Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948

The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, also known as the first Kashmir war, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars between the two newly independent nations. Pakistan precipitated the war a few weeks after its independence by launching tribal lashkar (militias) from Waziristan, in an effort to capture Kashmir and to preempt the possibility of its ruler joining India.

Quotes

• Returning home from daily namaaz in the afternoon, I saw a well armed gang of about 200 tribals in a motor convoy. They were stranded as the bridge on Uri Nalla (now known as NS Bridge) was blown by J &K State Forces. These tribesmen were becoming restless. A few of them stopped the locals and asked them for any alternate route. When they replied in negative, the locals had to face the wrath of savages. Since, they could not move across the Uri Nalla, tribal settled in Uri town and Peeristan. They then started looting and burning the houses. Few of the tribal performed more devious crimes. My 80 years old grand mother was beaten on the chest, kicked in the abdomen and then hacked to death. My neighbour Manzoor was also stabbed in the abdomen. Few tribal grabbed his sister Aaliya, who had come home and beat her till she could no longer stand. Then they raped her and stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen and the pelvis. Four long hours passed. I hid near the masjid, frozen, and then I ran down towards jungles and returned only when I came to know that Indian Army has moved in. During this violence I lost my elder brother, my sister-in-law. My house was gutted and everything was taken away by the tribals.
  • In Uri too, the tribesmen went on a rampage. An account of what exactly happened in Uri, as related by Mr Asadullah Hussain is as follows: Atrocities committed by Razakars and Raiders in the Valley in 1947-48

• The Pashtun tribesmen under Khurshid Anwar`s command halted after reaching Baramula, only an hour`s bus ride from Srinagar and refused to go any further. Here they embarked on a three-day binge, looting houses assaulting Muslims and Hindus alike, raping men and women and stealing money from Kashmir treasury. The local cinema was transformed into a rape centre. A group of Pashtuns invaded St Joseph's convent, where they raped and killed four nuns, including the mother superior.
  • The Clash of Fundamentalisms' by Tariq Ali

• The number of women who have been kidnapped and raped makes my heart bleed. The wild forces thus let loose on the State are marching on with the aim of capturing Srinagar, the summer Capital of my Government, as first step to over-running the whole State [of Kashmir].
  • The Maharaja Hari Singh wrote this in his letter to Mountbatten, while Kashmir was invaded by Mujahedins: Maharaja Hari Singh's Letter to Mountbatten. Letter Dated October 26, 1947 From Hari Singh, The Maharaja Of Jammu & Kashmir to Lord Mountbatten, Governor General of India. [1] [2]

• India had barely become independent, in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The mahara­jah fled, and the people of Kashmir, led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help. Lord Mountbatten, who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn’t be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population. So our leaders decided to sign a document by which they bound themselves to go to war with Pakistan. And Mahatma Gandhi, apostle of nonviolence, signed along with them. Yes, he chose war. He said there was noth­ing else to do. War is inevitable when one must defend somebody or defend oneself.
  • Indira Gandhi, quoted by Oriana Fallaci. (2011). Interview with Indira Gandhi, in : Interviews with history and conversations with power. New York: Rizzoli.

• The most important departure from determinism during the Cold War had to do, obviously, with hot wars. Prior to 1945, great powers fought great wars so frequently that they seemed to be permanent features of the international landscape: Lenin even relied on them to provide the mechanism by which capitalism would self-destruct. After 1945, however, wars were limited to those between superpowers and smaller powers, as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, or to wars among smaller powers like the four Israel and its Arab neighbors fought between 1948 and 1973, or the three India-Pakistan wars of 1947-48, 1965, and 1971, or the long, bloody, and indecisive struggle that consumed Iran and Iraq throughout the 1980s.
  • John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005), p 261

• The raiders came to our land, massacred thousands of people -- mostly Hindus and Sikhs, but Muslims too -- abducted thousands of girls, Hindu, Sikhs and Muslims alike, looted our property and almost reached the gates of our summer capital, Srinagar.
  • Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah's speech in the UN Security Council Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah's speech in the UN Security Council Meeting No.241 held on 5 February 1948 [3]

• Everything was peaceful until the afternoon of 27 October, when the tribesmen suddenly appeared in their lorries. They took control of the town and an orgy started. Anyone who attempted to argue with them or showed any signs of resistance was shot immediately. This resulted in those residing in the Southern portion of the town fleeing to the Northern part which lay across the Jhelum River. Almost throughout the night there were signs of arson and bursts of firing. The next day, 28 October, groups of tribesmen entered the Northern part of the town and abducted women whom they dragged back to the Southern part. They warned the people to stay in their houses or face death if they stirred out.
  • Capt PR Dewan, from the book `Slender was the Thread` by L.P. Sen

• In Hindutva writings (e.g. in Jeevan Kulkarni’s Writ Petition no. 587 of 1989), there is frequent reference to a telegram allegedly sent by the Pakistani raiders to their military headquarters during the invasion of Kashmir in 1948: “All women raped, all Sikhs killed.”
  • Koenraad Elst (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism.

• In the month of November (1947), Hindu and Sikh girls brought by Pathan raiders from Kashmir were sold in the bazars of ghulam,” for rupees 10 or so each in the wake of the partition of the country, 1947-48.
  • S.Gurbachan Singh Talib, Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947, New Delhi, Reprint 1991 (first published 1950), quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• [When the Jihadist tribal Mujahidin raided Kashmir in 1947, the girls abducted by the Jihadists] 'were exhibited in the bazaars of Peshawar and Bannu, thereby enticing Pathans towards Kashmir. Many were subjected to unmentionable indignities.'
  • (Shanta Kumari, President, National Women's Conference of J&K, Hindustan Times, 30-Dec-1947)