Cease-Fire in Kashmir
Exactly a year after the Kashmir dispute first came before the United Nations the Governments of India and Pakistan have been able to announce that they have arranged between themselves for a cease-fire in that disputed State. This cease-fire is now apparently being scrupulously enforced by both sides, and may therefore be expected to develop, as had always been intended, into a formal truce, and the truce in its turn to prepare the ground for a plebiscite. For this dramatic and happy transition to peace the Governments of both Dominions deserve the fullest credit, but it would be unjust to ignore the patient work of conciliation which the United Nations Kashmir Commission has put in during the past year ; what is happening now is almost word for word what it recommended in its resolution of August 14th. During the next stages of the settlement —that is to say during the truce and, above all, during the plebiscite —the good offices of the United Nations will be more necessary than ever. A cease-fire could have been arranged in August if the Pakistan Government had not felt that no plesbiscite could be fairly conducted as long as the present Ministry of Sheik Abdullah held power in Kashmir. Presumably its fears on this score have now been somewhat allayed, but unless the plebiscite is so carried out that it gives ground for no reasonable complaint by either side it would be better if it had never been held at all. The fundamental grievance between the two Dominions—whether or not the Hindu Maharajah had the right to bring his predominantly Moslem State over into the Indian Union —remains. Partition may offer a way out, in spite of the geographic and economic objections which there are to it in this case, and there have been signs that the Government of India would accept partition. It might be harder for Pakistan, which still resents Indian action in Hyderabad, to accept a compromise, but the quiet bargaining which has resulted in the New Year cease-fire is the best augury for the future.
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