Integrity Score 390
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Nehru’s Folly and the ‘Loss’ of Tibet continues.....
After the military disaster of October-November 1962, the first round of Indo-Pakistan talks to resolve the Kashmir issue, were scheduled to be held in Pakistan, apparently at the strong urging of the USA. The Indian Cabinet, it is believed, had ‘unhesitatingly approved the Prime Minister’s proposal about a partition of Kashmir, though Nehru virtually denied it a few days later in parliament.’ The Indian Foreign Ministry had apparently believed 'that there was a Chinese threat to their borders also and therefore revive President Ayub’s old offer of joint defence with India.’ The Indian government had evidently taken this possibility seriously because it was discussed in detail at the highest possible levels, including by the leader of the Indian delegation to these talks, Sardar Swaran Singh, then the Minister of Railways. The talks began in Rawalpindi on December 27, 1962, but the Pakistanis did not bring up the old joint defence proposal at all.
This because they had in the meantime quietly cut a deal with the Chinese about their de facto common border, in which they had ceded to China a chunk of the territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Chinese, surprisingly, did a bit of ‘face-saving’ for India, by stipulating that because Kashmir was disputed territory, the agreement with Pakistan would be deemed provisional. A clear-cut case of the Indian government BEGINNING TO THINK ABOUT shutting the stable door AFTER the horse had bolted!
True, the Pakistanis would have held out for some territorial concessions in J&K particularly in the Kashmir Valley, perhaps the Handwara salient which was being discussed in Indian government circles at the time, but a formal partition of Kashmir would have meant an international border, and not leaving J&K a disputed territory with a ‘Cease-Fire Line’ (CFL) or ‘Line of Control’ (LoC) running through
it, as continues at present. With an agreed international border in place, history might have been different.
Nehru’s Folly and the ‘Loss’ of Tibet concluded!