Customer Reviews

Kashmir, 1947: Rival Versions of History

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While this book was definitely a good read, the title is misleading. I thought that when I opened this book, Jha would present us with both sides of the story. He does, but quickly dismisses the Pakistani side as totally false and unfounded. This is not quite the unbiased opinion I thought I would be getting. Most of his time is spent denouncing the Pakistani claims. Granted, the kashmir conflict is a heated one, and the debates still continue as to what happened. He quickly dismisses much of the evidence that supports Pakistan's version of history.
Despite this, it does give the reader some insights as to what happened in 1947. It would also be helpful to pick up a book that was not as biased as this one, however. Or at least one that presents the Pakistani side of the argument.

For someone like me who was born in the mid-6os, Kashmir has never quite evoked the strong sentiments it does in people like my father. The significance of 1947? The year India gained independence--this is the momentous event I first associate with the year. Partition--although the event's genesis preceded the India's midnight independence--comes later in my memory: relegated to a historical fact, the stuff of TV serials and jingoistic movies, but rarely the wrenching, bloody period it was to people like my father. Truth be told, the latter is also a description of Kashmir over the past 50 years. What really was the genesis of the issue? Who is to be blamed? As the title of the book suggests, there are "rival' versions. And Pakistan's version--polished by spin doctors and whipped up to a frenzy in international media forums--risks drowning out the factual Indian point of view. Prem Shankar Jha makes much belated amends with his book. Didn't Pakistani tribesmen (at the behest of their government) start moving into Kashmir? Did not Jawaharlal Nehru, the principled man that he was, insist (rather than coerce, as Pakistan would have us believe) that Maharaja Hari Singh first sign the letter of accession before Indian troops were airlifted to Kashmir? And didn't Britain, which was supposed to be impartial, favour Pakistan and stymie Indian efforts (which C Dasgupta's dwells at length in his book "War and Diplomacy In Kashmir 1947-48"). Jha writes with an atmospheric style and you wish that this slim volume was actually a lot thicker. Indeed the book also serves an unintended purpose. It exposes the problem with so many books on India history: written no doubt by eminent Indian historians but with a pedantic style ("as we have discussed in the last chapter") that reveals their lack of writing credentials. But even the best of attempts (and Jha's book is a serious contender to that title) can rarely confine a historical issue to a precise latitude or longitude or a specific point in time. One wishes Jha also dwelt on the events of post 1947--Tashkent, the Simla accord--where, according to people like my father, India frittered away it's gains. But that's another book--and hopefully Prem Shankar Jha will write that too.