Poonch Revolt in Spring 1947:

[3] A few excerpts:

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, p.121

The fiscal situation in Poonch at this moment was observed by Richard Symonds, a Quaker who was carrying out relief work in the Punjab. One of the very few outsiders with first-hand knowledge of what was going on in Poonch, he wrote in the Calcutta Statesman(4 February 1948) that the ex-servicemen returning to the Jagir found "there was a tax on every hearth and every window. Every cow, buffalo and sheep was taxed and even every wife. Finally the Zaildari tax was introduced to pay for the cost of taxation, and Dogra [Hindu] troops were billeted on the [Muslim] Poonchis to enforce collection." These taxes were not, it should be noted, imposed on Hindus or Sikhs.

The first clear sign of the Poonch revolt was the refusal by many villages and landlords dotted over the region to pay these new, and unaccustomed, taxes to the Maharaja's agents.

 

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, p.123

The various Azad Kashmiri stories of the origins of the Poonch revolt tend, naturally enough, towards the romantic, and they may well conceal events which have not been recorded and which involve unknown persons. What is undoubtedly true, however, is that in the last week of August a condition of unrest and spasmodic violence in Poonch had turned into an organised opposition to the Dogra Dynasty the like of which had not been seen since the revolt of Shams-ud-Din in the 1830s. Sir Hari Singh lacked the power, though probably he did not lack the wish, to treat the rebels as had his great-grandfather in that firm manner which, we have seen, so amazed G.T. Vigne. Thus the rebellion grew in strength as more and more ex-soldiers rallied to the cause, either bringing their weapons with them or capturing rifles from the State forces.

With all this the sources on the official Jammu & Kashmir State side do not disagree. By the second week of September the Maharaja's position in Poonch and Mirpur, at least in the countryside as the towns were still secure enough, was extremely precarious. It is recorded that by 13 September no fewer than 60,000 Hindu refugees had passed from the Poonch-Mirpur area towards Jammu and about half the total Hindu and Sikh population had fled the areas of disturbance.

[2] A few excerpts from the Official Records

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:534, 6 March 1951, pp.3-4:

Quotes from Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz published in a pamphlet "The Truth About Kashmir":

Restlessness was universal. In Punch, where thousands of demobilized Muslim veterans live, an open armed rebellion broke out against the Maharaja and his administration. The rebellion spread rapidly to the adjoining area of Mirpur, where was veterans also lived in large numbers. Instead of realizing what he had done, the Maharaja egged on by Congress leaders and his new counsellors, dispatched the whole of the Dogra Army to quell the disturbances, or as one colonel put it, to reconquer the area. The army perpetrated unheard of atrocities on the people of Punch. Whole villages were burned down and innocent people were massacred. Reports reaching Srinagar were not allowed to be published in the Press. No official reports were issued to allay the fears of the public. This happened in September and the tribesmen did not enter the State before 23 October 1947.

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:234, 1948, pp.250-1:

Telegram received by the Governor-General of Pakistan from the Muslim Conference, Kashmir on 20 September 1947:

"Atrocious military oppression in Poonch. Public being looted and shot in random. Kindly intervene."

Telegram received by the Governor-General of Pakistan from the Muslims of Bagh Mallat, Poonch State, dated 29 September 1947:

"Fire opened by the Kashmir Government since 9th and 10th of Bhadon[around middle of September]. Our Muslim public loss estimated at 500 lives. Kindly intervene immediately."

Report from the Deputy Commissioner of the Rawalpindi District to the Commissioner, Rawalpindi Division, dated 8 October 1947:

"On my way back from Srinagar on 8 October 1947, I came across a large number of women and children crossing over from the Poonch side. They related stories of inhuman treatment and terrible atrocities on the part of the Dogra troops operating in the Poonch area…"

 

 

[16] A few excerpts:

Sheikh Abdullah quoted in Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, 1948, Meeting No:226 p.68:

A report of Sheikh Abdullah's statement made on 21 October, in New Delhi,: "The people of Poonch who suffered under the local ruler and again under the Kashmir Maharaja, the overlord of the Poonch Ruler, had started a people's movement for the redress of their grievances. It was not communal. Kashmir State sent its troops, and there was panic in Poonch. But most of the adult population of poonch, he explained, were ex-servicemen in the Indian Army with close connexions with the people in Jhelum and Rawalpindi-these are places in West Paktsan. They evacuated their women and children, crossed the frontier, and returned with arms supplied to them by willing people..."

Massacre of Muslims in Jammu since September 1947:

[5] P.S.Verma, Jammu and Kashmir at the political crossroads, New Delhi 1994, p.34

The holocaust which raged through certain states like Bengal and Punjab in 1947 "failed to have any echo" in the Kashmir Valley which had as many as 93.7 per cent Muslim population. The Hindus in the Kashmir Valley remained safe and protected even in the wake of communal killings of Muslims in the Hindus dominated Jammu region. Credit for this mainly goes to Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues in the party.

[4] A few excerpts:

Ian Stephens, Pakistan, New York 1963, p.200

But in the Jammu Province, things went very differently. There, unlike every other part of the State, Hindus and Sikhs slightly outnumbered Muslims; and within a period of eleven weeks starting in August, systematic savageries, similar to those already launched in East Punjab and in Patiala and Kapurthala, practically eliminated the entire Muslim element in the population, amounting to 500,000 people. About 200,000 just disappeared, remaining untraceable, having presumably been butchered, or died from epidemics or exposure. The rest fled destitute to West Punjab….This writer talked about it early in the following month with Mr. Gandhi, deducing that, even more than the carnage in and around Delhi itself, it explained the despairing mood of that great teacher of ahimsa during his last few weeks of life.

[1] A few excerpts from the Official Records

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:234, 1948, pp.249-250:

Special Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph of London, Douglas Brown, in the issue of 12 January 1948:

"Yet another element in the situation is provided by Sikh refugees from the West Punjab who have seized Muslim lands in Jammu…. They originated the massacres there last October, to clear for themselves new Sikh territory to comensate for their losses in Pakistan and to provide part of the nucleus of a future Sikhistan. "

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:534, 6 March 1951, pp.3-4:

Shortly after the terrible slaughters in India, which accompanied partition, the Maharaja set upon a course of action whereby, in the words of the special correspondent of The Times of London published in its issue of 10 October 1948,"in the remaining Dogra area, 237,000 Muslims were systematically exterminated, unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border, by all the forces of the Dogra State headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs."

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:226, 1948, pp.71-2:

Mr. G.K. Reddy, a Hindu editor of Kashmir Times, in a statement published in the Daily Gazette ,a Hindu paper of Karachi, in its issue of 28 October:

"The mad orgy of Dogra violence against unarmed Muslims should put any self-respecting human being to shame. I saw armed bands of ruffians and soldiers shooting down and hacking to pieces helpless Muslim refugees heading towards Pakistan…I saw en route State officials freely distributing arms and ammunition among the Dogras… From the hotel room where I was detained in Jammu, I counted as many as twenty-six villages burning one night and all through the night rattling fire of automatic weapons could be heard from the surrounding refugee camps."

 

Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:234, 1948, pp.252-3:

Telegram sent from Sialkot, dated 20 October, from the President of the District Muslim Conference, Jammu to the Minister at Karachi:

"Dogra military reinforced by numberless Indian Army plain-clothers, Sikh jathas, local and from abroad. Hindus and Rajputs, armed with modern weapons, launched wholesale massacre of Muslims of Ranbirsinghpura, Akhnur, Samba and Jammu Tehsils of Jammu District. Several thousand Muslims already ruthlessly butchered. Hundreds of women abducted. All moveable property looted and hundreds of Muslim villages burnt to ashes. Hostile forces, continuing killing suburban Muslims and burning Muslim villages from all sides, now converging on Jammu City and only one mile distant from it. Village Raipur, within Jammu Cantonment area, burnt. Muslims in City already hopeless minority and altogether unarmed. Fifteen thousand Muslims of Jammu City including women, children and cream of Muslim intelligentsia surrounded from all sides, helpless and in immediate danger of being ruthlessly killed. Muslim military disarmed and brigadier Khoda Bux, Jammu Cantonment relieved by Hindu Brigadier. If immediate help not made, all would be butchered. …."

Telegram sent from Sialkot, dated 22 October, from the City Muslim Conference, Jammu to the Governor-General at Karachi:

"Previous telegrams unheeded. Ten thousand Muslim refugees gathered Rosin factory Miransahib. All butchered by Dogra military, after assurance from Kashmir Premier for safety. Within fifteen miles radius of Jammu City, all Muslims including women, children, officials, killed. Number of killed ove 40,000. Organized killing continues. Attacks on Jammu City Muslims started. Over 350 mosques burned. Bonfires Holy Korans made. Muslim officials and officers being hunted and killed."

 

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, p.202

There was indeed a civil war raging in Poonch. In Jammu at that very moment the Maharaja was engaged in a series of massacres of Muslims which some observers have considered to have been the nastiest of all in the wave of atrocities which followed immediately upon the Transfer of Power: conservative estimates suggest over 200,000 deaths here between August and December 1947. These events, naturally enough, set hordes of refugees on the move into Pakistan.

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, p.128

There is evidence that from the outset regular troops and police in the State service joined informally and covertly, but enthusiastically, in these atrocities which, some have estimated, eventually resulted in the death of atleast 200,000 Muslims and drove twice as many into exile.

By the beginning of October the Jammu & Kashmir State authorities joined openly in this anti-Muslim policy by setting out to create along the State's border with Pakistan (in the region of Gujarat and Sialkot) a depopulated zone some three miles deep. Hindus here were evacuated. Muslims were either killed or driven across into Pakistan. On a number of occasions Jammu & Kashmir State Forces actually crossed over into Pakistan and destroyed villages there(well documented acts of Jammu & Kashmir State's "aggression" on its territory which Pakistan has signally failed to exploit in its arguments concerning the rights and wrongs of the Kashmir situation). Early in October British observers saw in one such village on the Pakistan side of the border no fewer than 1,700 corpses of slaughtered Muslim men, women and children. Before 22 October, a crucial date on the Kashmir story, the Pakistan authorities reported that at least 100,000 Muslim refugees from Jammu were being cared for in the neighbourhood of Sialkot. The Government in Karachi might talk about negotiations, but there was a growing body of opinion in Pakistan, particularly in the Punjab, which argued forcefully for more direct action to stop the killing.

[7]

India, District Census Handbook, Jammu & Kashmir, Jammu District, 1961, p.15, p.5:

Summarised below:

In Jammu District alone, which is a part of the larger Jammu Province, Muslims numbered 158,630 and comprised 37% of the total population of 428,719 in the year 1941. In the year 1961, Muslims numbered only 51,693 and comprised only 10% of the total population of 516,932. The decrease in the number of Muslims in Jammu district alone was over 100,000.

[17] Prem Shankar Jha, Kashmir, 1947 : rival versions of history, O.U.P. 1996, pp.120-1

It is undeniable that later in October there was communal violence all along the Pakistan-Kashmir border, from Kathua to Bhimber to Mirpur, and beyond. It is also undeniable that Kashmir State forces did cross over the border into Pakistan proper on several occasions, and on one occasion penetrated six miles deep to virtually depopulate two [Muslim] villages near Sialkot. [Footnote:] This was not merely a Pakistan concoction, but attested to by a British officer who went to the site. The alleged body count of over 17,000 corpses may be what he was told-it is unlikely that he personally did the counting, but the fact of casualties in the thousands is beyond reasonable doubt, if the British officer's report to the UK Deputy High Commission in Lahore was accurate. Telegram from UK Dy. High Commissioner in Lahore, 6 Nov. 1947.

[6] A few excerpts:

Balraj Puri, Jammu and Kashmir: Triumph and Tragedy of Indian federalisation, New Delhi 1981, pp.53-7

p.53: The Muslim Conference also changed its stand. In a resolution passed at a convention in Srinagar on 19 July 1947, under the Presidentship of Hamidullah Khan, the Conference respectfully and fervently "appealed to the Maharaja Bahadur to declare internal autonomy of the State as soon as possible and himself assuming the position of a constitutional monarch, establish a constituent assembly and simultaneously accede to the Dominion of Pakistan in the matter relating to defence, communication and external affairs."

p.56:In response to pressure from India and to neutralise aggressive postures of pro-Pakistan Muslim Conference, the Maharaja released Sheikh Abdullah on 29 September. [This is corroborated by the website of the Indian Embassy: ]

p.57:In a public speech on October 9, he[Sheikh Abdullah] said: "Accession is of little importance. Freedom is more important. We do not want to join either dominion as slaves. I warn the Government of India and Pakistan that if Maharaja decides to join either of them without our consent, we shall rise in revolt against such a decision."

[8] A few excerpts:

Prem Nath Bazaz quoted in Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, 1951, Meeting No:534 p.6:

Quoted from Prem Nath Bazaz published in a pamphlet "The Truth about Kashmir": "Sheikh Abdullah was then in gaol as a result if his unsuccessful 'Quit Kashmir' adventure. The trend of public opinion outside made him worried and restless. He wrote a letter to a friend in Jammu, which was published in the Congress press, praying to the Maharaja that he should neither remain independent nor join Pakistan, but should declare the State's accession to India forthwith. Sheikh Abdullah offered the unequivocal support of his National Conference to such a declaration."

[9] A few excerpts:

Sheikh Abdullah quoted in Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, 1948, Meeting No:226 pp.68-9:

Again in the Statesman of 22 October, a speech by Sheikh Abdullah is reported as follows:"Speaking at a reception today, Sheikh Abdullah, the Kashmiri Nationalist leader, pleaded for time to consider which dominion the State should join.....Muslims on the other hand, had learned of the fate of Muslims in Kapurthala, where, despite their majority, they had been wiped out...The same fate had been meted out to them in Alwar, Bharatpur, and Kapurthala, where the Muslim population had either been killed or expelled, but obviously the fear was that the same thing might be enacted in Kashmir."

 

[10] Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, New York 2000, p.60.

Prem Nath Bazaz, a Kashmiri Pandit disillusioned with Sheikh Abdullah and still opposed to the autocracy of the maharaja, believed the motives of the tribesmen should be considered. 'They wanted to liberate Kashmir from the tyranny of the Maharaja and nationalist renegades. And we should not forget that some members of the Indian army did no less of looting and molesting(in repelling the invaders).'[Prem Nath Bazaz, Azad Kashmir, Lahore, p.33.]

[11] Involvement of Government of Pakistan in Pathan Incursion:

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, pp.136-137

There remains one major question to answer. What part had the Government of Pakistan to play in this military venture into the state of Jammu and Kashmir? In a formal sense the Government as such took no part at all. The Governor-General, M.A.Jinnah, was kept ignorant of all details, though naturally he was aware that there was trouble of some sort brewing in Kashmir; and the Pakistan Cabinet took no minuted stance on this matter. There can be no doubt, however, that various individuals in Pakistan, both official and unofficial, did show an extremely active interest in what was afoot. We can probably divide these persons into three main categories.

First: there were those who had supported from atleast 12 September the formation of the Azad Kashmir Government. Some were indeed of great seniority in Pakistan administration, including the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Their concern was not the day-to-day conduct of operations but rather the underlying necessity of keeping the Azad Kashmir movement afloat. In terms of organising supplies for Azad Kashmir the record suggests that these men achieved very little; their activity was largely symbolic.

Second: in the North-West Frontier Province and in the Rawalpindi District of the Punjab there were many officials both appointed and elected, from the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier province downwards, who were aware of the growing connection between the tribal world of the North-West Frontier and Azad Kashmir. It cannot be denied that such men did very little indeed to discourage this relationship. Some of them went out of their way to promote it.

Third: there were many individual soldiers in the Pakistan Army who appreciated the importance of the Azad Kashmir movement and felt it their duty to help it. A number of regulars took leave, or became technically "deserters", to join the fray; but in most cases this was later in the story. A few, like Colonel Akbar Khan, took it upon themselves to assume senior staff responsibilities with the Azad Kashmiri forces. Subsequently, Akbar Khan under the pseudonym "General Tariq" was to take active command in the field, but not during the events under consideration here. Some Pakistani officers merely turned a blind eye when boxes of .303 ammunition mysteriously disappeared from the armouries; but again, such actions were to become more important later on. It is safe to say that there was very little regular Pakistan Army presence, direct or indirect, in Major Khurshid Anwar's column on the road to Uri between 22 and 24 October 1947.

[12] Prem Nath Bazaz, Democracy through Intimidation and Terror, New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1978, p.15

Explaining on June 1948, why he induced the National Conference to accept the State's accession to India, Abdullah said:"We the people of Jammu and Kashmir, have thrown our lot with Indian people not in the heat of passion or a moment of despair, but by deliberate choice...".

[13] Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, Princeton, N.J. 1966, p.262

Sheikh Abdullah's press interview quoted in The Hindu, March 26,1952:

"we are going to exercise this right[to decide the future of Kashmir] to the fullest measure and at the earliest opportunity....[should the kashmiri people not ratify the accession to India,] it would regain the status which it enjoyed immediately preceding the accession[i.e., independence]. "

[14] Balraj Puri, Kashmir: Towards Insurgency, New Delhi 1993, p.28.

A few excerpts:

Sheikh Abdullah in a speech at Ranbir Singh Pura in Jammu on 10 April 1952:

"We have acceded to India in regard to defence, foreign affairs and communications. in order to ensure a sort of internal autonomy... If our right to shape our destiny is challenged and if there is resurgence of communalism in India, how are we to convince the Muslims in Kashmir that India does not intend to swallow us?"

[15] About Pathan Tribal Invasion:

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, p.185

Left behind in Baramula [on 27 and 28 October] were assorted groups of [Pathan] tribesmen from the North-West Frontier Province and, even, it is very possible, Afghanistan. Discipline was not the strongest characteristic of such men; and their officers experienced serious difficulty in keeping them under control, particularly when stories began to circulate of the arrival of the Sikhs (who had been generally accepted by the tribesmen as the greatest scourge of the Muslims in the communal massacres which accompanied Partition, and the legitimate foe in any jihad, holy war) at Srinagar airfield. The inevitable killing of Sikhs and Hindus in Baramula, particularly merchants who had remained to guard their stock, now began to be accompanied by indiscriminate looting and a considerable amount of rape, applied as much to unfortunate Kashmiri Muslims as to the infidel. Usually these outrages did not lead to massacre; but in a few cases, where leaders completely lost control over their men, an orgy of killing was the result. This was certainly the case at St. Joseph's College, Convent and Hospital, the site of what was to become one of the most publicised incidents of the entire Kashmir conflict. Here nuns, priests and congregation, including patients in the hospital, were slaughtered; and at the same time a small number of Europeans, notably Lt.-Colonel D.O. Dykes and his wife, as well as the Assistant Mother Superior and one Mr. Barretto, met their deaths at tribal hands.

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, pp.186-187

The Indian side has maintained, largely on the evidence of European and American press reports which date to several days after the Indian reoccupation of Baramula on 8 November, that many thousands of people were killed there by the tribesmen (notably the reports in New York Times by Robert Trumbull ). The town was by this time virtually deserted, the Muslim population having fled, initially to avoid the attentions of tearaway tribesmen and then in fear of the advancing Indian Army, which was seen to represent the return of the Dogras and the vengeful wrath of Sir Hari Singh. The unfortunate Baramula residents may also, to judge from photographs published by the Indians, have suffered bombardment by Indian mortars, artillery and, it may be, aircraft - there is no doubt that the Indian side made extensive use of air power in the first phase of the Kashmir campaign: all this may well have reinforced the reluctance of the Baramula folk to stay put. By subtracting the number of those who remained in Baramula when the Indians arrived, or who turned up shortly after, from the pre-crisis population of some 15,000 or so, casualty figures of up to 13,000 have been calculated....[Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, Roxford 1991, p.143: In fact, of course, it is meant no more than that the majority of the town's people had gone away, as one would expect in the circumstances. If one applied the refugee/killed ratio of Partition to Trumbull's Baramula statistics, one would come up with somewhere in the order of 400 killed, a not unreasonable figure in the light of other sources.]

The Baramula affair has become central to the Indian mythology about Kashmir. The intervention of 27 October 1947, be it legal or not, with or without the Instrument of Accession, has been justified by the fact that this horror was in progress; and only through Indian action could it have been prevented from spreading to Srinagar itself. To this claim one can offer three points in reply.

First: as we have already suggested, it may well be that the very fact of the Indian intervention on 27 October actually guaranteed in reaction that some kind of cataclysm should take place on the part of the extremely unsophisticated tribesmen. There seems to be little doubt that the Baramula affair followed the Indian arrival at Srinagar airfield.

Second: whatever happened in Baramula that day is as nothing when compared to what has happened to Kashmiri men, women and children, at Indian hands since 1989. Those massacres which it is argued did not take place on 27 October and the days which immediately followed were not prevented; they were merely postponed for two generations, with the Indians now the vandals.

Finally: even in the first days of the Indian intervention the troops on the Indian side were not always particularly gentle with the civilian populations they encountered. The available records contain evidence of a number of atrocities perpetrated by the Indian military on the Kashmiris they had ostensibly come to the rescue which must have quite soon gone far to counter-balance whatever the Pathan tribesmen may have done at Baramula.

[18] Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Vol. 4, New Delhi 1986, p.288a

Cable to C.R. Attlee from Nehru : New Delhi, 28 October 1947.

12. We are always ready to discuss any issue in dispute with representatives of Pakistan. We have laid down the principle that accession of every State, whether Junagadh or Kashmir or Hyderabad, should depend on ascertained wishes of the people concerned.

Govt. of India, White Paper on Jammu & Kashmir , Delhi 1948, p.77.

Telegram, dated the 31st December 1947, from Foreign, New Delhi, to Indembassy, Washington:

[On 26 October, 1947] In order to avoid any possible suggestion that India had taken advantage of the State's immediate peril for her own political advantage, the Dominion Government made it clear that, once the soil of the State had been cleared of the invader and normal conditions restored, its people would be free to decide their future by the recognised democratic method of a plebiscite or referendum, which, in order to ensure complete impartiality, might be held under international auspices.

 

Govt. of India, White Paper on Jammu & Kashmir , Delhi 1948, p.3.

Nevertheless, in accepting the accession, the Government of India made it clear that they would regard it as purely provisional until such time as the will of the people of the State could be ascertained.

Govt. of India, White Paper on Jammu & Kashmir , Delhi 1948, p.46.

Telegram, dated the 25th October 1947, from Foreign, New Delhi, to C.R. Attlee, Prime Minister of UK.

From Prime Minister of India.

[….]

"I should like to make it clear that [the] question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the State to accede to India. Our view, which we have repeatedly made public is that [the] question of accession in any disputed territory or State must be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people and we adhere to this view".

Govt. of India, White Paper on Jammu & Kashmir , Delhi 1948, p.55.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister, in a broadcast from New Delhi on November 2nd said:

"We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it, not only to the people of Kashmir but to the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no fairer and juster offer."

[19] Sheikh Abdullah, Flames of the Chinar, New Delhi 1993, p.97

While Mehr Chand Mahajan was to continue as Prime Minister, I [Sheikh Abdullah] was appointed Director-General, Administration [on 27 October, 1947]- the first Kashmiri Muslim to hold this post. In my new position I addressed the senior officials of the government, and categorically stated that the future of Kashmir would be decided only by the Kashmiris. Our decision to accede to India was ad hoc, and would ultimately decided by a plebiscite.

 

[20]

Balraj Puri, Kashmir Towards Insurgency, Delhi 1993, pp.64-67.

A few excerpts:

Pandit Migrations

The Jagmohan regime witnessed the exodus of almost the entire small but vital Kashmir Pandit community from the valley. Padma Vibhushan Inder Mohan (later he renounced the title) and I [Balraj Puri] were the first public men to visit Kashmir in the second week of March 1990 after the new phase of repression had started. Though the Kashmiri Muslims were in an angry mood, they heard us with respect and narrated their tales of woe. At scores of the meetings to which we were invited during our short but hectic visit, Kashmiri muslims expressed a genuine feeling of regret over the migration of Kashmiri Pandits (KP) and urged us to stop and reverse it. Encouraged by the popular mood, we formed a joint committee of the two communities with the former chief justice of the High Court Mufti Bahauddin Farooqi as president, the Kashmiri Pandit leader H.N.Jatto as vice-president and a leading advocate Ghulam Nabi Hagroo as general secretary, in order to allay the apprehensions of the Kashmiri Pandits. Jatto recalled that the Pandits had reversed their decision to migrate in 1986 after the success of the goodwill mission led by me. He expressed the hope that my new initiative would meet with similar success. A number of Muslim leaders and parties, including militant outfits, also appealed to the Pandits not to leave their homes, Jatto welcomed and endorsed their appeals, but soon migrated to Jammu himself. He told me that soon after the joint committee was set up, the Governor [Jagmohan] sent a DSP to him with an air ticket for Jammu, a jeep to take him to the airport, an offer of accomodation at Jammu and an advice to leave Kashmir immediately. Obviously the Governor did not believe that the effort at restoring inter-community understanding and confidence was worth a trial.

The experiment came under cross fire. The official attitude was far from cooperative. The rise of new militant groups, some warnings in anonymous posters and some unexplained killings of innocent members of the community contributed to an atmosphere of insecurity for the Kashmiri Pandits. A thorough, independent enquiry alone can show whether this exodus of Pandits, the largest in their long history, was entirely unavoidable.

[21] Horace Alexander, Kashmir, London 1952, p.8

A few months later[after October 1947] I was assured by a man in authority in Peshawar that the corpses of Muslims killed by the Dogras had been paraded through the Peshawar streets by men who called on the people to support a "jehad"- "a holy war"- against the infidels in power in Kashmir and in India. A few days later thousands of tribesmen, with arms which must have been supplied to them by someone in Pakistan, poured through Peshawar and up the Jhelum valley into the lower part of the vale of Kashmir.

[22]

Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, New York 2000, p.154.

Jagmohan, Current. 26 May - 1 June 1990, as quoted in PHRO Report, 1990.:

"Every Muslim in Kashmir is a militant today. All of them are for secession from India. I am scuttling Srinagar Doordarshan's programmes because every one there is a militant.....The bullet is the only solution for Kashmir. Unless the militants are fully wiped out, normalcy can't return to the Valley."

[23]

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, pp.216-217

There was nothing very new about the idea of the plebiscite as a means of solving Subcontinental problems. As we have seen, it surfaced during the actual process of Partition prior to the Transfer of Power in August. In September, it had been actively considered in the context of Junagadh, a State with a Hindu majority population whose Muslim Ruler had at the very last moment of the British Raj decided to accede to Pakistan. As a solution to the Junagadh issue, Jawaharlal Nehru had made the following proposal to the Defence Committee of the Indian Cabinet on 30 September 1947:

"we are entirely opposed to war and wish to avoid it. We want an amicable settlement of this[Junagadh] issue and we propose therefore, that wherever there is a dispute in regard to any territory, the matter should be decided by a referendum or plebiscite of the people concerned. We shall accept the result of this referendum whatever it may be as it is our desire that a decision should be made in accordance with the wishes of the people concerned. We invite the Pakistan Government, therefore, to submit the Junagadh issue to a referendum of the people of Junagadh under impartial auspices."

As in Junagadh so quite logically in the mirror image situation of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, an argument of which it is certain both Mountbatten and Nehru were aware.

[24]

Edward Desmond, The Insurgency in Kashmir(1989-1991), Contemporary South Asia (March 1995), 4(1), p.8

From the start of the trouble, many Indian journalists and politicians have insisted that the Kashmir uprising was the work of Pakistan's intelligence services. The dean of India's defence specialists, K.Subramanyam, in a lengthy monograph on the Kashmir dispute, cites the existence of a secret Pakistani plan to start a Kashmiri uprising, code-named Op[Operation] Topac, that the late General Zia-ul-Haq reportedly set in motion. This plan, however, was later shown to be a fraud, concocted by Indian analysts as a hypothetical exercise, a fact Subrahmanyam later acknowledged.*

*Kargil Review Committee Report, submitted in Indian Parliament on February 23, 2000 by a committee under the Chairmanship of Sri K. Subrahmanyam, a defence studies expert:

Excerpts in Part 2 on Intelligence: Full Report

One of the most realistic assessments of Kashmir developments as they unfolded during Pakistan's proxy war was "Operation TOPAC", a war game written by a team of retired Indian Army Officers in 1989. It is interesting to note that "Operation TOPAC" has since been mistakenly attributed even by high placed Indian officials and agencies to Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.

[25]

Estimate of Hindus and Sikhs killed in Kashmir since 1990:

According to Ministry of Home Affairs, between 1990 to 1999 (April) - 936 Hindus and 46 Sikhs killed in various incidents of attacks on minorities. #

#Attacks on Minorities - Migration from the Valley

The official estimate of Hindus and Sikhs killed between January 1990 and October 1992 is 241.* The official estimate of Hindus and Sikhs killed between 1997 and 2002 is less than 432. ** Obtaining an average of 85 killings per year and extrapolating it to 1993-1996, the estimated Hindus and Sikhs killed between Januray 1990 and June 2002 is around 1000.

*Balraj Puri, Kashmir: Towards Insurgency, New Delhi 1993, p.69: The Times of India, 5 February 1992, reported, quoting official sources, that militants killed 1585 men and women, including 981 Muslims, 218 Hindus, 23 Sikhs and 363 security personnel between January 1990 and October 1992.

**Chronology of major terrorist attacks in country since 1997.

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Estimate of population of Hindus in Kashmir Valley in 1990 :

The 1981 Census in the Kashmir Valley records 125,000 Hindus*. Taking the 30% increase in the total population over the period 1971-1981 and extrapolating it to the period 1981-1990, we get an estimated total Hindu population of the Valley in 1990 as 162,500.

*1981 Census in the Kashmir Valley