In October 1947, the Quaid-i-Azam's private secretary, KH Khurshid, went to Srinagar – more than three years after he had left it at the age of twenty to work for the man in whose hands the Muslims of India had placed their fate and in whom they had invested their hopes. When he had left Srinagar, while still at college, he had told a friend that he would either die in the struggle for Pakistan or return only after Pakistan was established. In the three years that he had been away, his mother had died, but he had stayed with the Quaid. Khurshid had no assistants or helpers, except the student volunteers who dropped in to lend a hand on and off, but there was never a letter the Quaid received that was not answered nor a call that was not returned nor a visitor who was turned away. Khurshid also took care of all the Quaid's personal papers and the records of the Muslim League. How could one man do so much, one wonders, when one looks at the large establishments that the President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan maintain today. I have yet to see a letter sent to either of them to have received an answer.
In October 1947, things were moving at breakneck speed in Kashmir. The people of Poonch had risen in revolt against the racist Dogra regime. On 22 September, Maj Gen. Scott, commander of the Maharaja's army, resigned saying that the government was steadily losing control over large parts of the State. There was a sharp exchange of messages between the Pakistan government and the Maharaja's prime minister Mehr Chand Mahajan, with Pakistan warning against subverting the will of the people of Kashmir. The Quaid himself wrote to the Maharaja on 20 October, underscoring the "urgent necessity" of a meeting between Pakistani and State representatives to "smooth out difficulties." Mahajan was invited to Karachi. There was no response to this sincere and positive effort. Abdullah had already been released and was now the principal Indian asset in Kashmir. Patiala state forces had already flown into Srinagar of 17 October and tribesmen under the command of Khurshid Anwar had entered the State on 22 October. The massacre of the Muslims of Jammu was in full swing.
On 12 October, Khurshid wrote to the Quaid-i-Azam from Srinagar (the letter is now part of the Jinnah Papers that the admirable Prof Zawwar H Zaidi has been publishing in volume after volume), giving him his assessment of the situation in the State and making a number of recommendations. Khurshid wrote, "Events in Kashmir are moving very fast ever since the release of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as an act of 'Royal Clemency'. Other members of his party, who were either imprisoned or detained last year in connection with the 'Quit Kashmir' agitation, have also been released. But the Muslim Conference people continue to rot in jails." He added that Muslims who held any positions of significance in the State government had been got rid of and there were no longer any Muslim or European officers in the State army, all having been replaced by Hindu Dogra Rajputs.
Wrote Khurshid, "The position appears to be that the Maharaja is dead set against Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. He is reported to have said that even though his body be cut into seven hundred pieces, he would not accede to Pakistan. . . The State today is a hotbed of dirty court intrigues and all sorts of manouevres and machinations are going on (on) the part of the government to disrupt the Musalmans and suppress the popular feeling in favour of Pakistan." He reported that "every action of the government unmistakably points towards the road to Delhi." The deputy prime minister, he stated, was a Sardar Patel nominee. Abdullah had been released "with the sole aim of giving the impression to the outside world that Kashmir's accession to India, when announced, will have the support of the biggest political party in the State."
Khurshid informed the Quaid that work on the road connecting East Punjab and Jammu was going apace and another road, connecting Jammu to Srinagar, was also being built. Gasoline supplies, stopped by the Rawalpindi deputy commissioner (Khawaja Abdul Rahim, KTR's father), were now being flown in from Delhi. Dogra troops had been deployed all over the State and Gurkha and Sikh troops from India were said to be awaiting orders to move in. He warned that if the Srinagar-Rawalpindi road were blocked, Srinagar would be practically cut off in winter. There were clashes in Poonch as people had come to learn of the Maharaja's intentions. Khurshid told the Quaid that the Muslim Conference was "practically a dead organisation," with all its leaders either jailed or externed. "There is hardly anybody to carry on the work." He added, "But there is a very strong undercurrent of popular feeling in favour of Pakistan, to utilise and exploit which, there is nobody here. Spontaneous demonstrations are being held in different parts of the city and the State but there is nobody to mobilise these scattered elements."
Khurshid nailed the claim, which is made to this day by India, that Abdullah's National Conference, which had hardly any non-Muslim members, wanted accession to India, telling the Quaid that Abdullah's "followers feel that . . . the State should accede to Pakistan." That is why, he added, since his release, Abdullah had been making "equivocal" statements. He wrote, "I am personally of the opinion, Sir, that Pakistan must think in terms of fighting as far as Kashmir is concerned. The other side has practically not decided upon it but is ready for it. Diplomatic pressure has so far failed." He warned that even if a referendum were to be held and it were to go in favour of Pakistan, the Maharaja and India would not honour it. He asked that Pakistan should be ready to fight for Kashmir and not be caught unawares. He also asked the Quaid to issue a statement to clarify the Muslim League position vis-à-vis the Indian princely states.
Khurshid even suggested the wording of such a clarificatory statement, which included this passage, "The Muslim League has always stood for the right of self-determination of the people all over the world and it was this principle which framed the basis of (the) Pakistan demand by the Muslim League. This is a question entirely different from the interpretation of the position of the States under the (June 3) Plan . . . " Such a statement was never issued, but while under the Indian Independence Act and the June 3 Plan, the ruling princes were free to accede to either Dominion, it was always to be assumed that they would do so, not against the will, but in accordance with the wishes of their people. The Quaid-i-Azam, being the fair-minded person of goodwill that he was, assumed that this cardinal principle would be kept in view. The Quaid's ambivalence is also to be understood in view of the soft corner the Muslim League had for the Muslim-ruled States of Hyderabad and Bhopal. The fact, however, remains, that India in league with the Maharaja and the traitor Sheikh Abdullah had already taken the decision to annex Kashmir. Pakistan tried to block it but was just not strong enough to succeed.
By Khalid Hassan
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