Telegram from Britain’s High Commissioner in India on Kashmir and Sikh developments, 8 December 1947 (DO 133/61)
Transcript
OUTWARD TELEGRAM
From the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom
To Commonwealth Relations Officer
4.55 p.m. 8.12
Priority Immediate
KASHMIR
3. On the main Srinagar-Rawalpindi road the position continues to be static around Uri. The main development of the week has been an increased tempo of guerrilla activities by raiders and Azad Kashmir Forces in the Mirpur- Bhimbar-Akhnoor sector in the extreme south. Indian Armed Forces made a planned withdrawal from Kolti together with the States Forces garrison which they had relieved a week before.
4. Stories of atrocities committed on both sides are receiving wide circulation. Sardar Patel and Baldev Singh visited Jammu on December 2nd and Nehru on December 6th.
…
SIKH DEVELOPMENTS
In recent statement Tara Singh said that “within next six months India and Pakistan will be at war with each other. There is no other way of solving the problem created by the migration of non-Muslims from Pakistan. British sympathies are definitely with Pakistan but I do not think they will actively intervene.” As a counter to this the Maharajah of Patiala and Baldev Singh have appealed to Sikhs to act with restraint. The former stated that (a) Sikh blood has been shed in [certain parts of] Pakistan and [it] has become sacred to them and (b) they did not like those lands being under alien’s domination, today was not the time to do anything which might in long run harm Sikh cause.