The fact of the matter is that the Kashmir War was entirely winnable had Jinnah acted at the right time, i.e. October 10, 1947. It was still winnable had General Gracey allowed mobilisation when ordered by Jinnah

There is not much in Dr
Ishtiaq Ahmed’s response, ‘Did Jinnah know about the Kashmir War?’ (Daily Times, March 30, 2010) to my article, ‘Jinnah’s role in the Kashmir War’ (Daily Times, March 24, 2010) that actually addresses the issue of the lack of “overwhelming evidence” per se and, therefore, I have responded to him separately in the form of a letter to the editor (‘Jinnah and Kashmir’, Daily Times, April 4, 2010). He did take umbrage with my description of Jinnah as an adept poker player projecting invincibility where there was none. “Peculiar” and “original” are the adjectives he used. I must protest, however, that there was nothing original about my description. I merely restated the thesis of Dr Ayesha Jalal when I thus described Mr Jinnah.

Dr Ahmed writes: “I am convinced that if the Kashmir gamble had succeeded, Miss Jinnah, Soraya Khurshid, Yasser Hamdani and many others would have described it as yet another marvellous poker gambit of Jinnah. Our heroes never make a wrong move. If they do, we feign ignorance about it.” Had Dr Ahmed read my article carefully, he would have realised that in my opinion our hero did make a mistake, i.e. not being decisive enough to commit the Pakistan Army at the right time, which would have been any time after the Poonch revolt.

It is ironic that after basing his entire case on Major Amin’s comment that “one side was the Muslim League leaders like Shaukat Hayat (an ex-major), Iftikharuddin and Khurshid Anwar who had been ordered by Mr Jinnah to do something to help the Kashmiri Muslims…” which in any event is a stretch of the imagination, Ishtiaq Ahmed dismisses Amin’s conclusions about the war nonchalantly by saying: “That is the opinion of a military officer and an author. One need not concur with that.” In other words, we will agree with the opinion of a military officer — nay twist it and make it read like something quite different from what was actually suggested, but we need not concur with it where it does not suit us.

The fact of the matter is that the Kashmir War was entirely winnable had Jinnah acted at the right time, i.e. October 10, 1947. It was still winnable had General Gracey allowed mobilisation when ordered by Jinnah. Instead, the Indian Army was allowed to land and take over the Srinagar Airport. Kashmiri Prime Minister Mehr Chand Mahajan’s memoirs clearly show that the dispatch of troops by India actually came well before the document of accession. Mobilisation then would have meant Pakistan’s occupation of Kashmir similar to India’s occupation of Junagadh and Hyderabad. There is no way India could have intervened and still managed to secure Hyderabad and Junagadh.

So why did Jinnah not make that move at an opportune time? Well, primarily because Jinnah was limited by his own earlier contentions about Indian states. On May 21, 1947, Jinnah told Doon Campbell of Reuters:

“As regards our attitude towards Indian states, I may make it clear once more that the policy of the Muslim League has been and is not to interfere with the Indian states with regard to their internal affairs. But while we expect as rapid a progress as possible in the various states towards the establishment of full responsible government, it is primarily the concern of the ruler and his people.”

Jinnah had taken this position to safeguard the position of Hyderabad Deccan, which was a state the size of Belgium, and had aspirations of independence similar to those of Kashmir. It was alleged that Jinnah lost Kashmir when he refused to trade Kashmir for Hyderabad on Patel’s offer. This is actually hogwash. Jinnah lost Kashmir when he did not mobilise the Pakistan Army against the Maharaja of Kashmir, naively hoping that the Maharaja, who was averse to Nehru even more than he was to Jinnah, would sign a document of accession in Pakistan’s favour following the standstill agreement between the two states and this would leave Hyderabad and India to battle out their own issues. He had thus imagined Kashmir a ripe apple, which would naturally fall in his lap, leaving him to cry foul over Hyderabad legitimately when it logically was taken over by India. Here our hero miscalculated and that miscalculation has cost us dearly.

I do not deny being an admirer of Quaid-e-Azam — guilty as charged — but no thinking person can afford to be an unquestioning admirer. All I am saying is that we should criticise Jinnah for what he actually did wrong instead of imagining sins that were not of his making.

The writer can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com

(This controversy is now closed — Ed)

Source: Daily Times

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