T H E I N F O R M A L WAR

of 1953, newly Islamic Pakistan turned to the Western powers for support. In
February 1955, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Iran and Turkey signed a treaty known
as the Baghdad Pact, which allowed them to co-operate for their security and
defence .75
Although the ostensible purpose of the Baghdad Pact was to defend West and
South Asia from communism, the implications of increased Western military
aid to Pakistan were not lost on New Delhi. Securing a stable legal relationship
between New Delhi and Srinagar became a renewed imperative. On January 26,
1957, the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir approved the state s
Constitution. Jammu and Kashmir s destiny was now irrevocably linked to the
constitutional structure of the Indian Union. This new legal order provoked angr
y
protests from Abdullah, and from the United Nations, but with little effect. In
March, just two months after the Constitution was ratified, elections were held
for the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad
was elected Prime Minister, backed by a crushing majority of 68 seats in the new
legislature. Over the coming years, Bakshi
called The Builder by his party
faithful would develop an unsavory reputation as an authoritarian leader who
used state patronage both to ensure control of the National Conference cadre
apparatus and to enrich party elites.76
Bakshi s ability to retain power lay in positioning; in his placement of his
office at the fulcrum of the contestation between ethnic Kashmiri chauvinists in
the Valley and Dogra chauvinists in Jammu. As a consequence, the real threat
to Bakshi came from secular political organizations in both the provinces of
Kashmir and Jammu
organizations that could challenge his authority without
fuelling chauvinist anxieties among ethnic Kashmiris and Dogras. Balraj Puri, a
perceptive contemporary observer himself active in Jammu and Kashmir politics,
has noted:
Bakshi was able to demonstrate in the Valley that he was more successful
in containing the [Praja] Parishad threat. And in Jammu, he sought
to create the impression that he alone could curb the anti-national
activities of Abdullah. However, Bakshi had a vested interest in ensuring
a minimum strength for the Parishad and for Abdullah so that Bakshi
could arouse fears against them in Kashmiris and Dogras, respectively,
and emerge as their protector.77
In the build-up to the 1957 elections, the kinds of secular and progressive forc
es
that could pose a real challenge to Bakshi began to emerge. The Democratic
National Conference, made up of Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq, Mir Qasim and
D.P. Dhar (who was later, as Home Minister, to commission Surendra Nath s
reports), broke rank with Bakshi. It demanded the extension of key safeguards
in the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir, where the Constitution did
not have a chapter on fundamental rights. These included the right of appeal
to India s Supreme Court, and poll oversight by the Election Commission. The
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