India and Pakistan

Neighbours at Odds

Avtar Bhasin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury India
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789386826213
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

The book is based on archival material accessed for the first time from the Nehru Papers and the archives of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. It provides readers with a new perspective on a great many significant issues of the sub-continent's India–Pakistan discourse.
The Partition was an opportunity for the two nations to go their own ways and build egalitarian societies, complementing each other. Unfortunately, unable to transcend old animosities, Pakistan added new ones to construct the bogey of Indian hegemony. This was diametrically opposed to India's determination to steer clear of the past and pursue a positive policy towards Pakistan, since it shared centuries of historical, economic, social and cultural ties with its people. For India, the separation was like a family dividing its assets by mutual agreement of its members and living peacefully thereafter. For Pakistan, however, the separation was akin to a permanent breakup of a family, which was accompanied by the nursing of grievances and the harbouring of adversarial feelings. It is this mental make-up dictating the Indo–Pakistan narrative in the years following the Partition, which the book succinctly captures.

CHAPTER 1

Pakistan’s Insecurity

Whether Partition solved any problems is not certain; what is clear is that it created new ones. Some of the immediate problems at the dominion levels were implementation of the Radcliff Awards, minorities, Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir, the division of assets and liabilities, trade and commerce, passport and visa, communications, sharing of waters of common rivers both in the East and West Pakistan; some were peculiar to West Pakistan such as the Canal Waters, evacuee property, abducted women, shrines. Sorting them out was not easy. These made their contributions to create a rancorous relationship. While assets such as minerals, manufacturing facilities, buildings, among others, were owned by the Dominions on the basis of location, the rivers and streams refused to respect artificially drawn boundaries by Sir Cyril Radcliff and continued to flow, as determined by the indomitable forces of nature. Some of these problems were resolved with time after prolonged negotiations while some others were forgotten in the din due to the wars of 1965 and 1971. While the border problem in West Pakistan was resolved in 1959 after Sheikh-Swaran Singh talks, in East Pakistan it had to await the birth of a new sovereign State—Bangladesh—to be resolved. Problems like Kashmir, trade and commerce, cross border crime, among others, continued to fester, and created bad blood. And of course new ones were created in the course of time.

The society that the newly-constituted Pakistan housed was rural and agrarian, with very little industrial activity. Much of the industries in undivided India were clustered around Calcutta, Bombay, and in Bihar and Gujarat. A classic example was that of jute. While East Pakistan grew all the jute, the mills to process it were located in West Bengal. Similarly main cotton producing areas fell to the lot of West Pakistan, while the textile mills were located around Ahmedabad and Bombay. Of the 394 cotton mills in India, Pakistan’s share was only fourteen. The elite Muslims were mostly feudal zimindars who formed the landed aristocracy. The Hindus were the entrepreneurial class, and owned much of the industries; they were also money lenders.

The trust deficit, as pointed out in the introduction, that marked the relations between the Congress and the Muslim League and their leaders before and at the time of Partition continued to persist in the post- Partition period. India’s efforts to start a new chapter were not reciprocated by Pakistan which continued to loathe India and the Indian leaders. Pakistani leaders were unable to cast off the baggage of the days gone by. It was no wonder that the meetings on the Indian and Pakistani leaders continued to suffer from the trust deficit, and instead of trying to meet the challenges posed by the communal riots and partition head on, they indulged in the blame game. Since the Congress leaders had opposed partition until it became inevitable, Pakistan remained paranoid that India would undo the partition at the first opportunity. Certain actions of the Indian leaders at the very start of the journey, even if they were rational from the Indian standpoint, such as withholding Pakistan’s share of Sterling balances, the stoppage of canal waters, Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir, did not add to building trust between the two countries, and Pakistan cried foul.

Exactly within a month of the birth of Pakistan, on 14 September 1947, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan addressed the Muslim League Council in Lahore, hurling accusations at India for fomenting riots in the Indian part of the Punjab targeting the Muslims, and lamented that Pakistan was ‘surrounded on all sides, by forces which [were] out to destroy’ it because ‘they [feared] that with the consolidation of Pakistan their cherished dream to rule all over the sub-continent of India [would] not be realised.’ The Prime Minister of Pakistan suspected the existence of ‘an unholy plan chalked out by the enemies of Pakistan, to sabotage it on its very birth.’¹

Strangely enough, this accusation came on the very day Liaquat had met Nehru in Lahore earlier in the day and had reviewed the riotous situation in both the Punjabs and agreed on certain measures necessary to stem the riots.² Liaquat’s charge looked particularly hollow since there were bloodier riots on a much wider scale, not only in West Punjab but also in other parts of West Pakistan, particularly the North West Frontier Province, which led to the ethnic cleansing of West Pakistan. Nor did East Pakistan escape the horrors of partition. Two days later on 16 September, Pakistan Foreign Minister Mohammad Zafrullah Khan threatened to lodge a formal complaint with the United Nations unless the Government of India took steps ‘to end the slaughter of Muslims,’ and ‘if satisfaction [was] not obtained, the Government of Pakistan [would] have to resort to direct measures.’³

The Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru was anguished at the unfortunate accusations, particularly when he had personally been touring the affected areas to control the riots and persuade the Muslims not to leave their homes. He had also appealed to those who had left to return and given them the assurance of full security. In a dignified response on 17 September, he gave vent to his hurt feelings. While not denying that the Congress leaders were against the Partition and ‘sought to avert it,’ he added that once ‘partition was decided upon, it has been the constant endeavour of the Indian leaders to discharge faithfully all their obligations flowing from that decision.’ Expressing a pious hope and in good faith, he added that ‘some of us still hope that, when the present unhappy commotion has ended and amity between the two communities has been restored, the two Dominions may, of the free will of their respective peoples, unite.’⁴

Two days later, on 19 September, Liaquat Ali and Nehru met again in New Delhi to carry forward the Lahore discussions to restore communal peace and harmony, since there was no perceptible change in the riots raging on both sides of the divide.⁵ In a memorandum to Liaquat, Nehru recounted the measures that the Government of India had taken to handle the situation, and the various conciliatory statements made by the Indian leaders to control the situation. It however reminded Liaquat of the inflammatory utterances of the Pakistani leaders, encouraging Pakistan’s pugnacious factions to resort to violence against the Hindus and the Sikhs. It also accused Jinnah’s recent statements for condemning riots only in the Indian Punjab, while there were worse riots in his Pakistan. The utterances of Ghanzafar Ali Khan, a minister of the Pakistan Government were described as ‘bellicose and totally irresponsible.’⁶ Similarly Pakistani newspapers like the Dawn and the Zimindar were replete with ‘the vilest accusations, which had no basis in fact, but also threats of war and of the extermination of the Sikhs.’ The Non-Muslims were baffled when they remembered the famous speech of Jinnah which he delivered in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947 promising equal treatment to all, thereby raising false hopes of an inclusive society. Sadly, Jinnah made the speech, then suffered from amnesia.

Nehru sent a copy of this memorandum to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee since Liaquat was known to have sent some messages to him which contained, to Nehru’s anguish, ‘one-sided and exaggerated accounts of what had happened [on the Indian side].’ Liaquat had also suggested Attlee to convene a meeting of the representatives of the Commonwealth Dominions to consider measures to control the riots and appoint a commission to investigate them. The suggestion for a commission was unacceptable to Jawaharlal Nehru.⁷ To his mortification, Liaquat dismissed his memorandum saying that it was ‘replete with utterly unfounded allegations and insinuations.’⁸ Liaquat Ali even ignored the statement of his own acting High Commissioner issued in New Delhi on 19 September in which he said ‘all Muslims believe that Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Mr. Neogi, in fact, all members of the government, are genuinely anxious that existing panic should disappear; also that refugee camps [where Muslims had taken shelter] are properly looked after.’⁹

On 7 October 1947 in a broadcast from Radio Pakistan, Liaquat again harped on the ‘enemies of Pakistan’ raga, and accused India of ‘black hatred’ of Pakistan and of creating ‘a host of problems, each one of them of gigantic proportions.’¹⁰

Nehru was disillusioned. It was a no-win situation, and soon enough he found his desire to find a modus vivendi with Liaquat a vain effort. Pakistan’s attitude continued to be paranoid, hostile and bellicose.

Ironically the paranoia that worried Liaquat did not seem to trouble Jinnah. He was more confident of the Pakistan he had successfully created. His broadcast from the Lahore Station of the Radio Pakistan on 30 October 1947 gave lie to his Prime Minister’s fears of ‘enemies of Pakistan’ theory. Sounding a more confident note than usual, he said: ‘We have, undoubtedly achieved Pakistan and that too without bloody war and practically peacefully by moral and intellectual force and with the power of the pen which is no less mighty than the sword and so our righteous cause has triumphed….Pakistan is now a fait accompli and it can never be undone...The division of India is now finally and irrevocably effected…’¹¹ Jinnah’s claim of achieving a Pakistan ‘without bloody war and practically peacefully by moral and intellectual force’ looks hollow when hundreds and thousands were killed and millions uprooted. All this tragedy stands chronicled, photographed and filmed for posterity in the contemporary archives. This gave a lie to his Prime Minister’s pernicious propaganda that India was out to destroy Pakistan.

It appears that the Indian memorandum of 19 September had stung Jinnah’s conscious. In the same broadcast on 30 October he confessed or at least pretended to confess his ignorance of what was actually happening in Pakistan to the minorities, even though he admitted that he had heard about them. Shedding crocodile tears he said: ‘I was deeply grieved to realise that unfortunately, there was a great deal of truth in what had been told to me.’ Feeling anguished at the truth he had now discovered, he said: ‘I am speaking to you under deep distress and with a heavy heart.’ The moot question remained: Did the treatment of minorities improve after Jinnah’s discovery?

Unfortunately no! Despite the confidence exuded by Jinnah in his broadcast, Liaquat continued with his diatribes. On 30 December 1947, in a personal letter to Nehru, he formally charged India in words that were ominous. Accusing India for not accepting the partition scheme he unveiled his woes:

…India is out to destroy the State of Pakistan, her leaders persistently continue to regard (Pakistan) as part of India itself; the systemic sabotage against the implementation of Partition, the stoppage of such essential requirements as coal and rail transport, the deliberate withholding of Pakistan’s share of funds and arms and equipment, the wholesale massacre of Muslim population, are all designed towards one aim, the destruction of Pakistan.

The charge sheet listed the forcible occupation of Junagadh, Manavadar, and other States of Kathiawar, which had [acceded] to Pakistan, as well as the fraudulent procurement of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir State as acts of hostility against Pakistan, whose destruction is India’s immediate objective.¹²

Nehru suspected the British civil servants in Pakistan, led by the West Punjab Governor Sir Frances Mudie, with his unsavoury past, had tried to frustrate the attempts at restoring peace and trust between the two Dominions. He appealed to Mountbatten for help.

Nehru’s exasperation reached its limits, when a few days later, on 4 January 1948, Liaquat Ali Khan addressed a press conference in Karachi and repeated the old charges of the ‘destruction of Pakistan’ and adduced the same accusations verbatim, which he had articulated during the last few months, and which New Delhi had rejected. He insisted that ‘the overwhelming number of people fighting for the liberation of Kashmir were Kashmiri Muslims themselves’ who were fighting the tyranny of the Sikhs. It was a no-win situation that confronted Nehru.¹³

An irked and frustrated Nehru, in his speech at the annual convocation of the Aligarh Muslim University on 24 January 1948, said:

as a matter of fact it is to India’s advantage Pakistan should be a secure and prosperous State with which we can develop close and friendly relations. If today by any chance I were offered the reunion of India and Pakistan, I would decline for obvious reasons.¹⁴

He repeated his assurance of security and integrity of Pakistan a few months later on 25 July 1948 at a public meeting in Madras (now Chennai). He accused the Pakistan Government of ‘building their policies on lies, falsehood and deceit,’ and reiterated that the partition had come with ‘our consent. We are consenting party to it. We shall abide by what we have consented to. We consented because we thought thereby we were chasing peace and goodwill, though at a heavy price.’ He lamented the Partition failed to deliver the ‘peace and goodwill’ India was looking for. Dismissing any thought of ‘going back on the decision made,’ he said that ‘[i]f Pakistan wanted to join India and to undo Partition, we would not accept that’.¹⁵ The frustration of Indian leaders with Pakistan was obvious and conspicuous. The Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Sardar Patel in his letter of 15 October 1948 addressed to the Premiers of the Provincial Governments, accused Pakistan of having ‘fallen victim to the familiar Nazi disease of seeing enemies all round.’¹⁶ The Pakistani media, led by the national daily Dawn, was also responsible in stoking the fires of hatred. On the Indian side, while the national media showed enough restraint, the vernacular press, uprooted from Lahore, now based in Jullundur (East Punjab), was in competition with the Pakistani press and did not falter in this slanderous match. The apex body of Indian newspapers ‘The All India Newspapers Editors’ Conference,’ in a resolution adopted on 11 October 1947 at its meeting held in Bombay, inter alia advised all its affiliates to use in ‘all editorial comments, expression of opinion, whether through statements, letters to the Editors or in any other form’ restraint, ‘free from scurrilous attacks against any leaders or communities’ adding that ‘there shall be no incitement to violence.’ On the other hand the Pakistani media adopted slanderous and pugnacious expressions directed at the Indian head of government. It was clear that both governments realised the important role that the media could play in building a relationship of trust between them. Pakistan paid only lip service to the need for restraint; Indian efforts alone were not enough.¹⁷

During the course of the seven decades since the birth of Pakistan, innumerable communications were exchanged between the two countries at all levels, including both countries’ prime ministers and foreign ministers calling for media restraint. The Tashkent Declaration of January 1966 and the Simla Agreement of July 1972 pledged to observe media restraint, but had little success. The correspondence in this regard between the leaders of the two governments makes sordid re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Pakistan’s Insecurity
• Chapter 2: Different Perceptions
• Chapter 3: Kashmir—The Beginning of the Conflict
• Chapter 4: Kashmir – In Search of a Solution
• Chapter 5: Kashmir, Indian Constitution and Nehru’s Vacillation
• Chapter 6: Sheikh Abdullah’s Shenanigans
• Chapter 7: India-Pakistan Negotiations on Kashmir-
• Chapter 8: Second Round of Negotiations
• Chapter 9: Pakistan and Military Alliances
• Chapter 10: Kashmir and Big Powers
• Chapter 11: General Ayub Khan’s Coup, Nehru’s Visit to Pakistan and India-China Conflict
• Chapter 12: Pakistan-China Entente
• Chapter 13: Release of Sheikh Abdullah and His Visit to Pakistan
• Chapter 14: Rann of Kutch
• Chapter 15: Kashmir-1965
• Chapter 16: Tashkent and After
• Chapter 17: East Pakistan a Colony
• Chapter 18: Revolt in East Pakistan
• Chapter 19: ‘The Document’
• Chapter 20: Prelude to Simla Agreement
• Chapter 21: Simla Agreement and After
• Chapter 22: Recognition of Bangladesh Repatriation of Prisoners of War
• Chapter 23: Normalisation of Relations
• Chapter 24: Pakistan and the Janata Party Government
• Chapter 25: Indira Gandhi’s Second Inning
• Chapter 26: Rajiv Gandhi and Zia-ul-Haq
• Chapter 27: Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto
• Chapter 28: India-Pakistan and Developments in Afghanistan
• Chapter 29: P.V. Narasimha Rao and Pakistan
• Chapter 30: Nuclearisation of India and Pakistan
• Chapter 31: NDA-I Government and Pakistan
• Chapter 32: Musharraf and the NDA Government
• Chapter 33: UPA Government and Pakistan
• Chapter 34: 26/11, Terrorism and Pakistan
• Epilogue
• Note on Sources
• References
• Index
• About the Author