AleOv Aziz took Parwana through the dense, high-altitude meadows of the Yous Maidan, across the landmines separating the armies of India and Pakistan, and into a bomb-maker’s workshop. The Srinagar resident had gone to Rawalpindi to ask her father for the hand of her beloved Atika Bano, she later told incredible police officer, According to custom, a bride price was to be paid: explosives which he would plant at the Palladium Cinema, the Hind Kashmir Hotel and the Alochi Bagh bridge.
“We have the clout to deal with an unofficial war-torn state,” former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru Rumored, “but a war nonetheless.”
Exactly 70 years ago this month, in the summer of 1953, Prime Minister Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Ali Bogra, launched a now-forgotten effort to negotiate peace in Kashmir. The failure of the 1953 peace talks would lead to the Parwana bombing campaign in 1957, the 1965, 1971 and 1999 wars, the 2001–2002 and 2019 crises, as well as the prolonged jihad that began in 1988.
As it is today, Pakistan was facing an economic downturn, and there was a dire need to cut down on military spending. Like Bogra, former Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa pushed for peace With India – but could not sign on to the status quo in Kashmir.
war after war
Pakistani army conducted a covert operation against India in Kashmir despite the end of the 1947–1948 war. Kashmir police claimed that a cell led by Salim Jahangir Khan, a Srinagar resident who worked for Pakistani military intelligence, sent 643 improvised explosive devices and 666 hand grenades. Later, in 1951, several government roads and bridges were set on fire in Akar, Nagarnag, Kangan, Sagipora and Singhpora.
Fourteen conspirators were eventually prosecuted for the attacks, nine of whom were convicted. Those accused who could not be prosecuted included Abbas Ali Shah, the superintendent of police in Rawalpindi, and Major Asghar Ali Shah, an army officer serving in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Major-General Akbar Khan, the architect of the campaign to capture Srinagar in 1947, claimed to have been tasked after the war by Pakistani President Iskandar Mirza to set up a secret force that would “remove unsafe bridges, isolated cables and unsafe transport”. could target. The force, Major-General Akbar claimed to have been told by Prime Minister Malik Firoz Khan Noon, later became operational under the command of Deputy Inspector General Mian Anwar Ali.
The memoirs of former Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, Lieutenant General Gul Hasan Khan, record that these efforts were not confined to Kashmir, The general wrote that through an air transport service based in Australia, Pakistan supplied small arms to the Imperial Army fighting Indian troops in Hyderabad.
From Major-General Akbar’s account, it appears that the designers of the covert campaign hoped that it would precipitate a crisis that would require renewed international intervention. threatened to do exactly the same.
In the summer of 1951, violence broke out near the cease-fire line. two Indian soldiers Historian Srinath Raghavan They were ambushed, their bodies were dragged into Pakistan-occupied territory. Three more Indian soldiers were killed days later. In late June, a group of raiders attacked villages 15 kilometers inside Indian territory. Indian military intelligence reported that a division was being moved from Peshawar to Rawlakot.
In early July that year, India responded by moving the 1st Armored Division from Meerut to Punjab, along with the 4th Infantry Division and the 2nd Independent Armored Brigade. Additional troops were deployed along the border with East Pakistan.
The coming war, Nehru thought, “would be neither short nor gentle.” Instead, he predicted “a bitter struggle fueled by suppressed hatreds”.
Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, realized that he had gone too far and pulled back his troops. However the story was not complete.
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summer of hope
Entering the 1953 harvest season, Historian Christopher Cleary Note, Pakistan faced severe economic crisis. The sterling reserves it had inherited from the United Kingdom at the time of independence were almost exhausted. The foreign exchange crisis forced Pakistan to sharply reduce imports. In turn, this stopped tariffs, the main source of government revenue. To make things worse, the lack of water made food shortages more likely.
Despite all the talk of jihad on Kashmir, Pakistan’s leaders knew that the country needed to reduce military spending. It meant seeking peace.
Under the leadership of the ethnic-Bengali politician Bogra, who became Pakistan’s third prime minister, the country acceded to India in the summer of 1953. This proposal led to a three-day conference in London, where both sides were to present their proposals. to end the deadlock.
“Features of the first day’s meeting [a] Long historical monologue by Nehru which started before Alexander the Great [and] The end of the day was not reached by the British period,” lamented John Emerson, the United States in charge a diplomatic telegram,
The following month, at the invitation of Bogra, Nehru visited Karachi to take forward the talks. It seemed to Nehru that the Pakistani leaders were desperate. He wrote, “His appeal to me was plaintive, even desperate.” in a letter Ghulam Muhammad Bakshi, powerful Kashmiri politician.
To US Ambassador to India Chester Bowles, it appeared as though Prime Minister Nehru was “determined”. [to] Avoid compromise. instead, Ambassador Bowles speculatedPrime Minister will continue [to] avoid coming [to] catches up with [the] status on [the] general principles [that] If it allows drift, [the] The present situation in Kashmir can be slowly accepted.
Even though India was willing to settle on a division of Kashmir at what is today called the Line of Control, it was impossible for Bogra to push the idea through his cabinet. To make things worse, army chief General Muhammad Ayub Khan—soon to become the country’s military ruler—had growing influence over political decision-making.
The talks in Karachi ended with an agreement to appoint a new referendum administrator – inter alia, empowered determine temperament Indian and Pakistani troops preceded the referendum, however, within months, the two countries were debating the nationality of the referendum administrator and the territorial basis on which a vote would be conducted.
In late 1953, the US decided to extend military aid to Pakistan, leading to indignation in India.
Since 1955, the influential diplomat Escott Reid enteredNehru began by saying that the only solution was to make the ceasefire line of the 1947–1948 war “permanent with minor adjustments”, which would result in Pakistan getting one-third of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and India two-thirds. ,
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living past
Memoirs of General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Diplomat Satinder Lamba Unveiled earlier this year, it came closest to realizing exactly one version of the formula that both countries could live with. However, the grim events of 26/11 made it clear that the Pakistan Army’s top leadership was unhappy with the prospect. Various iterations of the same idea were shelved from 1971 onwards, for reasons not unknown to Musharraf and Singh.
After the failure of the Karachi talks, Nehru moved to consolidate his direct control over Kashmir, dismissing the government of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Later, the state government accused Abdullah of violently overthrowing the Indian government.
where did it go kashmir conspiracy case It dragged on till 1963 amid bitter controversy. Then, the theft of a relic from the Hazratbal temple caused an explosion of political frustration across the kingdom. Nehru was compelled to release Abdullah. Subsequently, in 1973, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Abdullah signed a pact that returned him to power – only to have the deal eroded by violence less than two decades later.
Like Abdullah, many of the actors in the violent theater that erupted after 1947 found themselves embroiled in the tumult. Salim Jahangir was finally arrested in 1961 for orchestrating the 1948 bomb plot and tried in the Kashmir Conspiracy Case. However, the prosecution collapsed and Salim was released in 1968. He established a poultry farm—which, in his old age, became a training base for a new jihadist group, al-Fatah.
In Kashmir, the past Is The present—a grave catastrophe from which there seems to be no escape.
The writer is National Security Editor with ThePrint. He tweeted @praveenswami. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)