Musharraf: Excerpts from an Interview in NYT

Dost mittar

i too donot wish to discuss individuals, and i agonized over whether I should take up these things, but my dissapointment got the better of me. hence I didnot take this up on a busy board. all i can ask you is to introspect and look at your prejudices put yourself in the shoes of a muslim or a dalit that a Shourie or jagmohan targets. and please do not advocate radical solutions to kashmir / partition problems.

``I have developed some kind of a reputation at chowk for being a balanced interactor. I believe this is so because I am able to see an issue from more than one perspective, both of which can be valid in their own way``

dost mittar only one perspective will do fine as long as it is a liberal and humanist one.

``Just as you have accused me of being a closet-saffronite, others have accused me of being a pseudo-secular and they can also, I am sure, find some interacts to support their contention.``

Having seen their character, those who call others pseudo secularists dont matter to me, as Vinod Dua says i am proud to be a pseudo secularist.

when you admitted that you were agnostic i had hopes from you, also when you recounted the trip to Choa Saiden Shah i thought you would feel the pain of the minority, all I can ask you is to read Locke, Hume, Burke, Mill, Russell and Nehru himself. put yourself in the other`s shoe and introspect.

to jang
I always thought being called a liberal was an honour, i am sorry for calling you a man.

HP and Jang:
WHEN WILL YOU LEARN THAT IN ANY NATION MINORITIES ARE NEVER IRRELEVANT AS BOTH OF YOU OPINE.

THAT IS THE CRUX OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN. BETWEEN 17 TH AND 21 ST CENTURY. BETWEEN FUNDAMENTAL INTOLERANCE OF ISLAM AND TOLERANCE OF HINDUISM.

INDIA SAFEGUARDS THE MINORITIES AND PAKISTAN DRIVES THEM OUT!!!!!!

Dear inquire
You are older than me, and far more accompalished with a PHD, but your understanding of history, is based on movies and serials that you have seen, it is evident by the way you jumped to congratulate nakhok.

if you want to seriously analyse this issue please read Ayesha jalal, Gyanendra pandey, Sumit Sarkar, Mushirul hasan, KN Panikkar, AG Noorani. You will cease to make prejudiced statements like the one you just have: ``But Muslims have to stop taking for granted the toleration of Hindus and start giving equally in return``.

Pandey is teaching at Hopkins Baltimore campus and Khilnani at Hopkins DC campus why dont you just take a course with them or just photocopy the reading list and read it on your own. it will enlighten you about how Indian colonial and post colonial society operated. There was no tolerant and intolerant side, each one was equally tolerant or intolerant. Ihave read the Indian constitution but I would advise you to read it to the 10s of thousands of muslim victims of communal riots in India. Laws are judged by their implementation not by the nobelese of their formulation. Indian muslims have been given ceremonial positions in indian govt but there has never been a single muslim home, finance or defence minister leave alone prime minister, so much for tolerance. if you see india today despite all the atrocities being commited against muslims, thay have maintained their cool and have not yet indulged in terrorism because they have some faith in the state still.

And by the way Noakhali is in bengal, not in UP and Bihar. in bihar infact there was cleansing of half a million muslims. you must inform your self before jumping the gun. nobody doubts the personal commitment of Nehru as i have stated repeatedly or that of Gandhi, but again I repeat they were not patrolling UP or the rest of india, which were saved because they were not partitioned, and because of existing intercommunal relations.

#138 by hindvi on September 28, 2004 10:56am PT
``I am surprised that a liberal man such as yourself can even take the rumours floated by the Sangh seriously. ``

dont call me names like liberal and man :-)

thanks for correcting my perceptions, i was thinking of dilli as including old dilli, hazrat nijamudding etc areas. also, re punjab, i am not claiming that muslims have ``returned`` there, just that some muslims have migrated (bihari workers) there as is common among migration patterns in india.

regarding your being upset with DM specifically, and closet saffron well-wishers in general, surely you understand that most middle class non-muslims (and many muslims) are broadly saffron sympethisers but only a miniscule minority are RSS indoctrinated. this is a reality. by broad saffron sympathy i mean dislike of laloo-mulayam politics, ascribing bomb-blast type violence to dawood-mian, liking tough politicians like shourie-jagoo etc. so you see the problem? its nothing to do with RSS indoctrination. RSS is only a symptom. The general dislike of muslim is not necessarily taught in RSS pathshalas, but is wide general knowledge.

Dost mittar
dont get me wrong you are allright by average subcontinental standards i just expected more from an agnostic.

hindvi#134
This is strange. I agree with almost everything you say and yet I would rewrite almost everything that you have reproduced from my interacts; I wrote them because I believed what I wrote.
So, what gives? If I may say so, I have developed some kind of a reputation at chowk for being a balanced interactor. I believe this is so because I am able to see an issue from more than one perspective, both of which can be valid in their own way. Just as you have accused me of being a closet-saffronite, others have accused me of being a pseudo-secular and they can also, I am sure, find some interacts to support their contention. Some Indians think that the only liberal peson is one who sees no wrong, hears no wrong and speaks no wrong about IMs while laying all the blame on the hindus. I do not fall in that category. But I did not say that the Gujarat retaliation was spontaneous. On the contrary, I have frequently said that the ``retaliation`` was an organized affair in which not only the lumpen proletariat but even the educated hindus took part (see my article ``Hey Ram``) with the full support of the administration.
And while I do loath Laloo Yadav and his ilk, I have given him credit at chowk for one and one thing only - for maintaining communal harmony in Bihar and for standing up to Advani during his infamous Rath Yaatra.
In going through the interacts reproduced by you, I do realise one mistake. I was wrong in saying that only one mosque was destroyed. I either hadn`t read the reports about the destruction of mosques in Gujarat at that time or it slipped from my mind. In any case, I stand corrected on that count.
And finally, this is my last post on this subject. I am a bit uncomfortable discussing my person even though you have been quite civilised and polite in this exchange. I would rather discuss issues than waste the chowk space on discussing individuals, including myself. All I can do is assure that whenever individual rights are broken, especially of minorities, you will find me on your side.

The following is the first statement that has come from Pakistan which is not bigoted:

``The Muslim world needs to reject extremism and militancy and go on the path of social and economic development,`` -- Musharraf in Italy

#133 by jang
Jang,

A fair assessment! I am not aware of Indian or Delhi situation so I will not comment on that but you are pretty much on the money in terms of Pakistan or basically Sindh situation.

“once the minorities were reduced to small enough numbers that they were no longer relevant,”

True! Even before partition Hindu were never in majority in any city or town in Sindh. Their majority area was tharparkar and it still has lot of small towns with Hindu majority population. Most of the Hindus that left Sindh were from cities in Sindh like Karachi, Hyderabd and sukker but a majority resident of smaller towns stayed back. Karachi, Hyderabad and sukker were a destination points for immigrants from India and that created pressure for Hindus to leave those towns as Mohajirs, as they are known in Pakistan, wanted Hindu property as compensation.

Hindu are part of pretty much every town and city of Sindh and they don’t live in separate enclaves like the situation for muslims in India is.( exception: In Karachi a collection of approx two hundred Hindu household is called Hindu compound and it is on a main Karachi road.) In fact, Hindus in Sindh never lived in separate areas and they did not change that pattern after the partition.
Besides Tharparker, Jacobabad, Larkana , sukker still to certain extent, Shikarpur, and I think Dadu have significant Hindu population.
Then we also have Kohli and Bhel- mostly gypsies who travel between India and Pakistan. Both men and women folks work in construction Industry. They were a major construction force in Karachi residential areas development until replaced by Pathan workers in later years. They are still in construction mostly confined to interior of Sindh now.
In Sindh as you correctly assessed, Hindus are no economic or social threat so there is no point for any body to pick bone with them.

And Nakhok...

Who let this yipping Pomeranian into the room?

1. First and foremost: Of all the Hindu-Muslims discussions that I have seen, so far on the Chowk, I am happy to report, that this one is showing the maximum POTENTIAL FOR A CONVERGENT UNDERSTANDING to emerge. I laud all Hindu and Muslim participants. Let us continue and even with some missteps try and reach the common understanding.

2. As far as I can gather one fact is incontrovertible: far more people left in in desperation than were killed in the hostile land of their emigration. Thus, let us not muddy the waters by asserting that that the shift in demographics was due to genocide rather than a chaotic population exchange. TRUE FAR TOO MANY ON BOTH SIDES WERE KILLED IN FRENZY. However, we need to keep the correct perspective so that we can relearn to live together and fulfill the South Asian destiny.

3. A minor point for hindvi (#139): It is minor now but was major then. Gandhi ji was in Noakhali on August 15, PROTECTING MUSLIMS. You should see The Last Viceroy to see how Nehru championed the religious sanity in India. You should read Indian Constitution to see how pervasive and systematic is the protection of India`s minorities and then contrast it with Pakistan Constitution. Also look at the several Presidents and Chief Ministers in the states of India who have been Muslims. UNFORTUNATELY BUT TRULY THERE IS NO PARALLEL IN PAKISTAN. It still flounders in religious electorates. That is why the path for atonement for Pakistan and Pakistanis is obvious and clear.

4. No body expects the 180 degreee turn , that is needed in Pakistan, to occur. But Muslims have to stop taking for granted the toleration of Hindus and start giving equally in return.

Inquirer
india didnt handle the tragedy well at all in the states adjoining pakistan, and neither nehru nor gandhi was patrolling UP, they did provide enlightened leadership, but it was the fact that UP wasnt partitioned and that intercommunity relations that saved muslims in the gangetic plane, you could try reading some of the sociological and sub altern historical litreature that has emerged in India. Its a bit of an effort but try reading Gyanendra Pandey its much better than depending on Nakhok to dig out data from net searches.

he has written an excellent account of riots in Gorakhpur. riots did occur in UP too but to a lesser extent.

I congratulate Nakhok for presenting the believable documentation of the demographic problem of concern.

The population exchange was almost fatal for small country like Pakistan but India was able to reasonably well handle the catastrophe.

NO DOUBT THE MAJOR DIFFERENCE WAS THE PRESENCE OF ENLIGHTENED LEADERSHIP OF NEHRU AND MAHATMA GANDHI. ON THE OTHER HAND AS JAVED AKHTAR HAS POINTED OUT, THE LEGITIMACY OF LOCUS STANDI OF JINNAH EVAPORATED IN PAKISTAN OVERNIGHT. FORTUNATELY, FOR HIM HE DIED WITHIN A YEAR OR HE MIGHT ALSO HAVE SUFFERED THE FATE OF LIAQAT ALI KHAN. AS, INDEED, HIS SISTER DID.

Jang
I am surprised that a liberal man such as yourself can even take the rumours floated by the Sangh seriously.

in delhi`s case you are in error not 30 but 80% of the muslims left according to my uncle (among the ashraf maybe 95%, that is why two of his siters who are now dead never got married, their were few eligible boys) and most under duress, he has these stories of patroling on rooftops with guns and the humiliation and abduction of muslim women. the same thing that happened in west punjab. Those you see today are all post 47 migrants.

as regards the return of muslims to Indian punjab it is equivalent to claiming the return of sikhs to west punjab neither is true.

Dost Mittar too has in the past claimed Lahore was a hindu majority city, this is not true according to the 1941 census 64.5% of the cities population was muslim, though it is true that the hindu and sikh owned the bulk of the property.

http://www.sacw.net/partition/june2004IshtiaqAhmed.pdf

#129 by nakhok

thanks.

so by 1951, minority population according to the ``harvard guy`` was 3.2% (quting 1951 census). so, the cleansing/pakification had pretty much already taken place as part of `47 riots and its aftermath (lessons learnt by minorities that its best to get out of the pure land if you can). that is my impression also based on innumerable sindhis i have talked with. most of them left after the riots, when they saw the writing on the wall, and formed their sukkur-panchayats in far-flung places like Ulhasnagar (camp for sindhis outside mumbai) and singapore. surprisingly they are not that bitter about it (loss of homeland), must be something to do with their pragmatic bania attitude. i never see collection boxes to fuel armed insurgency to liberate sindhu-desh among sindhis. i know many feel that the sindhis who left were rich bania sahukars, far from true. most of them left with nothing, and sold plastic combs in mumbai local trains and built their bussinesses from scratch. no sindhi beggars anywhere to be seen.

so, i think the record for ethnic clensing is as follows.

Paki punjab and NWFP: all hindus and sikhs out by 1948, some dead, some left, some coverted and some women married to muslims.

Hindi punjab (haryana): all muslims out by 1948, some dead, some left, very few coverted, mostly women who were taken by sikhs as wives.

Greater Dehli maybe 30% muslims out by 1948. Some willfully and some not.

Mumbai-UP etc. very small % of muslims out, mostly by choice.

Sindh, not many hindhus out in 47, but most left by 1950 due to pressure by incoming muhajirs (based on my talking to then karachi-sukkur residents).

POK, cleansed very early, but dont know details. Jammu some clensing, valley generally peaceful untill later outflux of pandits post 89.

Dont know much about bengal.

Over time, in indian punjab, and cleansed delhi, muslims have made a comback, though not necessarily in karolbagh, except the namesake ajmalkhan rd.

Given that in genral, minority growth rates in pakistan are likely to be lower than majority, the current % of minorities is probably lower than 3%, but post 1950, there has been only subtle and natural decline in minority populations in west pakistan (no blame on riots). Whereas, riots not-withstanding, muslims have flourished in india, including previously clensed panjab.

So, numbers dont tell everything, but someone else can correct my feeble time-line attempt and not continue to make propoganda allegations that pakis did a genocide on hindus (i.e. atlease post 1950). whatever purification happened was in 1947 and its aftershocks. once the minorities were reduced to small enough numbers that they were no longer relevant, there was no problems (like riots or progroms). whereas in india, the muslim minority is large enough that there were (and will be) loud conflicts.

dost mittar in the previous post I gave you the benefit of doubt, I am no aspiring Psychoanalyst and since you continue to deny the statements you have made other than your admiration of Jagmohan and arun Shourie i have pulled out some of your own quotes.

I have no qualms with your interpretation of Islam, nor do I have a problem with your opinion of mohammed. Though in judging any historical personality you have to see the times he/she existed in.

Russell says that when we evaluate a thinker we should read him/her twice, the first time sympathetically keeping in mind the age, the prevalent milleu, the thoughts that preceded it and the experiences that the protoganist underwent. Only then should we read him the second time with a critical eye garnered from our age.

Your criticisms are valid but the importance you place on them are not. I have hundreds of muslim relatives, friends and aquantainces, but I have rarely heard dar ul harb or dar ul islam being mentioned. To you they are the touch stone of Islam. . if you say this is what the jehadis preach then this criticism too would be valid, but you never criticise or read up on what hindu extremists are teaching children in there schools or the kind of poison they have disseminated in gujrat and the rest of india.

You have repeatedly stated that Gujrat would not have occured without godhra and it occured as a reaction. As if it was a spontaneous reaction, this completely discounts all the things that preceded and took place during the riots, the scale of the riots and the sheer barbarity of the crimes that took place which have few precedents since partition. Ordinary hindus, like ordinary muslims do harbour prejudices but that doesnt turn them into mass murders, mutilators, gang rapists and child burners. these were not just ordinary hindus, they were well organised gangs some consisting of lumpens others who were indoctrinated with sheer hatred evident in the barbarity of their crimes which have been well documented by commissions with largely hindu members.

How can you call something a reaction which has been occuring since 70s, i.e. that is the indoctrination being carried out by the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and the many other sangh organistions in their shakhas and pathshalas they have brought up generations of youth on the most inflammatory diet of real and imaginary wrongs, holding the poor marginalised muslims of today responsible for the real and imaginary crimes of some medieval invader. its like holding the hindus of today responsible for the cleansing of budhists and their religous stupas by the Guptas and Harshvardhana. neither did the large mass of muslims today have anything to do with the creation of pakistan or the mutually hostile relations between the neighbours today. most muslims dont even support the kashmiris, they sympathise with their plight sure but not with their goals, its a subtle distinction. they would like to see a muslim majority state in India. nor do they support the Alqaida.

The shortage of Gas cyliders in gujrat a week before godhra, the burning of shops with hindu names but muslim owners while other hindu owned shops stood intact next door, the burning of firms with muslim sleeping partners, the preparation of lists of muslim owned establishments, the culling of muslim addresses from voting lists all of this had been occuring for some time. I will again give you the benefit of doubt, maybe you havent read any of the reports or inquiries they are freely available at the websites of various NGO`s. Other than that the sheer hatred shown in the mutilations and mass rapes and burnings is not unintended.

Nor was the fact that Modi brought the bodies to ahmedabad and took the images and a float all around gujrat. the vernacular papers purposely published reports of hindu women being gang raped and mutilated in Godhra on the front pages. a few weeks later withdrawing it in a small item on the inside pages. all this doesnt seem spontaneous, even if you completely discount the role of police, administration and ministers sitting in control rooms.

I just dont se how a localised incident, even if it was done by some muslim miscreant (mind you which the forensic report of the the Govt Forensic department denies that, it claims the large volume of kerosene required to burn the carriage so quickly would involve pouring dozens of litres, by some one inside the carriage) becomes a state wide systematic genocide?



Like the previous statements you have denied I know you will deny this too so i am reproducing some of your own quotes.

On the Rethinking Kashmir you made the following statement.
``..because right or wrong, we have a secular state in India. Maybe it was a mistake India made in 1947 and they should have done the same to muslims what was done to hindus and sikhs in Pakistan, but we made a choice then and have to live with it.``

I dont see how this is a liberal, sounds more like a man who has to swallow a bitter pill.


#176 Understanding Sanatana Dharma on July 4, 2004
``urstruly (contd)
In any case, your question was in the historical context and so was my answer. And I was not blaming political islam but instead crditing it with giving hindus a consciousness of identity that did not exist earlier.``

#301 My Pakistan Diary: A Rich Heritage Neglected on May 28, 2004
``The only time Indians failed to protect islamic heritage was when the babri masjid was destroyed. And more than a decade later, you can barely go through an article on India in the Pakistani newspapers without condemning the ``martyrdom`` of this masjid. This is despite the fact that scores of temples were destroyed in retaliation in Pakistan, which are hardly ever mentioned.``

Only one mosque has been broken in india? now i know either your information is woefully inadequate or you turn a willful blind eye. You need to read a lot more about gujrat and the rest of the riots in India and the numebr of mosques and dargahs that have been torn down, most recently that of the father of Urdu peotry, Wali Gujrati`s.

likemost middle class safronites you ignore laloo`s maintaining communal peace in bihar through all the fires of babri and later for the past 15 years, all you can see are his dishonesty. An honest Fascist like Jagmohan or Shourie you readily admire, as i have said previously Golwalkar, savarkar, maududi and hegdewar were are all personally honest, infact so might modi. But your shanarthi outlook cannot look beyond.

#328 A Bold Agenda for United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on May 24, 2004

``Like other middle class Indians, I also loathe Laloo as a symbol of democracy meaning the power to the lowest common denominator in terms of competency (not that the US is any better:)).``


As regards worship of idols and your understanding of history :

#303 My Pakistan Diary: A Rich Heritage Neglected on May 28, 2004
An Indian:

`` ``1. Any ideas on how/why Hindus/Sikhs were pushed wholesale from Pakistan while Muslims were not from India? I heard they were pushed out in Punjab & Rajasthan but not in the UP (or in the south where I come from). Someone said Nehru prevented that from happening, but how can one man do that since Jinnah apparently tried to do the same and failed in Pakistan?``

There was a movement to push muslims from India as well. It was said that Sardar Patel wanted that and presumably so did the majority of the Hindus at that time. However, Nehru and Gandhi were strictly against this. With the kind of communal poison widespread those days in Panjab, it was impossible to do so in that province. The main carriers of this poison were the refugees coming from Pakistan. The govt. tried to restrict the entry of these refugees to other parts of India by stopping all trains coming from Pakistan at the Panjab-UP border. So, the riots were mainly restricted to Panjab although parts of Delhi and UP were also affected. Gandhi went on a fast at the other hot spot, Calcutta, to stop the riots from spreading in Bengal. ``

So nehru and gandhi stopped it single handed, the inter community relations didnt matter? not even an attempt at a critique of ganga - jamuni culture.

Your political insight also never ceases to amaze so now you regard laloo and mulayam not as non communal politicians but as the creators of the sangh parivar, but your atitude is typical of middle class saffron apologists:

#339 Sonia Gandhi and the Coming of Age of the Indian Nation on May 22, 2004

``But VP Singh and his protege, such as Laloo and Mulayam, have continued with their dangerous experiment of social engineering. The attempt has been to convert the Hindu majority into a aggregate of minorities - yadavs, dalits, upper castes, etc., etc. I think that the more these worthies try to do that, the more they will encourage BJP to divide the society along hindus-versus-others and try to convert a broad-minded plural identity into a homogeneous religious identity like those of some other religions, which will be sad in my opinion.``


your pallyness with Gujjubania doesnt auger well either as in here:

``#366 India Votes - and How! on May 17, 2004
gujjubania:
Could you advise me on how to buy a balanced portfolio of Indian stocks with my NRO account in India?``


the most dissapointing thing is you claim to be agnostic and amenable to evidence, i dont know what kind of evidence needs to be presented before you? i hope you will read more, since i continue to believe you are misinformed.

PS:
Rajahs and Maharajas signing documents dont bring state`s into unions, as you can see with the nizam. Abdullah may not have had a legal position thanks to the maharajahs suppresion of the muslims but then neither did gandhi have a legal position in the indian govt, abdullah was the leader of the party most popular among Kashmiri speakers, had not abdullah joined hands with nehru and had the Kashmiris not felt assured of his liberalism kashmir would have never come to India, because India`s army was paltry at the time, Unlike the red Army in Tibet and even today with half a million troops India is unable to quell the violence. And the laskars you talk about entered Kashmir after the dogra troops in Jammu and mirpur along with the Sikhs and hindus, some of who were refugees had started massacaring the local muslims. you seem to be misinformed also about influx of outsiders into pakistani Kashmir, the areas which went to pakistan were not Kashmiri speakers in the first place just like most people in jammu dont, the people dominant on that side were mirpuris and other punjabi dialects. the present boundaries of indian Kashmir coincide with the popularity of Abdullah`s national conference, in Mirpur and jammu ( whose people are closer ethnically to each other as compared to the Valley) the muslim conference was more popular. Please read some more. Even though she is sympathetic to the kashmiri muslims try Victoria Schofield`s Book, atleast for the references.

i will reproduce two of my previous posts on the topic

here is a post i wrote on Kashmir

#37 Mohammed Ali Jinnah Haazir Ho on September 11, 2004
Romair 93

``In addition, to the best of my knowledge, Jinnah was the person who ordered the invasion into Kashmir, thereby getting the Pakistan part, when he realized that the Kashmiris would not get self-determination. Both him, and Gandhi, were fully in favor of Kashmiri self-determination. And both him, and Gandhi, were quite upset with the way Nehru handled Kashmir.

So had Jinnah (and Gandhi) been around there is a good possibility that they would have, somehow, gotten all the Kashmiris their self-determination. I think all of the Kashmiris in Pakistan would have overwhelmingly voted to remain, ``occupied`` by Pakistan. So there would have been, at the very least, a PoK. ``


Romair 49

``interestingly it was Nehru who created the Kashmir problem also. Jinnah and Gandhi were on the same page on Kashmir, i.e. both wanted the Kashmiris to vote to decide where they wanted to go. Nehru first agreed to this, and then went back on his word``



since this accusation has been made twice lets clear the air, yes nehru is partly responsible for the Kashmir quagmire, he was very keen on retaining kashmir, because his fore fathers hailed from there. Nehru and sheikh abdullah (the tallest leader in kashmir) were friendly because they both had socialist leanings and wanted to carry out land reforms. Sheikh abdullah knew jinnah`s elitist outlook and more importantly crucial feudalist supportters would not allow such socialist reform which was essential in Kashmir because the indigenous muslim masses had been oppresed too long. so he was naturally more congress leaning, plus he was secular in outlook and wanted to carry the other minorities along in a multireligous state, which would be diificult under the muslim league banner.

more importantly Jinnah himself, unlike the congress, favoured the right of state rulers to chose their future so that they would favour him in his negotiations with the british and congress (ayesha Jalal says his position was precarious and thats why he sought feudal support as well) or atleast would not oppose him, before 1947 and later on so that they would accede to pakistan, also because he was eyeing hyderabad, with its vast territory and richies which he thought would come pakistan`s way should the Nizambe allowed to choose.
Kashmir he may have felt may also come his way because he was more tolerant of princely priviliges than the congress, or because the Raja might have his hand forced by the populace or he might have even considered it a reasonable trade on hyderabad.

naturally sheikh abdullah wasnt enamoured. according to victoria Schofield The Rajah, who had dreams of independence like the nizam, too dithered, meanwhile the refugees from punjab who sought refuge in Jammu and western kashmir brought their own stories and the dogra guards along with them started large massacres and cleansing, initially the pak army supplied help to the exarmy Mirpuris and got some other irregulars but seeing an opportunity major akbar (later major general) got the nod from higher up (including a typical Jinnah atitude ``do what you want, but show me nothing, I want a clean consience``) and expanded it to a tribal pathan raid all the way to srinagar.

The Rajah appealed to india, but patel insisted on his signing the instrument of accesion to india before he would send indian troops, the rajah promptly complied or atleast thats what we believe, though there may have been some delay. One of Nehru`s conditions was also that Abdullah be freed, who was at this time imprisoned in the rajah`s jail, and his agreement sought. Knowing Jinnah`s previous atitude and feudalist support plus under the impression that Pakistan would anyway not survive he chose India. the indian army pushed the irregular pathans back, Jinnah asked the british commander in chief of his forces who point black refused cunningly saying it would lead to a fratrecidal war between british officers on both sides (which ofcourse was a lie). india had sent native troops and officers, later pakistan did so too but it took some time meanwhile the LOC stablised along a line of natural obstacles, and interestingly along the line of abdullahs natural popularity among the ethnic Kashmiris, (except in Jammu whose muslim majority districts were muslim league supporters and were ethnically close to the mirpuris)

abdullah later regretted his decision, when he found that Kashmiri`s were being discriminated against in an India, fresh from the wounds of partition, and when some utopian development dream that he had didnt materialize, even though land reform was carried out, some land wasalso handed over to hindu and sikh refugees from the other side. he changed tunes to a more independent line and nehru responded by putting him in prison and later so did his daughter until the abdullah indira accord in the late 70s.

during the partition of 47 if kashmir had gone to pakistan indians might have reconciled, but as time went by sentiments rose. Schofield says that comentators believe India might have even won a referendum in the indian held part if held in the late 40s with abdullah on their side but it wasnt held (maybe patel and nehru werent so confident), the excuse they used initially was that conditions were not right and then that Pakistan wasnt vacating the part it occupied which was a precondition (maybe Pak also feared a loss or didnt trust india after the hyderabad action) and later in the 50`s even though Nehru had promised a refrendum, Patel took every opportunity to delay and drag feet despite several UN missions. but even here if Pakistan had wanted it could have put india on the spot by unilaterally vacating its part of kashmir and holding a UN authorised vote.

Later on it became difficult for india to hold a refrendum because india feared a domino effect in other states in the East and south where there were major separatist sentiments. there was also by now a fear that there maybe a backlash against the muslim community in the rest of the country if a refrendum went against India. Strong nationalist sentiment was lso against it, especially because of the bitterness with which the country had been partitioned. not that Nehru (because of his sentimental reasons and secular dreams) or patel because of his nationalist stance wanted to part with it. They also claimed that kashmir had legally acceded by a process through which jinnah had agreed to pre-partition, and that India was ostensibly a secular state in which there were no grounds for a religously inspired separation. The Kashmiris too were listless there was some seperatist sentiment but nothing overwhelming, because despite their cultural alienation they were doing econmically atleast better off than under the Rajah and they have generally been a docile race and didnt want to take on india, until the late 80s, by which time India, with its constant suspicion had rigged one election too many and the kashmiri was looking for his identity.

In this sequence of events Jinnah and the pakistanis also dont appear blameless, by gambling for both hyderabad and Kashmir, they got neither because jinnah and Liaqat and the leaders that followed them had no understanding of real politik, india and patel were never going to let Hyderabad go (neither should they have on principle), and in a direct war ,with their kind of planning and strategy, they couldnt snatch away Kashmir either in 48 or 65, which they tried. they should have stuck to a principled stand on both moral and realist grounds, but they didnt, so they arent blameless.

here is another:

#14 Mohammed Ali Jinnah Haazir Ho on September 18, 2004
Stuka
I dont want to divert the discussion from where it has reached, but you had mentioned the two extreme solutions for kashmir, either the Soviet/Chinese style or independence and cleansing. these are false dichotomies there exist many stages in between.

firstly India should not wait for reciprocity from pakistan, it should take the initiative and start issuing visas to anybody who wishes to visit India, right at the border both in kashmir and in punjab/rajisthan. if it fears violence it should ensure strict security arrangements so that their is no smuggling of arms etc. this contact will take the edge of the hostility.

secondly like india used mostly sikh troops in punjab, it should use mainly kashmiri/muslim troops in kashmir. After partition india did not take any inititive to recruit muslims, out of the 38 or so Indian army divisions not a single is muslim. a couple of muslim divisions can be easily recruited from Rohelkhand in western UP and mewat where there are many rohilla pathan, Jat muslims and mewatis. or from bihar, or bengal (after all there are bihari and bengali regiments in the indian army)

These troops will arouse less hatred and will commit fewer atrocities/rights violations.

Lastly there can be no suppresion of an insurgency without a political settlement, India will have to trust the kashmiri`s, stop rigging elections, restore the autonomy that was promised them at accession and arrange some kind of joint goverment/confederal arrangement/coordination between the two kashmirs so that families dont continue to be divided, and Kashmir not continue to look like the unfinished business of partition.

But this requires Political will and imagination and I see both lacking.