Ten weeks after his country was born, the founder of Pakistan gave his army chief a direct order in the middle of the night. He said: move the troops. The general said no. How could a general refuse Muhammad Ali Jinnah? Jinnah was the Quaid-e-Azam. He had just created Pakistan. He was now its first Governor General. This is the first episode of our History of Pakistan series. It begins with a night when a brand new state found that its army was not yet fully its own.
The Army Pakistan Inherited
To understand that night, you have to understand the army Pakistan inherited. In August 1947, the British Indian Army was divided between two new countries, India and Pakistan. Pakistan received its share of soldiers and regiments. But almost every senior post was still held by a British officer. All three service chiefs were British.
Above both armies sat one man. He was Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, the joint Supreme Commander of India and Pakistan. He was based in Delhi.
There was also a standing rule, the stand-down order. If India and Pakistan ever went to war with each other, every British officer serving in both armies would be withdrawn. At that moment, Pakistan had almost no senior Pakistani officers ready to replace them.
Kashmir Catches Fire
Then Kashmir ignited. Kashmir was a princely state. It was a kingdom ruled by its own Maharaja, Hari Singh. He had not yet joined either India or Pakistan.
- On 22 October 1947, tribal fighters from Pakistan's frontier entered Kashmir.
- On 26 October 1947, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to India. Pakistan disputes that accession to this day.
- The next morning, on 27 October 1947, India airlifted its troops into Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital.
In Lahore and Karachi, the question was immediate. If Indian soldiers could fly in, why should Pakistani soldiers not march in to answer them?
The Night Jinnah Gave the Order
That night, the night of 27 October, Jinnah gave the order. According to General Shahid Hamid, who recorded the episode, regular Pakistan Army troops were to move into Kashmir. Two brigades were to take Srinagar and the Banihal Pass before India could secure them.
But the man who received that order was General Sir Douglas Gracey. He was the acting Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army. He was a British officer. He was standing in while the army's chief was away on leave.
Gracey refused to move without Auchinleck's approval. His stated reason was the stand-down order. If he obeyed Jinnah, every British officer in the Pakistan Army would have to be withdrawn at once, in the middle of a crisis.
Auchinleck Flies to Lahore
The next morning, Auchinleck himself flew from Delhi to Lahore. He put the price directly to Jinnah. If the order stood, the Pakistan Army would lose the British officers who ran it. They ran its headquarters, its brigades and its fighting units, down to low levels of the organisation. And this would happen at the very moment a war was beginning. There was no replacement bench waiting.
Faced with that choice, Jinnah withdrew the order. The regular army did not march into Kashmir that night.
Gracey, the general who had said no, later became the Pakistan Army's full Commander-in-Chief in February 1948. He served until 1951. The joint Supreme Command that had stood above both armies was abolished only weeks later, in November 1947.
What This Night Means
So the first Kashmir war of 1947 and 1948 was fought in a different shape. It was fought by tribal fighters, volunteers and, later, Pakistani forces. But it was not fought by that regular army march Jinnah had ordered.
The dispute itself outlived everyone in that room. It remains unresolved today. In Pakistan, this night is remembered as the moment the new state learned its first hard lesson about sovereignty. A country can be free on paper, and still find its founder's order stopping at a foreign officer's desk.
Next in this series: History of Pakistan, episode 2, the last moments of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Watch the video: When a General Refused Quaid-e-Azam's Order | History of Pakistan #1 on YouTube. This article is the full written version of the video, in simple English. See all articles on the Blogs page and more videos in the History Series.