The Blackest Day in Kashmir: the invasion of 1947

Raiders of Kashmir

On October 22, 1947, militants backed by the Pakistan Army invaded Jammu and Kashmir

SALEEM SAMAD

The people of Jammu and Kashmir, both in Indian Administered Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir observe Black Days on different dates.

The first Black Day was observed on October 22, 1947, when Brigadier Akbar Khan of Pakistan Army was entrusted in a top-secret invasion of the princely state Kashmir, just two months after independence of the two neighbouring countries.

Akbar Khan, a senior commander with Pakistan Army was the mastermind of the aggression of Kashmir and commanded the first-ever India-Pakistan war over Kashmir. The commander bypassed the Rawalpindi Military General Head Quarters (GHQ) when General Sir Douglas David Gracey was the C-in-C of the Pakistan Army.

The brute commander was a Second World War veteran. A war decorated by the British Army for commanding the ‘Burma Campaign’ against the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a landlocked disputed territory in South Asia was the reason for several wars and border skirmishes between India and Pakistan since the birth of two newly independent nations in 1947.

The war was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of the four Indo-Pakistan wars fought between the two neighbours.

In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, and upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, became the new ruler of Kashmir. As the partition unfolded, the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh had signed a ‘Standstill Agreement’ with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan on August 12, 1947, two days before the formal independence of State for Muslims in India.

In reality, Jinnah signed the Standstill Agreements with all the princely states in Pakistan territory, including Khanate of Kalat (Balochistan), Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Bahawalpur, Chitral, Swat, Hunza, Las Bela, Kharan, Makran, and others. Unfortunately, all the agreements were deliberately flouted by Jinnah.

According to British Raj’s agreed compliance, the princely state(s) may join any country – India or Pakistan or hold the status quo as an independent nation. The choice to merge was left entirely to the rulers of the princely states.

For most of the princely states signed a Standstill Agreement with Pakistan, the military forcibly occupied the territory and coerced into signing the treaty of accession. Balochistan is one of the many examples in the post-partition history of Pakistan.

Jawaharlal Nehru expressed doubt that the agreements signed by Jinnah would be disobeyed, but for Governor-General of Pakistan [Jinnah] confidently negated his [Nehru] suspicion.

Akbar Khan in his autobiography ‘Raiders in Kashmir’ admits that he designed a strategy under the title of “Armed Revolt inside Kashmir”.

On October 27, 1947, Jinnah ordered General David Gracey to mobilise troops into Kashmir Valley. Gracey declined with a note that all British officers had a ‘stand-down order’ from Supreme Commander Claude Auchinleck of British forces in India and Pakistan in the eventualities of war and conflict between the two countries.

Impatient Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan summoned the ambitious Brig Khan at a closed-door conference in Lahore on the tense development in Kashmir, the accession, and possible Indian military intervention. The meeting was attended by Colonel Iskander Mirza (then defence secretary, later became Governor-General) and Chaudhri Mohammad All (then Secretary-General of Muslim League, later became Prime Minister).

With full knowledge of Jinnah, the Pakistan military mobilised thousands of barbarians from the fiercest Pashtun tribes from North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) to invade Jammu and Kashmir under the command of Brig Akbar Khan.

An estimated 5,000 savage raiders armed with axes, swords, and modern rifles supplied by the Pakistan army and also military lorries were provided to capture Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.

The raiders known as “Lashkars” (military or militia) went on a rampage. They plundered, looted, killed, and raped in the brutal invasion, which caused thousands of Kashmiri Pundits to flee the valley.

At midnight on December 30, at the behest of India, a ceasefire came into effect from January 1, 1948. Pakistan accepted the fate of Jammu and Kashmir as the issue was taken over by the United Nations. Thus Pakistan occupied Kashmir is known as “Azad Kashmir”, installing a subservient government to rule the valley. The Azad Kashmir’s puppet government has always been loyal to Rawalpindi GHQ because the powerhouse lies there, not in Islamabad.

Since the stalemate in 1948, Pakistan systematically distorted the history of Jammu and Kashmir. The false narratives are injected in school textbooks, also found documented in national museums and archives. Pakistan got away with it.

After the war, Akbar Khan fell from the grace of the Muslim League government. Liaquat Ali Khan appointed General Ayub Khan as Chief of Army Staff after General Gracey retired on January 16, 1951. Rest is history!

First published in the International Affairs Review, 24 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh. He is a media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Nations divided by history

SALEEM SAMAD

There are many nations and communities that became divided after years of animosity but were later reunified. 

The reunification of Germany is the best example of such reunification. Vietnam, Romania, and Moldova are also living peacefully as one ethnic community or based on nationalism.

North and South Yemen’s unification in May 1990 formed the present Republic of Yemen. Yemen has topped the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with women and children, and especially infants, bearing the brunt of the civil war.

Many historians argue that China should also be listed as a unified country following the rise of the Communist Party. But the controversial invasions of Tibet and East Turkestan (Xinjiang province) have provoked a political crisis after ethnic Tibetan and Uyghur Muslims refused to accept the Chinese Communist Party’s hegemony.

Thousands have fled the region, including the most revered Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, after the invasion of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Today, the ethnic Tibetan and Uyghur are dehumanized and marginalized, and the majoritarian Hans from central China govern the nation.

Cyprus remains divided since the slice of cake is shared by the Turkish and Greek military. Despite their United Nations-brokered peace, the rival countries refuse to withdraw troops occupying the picturesque island.

Korea is another bitter example of a split-up since the Korean War (1950-53). North Korea remains under the hegemony of China. The giant neighbour provides military aid and spoon-fed economic benefits to the despotic rule of the Kim Il-sung dynasty. The reunification of Korea remains a far cry, and the tears of thousands of separated families in Korea have dried.

In South Asia, however, several ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural communities have been divided by a thick line since the partition of 1947. The British colonialists deliberately wanted to divide Punjab and Bengal. Their prime annoyance was that native revolutionaries against the British Raj were fortunately born in Bengal and Punjab.

Pakistan, months after independence in August 1947, sent troops to forcibly occupy an independent Balochistan. It was also able to grab a chunk of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in 1948, and still retain the territories. The annexed “heaven on earth” is “Azad Kashmir,” governed by a puppet administration handpicked by the generals in Rawalpindi GHQ.

Both the United Nations and the OIC have shown cold feet on the issue of Kashmir. The UN Security Council Resolution 47, adopted on April 21, 1948, concerns the resolution of the Kashmir conflict.

Before 1947, J&K was a princely state under the British Raj and was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja. With the declining British Empire, it was decided that the rulers of 584 princely states would be given the option of “accession” with any new of the countries of India and Pakistan, or remain an independent nation-state.

The raiders of Kashmir were recruited from the fiercest Pashtun warriors, and the Maharaja fled to Delhi and signed an accession treaty in October 1947. The clandestine invasion happened with the full knowledge of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and a green signal from Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan.

Promptly, India took the matter to the UN Security Council and claimed Pakistan’s armed barbarians had attacked J&K, which was Indian territory. The UN Resolution 47 urged that armed Pakistan nationals and tribesmen be withdrawn. Similarly, India must withdraw its military and hold a plebiscite (referendum) to determine the future of the people of Kashmir.

Neither India nor Pakistan have any intention to withdraw troops, and the neighbours have fought four wars over Kashmir. Meanwhile, the Pakistan spy agency ISI regularly infiltrates militants and jihadists to give a strong message that they have not forgotten Kashmiri Muslims.

Kashmir is one of the world’s few countries where truce along the Line of Control (LoC) remains elusive, because of “high walls” that leaders have built between the nations.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 3 August 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad