K N Pandita
knp627@gmail.com
Apropos news item “Despite Nehru’s persuasion, Maharaja of J&K delayed decision: Kharge” (DE Nov 02, 2025). Kharge asserts that Nehru and Patel were both interested in the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union. Still, Maharaja Hari Singh delayed it, and thus the Kashmir imbroglio ensued. It is the typical Congress way of distorting history and absolving itself of the onus. We have some questions for the Congress president:
Sardar Patel was the Home Minister. He peacefully integrated about 560 princely states into the Indian Union. Why did Nehru take away only the J&K portfolio from the Home Minister and retain it for himself? The reason for doing so, given by Nehru himself, was that ” Only I know how to handle Kashmir”. The Sardar integrated 560 states without hassle, but the one and only one which Nehru handled has brought untold suffering to the people of the State and the nation as well.
Kharge says Nehru knew as early as September that Pakistan was planning an attack on India. Why did he not take action to forestall the conspiracy, but instead referred the matter to Sardar? He thought Sardar was competent to meet the challenge from Pakistan, but not competent enough to handle Kashmir.
As early as the first week of September 1947, Nehru had come to know of the Pakistani army’s plan to attack Kashmir. When Major Kalkat, who had escaped from Pakistan and reported to the Indian army headquarters the plan of Pakistan, was brought before Nehru in Tin Murti, Nehru listened to him and then scolding the Indian army high-ranking officers for disbelieving Major Kalkat, swept away a bunch of papers on his table and angrily told the army officers accompanying Major Kalkat,” Search in these papers, you will find a letter revealing the conspiracy hatched in Pakistan.” The question we put to Kharge is what action Nehru took to forestall the attack which actually happened on October 22, nearly 50 days later? None, except that he wrote a letter to the Sardar. Nehru was the prime minister and also held the charge of foreign affairs. Two inferences can be drawn. Either Nehru wanted to overlook Pakistan’s perfidy or he lacked courage.
It is a fact that Maharaja Hari Singh did send signals to New Delhi that he wanted to accede to India. But Nehru refused to oblige every time, arguing that unless the request came from Sheikh Abdullah, he would not budge. For the Maharaja, the Sheikh was a seditionist drawing strength from the mosques in Kashmir. No historian has been able to explain the source of Nehru’s fascination with the Sheikh. In his biography Atash-e-Chinar, the Sheikh writes: “After all, I have a blood relation with Nehru.” While Nehru had blood relations with the Sheikh, he called Pandit Premnath Dogra, the outstanding leader of Jammu and representing the Dogra history, culture and ethos — the same valiant Dogras who under the command of Maharaja Gulab Singh and Ranbir Singh, conquered the Northern Areas of Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan, Hunza, Nagar, Chitral etc, and formed the present State of Jammu and Kashmir — a seditionist and communalist for leading Praja Parishad movement.
How come Nehru’s “democratic and secular” ideology evaporated in thin air when, just after five years of independence, the Sheikh shifted the goal post from pro-Indian to pro-independence ideology? Nehru managed to arrest and depose him, not directly but through two proxies, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Rafi Ahmad Qidwai, while he was on an excursion in London.
Maharaja was promised by Nehru that he would be given fair treatment if he only agreed to be away from Kashmir for six months. The Maharaja agreed and left. Just a month and a half after his departure, the Sheikh demanded that Nehru remove the Maharaja. The Maharaja, a soldier in terms of spirit, kept his word while his handlers, the men of straw, behaved perfidiously. Nehru opposed monarchy, which he removed but replaced with the dictatorship of his brand.
Assuming that Nehru was right in what he thought and did about Kashmir, as Kharge thinks, how does history look at it? It speaks of nearly eight decades of acrimonious relations between Srinagar and New Delhi, eight decades of animosity and bitter fighting with Pakistan, alienating the entire western and Islamic countries on the issue of Kashmir and immeasurable loss in terms of life and property. The slogan of aazaadi is embedded deep in the minds of Kashmiris, old and young. Was Maharaj Hari Singh wrong if he had asked for aazaadi? Did not his Prime Minister, R.C. Kak, say that the Maharaja was negotiating with the concerned for the independent state of J&K? Did Nehru take cognisance of Kak’s statement?
When, for the first time, the formal request of the Maharaja for military support was discussed in the Defence Committee in New Delhi presided over by Lord Mountbatten as Governor General and attended by Nehru, Patel, the British army commander, General Cariappa and others, the British commanders strongly spoke against dispatching Indian troops to Srinagar. They argued about problems of connectivity, supply line, winter, snowfall and other logistics. For one hour, Nehru kept listening without refuting their argument. Patal waited to know what Nehru had to say. When he found that Nehru had succumbed and was not countering the colonial power, he abruptly turned to Nehru and said, “Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir or not? Say yes or no?” Cornered, Nehru said yes. Instantly, Patel turned to General Cariappa (nominated army chief of independent India) and said, ” General, road or no road, snow or rain, I want Indian troops to be in Srinagar tomorrow morning”. The same evening, General Bucher, the British C-in-C of the Indian army, resigned. Gen Cariappa took charge. The same night, the Sikh Light Infantry was moved from Patiala and air lifted to the Damodar airport in Srinagar, where the first encounter with the invading Pakistani army in civilian dress took place, and Major Somnath Sharma of the Sikh LI was martyred.
I hope that after going through this rejoinder, Mr Kharge and his team will try to revisit the history of Maharaja Hari Singh’s role from the right perspective. The last Maharaja represented not just the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir but the institution that raised the State of Jammu and Kashmir, with its sub-Himalayan boundaries now protecting the northern frontier of the Republic of the Indian Union. Let us accept that verdict and pay homage to the great Dogra martyrs who had won the crown of Kashmir for the Indian Union through their unforgettable sacrifices.
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