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A ‘Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir’ in London was made to “fade away” after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi raised concern over its formation during the April 1985 visit to New Delhi of his British counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, Hindustan Times reported.
According to report published in Hindustan Times, classified documents released by National Archives on Friday demonstrate the tenuous nature of such ‘committees’ formed by UK-based groups politically opposed to India, comprising MPs whose constituencies have many voters of Pakistan origin.
“Over decades and years, New Delhi has often lodged protests with London against activities of such ‘committees’ that adopt anti-India postures by excluding alternative perspectives; for example, on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” reported Hindustan Times.
The ‘committee’ objected to by Gandhi was formed following the visit to the UK of “a prominent Kashmiri from the Pakistani side of the cease-fire line”, the Foreign Office told 10 Downing Street on May 7, 1985. It “has no formal status,” the note adds.
The four MPs on the ‘committee’ were Gary Waller, Peter Thurnham, Roy Galley (all Conservative) and Barry Sheerman (Labour).
According to report the note says: “We do not know how active the Committee is likely to prove: one of four members, Mr Galley, has confided to us that he is a reluctant member who joined because of the number of Kashmiris in his constituency. We suspect the same may be true of the other members.”
An investigation revealed that the ‘committee’ was formed by Thurnham’s research assistant, “who wrote to 60 MPs on Mr Thurnham’s stationery without the latter’s permission.” When the MP discovered this, he wrote to the MPs that his assistant “had gone further than he had been authorized,” reported Hindustan Times.
A note of May 28, 1985, says: “Mr Thurnham has said that, so far as he is concerned, the Committee no longer exists”.
The British high commission in Delhi was told to inform Gandhi’s private secretary that the ‘committee’ was the “work of an over-active research assistant rather than MP: it was never formally constituted and it can now be regarded as non-existent.”
C D Powell, Thatcher’s adviser, wrote on another note that “the less fuss made about it, the sooner the ‘committee’ is likely to fade away”, asking the Foreign Office minister to speak to MPs on the ‘committee’ and “explain to them in confidence the problems which their participation on this Committee causes”.
“While it may well not be possible to persuade them to leave it, they might come to see there would be an advantage in allowing it to become dormant,” Powell wrote.
The theme of British MPs with a large number of Pakistan-origin constituents raising issues opposed to Indian interests was most recently reiterated by Foreign Office minister in the Theresa May government, Mark Field, who criticised Labour’s policy of viewing the Jammu and Kashmir issue through the prism of human rights.
Field told London-based Indian journalists: “I’m afraid the Labour party’s current view is driven by experience, not least because they see that issue in the perspective of a significant number of people who are supporters of their party, who live now in the UK, from Pakistan administered Kashmir.”
“I think the dangerous thing particularly is to play to the gallery of small numbers of voters,” Hindustan Times quoted Field as having said.
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