dated February 22, 1957: UN resolution vetoed

The Soviet Union on February 20 vetoed in the Security Council the four-Power resolution on Kashmir proposing that Mr. Gunnar Jarring of Sweden be sent to India and Pakistan to discuss the question of demilitarisation of Kashmir and suggesting that the Pakistani proposal of sending a temporary UN force to Kashmir be examined. Britain, the US, Australia and Cuba, which had proposed the mission, made another bid in a new resolution introduced immediately after the resolution was defeated. Mr. Arkady Sobolev, the Russian delegate, declared that the new resolution was only a repetition of the previous one which was unacceptable to India and he would be obliged to vote against it. These dramatic developments followed two interventions in the debate by Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, India's representative, who had come to the Council from his sick bed. He told the Council that India would regard an attack on Kashmir as an attack on India and would take action accordingly. Reiterating that Kashmir was an integral part of India against which aggression had taken place, he said, "It is our duty, under the Charter, to resist the invasion if our territory is invaded, and I am directed to repeat that any invasion of any part of India is an invasion of the whole country." He said the four-Power resolution would not be a conciliatory act. It would be a step worsening the situation. "We are prepared at all times to seek conciliation methods. But no invader, whether in the Middle East, central Europe or Kashmir could be permitted to reap the fruits of aggression. Our position on Kashmir will stand the test of morality. We stopped our victorious army from going to Pakistan frontiers in the hope of settling the question by conciliation. India will not at any time resile from any international agreement. But what do I tell my people about the action of the Security Council which has nothing to say about the aggression even after nine years?" he asked. Mr. Menon, who left his sick-bed to attend the Council meeting against the advice of his physician, collapsed after a two-hour speech and was rushed to the health clinic on the fifth floor.