Kashmir: Behind the Vale

Mj Akbar

Description

Kashmir lies at the edge of India’s borders and at the heart of India’s consciousness. It is not geography that is the issue; Kashmir also guards the frontiers of ideology. If there was a glow of hope in the deepening shadows of a bitter Partition, then it was Kashmir, whose people consciously rejected the false patriotism of fundamentalism and made common cause with secular India instead of theocratic Pakistan. Kashmir was, as Sheikh Abdullah said and Jawaharlal Nehru believed, a stabilising force for India.
Why has that harmony disintegrated? Why has the promise been stained by the blood of rebellion? M.J. Akbar, the celebrated author of India: The Siege Within, Nehru: The Making of India, Riot After Riot and The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity delves deep into the past for the roots of Kashmiriyat, the identity and culture that has blossomed within the ring of mountains for thousands of years. He records Kashmir’s struggle in the century to first free itself from feudal oppression and then enter the world of modern India in 1947. Placing the mistakes and triumphs of those early, formative years in the perspective of history, the author goes on to explain how the 1980s have opened the way for Kashmir’s hitherto marginalized secessionists. Both victory and defeat have their lessons; to forget either is to destablize the future. Kashmir and the mother country are inextricably linked. India cannot afford to be defeated in her Kashmir.

Sujets

• Political Science
• Hindú
• Sri Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
• Pakistán
• Musulmán
• Geography
• Sheikh Abdullah
• M. J. Akbar
• Mehbooba Mufti
• Secularity
• Territory
• Ideology
• Theocracy
• Terrorism
• Patriotism
• Muslim
• Kashmir
• Hindu
• Fundamentalism
• Omar Abdullah
• Asian
• World
• Valley
• Muslim ben al-Hajjaj
• Democracy
• Pakistan
• Cheikh Abdullah
• Cachemire (homonymie)
• India
• Jawaharlal Nehru

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 08 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788193600962
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

KASHMIR
MJ Akbar is among those who have made a significant impact on Indian society by their writing, whether as authors or editors. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the seminal newsmagazine, Sunday , in 1976, and The Telegraph in 1982, he revolutionized Indian journalism in the 1970s and 80s. In the 1990s he launched The Asian Age , a multi-edition daily that once again had substantive impact on the profession. He has also served as the Editorial Director of India Today , Headlines Today and as the editor of the Deccan Chronicle and the Sunday Guardian .
MJ, as he is popularly known, first entered public life in 1989, when he was elected to the Lok Sabha. He went back to media in 1993, and returned to the political area in 2014, when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and became the party’s national spokesperson during the 2014 campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In July 2016, he was named the Minister of State for External Affairs by Prime Minister Modi.
His seven books have achieved great international acclaim: Kashmir: Behind the Vale ; India The Siege Within ; Nehru: The Making of India ; Riot-after-Riot ; The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity ; Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan ; and Blood Brothers , his only work of fiction. In addition, there have been four collections of his columns, reportage and essays.
 
ROLI BOOKS
This digital e published in 2018
First published in 2002 by
The Lotus Coll on
An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market
New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © M.J. Akbar, 2002
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
eISBN: 978-81-9360-096-2
All rights reserved.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
OTHER TITLES BY MJ AKBAR
Blood Brothers: A Family Saga
Byline
Have Pen, Will Travel: Observations of a Globetrotter
India The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation’s Unity
Nehru: The Making of India
The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity
OTHER LOTUS TITLES Ajit Bhattacharjea Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah: Tragic Hero of Kashmir Anil Dharker Icons: Men & Women Who Shaped Today’s India Aitzaz Ahsan The Indus Saga: The Making of Pakistan Alam Srinivas & TR Vivek IPL: The Inside Story Amarinder Singh The Last Sunset: The Rise & Fall of the Lahore Durbar Amjad Ali Khan My Father Our Fraternity: The Story of Haafiz Ali Khan B.K. Trehan & Indu Trehan Retired But Not Tired: Retirement Made Easy Indira Menon The Madras Quartet: Women in Karnatak Music Jaiwant Paul The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58 John Lal Begam Samru: Fading Portrait in a Gilded Frame Lakshmi Vishwanathan Roli Guide Women of Pride: The Devdasi Heritage Madan Gopal My Life and Times: Munshi Premchand Madhu Trehan Tehelka as Metaphor Rachel Dwyer Yash Chopra: Fifty Years in India Cinema Ralph Russell The Famous Ghalib: The Sound of my Moving Pen Salman Akthar The Book of Emotions Sharmishta Gooptu Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation Shrabani Basu Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan S. Hussain Zaidi Dongri to Dubai Sunil Raman & Rohit Aggarwal Delhi Durbar: 1911 The Complete Story Swapan K. Bandyopadhyay An Unheard Melody: Annapurna Devi an Authorised Biography Thomas Weber Going Native: Gandhi’s Relationship with Western Women Thomas Weber Gandhi at First Sight Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta: The Score of My Life
FORTHCOMING TITLE Shahrayar Khan Bhopal Connections: Vignettes of Royal Rule Aruna Roy The RTI Story: A People’s Movement for Transparency
 
KASHMIR
BEHIND THE VALE
M.J. AKBAR

 
Lotus Collection
© M.J. Akbar 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author.
First edition published in 2002
Ninth impression, 2017
The Lotus Collection
An imprint of
Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000
E-mail: [e-mail]
Website: www.rolibooks.com
Also at Bengaluru, Chennai, & Mumbai
Cover design: Anoop Bhat
Layout design: Bhagirath Kumar
Production: Yuvraj Singh
ISBN: 978-81-7436-250-6
Typeset in Sabon LT Std by Roli Books Pvt. Ltd and
printed at Nutech Print Services, New Delhi
 
To
Mukulika and Prayaag
 
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Introduction
THE RIPPLES OF FALLING
1. The Rishi and The Raja
2. Of Human, and Inhuman, Bondage
3. Crosscurrent Affairs: A Dream Come True
4. Bud Shah: Days of Flowers
5. Delhi Durbar: The End of Independence
6. The End of Independence
7. The Politics of Stability
8. Kabul and Lahore: A Bitter Century
9. He Who Wishes to Climb…
LOVE, POLITICS AND OTHER TRAGEDIES
10. A Tide, Rising at His Feet
11. Eloquence and Freedom
12. Nehru, Abdullah, Jinnah: The Triangle of Hopes
13. A Basket of Apples
14. Do Not Disturb
15. The Will of the People; the Wont of the Powers
COLD BLOOD
16. Clause 7, Article 370 and a Three-Nation Theory
17. The Puppets of Allah
18. An Answer to Their Prayers
19. Thorns
Select Bibliography
Index
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Every book lives in its own time and place. To throw – I mean that literally – another chapter at the end in order to make it artificially “up to date” works occasionally, but is most often a publishing trick to entice buyers. Neither I, nor my publisher, have any desire to indulge in artifice to push sales. This book is a compact, detailed and I hope engrossing history of Kashmir from Pandit Kalhana and before to 1991. In the decade and more since then, the Jhelum has turned red with blood and that is a related but different story. This book provides the reasons why the most beautiful valley in the world was stained by the mistakes of generations and extracted such a heavy price in young lives. You may recognize the present without the knowledge of the past, but you cannot understand it.
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Almighty tends to have a sardonic sense of humour. He creates Paradise, and then lets slip a snake in the apple orchard. The curse of every earthly Paradise is pain. The irony of this pain is that it is self-inflicted, a consequence of free will. Original sin has become a commonplace of history.
When does the modern history of Kashmir begin? With the Dogra dynasty that was gifted the state as reward for services to the British empire in its wars with the Sikhs? Or in the mind of a young graduate of Aligarh Muslim University who, in 1931, wanted a job with the Dogra bureaucracy, and felt discriminated against when he was denied it? Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah dreamed of a Kashmir free from feudalism, free from poverty, and simply free as well.
Sadly, the modern history of Kashmir probably begins on a night in the third week of October 1947 when Pakistan, quite unnecessarily, attempted to seize by force what was still on the negotiating table. The state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled then by Maharaja Hari Singh. It has not acceded to either India or Pakistan because the Maharaja, like the Nizam of Hyderabad, entertained fantasies of independence. He had signed a Standstill Agreement with both India and Pakistan, a term that meant precisely what it said. But it was obvious that at some point, rather sooner than later, the future of Jammu and Kashmir would be placed on a table at which both India and Pakistan would be seated. But time did not stand still for Pakistan. It sought to win by war what it might conceivably have obtained through peace. That war has not ended. It has mushroomed into a nuclear confrontation. In the summer of 2002 India and Pakistan brought the world as close as it has ever been to the reality of a nuclear war. That of course would have been one solution to the Kashmir problem. No Kashmir, no problem. There would not have been much left of India and Pakistan either. In so many devastated cities, survivors might have preferred the incineration of a moment to years of horrible suffering.
Nothing clears the mind better than the prospect of a hanging. It was with a very clear mind therefore that Pramod Kapoor, the owner of Roli Books, suggested that a new edition of a book first published in 1991 was required. Kashmir: Behind the Vale was my fourth book, the others being The Siege Within: Challenges to Indian Unity, Nehru: The Making of India, and Riot After Riot. All had earlier been published by Viking/Penguin. I am grateful to Pramod for believing in this book, and ensuring that it reaches a new generation of bookshelves.
I dedicated this book to my children, Mukulika and Prayaag. They were ten years, and a lifetime, younger when it first appeared. They are now at an age when they will fully understand why this book was for them. Kashmir is the hinge on which the future of our subcontinent, and therefore the future of their lives well, will turn. They cannot protect the future without the knowledge of the past. September 2002 M.J. Akbar New Delhi
 
INTRODUCTION
Zahiruddin Babur, a prince of literature and emperor of India, thought he had discovered the meaning of Kashmir. Once you cross the Indus, he wrote in Baburnama , “the land, water, trees, stones, people, tribes, manners, and customs are all of the Hindustani fashion”. The first kingdom after the I