2nd NOVEMBER 2010.
I went thru your mail. I don't have any records to refer in answer. I will try to recollect those days. Before independence the country was divided as British India and princely state ruled indirectly. When Britain declared independence princely states had an option to join any side or keep status quo. Sardar Patel was the Home Minister and Mr. V P Menon chief secretary in his ministry. The two persuaded or pushed most of the small states to join the union. Hyderabad of Nizam resisted and wanted to be independent just as the then Travancore state under C P Ramaswamy Iyer as Diwan. The Diwan was physically attacked and made to resign paving way for the king to announce the state's accession. In Hyderabad communists did occupy a large part of Telengana and razakars were massacring Hindus in the state. Patel moved army into the state finished both rebel groups and annexed the state in union. Pakistan on its part influenced the Nawab of Jaisalmer to join it despite the fact that state is entirely hindu but bordering Pakistan. Here also Patel pressurized the Nawab to accede to India. Kashmir thou had a muslim majority with a Hindu king was in dilemma. Pakistan used the opportunity to move its army to occupy the state. The king wanted India to intervene and stop Pakistan from capturing the state. Sheik Abdulla the then popular leader didn't like either India or Pakistan in Kashmir but circumstances forced him to get Indian help to expel Pakistan army from occupation. This entailed the declaration of accession to India on the part of the king. Due to a fast friendship between Nehru and Shaikh it was agreed to have a special status for Kashmir in the union. The idealists leaders thought seeking intervention from the UN might set things right and Pakistan will be forced to withdraw its troupes from occupied territory. But UN was not idealistic. It was cold war politics that ruled in UN. It resolved to conduct referendum to ascertain the wishes of the people on condition that Pakistan should vacate the occupation. Both domestic politics and situation around Kashmir delayed any further development. The US association with Pakistan being one of the biggest stumbling blocs. Domestically relations between Nehru and Shaikh deteriorated culminating in the latter's imprisonment. Pakistan became intransigent after its defense treaty with US. The Indian non-alignment aggravated the antagonism. In nutshell this is background to the Kashmir dispute. In both countries more so in Pakistan there are influential groups that do not want any settlement at all since it might diminish their support base. There are too many in India and Pakistan who view the situation as dangerous since both have nuclear weapons in store.
I have already said a lot on Arundhati. Her exaggerations about people being killed or women being raped are motivated by prejudicial idealogy. In one interview she admits that the azadi may not be a perfect one. But the Indian also not perfect. This is too convoluted argument. I might mention Hitchens here. He started as radical troskyite since his student days. The metemorphis of the erstwhile Soviet Union, so called people's democracies and now the turn of China convinced him that politics of the left is anti-democratic and therefor anti-people not just rich. He has come to the conclusion that democracy, with all its imperfections of today is the only desirable way of government for all the nations of the world. The sckeptic leader Michael Shermar also advocates democracy and competition as the apropriate form of rule evolved through evolutionary process. I am stopping here.
Ramani & Uma are here arrived a few hours back. He has also read a lot of Arundhati and her supporting writers and is of the view that all human do have imperfections and limtations. The jawans also are human. They won't fire deliberately on a mob unless they feel threatened. They are people with families just like the protesters.
Yours with lots of love.
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