history of jammu and kashmir rifles

(Indian Army). It is also on record that all state troops in the Cantonment were organized into 'B'
Sector (under the Indian Army) which was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Sher Singh of the
Kashmir Body Guard Cavalry. Who then were these 2000 odd men idling away in the barracks at
Srinagar? Obviously there has been some mix-up somewhere. There is a suggestion that they could
be the garrison police companies of the State (which was formed out of Ex-servicemen) that had just
then been rushed to Srinagar for internal security duties.
Be it as it may, it was probably a case of lapse in liaison between the State Force and the Indian
Army, over which the General seems to have over-reacted. 7 In fact on going through his book one
finds that impulsiveness is not totally outside his nature. He himself narrates the incident where he
ordered Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah out of his operations room without giving time to Lieutenant
Colonel PN Kak, (the Liaison Officer who had ushered the Sheikh in) to disclose the identity of the
visitor. 8 Elsewhere in the book he proudly narrates how in Poonch he bullied a State Force Lieutenant
Colonel for no fault of his, when he found the bridge over the Batar Nallah destroyed by the Garrison
Police guard who mistook the Indian Army relief column for Pakistanis. 9 Although during his meeting
with the Poonch Brigade Commander, a little later it transpired that the Poonch Garrison had not been
informed about the approach of the relief column the General expresses no regret for having flared up
unnecessarily even in his book that he wrote 20 years after the event. It was perhaps this long gap of
20 years between the occurrence of events and the writing of the book that caused many inaccuracies
to creep into his writings. Brigadier Krishna Singh has hotly denied that the matter of command of the
Poonch Brigade was ever discussed with him by General Sen as claimed by him and that there was
no question of his stepping down in favour of Lieutenant Colonel Pritam Singh. In fact he continued to
command the Garrison (less the Indian Army Battalion) till he was posted out to take over as the
Brigadier General Staff at Army Headquarters (State Force). It is pertinent to note that even General
Harbaksh Singh, who was one of the battalion commanders under General Sen, complained bitterly in
the Press about a number of inaccuracies in the book, no sooner than it was published.
The unkindest cut was, however, made by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, when in a letter to Sardar
Patel dated 30 May 1948 he wrote that “the State troops in Ladakh and Skardu had behaved in a
most cowardly and disgraceful manner” and that “they had not only run away at the slightest
provocation but had handed over our weapons and ammunition to the enemy”. He believed that
“without this ammunition the enemy could hardly have functioned for long”. 10 One wonders which
incident(s) Nehru was referring to. The Skardu Garrison was at that time still holding out in spite of the
Garrison being out of ammunition and on the verge of starvation, while Dras and Kargil had fallen only
after a bitter fight against heavy odds. In Ladakh proper about three platoons of State troops were
operating under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Prithi Chand (Indian Army) and there is no record
of them having acted in a manner as alleged by the dignitary. The only debacle in which the State
troops were involved was the failure of two relief columns to reach Skardu. Both these columns had
been sent out into the blue without adequate logistic support and those who have had the experience
of fighting in the North-West Frontier during the pre-Independence days would agree that debacles in
such areas could occur more due to bad planning than inefficiency of troops. It would not be surprising
if the political leadership was misinformed about the details of the operation and causes of its failure,
as making of scapegoats for unsuccessful operations is not uncommon. It could also be that the
remarks were politically motivated to lend support to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in his tussle with
the Maharaja for the control over the State Force. This is evident from such examples. It is interesting
to note that after Hari Singh had been removed from the scene, Nehru in 1957 accepted the proposal
of General KS Thimayya DSO, Chief of the Army Staff, (who was General Officer Commanding Sri
Division during the Jammu & Kashmir operations) for the integration of all the State Force battalions
with all their officers into the Indian Army to form a separate regiment, without the sort of screening
that the forces of all the other princely states were made to undergo. With this unique privilege
conferred on the Jammu & Kashmir State Force by the Prime Minister, all his earlier doubts could be
deemed to have been retracted.
7 Lt Col PN Kak, the State Force Liaison Officer with the Indian Army has also categorically denied the
occurrence of the event of parading any shirkers before the Force Commander in a letter to the author dated 2
Jan 1986. Colonel Kak further states that the ration strength of the State Force at BB Cantt was composed
mostly of non combatants and administrative personnel who could not have been used for fighting on the
front.
8 LP Sen p 77
9 Ibid pp 123‐124
10 Sardar Patel’s Correspondence p 191
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