"Nehru, the UN and Kashmir"
KORBEL, JOSEF
After eight years, India still defies Security Council appeals for a plebiscite in the disputed territory nehru, the un and kashmir By Josef Korbel Passage of a resolution to send the president...
...For if a nation which has accepted a UN commitment can blithely assert that "circumstances have changed" and the commitment is no longer binding, then the effectiveness of the UN has been dealt a staggering blow...
...This complex legal brief would be of no concern to the outside world if it involved merely an internal affair between India and Kashmir...
...Should this be accompanied by a Pakistani withdrawal, India would find it exceedingly difficult to continue refusing to remove her own troops on security grounds...
...Only the Soviet Union and Communist China seem eager to support it...
...Such a resolution would unquestionably be rejected by India, but it would have the virtue of placing the opinion of some 70 nations in the record...
...On the UN's handling of this question may depend much of its future moral and political authority...
...After eight years, India still defies Security Council appeals for a plebiscite in the disputed territory nehru, the un and kashmir By Josef Korbel Passage of a resolution to send the president of the UN Security Council on a mission to India and Pakistan has again highlighted the dispute over Kashmir...
...He asked the Security Council to call on the contending parties to withdraw all troops from Kashmir, reduce or disband all local forces, and fix an early date for appointment of a UN Plebiscite Administrator...
...Last month, while visiting Ceylon, Chou En-lai took a similar stand...
...Finally, there is the question of Pakistani aggression...
...When India now declares that this does not constitute a commitment on her part, she is taking a grave step...
...India's ambiguous stand during the UN debates on Hungary may well represent the fruits of this Moscow-Peking policy...
...Eight years ago, India and Pakistan accepted two UN resolutions dealing with a cease-fire in Kashmir, conditions for a truce, and a plebiscite to decide which of the two countries Kashmir should accede to...
...India now categorically rejects a plebiscite, while Pakistan insists on it and the United Nations is committed to it by several resolutions...
...Such is not the case, however...
...Should the principle become commonly accepted that only an agreement which has undergone legislative ratification is to be respected by UN members, the value of the world organization's resolutions would be reduced to almost nothing...
...Such being the case, one wonders why India did not bring charges of an "act of aggression" under Chapter VII of the UN Charter...
...He is professor of international relations at the University of Denver...
...In its long years of deliberations on Kashmir, 22 different nations have held the UN Security Council's non-permanent seats...
...After four years of trial and frustration, the Security Council suspended deliberations in the hope that India and Pakistan would solve the problem through bilateral negotiations...
...Even the uncompromising position taken by Krishna Menon may offer a slim hope of an ultimate solution...
...The UN Commission criticized these actions in its resolution...
...It has not only thrown new light on India's policy as a UN member, but has raised the fundamental question of whether or not an agreement sponsored by the United Nations imposes obligations on its signatories...
...It is doubtful that a single country in the non-Communist world would identify itself with the Indian position...
...The Security Council has recommended, and India has agreed, that a free, impartial plebiscite should decide the fate of Kashmir...
...The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Malik Firoz Khan Noon, accused India of violating an international agreement...
...India has used these eight years to complete the integration of her section with India...
...More is at stake in Kashmir than the fate of a remote Asian province...
...And, once the military aspects of the problem had been solved, what would stand in the way of holding the long-deferred plebiscite...
...No one can say with any certainty...
...The UN Commission for India and Pakistan has adopted a similar resolution, which India also accepted...
...Finally, Pakistan was an aggressor in Kashmir and had failed to comply with UN resolutions, which she had accepted, directing her to withdraw her forces from Kashmir...
...Josef Korbel is former chairman of the UN Commission for India and Pakistan and author of Danger in Kashmir...
...By supporting India on Kashmir, Russia and China have in effect mortgaged Nehru's independent position in world affairs...
...This is not true: Pakistan was not expected to withdraw her forces from Kashmir as long as there was no agreed-upon plan for simultaneous Indian withdrawal, and India has retracted her approval of the UN Mediator's demilitarization proposal...
...He also proposed that a UN force be scut to the area at once...
...That ended India's obligations in the matter...
...The second and third parts of this agreement were never implemented...
...The fact is, however, that she did not...
...For with each political step leading to accession—in October 1950, October 1951 and July 1952—Prime Minister Nehru has stated flatly that India's international commitment regarding a plebiscite was in no way affected...
...Kashmir's accession to India, he declared, was perfectly valid and final...
...These resolutions represent, at the very least, a moral obligation...
...Indian Prime Minister Nehru promptly replied that his country would not tolerate the stationing of foreign troops on "its soil" and repudiated the whole idea of a plebiscite...
...This move led Pakistan to raise the issue again in the Security Council...
...But the current debate has added a new dimension to the dispute...
...In any case, changed conditions since then had made the agreement obsolete, and the merger of Kashmir with India could not be revoked because the Indian Constitution does not recognize the right of secession...
...The Kashmir conflict is back before the United Nations Security Council...
...Frank P. Graham...
...Nehru has barred the sending of a UN force to Kashmir, but there is nothing he can do to prevent Pakistan from admitting UN troops to the area it occupies...
...Nevertheless, Krishna Menon's stress on demilitarization may hold the key to a settlement in Kashmir...
...In all fairness, however, this should not work to the disadvantage of Pakistan, which has not been responsible for the long delay...
...Except for the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Yugoslavia, all of them—together with the United States, Great Britain, France and China, four of the five permanent members—have consistently upheld the Council's resolutions on Kashmir and the recommendations of its Commission and its Mediator, Dr...
...Nikita S. Khrushchev declared in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, on December 9, 1955: "The question of Kashmir as one of the states of the Republic of India has already been decided by the people of Kashmir...
...Shortly after, in the summer of 1953, the two Prime Ministers issued a joint communique promising to conduct a UN-supervised plebiscite...
...As for Krishna Menon's argument that conditions in Kashmir have changed in the past eight years, it is true that important social, economic and educational reforms have been carried out and military positions consolidated in both the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled areas...
...The argument that Kashmir's accession cannot constitutionally be revoked is equally invalid...
...This pledge, however, was followed by renewed stalemate...
...Then, last November, the Constituent Assembly of the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir put the final seal on formal accession to India...
...The people of Kashmir had been promised an opportunity to express their desires, and they had done so in the elections of October 1951...
...What will be the final solution in Kashmir...
...The issue is familiar, the arguments old...
...and, by accepting the various UN resolutions, she agreed to the situation as it existed at the time of the cease-fire of January 1, 1949...
...True, by accepting a UN resolution and issuing a joint communique with Pakistan she had agreed to a plebiscite, but it was not expressed in a binding treaty...
...By her own admission, Pakistan sent her army into Kashmir in May 1948, and in the fall of that year she armed and helped transport tribesmen on their way to invade the province...
...An Assembly resolution calling on India and Pakistan to implement the previous resolutions would in all likelihood be carried overwhelmingly...
...Pakistan, he contended, by accepting military assistance from the United States, had altered the entire situation, so that the earlier agreement was no longer valid...
...This new Indian stand raises issues which far transcend the problem of Kashmir...
...V. K. Krishna Menon delivered a speech of record length before the Security Council, extending over three sessions, in an effort to defend India's position...
...According to the Indian delegate, Pakistan prevented implementation of the section of the UN Commission resolution dealing with a plebiscite by refusing to carry out the other part recommending demilitarization of Kashmir...
...In view of her many past statements, India is the last country that should stand on strict legality when it does not conform to principles of morality...
...It therefore seems time to transfer the issue to the General Assembly...
...There seems no prospect of progress in the Security Council, where the Soviet Union has a veto...
Vol. 40 • March 1957 • No. 9
