THE RUNN OF KUTCH ARBITRATION

BY SAMIA SAEED

INTRODUCTION
Runn of Kutch, large barren area of salt marshes and mud flats, mostly lies in western India in the state of Gujarat but also extending in to Pakistan. The region is comprised of the Great Rann of Kutch and the Little Rann of Kutch and covers an area of 21,000 sq km. The Rann of Kutch was probably once a shallow arm of the Arabian Sea, but silting has since cut it off from the sea. The area is largely treeless and arid, although it can flood during the monsoon season. Possession of the Rann was long disputed by India and Pakistan. In 1965 the two countries fought over the area until Britain intervened. The United Nations became involved, and in 1968 an international tribunal decided that India would get 90 percent of the Rann and Pakistan would get 10 percent, both countries agreed. Now we will see the dynamics of this dispute and the process of its resolution.
THE DISPUTE & ITS RESOLUTION
India, as the successor of the former princely state of Kutch, claimed title to the whole of the Runn of Kutch. Pakistan, as the successor of British rule in Sindh province adhered to the argument that the Rann was an inland sea in which the median line should be the border. It held, moreover, that Sindh had traditionally exercised control over the northern half of the Rann of Kutch.
After India and Pakistan gained independence, the issue was discussed between the two sides on several occasions but no solution was found. Border clashes were first reported in 1956. In April 1965, serious fighting erupted in the Chhad Bet region in the disputed territory. In the fierce but brief fighting, Pakistan fared better and took a number of Indians as prisoners. Incidentally, both sides made use of the American weapons received by them, to be used in the event of communist aggression. Stung by the Indian losses, which were attributed to the difficult terrain where India was at a considerable disadvantage, Prime Minister Shastri warned on 29 April 1965 that if the fighting continued, the Indian army will decide its own strategy and deploy its manpower and equipment in the way it deems best. This was seen as a threat to widen the scope of fighting by attacking Pakistan in other sectors as well. This spurred an effort by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson to halt the fighting. The two countries agreed to a self-executing procedure. It was stipulated that an effort would first be made to settle the question by bilateral discussions at the ministerial level. If no agreement was reached within two months of the cease-fire the two governments would have recourse to an international tribunal whose decision shall be binding. Consequently, a three-member tribunal was setup at Geneva in which one judge each was nominated by India and Pakistan respectively. The Indian nominee was Ales Bebler from Yugoslavia whereas Pakistan nominated Nasrollah Entezam an Iranian diplomat. The Chairman, nominated by the UN Secretary General, was Judge Gunnar Lagergren from Sweden. Legal team from the two countries, assisted by experts, argued their respective cases at great length before the tribunal in Geneva for several months, in a generally congenial atmosphere. Document of the former British administration as well as the ex-princely state of Kutch, going back to nearly two hundred years, had to be studied.
For this purpose, the India Office Library in London was an important source. India also produced the old records of the state of Kutch, mostly in Gujerati language, which were examined by the Pakistani side. In the main, the Indian case was that the British Government in the colonial days had, in effect, accepted the claim of the princely state of Kutch to whole of the Rann. Several British Indian maps had shown the Runn as belonging to Kutch. Moreover, in 1914 a portion of the Sindh-Kutch boundary was even demarcated on this basis. As the successor state to the British in sindh province, Pakistan was, therefore, bound to accept that border. On the other hand, Pakistan produced considerable evidence to show that, during the British period, Sindh’s jurisdiction also extended to the northern half of the Rann. Criminal cases instituted in this region had always been handled by the police of Sindh on the premises that the northern half of the Rann belonged to Sindh province. There was also documented evidence that in1885, the senior British officer in Nagarparkar, the Sindh district adjacent to the Rann of Kutch, had contended to higher officials that the northern half of the Rann had always been considered to belong to Sindh. No one had argued at that time that the whole of the Rann belonged to Kutch. The Pakistani counsel, Mr. Manzur Qadir, painstakingly demonstrated that the physical limits of a geographical survey in the late 1880s came erroneously to be shown as Sindh-Kutch border. No doubt, this gave rise to the belief even among some top British officials that the whole of the Rann of Kutch belonged to Kutch state. The Pakistani council argued persuasively that the maps printed subsequently had merely repeated this cartographic error, but that sovereign rights could not be acquired by Kutch simply through a misunderstanding. The British, as the paramount power, could not be deemed to have relinquished legal title to Kutch State simply by default and as a result of a mere cartographic error. There had never been a conscious political decision to surrender the northern half of the Runn of Kutch and in any case, the Sindh administration continued to exercise jurisdiction in the northern half in the belief that it belonged to Sindh.
The Tribunal’s award, announced in February 1968, was basically the verdict of the Swedish Chairman, Judge Lagergren. As expected, the Yugoslav judge supported the Indian claim. The Iranian judge, who sided with the Pakistani claim, said that he would support the Chairman in order to produce a majority judgment. The award was a compromise settlement in which Lagergren in effect drew a new border line. The Indian claim to the whole of the Runn was rejected. Although Pakistan’s claim to half of the Runn was also not accepted, Pakistan had the satisfaction of securing all of the tenable land areas adjacent to Sindh province, including Chhad Bet, whose possession had spurred the main border clashes. In strategic terms, this denied India the advantage of having a foothold on solid land across the largely marshy area. There was sharp disappointment in India when the award was announced and Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi even said that this was the last time that India would go for international adjudication. However, she affirmed that India would accept and implement the boundary award.
The next stage was the actual demarcation of the border in accordance with the award of the Tribunal. There were apprehensions in Pakistan that India would not live up to its public commitment and new obstacles would be raised to prevent or delay the implementation of the award. This did not happen as the officials in charge of demarcation maintained a good rapport to resolve any difficulties. The border was thus demarcated without a hitch, ahead of schedule, and border maps were fomally signed in July 1969. In this manner, an old border dispute involving thousands of miles of territory was resolved in an honourable fashion.

CONCLUSION
The Runn of Kutch arbitration was one of the very few instances of mutual accommodation and rational resolution of difficulties between India and Pakistan. Unfortunately aside from the few exceptions, the two countries have not generally followed the path of peaceful resolution of disputes. In the absence of a genuine commitment to peace and the vision of a long-term co-operative relationship, small problems have been allowed to develop in to major disputes and bigger problems have been escalated in to wars, therefore the Indian and Pakistani rulers and policy makers should really have to show the ability to rise above narrow- mindedness and shortsighted considerations. Good offices, mediation, arbitration and adjudication are specifically mentioned in the Charter of United Nation as the appropriate means for settling disputes between states. Besides, these are widely respected international practices.

PREPARED BY SAMIA SAEED
CLASS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
MA (PREVIOUS) 2003

All content (C) Department of International Relations, Karachi University

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