Conversation with Mr. Jinnah
Roedad Khan
"I called upon Mr. Jinnah this morning (December 9, 1947)", wrote Sir L. Grafftey Smith, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, in Karachi, in a secret and a confidential despatch addressed to Mr. Noel Baker at the Foreign Office in London, "to welcome him back to Karachi after his long absence in Lahore. There have been alarming reports about his state of health, and I was relieved to find that he was not notably more feeble than before he went away five week ago. He is of course, wispily frail in body, but he seemed to be completely master of his nerves. The fire of his fanatical ardour is certainly in no way diminished. Mr. Jinnah developed, not for the first time, his personal opinion - (which has acquired the strength of an obsession) - that Lord Mountbatten is the person most directly responsible for the tragic events which followed on partition. He recalled the detailed information given in early July last to the Viceroy, and to the leaders of both parties, regarding the sinister intentions of the Sikhs rulers of Patiala and Faridkot, and of Master Tara Singh, and the general agreement then reached that the Sikh plot must be nipped in the bud. He described in some detail the Viceroy's first reaction and his intention of drastic and deterrent action to prevent the consummation of Sikh plans, and he deplored that, in the event, nothing had been done to frustrate the conspiracy. He assumed that Lord Mountbatten had been persuaded by the Indian leaders to hold his hand. Turning to Kashmir, Mr. Jinnah said that the most urgently important matter for decision was the form of administration to be setup in Kashmir on the cessation of hostilities. He had no doubt that India intended to retain control of Kashmir and to accept no form of plebiscite unfavourable to that end. Impartial administration of the State after the cease-fire was essential and without the guarantee of such a development he himself could not ask the Muslims in Kashmir to lay down their arms. He did not personally favour the intervention of the United Nations Organization or of any other outside authority. He still preferred the solution suggested by him to India on November 1, 1947, that the two Governors General, duly authorized by their respective Dominions, should accept responsibility for the task of setting up a neutral administration in Kashmir and organizing a plebiscite".
Fifty four years after Mr. Jinnah's death, we cannot look back with much pleasure on our foreign policy and the way we handled the Kashmir dispute. The present position is that Kashmir has been swallowed up and is now a part of the Indian Union. We are told to layoff, bow our heads, give up our support for the Kashmiris, forget about the plebiscite and the Kashmiri's right of self-determination enshrined in umpteen Security Council Resolutions, forget all the promises made to them by the Indian leadership and accept Indian usurpation of Kashmir as a fait accompli. If we succumb to American pressure and Indian threats, silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, bleeding Kashmir will, almost certainly, recede into darkness and forgotten. But this will not be the end of our humiliation. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us in the days to come. The tragedy is that the world knows that in Kashmir, India is faced with what can only be described as a terminal colonial situation. It is now abundantly clear that India can hold its own in Kashmir solely by the application of brute force. The population does not welcome its presence and would not vote for the continuation of its control in any electoral process which was remotely free. And yet, the massacre of innocent men, women and children by Indian security forces continues without arousing the conscience of the West. Today we are facing the greatest danger of our history since 1971. One million troops backed by artillery, tanks and missiles are on the border. Wars come very suddenly in the sub-continent. People are haunted by a fear that war might burst from a clump of trees, from a meeting of two patrols, from a threatening gesture, a black look, a brutal word, a shot! I have lived through a period when one looked forward, as we do now, with great anxiety and uncertainty to what would happen in the future. A great responsibility, therefore, rests upon those who hold power if, by any chance, against our wishes and against our hopes, trouble should come. The situation is incomparably more dangerous today. In the past, we had or we thought we had American support, the so-called American shield, against aggression. We cannot say that now. We stand alone in the ring. We do not want war and we will not fire the first shot. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by liquidating what President Musharraf calls "our two core assets" then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation for a country like ours to endure. As Bismarck once said, "he who seeks to buy the friendship of his
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enemy with concessions will never be rich enough". We would be well advised to heed these words of wisdom. One day President Roosevelt told Mr. Churchill that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the Second World War should be called. Mr. Churchill said at once, "the unnecessary war". Should war break out between India and Pakistan, the verdict of history would be that it too was "an unnecessary war", that never was a war more easy to stop than that which threatens our two countries today. Great quarrels, it has been well said, arise from small occasions, but seldom from small causes. Strange, what has happened to us. What animosities thrive under conditions of excessive proximity? Two great masses are confronting each other an irresistible force and an immovable object. The impending battle will be a clash between two great human masses, and the stronger or the more determined will win. At times of stress, Churchill often recalled some particular quotation...that expressed his feelings. The quotation read, “Fear not the result, for either shall thy end be a majestic and enviable one, or God shall perpetuate thy reign upon the waters”. We are at the crossroads. Sometimes, once in a long while, you get the chance to serve your country. It has fallen to General Musharraf to carry the awesome responsibility and the heavy burden Destiny has placed on his shoulders. He must prepare the people for the challenges that lie ahead and lead by example. For Romans in Rome’s quarrels Spared neither land nor gold, Not son, nor wife, nor limb, nor life. Such, I believe, is the temper of the hour in Pakistan today. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has leadership, so long as the government show clearly what they are aiming at and so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it, will not sacrifice its honour and its "core assets". I will unsay no word that I have spoken or written about the failings of President Musharraf's government. But all this fades away before the grim spectacle that is now unfolding. The past,
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with all its bitter disappointments, its follies, its failures and its tragedies flashes away. This is no time for proscriptions. This is no time for recriminations. We should pass a sponge across the past. With the collapse of all civil institutions, the only cohesive force left behind is the army, and army alone. It is also the only shield we have against foreign aggression. Destiny has placed a grave and awesome responsibility upon General Musharraf. At this darkest hour in our history, the nation must stand solidly behind the army. The security of the nation, as they say, is not at the ramparts alone. Nothing should therefore be done to weaken the army. Nothing should deflect its attention from its primary task. Everything must be subordinated to the requirements of national defence. All for the nation. All for Pakistan. Such is my motto.
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