is the real culprit and not Nehru, who with his self defeating kind of idealism was no match for the devious manipulations of the British who were past masters of the art. Lieutenant Colonel Wilson goes on to say, "Bucher served India well and Pakistan was fortunate that such a level headed and politically astute soldier was around in New Delhi to keep the military situation from boiling over". He was helped by the fact that Pakistan, too, had a British C-in-C.

So whose interest was General Bucher looking after, India's or Pakistan's? That he was politically astute is quite evident, especially the way he prevented the "military situation from boiling over" in India's favour. It is also clear that he was politically more astute than the idealistic Pandit Nehru, whom he seems to have manipulated quite adroitly. He appears to have carried out the strategy of his political masters with rare skill. It was common knowledge that Nehru neither understood nor was he interested in politico-military affairs. The fact that he asked a British General to stay on as C-in-C of the Indian Army after Independence shows his frame of mind. He did not believe or was cleverly made not to believe that there was any Indian officer capable of being the C-in-C at that point of time. His dependence on General Roy Bucher made it easy for the latter to present the Kashmir war situation in a manner that suited the British.

Lieutenant General E A Vas, mentions, that "Nehru hoped to create a world where nations, instead of forming groups to act against each other, would learn to eschew conflict and settle their disputes in a peaceful manner. He felt that India, with its philosophy and idealistic past, could provide a lead in this direction. He placed his faith in the UN. Overlying his idealism was hatred of war and of all things military. Thus, his intellectual make-up lacked an important dimension, he gave no deep thought to politico-military matters. This prevented him from making sound security decisions"³.

It was thus comparatively easy for General Roy Bucher to underplay India's overwhelming victory at Zojila and overplay the Jhangar disaster which he had obviously contrived. Knowing Nehru's penchant for appearing as an apostle of peace, like a latter-day Emperor Ashoka, General Bucher must have dangled the bait of cease fire and Nehru appeared to have swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

This, then, was the parting gift the British administered to India. The British must have done their homework earlier when it became clear that their position in India had become untenable and must have decided that they would have far greater influence over the newly formed nation of Pakistan than India. Thus they cleverly prevented India from ejecting Pakistan from Kashmir. By creating this endless problem in Kashmir, they also created a referee's role for themselves. They would play the honest broker and pose as friends to both countries. Thus they would achieve their aim while Nehru took the flak for asking for cease fire. That they succeeded beyond their wildest calculations is history.

Unlike what the British left behind, how different was the conduct of the Indian Army in what was then East Pakistan. The Army did its job with clinical efficiency and then withdrew leaving Bangladesh in control of their own civil Government.

Subsequently Britain, aided and abetted by the USA saw to it that differences continued to remain and no settlement was ever achieved. In September 1952, United Nations mediator on Kashmir, Dr Frank Graham submitted his report to the United Nation Security Council on demilitarisation plans as a precursor to holding a plebiscite. As reported in The Hindu,⁴ Dr Graham made no specific recommendations but told the Security Council that all that remained was to secure "agreement on the number and character of forces to remain on each side of the cease fire line at the end of demilitarisation". So what was projected as a minor issue was in fact the point at issue. Dr Graham very adroitly sought to downplay the crux of the matter in order to appear reasonable but at the same time made sure that the pot would continue to boil by his proposal to the UN.

He proposed that Pakistan retain on its side the minimum forces required "for maintenance of law and order and of the cease fire agreement with due regards to the freedom of plebiscite" and India under an identical formula was given the additional satisfaction of the phrase "with due regard to the security of the state of Kashmir". As expected, Pakistan objected vehemently while India regarded the proposal as having been conceived in the right spirit. So the great divide continued as it was meant to, while Dr Graham played the honest broker with his skilfully worded and delightfully vague proposal to the UN.

The Hindu in its editorial on 26 December 1952 shrewdly observed "Passing the Anglo-American resolution on Kashmir the Security Council has stultified itself by going back on its own previous resolution and mollifying the good work achieved by its Commission and its Representatives to narrow the area of difference. Worse, it has shown itself oblivious of the dangers of deliberately widening the gap between the parties by the new terms set for negotiations. The responsibility for this is squarely on the British and American delegations who gave a misleading cue to other delegations that could not understand the complicated issues involved, especially with Pakistan's delegate (Sir Zafarullah Khan) always at hand to confuse their minds with clever and specious sophistries".

To forestall any enquiry into the origins of the Kashmir problem, the British delegate Sir Gladwin Jebb said that the United Kingdom believed that it would not help towards a solution to try to sift and evaluate facts and apportion responsibility for the events leading up to the outbreak of fighting in Kashmir. And the US delegates chimed in to say how "unnecessary, undesirable and unconstructive it was to go into the history of the Kashmir case". So no one ever went into the real issues and Nehru was roundly condemned.

This matter needs to be probed in detail and the parts played by the protagonists brought into sharp focus in order to set the record straight.
 

Col S K Bose is from the Corps of Engineers.