This Occasional Paper weaves together international and regional developments in the 1940s to show that Britain wanted Pakistan and Kashmir as part of the Islamic arc envisaged by it in 1947 as a buffer against the Soviet influence.

• In 1947, Britain’s global priorities, including Palestine, influenced its approach to South Asia.
• British policymakers viewed a friendly Pakistan as essential to imperial defence against the Soviet Union (“the keystone of the strategic arch of the Indian Ocean”).
• Britain preferred Pakistan’s entry into the Commonwealth over India’s due to Muslim loyalty and Pakistan’s strategic location.
• British military and administrative figures (e.g., Mountbatten, Auchinleck, Messervy, Cunnigham) played a key role in engineering outcomes to serve British interests.
• Britain saw Kashmir as a crucial buffer in the ‘Great Game’ and wanted it to accede to Pakistan for regional stability and access to strategic assets like Gilgit.
• Britain’s policies reflected a desire to maintain influence over West Asian Muslim states and prevent alienation of the Muslim world.
• British actions in Gilgit (e.g., support for rebellion, rewarding William Brown) highlight duplicity in seeking to retain strategic territories.
• The draft offers new ground by highlighting British duplicity, the direct link between imperial security priorities and partition mechanics, and the interventionist role of British officers, post-independence.

Summary

This Occasional Paper explores how British strategic calculations in 1947 shaped the partition of India, the emergence of Pakistan, and the Kashmir question. It argues that Britain’s paramount concern was safeguarding its imperial interests in West and South Asia, necessitating a strong, loyal Pakistan within the Commonwealth and, ideally, a Kashmir aligned with Pakistan. The narrative challenges conventional perspectives by spotlighting British anxieties over Soviet expansion, their preference for Muslim allies, and the manipulations surrounding Kashmir and Gilgit. By unveiling the geopolitics behind decolonization, the draft makes a fresh contribution to understanding the British legacy in partition and the enduring conflict in Kashmir.

Britain and Pakistan

In 1947, Britain was preoccupied, amongst other issues, with the issue of Indian independence and the Palestine question. It approached the United Nations (UN) in April 1947 and later informed it in December that it would terminate the Palestine mandate by May 1948. The UN General Assembly had adopted a resolution for dividing Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab States. The UN decision to partition Palestine inflamed hostilities between Arabs and Jews, prompting Arab leaders to openly accuse both the United States and Britain of creating and exacerbating the volatile situation. Conscious about the sentiments of Muslims in India towards Palestine and the idea of Pakistan, Britain felt that antagonizing the Muslims in the extended region over these questions could endanger its vital interests in future. With the Palestine crisis already arousing Muslim sentiments across the region, Britain was determined not to jeopardize its position by openly siding with India or by appearing to stand against Pakistan.

Between 1945 and 1948 Britain considered, a ‘Pakistan’ within the Commonwealth vital for its strategic objectives in the Indian subcontinent. Churchill, who had asked Wavell in 1945 to ‘keep a bit of India’^[1] wrote to Mountbatten in May 1948 calling Pakistan ‘the keystone of the strategic arch of the Indian Ocean’^[2] and one of the five bricks in the wall against the Soviet expansion apart from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mountbatten recalled later of Churchill telling him:

Muslims [of India] are the friends of the British; the people we should be supporting and looking after’ and saying that ‘it was terrible that he, an Englishman and a cousin of the King should have got himself into a position where he was now backing those enemies of Britain-Nehru, Patel and party— against proven friends of many years—the Muslims.^[3] 

Therefore, it is not surprising that even the Kashmir dispute was viewed as part of the generational struggle waged by Britain against the ‘direct territorial expansion of Russia in the great Moslem block lying between the Bosphorus and the Indus’.^[4]

On 2 September 1946, as the head of the Interim Government of India, Nehru, who still looked at the Indian army and civil service as ‘British controlled machines’, not only expressed his desire to transform ‘the whole background of the Indian Army’ and make it a ‘national army of India’ but also demanded its removal from frontier defence and return from Indonesia and Iraq.^[5] In October-November 1946, the Indian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly led by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit clashed with Britain on a host of issues and often found itself voting alongside the Soviet bloc. India’s assertiveness at the UN and its attitude towards the Soviets did not go unnoticed and made Britain wary about its intention of staying within the Commonwealth and serving as its first line of defence in the region against Russia along with Afghanistan.

General Frank Messervy, the Commander of the North-Western Command expressed his apprehensions in a note to Lord Mountbatten. ‘India is not what it was…. It stands 50-50 chance of coming through…either as a Dominion or closely bound to us’^[6] In contrast, the India Office of His Majesty’s Government advised the British Chiefs of Staffs Committee (CoS) in October 1946 about the Muslim areas wanting to remain with the Commonwealth and seeking British support for the defence of their State. Conscious of India’s potential to grow as a power center in its own right and dominate the Indian Ocean region, Auchinleck felt that North West India (which would become Pakistan) could be used as a ‘lever to dominate Hindustan, influence the Middle-East and prevent Soviet advance if a united and willing India inside the commonwealth could not be realized’.^[7]

As Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten was tasked with winding up the British rule over the Indian territories while salvaging and safeguarding as much of the British interests in the region as possible, and keeping India within the Commonwealth was one of them. Therefore, in a meeting of the India and Burma Committee on 13 March 1947 he was advised to encourage the Indian leaders to remain in the Commonwealth.^[8] However, on 18 March 1947, the CoS made it clear that ‘if power is transferred to a divided India, we would wish to support the power controlling the western frontier and the Indus valley’^[9].

Immediately upon assuming office on 25 March 1947, Mountbatten started discussions with leaders of all communities on the emergence of an independent India and also took up the issue of the membership of the Commonwealth with both the Congress and the Muslim League. Jinnah not only assured him that a separate Pakistan would indeed seek membership of the Commonwealth and retain all British Officers in its forces but also pleaded for Pakistan’s admission into the commonwealth even if it was the only applicant. Jinnah had told Mountbatten:

All the Muslims have been loyal to the British from the beginning. We supplied a high proportion of the Army which fought in both wars. None of our leaders had ever had to go to prison for disloyalty. Not one member of the Muslim League was present in the Constituent Assembly when the resolution for an independent Sovereign Republic was passed on 22 January 1947. Not one of us had done anything to deserve expulsion from the Commonwealth’^[10].

In sharp contrast, Nehru’s response on the question of retaining British officers was predictably negative as he felt that ‘it is incongruous for the army of a free country not to have its own officers in the highest ranks’. Even though India had planned that Indian officers would take over completely by June 1948, the original date planned for the transfer of power, it reluctantly agreed to their presence in its Armed Forces when the date was advanced to 15 August 1947.^[11]

Thus, when India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir in October 1947 their armed forces were commanded by British officers (General Frank Messervy followed by General Douglas Gracy in Pakistan and General Robert Lockhart followed by General Roy Bucher in India) who reported to another British officer Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck as their Supreme Commander. Together with Lord Mountbatten (Governor-General India), George Cunnigham (Governor of NWFP, Pakistan) and Francis Mudie (Governor of West Punjab, Pakistan) these officers played a key role in securing British interests during this critical phase in India’s history.

If by the end of 1946, the CoS had identified Western India as crucial for British interests given its location and religious composition, by May 1947 it was convinced that in the Indian sub-continent its strategic interests lay with a pliable Pakistan which was expected to seek a close linkage with it. It felt that bases, ports, airfields in West Pakistan would be essential for the defence of the Commonwealth and to protect its interests in West Asia. The members of the CoS committee deliberated on their future options on 12^th May 1947 and were unanimously in favour of Pakistan’s entry into the Commonwealth even if it was the only applicant. They felt that that,

From a strategic point of view there were overwhelming arguments in favour of Western Pakistan remaining with the Commonwealth, namely, that we should obtain important strategic facilities, the port of Karachi, air bases and the support of the Moslem manpower in the future; be able to ensure the continued integrity of Afghanistan; and be able to increase our prestige and improve our position throughout the Muslim world…. There was therefore everything to gain by admitting Western Pakistan into the Commonwealth. A refusal  of an application to this end would amount to ejecting loyal people from the British Commonwealth and would probably lose us all chances of ever getting strategic facilities anywhere in India, and at the same time shatter our reputation in the rest of the Moslem world. From a military point of view, such a result would be catastrophic.^[12]

This view was reiterated by the CoS in July 1947, which considered an agreement with Pakistan far more important than any with India. ‘The area of Pakistan is strategically the most important in India and the majority of our strategic requirements could be met, though with considerable greater difficulty, by an agreement with Pakistan alone. We do not therefore consider that failure to obtain agreement with India would cause us to modify any of our requirements’^[13].

Britain and Kashmir

One of the key objectives of imperial diplomacy at this time was to counter the threat perceived from Russian penetration southwards from Central Asia and Kashmir was a strategic buffer between the British Empire and the Russians in this ‘Great Game’. Additionally, the Russian presence in Sinkiang and their nuclear testing facilities in Semipalatinsk had always been a source of concern for His Majesty’s Government. In order to keep a watch on the Soviet activities^[14] in the region, a road had been carved at great human cost, from Srinagar to Gilgit, and Britain had taken   Gilgit on lease for a period of 60 years from the Maharaja when Lieutenant Colonel Elliot James Dowell Colvin, a British army officer was serving as Prime Minister of Kashmir in 1935-36. In line with the prevalent view, Wavell’s ‘Breakdown Plan’ of September 1946 also envisaged a British sphere of influence in the region which would include NWFP, Punjab, Baluchistan and Kashmir^[15]. When the creation of Pakistan became imminent, Kashmir was added to it in a paper prepared on the economic viability of Pakistan in April 1947.^[16] 

The British plan of creating an Islamic arc right from Turkey to North West India^[17] to counter the possible southward expansion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) towards a warm water port in the Arabian Sea and check India’s possible inclinations towards the Soviet Union could only be successful if Kashmir stayed away from India in case of partition of the subcontinent. An independent India with Kashmir within its fold would never have permitted Britain to use Gilgit as a base against the USSR. Therefore the idea of Pakistan and a Muslim majority Kashmir in Pakistan neatly dovetailed with the larger strategic interests of Britain in the region.

Mountbatten and Kashmir

It is widely believed in Pakistan that there was a conspiracy, aided and abetted by Lord Mountbatten, to tie Kashmir to India and prevent its accession to Pakistan.  However, leaving aside self-serving interpretations, available documents supply no material whatsoever to support this myth and indeed all the evidence indicates to the contrary.^[18]

Around 19 June 1947 Lord Mountbatten visited Kashmir and advised the Maharaja and his Prime Minister Ramchandra Kak to abandon the idea of independence and not make any such declaration. Mountbatten felt that in view of the composition of the population, it was particularly important to ascertain the wishes of the people; therefore, he urged them to find out in one way or another, the will of the people of Kashmir as soon as possible and do what the majority thought best for State.^[19] He pushed the Maharaja to take a decision and warned him that , ‘the only thing fatal to him was to procrastinate  and not make up his mind  because that would mean that he would be a non-viable, land locked State  whose two neighbours were at each-others’ throats, and eventually he would be on the battlefield.’

While ruling out independence, Mountbatten assured the Maharaja that if he went to Pakistan, then he had personally spoken to Mr. Jinnah and had his assurance that he would be welcomed with open arms and given an honoured place within the new Pakistan where he would be for good, and if he went to India, he was assured of the protection of India and would be treated with honour there too. He had said:

You can’t be independent. I’m sorry. You are, in fact, a landlocked country of great size and not a very big population. You’ve got two rival countries which are always going to be daggers drawn: those are your neighbors. You’re going to be pulled into a scrimmage. You will end up by being a battlefield between the Hindus and the Muslims. That’s what’ll happen to you and you will lose your throne.^[20]

On a pointed question as to which Dominion Kashmir should join, Mountbatten advised the Maharaja, that is entirely for you to decide. You must consider your geographical position, your political situation and the composition of your population and then decide’^[21].  However, when the Maharaja firmly stated that he did not wish to accede to Pakistan because with Sheikh Abdullah being pro-Nehru, most of his people would wish to join India, he replied, ‘It’s up to you. I think you might be wise to accede because the majority of your people are Muslim’.^[22] Mountbatten went on to stress the dangerous situation which Kashmir would find itself in if it lacked the support of one of the two dominions and told him that the newly created States Department under Vallabhai Patel on behalf of the Government India would not regard a verdict in favour of Pakistan as an unfriendly act^[23].

He further assured the Maharaja,: ‘If you do decide to accede to Pakistan before they will think that it is a natural thing to do because the majority of your population is Muslim, it will not cause any ill feeling but they will give you all the support and help they can’,^[24] and reiterated that on this, ‘he had a firm assurance from Sardar Patel himself’.^[25] Mountbatten also tried his best to dissuade all Congress leaders including Pandit Nehru from visiting Kashmir but despite his best efforts, Acharya Kriplani (President of the Indian National Congress) and the Maharaja of Patiala, Kapurthala and Raja of Faridkot visited Srinagar.^[26]

It is quite clear that even though overtly and publicly Mountbatten advised the Maharaja, ‘Ascertain the wishes of your people by any means and join whichever Dominion your people wish to join by August 14 this year’,^[27] he actually wanted Kashmir to go to Pakistan. This is evident from his own subsequent admission that he wanted his creation-Pakistan to succeed and a Kashmir within Pakistan would have made it more viable.

I must tell you honestly. I wanted Kashmir to join Pakistan. For one simple reason, it made Pakistan more viable. They had 85% Muslims. I persuaded Patel with some difficulty to let me give the Maharaja his assurances that India would not object if he acceded to Pakistan. I was miserable when the whole thing went wrong but Hari Singh was such a bloody fool. Fancy going up and saying I have it here from the Government of India that they just want you to decide which way you go. If you accede to Pakistan, they will not hold it against you; there will be perfectly good friendly relations. I had official approval of the future Government of India agreeing to his going to Pakistan and there’d be no ill-will. You see, I was always convinced East Pakistan would never work. The whole concept of two different peoples being held together over all those miles by the same religion was absolute nonsense. But West Pakistan was something else, I wanted it to work, I wanted it to be viable. After all, I was responsible for it. I wanted Kashmir with them. I didn’t want to muck up my own creation, for God’s sake.^[28] 

The suspicion of a diabolical plot to award Gurdaspur to India and put pressure on Kashmir to accede to it has been conclusively refuted by Radcliffe himself as well as Mehr Chand Mahajan who was a Member of the Boundary Commission.^[29] While dealing with this issue at length, H.V. Hodson, noted Journalist and British Civil Servant, known for his role in documenting the events surrounding the partition of India and Pakistan, writes:

The innuendo of the Pakistani allegation has been sharpened and embittered by the claim than an important variation concerning the Gurdaspur district deliberately gave India a route into Kashmir. There is a high degree of myth in this also. The two main routes into Kashmir, via Rawalpindi and Murree and via Sialkot and the Banihal Pass would in any case have gone to Pakistan. The Pathankot tehsil, which on any showing would have gone to India, had at that time no good road into Kashmir and Jammu, nor had the Gurdaspur tehsil, which, if it had gone to Pakistan, could have been bypassed by India in developing a new route into the State via Pathankot. The decisive action at the opening of the Kashmir warfare was accomplished by India with an airlift without overflying any territory that could have been seriously disputed between India and Pakistan. Lord Radcliffe has denied that access to Jammu and Kashmir was at any time one of the ‘other factors’ affecting the award.

Mountbatten, too while acknowledging that if Radcliffe had not given Gurdaspur and two Tehsils to India it would have built pressure on the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan categorically states that ‘I never discussed this with Radcliffe’.^[30]

Conclusion

The tilt of His Majesty’s Government towards Pakistan, Mountbatten’s interactions with the Maharaja, his refusal to sign the Instrument of Accession of Kashmir unless accompanied by an offer of a plebiscite^[31], his advice to terminate the lease of the Gilgit Agency and its retrocession to the Maharaja on 1 August 1947, the rebellion of the Gilgit Scouts engineered by Major William Brown and handing over the area to the NWFP Government headed by George Cunningham, the subsequent award of the title of  ‘Member of the Order  of the British Empire’ MBE (Military) to Brown by His Majesty’s Government in January 1948 for ostensibly delivering Gilgit to Pakistan^[32] and Mountbatten’s advice to Nehru to refer the matter to the United Nations despite being aware of His Majesty’s Government and its representative Noel Baker’s anti India stance, all point towards the duplicitous role played by Britain in Kashmir and their attempts to retain the entire State and if not then at-least a part including Gilgit within Pakistan in furtherance of their strategic objectives in the region.

Amit Krishankant Paul is a lawyer, mediator and researcher. He is the Author of the book ‘Meghdoot: The Beginning of the Coldest War’ and has written several papers and articles on the Siachen Dispute. The views expressed here are his own.

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Endnotes

^[1] Penderel Moon, Wavell: The Viceroy’s Journal, Oxford University Press, London 1973 p 168 quoted in Rakesh Ankit, University of Southampton, Thesis, 2014, available at https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/370019/1/Rakesh Ankit PhD Thesis.pdf (accessed 15 July 2025), p. 41

^[2] 19 May 1948, Memorandum on ‘The Strategic and Political Importance of Pakistan in the event if War with the USSR’, F 200/39, Mountbatten Papers, IOR quoted in Rakesh Ankit, op. cit., p. 41

^[3] Churchill-Mountbatten meeting, 19 November 1947, Larry Collins Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, 16 August 1947-18 June 1948, Vikas Publications: Delhi, 1984, p 110

^[4] 29 January 1949, Philip Price to Clement Attlee, MS Attlee Dep. 77, Attlee Papers quoted in Ankit (2014) op. cit., p. 41

^[5] 2 September 1946, Nehru to C-in-C India’s Committee, (46) 380, POLL 3/1/5.Enoch Powell Papers CAC quoted in Ankit (2014) p. 21

^[6] 5 November 1946, Messervy to Mountbatten, MB 1/E 106, Mountbatten Papers quoted in Ankit (2014) p21

^[7] 11 May 1946, MUL 1152, Auchinleck Papers, John Rylands Library, Manchester quoted in Ankit (2014) p. 23

^[8] Maj. Gen. Kuldip Singh Bajwa, Jammu and Kashmir War 1947-48 Har Anand, Delhi, 2024, p. 30

^[9] 18 March 1947, CoS Committee Paper (47) 59 (0), Item No. 544, Volume IX, Nicholas Mansergh & Penderel Moon, Transfer of Power,1976 quoted in Ankit (2014).

^[10] Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 5 dated 1 May 1947 referred in Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed’s, The Pakistan Military in Politics: Origins, Evolution, Consequences, Manjul Publishing:Bhopal, India, 2013

^[11] Maj. Gen. Kuldip Singh Bajwa, op. cit, p.32

^[12] CoS Minutes quoted in Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed, op cit, p. 36.

^[13] 7 July 1947 JP (47) 90, Item No. 544, Volume XI, TOP quoted in Ankit (2014) p 23

^[14] Iqbal Chand Malhotra, Dark Secrets, Bloomsbury Publications, India, 2021, argues that Gilgit was being used by Britain to monitor Soviet nuclear activities in Semipalatinsk.

^[15] It was a secret scheme devised by Lord Wavell and his advisors, primarily during 1945-1947, to manage the impending British withdrawal from India and, crucially, to try and prevent the partition of the subcontinent, Breakdown Plan, Vol. VII and VIII of the TOP.

^[16] 5 April 1947, Maurice Zinkin, The Economic viability of Pakistan, by , Alan Campbell Johnson Papers quoted in Ankit (2014), p. 23

^[17] 10 July 1946, Cabinet Paper (46) 267, CAB 129/12, TNA quoted in Ankit (2014), p. 23

^[18] H V Hodson,The Great Divide, Hutchinson of London, 1969, p. 441

^[19] Hodson Op Cit, p 442; Mountbatten’s speech quoted by Josef Korbel in Danger in Kashmir, Princeton University Press, 1954 at p 57 confirms that he advised the Maharaja to decide before 14^th August whichever Dominion he wanted to while hinting that if he were to go to Pakistan then the Indian Government would not take it amiss.

^[20] Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, op. cit. p. 52

^[21] Ramchandra Kak, ‘Jammu and Kashmir State in 1946-47: Dilemma of Accession-The Missing Link in the Story’ in Radha Rajan, Jammu & Kashmir, Dilemma of Accession, Voice of India Publications, 2018, p. 128

^[22] Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, op. cit. p. 53

^[23] Lord Birdwood, Two Nations and Kashmir, Robert Hale Limited, London 1956, p. 42;

^[24] Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, op. cit. p. 52

^[25] V. P. Menon, ‘Integration of the Indian States’, Orient Black Swan, 2014, p. 355

^[26] Korbel op. cit. p 59

^[27] Josef Korbel, Op Cit p 57. See also Campbell-Johnson, ‘Mission with Mountbatten, p. 117 and V P Menon, ‘The Story of the Integration of the Indian States’, p. 376.

^[28] Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, Mountbatten and Independent India, op. cit. p. 56

^[29] C. H. Philip, Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives, 1935-47, Routledge: London, 1970; Mehr Chand Mahajan, Looking Back Asia Publishing House, 1963 pp 114-120; H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide, Britain, India and Pakistan, p 354; Prem Shankar Jha, Kashmir 1947, Rival Versions of History, p74; Lord Birdwood, “Kashmir”, International Affairs, Vol. XXVIII No. 3, 18 July 1952, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London pp 301-312;Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, 2003, p. 35 contends that a possible reason for awarding Gurdaspur to India was that the headwaters of all the canals which irrigated Amritsar lay in Gurdaspur and it was important to keep them in one administration.

^[30] Mountbatten and Independent India, op. cit. p. 62

^[31] Mountbatten to Nehru, ‘I’ll only countersign it on condition you offer a plebiscite’, Mountbatten and Independent India, Op Cit, p 56

^[32] William Brown, ‘Gilgit Rebellion: The Major who mutinied over partition of India, Pen & Sword, 2014, p. 138, writes that somewhere within the British Military Establishment there were those who approved of what he had done in Gilgit to ensure that this region went to Pakistan instead of India.