Guha's 'India after Gandhi' --A valley bloody and beautiful. (one that gave the most trouble of all.)

'This particular apple stayed perilously placed on the rim of the basket; never in it, but never out of it either.'

Nehru, a Kashmiri, loved Kashmir for its beauty and could not envisage an India without Kashmir being a part of it. Its location was another reason, 'gave the state a strategic importance quite out of proportion to its population. And providentially, Shiekh Abdullah, son of a merchant had emerged as the leader of Kashmir and was 'greatly loved by the people of Kashmir' and when Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah met 'they hit it of instantly' and both had a commitment to 'Hindu-Muslim harmony and to socialism.'

An ideal situation, but there appeared a worm in the apple. Hari Singh a typcial Raja of the times, totally isolated from his people had different ideas. 'The idea of independence had taken a strong hold over the maharaja.' ' The maharaja had an ambition to make Kashmir 'the Switzerland of the east -a state completely neutral.' In fact, a solution I think, people who stand on the Shankaracharya hill and gaze at the tranquil Dal lake, could well appreciate.

The conflict of 1947-8 have been chronicled well and every shade of opinion and action has been well considered. The book promises to return to Kashmir at regular intervals. Two things held my attention. One was the attached map of Kashmir showing the cease-fire line and the area under the Chinese administration and the other a letter Nehru wrote to the maharaja, 'it is of the most vital importance that Kashmir should remain within the Indian Union.....But however much we may want this, it cannot be done ultimately except through the good will of the mass of the population. Even if military forces held Kashmir for a while, a later consequence might be for a strong reaction against this. Essentially, therefore, this is a problem of psychological approach to the mass of people and of making them feel they will be benefited by being in the Indian Union. If the average Muslim feels that he has no safe or secure place in the Union, then obviously he will look elsewhere. Our basic policy must keep this in view, or else we fail.'

I recall, when I visited Kashmir in the early eighties, the shop owners would term rest of India in one word 'Hind'. They did not ask me if I was a 'Kannad' as a guy from Delhi would classify me! Not really serious as many from the north still think me as a 'Tamil', for them anyone from the south is a Tamil. But things have changed, especially after Bangalore became famous as an IT city. I also remember talking to a 'Tamil' Muslim army officer, whom I knew in Pune. He was posted in Kashmir and he said that living in a Muslim majority state was different. He felt that he belonged! He was talking about his experience culturally and not politically.