Chapter Sixteen

themselves, rather than of the oppression or conspiracies of others. In this regard, the record of the injudiciousness of Muslim leaders is a long one. I will allude to just one aspect of this here. In 1947, when India was partitioned, Pakistani leaders adopted a completely unrealistic stance and staked their claim to two Hindu-majority Indian princely states: Junagadh and Hyderabad. Had the Pakistani leaders adopted a realistic approach and not claimed Junagadh and Hyderabad (which Pakistan was definitely not going to get in any case), the question of Kashmir would never have turned into a serious conflict. It could then have very easily been solved in favour of Pakistan. But the two-pronged thrust of the Pakistani leadership, in trying to seize Hyderabad and Junagadh and also Kashmir, resulted in Pakistan getting not even one of them! Let me cite some facts to confirm this point. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali was the Prime Minister of Pakistan for a short period in the mid-1950s. Prior to this, he had been a minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan. In his voluminous book Emergence of Pakistan, he relates that shortly after the Partition, the Muslim ruler of the princely state of Junagadh declared his state’s accession to Pakistan, even though Junagadh had a Hindu majority. India did not accept this accession and, by force, took over the state and incorporated it into India. After this, a meeting was held in Delhi, attended by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, from the Indian side, and Liaqat Ali Khan and Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, from the Pakistani side. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali writes: Sardar Patel, although a bitter enemy of Pakistan, was a greater realist than Nehru. In one of the discussions between the two Prime Ministers, at which Patel and I were also present, Liaqat Ali Khan dwelt on the inconsistency of the Indian stand with regard to Junagadh and Kashmir. If Junagadh, despite its Muslim