Chapter Sixteen

and four Ministers of West Punjab, Lord Mountbatten conveyed a message from Patel, the strongman of India, asking Liaqat to abide by the rules regarding the future of the princely States previously agreed upon between the Congress and the Muslim League: that they would accede to either India or Pakistan on the basis of the majority of their inhabitants and their contiguity to [either India or Pakistan]. Patel had said that Pakistan could take Kashmir and let go Hyderabad Deccan, which had a majority Hindu population and was nowhere near Pakistan, by sea or land. After delivering this message, Lord Mountbatten went to rest in the Lahore Government House. I, being overall in charge of the Kashmir operations, went to Liaqat Ali Khan. I suggested to him that as the Indian Army had entered Kashmir and we would be unable to annex Kashmir with the help of the tribesmen, or even with our inadequate armed forces, we should make haste to accept Patel’s proposal. Nawabzada [Liaqat Ali Khan] turned round to me and said, ‘Sardar Sahib! Have I gone mad to give up Hyderabad State, which is much larger than the Punjab, for the sake of the rocks of Kashmir?’ I was stunned by the Prime Minister’s reaction and his ignorance of our geography and his lack of wisdom. I thought he was living in a fool’s paradise and did not understand the importance of Kashmir to Pakistan, while hoping to get Hyderabad, which at best was only quixotic, wishful thinking. It was not connected with Pakistan anywhere. In protest, I resigned from the position I was holding in the Kashmir operations. If one accepts what Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan said as true, it is clear evidence that the conflict over Kashmir was created entirely and solely by the Muslim leadership and no one else.