Long before Mohammad Ali Jinnah cast his covetous glance at Jammu & Kashmir, the British were wondering how to keep it under western control, to prevent it from succumbing to the Soviet Union. The British had always been obsessed with the fear that some day Russian hordes might sweep down from Central Asia, possibly cross Afghanistan and establish a presence at the mouth of the Gulf of Oman and offer a threat to the oil fields controlled by Britain.

Documents now show that as early as 1945 Lord Wavell, then Viceroy of India had concluded that a Congress Party government in Delhi would not support Britain to counter a soviet thrust downwards to face the oilfields along the Gulf and it would therefore be wise on Britain's part to concede to Jinnah his demand for Pakistan is the hope that a loyal Muslim League government would keep watch on Britain's behalf over the strategic north west abutting Iran and Afghanistan. To facilitate this Kashmir needed to be part of Pakistan, not India. Britain was certain that India would never play its game or besubservient to British oil interests.

From documents now becoming available we now know that Mountbatten expected Kashmir to join Pakistan. In June 1947 he visited Srinagar to tell the Maharaja that India would not object if he acceded to Pakistan. But Hari Singh was adamant. As he told General Is may who also subsequently visited Srinagar to persuade Hari Singh that his interests lay with Pakistan, Kashmiri Muslims were different from Punjabi Muslims. Realising that their game was up, the British managed, through one of their officers, Major Brown, to overthrow the Mahraja's representative in the Northern Territories and install a Pakistani Government in his place. Simultaneously, Lord Mountbatten had softened up Jawaharlal Nehru to persuade him to take the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council. It is not clear what role Edwina Mountbatten played in all this, but once India went to the Security Council, its hands effectively got tied. It had become a prisoner to western manipulations.

Even as a British officer had succeeded in overthrowing the Mahraja's governor in the Northern Territories, Britain's Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin was telling the US Secretary of State George Marshall that "the main issue (in Kashmir) was who would control the main artery into Central Asia", when the two met in Paris on 24 October 1948. It is now become known that throughout 1948 Britain had pressed the United States to recognise Pakistan's occupation of Kashmir's Northern Territories and to disregard Mahraja Hari Singh's accession to India! As the British foreign Secretary saw it, the issue was strategic and not merely one of constitutional or legal propriety! In other words, Britain which was pretending to be India's friend and had managed to fool Nehru, actually was trying to get control of Kashmir one way or another merely to safeguard its own interests in the Gulf region.

At first the United States was willing to accept India's position that the Maharaja having acceded to India, Kashmir automatically became part of India. Washington had no understanding of south Asian politics and thought Britain could be trusted to be fair. Then, as kashmir's strategic position was explained to it, it came under the British spell. From accepting India's position, the United States gradually began to take an anti-India position and, as the Cold War became more and more bitter, the United States assumed that it was better to support Pakistan than India. Pakistan, of course, was always willing and ready to be a slave to the West as long as it could capture Jammu & Kashmir. Not long after, the United States, unable to have a base in Kashmir, established a base in Pakistan to spy on the Soviet Union. It will be remembered that it was a US spy plane, the infamous U-2, which was flying over the Soviet Union from its Pakistani base, that was shot down by the Russians.

Failing to get concessions from nehru, the US and Britain began to court Sheikh Abdullah who was persuaded to seek independence on the promise of massive US aid. The sheikh fell prey to American persuasive tactics but before he could do any damage, he was arrested in 1953. It is possible that in his Naivette, the Sheikh thought that if he could get back all territories captured by Pakistan and all territories held by India, he could be Jammu & Kashmir's new ruler with the active support of the West. He could see dollars being poured into his state, making it prosperous beyond his wildest dreams. And the United States no doubt though that with a sound military base in Jammu & Kashmir, it could "contain" the Soviet Union on the one side and China on the other. Under the Republican administration of Eisenhower-John Foster Dulles, "containment of Communism" had become Washington's mantra. The United States had a base in Turkey under the soft belly of the Soviet Union. If it could have a base in Jammu & Kashmir, it could not have asked for more!

Unfortunately for the United States (and Britain, which by then had become a junior partner to America), Nehru took a firm stand and had the Sheikh under house arrest. The western powers thereupon decided to help Pakistan, hoping that if somehow Jammu & Kashmir could be seized from Indian hands, and placed into the craving hands of Pakistan, western oil interests in the gulf would be safe.

At first even the Soviet Union was not aware of British trickery. At the United Nations, the Russians generally remained silent during the Kashmir debates until 1952. They abstained from voting although their pro agenda portrayed the so-called Kashmir dispute as an Anglo-American imperialist plot, which, of course, it was, though Moscow became aware of its full significance much later.

It is only after the break down of the Soviet Union and the "evil empire" that Washington has come to realise that so far as western interests are concerned, Kashmir is a dead issue and that, when it comes to chosing strategic partners, it is better to have India, rather than Pakistan, as a friend. That will explain President Clinton's loud noises favouring India. Pakistan's reaction is that of a slave who has been spurned. China can give it nuclear know-how, even ready-made missiles, but while it may help prevent a war, it cannot win it Jammu & Kashmir.

Gen. Musharraf still does not wish to acknowledge that the game is over. For the present India has only to remain patient. Wisely, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee noted in his August 15 address to the country that "the 21st century does not permit the re-drawing of borders either in the name of religion or on the strength of the sword". Peace has to come to India under Indian conditions, because the West knows what is good for it in south Asia.