On 22 April, 1947 VK Krishna Menon (a close ally of Nehru) discussed with the then Viceroy Lord Mountbat- ten to persuade Hari Singh to release all political prisoners including Abdullah. However, the Viceroy was sceptical. The first step towards transfer of power took place in August 1946, with the formation of interim government headed by the Viceroy and Nehru as highest ranking Indian. As early as winter of 1946-47, Nehru and Patel privately resigned to idea of partition between India and Pakistan. However, both Nehru and Patel had one difference on Kashmir. Patel had mentally written off Kashmir to Pakistan based on communal divide but not Nehru. Nehru made Abdullah, the President of All India States People Conference in 1946 and pushed Lord Mountbatten to try and force Hari Singh to release him. Nehru highlighted Abdullah to be the most outstanding leader in Kashmir and NC wanted Kashmir to join India.

Lord Mountbatten on Nehru’s advice flew to Kashmir to seek a meeting with Hari Singh. Nehru was furious that Abdullah could not be released by the Viceroy due to evasion by Hari Singh. Kak had clearly indicated that Hari Singh was not going to accede before 15 August 1947. By 26 June 1947, Gandhi was also now worried about ‘Kashmir’. He met the Viceroy and then proceeded for his one and only visit to Kashmir. However, Hari Singh opted for procrastination to Gandhi’s request for an answer.

The partition plan of 3 June 1947 envisaged two boundary commissions. The commissions were to have four High Court Judges - two named by Congress and two by the League, with Chairman holding the casting vote. Both Congress and the League were unable to decide on one chairman, so the Viceroy selected Sir Cyril Radcliffe.

Demarcation of Boundaries

The demarcation was to be done on the basis of Muslim or Non Muslim majority areas and with less weightage to “other factors”. Gurdaspur was a Muslim majority district but it came to India. There were two main routes to Kashmir - Lahore, Rawalpindi, Muree into Muzzaffarabad and Srinagar, the other through Sialkot, Jammu and Banihal Pass. Neither was available as Lahore and Sialkot went to Pakistan. The third road link was via Gurdaspur, so Nehru

Persuaded Viceroy into keeping Gurdaspur with India. The Boundary commission report was sent to Viceroy on 13 August and he finally saw it on 15 August making the Muslim League suspicious. When Mr Liaqat Ali Khan of the League saw that Gurdaspur had been divided along the line of Ravi, he knew Pakistan would never retain Kashmir.

This route proved to be the invaluable asset through which Indian Armed Forces reached Kashmir to push back the Pakistani invaders in October 1947. Sardar Patel took charge of Ministry of States formed for integration of all princely states. Bhopal, Indore, Travancore and Jodhpur joined India with little or no protest. Hyderabad was taken over by defeating Nizam in Op Polo by 20 September 1947.

Patel and VK Menon managed to bring about most of the princely states within India’s fold. And yet there is nothing to explain their strange indifference towards Kashmir and Hari Singh. Patel made no attempt to bring Hari Singh to sign the Instrument of Accession despite support from Nehru and Abdullah either before partition or, even more shockingly, after 15 August 1947.

Mountbatten narrates the story of his meeting with Patel when he offered the latter the States Department. Patel said: “I am prepared to accept your offer. I’ll buy a basket with 565 apples (that was the number of Princely States in India). But if there are even two or three missing the deal is off”. Replied Mountbatten, “If I give you a basket with, say, 560 apples will you buy it?” Well, I might, replied Patel. Had Patel written off Kashmir as one of the missing apples? That is the only explanation for his attitude towards what would become India’s most severe problem.

VP Menon recalls that when he met Kak, PM of Kashmir, the latter was evasive which country he would join. Pakistan had signed a Standstill Agreement with Kashmir whereas India had not even signed one. Menon remarks that the composition of population of Kashmir had its own peculiar problems. If Patel and Menon had put on Hari Singh, even half of the pressure they had put on Jodhpur, Abdullah would have been free much earlier and a settlement arranged in favour of India long before Pakistan’s aggression. This is what Nehru kept pleading for and he had even warned the Cabinet. Hodson writes that when a Kashmir representative sought lead from States Ministry for a choice, government gave no guidance.

This is confirmation of the view that Patel felt it would be far better for the 96 % Muslim majority Kashmir to go to Pakistan. What was an asset to Nehru was a liability to Patel. Now four and a half decades later as guns boom in the valley, question arises - was Nehru wrong, and was Patel right? Perhaps the answer is that Indian unity had no option except faith in the vision of Nehru. It was these times that Jinnah saw an opportunity - for everything was going pro him in Kashmir - a Muslim majority, geographical access, Delhi’s negligence and Srinagar’s vacillation.

Indo - Pak War 1947 - 48

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, or the First Kashmir War, was an armed conflict that was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars that was fought between the two newly-independent nations. Nehru doubted that Maharaja and his state force can face the situation without popular help and the only major group that can help is National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership. Nehru wrote a letter in which he wanted Patel to take some action to ensure accession of Kashmir to Indian Union as early as possible with Abdullah’s co-operation. Even though Nehru showed urgency, Patel used his influence to free Abdullah only after two days of this letter and nothing happened for three weeks, no one made an effort to go to Kashmir and get Maharaja’s signature since Abdullah was waiting to endorse the accession to combine Kashmir safely in the Indian Union.

On 1 August 1947, The Gilgit Agency was transferred by the British to the Maharaja. British Political Agent Colonel Roger Bacon handed over power to Major Ghansara Singh, the appointed Governor of Gilgit. Major William Brown was appointed the commander of Gilgit Scouts. Pakistan applied an economic squeeze on Kashmir through land routes. Food supplies and railways were suspended. Since, Kashmir was in no position to hold defences, small groups of armed forces began probing Maharajas military defences. Muslim sentiment was used against Maharaja to fuel an uprising in the Valley along with invasion. Jammu was the focus point of riots. The tribes of North West Frontier Province who were illiterate, victims of gun culture were told to go and liberate Kashmir in the name of Islam supported by authorities with trucks, lorries and arms provided by Muslim League and Pakistan government.

Armed rebellion started in the Poonch district at the beginning of October 1947. The fighting elements consisted of "bands of deserters from the State Army, serving soldiers of the Pakistan Army on leave, ex-servicemen, and other volunteers who had risen spontaneously." The first clash is said to have occurred at Thorar (near Rawalakot) on 3–4 October 1947. The rebels quickly gained control of almost the entire Poonch district. The State Forces garrison at the Poonch city came under heavy siege.

On 22 October 1947, about 300 vehicles carrying 5,000 Afridis, Wazirs, Nasids, Swalis and Pakistan army soldiers on leave launched main attack on Jhelum Valley road. Chief of Operations was Maj Gen Akbar Khan of Pakistan Army. Their objective was to celebrate Eid on 26 October in the main Mosque of Srinagar. The operation was meant to be all over in four days.

Domel was the first city to fall. The first check came sixteen miles later, at Garhi where Brig Rajinder Singh who was the appointed Chief of Staff of the State Army only on 14 August 1947, resisted with 150 men including non-combatants. It was a holding operation but a valuable one. Rajinder Singh destroyed the bridge at Uri, checking the advance and by the time he was encircled and killed at Rampur he had served his cause. He was awarded with a Posthumous Mahavir Chakra. So, by 26 October raiders reached only Baramulla instead of Srinagar. Maqbool Sherwani was a Kashmiri Muslim youth and National Conference member who delayed the march of Pakhtoon tribesmen from Pakistan and rebel forces (of then Jammu Kashmir State) in Baramulla in October 1947.

On 26 October 1947, Maharaja Bahadur Hari Singh escaped from Srinagar to his palace in Jammu thinking that if VP Menon arrived, then it meant that India has decided to rescue him.

During this invasion only 1,000 out of total 14,000 population were left alive (before the Indian Army entered Baramulla). It is also said that the main block to the progress of attackers was self-inflicted greed. They left a trail of horror along the way, raping and abducting women, looting and murdering civilians. In fact, if the raiders had not paused to satisfy their lusts, Kashmir would probably have been secure in Pakistan’s grasp. Surviving residents estimate that 3,000 fellow citizens including four Europeans were killed. Pakistan officials said it was a spontaneous uprising against Hindu Raj and tribals joined as they could not bear to watch the agony of their brothers and sisters in Kashmir. The failure of the invasion compounded by the reports of atrocities made it vital for Pakistan to maintain this fiction and lies. But it was too public an event for a lie to be sustained and the foreign journalists exposed that Pakistan government was unofficially involved in giving aid to tribesmen, aiding raiders and Pakistan Army officers were assisting in the operations.

According to the book “Raiders in Kashmir” by Maj Gen Akbar Khan,

Ultimately, I wrote out a plan under the title of "Armed Revolt inside Kashmir". As open interference or aggression by Pakistan was obviously undesirable, it was proposed that our efforts should be concentrated upon strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally-and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir. The Maharajah's Army was said to be about 9,000 strong of which the 2,000 or so Muslims could be expected to remain comparatively passive or even to desert if all went well. The remaining 7,000 were believed to be widely scattered and could be overcome by the Kashmiri people little by little. But it would be essential to ensure that the Maharajah was not reinforced from India, and, therefore, the routes by which such reinforcements could come would have to be blocked.

One of these routes was the road from Kathua to Jammu an unmetalled fair weather track passing through broken country where a determined band of guerillas could at least prevent the passage of armed civilians. Organised movement of troops in strength would, however, be a different matter. But there was as yet no likelihood of troops arriving from India. In another month or so the area would probably be very muddy due to rains, and then in December the snows in the Banihal pass would block the entrance to the valley. Though it would be beyond their means to close this route altogether, the people could at least gain some time making the effort.

The second route was by air. Troops could be landed at Sringar. Fortunately the landing ground was some distance from the town and away from the immediate protection of the troops there. A couple of hundred armed men might, with good sniping, seriously, discourage the landing of transport aircraft. Obviously, however, at present it. was entirely academic to talk about blocking these routes, but if the revolt was ultimately to seek a decision in the Srinagar Valley itself, this would be an important factor for success.

Maj Gen Akbar Khan in a public meeting in Karachi, explained that Pakistan did not succeed in its objective because of corruption, as guns sent for tribals were sold enroute.

Since Nehru was convinced that raiders were part of a Pakistani operation, the only answer was a political military counter offensive in co-operation with Sheikh Abdullah. He also accepted in principle that the accession of Kashmir should be ratified by the will of the people, but it could hardly be ascertained in the middle of an invasion. Patel wanted to send the Indian Army to Kashmir whether the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession or not, and Nehru agreed.

Following the rebellions in the Poonch and Mirpur area and the Pakistan-backed Pashtun tribal intervention from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Maharaja asked for Indian military assistance. India set the condition that Kashmir must accede to India for it to receive assistance. The Maharaja complied, and the Government of India recognised the accession of the princely state to India. Indian troops were sent to the state to defend it. The Jammu & Kashmir National Conference volunteers aided the Indian Army in its campaign to drive out the Pathan invaders. He also agreed to set an interim government headed by Sheikh Abdullah. Patel was waiting for Menon at the airport to return with the signed document, and both drove straight to attend the third meeting of the Defence Committee. A second decision was taken: an Infantry Battalion would be flown to Srinagar by the following morning.

Mountbatten and Army, Navy, Air Force Chiefs thought, it was not as easy as suggested by Nehru, but the reason which made British Commanders to lean towards intervention was the fear of Europeans staying in the Valley being massacred by the tribals. Operation JAK, as it was named, would leave even the seasoned Generals of Second World War amazed. Instructions to get a Battalion ready was received by Delhi - East Punjab Headquarters (now Western Command) at 1 PM of 26 October. By midnight a Battalion plus one company had assembled at Palam Airport; by first light they were airborne.

If the Pakistan Army had intervened then, and without the help of Kashmiri youths like Maqbool Sherwani who played a game changing role in buying time for Indian Sikh Regiment troops who landed in Srinagar once the accession was accepted. India would not have been able to hold Kashmir. On 27 October, Delhi was not sure if 1 SIKH posted on internal security duties at Gurgaon would be able to reach Srinagar.

Lt Col Dewan Ranjit Rai had orders to land only if airport had not fallen, else fly back to Jammu and wait for orders. Rai learnt that raiders had taken Baramulla, and decided to confront them. As there was no Army transport available, Bakshi Ghulam Mohmmad organised local buses to take Indian troops to within two miles of Baramulla. It was only when battle was joined that Rai realised that tribals were equipped with Light and Medium Machine Guns as well as mortars and mines, and their commanders were fully aware of battle tactics. He deployed a reserve force on a hill along the main road, while another set out to probe the enemy. Lt Colonel Rai was not destined to survive. He fell to a sniper’s bullet. But his action decisively staggered the Pakistan advance and changed the course of the war. His heroic sacrifice was honoured with a Maha Vir Chakra. By the end of the first day, Indian troops had drawn a line at Pattan, seventeen miles from Srinagar.

The Indian Air force had begun to mobilize too; Spitfires and Tempests arrived to provide air support along with 161 Brigade led by Brigadier L.P Sen. By 3 November, the raiders had pushed back a company of the 1 KUMAON and the Pakistanis were convinced that Srinagar would fall to a final assault. The Indian commanders had different ideas. When a squadron of armoured cars drove into Srinagar, crowd lined up on both sides to cheer.

Initial defense operations included the notable defense of Badgam holding both the capital and airfield overnight against extreme odds. The successful defence included an outflanking manoeuvre by Indian armoured cars during the Battle of Shalateng. The battle lasted eight hours. By the afternoon of 8 November, Indian Army had entered Baramulla, and the raiders were in total retreat leaving at least 300 dead.The defeated tribal forces were pursued as far as Baramulla and Uri and these towns, too, were recaptured.

In the Poonch valley, tribal forces continued to besiege state forces. In Gilgit, On 31 October, the Gilgit Scouts, under the command of Brown, surrounded the Gilgit Residency and took Col. Ghansar Singh & Wazir-i-wazarat Sehdev Singh Chib along with their families and staff into protective custody. Brown then requested for troops to be sent to the Gilgit Agency from Pakistan and established a de facto military administration on 1 November. On assuming direct control of the region, Brown thwarted plans by a large section of his contingent to set up an independent republic called Gilgit−Astor. On 2 November, he hoisted the Pakistani flag over the capital residency and announced the accession of the Gilgit Agency to Pakistan. The tribal forces were also joined by troops from Chitral, whose ruler, Muzaffar ul-Mulk the Mehtar of Chitral, had acceded to Pakistan.

The momentum of that victory could have taken Indian troops upto Muzaffarabad, but fate willed otherwise. A shortage of petrol halted the troops, enabling the raiders to blow up bridges to stem the Indian advance.

The Indians now started to get the upper hand in all sectors. Poonch was finally relieved after a siege of over a year. The Gilgit forces in the High Himalayas, who had previously made good progress, were finally defeated. The Indians pursued as far as Kargil before being forced to halt due to supply problems. The Zoji La pass was forced by using tanks (which had not been thought possible at that altitude) and Dras was recaptured. Uri, Tangmarg and Gulmarg were taken by 14 November, but by this time the initiative had stalled. Winter soon prevented any decisive operations. The war between India and Pakistan for the beautiful Valley of Kashmir paused a minute before midnight on the first day of 1949: precisely one year after Jawaharlal Nehru had committed what turned out to be one of the biggest blunders of his seventeen years in power. He had internationalized the dispute over Kashmir by taking it to the United Nations.