MI5 felt ‘Sikhistan’ imminent as Nehru was too weak -Deccan Chronicle

[proactive]

Shows what could have been, even after the Radcliffe award had been announced had the leadership been strong enough

http://www.deccanchr...as-too-weak-700

The diaries of Guy Liddell, then-deputy director general of MI5, reveal that the British intelligence services felt Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was too weak to deal with the problems of independent India.

The British intelligence also felt a “Sikhistan” was imminent in the communal violence and chaos that followed the Partition of India and formation of Pakistan.

Gen. Reginald Savory, the last adjutant-general of British forces in India, in October 1947 briefed Liddell about his total belief that the Sikhs would soon form a “Sikhistan” in the newly-independent India.

“The Sikhs are already concentrating their forces and have been marching out of certain areas in formation, with advanced guards, rear guards and flank guards. They have rifles, sten guns and bren guns, and I believe a few mortars. He thinks that they will move eastwards in the direction of Delhi, reform and then launch an attack to recover what they consider to be their area. (He did not state exactly what this area was, but I imagine it would be centred on Amritsar),” Liddell wrote in his diary.

Even Savory expressed concern about the effectiveness of Nehru as the Prime Minister. “Nehru is considered to be too weak to deal with the Sikhs and Savoury would not be surprised to see him supplanted by Sardar Patel,” Liddell added.

The possibility of an imminent “Sikhistan” is again mentioned by Liddell with Philip Vickery, the last head of Indian Political Intelligence bureau in British India, who also felt that Sikhs could form a “Sikhistan.”

General Hastings Ismay, who served under last Indian viceroy and first governor-general Lord Mountbatten as chief of staff, also referred to “Sikhistan” as a strong possibility.

“The Sikhs had marched out to the frontier in an orderly fashion with all their goods and chattels, guarded by military forces. The probability was that when they reformed they would attempt to re-occupy their strongholds, and that Nehru would not be able to control them. They lacked, however, a strong leader,” Lord Ismay told Liddell.

The article writer is wrong in his view that the areas referred to my Liddell in his diary are areas centred on Amritsar. The fear amongst the Pakistan leadership was that the Sikh migration from West Punjab was a tactical withdrawal after which the Sikhs would invade and occupy Lahore, Lyallpur and other West Punjab areas.

[lsingh]

The Sikhs in the Indian army had grown to very large numbers in the Second World War. However on their return from the war they were kept in Bengal far away from Punjab and remained there in 1947. Had this large number of battle hardened Sikhs got to Punjab we could have easily have had an independant state. The Sikh regiments would have provided a discplined force until a Government structure could have been put in place. It was also unfortunate that Winston Chuchill lost the election after the war as he was a fan of the Sikhs and refferred to Nehru and Gandhi in derogatory terms.

[Singh559]

Reading this is painful.

[MrDoaba]

Reading this is painful.

I'll second that. Reading this is very painful.

[Jonny101]

Sikhs in 1947 had a lot of potential. In 1947 we were dominating the Indian army. In fact many generals were Sikhs (many of whom mysteriously died in a plane crash during the 1st Kashmir war). Add to this thousands of battle hardened ex soldiers who had fought in WW2. The Sikh princely states also had their own royal Sikh armies who were also battle hardened from WW2, the patiala army was particularly very strong. Then we had so many Sikh men who were battle hardened by the violence in 1947 partion of Punjab. If only we had the right leader at the time Sikhs could have achieved so much by force. No one in India could have resisted the Sikhs at the time. May Guru jee bless us with a good opportunity in the future and a great leader to lead us.

[Mehtab Singh]

Just hope we don't see our own dying in wars and genocides just to become hardened.

[Jonny101]

Just hope we don't see our own dying in wars and genocides just to become hardened.

I think you missed the gist of my post. Being "hardened" as you call it was not the point I made here. I merely wrote down the situation of the Sikh people in 1947 and what could have been if we only had the right leader to take advantage of the situation. Even MI5 at the time seems to have thought that a Sikh national state was imminent. But Sikhs were too trusting of Nehru and gandhi.

Of course no one wants to suffer a genocide. But look at it this way, the fact that Sikhs did not take advantage of the situation of 1947, the result is we suffered the catastrophic genocide of 1984 and after.

[Mehtab Singh]

the fact that Sikhs did not take advantage of the situation of 1947, the result is we suffered the catastrophic genocide of 1984 and after.

Hanji true say.

[lsingh]

I think you missed the gist of my post. Being "hardened" as you call it was not the point I made here. I merely wrote down the situation of the Sikh people in 1947 and what could have been if we only had the right leader to take advantage of the situation. Even MI5 at the time seems to have thought that a Sikh national state was imminent. But Sikhs were too trusting of Nehru and gandhi.

Of course no one wants to suffer a genocide. But look at it this way, the fact that Sikhs did not take advantage of the situation of 1947, the result is we suffered the catastrophic genocide of 1984 and after.

Yes I find this difficult to understand why the Sikhs at the time did not even obtain any safeguards for themselves. At least Sikhs should have obtained a Vatican like status for Nanakna Sahib where say a zone of 20 miles could have been kept in Sikhs hands. The British or UN could have ensured a treaty to allow Sikhs safe passage there.

They did not even ensure security was in place before declaring India and Pakistan, 1 million people died for no reason. The British, Indian , Pakistani leaders bare the blame, but the Sikhs should have thought about protection for themselves especially when massacres had started a year before.

[N30S1NGH]

You are right lsingh veer, infact it was well know that Nanakna Sahib had huge land which was slowly taken over by pakistan gov't and local war lords..!!