Americas Deep Involvement Period (1948-1963) in Kashmir – I
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Imtiyaz Bhat
On January 1, 1948, the internationalization of the Kashmir problem guaranteed the US involvement in South Asia. Washington believed that the conflict was the major source of destabilization in the subcontinent and might cause a full-fledged war between the two major and strategically important countries of the subcontinent. This would open a way for the spread of Communism in the region, against the US containment policy during the Cold War. America realized the potential danger of the conflict and became deeply involved in it from 1948 to 1963. It used unilateral initiatives, bilateral efforts with Britain, and multilateral approaches inside and outside the UN to evolve a settlement of the problem between India and Pakistan, which is being analyzed in this write up.
The larger strategic considerations during the Cold War determined the US policy in much of the world including the subcontinent. Kashmir had a tremendous strategic importance, surrounded by Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the SU, the Truman administration feared that the conflict might destabilize the subcontinent by causing a war between India and Pakistan and would be exploited by the SU to its own advantage. On January 6, 1948, Secretary of State George Marshall, in a telegram, said to John Austin, the US representative at the UN that “. . . the only solution acceptable to all the parties concerned in the Kashmir problem will eventually be a self-determination, probably by plebiscite, of the wishes of the inhabitants of . . . Kashmir with respect to their long term affiliation with either India or Pakistan. . . .” Hence, Washington based its Kashmir policy on self-determination and became involved to settle the issue between India and Pakistan.
After the Government of India (GoI) referred the Kashmir question to the UN on Jan 1, 1948, the US made the Security Council (SC) to declare Kashmir as the disputed territory between India and Pakistan and try to settle it through self-determination by a plebiscite. Therefore, the US used its diplomatic maneuver in the SC to settle the question between India and Pakistan.
However, Washington initially wanted no direct involvement in the Kashmir dispute as it would, the American policy-planners assumed, antagonize the Soviet Union. The US, therefore, used Britain in the SC to settle the question between the two disputants. For ensuring a plebiscite in Kashmir, London had the SC to establish a commission called the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) in January 1948. Though it successfully arranged the cease-fire line between the two countries on January 1, 1949, the Commission failed to break the demilitarization impasse, the necessary condition for conducting a plebiscite.
Despite, America continued unabated. As the Indo-Pak strained relations had made the subcontinent more vulnerable to the Soviet influence, President Truman became personally involved on August 9, 1949. He appealed to the Prime Ministers of both countries to break the deadlock through arbitration; he proposed Admiral Nimitz, who served as the Commander in Chief of the US Pacific fleet during World War II, to be appointed as the arbitrator. But, the GoI wanted an arbitrator other than American and refused to accept Nimitz’s arbitration. Consequently, President Truman’s personal role remained unsuccessful.
The UN soon dismissed the UNCIP and hereafter sent a number of its representatives to India and Pakistan for the same purpose. They all were chosen by America. The first amongst them were Sir Own Dixon, the renowned Australian Jurist, who was sent to the subcontinent in early 1950. He finally came with a proposal known as Dixon Plan. The plan provided the partition of the state which Pakistan accepted, but was rejected by the GoI as the Plan was against India’s Kashmir position ─ no demilitarization by New Delhi before the complete withdrawal of Pakistani and Azad Kashmir forces.
Further, Prime Minister Nehru reacted sharply to this Washington’s intervention. He declared that America’s intervention in India’s internal matters was extremely intolerable; he warned the US State Department that such a negative role would further exacerbate the Indo-Pakistan relations and made the Kashmir resolution more difficult. The Prime Minister also repeatedly stressed that he took the issue to the SC with the hope that Pakistan would be, given Kashmir’s accession to India, declared as the aggressor. Finally, Nehru made it clear that India knew how to manage its foreign and internal matters, and he strongly refused to give even an inch of Kashmir to Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Henderson, the US Ambassador to India, visited Kashmir in the late 1950. He discussed the Dixon plan with then Prime Minister of Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. The Prime Minister strongly rejected the partition of the state outlined by the plan. Instead, he asked for the sovereign Kashmir that the Ambassador promptly declined. Thus, this diplomatic initiative also remained unsuccessful.
Washington had strongly opposed Sheikh Abdullah’s move in October 1950 to convene a Constituent Assembly to confirm the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. At the request of Pakistani government, the Truman administration stated that the US would not accept any plebiscite without the UN participation. Against this Abdullah’s initiative, America with Britain’s support drafted a resolution asking India to reassure the SC that such an autonomous action would not affect the UN Kashmir settlement process. But it took no action on the resolution due to the Communist revolution in China in 1949 and the Korean War of 1950.
When Chester Bowels, the Governor of Connecticut, replaced Loy Henderson as America’s Ambassador to India on October 10, 1950, he told the US decision-makers in Washington to deal with Kashmir in a way appeasing India as it was vital for the US global interests at that point of time. Believing that India would win a plebiscite because of “Abdullah’s power and popularity,” Bowels strongly supported the plebiscite. His advocacy for implementing the Dixon Plan and his meetings with Indian leaders particularly G.S. Bajpai, the Indian Secretary General for Foreign and Commonwealth Relations, on the Kashmir question was disliked by the State Department. Bowles pro-Indian bent annoyed Washington. As a result, the Truman administration instructed the Ambassador to follow Washington in any substantive discussion on the Kashmir dispute.
As the resolution of the Kashmir problem had become its policy priority, the US continued and looked for new alternative approaches. These alternatives were partitioning the state onreligious majority lines, leaving the Valley under the UN administration, an India-Pakistan condominium or UN trusteeship over all or part of the state and economic development through a joint water commission of both countries.
In the meantime, Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, after the failure of the Commonwealth mediation in January 1951 in London, threatened to withdraw Pakistani support in defending the Middle East or Asia if Washington did not show its seriousness in the settlement of the Kashmir issue. As the stakes were high, Washington with the support of Britain got the SC to appoint Frank. P. Graham, the former US Senator from Carolina, under its new resolution passed in 1951. Graham, with his enthusiasm, relentlessly worked for two years and travelled to and negotiated in New Delhi, Karachi, Srinagar, Geneva, Paris and New York to break the demilitarization stalemate. Like his predecessor, he also failed as the GOI again turned down the mission citing the same reason. In short, what was acceptable for Pakistan was unacceptable for India.
Then Washington modified its Kashmir policy and used what another technique what is today called the shuttle diplomacy. In July 1952, the Pakistani government made an offer to Indian government for troops’ proportion, an alternative to complete demilitarization. According to this plan, India would retain 28,000 of its regular troops on its side of Kashmir. The Azad forces would be limited to 30,000 and would be regarded as normality. The 3,500 northern scouts of Pakistan and the 6,000 Kashmiri militia in the part of Kashmir held by India would not be counted with the regular troops of India and Azad Kashmir. To materialize the scheme, Chester Bowels met the Prime Ministers of both countries back and forth in New Delhi and Karachi. He, however, remained unsuccessful because of the GOI’s traditional stand. In addition, on the lines of Pakistani proposal, the SC, under the US leadership, passed one more resolution on December 23, 1952. Nevertheless, both shuttle diplomacy and the resolution failed to achieve a major breakthrough due to India’s inflexible attitude. This deeply disappointed Bowls and he said that Prime Minister Nehru had acted in an irrational way.
Finally, the Truman administration had become thoroughly frustrated about the possibility of a Kashmir settlement. It had become much dismayed by India’s intransigence as it had overruled almost all UN resolutions and its mediators. As a result, the India’s attitude reluctantly turned Washington towards Pakistan.
As the Cold War tension was rapidly increasing, America more actively continued building up the Western security system. After the Republicans came to power in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles advocated strong anti-Soviet measures across the world. They forged a military alliance with Pakistan in 1954 and supplied arms to it. Thus, Pakistan became the most allied ally of America in Asia. The alliance, what Karachi had actually wanted, strengthened Pakistan’s position on Kashmir and at the same time weakened and disappointed India.
The US-Pakistan military alliance, on the other side, proved a big hurdle for all Washington’s future efforts to settle the issue as it changed the entire situation in South Asia. Prime Minister Nehru interpreted it as an anti-India act and stated that the military pact brought the Cold War to the subcontinent. While treating America as India’s enemy, he made the UN General Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold to put the virtual end of the US participation in the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), monitoring the cease-fire line in Kashmir since 1949.
To be concluded…
On January 1, 1948, the internationalization of the Kashmir problem guaranteed the US involvement in South Asia. Washington believed that the conflict was the major source of destabilization in the subcontinent and might cause a full-fledged war between the two major and strategically important countries of the subcontinent. This would open a way for the spread of Communism in the region, against the US containment policy during the Cold War. America realized the potential danger of the conflict and became deeply involved in it from 1948 to 1963. It used unilateral initiatives, bilateral efforts with Britain, and multilateral approaches inside and outside the UN to evolve a settlement of the problem between India and Pakistan, which is being analyzed in this write up.
The larger strategic considerations during the Cold War determined the US policy in much of the world including the subcontinent. Kashmir had a tremendous strategic importance, surrounded by Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the SU, the Truman administration feared that the conflict might destabilize the subcontinent by causing a war between India and Pakistan and would be exploited by the SU to its own advantage. On January 6, 1948, Secretary of State George Marshall, in a telegram, said to John Austin, the US representative at the UN that “. . . the only solution acceptable to all the parties concerned in the Kashmir problem will eventually be a self-determination, probably by plebiscite, of the wishes of the inhabitants of . . . Kashmir with respect to their long term affiliation with either India or Pakistan. . . .” Hence, Washington based its Kashmir policy on self-determination and became involved to settle the issue between India and Pakistan.
After the Government of India (GoI) referred the Kashmir question to the UN on Jan 1, 1948, the US made the Security Council (SC) to declare Kashmir as the disputed territory between India and Pakistan and try to settle it through self-determination by a plebiscite. Therefore, the US used its diplomatic maneuver in the SC to settle the question between India and Pakistan.
However, Washington initially wanted no direct involvement in the Kashmir dispute as it would, the American policy-planners assumed, antagonize the Soviet Union. The US, therefore, used Britain in the SC to settle the question between the two disputants. For ensuring a plebiscite in Kashmir, London had the SC to establish a commission called the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) in January 1948. Though it successfully arranged the cease-fire line between the two countries on January 1, 1949, the Commission failed to break the demilitarization impasse, the necessary condition for conducting a plebiscite.
Despite, America continued unabated. As the Indo-Pak strained relations had made the subcontinent more vulnerable to the Soviet influence, President Truman became personally involved on August 9, 1949. He appealed to the Prime Ministers of both countries to break the deadlock through arbitration; he proposed Admiral Nimitz, who served as the Commander in Chief of the US Pacific fleet during World War II, to be appointed as the arbitrator. But, the GoI wanted an arbitrator other than American and refused to accept Nimitz’s arbitration. Consequently, President Truman’s personal role remained unsuccessful.
The UN soon dismissed the UNCIP and hereafter sent a number of its representatives to India and Pakistan for the same purpose. They all were chosen by America. The first amongst them were Sir Own Dixon, the renowned Australian Jurist, who was sent to the subcontinent in early 1950. He finally came with a proposal known as Dixon Plan. The plan provided the partition of the state which Pakistan accepted, but was rejected by the GoI as the Plan was against India’s Kashmir position ─ no demilitarization by New Delhi before the complete withdrawal of Pakistani and Azad Kashmir forces.
Further, Prime Minister Nehru reacted sharply to this Washington’s intervention. He declared that America’s intervention in India’s internal matters was extremely intolerable; he warned the US State Department that such a negative role would further exacerbate the Indo-Pakistan relations and made the Kashmir resolution more difficult. The Prime Minister also repeatedly stressed that he took the issue to the SC with the hope that Pakistan would be, given Kashmir’s accession to India, declared as the aggressor. Finally, Nehru made it clear that India knew how to manage its foreign and internal matters, and he strongly refused to give even an inch of Kashmir to Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Henderson, the US Ambassador to India, visited Kashmir in the late 1950. He discussed the Dixon plan with then Prime Minister of Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. The Prime Minister strongly rejected the partition of the state outlined by the plan. Instead, he asked for the sovereign Kashmir that the Ambassador promptly declined. Thus, this diplomatic initiative also remained unsuccessful.
Washington had strongly opposed Sheikh Abdullah’s move in October 1950 to convene a Constituent Assembly to confirm the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. At the request of Pakistani government, the Truman administration stated that the US would not accept any plebiscite without the UN participation. Against this Abdullah’s initiative, America with Britain’s support drafted a resolution asking India to reassure the SC that such an autonomous action would not affect the UN Kashmir settlement process. But it took no action on the resolution due to the Communist revolution in China in 1949 and the Korean War of 1950.
When Chester Bowels, the Governor of Connecticut, replaced Loy Henderson as America’s Ambassador to India on October 10, 1950, he told the US decision-makers in Washington to deal with Kashmir in a way appeasing India as it was vital for the US global interests at that point of time. Believing that India would win a plebiscite because of “Abdullah’s power and popularity,” Bowels strongly supported the plebiscite. His advocacy for implementing the Dixon Plan and his meetings with Indian leaders particularly G.S. Bajpai, the Indian Secretary General for Foreign and Commonwealth Relations, on the Kashmir question was disliked by the State Department. Bowles pro-Indian bent annoyed Washington. As a result, the Truman administration instructed the Ambassador to follow Washington in any substantive discussion on the Kashmir dispute.
As the resolution of the Kashmir problem had become its policy priority, the US continued and looked for new alternative approaches. These alternatives were partitioning the state onreligious majority lines, leaving the Valley under the UN administration, an India-Pakistan condominium or UN trusteeship over all or part of the state and economic development through a joint water commission of both countries.
In the meantime, Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, after the failure of the Commonwealth mediation in January 1951 in London, threatened to withdraw Pakistani support in defending the Middle East or Asia if Washington did not show its seriousness in the settlement of the Kashmir issue. As the stakes were high, Washington with the support of Britain got the SC to appoint Frank. P. Graham, the former US Senator from Carolina, under its new resolution passed in 1951. Graham, with his enthusiasm, relentlessly worked for two years and travelled to and negotiated in New Delhi, Karachi, Srinagar, Geneva, Paris and New York to break the demilitarization stalemate. Like his predecessor, he also failed as the GOI again turned down the mission citing the same reason. In short, what was acceptable for Pakistan was unacceptable for India.
Then Washington modified its Kashmir policy and used what another technique what is today called the shuttle diplomacy. In July 1952, the Pakistani government made an offer to Indian government for troops’ proportion, an alternative to complete demilitarization. According to this plan, India would retain 28,000 of its regular troops on its side of Kashmir. The Azad forces would be limited to 30,000 and would be regarded as normality. The 3,500 northern scouts of Pakistan and the 6,000 Kashmiri militia in the part of Kashmir held by India would not be counted with the regular troops of India and Azad Kashmir. To materialize the scheme, Chester Bowels met the Prime Ministers of both countries back and forth in New Delhi and Karachi. He, however, remained unsuccessful because of the GOI’s traditional stand. In addition, on the lines of Pakistani proposal, the SC, under the US leadership, passed one more resolution on December 23, 1952. Nevertheless, both shuttle diplomacy and the resolution failed to achieve a major breakthrough due to India’s inflexible attitude. This deeply disappointed Bowls and he said that Prime Minister Nehru had acted in an irrational way.
Finally, the Truman administration had become thoroughly frustrated about the possibility of a Kashmir settlement. It had become much dismayed by India’s intransigence as it had overruled almost all UN resolutions and its mediators. As a result, the India’s attitude reluctantly turned Washington towards Pakistan.
As the Cold War tension was rapidly increasing, America more actively continued building up the Western security system. After the Republicans came to power in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles advocated strong anti-Soviet measures across the world. They forged a military alliance with Pakistan in 1954 and supplied arms to it. Thus, Pakistan became the most allied ally of America in Asia. The alliance, what Karachi had actually wanted, strengthened Pakistan’s position on Kashmir and at the same time weakened and disappointed India.
The US-Pakistan military alliance, on the other side, proved a big hurdle for all Washington’s future efforts to settle the issue as it changed the entire situation in South Asia. Prime Minister Nehru interpreted it as an anti-India act and stated that the military pact brought the Cold War to the subcontinent. While treating America as India’s enemy, he made the UN General Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold to put the virtual end of the US participation in the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), monitoring the cease-fire line in Kashmir since 1949.
To be concluded…
UN Mediator Flies Into Kashmir 1951
The author is pursuing his doctorate on US Kashmir Policy at the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, Pondicherry (Central) University, Puducherry. He can be mailed at imti.kash@gmail.com
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