Schofield Victoria. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War
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Diplomacy and War
peaceful methods to settle their differences and that neither should seek to
alter the status quo in Kashmir. Bhutto did not endorse the ‘no war’
declaration but gave the assurance that Pakistan did believe in peaceful
methods. ‘To have promoted the ‒ Indo-Pakistan talks and seen them
fail, had thus served the useful purpose of showing that further efforts of
the kind would not succeed,’ commented Sir Morrice James.
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From the Indians’ point of view, due to their vulnerability over China, the
‒ talks were one of the rare occasions when they were obliged to
depart from their established position over Kashmir: that discussion in
someway implied that the status of Jammu and Kashmir was in doubt. The
Pakistanis mistakenly hoped that Britain and the United States would withhold
the promised weapons to India in return for a more favourable outcome for
Pakistan over Kashmir, but it is unlikely that Nehru would have yielded to
such a threat. By possession of the best part of Kashmir was both
politically and psychologically too important, particularly when the Indian
public were still reacting to their army’s defeat by the Chinese.
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After the talks Nehru went to Srinagar where he noted how China’s attack
on India had given the Pakistanis an opportunity to revive the Kashmir
issue. But, he said: ‘Pakistan is mistaken if it thinks it can intimidate us
because we are facing this threat from the Chinese.’ The new relationship
between China and Pakistan meant, however, that the Pakistanis also felt
inclined to speak from a position of strength: ‘Attack from India on Pakistan
today is no longer confined to the security and territorial integrity of Pakistan,’
said Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan’s National Assembly in July . ‘An
attack by India on Pakistan involves the territorial integrity and security of
the largest state in Asia.
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He also made the dramatic statement: ‘Kashmir
is to Pakistan what Berlin is to the West’ and warned that, since the conflict
threatened peace and security of the world, ‘it was an issue hanging heavily
on the conscience of mankind.’
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Amongst the Kashmiris watching as Pakistan and India discussed their
future were those who were discontented with the status quo, but not yet in
a strong enough position to do anything about it. One of this older generation
of activists was Amanullah Khan. Born in Astor near Gilgit and educated in
Srinagar, he and some colleagues reacted to the discussion on the partition
of Kashmir by forming an organisation called the Kashmir Independence
Committee. ‘We suggested that if there has got to be some sort of deviation
from plebiscite, from the right of self-determination, it should not be the
division of Kashmir, it should be the independence of the whole state.’
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The talks failed and the Committee was later disbanded. But, says Amanullah
Khan, it was the first time the Kashmiri nationalists in exile in Pakistan
began to think seriously about independence.
In October the Government of Pakistan once more referred the
question of Kashmir to the Security Council and, in the Spring of , the
issue was debated for the th time in fifteen years. On his way to New
