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Before you listen to this episode of The Scene and the Unseen, I have a recommendation for
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Do check out Pullia Baazi, hosted by Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Kutasane, two really good
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Kick-ass podcast in Hindi.
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The Dutch historian Peter Gale once said that history is, quote, argument without end, stop
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You could certainly say this about Kashmir.
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Even if the Modi government has tried to bring this argument to an end by putting an end
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But what is this argument even?
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The Kashmir issue is at one level a geopolitical dispute between India and Pakistan.
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And even there, the nature and incentives and priorities of both sides have changed
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And so has what they have been fighting for.
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It is also a moral question about the right of the people of Kashmir to decide their own
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And even their nuances exist, and one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
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There is also the question of means and ends, where even a nationalist who agrees with India's
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ends may disagree with the means used to get there.
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The troubled history of Kashmir definitely does not end here.
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All we can do at this moment is take a look back in time and take stock.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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Our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral science.
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Please welcome your host, Amit Barma.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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We are recording this on August 16, one day after India celebrated the 72nd anniversary
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of its Independence Day, although Kashmir didn't.
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For one thing, Kashmir did not join the Indian Union on August 15, 1947.
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For another, the whole state has been in virtual lockdown since Article 370 was done away with
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There's no doubt that this is a big turning point in our history, not just of Kashmir
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My guest today is a historian Srinath Raghavan, with whom I've done three fascinating episodes
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before, all of which will be linked from the show notes, and all of which are in some way
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or the other germane to our discussion today.
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But before I begin my conversation with him, let's take a quick commercial break.
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This episode of The Scene and the Unseen is brought to you by Storytel.
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And you can also get a 30-day free trial if you hop on over to sroyteltenney.com slash
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I actually use Storytel myself regularly, so as long as I sponsor this show, I'm going
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to recommend one book a week that I love.
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The book I want to recommend today is a book of short stories called Men Without Women
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The first time I discovered Murakami, in fact, was when I read a story of his second bakery
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attack in Playboy in the 1990s.
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I read Playboy for the stories.
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Men Without Women only on Storytel.
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And remember, you get a 30-day free trial only at Storytel.com slash IBM.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen, Srinath.
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Srinath, in your book War and Peace in Modern India, you quote Mukul Kesavan near the start
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where he basically says, quote, all postmortems simplify historical choices and thus exaggerate
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the stupidity or insensitivity or wickedness of actors who in retrospect seem to make the
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wrong ones, stop quote.
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And where I found your book interesting, and I wanted to start with the narrative which
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you've laid out in your book, is that that book is essentially about the choices made
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by India and in particular Nehru, who was the prime minister, examining his worldview
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And I found it really fascinating.
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And that's a good place to begin this because Kashmir is part of the story.
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But I think it makes more sense to really begin with Jawaharlal Nehru.
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Tell me a bit about how he looked at foreign policy.
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Well, of all the leaders in the Indian national movement in the first half of the 20th century,
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I think it's fair to say that Jawaharlal Nehru was possibly the one who wanted to understand
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India's independence movement, its struggle for freedom from British colonialism in a
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wider international context.
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And that was something that Nehru, especially from the 1920s onwards, was very keen to understand
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India's struggle for independence as part of a larger sort of movement towards end of
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colonial empires, self-determination for people, rise of hitherto oppressed sort of countries
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And he did this in a series of books, including his autobiography, which has reflections of
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his engagement with the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s, the anti-imperialist sort of
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discussions happening beyond India in that period.
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And in that sense, Jawaharlal Nehru was someone who was quite interested in issues of the
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intersection between history and foreign policy amongst the nationalist leaders.
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And it is not surprising, therefore, that he chose to keep the foreign affairs portfolio
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with himself when India first became independent.
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And again, I'll quote from your book, and I found these quotes particularly interesting
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and I'll ask you to elaborate, where you write, quote,
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In his understanding of the role of force in international relations, Nehru stood at
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the juncture of the liberal and realist traditions.
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Like many liberals, he abhorred war for its inherently illiberal effects and consequences,
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and yet maintained that, and now these are his words,
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In this imperfect world, a national state will have to use force to defend itself against
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unprovoked attack from outside.
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And again, then you go on to say, by the early 1930s, Nehru's liberal idealism had morphed
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Kind of sort of elaborate on this a little bit, and also, how did he become a realist
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when the people around him weren't, in a sense?
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Well, it's interesting, right?
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Because these, a lot of the debates around the role of coercion in politics is something
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that Nehru has, not just with his colleagues in the Congress Party, but with a much wider
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He wrote a lot of these things in his writings in that period, primarily because that is
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a period when the Great Depression is coming on, that is a period when the sort of Spanish
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Civil War has begun, when the role of force, both in terms of the relations between classes
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within countries, as well as between states, is front and center.
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And Nehru wants to acknowledge that this is a reality, that this is not a reality despite
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India's adherence to Gandhian sort of principles of nonviolence, the fact that means matter
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He was not willing to sort of give up on the idea that in a world where you do not have
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a world government, where entities are still sovereign, there is actually no limit on the
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use of force as far as states' pursuit of what they define to be their national interest
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And in this, interestingly enough, Nehru's ideas, I think, were most strongly shaped
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by the writings of the American theologian, Reinold Niebuhr.
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And Niebuhr's book, Moral Man, Immoral Society, is something that Nehru read at that point
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of time, it was a very widely read book, and he even quotes from it in his autobiography.
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He says that there is a fascinating contrast that he makes between Gandhi and Niebuhr.
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And in fact, Niebuhr's own book talks about Gandhi, right?
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So these were global debates.
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This was not something just happening in India.
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The question of violence and nonviolence, means and ends, were things that I think many
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people in the Indian national movement grappled with it.
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And Nehru was particularly keen to grapple with it in the context of India's relationship
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with other countries, not just relations between classes within a country.
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And in that sense, Nehru had to reconcile his, on the one hand, what I say as his sort
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And I must say that, you know, Devarla Nehru is not a classical liberal in any straightforward
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He was much more of a socialist.
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But he did believe that individual liberties and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,
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etc., were quite important.
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And that societies had to build on it and transcend them, go beyond them, in fact.
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So to that extent, he knew that the use of force automatically, in most contexts, meant
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the abridgment of the sort of fundamental rights of other peoples.
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But at the same time, he felt that you could not forsake those things ab initio in a way
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In fact, this debate really gets accelerated during the Second World War.
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And I think in our episode, the last time, we may even have spoken a bit about this,
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which is to say that at the height of the war, you know, in 1940-41, Gandhi wants the
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Congress party to pass a resolution saying independent India will not have any armed
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forces, that we will forswear the use of violence and coercion in its existing.
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And rest of the Congress leaders led by Devarla Nehru say that, you know, that's just not
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We cannot, in the context of what is happening in the world around us, actually assume that.
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But at the same time, Nehru is constantly grappling with this Gandhian injunction that
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means matter as much as sense.
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And in that sense, he remains true to that Gandhian tenet and is constantly wrestling
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And in some ways, the practical choices which had to be made in independent India fell on
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It did not fall on Gandhi.
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It did not even fall on Sardar Vallabhbhai, but he'll be on the point, nor to any of
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the other Gandhians and, you know, leaders of the Congress party.
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It fell to Nehru to make these difficult choices in the concrete circumstances of the time.
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And it was these choices that I set out to examine in the book that I was writing then.
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No, and you mentioned Nibir and you've also sort of quoted Nehru in his autobiography,
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where he's talking about Nibir and I'll give Nehru's quote here, which is, quote,
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All life is full of conflict and violence.
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Neither the growth of reason nor of the religious outlook nor morality have checked in any way
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this tendency to violence, top quote.
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And again, you know, you quote Nehru later talking about nonviolence and placing it in
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sort of an instrumental frame where he says, quote, It could only be a policy and a method
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promising certain results and by those results, it would have to be finally judged, which
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is fairly interesting in contrast to Gandhi, obviously, because Gandhi also famously asked
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the British to use nonviolence to fight the Germans and so on and so forth.
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And like you said, Nehru sort of had to deal with the practical reality of being Prime
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Minister, but as you point out that a lot of his thinking was really shaped well before
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he took office, where he was already a liberal realist in a manner of speaking.
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And the other sort of thing I kind of noticed is that the key tussle that is happening in
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the early days of the Indian Union when, you know, they're struggling to get all the states
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and they're dealing with Junagar, Hyderabad, Kashmir, the problem in Bengal and all that,
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is that Nehru is also fighting with his own cabinet a lot.
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You know, tell me a bit about that.
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Is it simply a matter of position that by virtue of being the guy who makes the final
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decision, the Prime Minister, he has to be more responsible and that shapes his behavior
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or were there fundamental philosophical differences as well?
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Well, you know, once the Indian independence starts coming closer and closer in time, you
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know, the government of India understands that actually the very big problem which they
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had not applied their minds to was this question of what is going to happen to these so-called
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princely states, more than 540 of them existed of varying sizes, you know, stuff ranging
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from very small villages to the states of Jammu and Kashmir or Hyderabad which were
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amongst the richest sort of entities even in any international comparison.
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And in that context, that was an issue which had been left towards the very end because
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the main issue of partitioning of the two countries of Punjab and Bengal, all of these
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had to be stopped and that's where much of the political airtime had been sucked out
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And so the issue of states had to be done in very fast order.
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And it was in that context that, you know, they came up with this idea that, you know,
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you want to have two broad principles to decide how states should make their own choices.
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Now, just to sort of wind back a little, the relationship between the princely states and
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the government of India was not one of direct subordination, right?
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They had various forms of treaty arrangements and there was a sort of a vague catch-all
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phrase called paramount sea which was used to describe the role of British India vis-a-vis
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British India was a paramount power but these states had some varying degrees of autonomy
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in the way that they organized themselves internally and so on, right?
#
So at the time of partition, when you had to decide the problem of princely states,
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the way that the solution was come up was to say that states should decide whether they
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want to accede to India or to Pakistan depending broadly on their geographic contiguity and
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on the sort of nature of the populations, right?
#
So if you had a Hindu majority state and you are smack in the middle of India, you know,
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for you to imagine that you are going to go to Pakistan would not be a viable solution.
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That was a problem of Hyderabad, right?
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Whereas if you were a Muslim majority province which adjoined Pakistan, then the assumption
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was that you should opt to go to Pakistan which was a problem of Kashmir.
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And then you had something like Junagadh where there was a Muslim ruler in a broadly Hindu
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populace and even though there was not enough geographic contiguity, he was being wooed
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by them because he had access to Karachi by way of a port.
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So there were many ways in which things could happen.
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So these three states, particularly Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir, more or less come onto
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the agenda of the government of India practically on the day of independence itself because
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the Nawab of Junagadh decides to accede to Pakistan.
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So his accession has to be turned around but then he is within his rights to accede.
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So the question then becomes how are you sort of going to deal with this problem?
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The government of India had already been dealing with the Nizam of Hyderabad who had asked
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for more time to come to some kind of an agreement with the Indian Union.
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So that was a problem which is being settled.
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And Kashmir actually, the Maharaja was very unsure.
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He was himself a Hindu ruler but majority of his population was Muslim.
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Most of the geographic contiguity at that point of time actually was with Pakistan.
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It's something that we tend to forget.
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Most of the lines of communication between Kashmir state and British India was actually
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running through parts of Punjab which later became Pakistan.
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And what you also pointed out that at one point when the boundaries were drawn, there
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was no contiguity with India at all and later on Gurdaspur was given to us and therefore
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So those were part of the things and there is a large historiography which basically
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is one of those retrospective readings to say that this was done in order to facilitate
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I don't think those things hold up.
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There are many arguments around those.
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We don't need to get detained by those.
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But I think the point to be made is that these three issues were there.
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And it was actually in the context of Junagadh, a state which had Muslim majority and let's
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also not forget it was Junagadh is very much part of today's Gujarat.
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Vallabhbhai Patel had a personal interest in those areas.
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And in order to sort of make sure that the accession of Junagadh to Hyderabad was retracted,
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the offer was made that the Indian government would allow for self-determination by way
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of a referendum stroke plebiscite in each of these disputed areas.
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It was taken not with respect to Kashmir but actually first announced with respect to Junagadh
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and said that we are willing to make this applicable as a principle to everything provided
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Pakistan is willing to sort of adopt the same attitude.
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So it is in that context really that the issue of a referendum stroke plebiscite happens.
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And just to remind our listeners that ultimately Junagadh was annexed by India by force.
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The Indian army went in over through the Nawab of Junagadh.
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But a referendum was held which overwhelmingly quite naturally went in favor of India.
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In the context of Hyderabad, again India had to use force to sort of take control of the
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But no referendum was held.
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What did happen subsequently was that a general election was held and the other thing.
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Kashmir was the one where the issue of referendum came to be entangled in a much wider international
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context which is why we tend to remember.
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So when we look back, we think that plebiscite, why only for Kashmir, right?
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Actually it was not only for Kashmir.
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It was the policy of taking a plebiscite was taken on the basis of these things.
#
And again as you point out, there were many discussions within the Indian cabinet and
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the defence committee of the cabinet on what is the right measure to do these things.
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There were disagreements in terms of emphasis between various leaders not just – the fault
#
line was not always between Nehru and Patel as we today tend to imagine.
#
There were actually many other cabinet ministers who had a say.
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Lord Mountbatten played a fairly important role in these discussions as governor general
#
and as chair of the defence committee of the cabinet.
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So it was a much more open set of discussions in which I do not think the fault lines ran
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just between Patel and Nehru.
#
On some of the more core issues, they agreed with each other.
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On other issues, they did not.
#
But these were discussed as they would be discussed in any cabinet meeting where you
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have a first among equals kind of position for the prime minister.
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And decisions were arrived at by consensus.
#
You know just to sort of go back to 47 itself and the thing is when paramountcy ended, there
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was even a dispute about whether the princely states could go for independence where India
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as you pointed out they feared a balkanization that you know too many people will claim independence
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so they said no they have to join one or the other.
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And on the other hand Jinnah was saying no, no they can go independent if they want because
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he wants to mess with India obviously and it's you know advantages for him from a strategic
#
point of view for to encourage independence as in fact he did in the case of Hyderabad
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and even Junagar I think that was –
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Junagar acceded to Pakistan.
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Yeah at that point and Shahnawaz Bhutto went and then kind of took over and all that.
#
And so tell me a little bit about what exactly happened in Junagar then because these decisions
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really also then impact what eventually happens in Kashmir after that.
#
Yeah so as I said I mean in the case of Junagar as you are pointing out basically the Pakistanis
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secured attempted to secure the accession of the state and it then fell upon India to
#
sort of persuade the Nawab of Junagar to roll back and there were attempts made to sort
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of suggest to him that you know this is not something which was a viable proposition.
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Junagar state itself was embedded in a number of other states in Swarastra.
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You know it was a very fragmented kind.
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It is a mosaic literally.
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I mean if you look at the map of the princely states of Swarastra back then, it's literally
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like a mosaic and Junagar is there but you know what happens in Junagar has consequences
#
for other adjoining provinces, many of whom were not desirous of joining Pakistan.
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And as I said Junagar being part of what we would today call Gujarat meant that there
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was a strong sort of nationalist element involved Patel himself was very closely sort of interested
#
in as incidentally was Gandhi.
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Gandhi came from Karyawada and you know and one of his Gandhi's nephews a man called Samaldas
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Samaldas Gandhi was the one who was leading the so-called provisional government of Junagar
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which sort of Darzi Hukumat which was set up to contest the legitimacy of the Nawab.
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Which Pakistan claimed was India's people and India said no we had nothing to do with
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So it is one of those kinds of situations right and so the Indians effectively then
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had to you know to put put no finer point on it use military force to annex Junagar
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and a similar sort of move was made with respect to Hyderabad.
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Now the point to remember is that at this point of time the most important consideration
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for the government of India was to secure the unity of India in the aftermath of partition
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and that was a overriding consideration and that overriding consideration in some ways
#
also fed into the constitutional vision for independent India itself.
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Even Constitution of India envisages the Indian Union as a unitary state it does not envisage
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it as a federal state right and there was a good reason because they did not want to
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give any kind of sovereign powers even to federating units even in a sort of hypothetical
#
sense they wanted to make sure that this remains a unitary.
#
So the maintaining the unity of the country was not just a ideological project in a sense
#
of all nationhoods wanting a homeland to be unified but was a practical necessity because
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Indians believe that if you let go of if Hyderabad could sort of claim independence in the middle
#
of India or Junagar could do something then everybody else is going to be emboldened to
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make similar kinds of claims which would then weaken the union of India itself and we must
#
understand that the Congress party and the rest of the Indian nationalist movement had
#
rejected the cabinet mission plan which actually called for a confederation kind of solution
#
between India and Pakistan with a very weak center they wanted a strong center because
#
you believe that until India had a strong central government development would suffer
#
that we needed to sort of really push these things through so there were many reasons
#
for a unitary strong centralized state being the desired outcome and having actually accepted
#
partition to get that they were in no mood to allow the princely states to wreck the
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So essentially what happened in we obviously got our constitution in Jan 1950 in 1947 what
#
happened was there was something called the Indian Independence Act which empowered the
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Governor General of India which was then Mountbatten to adapt the Government of India Act of 1935
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as an interim constitution and then to negotiate with each of the princely states to get them
#
In the end it turns out Kashmir was the only one which really negotiated you know the rest
#
sort of happened through other means in the case of Junagar and Hyderabad as you point
#
out virtually through I mean we just sent our army there and basically took over but
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with Kashmir on the other hand there was an instrument of accession signed on October
#
26, 1947 which also pointed out that this was provisional until the will of the people
#
What was the politics that was playing out during this time between India and Pakistan
#
and you know the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah who was at that time head
#
of the National Conference?
#
So I think there are two or three issues that you know I think we just need to separate
#
The first point just a preliminary one in response to what you said earlier you know
#
as far as Hyderabad is concerned actually there were very prolonged negotiations running
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for almost 10 months you know I think actually with Hyderabad you had the longest sets of
#
negotiations it's only when those negotiations failed that India decided to use force right
#
so whereas with Junagar the use of force was much quicker it happened in much shorter order
#
so that's just to sort of put that point there.
#
Leaving that aside right now the instrument of accession itself was a legal instrument
#
which was devised by V.P. Menon who was the Secretary of the Ministry of States and the
#
person who worked most closely with the Minister of State which was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
#
to gain accession and what Menon and Patel and of course the rest of the government of
#
India after consultations decided was that instead of trying to get into protracted negotiations
#
between with each of the states about what their exact relationship with the Indian Union
#
is going to be the first thing is to secure their addition to the Union on minimal terms
#
and then we can figure out things later about what we want to do.
#
So the instrument of accession therefore was a modified instrument actually from the government
#
of India act and they just used it to say sign up with us for just giving us control
#
over three subjects defense foreign affairs and communications I mean raid road whatever
#
telephone telegraphy communications and so on and that for the rest the states have all
#
the residual powers rest with the states themselves right and then over a period of time many
#
other states were persuaded to accept all provisions of the constitution and merge effectively
#
with the Indian Union others like Hyderabad which resisted even instrument of accession
#
within sort of bought to heal by the use of force with Kashmir as you're saying at the
#
time when the instrument of accession was signed the government of India Lord Martin
#
on behalf of Asghar general also announced that a the wishes of the people will be sort
#
of ascertained ultimately about the future of Kashmir and that as I said was a pledge
#
which had originally been made with respect to all the outstanding problems and was not
#
something which was specially crafted for Kashmir but it was something that was announced
#
at that point of time that this is something that India is committed to doing which is
#
to give the people of Kashmir a chance to determine their own wishes about whether they
#
want to be with India or to be with Pakistan.
#
And you know one of the interesting themes through your book was Nehru's reluctance to
#
use violence at any point because he sensibly realized that the unintended consequences
#
are harsh and perhaps you know perhaps after seeing what happened during partition and
#
the communal violence that broke out he also had a fear that any use of violence by the
#
state in any you know whether it's in Hyderabad or whether it's in Junagar or Kashmir or whatever
#
could have subsequent repercussions in the rest of the country and end up in communal
#
violence and what's interesting to me with the context of Hyderabad was that Nehru essentially
#
took a hands-off approach and didn't really want to use violence just wanted to negotiate
#
his way to a settlement but his hand was forced by the violence used by the Razakars, right,
#
which were the sort of the militant wing of the fundamentalist party out there and ultimately
#
you know the Razakars just sort of carried out so many attacks and so much violence that
#
Nehru's hand was forced.
#
The interesting counterfactual here is what happens if the Razakars don't carry out all
#
of that violence and Hyderabad nevertheless refuses to accede to the Indian Union where
#
do you think that would have gone?
#
Well it's an interesting counterfactual question and I think the answer will turn on what we
#
think the Nizam of Hyderabad was willing or not willing to do irrespective of the Razakar
#
violence and it is a fact that the Nizam of Hyderabad was staking out for a very maximalist
#
position right he wanted some kind of a agreement between India and this thing and an agreement
#
of that kind would be effectively an agreement under international law of the kind say that
#
India signed with states like Sikkim right which was until 1975 not part of the Indian
#
Union and he in fact also wanted access to have a land corridor leading up to a port
#
on Western India and so on and so forth right and he had fairly grandized plans and was
#
quite unrealistic so my sense is that even if the Razakar violence had not happened I
#
do not think it would have been possible to come to any kind of an agreement which would
#
have satisfied both sides very easily and even without the Razakar violence I think
#
the government of India would eventually have had to use force if that's what it came down
#
What the Razakar issue did was to give them a justification which was quite convenient
#
to explain why their action had to take place and they explained it as a breakdown of sort
#
of law and order which there was to be fair and that could do it so I don't think the
#
Hyderabad issue would have led to a non-violent solution simply because I think the expectations
#
of the Nizam and those of the government of India were too wide apart to be able to bridge
#
by mutual concessions of various kinds.
#
But yeah but it strikes me that like you point out if Nehru is unwilling to actually invade
#
to use that term or actually unwilling to send his forces in then even if there is disagreement
#
you know what are the other sort of arrangements that could possibly emerge out of that?
#
No but I think Nehru himself would have sort of eventually agreed to sort of use force
#
because in many other contexts you know the reality is that these were discussions which
#
were made by the cabinet right and again I'd like to emphasize that you know in retrospect
#
we think of that period as being sort of dominated by Jawaharlal Nehru but the reality was that
#
he was first among equals which was his envisaged position and you know they were very stalwart
#
leaders in the Congress party and members of cabinet, people who were there and all
#
of these decisions were taken in cabinet consensus.
#
I mean just to give you one example of something which has again become something of interest
#
in the current context you know at that point of time the first cabinet of India, Sama Prasad
#
Mukherjee who later on founded the Jainsangh was a member of the cabinet and you know Mukherjee
#
of course later on sort of opposed the fact that you know India's handling over the Kashmir
#
issue or something, he wanted the abrogation of 370 that was one of the sort of founding.
#
In fact he died in a jail in Srinagar.
#
Exactly right so he was sort of he's seen as a martyr to that cause etc.
#
Now but in one of the parliamentary debates which happened after Mukherjee had turned
#
against all of this stuff somebody asked him saying you know weren't you in the cabinet
#
when the decision was taken to take this issue to the UN?
#
Mukherjee said yes I was and I don't want to get into a discussion about what happened
#
and why we chose that which only goes to tell you that you know the reality was that these
#
were collective decisions which were being taken.
#
Of course Davar Lal Nehru as Prime Minister had this thing but as I said when it came
#
to the issue of states Sardar Patel had an important role to play, Lord Mountbatten still
#
had an important role to play as did many other leaders and you know Gopal Swami Iyengar
#
for instance on Kashmir had an important role to play.
#
So in the context of Hyderabad therefore I think Nehru's hand would have been forced
#
one way or the other but as you are saying he was very reluctant and primarily so in
#
the context of the violence of partition which is something again I think we need to bear
#
in mind when we think about the context of some of those decisions to be taken right.
#
One of the constant things which you know even today Nehru is criticized for you know
#
is to say that why did he take the issue to the UN right as if it was a suomoto decision
#
by Davar Lal Nehru to take it.
#
But the reality was that by the third week of December 1947 it had become clear to India
#
that the only way to evict the raiders who had come into Kashmir and they managed to
#
hold them, push them back but to totally sort of stop them was to attack their bases which
#
were in Punjab, in Pakistani side of Punjab and given the nature of communications between
#
India and JNK, the quantum of force that you needed to use was best possible if you attacked
#
from our Punjab into their Punjab which would have meant a declaration of war on Pakistan
#
or a crossing of the international border and given that Punjab was the theatre where
#
maximum amount of violence happened in the context of partition you know the numbers
#
are still disputed maybe a million people died, many more millions were displaced that
#
seemed like an option which nobody could count on and the reality was that no political leader
#
at that point of time felt that that was such a great option to exercise.
#
So then the question became what is the lesser evil which is the other alternative that we
#
It is in that context after a lot of deliberation that they came to a conclusion that going
#
to the United Nations might be the least of the possible sort of you know evils simply
#
because any other alternative would be much worse and Nehru was also concerned that if
#
India got into a war with Pakistan at this point of time, it would effectively give a
#
signal for Hindu communal elements in this country to turn on their Muslim compatriots
#
right let's remember the context of partition right I mean there is this whole argument
#
in India that India should become Hindustan that these guys have got their Pakistan so
#
why shouldn't this become Hindustan right and it is that the Jawaharlal Nehru was very
#
very desirous of preventing and let us also remember that those concerns were by no means
#
unfounded after the Indian army moved into Hyderabad there was a massacre of Muslims
#
of Hyderabad state by Hindus in the same state.
#
There is a report by Pandit Sundarlal an independent committee which went in that report was suppressed
#
for many years which says that perhaps maybe 40,000 people died in that violence 40,000
#
and you have to just understand that we are talking about an extraordinarily combustible
#
political situation communal situation in this country that is the context in which
#
these discussions are happening so which is why you know I begin with that quote with
#
Mukul Kesevan in my book because when we look back all we see is this standalone decision
#
of going to the UN which has become an albatross on India's neck for the subsequent history
#
but why did we get there because their concerns were many more they did not think that this
#
was going to be the main problem their problem was to ensure that the country just did not
#
explode into another paroxysm of violence.
#
And what was happening was it wasn't just as if there was one Kashmir issued simultaneously
#
Junagar is happening Hyderabad is happening and as you've you know described in your
#
book Nehru was shocked by what happened in Hyderabad later because his calculation was
#
that we use force as late as possible only if pushed into it because there is a danger
#
of Muslims in the rest of the country being killed by you know Hindu fundamentalists and
#
what he didn't envisage perhaps within Hyderabad where at that point in time it was the Muslims
#
who were attacking Hindus with the Razakars and all that that's exactly what would happen
#
in Hyderabad that Muslims would die in large numbers a couple of thoughts strike me here
#
one is when you know when I was reading your book it struck me that the dilemma that Nehru
#
face with regards to hitting the basis of the raiders who came into Kashmir is actually
#
the exact same one Modi has faced in his five years because all our cross border terrorism
#
basically the bases are all in Pakistan and even Modi has made basically the same decision
#
that Nehru made then that no there is no point starting a war it's a negative sum game and
#
we will suffer too much which is a sensible decision and again perhaps it is the fact
#
that you are prime minister and you are in that position of responsibility that you have
#
to make that decision not to go to war but it seems to me that Modi has made exactly
#
the same decision now as sort of Nehru did then and the other interesting point that
#
I think people often don't realize now that we take the diversity of India for granted
#
and we take Pakistan for granted being what it is is that at that point in time the two
#
nation theory was very much a life question so you know Nehru had to keep into account
#
that like for example at one point in your book you mention about how when you know the
#
mechanics of a plebiscite in Kashmir were being discussed and obviously there were many
#
different versions of it but one version that Pakistan said was that as far as the poonch
#
reasons or the Azad Kashmir regions are concerned we don't need to do a plebiscite we'll just
#
go by religious composition which immediately Nehru discarded out of hand because that is
#
a confirmation of the two nation theory.
#
Absolutely I think what you did not want to do was to take any step which further legitimized
#
this claim that just because Pakistan has been created as a homeland for the Muslims
#
of the subcontinent so to speak that was the demand that you know those principles could
#
be applied to smaller and smaller pieces of territory which were under contention and
#
I think that was something that and Nehru says that quite openly which I think is part
#
of the reason why you know there are the Indian political right especially of the Hindu right
#
you know detest Jawaharlal Nehru with this kind of virulence is because Nehru and he
#
says it openly he says that I am not going to allow India to become a Hindu Pakistan
#
right this is going to be an India where people of all religions can live and can live safely
#
and you know it was a pledge which I think he tried to stand true to for the rest of
#
And the reason I've sort of you know spoken about you know this is ostensibly an episode
#
about Kashmir but I've also asked you about Junagar and Hyderabad and so on is that one
#
thing I realized in your book is that a lot of the decisions a lot of the dynamics around
#
Kashmir between India and Pakistan and so on are very much impacted by what was happening
#
in Junagar and Hyderabad because they were simultaneous and even later in Bengal which
#
all we've forgotten because you know the Junagar problem is solved there's nothing there Hyderabad
#
is solved they are nicely parts of India.
#
The fact that there was a plebiscite in Junagar the fact that you know Nehru and his cabinet
#
were fighting a battle on all these different fronts and it was by no means something they
#
could take for granted that the India that we know on the map today will actually be
#
what it is you know everything was up for grabs it could all have fallen apart in a
#
So how did those particular battles of Junagar and Hyderabad affect India sinking on Kashmir?
#
Well I think they affected it in the sense that they committed India to a certain position
#
about the right to self-determination of peoples of these places rather than assuming that
#
simple religious composition should sort of settle the issue once and for all right.
#
So in that sense I think there was a thing as I said in the context of Junagar India
#
held a referendum after the Indian army went in in the context of Hyderabad it did not
#
and in the context of Kashmir it affirmed at the time of the accession that a referendum
#
will be held when conditions are suitable conditions are established and the Indian
#
position subsequently was that suitable conditions have not been established because of the continued
#
Pakistani occupation military occupation of a portion of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
#
Now I think it's also fair to point out that as the Kashmir issue sort of developed from
#
1948 onwards the Indian government's own thinking on the advisability of a plebiscite changed
#
right and they changed for a couple of reasons.
#
The first as I said was that there was an official position that there were the conditions
#
for holding a free and fair plebiscite would not be obtained so long as the Pakistan army
#
was in occupation of certain parts of the thing.
#
The second reason was that the Indians themselves were unsure whether Sheikh Abdullah the person
#
who had sort of committed on behalf of the Kashmiri Muslims that yes we support the accession
#
to India would actually be able to prevail upon his own people to ratify the decision
#
in a subsequent plebiscite because let's face it there's another incident which happened
#
which again we tend to forget which is that around the time of partition and in 1947 there
#
was an extraordinary sort of communal violence which took place in the Jammu province of
#
the JNK state and there Jammu was actually in 1947 again sounds ironic today a Muslim
#
minority province in terms of population and there was huge ethnic cleansing of Muslims
#
and many of them left for Pakistan and the Punjab and that violence and what happened
#
in Jammu also had an impact on the Muslims of the valley because they were unsure what
#
is going to happen to them would they be reduced to a minority status and so on right.
#
So all these fears in the minds of people about whether joining India was actually the
#
wise decision and all your bets hinged on Sheikh Abdullah being able to prevail upon
#
the Kashmiri people that joining a secular India is actually the best thing for the state
#
of Jammu and Kashmir and the third thing is that already by the summer of 1948 even before
#
the ceasefire is announced in Kashmir both Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel come to
#
a conclusion that maybe the best solution for this is simply to partition the state along
#
the existing sort of line where the two armies are fighting each other which is broadly you
#
may call it the ceasefire line later line of control etc. right.
#
So and this is something which is true of even Sardar Patel, Sardar Patel tells the
#
British sort of high commissioner to India in June 1948 that the best solution to this
#
problem is just to settle it on the status quo that I think was something that actually
#
the Indians were prepared for the Pakistanis were never acceptable to that, Liaqat Ali
#
Khan shot it down entirely he said nothing Kashmir banega Pakistan remained their slogan
#
and that was put on the storage right.
#
So which is why when today people keep insisting that if Patel had a free hand you know the
#
entire state would have been reconquered it is just fantasy.
#
It does not even accord with the facts of the situation which were that at that point
#
of time both Nehru and Patel were actually aligned on the idea that we should go for
#
a partition of the state Nehru even proposed it informally to Liaqat Ali Khan only to be
#
And just to sort of go back into the historical events and a little before that obviously
#
when you know both the nations became independent at that time you know Jinnah famously believed
#
that quote Kashmir will fall into our lap like ripe fruit stop code and that makes sense
#
because there was geographic contiguity the religious composition the fact that it was
#
Muslim majority all of it and at that point there was no contiguity with India either
#
Gurdaspur was kind of given later and therefore that contiguity was there and there is this
#
interesting contrast there where with Junagar and Hyderabad you have Hindu majority people
#
but you have Muslim rulers and India is taking the position there that boss the will of the
#
people has to matter but in Kashmir you have a Hindu ruler and you have a Muslim majority
#
state had they allowed the Hindu ruler to exceed to India number one and number two
#
after so and then obviously Pakistan which doesn't really its army is not in a terribly
#
good state as you point out but they send these tribals and they take over what is Azad
#
Kashmir, Poonch and Gilgit and all of that and they hold that bit and at that point whenever
#
the UN or anybody else proposes that both the armies have to withdraw both the forces
#
have to withdraw Nehru claims that there is absolutely no equivalence because hey you
#
know it belongs to us Hari Singh has exceeded so how does one then explain this sort of
#
conflict of principles that where you know in Junagar and Hyderabad you are saying Hindu
#
majority people they have to decide but here you are saying no it doesn't matter what
#
the majority is the prince has exceeded to us and that's what matters.
#
You know actually speaking that was not the position because when the tribal invasion
#
first began the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh very quickly proposed to India
#
that you know the state should accede to India because you know he said that can India actually
#
sort of offer us protection and the discussion in the first cabinet meeting when that happened
#
was that we should secure accession before we do that because then we are within our
#
rights to send troops to any part of the territory which belongs to India and in that meeting
#
it is Jawaharlal Nehru who actually says that the question of accession is actually immaterial
#
in this context you are all talking legalities what matters is whether we can be sure that
#
the people of Kashmir will be with us that they want this and that in order to secure
#
that we have to get Sheikh Abdullah to sort of actually give his imprimatur to this instrument
#
So unless and until Sheikh Abdullah is bought in to the government of Kashmir by the Maharaja
#
and he sort of agrees that this is the way to go forward frankly we are going to be building
#
a castle of sand because it is going to be washed away by the tide because if we can't
#
rely on the support of the people there is no way that we can hold on to a Muslim majority
#
And how is Sheikh Abdullah in charge of the government there like has he…
#
No he was not he was in prison at that point of time.
#
So they brought him out and they put him in charge.
#
He was someone who was at loggerheads with the Maharaja.
#
So it is at Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian nationalist insistence that Abdullah is then
#
sort of bought in to this government which is constituted by the Maharaja and it is in
#
that context that Indians finally agree to accept the instrument of accession and send
#
So I think the initial instincts were absolutely correct which is that you needed this to happen.
#
The problem was twofold as I said one was that once the Pakistanis came to control a
#
certain part of that territory then the question became whether we should have a plebiscite
#
even while Pakistan is controlling any of those things and whether we can actually sort
#
of expect anybody to impartially sort of see such a plebiscite.
#
And the UN debates in 1948 convinced India that the great powers were playing politics
#
They were taking very partisan positions and ergo you could not really expect an impartial
#
plebiscite to happen and this issue would simply be decided that oh these are Muslims
#
they should go to Pakistan, right?
#
So it is on that principle that you know things would be legitimized.
#
So which is why the option of a plebiscite is something that the Indians start backing
#
Even Jawaharlal Nehru starts backing off from it.
#
I think we should face up to the facts.
#
For the official position which is that Pakistani military presence prevents this.
#
The reality is that the Indians themselves are not sure of the wisdom of going ahead
#
with a plebiscite in the context of those things happening, right?
#
And Sheikh Abdullah initially feels quite happy that yes we should sort of you know a plebiscite
#
will go in India's favour but over a period of time even he starts having doubts as this
#
issue sort of continues to simmer.
#
So there is a genuine concern about whether a plebiscite is going to work in your favour
#
Now when you have that situation it is in that context that the Indians then start thinking
#
about what are the alternatives to a plebiscite which will still allow for a degree of self-determination
#
to be happened because what they have pledged is that the Kashmiris will take a stand on
#
And it is in that context that actually they invite Sheikh Abdullah to come and join the
#
Indian Constituent Assembly and say that we will give you enough provisions for autonomy
#
and give you in a position where your state's constitution decided by your Constituent Assembly
#
which is a JNK Constituent Assembly will decide how much of India's constitution you will
#
So that was seen as another instrument of self-determination for the Kashmiris which
#
is why the Article 370 which came out of those negotiations and was subsequently adopted
#
in the Indian Constitution was actually bought and being.
#
So the Indians toyed with many versions of what could constitute self-determination once
#
the plebiscite was seen as an option which was either impractical or definitely likely
#
to go adverse under circumstances which were not acceptable to India.
#
And what's also interesting is that at one point in time during these negotiations Nehru
#
was at that moment for the plebiscite and Jinnah wasn't because Jinnah was worried that
#
after all that the raiders had done that those places where they carried out all their violence
#
and their looting and their rapes and everything would definitely not vote for joining Pakistan.
#
You know we'll come to 370 after the break but what also kind of strikes me as interesting
#
here is how the incentives of the various parties are evolving like Sheikh Abdullah
#
gradually moves towards wanting independence.
#
The British pretty much side with Pakistan for much of this process.
#
How's that working out like what's the deal with the British?
#
Okay so if you want to just sort of look at what the bottom line incentives of each side
#
and I'm conscious when I'm saying this that I'm stripping things of certain historical
#
nuance right but just to sort of get our listeners to have a sense of what were the bottom line
#
sort of stakes for which people were playing.
#
I think it is fair to say as far as India was concerned that once the state of JNK acceded
#
and Sheikh Abdullah sort of came on board and as you say they managed to successfully
#
sort of at least repulse the raiders from the valley of Kashmir even if they remained
#
in other parts and so on.
#
The most important consideration became holding on to Kashmir not just because it was a piece
#
of territory which had strategic importance which it had but because and this is something
#
that comes up repeatedly in Indian cabinet discussions and Nehru's own sort of thing
#
that Kashmir in effect becomes a symbol of the kind of India that they want to build.
#
That we don't believe in the two nation theory.
#
This is a direct negation of two nation theory that a Muslim majority province should of
#
its own volition have accepted to come even when it was being coerced by Pakistan through
#
the sending of raiders right so that becomes a symbolically a very important thing.
#
You know in retrospect people say that Jawaharlal Nehru was emotional about Kashmir.
#
I think he was but I think the emotion was not the main governing thing in his thinking.
#
What was the main governing thing was the idea that you know Kashmiris by their decision
#
had affirmed what he and his colleagues believed should be the Indian nationalist project going
#
forward that independent India is not going to be an India which is going to be a Hindustan.
#
It is going to be an India which would have enough space for all minorities for all diversity
#
to be accommodated and Kashmir tends to become a totem of India's commitment to secularism
#
Except the slight complication here and we'll come to that perhaps towards the end of the
#
episode is that the Kashmiri will was never really known.
#
First it was Hari Singh exceeding and then it was Sheikh Abdullah on his side but even
#
he was not really an elected leader per se.
#
So the will of the people which is you know central to the whole thing was never actually
#
a certain but we'll come to that later.
#
I mean absolutely and I think we should come to it because I think it's an important question
#
because it has an important bearing for how the Kashmiris saw all of these.
#
So let me just sort of finish up what I think were the incentives right.
#
As far as Pakistan was concerned I think for Jinnah what he wanted very simply and what
#
he was playing for was to say that listen why don't we exchange the accession of Kashmir
#
and Hyderabad or some such thing right.
#
So basically saying that listen I let go of the others if you let go of Kashmir.
#
Because he did not Jinnah had no commitment to the idea of self-determination in any straightforward
#
And at some point those bargaining chips disappear when we get Hyderabad and all of
#
Jinnahabad is taken away.
#
So but that is the game that Jinnah was trying to play was to say that listen can we sort
#
of come to some kind of thing and he resisted some proposals which I think even Pakistanis
#
today would accept that in retrospect were the wrong choices to make.
#
Had he accepted that you know at that point of time he would have done a plebiscite you
#
know maybe things would have gone in their favor who knows right.
#
It was always an open-ended situation.
#
Like at one point he rejected a plebiscite in Kashmir you point out because the Raiders
#
seem to be winning at that point.
#
He thought we're going to win anyway.
#
So in a sense that was his that was the game that they were playing for and they have they
#
They miscalculated but they have continued to play that game for you know ever since
#
As far as the Kashmiris themselves are concerned right.
#
I think again we have to sort of break them down into saying who are the Kashmiris right.
#
So on the one hand there was the Maharaja who was also initially undecided between India
#
and Pakistan and in fact would have liked to have some kind of an independent status
#
with treaties with both countries possibly.
#
But then the Raiders came and they sort of forced his hand.
#
He did not know what to do.
#
It was a difficult situation.
#
Violence in adjoining province of Punjab was rattling his own population both the Hindus
#
of Jammu as well as the Muslims of Jammu and of the Kashmir Valley.
#
So there was all of this problem and it's a very far flung very big state.
#
The original state of Jammu and Kashmir you know is a very sort of big entity.
#
So there was his problem.
#
Within Jammu itself there were different views.
#
The Muslims of Jammu were part of the original Muslim conference out of which Sheikh Abdullah
#
had broken away and formed his national conference and many of them felt that we should actually
#
go for accession to Pakistan.
#
And you know till a few minutes ago I didn't know that Jammu used to be Muslim majority.
#
In fact there's a good book by Christopher Sneddon, a scholar who has looked quite closely
#
into the sort of the violence in Jammu province in 1947 and how that sort of shaped the sort
#
And the people of Kashmir themselves right of whether of the Kashmir Valley or of this
#
thing as you say none of them had an opportunity really to sort of have their say in any of
#
But again you know I would say that that is broadly true of many other things.
#
You know the Indian Constituent Assembly was elected on a very limited franchise but then
#
went on to shape a constitution for the rest of the country.
#
It was never put to a referendum.
#
You know the American Constitution was put to a referendum for instance right.
#
The Indian Constitution never been put to a referendum.
#
So what constitutes self-determination?
#
How are the people to speak for themselves?
#
So you know is something that I think always remains an open question right.
#
Any such arrangement is bound to have its limitations and you are absolutely right that
#
you know we never knew and can perhaps never know what exactly people at that point of
#
time felt about accession to India or to Pakistan or you know joining some other state.
#
And I guess the moral force of that question really changes from time to time depending
#
on how the state is behaving and how the people feel about it.
#
Separate question will come back to that to just continue with the talk of incentives
#
What made Abdullah sort of weird towards you know wanting independence in the early 50s?
#
So there were two things.
#
First of all you know again it is not absolutely clear that independence was Abdullah's favorite
#
option because I think his own position was a little more nuanced than independence which
#
is the way it has been presented both contemporaneously it was presented like that and that's the
#
way you know we tend to think about it.
#
So at the beginning you know when the raiders came into the state of Kashmir and accession
#
of Kashmir to India happened Sheikh Abdullah was willing to sort of you know go along with
#
that move and support it because he knew that India's support was needed to ensure the freedom
#
of the Kashmiris to make any choices for themselves and not to be simply annexed by Pakistan in
#
Sheikh Abdullah was for his time quite a progressive political thinker.
#
He had a idea for the development of Kashmir in political economic terms something which
#
he called the Naya Kashmir Manifesto and the Naya Kashmir agenda was something that Sheikh
#
Abdullah envisaged among many other things very far-reaching land reforms right because
#
Kashmir was a highly feudal state you know the ruler and his family and their extended
#
plan held very extraordinary amounts of land holdings across the state.
#
So all of that land redistribution had to happen land to the tiller which was the main
#
slogan of Abdullah sort of you know food sort of followers you know the Kashmiri Muslims
#
in the valley was a very important thing.
#
He knew very well that Pakistan was unlikely to be a state where these kinds of policies
#
would flourish and I think he has been proven right by history because the state of Pakistan
#
could not deal with the problems of large landholders who are very influential in Pakistani
#
politics of the time right the Punjabi sort of landlords right you know they still have
#
these enormous estates and such.
#
Yeah the dominance continues.
#
Dominance continues so the landed sort of aristocracy's lock hold on that state was
#
something Abdullah felt would prevent it.
#
Actually Abdullah knew that if Kashmir had to be kept together as a state which he wanted
#
He did not just want to have the Kashmir valley but he believed that Jammu and Kashmir had
#
a certain kind of historical affective unity which had to be kept in mind and that state
#
was a very diverse one because they were Hindus, they were Hindus of different kinds, they
#
were Muslims of different things, Muslims of the valley are different from the Muslims
#
of Jammu, they are different in Ladakh, in the northern areas which are now with Pakistan,
#
Kashmirpur had its own sort of history of troubles with Srinagar so to hold all of these together
#
you needed something other than religion.
#
So in that sense shekabdabari that a form of Kashmiriyat which was a certain variant
#
of sort of non-communal Kashmiri nationalism was the best grew and like all nationalisms
#
it was an invented tradition right I mean there's very good books by historians like
#
Chitralekha Zutri which tell us how the notion of Kashmiriyat was constructed for a certain
#
political project right and that is a very important part of what he was trying to do
#
and he believed that that project had much closer affinities with the project of Indian
#
nationalism which Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi and Patel and others were espousing rather
#
So his incentives initially were therefore to sort of join this thing but he knew that
#
as a democratic leader he could only sort of he could work with India only if he would
#
carry the people along with him and once it became clear that a plebiscite was unlikely
#
to be held that the Indian leadership themselves were you know rethinking the wisdom of a plebiscite
#
telling him privately that listen why don't we do other things look at constituent assembly
#
other forms of democratic you know ways of ascertaining power and so on a popular will
#
Sheikh Abdullah himself started having concerns the second thing was that I think when everyone
#
went to the UN whether it was in January 1948 they assumed that there's going to be a quick
#
resolution of the problem you know everyone thought one way or the other some solution
#
will be sort of suggested and the problem will be settled.
#
And also whatever talk of a plebiscite came up one of the conditions was that the administration
#
has to change and even if he remains at the head of it the composition has to change completely
#
and he probably I'm guessing at that point felt threatened by that.
#
No in fact Abdullah himself did not want a plebiscite right.
#
So that's the thing so all I'm trying to say is that it is not just the government of India
#
which was resigning from a plebiscite.
#
Abdullah himself came to doubt whether a plebiscite will a work in his favor even temporarily which
#
is to say that he might have to step out of power to allow some kind of administration
#
and as I said they had doubts about whether a UN supervised administration actually going
#
to be fair because they may just treat this as a Hindu Muslim problem and say that Muslims
#
have to go to Pakistan and then there was this thing.
#
So Abdullah's thinking the way it was evolving was that the Kashmir problem can only be solved
#
if there is some agreement between India and Pakistan and the way that Abdullah would try
#
and think of it and the way that he articulated it almost till 1964 till Jawaharlal Nehru's
#
death was that Kashmir has to become a bridge between India and Pakistan right.
#
Both countries in some ways have interest in guaranteeing the independence of Kashmir.
#
So when you talk about independence it's not necessarily clear that he wanted a totally
#
independent state but I think what he would have liked was some kind of an arrangement
#
where both India and Pakistan would guarantee the security and other things of Kashmir and
#
would accept that this was not an arena where their competition spillover to and so on right.
#
So I think these were all ideas up there because it was such an unclear situation.
#
See you know the reality is that you know at any given point of time future is highly
#
You just don't know what is coming out of something you know when the Indians were discussing
#
the cabinet mission plan it is quite unlikely that they could have envisaged that actually
#
rejecting this option meant a total partition of the country but that is what it ended up
#
So the future is open ended and Abdullah was thinking through how best to solve this problem
#
when a plebiscite was not acceptable to India when it was not acceptable to him as likely
#
He did not want a straightforward partition of the state on religious lines.
#
So what is the way out?
#
At the same time his own people have their wishes you know he cannot sort of disregard
#
what the people might want.
#
So he had to triangulate many different things and it was in that context that he was looking
#
at various kinds of things and of course then the government of India took a view that Nivar
#
Lal Nehru personally that Abdullah was sort of moving towards independence and that the
#
best way to sort of then solve the problem is to lock him up, remove him as chief minister
#
of the state, imprison him arbitrarily and then you know try and push through other kinds
#
of solutions all of which turned out to be options which were only either worse or much
#
And at this point the British incentives also are because of the way things are sort of
#
heading towards Pakistan like you talk about you know how their delegation was led by this
#
chap called Philip Noel Baker and quoting from your book again quote, Noel Baker believed
#
that Britain's position in the Middle East was doddering in scurrying from Palestine
#
they had already alienated the Arabs.
#
The latter might be further inflamed if Britain wobbled on Kashmir and now you're quoting
#
him it was important to avoid the danger of antagonizing the whole of Islam by appearing
#
to side with India against Pakistan stop quote.
#
So which is why even though they are sort of acting as impartial mediators or whatever
#
they're playing a role which yeah and in some ways it's not so surprising right.
#
See the British is rational for them to not just rational the British never conceded the
#
Indian National Congress's claim that they spoke for all communities in India.
#
They created the Pakistan demand out of Muslim League during the Second World War and again
#
something we discussed at length when we talked about that period right.
#
It was a demand which they encouraged Jinnah to come out with because they wanted to undermine
#
the Congress's claim that it spoke for the entire nation.
#
Now obviously that was a grand eyes arrogant claim in its own right but there was a core
#
of truth to it which was that Indian nationalism under Gandhi and other leaders of the Congress
#
was not committed to a project of majoritarianism but of pluralism and that was something the
#
British never accepted and what Philip Noel Baker is doing in the UN effectively is a
#
continuation of the same principle of saying this is a Muslim majority area why should
#
it be with India right.
#
What right does India have to sort of insist that there should even be a plebiscite there
#
it should have automatically gone to Pakistan right.
#
So the presumption is that that is the way these things should have worked and that if
#
for whatever reason the Kashmiris because they were under attack from tribals etc of
#
Pakistan felt that you know they'd actually be better off not being with Pakistan that
#
was a wrong decision right.
#
So in a sense this is an old model of the imperial understanding of the peoples of the
#
Indian subcontinent and of course the Middle East as I say you know the context there was
#
that they had sort of also gotten out of Palestine so they just felt that you know they're standing
#
in the Muslim world so to speak was going down.
#
Now all of these were very much in keeping with their attitudes towards India the problem
#
of India and the problems of Indian nationalism right and their refusal to accept that Indian
#
nationalism could actually be something which would be beyond the interests of this or that
#
community they never wanted to concede that.
#
And an interesting dynamic in this period which again I wasn't aware of till I read
#
your book is that in both the armies because they weren't Indians and Pakistanis senior
#
enough basically both the India and Pakistan armies were headed by British officers who
#
were therefore had been essentially colleagues with their counterparts and there was a rule
#
and function that if there is a war between the two sides all the British officers will
#
step away from the battle.
#
There was a stand down order so there was a stand down order.
#
So how did that sort of bizarre dynamic shape the.
#
It was a bizarre dynamic because you know and again this is something the background
#
And what it also means is none of the armies are very keen to do battle at all in a sense.
#
Yeah so the British commanders in chief of both the Indian and the Pakistani armies certainly
#
had a back channel kind of a dialogue they were in touch with their high commissioners
#
the British high commissioners in both countries to try and say that listen we will try and
#
make sure that there is no war we want to sort of prevent both sides from doing all
#
Now but the reality is that I think it would be a bit of an exaggeration to suggest that
#
their views at least as far as India was concerned were decisive.
#
I don't think that's the case I don't think it is the case as some historians have made
#
it out and I think there's a plausible argument there but I don't think it really stacks
#
up in the light of everything that we know that it was the commander in chief who scuttled
#
in effect an Indian offensive in Kashmir and so on.
#
I don't think that was the case.
#
I think there were genuine constraints beyond that there was these political considerations
#
about what going to a war with Pakistan will entail and then I think in some ways their
#
political preferences aligned with that of the prime minister who himself was keen to
#
sort of avoid escalation in the context of the violence of partition and so on.
#
So I think yes it was a bizarre situation the Indians recognized it to be a bizarre
#
situation but there were many arbitrary things about that situation.
#
I mean think of it this way Lord Mountbatten remains the governor general of India after
#
independence because India you know is sort of has dominion status during that period
#
but not only is he governor general and you would imagine that is some kind of reconstitutional
#
figurehead but Mountbatten then becomes chairman of the defense committee of the cabinet even
#
though he's not a member of the cabinet right and there he is quite influential in shaping
#
the way that people think about these kinds of questions.
#
So there were many anomalies to that period and it was a very transitionally period you
#
know it's a period where so many things were in flux and in some ways the Pakistanis were
#
much more dependent on British officers than India was.
#
In fact Pakistan continued to remain highly dependent on British officers in even in their
#
army for much later than India and even India it's worth recalling that did not have a first
#
Indian naval chief of staff till the mid 1950s.
#
So before moving on quick counterfactual like one interesting part of your book which we'll
#
again get to is the sort of the Bengal crisis of 1950-51 which also shaped the way Nehru
#
approached the Kashmir issue which was left after that but one tidbit there which you
#
point out is that Nehru constantly thought of resigning because he was he was fed up
#
at one point he had even prepared a resignation for the cabinet which he didn't give through
#
and he just wanted to move on in the case of the Bengal it was because he wanted to
#
go in his personal capacity the way sort of Gandhi would have done and sort of visit the
#
areas and try to bring about peace because he was personally affected by that but he
#
thought of resignation and even apart from that there is the counterfactual question
#
of which which critics of Nehru would ask today that what if Nehru hadn't been the
#
prime minister which I ask you now in this context but even otherwise it's a fascinating
#
question because if one looks at sort of Indian political history during that period what
#
really appears to be the case is that Nehru is a man alone and a man apart and he just
#
happens to be prime minister and a lot of India's direction is shaped by that but otherwise
#
there is a very strong strand of Hindu nationalist leaders within the Congress you know like
#
Patel and Pant and Rajendra Prasad and so on and that's a very strong stream of leaders
#
and it's just kind of happenstance that it is this one man who thinks in this particular
#
way who happens to be in charge so in the limited context of all our battles to form
#
the Indian Union you know with Kashmir which is a subject of today but even Junagar Hyderabad
#
and whatever else was happening how would things have been different you think if say
#
Patel was PM and Nehru was not on the scene he was a private citizen.
#
Well you know it's a very large counterfactual question to ask and it's not a cop out but
#
I just want to say that you know counterfactual questions operate best when they are in very
#
narrow domains right when you can control for a number of things and this is the kind
#
of counterfactual question I think which leads us more into speculation than to a historically
#
informed answer but I would in the first instance suggest that some of the premises of your
#
question are themselves questionable.
#
It is true to say that yes there were elements within the Congress party which believed that
#
in the wake of partition you know Muslims of India had to prove their loyalty even Sardar
#
Patel believed that but I think it is also in all fairness and historical justice to
#
be pointed out that people like Rajinder Prasad, Sardar Patel were Gandhians to the core.
#
They were people who led the Gandhian campaigns right when we think about Gandhian nationalism
#
they were the foot soldiers of that nationalism and I think it would be wrong to assimilate
#
them to the Hindu nationalist ideology which the Hindu Mahasabha espoused with all clarity
#
even back in the day just because there were certain degrees of overlap which occurred
#
as a part of consequence of the you know the partition itself like for instance in Ramchandra
#
Guha's book India After Gandhi, he you know presents a circular which is circulated by
#
the Ministry of Home Affairs saying advising all department of government of India to keep
#
a look at the sort of their Muslim officers and so on to ensure that they were being loyal
#
Now again I don't think this was an ideological move on the part of the Ministry of State
#
which was led by Sardar Patel but a reflexive reaction to what was happening in the context
#
of the sort of thing right and let's also remember that Patel was the one who took it
#
upon himself after the assassination of Gandhi to ban the RSS and really crack down on them.
#
So I don't think he's as easily assimilable to that but yes there were people of varying
#
degrees of Hindu conservatism, Hindu nationalism in the Congress and in fact Nehru has a showdown
#
with people like Parshottam Das Tandon after Patel's death as well right.
#
In fact just to sort of give you a couple of illustrations of what I mean and my knowledge
#
is obviously far more limited than yours but I'm just kind of thinking aloud because I've
#
done episodes on these recently and read these specific books recently one there is a interesting
#
book called Ayodhya the Dark Knight by Dhrinraj Chah and another.
#
About the installation of the idols.
#
That's the installation of the idol and what is interesting there is again in that narrative
#
Nehru is a man apart in the sense that the idol of Ram is installed in the Babri Masjid
#
complex and Nehru immediately says that something must be done, get the idol out, sort the issue
#
out and congressman Govind Vallabh Pant who is CM of UP, Lal Bahadur Shastri who is Home
#
Minister of UP are all basically complicit and they don't follow Nehru's instructions.
#
The idols remain there and then eventually it becomes a faith of complete.
#
They are just there and it's too late to do anything about them.
#
And the other book I read recently was about the Geeta Press by Akshay Mukul with whom
#
I've recorded an episode but it will come out after this in a few weeks time because
#
I have a bit of a backlog but and there again what I find in the narrative is that and the
#
Geeta Press of course is this publishing house which has this monthly magazine called Kalyan
#
and they're carrying out this massive cultural campaign to build Hindutva nationalism and
#
Hindi nationalism and there again you find that a lot of prominent congressmen right
#
from the 20s onwards whether it's you know the generation of Madan Mohan Malviya or even
#
at this point people like Pant and Shastri and Gulzari Lal Nanda who are all very prominent
#
figures and my sense of reading about the politics of this entire period was that unlike
#
today when the congress you know does some kind of soft Hindutva but that's just posturing
#
and basically they don't have leaders like that anymore that in those days the Hindu
#
nationalist element within the congress was really quite strong and it was but all I'm
#
trying to say is that it is important still to make some distinctions between that element
#
of Hindu nationalist things and the policies of the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS at that
#
point of time right they were overlaps you know they were part of a continuum of some
#
kind but I think particularly with respect to people like Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad
#
I think it would be in my opinion historically sort of you know in a sense incorrect to classify
#
them as Hindu nationalists in quite that sense these two people in particular.
#
I think you're absolutely right that you know they were Govind Nallapand there was Sampoornanand
#
and again you know if the old sort of you know the motto of the Jansangh so to speak
#
was Hindi Hindu Hindustan right I mean there were many people in the congress who believed
#
in that trinity of things to come together right especially in the UP congress which
#
is why Nehru then has a major showdown with Parshottam Das Tandon who is a representative
#
of that kind of views right and but again my only point is to say that you know Jawaharlal
#
Nehru was not a sort of lone crusader in quite that sense right he believed that certain
#
lines had to be laid down absolutely clearly and should not and one of the key things for
#
instance you know is a discussion with Rajendra Prasad about the Somnath temple inauguration
#
right you know because the president sort of wants to go and inaugurate the Somnath
#
temple and again you know immediately after the accession of Junagar when the first speech
#
is given by Sardar Vallabhai Patel he says the Somnath temple is going to be built again
#
right he makes a promise at that point of time so there are all of these kinds of strains
#
that someone like Nehru has to deal with right and he of course wants to make sure that as
#
the government of India they are trying to remain as true as possible to the secular
#
identity of the state and not sort of compromise that by doing various kinds of things but
#
I think it may be a little sort of unfair to say that you know he's the only person
#
it's in that context that I'd like to say that when you're pointing out rightly that
#
you know there are two or three instances when Nehru feels that listen I should just
#
get away from this is partly because he just feels that the instinct within his party is
#
to still believe that in the wake of partition the Muslims of India should carry some extra
#
burden to sort of prove their loyalty to the state that is something that he cannot countenance
#
he says yes Pakistan was created in the name of these people but there are millions of
#
Muslims who have chosen for whatever reasons to remain in this country and if we have to
#
be true to our values then we have to sort of not expect them to prove their loyalty
#
to us that is something that he detests and he says that time and again this idea that
#
you know they should somehow be punished or that anything happens to Hindus in Pakistan
#
Muslims in India should be punished for that right is totally abhorrent to me he says that
#
repeatedly that you know I just cannot stand this line of thinking so there were those
#
kinds of differences but I would still say that you know it might be going a little too
#
far to sort of classify people like Patel as Hindu nationalists at that point of time
#
I mean there was definitely Patel I think in the wake of partition felt that there was
#
an extra obligation on Muslims to sort of in fact he says that even in the constituent
#
assembly right when there is this discussion on doing away with communal legislatures and
#
so on he comes out and says he says that you know you guys have sort of this is what led
#
to the creation of Pakistan why do you want to continue with this stuff the best thing
#
is for you to prove your loyalty to the state by sort of doing away with that stuff Muslims
#
accept it right and that continues right so the separate representation for Muslims in
#
legislature goes away so Patel is quite forthright and again I think what is interesting is that
#
you had a government at that point of time where these discussions happened quite openly
#
right people's allegiances to various kinds of things were well known they were differences
#
which were articulated but Jawaharlal Nehru stuck to the line that listen whatever be
#
the historical reasons for the creation of Pakistan the Muslims of India cannot carry
#
that cross forever and that any state which expects them to do that is not being fair
#
No and I think I accidentally touched upon a hot button during this digression because
#
these days of course there is a binary around Patel because a Hindu right is trying to claim
#
him as one of their own so it becomes a binary is he a Hindu nationalist is he a Gandhian
#
and the thing is people contain multitudes and he more than others behave with great
#
responsibility when he was in government but my limited question was that in the sort of
#
in the context of India's battle to sort of you know form the union to bring all these
#
states in a contention is made by many in the Hindu right today that he would have behaved
#
differently on Kashmir and as you've already pointed out in the instance of POK or Azad
#
Kashmir whatever you call it that's not exactly the case they were on the same page and it
#
was in fact pretty much the consensus within the Indian administration then that it is
#
not even possible for our army to retake those areas so the whole question is in fact I would
#
go further if you look at the historical record it is very clear that when Patel was looking
#
at the issue of Hyderabad immediately after independence and the Nizam was sort of doing
#
this and the issue of Kashmir came Patel and he said later on in a public speech actually
#
in the same speech in Junagadh when he announces the Somnath temple would be recreated and
#
so on he says that we had told the Pakistanis that you give Kashmir and we'll give Hyderabad
#
right why because Patel understood that holding on to Hyderabad was much more important than
#
holding on to Kashmir so this idea that in retrospect that you know Patel would have
#
attached some extraordinary great importance to Kashmir etc is I think part of an ideological
#
fantasy which remains that you know all of Kashmir should have been taken by India militarily
#
the reality is that as Prime Minister Patel would have been faced with the same kinds
#
of resource logistical, geographic, strategic, political, international political constraints
#
that Jawaharlal Nehru operated in and let us not face forget it Patel was very much party
#
to each of these decisions yeah exactly he was there all of these decisions were taken
#
this thing those records are available for historians or anyone interested to go and
#
look it up and I think the case is absolutely clear that on all of these decisions Patel
#
ultimately was on board maybe they had differences of opinion about whether the Indian army should
#
move into Hyderabad in April or as opposed to when they moved in later on in the year
#
right but there was no difference of opinion that ultimately if that's what it came down
#
to it would have to be done which is why in response to your previous counterfactual question
#
I said if Nehru had been forced with a choice he still would have used force because I think
#
that is the way the situation was shaping up at that point of time and I don't think
#
it is at all plausible to suggest that if you had a different kind of a this thing as
#
I said even Sama Prasad Mukherjee in later on accepted that as a member of the cabinet
#
he was very much party to these decisions as anyone else because these were discussed
#
in cabinet taken these were not unilaterally taken by Nehru or by Patel and Nehru between
#
the two of them right and and one thing that also happens
#
like okay so you know Junagar and Hyderabad are kind of sorted Kashmir is still simmering
#
and meanwhile violence breaks out in Bengal and again this is something that is largely
#
forgotten today but is key to how it shaped Nehru's later tactical strategic response
#
rather to do what to do about the Kashmir issue tell me a little bit about that.
#
So the Bengal sort of you know crisis really comes up in 1950 there is a sort of communal
#
violence against Hindus who are a substantial majority in what was East Bengal or East Pakistan
#
today Bangladesh and there was a flow of refugees from there and then in response there was
#
sort of retaliatory violence against Muslims in West Bengal right and that is exactly the
#
dynamic that was prevalent at that point of time and again we tend to forget it and the
#
issue took such magnitude that the Indian government finally had to threaten Pakistan
#
that if the minorities of Kashmir in Pakistan were not protected they may have to resort
#
to force in order to sort of get and sort out this issue so to speak and again Nehru
#
and Patel were on somewhat different lines of this thing because Nehru felt that you
#
know we should the use of force is something that can actually have negative consequences
#
not something that we should rush into I don't think Patel disagreed with that proposition
#
per se but where they sort of differed from each other was on this question of saying
#
that listen is retributive violence against Muslims in India something that the government
#
of India should also countenance or is it our job to sort of say that listen even that
#
is not acceptable right so it is actually on that issue and it's in that context that
#
actually Nehru writes a very interesting letter to Patel he says that there is a constant
#
call for vicarious punishment of Muslims in India in response to what is happening to
#
Hindus in Pakistan and that to me is abhorrent because many of those calls are coming from
#
congressmen also right local congressmen in the Bengal Congress etc were pointing out
#
so in that context you know Jawaharlal Nehru felt that ultimately that crisis was averted
#
the two countries did not go to war but what you had was a pact affirming that both sides
#
will protect the rights of minorities which is known as the Nehru Liaqat pact which was
#
done and actually it is in response to that pact that Shama Prasad Mukherjee and Casey
#
Niyogi whose other leader they resigned from the cabinet and Mukherjee then sort of starts
#
up his own party the Chanasang the following year and that whole episode has a certain
#
kind of implication for Kashmir primarily through the sort of impact that it has on
#
Sheikh Abdullah right because what Sheikh Abdullah realizes is that the communal problem in India
#
still remains unsettled the position of Muslims in within the Indian case itself is always
#
something that is problematic and once Shama Prasad Mukherjee and the Chanasang begin this
#
sort of national campaign to say that the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir should be done
#
away with and the state should be fully integrated etc then Sheikh Abdullah starts worrying about
#
what does it mean to be integrated within India where Nehru actually seems as you are
#
saying like a lone crusader for secularism when so many other mainstream voices are calling
#
actually for second-class treatment of Muslims to put it you know in no fine terms.
#
And one of the things Nehru sort of did here which you've pointed out affected how he
#
also then looked at the Kashmir dispute later is that there was a massive buildup of troops
#
on the Indian side which was partly to you know get the Pakistanis to do what you want
#
to do without actually taking the decision to go to war because he was he was still hesitant
#
about that but he was not hesitant at you know showcasing that force so to say.
#
It is in that sense that I say that you know you have to understand Nehru was standing
#
at the juncture of the liberal and realist traditions in thinking about international
#
politics right because he knew that this was such an important situation as such a grave
#
situation where hundreds of thousands of you know Hindus are coming from this thing there
#
is a huge sort of cauldron boiling up in India itself and already some Muslims are being
#
attacked and moving in the other direction that if you have to sort of prevent a recurrence
#
of 1947 type violence which happened in the Punjab then you had to sort of compel the
#
Pakistanis in some ways to see reason and put an end to those things which only they
#
could do right and it is in that context that he said yes if the threat of force is what
#
we have to do then let's move towards that but even as he moved towards that he understood
#
that if this really escalated into a conflict then the outcome might be actually quite similar
#
Now this is how strategic choices typically presented themselves to someone like him at
#
that point of time right there were no easy choices to make the trade-offs were always
#
very difficult and Nehru wanted to balance the trade-offs between realist considerations
#
of saying force is one instrument which we have to shape Pakistan's thinking about this
#
to sensitize them that if they do not get this situation under control it's going to
#
sort of lead to a major conflict with India but at the same time we want to avoid the
#
possibility of an actual conflict because that conflict will mean other kinds of costs
#
not just for India but for the people of India right so in that sense he had to sort of constantly
#
balance between these two considerations and it is in that sense that I was framing Nehru
#
as a person who stood not at the crossroads of these kinds of traditions you know about
#
thinking about the role of force.
#
This kind of sort of showcasing the use of force without actually you know crossing the
#
border and going to the other side is sort of you know a tool that's been used by different
#
prime ministers at different times like Indira Gandhi if I remember correctly we discussed
#
in our Bangladesh episode sort of used it you know just before the war officially erupted
#
even though you know it kind of goaded the Pakistanis into making the first move there
#
and Prime Minister Vajpayee did it after the parliament attacks where the whole idea was
#
not that we are going to attack but that we are going to with sufficient credibility demonstrate
#
that we might attack so that the international community steps in and puts pressure on Pakistan.
#
When it came to Kashmir was international community a big factor well again it's the
#
same thing right I mean if you look at the 1950 Bengal crisis ultimately it got resolved
#
because India conveyed to the British and Americans that if Pakistan did not bring the
#
situation under control then our hands will be forced right so in that sense you still
#
had to get the external and to be completely candid with you you know this might tell you
#
how historians typically tend to choose subjects and so on.
#
My interest in studying the Bengal crisis of 1950 and this book came out of work which
#
I did as a doctoral student actually was shaped by the you know 2001 and 2002 crisis between
#
India and Pakistan when the Indian army had been mobilized and I was myself mobilized
#
as part of that mobilization so when the infantry yeah so when I sort of left the army one of
#
the things I wanted to study was precisely the role of such coercive use of force and
#
in solving various crises and I want to go back in time and look at what were the other
#
crises and one of the first thing that I stumbled upon was this Bengal crisis which nobody had
#
studied so that's how I actually sort of picked it up so you're right.
#
So we are all sort of lucky I guess that you were in the infantry.
#
So let's kind of go through I mean before we go in for a break and then come out on
#
the other side of the break for article 370 which is what I'm sure all the listeners are
#
waiting for though this is also pretty fascinating.
#
Let's kind of then go through the 1953 period when you know in the meantime what seems to
#
happen is that you describe the assassination of Liaquat as one of those happenstance moments
#
which kind of you know the cauldron from just burning you know just simmers after that basically
#
and then we kind of reach a status quo which exists for a long time.
#
Tell me about that process.
#
So again you know in 1950 India and Pakistan were almost at war over this Bengal crisis
#
and in 1951 once again there is a standoff over Kashmir and this time the concern on
#
the Indian side was that the Pakistanis they get intelligence recently Pakistanis are planning
#
another sort of quick attack in Kashmir just around the time when the Kashmir Constituent
#
Assembly was getting down to work and they believe that they want to do that in order
#
to disrupt that process and the Indians once again mobilized the Indian army now against
#
West Pakistan to say that if you are going to sort of you know attack Kashmir or anything
#
like that then you know we are good so that crisis again plays out for a while and Liaquat
#
Ali Khan who is the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that point of time in fact is assassinated
#
at the height of the crisis by a Pakistani sort of an Afghan assassin who is a Pashtoon
#
and it's never quite clear why he was assassinated.
#
He is killed by the crowd immediately.
#
Yeah so it's one of those things which remains unanswered even to date but I think it's an
#
important moment in the evolution of Pakistan's own history because you know the reality of
#
Pakistan was that Muhammad Ali Jinnah died in 1948 three years later Liaquat Ali Khan
#
who was the second most important leader in that country died and that in a sense unmoored
#
the sort of government and the constitution making process and made things a lot more
#
difficult you know when you lose two very important leaders in succession just think
#
that if India had lost not just Sardar Patel but Jawaharlal Nehru in 1951 maybe you know
#
things would have been very different right.
#
So it's in that context that you know I was suggesting that Liaquat's assassination was
#
a very important moment but it was also an important moment in the sense that it made
#
the Kashmir issue a lot more complicated to resolve because there were no sort of you
#
know serious leadership on the Pakistani side to be able to take a view.
#
And they were worried for a while that some random crazies might take over.
#
Exactly right I mean it was just not clear what is going to happen and so on and in all
#
of this context is what then the subsequent moves between New Delhi and Srinagar really
#
But I think you know before we get into that we should just wind back in time and talk
#
a little bit about how exactly that relationship shaped up from 1947 onwards.
#
Let's take a quick commercial break and we'll come back after the break talk about that
#
relationship since 1947 and Article 370.
#
Hello and welcome to another awesome week at the IVM podcast network if you're not
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Here's what's in store for you this week on Cyrus says Cyrus is joined by chef Vinesh
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Johnny co-founder of Levon Academy.
#
He talks to Cyrus about what goes into running a pastry school and how his life led him to
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On Gan Dantra hosts Alok and Sarayu are joined by Dr. Andrew Whitehead to discuss the various
#
implications of the repeal of Article 370 and the complicated history and future of
#
On 9XM Soundcast host Eva Bhatt is in conversation with music composer and singer Clinton Serejo.
#
Clinton shares his journey from producing ad jingles to composing Bollywood soundtracks
#
and being invited to Berklee School of Music.
#
On paperback Rachita and Satyajit talk to playwright and poet Nikhil Katara about absurd
#
plays and Kafka's letters that have influenced him.
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On the Pragati podcast Sambit Das joins Pawan Srinath to talk about medical education and
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Just a little announcement, the new episodes of Pragati podcast will be available every
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Wednesday starting next week.
#
On the Edges and Sledges Cricket podcast Varun, Ashwin and DJ are discussing England's struggle
#
in the ashes, Nathan Leon's performance, the retirements of Dale Steyn, Hashim Amla
#
and Brandon McCallum and also the India West Indies T20 matches.
#
On Mr and Mrs Binge Watch Janice and Aniruddh talk about the great hack, the loudest voice
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and the final year, stories that have starred Donald Trump.
#
On Marbles Lost and Found Zain and Avanti talk to former IVM staffer Jaanam Deewan about
#
And with that let's get you back onto your show.
#
Welcome back to the Seenandee On Scene, I'm chatting with Srinath Raghavan about Kashmir
#
and Article 370 and we've been speaking about Kashmir and Junagar and Hyderabad and Bengal
#
and Sardar Patel and Hindu Nationalists for more than an hour but finally we have got
#
Now tell me if my summation of how 370 kind of came about is broadly correct so we get
#
In 1947 there was a thing called the Indian Independence Act which empowered the Governor
#
General of India which was then Lord Mountbatten to adapt the Government of India Act 1935
#
as an interim constitution and then to negotiate with princely states on how they would accede
#
to India which as you pointed out VP Menon who was one of the drivers of that working
#
with Sardar Patel put together this basic thing that okay we'll look after defence
#
and foreign affairs and communications for you and blah blah blah and Kashmir signed
#
an instrument of accession in October 1947 where basically the caveat was that this is
#
provisional till the will of the people can be ascertained and Sheikh Abdullah was then
#
called to the Constituent Assembly and Article 370 was then formulated and though Article
#
370 as people point out correctly exists since the constitution does in 1950 it basically
#
formalised what the instrument of accession signed in 1947 already does.
#
Is that a correct summation?
#
Yes broadly the only thing I would say is that you know when Sheikh Abdullah was and
#
his colleagues were asked to sort of join the Indian Constituent Assembly part of the
#
thing you wanted to do was to formalise the relationship of Kashmir with the Union of
#
India and to ensure that the Indian Constitution reflected it because what had happened previously
#
was an instrument of accession which had been signed by the Maharaja and you know accepted
#
by the Government of India but you wanted to sort of make sure that the Constitution
#
of India as it takes shape will reflect this relationship.
#
Now the negotiations which led to ultimately the creation of Article 370 it was actually
#
called 306A in the draft of the constitution basically stretched out over five months because
#
what Sheikh Abdullah and his team wanted was to ensure that Kashmir will continue to have
#
considerable autonomy because it was only on that condition that he might be able to
#
persuade his people that it was better to join India than to join Pakistan and we've
#
already discussed his incentives all the considerations in front of him.
#
So the way in which Article 370 eventually sort of came up was that it says that the
#
Government of India is empowered to legislate for the state of Jammu and Kashmir on the
#
three subjects of accession.
#
If it wants to sort of extend any further provisions of the Indian Constitution to that
#
state, then Article 370 is the vehicle through which those provisions can be extended to
#
the Constitution of and made applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
#
But here there are a series of caveats which are built in which is what safeguard the autonomy
#
of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
#
The first caveat is to say that if the President of India issues a presidential order under
#
Article 370 extending any provisions which pertain to the three subjects already occurred,
#
he only needs the sort of concurrence of the state government.
#
If he wants to sort of extend any other provisions of the Indian Constitution to that state,
#
then it will need not just a sort of a straightforward concurrence but a subsequent approval by
#
the Constituent Assembly of the JNK state itself.
#
So in a sense, the ultimate body which decided which other provisions of the Indian Constitution
#
beyond the three things reflected in the instrument of accession would be applicable to the state
#
of JNK would be the state's own Constituent Assembly.
#
It is in that sense that self-determination was offered to the Kashmiris and autonomy
#
was guaranteed to them.
#
Because the Indian Union could not unilaterally sort of extend provisions using Article 370
#
but you had to get the state's Constituent Assembly to ratify and accept those provisions.
#
And the assumption was that once the state's Constituent Assembly completed its task of
#
making the constitution of the state, it would spell out which of the provisions of the Indian
#
Constitution it wants to accept.
#
And thereafter, no further provisions will be applicable to the state.
#
It is in that sense that Article 370 is referred to as temporary provisions for the state of
#
The idea was not that you would remove Article 370 and make it permanent but that the permanent
#
contours would only emerge once the state's Constituent Assembly met, framed the constitution
#
of the state and decided what parts of the Indian Constitution are we willing to accept.
#
So this was the provision for autonomy and a form of sort of self-determination for the
#
Kashmiri people because it was their Constituent Assembly which would decide what beyond the
#
three subjects they would accept as far as the relationship with India was concerned.
#
Can you kind of sum it up and tell me if I've done it correctly?
#
Again, I'll quote Gulzari Nanda where he talks about 370 where he said in the 60s, quote,
#
the only way of taking the constitution of India into Jammu and Kashmir is through the
#
application of Article 370.
#
It is through this tunnel that a good deal of traffic has already passed and more will.
#
And as you're pointing out, where India had jurisdiction as far as the state of Jammu
#
and Kashmir is concerned is the three subjects of defense, foreign affairs and communication.
#
Anything else would need the approval of the state government and the Constituent Assembly
#
and the Constituent Assembly by the time it wound up, which it did deliberately where
#
it announced that on so and so a date, I think 1957, 56, you know, by the time it wound up,
#
the lines that it would have demarcated would remain forever.
#
And also that any change in Article 370 would have to happen with the agreement of the Constituent
#
Assembly of JNK, which basically means that by the time it has ceased to exist, no further
#
change can happen and Article 370 therefore is supposed to be sort of permanent at this
#
Now this is kind of complicated because again, there's a quote I picked up from A.G.
#
Nuranee's book on Article 370 where he quotes Nehru as saying that Article 370 quote has
#
been eroded, this is Nehru speaking, has been eroded, if I may use the word, and many things
#
have been done in the last few years which have made the relationship of Kashmir with
#
the Union of India very close.
#
There is no doubt that Kashmir is fully integrated.
#
And I was struggling to kind of make sense of this, both in terms of what he meant by
#
eroded, and what defenders of the current move say that Nehru himself through a series
#
of presidential orders essentially made 370 almost irrelevant.
#
And also I'm not sure what Nehru meant by Kashmir being fully integrated.
#
So the first thing is this, right?
#
And that is where I think we need to get to the grips with the history of what happens
#
to Article 370 after it is embodied in the Constitution, right?
#
Because by the time you come to Gulzar-e-Nanda, a lot of water has flowed in the Jhelum under
#
Now Article 370 is adopted as part of the Indian Constitution in 1950.
#
26th of January, 1950, the Constitution comes into effect.
#
Now by the end of 1950, the JNK State Constituent Assembly is getting ready to come together
#
to form the Constitution of the state.
#
And as we know, that is going to be the ultimate body which will decide what provisions of
#
the Indian Constitution beyond the three subjects will be acceptable.
#
Now even as the JNK State Constituent Assembly starts meeting, Sheikh Abdullah is a little
#
impatient to change some aspects of the status quo.
#
In particular, he wants to dislodge the Maharaja of Kashmir as the hereditary ruler of the state.
#
He has a long-standing problem with the Maharaja.
#
So what he presses upon Nehru is to say that why don't you issue a presidential order under
#
Article 370 effectively saying that the Maharaja's position will be taken over by a elected
#
Sadrery Asat who will be Maharaja's son, Dr. Karan Singh would take over that position and
#
It is in that context actually that Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah get into a protracted correspondence
#
because Nehru says that the Maharaja of Kashmir is actually recognized by the President of
#
India in the Indian Constitution.
#
So if you want to do away with him, then we have to at least broadly decide what the contours
#
of the relationship between India and Srinagar should be or between New Delhi and Srinagar
#
should be which actually is a task which is left to the Constituent Assembly.
#
But he says we must accept some guidelines which is then your responsibility to make
#
sure the Constituent Assembly fleshes it out and gives effect to that understanding because
#
you are asking for changes even before the Constituent Assembly has started its business.
#
So if we want to, I can't do this piecemeal because this will have implications constitutionally.
#
So we have to do a few other things.
#
So it is in that context that as part of a negotiations between the two sides, they come
#
to something called a Delhi Agreement of 1952 whereby the two sides try and align their
#
positions on what the autonomy of JNK will mean as far as accepting various provisions
#
of the Indian Constitution or not.
#
They don't get into very great detail but they say what are broadly the kinds of things
#
that will be acceptable.
#
Like for instance, the idea that JNK state will have its own flag, it is going to have
#
various kinds of things.
#
So that is what the 1952 agreement really is about.
#
And the 1952 agreement, at least as far as Jawaharlal Nehru is concerned, enables a synchronization
#
of the constitutions of India and the future constitution of JNK.
#
It lays down certain markers that both sides will agree when they are thinking about this
#
But Sheikh Abdullah has two problems.
#
First, the agreement actually does not go down all that well in Srinagar because people
#
believe that Sheikh Abdullah has somewhat pre-emptively undermined the autonomous authority
#
of the Constituent Assembly of JNK and that he has somehow sort of indulged in a bit of
#
a sell-off with this thing.
#
And this is against the context when plebiscite is still a possibility, many other things
#
UN is still hotly debating this issue.
#
So that is the problem.
#
The second problem for Sheikh Abdullah is that the Janasangh and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
#
take the Delhi Agreement as a major target in order to do this thing.
#
The slogan of the time was that, ek desh mein do vidhan, do nishan, do pradhan, right?
#
Two constitutions, two flags and two sort of rulers, Sadri Riyazad as well as the president
#
should not be, nahi chalega, nahi chalega, right?
#
So they really targeted the 1952 Accord.
#
And Sheikh Abdullah thereafter became very, very worried about whether India will actually
#
be able to sort of guarantee Kashmir's autonomy in perpetuity or are these forces of the Hindu
#
rights really going to come?
#
And it's in that context that, you know, actually Jwala Nehru writes letters and makes speeches.
#
He says, why should the Kashmiris be part of India if the Janasangh and the RSS are going
#
to be in the driver's seat?
#
Because they know very well that these guys are going to erode any autonomy that is left
#
And the Hindu right is not just from India, it's also the Praja Parishad in Jammu, like
#
you pointed out, which is doing, but by now they have been sort of co-opted into this
#
thing, right? and there are other elements like the Sadri Riyasat himself, who's a former
#
ruler's son, Dr. Karan Singh, who has conflicted views about various things.
#
I mean, he presents everything as if the people of Jammu have different aspirations that are
#
different, but he's also a factor in this game.
#
There is a third factor, which is a group of influential sort of Kashmiri pundits who
#
are associates of Sheikh Abdullah, but eventually then start doubting Sheikh Abdullah's own motives.
#
This is a man who would later became a very influential player under Mrs. Indira Gandhi
#
D.P. Dhar became India's ambassador to the Soviet Union during the 1971 crisis.
#
Right, we discussed him in our Bangladesh episode.
#
So everything comes together.
#
You can see how some of these characters have never let go of me for the last 15 years.
#
So D.P. Dhar was one of those people.
#
And it is this group of people, which is the Sadri Riyasat Karan Singh, some of Sheikh Abdullah's
#
own associates, including others, and there's not a Hindu-Muslim thing.
#
I mean, there are some like D.P. Dhar, but there are others like, you know, Bakhsh-e-Ghulam
#
Muhammad, who is effectively number two, who believe that the line that Abdullah is now
#
sort of treading, which is to say, listen, let's look for some kind of a different status
#
for Kashmir, which we discussed.
#
He wanted some kind of an agreement between India and Pakistan guaranteeing some kind
#
of independent status for Kashmir, et cetera, et cetera, was the wrong thing to do.
#
So Abdullah, of course, is reacting to these two things.
#
One to the unpopularity of the Delhi agreement within his own thing.
#
Second to the attack on the Delhi agreement being mounted by the Janasangh and others sort
#
of, you know, approving of that.
#
And then of course, Shama Prasad Mukherjee dies in sort of a post all of that.
#
Sheikh Abdullah then becomes very nervous and starts making all of these different kinds
#
He starts meeting the American ambassador, Nehru through his intelligence agencies gets
#
to know influential people like Karan Singh and Deepidhar and Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad are
#
plotting behind the scenes to prepare the way for Sheikh Abdullah's departure.
#
They convinced Jawaharlal Nehru that Abdullah has to be gotten rid of.
#
There is actually a very, very interesting letter, which I found much later in the archives
#
Huxer, who was Mrs. Gandhi's principal secretary.
#
Another Bangladesh protagonist.
#
Another Bangladesh protagonist.
#
This is in the context of what later became the Simla Accords and stuff.
#
And Huxer at that point of time is a great advocate of some kind of rapprochement with
#
You know, this is we're talking about 20 years fast forwarding.
#
And he says that I met Deepidhar the other day and I told him that since he was responsible
#
for the original sin in Kashmir, maybe he should take the first step to reach out to
#
And the original sin was the imprisonment and arbitrary dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah
#
in 1953, which frankly was one of those things which led to a which which created a rupture
#
in the minds of the Muslims of Kashmir valley in particular, because it was seen by them
#
and remains continues to be seen by them as an enormous historical betrayal of India's
#
promise of autonomy to Kashmir because their tallest leader, the person who was sort of
#
negotiating was arbitrarily removed, arrested and put in prison.
#
Subsequently, various kinds of charges were foisted on him, none of which were sort of
#
proven in a court of law.
#
But he remained in and out of prisons for a very, very long period of time.
#
And I think that sort of ruptured.
#
And Nehru himself knew that he was taking a very dangerous move in sort of dismissing
#
But he against his better judgment allowed himself to sort of go ahead and do that.
#
And he was instrumental in that even though he kept insisting that it was done by the
#
But historical records suggest otherwise.
#
Parla Nehru was totally in sync with this plan to remove Sheikh Abdullah.
#
In fact, he dictates a note to his secretary, M.O.
#
Mathai, saying what are the various steps which have to be taken to ensure that public
#
order is maintained after Abdullah's removed.
#
How does he justify it to himself?
#
Realpolitik, I suppose, right?
#
I mean, see, when you are in these positions of power, you have certain kinds of principles,
#
you have this extraordinary friendship with Sheikh Abdullah, you know various things.
#
But you just feel like, listen, if I don't act at this point of time in this way, then
#
maybe the state is going to get out of my control.
#
And I who have been a great champion and votary of Kashmir being a symbol of India secularism,
#
will then have failed in not just persuading my countrymen to accept it, but in keeping
#
them in our fold, right?
#
So it's one of those ruthless, realpolitik decisions which is taken.
#
And I think it looks at least as bad in retrospect as it did in prospect.
#
And I think history has vindicated it to be the single most grievous error made by India
#
in its dealings with JNK.
#
I think everything else could have sort of possibly worked out in India's favor had this
#
move to depose Sheikh Abdullah in such an arbitrary and unlawful, illegal manner not
#
And it's also worth pointing out that immediately after the arrest of Sheikh Abdullah, there
#
were popular protests in Kashmir and many people were shot and killed in putting down
#
It is again because of a news blackout, not something that is reported in mainstream newspapers
#
of that time, but it's well known.
#
So what were the repercussions of this?
#
Like I don't want to bother you with another complex counterfactual, but just a sort of
#
a simpler counterfactual question that if Nehru hadn't done this, what would the best
#
case scenario have been?
#
Well, the best case scenario would have been to sort of try and persuade Sheikh Abdullah
#
to sort of come up with some other kind of an arrangement which would allow him to sell
#
autonomy to his own people in a strong way.
#
Because what was Abdullah's problem?
#
Abdullah's problem was that he believed that in the wake of the rise of the Tansang and
#
these kinds of protests and they had various kinds of rallies, marches, especially all
#
He just felt like it is going to be impossible for me to convince Kashmiri Muslims that their
#
future in an autonomous fashion is somehow safe in an India of this kind.
#
So in a sense, it would have taken a lot and maybe Jawaharlal Nehru would have also had
#
to think out creatively.
#
In 1964, literally on his deathbed, Jawaharlal Nehru attempted to sort of reach out to Sheikh
#
Abdullah, even sent Sheikh Abdullah to Pakistan to say, you try and explore some settlement.
#
Because by that time, 11 years after that Act of 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru was living to
#
Because in a sense, what he realized by the time he died was that the Kashmir issue, far
#
from securing India's secularism, had actually created a huge weapon for Hindu majoritarianism
#
Because that state's special status could be turned as a weapon against Muslims, which
#
is exactly what was happening.
#
And Jawaharlal Nehru lived to see the consequences of this, realized that at least if in my lifetime
#
I do not make one attempt, it is not very clear what he could have done at that point
#
He was old, weak, ailing.
#
And it is not very clear that anything would have come out of that.
#
But the mere fact that he did it, I think, was the best gesture of repentance that he
#
could have bought himself to do, which was to sort of reach out to a man whom he had
#
imprisoned and said that, listen, you go to Pakistan, you try what can be tried.
#
And in fact, that episode is very well covered in Ramachandra Guha's book, India After Gandhi.
#
But I think it came too little too late in the day.
#
So what Nehru did, one of the political repercussions of that, of course, which we are feeling to
#
the present day is that it became one of the central causes for the Hindutva right.
#
What were the repercussions of it for Kashmir and for Kashmiris?
#
Well, the important repercussions, and that is the point, right?
#
It is after Sheikh Abdullah's dismissal that Article 370, rather than becoming the guarantee
#
of Kashmir's autonomy, becomes the instrument through which the will of the central government
#
is arbitrarily imposed on that state.
#
Because the first important big mega presidential order is given as early as 1954.
#
Now you could say that the Kashmir Constituent Assembly is still meeting at that point of
#
So maybe exporting all those provisions was something that they agreed.
#
The Kashmir Constituent Assembly ratified it.
#
So you can say that at least that notion of the letter of the law was at least followed.
#
But post the meeting, dissolution, promulgation of the Constitution of JNK, there is no way
#
that further provisions of the Indian Constitution could be imported to the state under Article
#
But that is exactly what was done.
#
And that is what Jawaharlal Nehru is referring to when he says that more and more things
#
have been done to integrate the state closer with India.
#
And he uses the word eroded repeatedly.
#
It is better in the actual parliamentary debate because he said it in Hindi.
#
He said, yeh ghiste ghiste ghise jayega.
#
Then why is it still an issue?
#
It is only an issue because it became an ideological issue for the Janasam and subsequently for
#
Because the reality is that as of 5th August 2019, when Article 370 was totally hollowed
#
out, it is still on the papers of the Constitution, right?
#
It's not gone because taking it out would have other repercussions, but it was a dead
#
You could do things to that state through Article 370, which you could not do to any
#
other state of India, like imposing president's rule for a very long period between 1990 and
#
1996 through a series of presidential orders we kept imposing.
#
You try imposing president rule on any other thing, you need to amend the Indian Constitution
#
You don't need to do that with JNK.
#
So far from being the protector, the shield with protectorate of the economy, it became
#
as Gulzari Lal Nanda said, a tunnel through which everything could be done to that state,
#
irrespective of what the wishes of the people were, well, well after the Constituent Assembly
#
of that state had dissolved.
#
So what was done on August 5, therefore, is really something which is big for the Hindutva
#
right because of its symbolic value.
#
In practical terms, it doesn't really make a difference.
#
India can still do whatever the, India could still, was still doing whatever the hell it
#
There are two things, right?
#
So one is, yes, it is true that India was doing whatever, you know, in a sense, all
#
kinds of provisions of the Indian Constitution were being extended to that state on the name
#
And the sad bit is that the Indian Supreme Court never took an unequivocal stand on this
#
There is one important ruling where they said that the Constituent Assembly should be the
#
ultimate ratifying authority.
#
There is another ruling in which they have said that, you know, maybe the state legislature
#
But what today is happening is that we are being told that the governor can stand in
#
even for the state legislature, right?
#
You're taking the reductio ad absurdum of that argument that a Constituent Assembly,
#
which is a sovereign body, which has in any scheme of politics greater powers than a normal
#
elected legislative assembly, today can be said to be equivalent to the governor of a
#
state which is under the president's rule.
#
Now that is the extent to which these things have been done.
#
The second thing which has been, of course, done under the current move is the reduction
#
of the state to a union territory status, which is a very different thing.
#
I think we should come to that in a bit.
#
You know, I'll link to Gautam Bhatia's excellent piece on exactly how the government did the
#
constitutional higgery-jiggery-pokery by which it sort of did what it did.
#
But can you briefly summarize what exactly it did?
#
So the main stumbling block for the government was this provision within Article 370 that
#
the extension of any other provisions of the Indian Constitution would have to be ratified
#
by the state's Constituent Assembly.
#
So what the presidential order, which was issued on 5th of August, attempts to do is
#
to circumvent that through a back door.
#
They have said that we will amend Article 367, which is the explanations clause of the
#
article, to say that for state constituent assembly, read state government as advised
#
And they have made a claim that currently there is no state government and that the
#
governor stands in for that, right?
#
So it's a back door through which...
#
Now, the problem with that, as Gautam points out in his piece, is that in effect, what
#
they have done is they have used Article 370 to amend Article 370 itself, which is highly
#
You cannot use any of the provisions of the constitution to amend itself.
#
You have to invoke the amendment powers of the constitution.
#
Remind me to ask you about Sikkim in 1975.
#
I think that's a total rabbit hole.
#
Anyway, so that is the first thing, right?
#
So they've done things in an indirect way, but that is likely to raise a series of constitutional
#
sort of questions which the courts will have to sort of decide on whether that is happening.
#
There is a second problem vis-a-vis how they have sort of gone about doing this, right?
#
Which is to say that the first presidential order was issued that way.
#
The same day, the home minister tabled another presidential order to get the parliament's
#
approval, which basically said that from here on, every other article barring Article, you
#
know, Clause 1 of 370 stands is to be taken away.
#
And Clause 1 will now say that every article of the Indian Constitution irrespective of
#
anything ever done will apply, right?
#
So it's a dramatic wholesale change of Article 370 itself.
#
Now, that falls into another problem because the original Article 370 states specifically
#
that Article 1 of the Indian Constitution and Article 370 applied to the state of Jammu
#
If any other provisions of the Constitution have to be applied, then you can use a presidential
#
order, which only means to say that you cannot extend Article 370 to that state again in
#
a new form through a presidential order.
#
Now, this is the reason why it took five months to draft that article.
#
It is not as if these kind of ideas have been come up with a bunch of geniuses or that could
#
not have been anticipated at that time.
#
It is very easily foreseeable that a group of people could have destroyed the autonomy
#
of the state using Article 370 if these safeguards were not in place, which is why Sheikh Abdullah
#
is negotiated for five months and bought all of these provisions in.
#
And despite that, NG Iyengar has explained all of these provisions in his sort of speech
#
in the constitutional assembly where he tables the article to say this is the provision.
#
These are the reasons why we are doing all of these things, right?
#
So in effect, I think therefore this raises an whole series of sort of constitutional
#
questions about the legality of an order like this, which the courts will have to sit on
#
and decide and deliberate.
#
But I think there is one more thing which is worth bearing out.
#
What is the overall consequence of what has been done?
#
The overall consequence of what has been done is to nullify the constitution of the state
#
The position and legitimacy of that constitution was enshrined in the Indian constitution through
#
It was a provision of the Indian constitution to accept that state's constitution.
#
Now in effect, we have destroyed that state's constitution wholesale.
#
Now what does that mean for the basic structure of the constitution, etc., I think is another
#
issue that constitutional lawyers and the courts will be deliberating in the weeks and
#
What does it mean for Indian federalism?
#
I think that is where the second part of the whole thing becomes much more difficult, right?
#
There are two aspects of this question of federalism which I think we need to deliberate.
#
One relates to 370 itself and the second relates to the union territorial sort of creation
#
of two union territories in what was a nurse wild state.
#
Now let's look at 370 itself first.
#
370 is not the only part of the Indian constitution which has such asymmetric provisions.
#
If you read Article 370, there are many other states which have various kinds of asymmetric
#
Nor is J&K the only state where you cannot purchase land.
#
There are many other states which have similar provisions, particularly with respect to agricultural
#
There are all kinds of ceilings and restrictions about what non-domiciles can and cannot do
#
These are all parts of the federal provisions of the constitution.
#
So asymmetric constitutional provisions was a fundamental part of the design of the Indian
#
constitution because the Indian constitution has simply understood that if you wanted to
#
deal with a country of such diversity of language, caste, region, religion, etc., etc., I mean
#
how are you going to accommodate it if you cannot accommodate for various kinds of diversity.
#
So as I said, it was never envisaged to be a federal constitution in the technical sense.
#
It was a unitary state, but a state which had these various kinds of asymmetric relations
#
with various provinces to capture their specific histories.
#
Let me just give you one example.
#
You know, when the BJP came back to power in 2014, you know, one of the main sort of
#
markway announcements which was done was the announcement that we are going to sign an
#
agreement with the Nagas, right, which you may recall the Prime Minister had sort of
#
made that announcement as a signing ceremony and so on.
#
And as part of that speech, one of the reasons which she explained why we had to sort of
#
do this and what the final agreement would look like, he said that final agreement will
#
recognize the special history of the Naga people, right?
#
Article 370 did exactly that.
#
It recognized the special history of this thing.
#
Various asymmetric province parts of the constitution recognize the fact, you know, because as a
#
historian, what is striking about India is not that, you know, India is an agglomeration
#
of various regions which came together and decided to become a nation.
#
It's not like Italy or like Prussia, which became Germany later.
#
The imaginary of the nation and the imaginary of the region in India are both coeval.
#
They happen more or less at the same time.
#
People feel like I'm part of this region and also part of this nation, right?
#
So in a sense, it is that principle which the Indian constitution tried to capture by
#
these kinds of various provisions of asymmetry.
#
So in a sense, we are going against the grain of our own history and the lay of this land
#
if we are saying that we have to do away with asymmetric provisions, which is why I was
#
surprised that, you know, when the Chief Minister of Sikkim says that I welcome the sort of
#
removal of Article 370, but I'm also assured that my special status or my state is going
#
I mean, what are the guarantees, right?
#
If asymmetry does not apply for one, who can assure it for another in a very different
#
And also, as you pointed out, you know, before we started recording that there are parties
#
like the TDP and the TRS, which would expect them to stand up for federalism and, you know,
#
that's practically the resolve there in a sense, and yet they have welcomed this move.
#
So I think, so as far as 370 is concerned, and you know, I think it raises questions
#
about what happens to the future of this kind of asymmetric character of the Indian constitution,
#
if it can be eroded in this way.
#
The second is about the manner in which the state has been reduced to a union territory,
#
you know, bifurcated and reduced to two union territories.
#
I think that has very significant consequences and questions it raises about what the nature
#
of federalism in this country is going to be going forward, right?
#
In the first place, you know, how do you reorganize a province?
#
Article 3 of the Indian constitution lays out what are the things that have been done
#
and that Article 3 actually had a special requirement for JNK over and above that of
#
For every other state, in order to table a bill for bifurcation of a state, for instance,
#
what you needed is a concurrence of the sort of, you know, it had to be tabled before the
#
state legislature, and then the president could sort of give his approval to be tabled
#
Whereas with the JNK state, it was specifically laid down under Article 3 that the concurrence
#
of the state legislature had to be gotten before any such thing could be done.
#
So it is an additional provision, once again, as part of this extra sort of guarantee of
#
But you have done away with all of that stuff, right?
#
Now what have you done?
#
You have said basically that we do not even need the concurrence of the state government.
#
The president's appointee, who is the governor, is enough to give concurrence.
#
So that is the first thing.
#
The first thing is that you have said that, you know, you can carve out a state without
#
any reference to the visuals of the legislature of that state, without even reference to them,
#
forget asking them for approval, just without any reference, you can do it.
#
And again, it tells you what are the kinds of things which can be done to a state like
#
JNK and Article 370, because you cannot do the same thing with any other state.
#
I mean, you did it to a state which had so many protections, and therefore you can, basically.
#
So that's the first thing.
#
The second thing is about saying that what does it mean politically for any government
#
of India to say that, listen, we can impose president's rule on a state and then say that
#
the governor's concurrence is sufficient to not just carve out that state, but to reduce
#
various parts of that state from statehood to union territory status.
#
So tomorrow, you know, hypothetically, we can think about some other ruling party which
#
might be in power, which may decide that in order to take political control of a state,
#
which we cannot win elections in, we are just going to wait it out, impose president's rule,
#
bring in a bill, carving out that state into a series of union territories, emasculating
#
it politically, and we are done with the thing.
#
I mean, what a change that would mean for Indian democracy and federalism, you can imagine.
#
Now, I'm not suggesting that this is going to be replicated, but everything creates some
#
And we have to worry about what kinds of precedents we are setting for ourselves as a country
#
if we are going to accept that these are sort of legitimate means of doing democratic business.
#
And just thinking aloud, I think once you change the rules of the game, you change the
#
game, even if you don't apply those rules necessarily, everybody's incentives change.
#
So I have sort of three broader questions, which are all things about which I'm genuinely
#
Like, in one case, it is evident that 370 was sort of a compact between the Union of
#
India and Jammu and Kashmir, and that we have broken this compact by doing what we have
#
And you could argue that Nehru himself broke the contact repeatedly.
#
And what has happened now is just a formalizing of that.
#
But the larger question here is broken the compact with who?
#
Because even the original compact wasn't with elected leaders who represented the will of
#
We never knew the will of the people.
#
I would say we still don't know the will of the people.
#
And also the will of the people is not a monolithic thing.
#
Not only are there many different kinds of people with different wills, but also over
#
a period of time, what the Kashmiri people might want has also changed rapidly, whether
#
you're talking about 1955, or you're talking about 75, or you're talking about 1990 after
#
everything kind of blows up, or you're talking about 2007 when things were better, and you're
#
talking about now when things are really pretty bad.
#
So the issue is, you know, some people would raise the point, which I have a fair amount
#
of sympathy for, that the current beleaguered young Kashmiri who views the Indian government
#
as an oppressive foreign power, if he wants to fight for freedom today, he is basically
#
not on a lower moral plane than say a Bhagat Singh or a Chandrashekhar Azad or any of the
#
Indian freedom fighters were.
#
You see yourself as a local people fighting this colonial force.
#
And the fact is that they have been promised self-determination for so many years and,
#
you know, and of course, the meaning of that term has changed for them what self-determination
#
How do we reconcile that question?
#
So far we've discussed Kashmir as a geopolitical issue between India and Pakistan and, you
#
know, as a political issue within India where all this other politics is playing out.
#
What about the moral question that the people sort of also have a right to decide their
#
Well, I think at some level, you know, that is the fundamental question, right, which
#
is to say that is it really possible for any government in any part of the world to be
#
able to impose its will on ordinary people over very long periods of time?
#
And I think much of modern history suggests that that is unlikely to work in a long-term
#
But for some lengths of period, you can maybe do to a very long periods of time, it's unlikely
#
that it's going to continue forever, right?
#
I mean, in that sense, there is no permanence to that kind of dominance and so on.
#
Now, as far as Kashmir itself is concerned, see, we have gone through so many sort of
#
stages of thinking about how do we refer to the will of the people.
#
Almost from the moment when this pledge was made that in Junagar, Hyderabad, Kashmir,
#
we are going to refer to the will of the people.
#
You wanted to know what that would be.
#
Should it be a referendum?
#
Should it be a plebiscite?
#
Those are technically somewhat different things.
#
Should it be an Indian referendum or an Indian plebiscite or should it be internationally
#
There was that question.
#
Later on, there was this question of saying that is the Constituent Assembly of JNK which
#
we have assured under our constitution and that constitution, is that a form of self-determination?
#
Now, you said earlier that the Kashmiri people themselves were never asked, but in a sense,
#
that is broadly true of the Indian constitution also.
#
It was elected on a limited franchise, the Constituent Assembly and the constitution
#
was never ratified by the people, though you could think of the first general election
#
in 1951 as broadly a ratification of the constitution, but it was not, technically not a ratification.
#
So my only point is to say that just because that was not done, it does not mean that everything
#
had to be only solved by means of plebiscites and referenda, right?
#
I mean, there could have been other ways of sort of doing those things.
#
Then we had a constitution coming in but that constitution has been under Article 370 eroded
#
and you know, Indian leaders starting from Jawaharlal Nehru have somewhat openly accepted
#
that they were doing it, right?
#
When Gulzar-e-Lalanda says you have driven a tunnel through this stuff, very good, yeah?
#
It's seen as something that we were proudly announcing that we were doing it.
#
It's not something that we are trying to hide as a fact.
#
Subsequently in 1965 when Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was the thing, something even
#
The JNK state government effectively was converted from a national conference government to a
#
congress party government and they amended the Kashmir constitution using their provisions
#
of constitution amendment to make the elected Sadri Riyasat into a governor appointed by
#
the centre and also imported provisions under Article 370 for imposition of president's
#
Just imagine, a total fundamental change in the way that thing happened.
#
The agreement between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah which led to Sheikh Abdullah's return
#
to power in 1975 again was on the premise that a number of powers which were vested
#
in the JNK constitution would be the same.
#
For instance, one of the key clauses of that Sheikh Abdullah-Indira Gandhi agreement was
#
that the JNK constitution could not in any way legislate on the powers of the governor
#
So effectively you first made the governor an instrument of the centre.
#
You said through the instrument of the centre president's rule can be imposed.
#
Then you say that the state's constitution cannot touch the governor at all.
#
So effectively you have sort of eroded the autonomy of the state in every conceivable
#
In 1986, when the state was under governor's rule, Mr. Jagmohan was the governor at that
#
point of time and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was there, they extended further provisions
#
of the Indian constitution without any reference to anyone saying the governor is there to
#
We know from historical records that even the law secretary of India had raised a sort
#
of red flag saying that this is a dubious sort of move because the governor cannot stand
#
But we said we will do it.
#
So at every point of time, therefore, as you are saying, we have promised different kinds
#
of self-determination or given them a different opportunity to say that, listen, we will allow
#
Then in 1987, elections are rigged, right?
#
So it is in that context that I think we have to understand the despair of the Kashmiris,
#
which is to say that, you know, what is it that India says that we can take at face value
#
or we can believe that India will stand by it because they are the stronger power.
#
You know, there was a very nice article in The Hindu by Suhasini Haider, you know, she
#
quoted Thukkididi as saying that the strong can do what they can and the weak must endure
#
what they must, right, from the Melian dialogue.
#
Now, if that is the position of the Kashmiris, then their despair is understandable because
#
we have promised them many, many things in different ways.
#
And what has now been done in a sense, not just is injurious to their thing, it adds
#
insult to injury because now you're told that you don't even have the status of a state.
#
One of the largest princely states of India has not only been absorbed into the Indian
#
Union, you know, whatever, even if you think abolishing Article 370 means any greater integration,
#
I don't believe there was any such further thing happening.
#
But you reduced it to the status of Union territory and you held out a hope to them
#
that they can rise up to the state level if in the future they sort of behave appropriately.
#
Now, I think, you know, that is going to be a matter of deep resentment in Kashmir.
#
We will have to see how future politics plays out.
#
So I'll come to my second of three questions, sort of by also addressing what people might
#
say about self-determination being a slippery slope.
#
For example, somebody might ask, what if the people of Andheri want to be independent?
#
And what if the people of Varsova then want to be independent from Andheri, which they
#
And my response to that would by and large be that I think even as far as disaffection
#
of the Kashmiri people is concerned, they've been based on shifting sands.
#
They have not always been pissed off at the Union.
#
And in the rest of the country, what we have done is there is some semblance of good governance
#
and the rule of law and so on and so forth.
#
And the people can actually feel that, okay, we are in a democracy, we have some chance,
#
we are not unequal compared to the other citizens of this great democracy.
#
But what has happened in Kashmir is that the way the state has behaved with the people
#
is very different from, say, Varsova or Andheri.
#
I wrote an essay a while back, which I'll also link from the show notes, which sort
#
of took off on a lot of counter-insurgency literature I was reading and also David Davidas's
#
book, The Generation of Rage in Kashmir, which I'll also link from the show notes where Davidas's
#
point was that by 2007, basically a new generation had come up in Kashmir and it was much more
#
hopeful and aspirational and so on and wanting to integrate with India.
#
But then the continued brutality by the state sort of, you know, caused them to rise up
#
against the state and just made things much worse.
#
Not the fault of this government alone, starting from the UPA government 2007-2008 onwards,
#
And that brings me to a question of strategy on which again you are an expert is that what
#
we have sort of learned from counter-insurgency literature, you know, right from Mao and T.
#
Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom and David Galula's books is that if you are going to
#
tackle an insurgency, you don't do it with brute force.
#
You do it with, you know, an equation someone once came up with, which is 20% military,
#
And the key there is that you have to have the local people on your side so that the
#
insurgency doesn't have a place to hide.
#
And what instead we have done in Kashmir is instead of providing good governance and getting
#
the local people on your side, we have instead alienated the common man far more, made the
#
common person sympathetic to freedom fighters and terrorists, whatever one chooses to call
#
them and therefore made sure that even if we have Kashmir with us, we don't have the
#
What are your thoughts on this?
#
Well, I think that has been a challenge even before the insurgency began.
#
And I think in some ways, the insurgency began as a response to this feeling that normal
#
ways of dealing with India in normal politics, elections, negotiations are not going to do.
#
So that's how an insurgent sort of group began.
#
And as you're saying, the fact that the Indian government also sort of responded with an
#
iron fist meant that the local population then continued to support the insurgency to
#
varying degrees over periods of time.
#
As you're rightly saying, there have been periods when Kashmiris have been more or less
#
I'm not in a position to say whether in 2007, there was a new generation of Kashmiris who
#
are more hopeful or not.
#
That is Deva Das's claim and it's very interesting and the book is worth reading.
#
But I think what is empirically true, in a sense, superficially, you can sort of immediately
#
sort of take it as granted, that there is a generation of Kashmiris which came of age
#
by the late 2000s, who had practically grown up in the shadow of the insurgency.
#
At least the generations which preceded them knew something of what life was before the
#
insurgency began and this very strong degree of sort of security response which is a consequence
#
And again, I wouldn't want to sort of carry a brief for the insurgency in Kashmir because
#
the fact is that the Indian army's presence was not as overweening in Kashmir before the
#
It is a response to what the insurgency is and the insurgency has also brutalized the
#
It is not a unilateral sort of brutalization which has been done by the Indian army.
#
And there are many unpalatable elements of the insurgency such as the recent Islamism,
#
the Jihadism that has come in.
#
So, I am not trying to pass a judgment as an army goad insurgency or the other way around.
#
But all I am trying to say is that for the ordinary Kashmiri, they have had to deal with
#
the consequences of living in an environment which was dominated by an insurgency counterinsurgency
#
It is not a straightforward question of saying that this is just a pure sort of Israeli occupation
#
There is no insurgency happening in the West Bank.
#
There is a very different situation out here which in some ways is much worse possibly.
#
Which is why I am saying that for a generation of Kashmiris, what they have grown up is under
#
the shadow of the gun, whether it is wielded by the insurgents or by the security forces.
#
And that obviously has huge psychological implications for the way that they think about
#
their future, about what they want, what they are willing to risk.
#
In the last couple of years, we have seen newspaper reporting.
#
I have not been to Kashmir, but I have been reading newspaper reports suggesting that
#
people are actually preventing the security forces from carrying out operations by forming
#
human shields and actually sort of risking death effectively because they may be collateral
#
damaged in an ongoing operation if you come in between and so on.
#
Now, all of that suggests a degree of despair which is very high.
#
And I think the challenge for us is now to say that, listen, how are we going to deal
#
Because that is the human element and that is also the moral element because at the end
#
of the day, there is this famous line from the Vietnam War, right, where it may be an
#
apocryphal story where an American sort of Marine's captain is interviewed by some news
#
agencies immediately after the taking over of some village which has been strafed and
#
bombed and they have captured it and says, why did you have to use so much force?
#
He says we have to destroy the village in order to save it.
#
That is the question we have to ask ourselves, are we going to destroy our people in order
#
It is a mistake that we have made in so many other guises in the past, right?
#
We believe that in order to affirm our secular value, we have to keep somebody else in subjection.
#
Then how does it mean an affirmation of any democratic values?
#
So I think the question of means and ends, which you rightly post, is today I think an
#
even more urgent one because the insurgency, at least in the short term, is likely to get
#
some kind of a flip because Pakistan will feel emboldened to sort of fish in troubled
#
There may be more disaffected youth within Kashmir who may be willing to take up the
#
gun, or they may not be.
#
But let's assume that the insurgency and counterinsurgency dynamic is not going away anytime soon, just
#
because you abolished Article 370, that's not going away.
#
No, and the point of my question was also to say like you also phrase the shadow of the
#
gun and the thing is the fact that there are so many young people living under the shadow
#
of the gun who have seen their 12 year old brothers taken from home and shot in front
#
of a wall and so on and so forth, that they've seen all this brutality unfold on their friends
#
and family and the point is the shadow of the gun is actually the worst way to fight
#
the insurgency, you know, which is a lesson that we've learned over the decades and that
#
if the Modi government wanted, it could just fight the insurgency in a very different way
#
by providing good governance, trying to win the people over and that would be far more
#
successful in integrating Kashmir into India in the long run if they want to.
#
Is that kind of understanding not there within the…
#
You know, Amit, let me try and explain what I think they are thinking, right, beyond this
#
Article 370 because there are important sort of glimpses we got of their reasoning behind
#
this move from the Prime Minister's speeches, from the Home Minister's speeches, but I
#
think as analysts and observers, we should take seriously, right?
#
In fact, I think in some ways, the Prime Minister concurs with what you said, which is that
#
governance has not been good in Kashmir.
#
In fact, he said in his speech that ever since the imposition of governor's rule, we have
#
managed to do many more schemes, etc., etc., whether that's an empirically true fact
#
or not and to what extent all of that is done is a different question.
#
But he shares this assumption that the existing status quo has not delivered any governance.
#
But things have actually become worse in the last five years, so…
#
Maybe, as I said, I mean, you know, let's say, but all I'm trying to say is that they
#
will share the diagnosis in some way, right, and they just have a different solution to
#
And as I sort of read their sort of speeches and explanations, I think the way that they
#
are thinking about it is to say that what Kashmir needs is actually a new kind of a
#
political dispensation altogether, that, you know, and the Prime Minister has spoken many
#
times about the three families which have looted Kashmir and so on, right?
#
I mean, you would have recalled from his speech.
#
So I think they now have come to a conclusion that we need a new generation of leaders in
#
Kashmir who will be willing to work with India and can be sort of, you know, can sort of
#
pursue an agenda in tandem with New Delhi, which would be very different from that in
#
And in order to do that, we have to create a totally new political context, and which
#
is why we started the level of panchayats, because we are hoping that a bottoms up sort
#
of process of elections, etc., will force up new leaders to come.
#
And those leaders will have to operate under a very different context, because now the
#
main challenge for Kashmir is to get back statehood, which has been promised to them,
#
at least implicitly, from union territory status.
#
And now the political lines of Jammu-Kashmir, the new union territory, are going to be drawn
#
And it's not very clear that the Kashmiris will have the kind of political dominance
#
that they had in the previous dispensation, right?
#
So a new politics is being created, which I think is one of their stated intentions.
#
And the claim is that that politics will lead to newer forms of dealing with this problem,
#
which will be much better than what we have tried in the past.
#
Now I think to be fair, we should grant them that this is the reconstruction.
#
Now whether this works or not, I myself feel a little skeptical, because, you know, as
#
a historian, unfortunately, I am stuck in the past, right?
#
People like me are told you're stuck in the past.
#
Yes, I am stuck in the past, because I studied the past for this thing.
#
But when I look at leaders as stalwart as Sheikh Abdullah, you know, who, whether in
#
1952 after the Delhi agreement or in 1975 after his agreement with Indira Gandhi, felt
#
that he could not really sort of sell the same agreement to his people.
#
If stalwart leaders like that felt about agreements of autonomy, is it realistic to assume that
#
there will be new leaders who will come out of the situation in Kashmir who will say that,
#
you know, actually, statehood will, you know, is the main sort of objective for us.
#
We should be happy with what is there.
#
I'm not saying that it is impossible.
#
But as a student of history, it seems to me that there are limits to the plasticity of
#
It is not infinitely malleable.
#
There are certain things and that is the nature of every democratic process.
#
And it is not just India, but any country which has dealt, you know, you look at the
#
Americans, you know, they wanted someone like Hamid Karzai to be in Afghanistan.
#
But Hamid Karzai then turns out to be a very difficult actor for you to deal with because
#
his incentives are not to toe your line all the time or to do exactly what you want.
#
You may both want the same thing, which is overall development, etc.
#
But his idea of how that has to be accomplished cuts across with yours.
#
Same thing happened with Ngodindiyam in South Vietnam back in the day, right?
#
So I don't see, therefore, that democratic politics is as capable of being shaped by
#
grand designs as we seem to assume.
#
But we have made a start.
#
It's a start which has torn up the past, broken away from it in a very dramatic way,
#
even if it has used the same means that were used in the past.
#
But I think still this is a step, an order of magnitude, different kind of decision which
#
We'll have to see how it plays out.
#
I mean, the future is all unknown unknowns.
#
And for my last question, I want to shift the context a little bit, where I am going
#
to say let's not talk about how constitution or non-constitutional 370 is.
#
Let's not even talk about the Kashmir itself, how that issue has evolved through the years
#
and all the politics and geopolitics about that.
#
Let's look at the 370 within the context of the fact that this was one of the key demands
#
of a resurgent Hindu right, which is now on the political ascendant.
#
Some would say it's a coming together of culture and politics in a sense.
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And their key demands were things like cow slaughter, 370.
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These have been the signature issues which they've used through the years.
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And you now see all of these playing out on a bigger scale where cow slaughter is again
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You have lynchings going up in the country.
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Now they've done 370, maybe they'll build the temple next, who knows.
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What direction do you see this country broadly going in?
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And this is again outside the issue of Kashmir, because like I said, I think what happened
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on August 5th is more than just about Kashmir, it's also about India.
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Historians make for very bad astrologers, so I have no means of dividing where we are
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What's a best-case scenario and a worst-case scenario for the next 10 years?
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Honestly, I don't think I'm very well-placed to answer that question, but let me take a
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stab at giving a serious answer to your first question.
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Now you're right that we are in a different kind of a political situation where there
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is a new political party which has emerged as the hegemonic force, hegemonic as in as
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force which has the consent of a large number of electorate and especially if you look at
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the last election in the Hindi-speaking states, the BJP has clearly emerged as hegemonic power
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and they believe that these are issues on which they have campaigned and again they
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are right in saying so and that they have a mandate therefore to do it.
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I think that is perfectly sort of understandable, it is legitimate.
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But as we know with any liberal democracy of the kind that we are, the things like the
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constitution exists for a certain reason which is basically to sort of ensure that democratic
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majoritarianism cannot upturn the fundamentals of the state.
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That is what the constitution's so-called function is.
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Now if we are going to overturn the procedural norms of using the constitution for various
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ends simply because of claiming majoritarian legitimation, then I think we are at an inflection
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We have been in a similar inflection point in the past.
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There used to be huge tussles between what the state could do, the government could do
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with the constitution back in the Indira Gandhi period which has then led to this doctrine
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of the basic structure which came out of the Kesavan and Bharti sort of case.
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Now the question for us is whether now we are doing things where another more clever
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way of using the provisions of the constitution to do these kinds of things is possible and
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whether the courts are actually going to uphold which is why I think it is going to be interesting
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to see how the courts deal with these legal challenges because the courts do not sit in
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They sit in this country and they have to also take into account various other kinds
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of factors as they do it.
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I don't know whether they do.
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I am not a constitutional scholar but I would imagine that in the past if you look at it.
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Courts have always not necessarily taken on the executive in a very direct way when it
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But I think what has happened in this month will raise a series of legal questions which
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are at least of as much importance as the sort of landmark cases in the Supreme Court
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starting in the late 60s running through to the mid 70s happened.
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And as I see it, you know, there is a tussle always within any country between democracy
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and constitutionalism, right?
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I mean these are not necessarily compatible values, right?
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And we have to see how this judgment plays out.
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In a sense, how this balance, what kind of new equilibrium do we arrive at?
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If we are going to arrive at an equilibrium that listen, majoritarian legitimization is
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sufficient to override all other kinds of things and everything is up for grabs, then
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possibly we are looking at a very, very different way of doing things.
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In the past, again, this is not the first time that we are in a situation like this.
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Mrs. Gandhi attempted many such things during the emergency.
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But post-emergency, many of those things were also repealed, right?
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We saw many of those constitutional amendments sort of being repealed and so on.
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Now, I am not trying to suggest that we are in any comparable situation but all I am trying
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to say is that the questions are similar which is about how do we go about using the
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provisions of the constitution, what is the relationship between a majoritarian affirmation
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in elections and the kinds of constitutional changes that we can bring about and what does
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this mean for the country as a whole?
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And also just to sort of take that thought forward and throw this at you at the same
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time is that one fundamental way in which this tussle as you use the term currently
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is different from what Indira Gandhi did was Indira Gandhi was as far as I can see driven
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essentially by the will to power and whatever changes in the constitution she made was driven
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But there is a deeper philosophical dispute here in the legitimacy of this constitution
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and the kind of constitutionalism that we have where a lot of Hindutva right-wing thinkers
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have for example argued in the past that this is a constitution made by liberal elites
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and doesn't represent what the people actually believe in or stand for.
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So when you talk about for example you use the phrases democratic majoritarianism shaking
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the foundations of the state, I think what the argument from the Hindu right would be
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that the foundations of the state are the wrong foundations that they don't agree with
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the definition of constitutionalism that you and I would agree with that it's essentially
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the constitution has to be a check on the power of the state and has to protect the
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people against the state but they would not necessarily agree with that.
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And in that tussle who is to say that whether their vision of what the constitution should
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be is more legitimate or our vision which is still the vision of liberal elites?
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No, I agree with you that there is no reason to assume that you know a group of people
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maybe a majority of people in this country may have a very different vision of what the
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constitution should be.
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But all I'm trying to say is that if you want to reach that vision you cannot do it through
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the existing constitutional means you need to convene another constituent assembly and
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That is how you can supersede the existing constitution because the existing constitution
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lays certain kinds of provisions in here including the doctrine of basic structure which has
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now become I think again I'm not a constitutional scholar but as a historian to the extent that
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I have read and understood these things it has become a fairly well-defined doctrine
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which is actually applicable in many used in many other countries as well in dealing
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with these situations right and in a sense should also incidentally be applicable to
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the constitution of the JNK state itself who's not only basic structure but entire structure
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So that's why I'm saying that there are many interesting on important constitutional questions
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at stake here which will be discussed and the courts will come to some kind of a judgment
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So I do not for once deny that people may want to have a different constitution all
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I'm trying to say is that we are in a currently in one constitutional regime.
#
You may feel that listen this constitutional regime is the wrong one for this country to
#
have though I'm hard-pressed to say that it is done by some bunch of liberal elites alone
#
right I think that is not the case to all of us especially our readers you know our
#
listeners I would recommend a book by Rohit De which is about the people's constitution
#
about how very ordinary people in India as soon as the constitution came into effect
#
use the provisions of the constitution to secure their own rights to suggest that this
#
is a document of by and for liberal elites is I think a travesty of history book from
#
the show notes yeah so I may have got the title of the book I think that's what it's
#
called the people's constitution I think it's a very important book I think it's one of
#
the most important books written about the history of the Indian Constitution making
#
process and what it meant and I think it fundamentally belies this proposition that it was a document
#
for liberal elites and made by liberal elites.
#
I freely concede that it was a you know a constitution which kind of was made on limited
#
franchise and so on but to suggest therefore that it is so facto illegitimate or that it
#
is underrepresented of this country I think is a travesty I don't think that is true
#
of course the you know any group of people who believe that they have the numbers and
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the political power to want to bring about a new constitutional regime are entirely at
#
liberty to do so but it cannot be done within the frameworks and contours of the existing
#
system you need to have a total revolution approved all of this stuff and take us to
#
a totally different one I'd imagine you know that is an enterprise about which a lot of
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people will have some questions to ask.
#
I can't make out if that's a hopeful note to end on or not but at least you and I are
#
on the same page as regards to the desirability of this constitution whether we are liberal
#
elites or not is another question entirely thanks so much for coming on the show it's
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always great to talk to you.
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Great to be here thank you.
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If you enjoyed listening to this episode head on over to your nearest online or offline
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bookstore and buy War and Peace in Modern India by Srinath Raghavan which is a fascinating
#
account of how the Indian Union became a union.
#
You can also follow Srinath on Twitter as SrinathRaghava3.
#
You can follow me at Amit Verma A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A you can browse past episodes of the Scene
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are supported by the Takshashila Institution an independent centre for research and education
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Visit takshashila.org.in for more details.
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Thank you for listening.
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