Kashmir goes to the UN, with America on the commission

Background

At partition the princely states of British India were expected to join either India or Pakistan. The Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, ruled by a Hindu maharaja, became the subject of fighting in late 1947 after the maharaja acceded to India; Pakistan disputed the accession. India referred the conflict to the UN Security Council at the start of 1948¹.

What happened

In January 1948 the Security Council created a three-member United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate and mediate². Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, enlarged the commission to five members and set out a sequence of steps: Pakistan was to secure the withdrawal of its nationals who had entered the state to fight, India was to reduce its forces progressively, and a plebiscite would decide the state's future under an administrator nominated by the UN. Both India and Pakistan raised objections to the resolution but accepted the commission's mediation¹.

The State Department's documentary history records that UNCIP comprised Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Czechoslovakia and the United States. The United States was designated by the President of the Security Council on 7 May 1948, after Argentina and Czechoslovakia, the members chosen by Pakistan and India, failed to agree on the fifth member³. The commission secured a ceasefire at the start of 1949. Its resolution of 5 January 1949 provided for a plebiscite, and on 21 March 1949 the UN Secretary-General nominated Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz of the US Navy as Plebiscite Administrator⁴.

Nimitz never took up the post. As American diplomatic records from 1951 note, he could only begin his duties once India and Pakistan agreed on the terms of demilitarisation, and they did not⁵.

Why it mattered

Kashmir became the central dispute between India and Pakistan and a constant factor in each country's relations with Washington. Pakistan, which favoured the plebiscite, hoped American influence would help secure one; India regarded the matter as settled by the accession and resisted outside pressure. The United States, which wanted good relations with both, found itself on a commission whose proposals neither side fully accepted^1,3.

Legacy

The UN resolutions of 1948–49 remain the reference point for Pakistan's position on Kashmir, while India argues that changed circumstances have overtaken them. American involvement through UNCIP was the first of many attempts by Washington to encourage a settlement, and an early illustration of how difficult it would be to align closely with one of the two countries without alienating the other.