Major Onkar Singh Kalkat, was a rather plucky and brave officer who was – in the months before India’s partition – posted in the frontier areas of what is now Pakistan, in Bannu District of the NWFP, where he was a Brigade Major (BM), a key staff officer Brigade Headquarters, under Brigadier Murray. Both Brigadier Murray and Kalkat were essentially waiting to hand over chargeof the Brigade to Brigadier Mian Ganga Hayauddin who was going to be the next Brigade Commander and the BM was to be Major Mohammad Hayat.
On 20th August 1947 a courier arrived carrying an Official letter from Lieutenant General Sir Frank Messervy, who was located in GHQ Rawalpindi. Kalkat, as the BM was authorized to open the correspondence for his Commander, so Major Kalkat opened the letter since his Brigade Commander was out of the military station. Attached to the letter was an Appendix titled ‘Operation Gulmarg – the plan for the invasion and capture of Kashmir.’ The date for the commencement of the operation was to be 20th October 1947.
At first Major Kalkat thought of speaking about the contents of the letter with his other colleagues but then decided against it. The troubled Kalkat called Brigadier Murray to seek his advice. Brigadier Murray reached Bannu the very next day on the 21st of August and was very disturbed to learn the contents of the letter that Kalkat had accidentally come across and he felt that Kalkat’s life would be in danger if others knew that he was privy to a high -level secret plan that was being hatched in GHQ Rawalpindi.
Major Kalkat had also overheard some conversation between Brigadier Murray and the Head Clerk to betray Kalkat to Pakistan’s Military Intelligence. However, some soldiers that were faithful to Major Kalkat, suspected he would be would be eliminated or killed and therefore hatched a plan to smuggle him out of Bannu, but Kalkat decided that rather than show loyalty to his British superiors he would rather escape to India with these plans and inform the Indian government in New Delhi. So, Major Kalkat immediately went to the military depot – and informed the British Base Communication Officer – and told him that he planned to go to India after having handed over charge to the British relief in Banu. He was a kind British officer who provided Major Kalkat a rucksack full of provisions and armed him with his own service weapons so that Kalkat could escape to India.
Kalkat boarded a train to Amritsar and from there onto Delhi and all along remaining alert to British officers who would
be planning his capture and elimination. Soon, Major Kalkat had reached Delhi to alert the Indian politico-military leadership.
But those in power and New Delhi chose to ignore the line stopping the plucky Major, who reached Delhi with the British plans which were signs of what was to follow. However, the British were unsuccessful. He put it in front of Major General(s) Kulwant Singh and BN Tupper, who went through with the plan, but dismissed it as a figment of some people’s imagination. Such an Operation to them was not a possibility.
But Kalkat was adamant and therefore this case was referred to the Defence Minister Sardar Baldev Singh, saying it had
no merit in it. They sent if for the reactions of Intelligence Bureau, before putting It up to Prime Minister Nehru, since Baldev Singh was not the sort of person who would take a decision as has been the norm with most of India’s Defense Ministers.
By 19 October the British establishment issued instructions to all British officers and their families who were holidaying in Kashmir, to return to their bases; a clear sign of their invasion plans unfolding. When Pandit Nehru learnt about this foul up, he was livid at the Defence Minister and the Generals. By 21st October 1947 the Pakistani Army under the leadership and directions of British officers launched the invasion of Kashmir; a fiasco that could have been prevented had Major Kalkat’s inputs been taken seriously. The rest is history now.
