(Life Anecdote – shared by Hugh Stephens)
Back in the early 1980s, I was serving as the Political Counsellor to the Canadian Embassy in Islamabad. Relations between India and Pakistan were just as strained as they had ever been and still are today. The nub of the issue was, and is, the contested state of Kashmir, a restive part of India with a majority Muslim population.
At the time of Partition in 1947, the Hindu prince of Kashmir opted to join India despite the fact that the vast majority of the population was Muslim. Pakistan subsequently encouraged Muslim tribal leaders to mount a coup, which failed. The issue was taken to the then fledgling United Nations. India basically refused to cooperate but as a compromise, one of the many UN-labelled peace-keeping or peace-observer operations was formed. It was known as UNMOGIP (UN Military Observer Group India Pakistan). UNMOGIP is still in existence, almost 70 years after it was established. At the beginning, Canadian military officers were assigned to UNMOGIP but by the time I had arrived in Pakistan, there were no longer any serving Canadian officers with the UN force. Nor was there any longer a military attaché attached to the mission, so any military liaison fell into the grab-bag of responsibilities of the Political Counsellor at a small embassy.
By the mid-1980’s, Canada’s sole contribution was to transport UNMOGIP headquarters from Srinagar in India to Rawalpindi in Pakistan (the former British garrison town adjacent to the newly constructed capital of Islamabad), and back, twice a year. This bi-annual shuttle took place because, as part of UNMOGIP’s mandate, the headquarters was to spend part of the year in Pakistan (winter) and part of the year in India (summer). It wasn’t a large task, but nonetheless UNMOGIP headquarters came with the usual retinue of UN personnel and equipment, and several flights were required to move the whole kit and caboodle. Although Rawalpindi and Srinagar are only about 175 kilometers apart as the crow flies, they were ideologically and politically very separate and geographically not well connected. There was of course a road, the “Grand Trunk” that had once been the main route from Delhi to Peshawar, via Lahore and Rawalpindi. But at Partition, the border was drawn just east of Lahore. With the right connections, it was possible to get through the border between India and Pakistan at the border crossing of Wagah. But to move a UN convoy from Srinagar to Rawalpindi via the land-border crossing at Lahore would have been both politically and logistically challenging. It was almost as if “you can’t get there from here”. The solution was a Canadian Armed Forces Hercules C-130.
Twice a year a C-130 staged out of Trenton, Ontario to do an around-the-world “training flight”. Enrouteit stopped at a number of Canadian missions, large and small, bringing amenities to Canadian Forces personnel stationed abroad. After stopping at various places to make those deliveries, the C-130 arrived in Islamabad and over the course of the next 48 hours would make about 8 flights back and forth to move UNMOGIP’s staff and materiel. In the absence of a military attaché, it fell to me to organize that most important of events for the fatigued C-130 crew: a welcome party! Of course, I invited our own embassy staff, various other military attachés in Islamabad, some Pakistani Air Force contacts (who didn’t come) and a few friends from other embassies. All in all, we had a pretty good time. During the course of the evening, I had an idea.
I had never been to Kashmir yet had been reading all the “Tales of the Raj” literature and was really keen to get there to see the “Vale of Kashmir”, the retreat of British officers in the 19th Century who would retire to a romantic “shikara“, the houseboats moored on Nagin and Dal Lakes. My chances of getting there seemed nil. But there were folks all around me were going “over the hump” to Kashmir tomorrow morning. Could I go along for the ride? I broached the idea with the Major in charge. “Sure, why not? Be down at the airport at 0600 wearing coveralls.” I was, of course, thrilled.
So, the next morning, May 1, 1984, there I was, strapped into the cockpit jump seat. We roared down the runway at Islamabad Airport, and instead of turning sharp left as the PIA passenger jets always did as they headed for Europe or Karachi, we went straight toward, and then up and over, the hills directly in front of us. We were quickly over untouched snow fields and then suddenly there it was, the Vale of Kashmir, directly below us. It seemed that we hadn’t been in the air for more than 20 minutes. We landed in Srinagar and the plane was met by a UN jeep. I was told to pile in and go for a ride, wherever I wanted to go. The Canadian C-130 would do four runs that day. All I had to do was to be back for the final flight at 4 pm. My driver, from the Indian Army, presumably assumed I was some kind of VIP so off we went. According to my personal diary, after visiting UNMOGIP’s headquarters site, that day we drove to Nagin Lake, I went shopping on Polo View Road buying some papier maché boxes and a leather jacket, followed by lunch at the Broadway Hotel and a relaxed stroll around town.
It was wonderful. As the day drew to a close, we returned to the airport, and I climbed back into the Herc and flew back to Rawalpindi. Once back, I got into my car and drove home. Elated. Then I started to think about the consequences of what I had done. Nothing had happened—but what if it had? What if the jeep had had an accident, or accidently hit a pedestrian, or whatever…? There I was, a diplomat accredited to Pakistan (the arch-enemy), illegally in India without papers, camoflauged in coveralls, probably on a spying mission, pretending to be under UN cover. A frisson went up my spine. This could have been the end of my career. Or worse! Fortunately, no-one knew where I had been, except the crew and they were soon off to their next stop and happily on their way back to Trenton. My ambassador never knew, and neither did anyone in External Affairs in Ottawa. Until now, that is….
– Hugh Stephens