“I do not know what the United Nations are going to propose. They may propose a ceasefire and what the conditions are going to be, I do not know. If there isn't going to be a ceasefire, then it seems to me that we may be faced with an advance into Pakistan and for that we must be prepared,” prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in 1948. Nehru said this in a letter to Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, second commander-in-chief of the Indian Army.
The context of the communication was the war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
However, shortly afterwards, Bucher, as he narrated in an interview with noted biographer B.R. Nanda a few decades after his retirement, in October 1949, got the instruction from the government to go ahead with the ceasefire. Bucher went ahead with it, the process closely supervised by Nehru.
Significantly, Nehru had chosen not to wait for the United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan to propose a ceasefire.
The interview, a transcript of which is available with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, provides a sneak peek into the Sir Roy Bucher papers on Jammu and Kashmir, which the Central Information Commission has directed the NMML to make a disclosure of and obtain the necessary permissions from the ministry of external affairs for it.
RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak had come across the interview transcript in NMML, which had references to the papers given by Bucher to the library. Nayak filed an application under the Right to Information Act in October 2019 seeking copies of the documents from the library.
His plea was turned down by the NMML, which said the papers cannot be permitted for anybody to see or consult. His first appeal too was dismissed, after which he filed a second appeal with the Central Information Commission in October 2020.
As Nayak waits to hear from the NMML about the Bucher papers, the interview transcript he had earlier obtained brings to light the events that led to the ceasefire in 1948. Bucher, in the interview, is quoted as saying that soon after he was asked by Nehru to be prepared to advance into Pakistan, the next thing that happened was defence minister Sardar Baldev Singh ringing him up on the telephone and saying, “Go ahead.” Bucher asked, “Go ahead with what?” Singh replied: “Go ahead with the ceasefire”.
Bucher's reply was,“Well it is a jolly difficult job for me as a commander-in-chief to tackle and you have the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan in the country.” The answer was that he had to go ahead, so he drafted out a signal to general Gracey, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army. Bucher says in the interview that a copy of that too is in the file at the library.
The signal, Bucher said, was kept purposely short and merely stated that his government was of the opinion that senseless moves and counter-moves with loss of life and everything else was achieving nothing in Kashmir, and that he had his government's authority to order Indian troops to cease firing as from a minute or so from midnight of December 31, 1948. The signal was very carefully drafted and was addressed “Personal to General Gracey”.
Bucher narrated in the interview how Nehru personally vetted the ceasefire signal. “As I have already said I took it along to Pandit Nehru in the Lok Sabha before despatch and showed it to him. He read it two or three times, counter-signed it and told me to get it sent off; he took a copy for his own file. The signal was despatched; I knew if General Gracey understood that Pandit Nehru had approved the message, that he would immediately inform his own prime minister, Mr Liaquat Ali Khan. By permission of the government of India, I could telephone to Army Headquarters, Pakistan; I used this permission to inform General Gracey that my signal had Pandit Nehru's agreement,” Bucher said in the interview.
The ceasefire took effect and the Indian troops stopped firing, Bucher said, also informing that the United Nations Commission was apprised of this a day or two later. “... they were told that what they came out for had been achieved two days or so ago. I do not think the commission knew anything about the ceasefire signal before that,” Bucher said.
The transcript has Bucher mention more than once that he has provided papers, including letters exchanged between him and Nehru, to the library. He also says that he would see whether there are any other relevant papers back home and will send them across to the library.
According to Bucher, the documents portray Nehru's great grasp of the military situation in Kashmir and especially how this was influenced by the presence of the UN Commission for India and Pakistan.
Bucher also said that in his opinion, India would have accepted the accession of Kashmir to Pakistan had that occurred in the first instance. “After the accession of the State to India, the 'introduction' of the raiders into the Jhelum valley organised as this was by the Government of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan and by the provision of vehicles, ammunition and food made the despatch of Indian troops inescapable. Had this not been done, Srinagar would undoubtedly have been burnt out and large-scale massacres with attendant horrors would have been widespread amongst Hindus and Christians,” he said.
Nehru, according to the interview, had become very perturbed about the shelling of Akhnur and the Beripattan Bridge by Pakistani heavy artillery from just within Pakistan. He enjoined Bucher to do all he could to counteract this.
The transcript runs into 20-odd pages, but Nayak, while he was able to read the entire transcript, could in keeping with the NMML's policy, copy only a third of it.
Nayak said that the transcript of the interview makes for very interesting reading with tidbits about what happened in Jammu and Kashmir, narrated from memory, and also Bucher's love for India and the respect he had for top leaders like Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Sir C. Rajagopalachari.
“This crucial interview contains multiple references to files and papers related to Jammu and Kashmir affairs that were compiled between 1947 and October 1949 by Sir Roy Bucher and handed over to NMML,” he said.
