March.04 : It is an open secret that India has initiated the current phase of talks with Pakistan under American pressure. In this context it is both interesting and instructive to recall how Jawaharlal Nehru handled Anglo-American pressures in the past.

Unfortunately, an impression persists that at the international level the Kashmir issue was inadequately dealt with by Nehru. This impression is not based on facts. While Nehru’s handling of the Kashmir issue at the domestic level was marred by various errors of judgment and other infirmities, the story of the stand he took at the international level is quite different — he refused to be browbeaten by the strongest power block at the United Nations Security Council.
India made a mistake in taking the Kashmir issue to the Security Council under Chapter VI (and not Chapter VII) of the United Nations Charter in 1948. While Chapter VII of the Charter deals with acts of aggression, Chapter VI (Article 34 & 35) merely enables the Security Council to recommend “appropriate procedures and methods of adjustment for the pacific settlement of dispute”. The gravity of this mistake looked all the more ominous when, at the very inception of the proceedings, India encountered a hostile environment, engineered largely by the backdoor machination of the UK delegate. India’s simple plea that Pakistan, which had organised the invasion in 1947, be asked to vacate its aggression, was sidetracked and it was resolved that “the problem had to be considered as a whole and the cessation of hostilities could not be treated apart from the prospect of the final settlement of the dispute”.
Nehru was outraged and he did not hesitate to express his indignation bluntly over India and Pakistan being treated on equal footing. When Josef Korbel, an influential member of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan, asked Nehru whether he would consider an unconditional ceasefire order, he shot back: “It is your duty, as a Commission, to condemn Pakistan for having an Army on our soil. Otherwise, it would be as though a thief had broken into my house and you would treat the thief and the owner of the house as equals. First, the thief must get out”. And when Loy Henderson, ambassador of United States, commented that India seemed to be deviating from its pledge to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir, Nehru, casting aside diplomatic veneer, replied: “I am tired of receiving moralistic advice from the United States. India does not need advice from any other country as to its foreign and internal policies. Our record is one of honesty and integrity, which does not warrant admonitions. So far as Kashmir is concerned, I would not give an inch. I would hold my ground even if Kashmir, India, and the whole world go to pieces”.
Nehru also repelled various suggestions emanating from President Harry S. Truman, President Dwight Eisenhower and Prime Minister Clement Richard Attlee. President Truman supported the proposal of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan regarding arbitration by Admiral Nimitz. Nehru rejected it. Later on, neither the McNaugton plan for demilitarisation, nor the Sir Owin Dixon formula for a limited plebiscite, nor Dr Graham’s proposals of mediation could make Nehru change his stand. Likewise, President Eisenhower suggestions, based largely on the Dixon formula, were not agreed to.
Nehru made no secret of his disappointment over what he considered was an “equivocal attitude” of the US and the UK. And when, in 1954, Pakistan joined Western Treaty Alliances and obtained American military aid, Nehru responded by declaring that: “The military pacts had destroyed the roots and foundations of the plebiscite proposal in Kashmir”. He also demanded withdrawal of 18 American military observers as “they could no longer be treated as neutrals in the dispute”.
Nehru handled the seemingly adverse development regarding treaty alliances in such a subtle manner that the tide turned in India’s favour. The USSR abandoned its earlier stance of neutrality and started supporting India at the Security Council. It did not hesitate to use its veto power whenever any resolution hostile to the interests of India was introduced in the Security Council.
Russian politicians Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, after their visit to India in 1955, declared: “The future of Kashmir should be decided by the people themselves, and they have already decided to join India”. All this considerably strengthened India’s hand in dealing with the Kashmir issue at international forums.
Soon after the 1962 Chinese aggression against India, both the US and the UK offered military assistance. Both calculated that India’s discomfiture had left Nehru with little manoeuvrability on Kashmir, and that this was a good time to obtain some concessions from him, settle the “dispute” and prepare both India and Pakistan to counter the rising power of Communist China.
President Kennedy sent a high-level political and military mission, headed by W. Averell Harriman, assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs, to New Delhi. He hoped that “with nursing from us” a settlement could be reached between India and Pakistan. A similar mission with similar objectives was sent by the UK. Duncan Sanday, secretary of state for Commonwealth relations, headed it.
Even though India faced critical conditions, both Harriman and Sanday failed to secure any basic change in Nehru’s stand. He made it clear that he was not prepared to go beyond a few minor adjustment in the “ceasefire line”. After six rounds of talks had been held between the representatives of India and Pakistan, with US and British diplomats staying in the “ante chamber”, Nehru declared in August 1963: “There is no question of considering any proposal for internationalisation or division of the Valley or joint control of Kashmir and the like”.
From the above facts it should be quite clear that Nehru’s handling of the external aspects of the Kashmir problem was marked by deftness and firmness. Neither the mighty Western block nor the mighty Presidents of the US could cut much ice with him. President Kennedy, later on, told senior officers of the state department that it was difficult to obtain any concession from Nehru on Kashmir as it was a “bone-deep issue” with him.

Jagmohan is a former governor of J&K and a former Union minister

Jagmohan