The son of the former Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, Dr. Karan Singh, has become embroiled in a dispute between Congress and the BJP. However, the entire conflict is being fought based on impressions, leaving facts dead in the water.
While this was going on, Mountbatten was eager to put an end to the fighting between the two armies, which were both led by British officers and from British Commonwealth nations. He stroked Nehru’s vanity by saying that he would raise the status of India around the world if he agreed to refer the Kashmir issue to the UN.
In response to Mountbatten’s idea, Nehru informed him that making such a claim would be equivalent to accusing Pakistan of waging war in Kashmir. Even though it accused Pakistan of aggression, an Indian reference to Kashmir was welcomed in Karachi because India believed that it would internationalize the conflict and give Pakistan a foothold in Kashmir.
Nehru, who had not yet decided whether to bring the matter to the UN, appeared adamant and sent a warning to Pakistan on December 22, 1947, ordering it to cease all support for the raiders or else India would be free to discharge their commitments to the government and the people of India.
Mountbatten’s evaluation and reports from the front lines prodded Nehru to visit the UN.
The news from the front lines was confusing Nehru in the meantime. He wrote to Mountbatten that the situation was serious and that a huge number of the enemy are entering Kashmir at several locations, which demonstrated that Pakistan was advancing with all its strength rather than stopping the invasion. With their scream of “Dilli Chalo,” the enormous groups that were amassing on the West Punjab border, in his opinion, posed an imminent risk of an invasion of India proper.
Nehru mentioned the difficulties the Indian forces in Kashmir were under in a letter he wrote to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee on December 28, 1947. He was obviously confused because the Army had apparently had some failures in Kashmir.
Considering that Mountbatten had informed London—over the head of the GOI—through the British High Commission that there was an immediate threat that Indian troops would suffer a significant military defeat in the Uri and Naoshera fronts, his assessment of the conflict was also concerning.
India made mistakes in the UN for which it paid a price for many years.
Nehru reportedly made the decision to visit the United Nations with the expectation that these unfavorable circumstances
It would put an end to the conflict and stabilize everything. But after going to the UN, India made another tactical error by proposing that the Kashmir dispute be resolved through a plebiscite run by the UN. By accepting this offer, New Delhi ceded its sovereign authority to a third party. In a single stroke, Pakistan, the aggressor, was placed on an equal footing with the other party to the dispute as Kashmir became a global concern.
India got itself into a pickle, from which it has had trouble getting out. Domestically, it implemented policies that separated Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of India rather than integrating the (then) state and its inhabitants, leaving a gap in their way of life.
India completely lost the plot once Nehru traveled to the UN due to his lack of desire for conflict. The problem became global, and over time, even the entire world gave up on it. However, it is a current topic in domestic politics, and it is frequently brought up again to meet those demands. The 2019 repeal of Kashmir’s special status has created a new arena for conflict in the nation’s fractured politics.
News Mania Desk
