357.AB/8–3050: Telegram

The Ambassador in Pakistan ( Warren ) to the Secretary of State

secret
priority

217. Having been on tour in the Punjab for four days sampling public opinion, I did not see the Department’s 114, August 23,1 until my return to Karachi evening 28th. I have subsequently seen a copy of Delhi’s 491 August 28 and yesterday evening I had a conversation regarding Kashmir, arranged at my request, with Zafrullah.

To my question as to what he thought the next step should be, what he thought could now be done, Zafrullah replied there was no question in his mind or in the collective mind of his government that the next step would have to be taken in the SC with the active backing of the US, because both Pakistan and India realize that the American attitude will determine whether any settlement is possible at this juncture.

[Page 1430]

Once the two parties had been brought together by the mediator, their differences exposed, it will then be necessary examine those differences and to draw up and require both parties to accept a program of action whereby the wishes of the population of Jammu and Kashmir will be freely determined, and to make it clear that failure of such acceptance by either party will invite the censure and discipline of the UK

In adverting to conversations that he and I had had separately with Dixon about the possibility of direct negotiations on the working, political level between India and Pakistan, Zafrullah said it was by calculation that the Pakistan High Commissioner at Delhi was a weak person; otherwise he would not have been acceptable to India. He had therefore discounted to Dixon the practicability of exploring a solution in Cabinet circles in India based on the assumption that Nehru had doublecrossed his Cabinet in his arbitrary rejection of Dixon’s last proposal.

Zafrullah feels that if an intelligence report he received on Sunday, that Patel had been charged with the Kashmir problem, is correct, it may be anticipated that incidents will be provoked which will eliminate Abdullah’s Government, and that the same procedure will be followed in the area that was adopted so successfully by Patel in his handling of Hyderab State.2

Therefore the Pakistanis, who apparently do not expect Dixon to include recommendations in his report but to confine himself to factual presentation of the course of his negotiations, will seize upon Nehru’s rejection of the terms proposed for an overall plebiscite as well as his summary rejection of the proposed terms for a partial plebiscite in the Vale after an agreed-upon partition of Jammu and Ladakh, and will press in the SC for a decision that would require both India and Pakistan to review their attitudes as presented to Dixon and to accept and implement his subsequent recommendations.

On the reasonable assumption that Zafrullah knows what he is doing in ruling out practicability of working-level negotiations in Delhi, I feel that the procedure he suggests represents the best available course of action, even though it carries the possibility of prolonged debate in the SC and would enable India to use its council membership to further delay effective progress toward the holding of a plebiscite. Zafrullah in discussing Kashmir possibilities with acting UK High Commissioner on Monday, said he anticipated no hasty action and believed six months period might be necessary to work out an acceptance by India of Dixon’s plebiscite, whole or partial, proposals. [Page 1431] In my opinion any great delay in reaching a solution will be dangerous, firstly because the tribesmen are already holding meetings to demand action and may soon decide to take action themselves, and secondly because the probability that the Chinese Communists may soon control Tibet3 and reach the borders of Ladakh greatly increases the risk of Communist infiltration into Kashmir.

With Delhi’s belief that a partial partition plus plebiscite in the Vale is now the best solution, I am in full agreement, as well as with its suggestions re pre-plebiscite propaganda and return of refugees. I must say, however, that I see no possibility that Pakistan would accept any procedure that would leave Indian forces in the Vale, or leave to Abdullah’s stooge government the slightest possibility of bringing pressure on the local population either before or during the balloting. Since Delhi feels “It would be useless to propose a plan completely abolishing the Abdullah government during the plebiscite”, it will be imperative to convince Pakistan that whatever facade of his government remains is in fact powerless to influence the outcome of the voting.

Sent Department 217; repeated info New Delhi 22.

Warren
  1. See footnote 1, supra.
  2. For documentation on the dispute between India and Pakistan over Hyderabad in 1948, see Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. v, Part 1, pp. 265 ff.
  3. For documentation on Tibet, see vol. vi, pp. 256 ff.