Schofield Victoria. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War
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Accession
regarding accession should be completed but that it should only be temporary,
prior to ‘a referendum, plebiscite, election or even, if these methods were
impracticable, by representative public meetings.’
23
As a first step towards
popular government, Nehru wanted provision to be made for Sheikh Abdullah
in the maharaja’s government. According to Nehru’s biographer, Sarvepalli
Gopal, at the meeting, neither Nehru nor Patel ‘attached any importance’ to
Mountbatten’s insistence on temporary accession.
24
The sequence of events from the moment the maharaja requested help
from the Government of India on October to the time when Indian
troops arrived on October has been a subject of debate ever since. The
official account relies heavily on the memoirs of V. P. Menon who, at the
Defence Committee meeting, was instructed to ‘fly to Srinagar immediately
in order to study the situation on the spot and to report to the Government
of India.’ When he reached Srinagar airfield on October Menon recorded:
‘I was oppressed by the stillness as of a graveyard all around. Over everything
hung an atmosphere of impending calamity . . . The Maharaja was completely
unnerved by the turn of events and by his sense of lone helplessness. There
were practically no State forces left and the raiders had almost reached the
outskirts of Baramula.’
25
Menon first met prime minister Mahajan, and then
went to the maharaja’s palace. Menon gives no details of their discussions,
but merely states that their first priority was to get the maharaja and his
family out of Srinagar. Captain Dewan Singh, the maharaja’s ADC, recalls:
‘Menon said to the maharaja: “It would be foolhardy for you to stay in
Srinagar when the raiders are so near. They could capture you and get any
statement from you.” So, on the advice of Menon, he left Srinagar and came
to Jammu.’
26
Karan Singh was with his parents as they fled from Srinagar:
The subsequent events are a jumble in my mind – the servants frantically rushing
around . . . It was bitterly cold as the convoy pulled out of the palace in the early
hours of the morning. The raiders were pouring in from across the border,
pillaging, looting and raping as they came, and there were rumours that the road
to Jammu had been cut and that we were likely to be ambushed on the way . . .
All through that dreadful night we drove, slowly, haltingly, as if reluctant to
leave the beautiful valley that our ancestors had ruled for generations. Our convoy
crawled over the , ft Banihal Pass just as first light was beginning to break.
According to Victor Rosenthal, Hari Singh’s friend and confidant, the
departing maharaja did not speak at all throughout the journey. Only as he
arrived at his palace in Jammu that evening, he said: ‘We have lost Kashmir.’
27
In the years to come, Hari Singh’s flight from Srinagar was used by his critics
as a reason for stating that he had no right to take the decision to accede
to India because he was no longer in control of his state.
As the maharaja departed from Srinagar on the treacherous journey to
Jammu, V. P. Menon went to the State Guest House to have ‘a little rest’.