William Brown

William Alexander Brown (13 December 1922 – 5 December 1984) was a British military officer based in British-ruled India. He is best known for his actions during the Partition of India, when he assisted the locals of the Gilgit Agency and led a coup d'état, codenamed Operation Datta Khel, against Hari Singh, the Maharaja of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The successful coup ultimately resulted in the Gilgit Agency (in today's Gilgit−Baltistan) becoming a part of Pakistani-administered Kashmir following the First Indo−Pakistani War.

Early life and education Brown was born in Melrose, Scotland. His father William Brown had served with the Gordon Highlanders regiment of the British Army during World War I, and was a recipient of the Military Cross. His paternal grandfather Alexander Laing Brown had been a Liberal Unionist member of parliament for the Hawick Burghs between 1886 and 1892. Brown attended St. Mary's School in Melrose and George Watson's College in Edinburgh. Upon finishing his schooling in 1941, he enlisted in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment, and sailed for India in December of that year. The Partition of India took place in August of that year, which divided the former British colony into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. On 22 October 1947, amidst Pakistani fears of the Maharaja potentially acceding his Muslim-majority princely state to India, state-backed Pashtun tribal militias from Pakistan invaded Jammu and Kashmir and attacked the Maharaja's state forces. As Pakistani militias closed in on the capital of Srinagar by 26 October, Hari Singh had fled from the princely state and signed an instrument of accession for Jammu and Kashmir with India. The decision by the Maharaja—a Hindu Dogra ruler governing a princely state with a Muslim-majority populace—to accede to a Hindu-majority India following the creation of Pakistan was seen as controversial. |title=|source=

On hearing of the decision, Brown urged Ghansara Singh to ascertain the wishes of the Gilgit Agency's Muslim community over the accession, and warned him that he may have to take certain measures to avoid large-scale bloodshed. Brown's view on the escalating Kashmir conflict was that the whole of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, including Gilgit, should go to Pakistan as the state's population was predominantly Muslim, and that the foundation of Pakistan's existence was the accommodation of Muslim-majority regions in British India. Singh ignored the warning, prompting Brown to begin planning what became known as 'Operation Datta Khel'.

Brown was well aware of the anti-Maharaja sentiments among the populace of the Gilgit Agency. Brown then requested for troops to be sent to the Gilgit Agency from Pakistan and established a de facto military administration on 1 November. On assuming direct control of the region, Brown thwarted plans by a large section of his contingent to set up an independent republic called Gilgit−Astor. He was then instructed by Sir George Cunningham, the then-Governor of the North West Frontier Province to restore order in the region.

In 1998, Brown's diary from his time in Gilgit was published as a book titled The Gilgit Rebellion.

Later life and return to the United Kingdom After returning from Gilgit in January 1948, Brown transferred to the Frontier Constabulary, where he served for the next two years. In July 1948, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the British government. Brown remained in Pakistan until 1959, when he returned to the United Kingdom with his family. In 1960, he established a livery yard and riding school at St. Boswells in Scotland. Brown died of a heart attack on 5 December 1984, eight days before his 62nd birthday.