Joe Shearer
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Sir,
There were many aspects to which India did not agree as well, with regard to not only the commission, the subsequent representative appointees also. The commission or others, may or may not have agreed with either India or Pakistan, they had to report their findings to the UNSC.
The mere fact that it took 113 meetings of the commission of which Josef Korbel was part of, with all concerned parties in 1948, to negotiate a basic ceasefire. Without Korbel, the Commission held another 126 meetings in a vain attempt to move forward on a truce agreement and plebiscite (Korbel mentions about this in his book, Danger in Kashmir). Korbel feared that a failure to settle the Kashmir dispute would fragment potential South Asian unity to the benefit of communist activism and potential domination.
Subsequent UN appointed individual mediators also followed with no better result.
The US-Pakistan agreement alarmed Nehru. Korbel’s analysis also partly supports Nehru’s concerns. However, despite this, considering the length and breadth of commission’s and interaction of other individual intermediaries’ consultations and Nehru’s raison-d’être for not holding plebiscite, it still did not highlight non-withdrawal of Pakistani Army as the major impediment for not holding the plebiscite.
After not reaching an agreement in various aspects, the later representatives also, in order to further the process made repeated additional changes/suggestions, while remaining within the ambit of overall UNSC resolutions. They would add or subtract or improve when either Pakistan or India would not agree to certain suggestions. Therefore, they were exercising flexibility in order to reach some amenable conclusion, while remaining within the ambit of UNSC resolution. Many examples exist and you can not straight-jacket it to either or nothing scenario which may have been presented, as the final authority was not the commission or an individual, but the UNSC to which they would report.
Like I said before also, we can continue discussing this, can quote different people, different reports and different analyses and findings. We still would not find a common ground on this aspect.
Sir,
You mention many aspects to which India did not agree as well. I put it to you that my question was simple and remains unanswered. Second, i put it to you that there was nothing in the Commission's proceedings other than the failure of Pakistan to comply with the Resolution that India did not agree to. Irrespective of it not being mentioned in the Commission's reports, the records of the Commission show the actual position.
Discussion of the efforts of subsequent interlocutors becomes futile.
My point is simple. The task before the Commission was straightforward and uncomplicated. There is all the evidence in the world that Pakistan was obstructive, and created impediments, asking for extensions of the Resolution to suit their own ends, the protraction of the proceedings and ultimate frustration of the entire effort, knowing very well that a plebiscite would go against them. There is no evidence to justify any surmise of Indian obstruction of the proceedings.
Bringing in the subsequent developments, when a series of interlocutors proposed their own modifications of the UN Resolution, is a retrospective justification. None of those subsequent proceedings had any relevance to the original meetings, and the record shows clearly what happened.
Once again, would you agree, absence of mention of this in the Commission reports notwithstanding, the only sticking point was the intransigence of Pakitan?