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With the coming of independence, both sides began a communal purge. Moslems slaughtered Hindus in Pakistan, and Hindus slaughtered Moslems in India. Fully 12 million refugees jammed the roads as they fled toward the nearest friendly border.
Scarcely had the riots stopped than fighting broke out again in the princely state of Kashmir. In accordance with their colonial policy of divide and rule, the British in 1846 had set up a Hindu ruling family over the 4,000,000 Kashmiris, who are 80% Moslem. About 100 years later, faced by a revolt of his Moslem subjects, the Hindu maharajah opted to join India in return for help in putting down the rebellion. As Indian troops poured in from the south, Pakistani tribesmen came down the mountains in the northwest to help their Moslem brothers.
India and Pakistan brought charges before the United Nations, accusing each other of violence and aggression. By January 1949, the U.N. succeeded in drawing a cease-fire line that gave a third of Kashmir to Pakistan and twothirds to India. Four times since, the U.N. has ordered that a plebiscite be held to determine the wishes of the people of Kashmir. Though Jawaharlal Nehru once vowed to "abide by the will of the Kashmiri people," India has always found reasons to avoid holding the referendum. Ex-Defense Minister Krishna Menon has bluntly explained why India opposes the plebiscite: "Because we would lose it." The popular Moslem leader, Sheik Abdullah, first supported union with India. When he changed his mind, the Indians clapped him in jail.
In the years since 1949, the cease-fire line has been the scene of frequent gunfire. A total of 16,000 people—half of them civilians—have been killed. The 45-man U.N. peace-keeping team, headed by Australia's venerable General Robert Nimmo, has had neither the mandate nor the manpower to enforce a truce.
Nehru's Heart. Everything about the Kashmir problem is deeply emotional. The land itself produces little but scenery. Kashmir's mountain rim is so impenetrable that there is only one year-round road to the outside world—and it goes to Pakistan. Nehru was determined to keep Kashmir because it was his ancestral home and, as he put it, "a piece of my heart."
The most significant argument for Indian control of Kashmir relates to what New Delhi officials call the "fissiparous tendencies" of their country. If Kashmir could secede by holding a plebiscite, the argument runs, there would be nothing to prevent Madras or Kerala or any other state from doing the same thing. The warrior Sikhs of Punjab have long dreamed of an independent nation. In fact, a Sikh leader, Sant Fateh Singh, was scheduled last week to begin a fast that would be followed by self-immolation, to force Indian acceptance of Sikh autonomy. In deference to the war emergency, Singh has postponed both his fast and his suicide. Indians compare their situation to that of the U.S., which fought a four-year civil war for the preservation of the Union.
Asian Hitler. It is an article of faith in Pakistan that India's ultimate goal is to conquer the subcontinent by force. As Pakistan's U.N. ambassador emotionally put it last week, "What Hitler and the Nazis did in Europe, India has taken it upon herself to do in Asia."