User:Kautilya3/Frederick Paul Mainprice

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Frederick Paul Mainprice
Bornc. 1915
Died28 October 1950
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Allegiance British Empire
Service/branchIndian Civil Service, Indian Political Service, Pakistan's Ministry of Kashmir Affairs
Years of service1937–1950

Frederick Paul Mainprice (1915–1950) was an officer of British India, serving in the Indian Civil Service and Indian Political Service. After the Partition of India, he worked in the Government of Pakistan (1948–1949), specialising on the Kashmir problem. He is the author of a high-profile report published in The Times in August 1948, which detailed information about the situation in Kashmir including the 1947 Jammu massacres.[1][2][3]

Career[edit]

Frederick Mainprice joined the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1937. He was posted to the Central Provinces as an Assistant Commissioner.[1]

In 1942, he was transferred to the Indian Political Service, which was responsible for maintaining relations with princely states and India's neighbouring states. He served in the Eastern States Agency and as the British trade agent in Gyantse, Tibet. Afterwards he was posted as the Assistant Political Agent in the Gilgit Agency, which was leased by British India from the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir for the purpose of maintaining a strong border against Central Asia.[1]

Prior to the Partition of India in August 1947, the British returned the Gilgit Agency to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, which ended his appointment in Gilgit. Afterwards, he appears to have accepted an appointment with the Government of Pakistan.[a] The United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) had an interview with him in Mirpur, and listed him as a Deputy Secretary in the Government of Pakistan.[4] He appears to have been affiliated to the the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs. He was working in the 'UN Liaison Department' of the Ministry and/or as the official in charge of refugees.[5][6]

He is said to have stopped working for the Pakistan government some time in 1949 and began to live in Rawalpindi. He died of a sudden attack of poliomyelitis on 28 October 1950.[2]

The Times report on Jammu massacres[edit]

From 14 June 1948, Frederick Mainprice holidayed in Kashmir for several months. While on his sojourn, he wrote a two-part report titled "Elimination of Muslims from Jammu", published by The Times of London on 9 and 10 August 1948, listing the author as a 'Special Correspondent'.[7] The first part was subtitled 'An India-Pakistan Batteground' and the second part 'The Fate of Kashmir'.[8] The identity of its author was unknown until scholar Christopher Snedden made enquiries prior to the publication of his 2012 book.[4] Mainprice was said to have been subsequently expelled on 13 September by the "new Indian government" in Kashmir, presumably the Interim Government headed by Sheikh Abdullah.[4][9]

Mainprice's report provided detailed information about the Muslim populations in 'eastern Jammu' districts, which comprised, according to Mainprice, the Jammu district (including the present day Samba district), Kathua district, Udhampur district (including the present day Doda and Kishtwar districts) and the eastern part of the Reasi district. The report assessed that a total of 411,000 Muslims lived in these parts of the state.[8] Out of these, the report states:

237,000 Muslims were systematically exterminated—unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border—by all the forces of the Dogra State, headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs. This happened in October 1947, five days before the first Pathan invasion and nine days before the Maharaja's accession to India.[10]

Scholar Christopher Snedden states that no calculations were given for the 'exact figure' of 237,000. Neither did the report break down the number into deaths and escapes.[8] This is crucial information because, for instance, a 1948 West Punjab Refugee Census revealed that 202,600 refugees from Jammu and Kashmir were in West Punjab.[11] Scholar Ian Copland, who did not know the identity of the 'Special Correspondent' nevertheless commented, "the Times man, too, seems to have harboured Pakistani sympathies and, more importantly, offers no clues as to the source of his information."[12] Justice Yusuf Saraf of the Azad Kashmir High Court, while acknowledging that massacres had occurred, noted that the figures were "highly exaggerated". He estimated the number of Muslim deaths in Jammu areas to have been "twenty to thirty thousand people".[13]

More significantly, by August 1948, the information about the massacres in Jammu was well-known. Christopher Snedden mentions a steady stream of news reports in Pakistan from September 1947 onwards, which reported the tales narrated by the refugees.[14] The Indian Government came to know about the violence soon after the accession, as it came to light that the refugee convoys from Jammu to Pakistan were attacked on their way and numerous people were killed. The government ordered the next convoy to be guarded by Indian military troops, who then confronted the attackers, killing 153 of them and capturing 500. This is believed to have put an end to the attacks by 21 November.[15] The Indian government also joined hands with the Pakistan government in commissioning the Quaker pacifist relief workers Horace Alexander and Richard Symonds to investigate the violence. Their reports, submitted in December 1947, were published in full by the Civil & Military Gazette and Dawn the same month.[16] In January 1948, Horace Alexander also wrote about it in the Spectator in January 1948.[17] Given all this background, Mainprice's exaggerated report of the Jammu violence in August 1948 seem to raise questions.

Pakistan's Kashmir policy[edit]

As India took the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations Security Council in January 1948, accusing Pakistan of supporting insurgents and raiders on Kashmir, the Government of Pakistan's approach was to make counter-accusations against India, of having committed 'genocide' in Punjab, which then allegedly provoked the Muslim populations of Pakistan to invade Kashmir without any involvement of the Pakistan government itself.[18]> The Security Council passed a resolution in January 1948, appointing a three-member Commission to investigate the charges and countercharges. However, the Commission did not come into being as Pakistan did not nominate its representative to the Commission.[19] Eventually after the April resolution of the Security Council, a five-member Commission was formed (later called the UNCIP), with the main goal of bringing the fighting to an end and making arrangements for a plebiscite. By the time the UNCIP came to the subcontinent in July 1948, the Pakistan government revealed that regular Pakistani Army battalions were fighting in Kashmir, which made a strong impression on the Commission. The Commission received reports of atrocities committed against both the sides of the civilian populations, but it formed no judgement on these reports.[20]

Mainprice's report in The Times in August 1948 is set in the context of these developments. Through 1948, a trend is discernible in Pakistan's strategy of using the violence in Jammu as the rationale for its own intevention. Some time in 1948, the West Punjab government produced a report titled Kashmir Before Accession, citing what it called 'intelligence reports', mostly narrating first-hand accounts of the violence in Jammu.[16][21][22] The shape of the new argument may be seen in various writings of Pakistani commentators and diplomats. For instance, political scientist and diplomat Golam Wahed Choudhury writes:

The trouble in Kashmir started, not with the inrush of tribesmen, but with the systematic massacre of the Muslim population by the state forces, and the Pathan attacks were a direct consequence of this slaughter of fellow-Muslims.[23] (emphasis added)



Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The new Dominion of Pakistan, which was short of native officials, continued to employ former British colonial officials in responsible positions. According to his biography at the University of Cambridge South Asian Studies Archive (where Mainprice's papers are kept), he worked in the Government of Pakistan "specialising on the Kashmir problem" during 1948–1949.[1] His obituary written by a colleague suggest that he took up an appointment in the Government of Kashmir immeidately after handing power in Gilgit.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d MAINPRICE PAPERS, South Asian Studies Archive, University of Cambridge, retrieved 31 March 2017.
  2. ^ a b c "In memoriam". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 38 (1): 6–9. 1951. doi:10.1080/03068375108731385. ISSN 0035-8789.
  3. ^ Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, pp. 55, 330.
  4. ^ a b c Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 330.
  5. ^ Carter, Towards a Ceasefire in Kashmir 2018, p. 521.
  6. ^ Iob, A Betrayed Promise? 2013, p. 256.
  7. ^ Chattha, Partition and Its Aftermath 2009, p. 180.
  8. ^ a b c Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 55.
  9. ^ McKay, Tibet and the British Raj 1997, p. 205.
  10. ^ Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, p. 55 quoting Mainprice's column in The Times
  11. ^ Iob, A Betrayed Promise? 2013, p. 22.
  12. ^ Copland, State, Community and Neighbourhood 2005, p. 153.
  13. ^ Saraf, Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, Volume 2 2015, p. 133.
  14. ^ Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, pp. 328–330: footnotes 98, 100, 109–114, 118, 120, 124, 127, 129 and 140.
  15. ^ Das Gupta, Jammu and Kashmir 2012, p. 98.
  16. ^ a b Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History 2013, pp. 52–53, 329 (footnotes 120, 121).
  17. ^ Alexander, Horace (16 January 1948), "India-Pakistan-I", Spectator
  18. ^ Thorner, Alice (April 1949), "The Kashmir Conflict", Middle East Journal, 3 (2): 164–165, JSTOR 4322063
  19. ^ Blinkenberg, India–Pakistan: The historical part 1998, p. 104 (footnote 30): "Pakistan had not yet appointed her nominee to the Commission, which took place only on April 30, 1948. This was one of the reasons for the delay in sending out UNCIP, which was severely criticized by Korbel."
  20. ^ Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, pp. 121, 125–126.
  21. ^ Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History 1998, p. 116 (footnote 90).
  22. ^ Kashmir before Accession: Showing why the people of Kashmir rebelled against the Maharaja's government, what he did to suppress them and why he acceded to India, Superintendent, Government of West Punjab, 1948
  23. ^ Choudhury, Pakistan's relations with India 1968, pp. 93–94.

Bibliography[edit]


Category:1915 births Category:1950 deaths Category:Administrators in British India

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