Azad Kashmir claim on Gilgit Baltistan

[Saiyan0321]

That is very fine, but amounts to saying that we are doing so and so in 2020 because in 1947, we thought of 2020, and acted such and such.

It absolutely does not. It truly does highlight that they simply thought of 1947 and saw the revolutionary government and its recognition as whom for all of Kashmir the only way whole of Kashmir could join with Pakistan. They knew very well that recognizing the azad government as only rulers of poonch and adjoining areas in contrast to the claims of azad government which claimed itself over all of princely state would be detrimental the stance of Pakistan and azad government. Have no clue where 2020 came into this. They were backing the azad claim and they were throwing their weight behind a government opposite to the Dogra. Simple.

There remains, of course, that the people of Kashmir did not revolt; the people of Sudanauti and the people of Gilgit did. No one else. No one in Jammu, no one in Baltistan, and no one in Ladakh.

Minor matter of semantics, of course.

Many in baltistan would disagree with you as many not only aided the arriving gilgit scouts but joined up with them. The contingent fortified themselves in skardu fort and saw growing pressure due to the support of the people for chitrali and gilgot forces and many joined them, boosting their numbers and take great pride in joining them. Tell me is this not revolt? Is supporting another force and joining them to capture skardu fort and then advance on leh not showing their decisions. Its an insult to them to declare that they meekly morphed into the will of the conqueror. They fought the suzerainty of Sikhs and dogea before and they fought them again. Just because the area didn't independently started a revolt doesn't mean that it didn't aid the battle for baltistan nor does it mean that they were amiable to dogra rule. The dogra were so oppressive that none of these regions wanted them. This attitude of declaring those that joined us either as traitors or rebels or conquered sheeps is one of the major reasons why the region hates you guys. They take it as insult since many take great pride in their struggle for freedom from the Sikh, dogra and the British and mid to late 1800s mid 1930s and 1947 are their romanticized periods.

 

[Saiyan0321]

The difference being that the Azad Kashmir Government had claims to a revolutionary status, whereas the Maharaja was recognised by the constitutional authority that had itself created the Dominion of Pakistan. So while the Azad Kashmir Government making a claim is understandable, the Government of Pakistan legitimising such a claim effectively undermines, not the position of the Azad Kashmir Government, but the position of the Dominion of Pakistan.

Doesn't matter if it was. Pakistan as a sovereign state had every legal right to recognize a revolutionary government. Did you guys create a provisional government for junagadh whilst blockading it and provided legitimacy to that government, an area which was again recognized by the state that created India and whose acceding was recognized by the state it acceded to. Why was that allowed? Simply because India as a sovereign state which had not provides demure recognition to the state of junagadh or its government as a separate state could take such an action.

Pakistan lessened nothing of its position. It recognized the government that it saw held the will of the people. You can argue whether it did or not or whether the dogra held power but we disagree and hold our view that the revolutionary government was the rightful government of the princely state and it's actions in 1949 were perfectly legal.

 

[Saiyan0321]

I see this as two equal parties fighting on the same grounds for recognition, with the added refinements that one party was a break-away faction of the other, and that the other party had the support of the still-existent and still-ruling former constitutional authority. Let us not forget that the Muslim Conference was nothing but a splinter of the National Conference; it renamed itself in opposition to the Sheikh's acknowledgement of secularism and rejection of parochial affiliations. Let us also not forget that while the Azad Kashmir Government fought tenaciously and successfully for its sliver of territory, it never ever had effective control over the rest.

And that is the jist Two governments recognized, two parties and the states that backed them. Perhaps they may have solved the problem if left alone but now it is our domain. Add to the MOX the complicated nature of the princely state i.e the territories only made it more complicated. Who knows it was better otherwise China would have gobled all of these pieces up or even the state itself. Neither pakistan nor India would have done anything about.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Bangladesh was actually fertilized in August 1947 but gestation took another 24 years before it was born in 1971 after a difficult delivery.

That's as brutally honest as it gets. Classic Kaptaan clear-eyed realism. He's got a built-in bullshit filter.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Did you guys create a provisional government for junagadh whilst blockading it and provided legitimacy to that government, an area which was again recognized by the state that created India and whose acceding was recognized by the state it acceded to.

No, India DID NOT recognise the Aarzee Hukumat. I do not question your integrity, but the situation was far more complicated than that. There was also no blockade. There was a military support given to vassal states under the suzerainty of Junagadh, that had an independent right to decide their own accession, and there was never an Indian soldier within Junagadh until the Dewan, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, handed over the keys to a totally unconnected (and totally bemused) Indian administrator present on a completely different mission in the neighbourhood, and took a fast boat to Karachi.

Junagadh was not the tragedy that Kashmir was, it was a farce.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Wouldn't this last move not make a referendum a must, either that or an armed uprising.?

This requires some elaboration.

Art. 370 was a temporary provision of the Indian Constitution, and there is nothing in the J&K Constitution, drafted by a native Constituent Assembly of residents of J&K, that supports this Article.

It was drafted to provide for an alignment of the actions of the J&K administration, working under the Ranbir Code of that state, with the actions prompted by laws of the Indian parliament, until the passing into law of the J&K Constitution, that was finalised in 1956.

The point is very clear; the Indian Constitution had been finalised, and the J&K Constitution was still under intense discussion. So the Indian legislature that the Indian Constituent Assembly had designed might pass laws, applicable to a state that had not yet formed its constitution, that might clash with what finally emerged, unless there was a mechanism to align the laws passed by the Indian legislature with the current practices of the J&K administration.

This is what the Article provided, and obviously it was intended for use as long as the J&K Constitution was under drafting. Once it was finalised, obviously the provisions of the two would be aligned; any misalignment would be ironed out by amending laws. So the Article provided for coordination of the laws of India with the actions of the J&K administration.

It needs to be emphasised that the Article was temporary, intended for the gap between the passing of the Indian Constitution and the passing of the J&K Constitution, some time in the future.

It was always to have been removed. It was not by any means a guarantee of the autonomy of the state of J&K. It was to have been removed by the Indian legislature once the J&K Constituent Assembly informed it that the work of drafting the J&K Constitution was over.

Since that was accidentally not done, there was a legal deadlock. The Art. 370 could not be rescinded; the J&K Constituent Assembly had not informed the Indian legislature formally as required.

That was all it was about. Nothing to do with autonomy and its preservation.

So why did we react with outrage?

Because of the grossly illegal way in which this was removed, and because of the grotesque disregard of the rights of the J&K residents to set right their own laws. It is this rank disgrace that needs to be set right.

I hope that this explanation helps.

@Kaptaan @Saiyan0321

 

[Joe Shearer]

Many in baltistan would disagree with you as many not only aided the arriving gilgit scouts but joined up with them. The contingent fortified themselves in skardu fort and saw growing pressure due to the support of the people for chitrali and gilgot forces and many joined them, boosting their numbers and take great pride in joining them.

I would agree with you on the narrative as presented by you, but for some factual difficulties. There is not a single contemporary account of such a spontaneous joining of the Gilgit-Chitral contingent by the natives of Skardu. What is recorded is the siege (for a very long duration) of the State forces penned inside the Skardu fort by the Gilgit-Chitral forces that were left to do this, while another group captured Kargil and besieged Leh, the surrender of Col. Thapa (an officer of the State forces) and his men, and the imprisonment of Col. Thapa while his comrades were massacred in cold blood. Nowhere, in any account, and I have read many, is there any account that you have mentioned.

It is possible that there was such support at that time; this cannot be denied absolutely. But was there any account then, or are these accounts post-facto romanticisation of the situation? I am entitled to raise this question because so many other events have been airbrushed over by subsequent confected memory: the murder and pillage after 26th October 1947 in Baramula, and, much worse, in Rajauri, for example. If you want a counter-narrative, it can be provided. There are still living survivors of those days, Muslim Paharis, not pre-disposed Dogras or Kashmiri Pandits (who were not at all absolutely pro-India: Ramchandra Kak is a notable example).

I would be circumspect about contemporary memories of such heroic exploits, but then, we must each choose what we think is substantive evidence.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Its an insult to them to declare that they meekly morphed into the will of the conqueror. They fought the suzerainty of Sikhs and dogea before and they fought them again. Just because the area didn't independently started a revolt doesn't mean that it didn't aid the battle for baltistan nor does it mean that they were amiable to dogra rule.

There are some points of note here.

It may or may not be an insult to declare that they meekly morphed (sic) into the will of the conqueror, to use your words. That deemed insult is not sufficient reason to create a back-story that provides for a heroic resistance; if there was such a resistance, there should have been some record somewhere.

Further, it is perfectly correct to state, as you have stated, that the absence of an independent revolt does not mean that the region did not rise in support of the external Gilgit-Chitral forces; true enough, but the absence of any evidence of the presence of a murderer at the scene of the crime does not mean that he (or she) might not have been there. How can one disprove what never happened?

As for the amiability towards Dogra rule, is that not an extrapolation of the events, and the consequent sentiments of the inhabitants of the cis-Pamir Khanates and of the residents of Sudanauti towards the Dogras? Are we over-extending by pasting the feelings of one region onto the residents of another? If the Dogras had been uniformly beastly, there might be a trace of this in Ladakh, for instance; there is none.

You do realise what I am implying, of course; it is remarkable that all areas under Pakistani administration are found uniformly to have suffered under the Dogras, but that is not so universal in those areas under Indian administration.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Kaptaan
@Saithan
@Saiyan0321

The discussion is getting somewhat intense. Let it be clearly understood that my own position is constituted of the following elements;

1. My essential position is that the rule of law should prevail; this necessarily militates against the theory of revolutionary constitutionalism put forward in opposition, but that should fairly be understood as a conceptual opposition, not a personal one.
2. The role of those of us who are not actors must be to reflect that complete reality that is available to us, without additional application of gilt and silver-leaf. The reflection is obviously of that which is available to us; we can hardly reflect what we do not know. Such a reflection has been my effort, and it may be indulged as such.
3. The actions of Government of India from 2014 onwards in particular and from 1947 in general are not the subject of discussion. While I personally oppose root and branch whatever abominations have been inflicted by the present dispensation, what has been placed before you above has to do with the events and occurrences of the past. We cannot reinterpret the past in the light of the present; that is an egregious historiographic fallacy that is widely recognised in the trade.
4. There is so little knowledge about the details of those days that some fairly robust urban legends have taken root in the minds of people on both sides of the Radcliffe Line. The weird orc-legends of contemporary Indian imagining in social media is a phenomenon that has the potential to launch a thousand doctoral attempts. In my personal view, a grasp of contemporary, unsubstantiated garbage is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for either comment or for citation as evidence.

It has been a robust discussion, but personally, my interventions have been totally clinical, being devoid of imagination or infatuation. If some of my expositions of what I see to be the facts weighs on anyone's mind, it may be time for me to explore other threads.

Please let me know if any of you find my responses to be inappropriate.

 

[KKF 2.0]

Here is a fact for you to chew. The British had sold, literally sold Kashmir to the antecedent of the Maharajah which then was signed over the the said Maharajah to India. Majority of Kashmiri's don't feel, don't want to be Indians. They share precious little with India. Thus the massive use of Indian military to muzzle the Kashmiri's and just blame everything on Pakistan. Until yesterday the entire political class of Kashmir was locked up.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Amritsar that followed in March 1846, the British government sold Kashmir for a sum of 7.5 million Nanakshahee rupees to Gulab Singh, hereafter bestowed with the title of Maharaja.

Farooq Abdullah Says 'Kashmiris Do Not Feel Indian, Today They'd Rather Have the Chinese Rule Them - ex Chief Minister​

Kashmiris don't feel they are Indian, would prefer being ruled by China: Ex J&K CM Farooq Abdullah

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has said that the people of Kashmir do not feel Indian and would prefer being ruled by China.

www.timesnownews.com

I don't want to go off-topic but what's the opinion of other Muslim groups and minorities in India with regards to Kashmir? How do they see Kashmiris? Is the Indian identitiy stronger in communities who are not in close proximitiy to the Pakistani border?

 

[Saiyan0321]

No, India DID NOT recognise the Aarzee Hukumat. I do not question your integrity, but the situation was far more complicated than that. There was also no blockade. There was a military support given to vassal states under the suzerainty of Junagadh, that had an independent right to decide their own accession, and there was never an Indian soldier within Junagadh until the Dewan, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, handed over the keys to a totally unconnected (and totally bemused) Indian administrator present on a completely different mission in the neighbourhood, and took a fast boat to Karachi.

Junagadh was not the tragedy that Kashmir was, it was a farce.

Now that sounds like what we do is right, what you do is wrong. That's not how it works. Was your cabinet not contemplating a full invasion and felt that military solution was the only solution and Mountbatten had to pursuade them? Didn't sardar Patel's memoirs record that when presented with this situation the only other recourse was to create a provisional government from scratch functioning from indian soil by denouncing the current regime in junagadh? That's above defacto recognition even. All princely states had a form of defacto recognition. Your guys provided recognition to the provisional. It may be above defacto on nature but was minimum defacto.
Did Jinnah not send a formal protest to Mountbatten and highlight Indian aggression and receive an ultimatum from him which was either give back the accession or face consequence a clear threat?

Didn't nathwani write a declaration based on behalf of"subjects of junagadh"

Sorry but this is hollow stuff and no it was not complicated. It was setup government, act aggressively and then annex the region.

As for Kashmir and balti rebellion. The region would not have fallen without local support. This is set in stone. Its sad that there is little research on this but what can we do. Stories are dying. Perhaps one day accounts will be written.

You cannot ignore revolutionary constitutionalism Joe. That is a complicated branch of international law but it perhaps maybe the most oldest form of it and its history has multiple precedents.

 

[Saiyan0321]

@Joe Shearer don't worry about it. Look the way I see it both countries put their hand in the cookie jar and and since the said countries were found by lawyers, they stretched the law as much as they can to gain legal and moral ground for their actions. This is what happened so where one side sees blame the other sees justification and both sides did that and took similar actions wherever it was necessary and justified it as much as they could.

No intensity, no blaming. Its all chilled out. Frankly I think we have made our positions clear. We are gonna go into circles now. Stop worrying. Its all fine.

On a lighter note when was the last time you guys had a discussion with a mod on extreme opposing views and he didnr start deleting posts and issuing bans.

Anyhow its all fine Joe.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Now that sounds like what we do is right, what you do is wrong. That's not how it works.

This is not a negotiation, and was not a negotiation then. If one party has aspirations that cannot be met, and decides to overthrow the traces and seek its goals notwithstanding whatever had previously been agreed, it is in no way incumbent on the other party to agree to this immediate recasting of the circumstances.

Again, I emphasise that I am going by the original arrangements; if India did not violate them, and if Pakistan did, in what way are we bound to say that this is not how it works? Effectively, that means that whatever suits Pakistan works 'that way', whatever does not is immediately subject to critical revision. In the terms of Cold War diplomacy of the Soviet Union's type, "What is mine is mine; what is yours is negotiable."

THAT is not how it works, either, and it is time that Pakistan stopped trying to fit every situation to that model and seek its advantage and achievement of whatever treasured outcome it feels. Not happening.

This shedding of strategic restraint, which is something that I deeply support, but which is ineffective against an obdurate and unyielding, not to mention unreasonable adversary, is perhaps the only plus point of the fascist government that now rules us. Perhaps when democracy is restored, we might hold on to this refusal to be browbeaten at every turn.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Was your cabinet not contemplating a full invasion and felt that military solution was the only solution and Mountbatten had to pursuade them?

No.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Mountbatten had to pursuade them

Since Mountbatten's role has been mentioned, he made it clear that any state with no contiguity to the Dominion of its choice would be constrained from seeking any alliance of that sort (alliance = accession, in the first instance). So Jodhpur had a right to seek accession to Pakistan, and the matter went to the wire before that unstable prince could be persuaded to remain with India. So, too, Hyderabad was informed (by Mountbatten) that neither its warm and cordial outreach to Pakistan would be entertained, nor would its bid for independence be entertained by the British. There were pockets in the United Provinces that were also dissuaded from any bid to merge with Pakistan due to this factor of contiguity. Not our point, it was that of the British. Mountbatten was merely a pawn, and faithfully filled his role, far from insinuations of a different nature.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Didn't sardar Patel's memoirs record that when presented with this situation the only other recourse was to create a provisional government from scratch functioning from indian soil by denouncing the current regime in junagadh?

Unlike the parallel sought to be drawn, there was no recognition accorded, nor - the Arzee Hukumat being located outside the state - was there military intervention or armed uprising. The recourse to arms is - I use the present tense advisedly - a Pakistani hallmark. Siachen was the exception that proves the rule.

 

[Joe Shearer]

That's above defacto recognition even. All princely states had a form of defacto recognition.

Not at all. It was a formal, constitutional treaty-bound status. The princes were in formal terms associated with the British Crown. The Viceroy was Viceroy insofar as he represented the British monarch, hence the term Viceroy; it is noteworthy that he continued, all along, to be the Governor-General with respect to those territories ruled directly by the British as a consequence of their formal agency relationship with the Mughal Empire. So it was not a de facto recognition; it was starkly de jure.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Did Jinnah not send a formal protest to Mountbatten and highlight Indian aggression and receive an ultimatum from him which was either give back the accession or face consequence a clear threat?

This is precisely what happened, and this is precisely what should have happened, in terms of the principle of contiguity. The same principle prevented the NWFP from joining India, a position that every Pakhtun should be extremely sensitive to.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Sorry but this is hollow stuff and no it was not complicated. It was setup government, act aggressively and then annex the region.

Where was the aggression? Not a soldier in sight, and it is termed aggression? Further, the authority to rule was handed over by the Dewan, presumably acting on behalf of his principal, the Nawab; so, what annexation? M. N. Buch, the befuddled recipient of the 'keys to the kingdom', had no idea that he was to receive this signal distinction, of receiving the vested authority of the state, and it is difficult to put this on all fours with the annexation that was conducted in some of the 17 cases of accession to Pakistan. Kalat is a prominent example; there were others.

 

[Joe Shearer]

As for Kashmir and balti rebellion. The region would not have fallen without local support.

I acknowledge the confidence with which this statement is made, but

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint and heard great argument
About it and about, but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.