How the Kashmir War Began From Our Delhi Correspondent The war between India and Pakistan began on the night of August 5. When the guerrillas whom Pakistan had been training all this year, with little attempt at secrecy, stole in handfuls-but in sum in thousands-across the ceasefire line into Indian Kashmir it was realized in Delhi that Pakistan had launched an attempt to take by force what India had refused to yield. Although there was no uprising among the people of the valley and although the Indian Army was able soon to get the upper hand of the guerriLlas, the infiltrations still posed a serious potential threat to Indian con- trol of the valley. Some of the activists among the pro-Pakistanis of the valley (and the majority of the Kashmiris are that), have for years been talking of one day taking to the hills as a maquis against the Indians. While that brave talk of turning Kashmir into an Algeria was never more than rodomontade- the Kashmiris are not warriors-Delhi realized that a continuous flow of guerrillas across the cease-fire line could in the long run shake the Indian posi- tion in Kashmir. Even if it did not succeed at last, Delhi was not prepared to allow a guerrilla campaign in Kashmir to be added to the hosts of troubles with which India was beset. MILITANT MOOD Caution would have dictated that before doing anything else india would have tried to wipe out the infiltrators by throwing everything into the military hunt in the valley. If that operation had succeeded Pakistan might have been made to see the uselessness of sending in any more. However, reinforcements for the guerrillas continued to be sent across the line-and anyway India was not in a cautious mood. The mood of the Indian Government, reflecting that of the Indian political classes, has not been fully appreciated abroad. Since the debacles of the border war with China in 1962 Indian attitudes have expressed a bruised and resentful militancy; and since the fighting in the Rann of Kutch this summer that feeling has been focused on Pakistan. The incidents in the Rann were from the beginning presented by the Indian Government, and even responsible Indian newspapers, as unheralded and unprovoked aggression by Pakistan. That was culpably misleading, because the confrontation in Kutch was un- planned and unexpected in Rawalpindi as well as in Delhi and because India had played her part in turning an old dispute into a battle. Moreover, it was dangerous because the tension and anger generated by the Kutch fighting consurned all remaining patience. By swallowing his first ill- considered words about aggression and accepting the British mediation Mr. Shastri, the Prime Minister, averted by a few hours the war-this war-which he and his colleagues had made imminent by their over-reaction; but in doing so he used up all his room for diplomatic manoeuvre. Next time it came to a trial of strength with Pakistan there could be no mediation, no negotiation; it would be fought out once and for all. War, the unthinkable in Mr. Nehru's time, had become an operational plan. REPLY INEVITABLE Ignoring the effect on the Indian mood of their limited military and diplomatic triumphs in the Rann of Kutch. the Pakistanis continued with the plans made at the end of last year when it was realized in Pakistan that all hopes of get- ting Kashmir by diplomacy or political pressure were dead. The training of the raiders went on and last month they were sent on their guerrilla missions into Kashmir. The next step of escalation was the Indian crossing of the cease-fire line, at Kargil first, then at Tithwal, and finally, and most seriously, between Punch and Uri to close off a salient of wild country which had been the main route for the raiders. The last was the point of no return. A Pakistan riposte was inevit- able and it had to be delivered at the point most advantageous to Pakistan- and therefore most intolerable for India. The Pakistan counter-thrust in ahe Chamb sector began to threaten India's whole position in Kashmir, and India went to war. If responsibility for this catastrophe can be focused, it lies with President Ayub. He had steered his country in six years from political ohaos and irrele- vance to stability, to satisfactory and at some points exemplary economic de- velopment, and to a niche of some note in international affairs. Personally, his own position had been unassailable since the elections at the beginning of this year. An unknown and undistin- guished general had made himself an effective leader, a respected statesman. DECISIVE POINT The political pressure on President Ayub to press India in the cause of Kashmir was limited and sustained by his own Government. To the majority of Pakistanis who live in East Pakistan Kashmir has never been a matter of great concern, certainly nothing to go to war about. The Sindis round Karachi, another important group, were not pas- sionately engaged either; the Baluchis had their own fierce quarrels with Presi- dent Ayub's Government that made commitments over Kashmir beside the point to them. The tribesmen of the north-west frontier (though they also had their sharp differences with the cen- tral Government) and the Punjabis pro- vided the main block of those in Pakistan to whom Kashmir was a press- ing issue. They do not make a large minority. By continuing to leave the rhetoric of the Kashmir cause without support in action and over the years turning down the volume of political complaint and invective against India, President Ayub could have redirected his coun- try's energies on to the paths of national development. It may be that he believed Pakistan had an ineluctable duty to stand by the Kashmiris-though it is significant that he refused to consider an independent Kashmir, and the inde- pendently inclined former President of Azad Kashmir is in gaol in Pakistan just as Shaikh Abdullah is in India. It was also argued strongly to him that Pakistan, divided between east and west wings, could never be strong and stable until a third leg of the union, Kashmir, was added. Perhaps that argument was decisive. HOPES DOOMED Where this will end cannot now be foreseen, except in the certainty of suffer- ing for countless millions of people in both countries if it does not end very soon. Another certainty is that the effort by India to begin pulling out of age-old poverty, which was already faltering, is now threatened if not doomed. That Pakistan can emerge from a war to the finish with 1ndia in the same form as she began it is doubtful: that India can never be the same again after she has fought a long war with Pakistan is certain. Hopes of development will have gone, so will secularism, the zealous concern for the equal rights of Indian Muslims- that was already ailing. Secularism is the foundation of Indian democracy, which could not survive the condemna- tion of 60 million Indian Muslims to second-class citizenship. If it is fought out, and China does not come in, it seems that India cannot be defeated. Setbacks in the west would most likely lead Delhi to move into the softer areas of East Pakistan. Pakistan, the smaller country by far and with shallower resources, would be fought out before India-but there would be no victory. Perhaps history will see in this the civil war that some thought partition would avert-these countries were born in slaughter, disaster might have been in their stars. How the Kashmir War Began