Skip to main content

Nehru's 'top blunder': Acted on Kashmiri Pandit advise to arrest Sheikh Abdullah

By Jag Jivan  
Former Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) chief secretary Moosa Raza has said one of the “biggest blunders” of Jawaharlal Nehru vis-à-vis Kashmir was he acted on the advice of Kashmiri Pandit advisers in 1953 and arrested Sheikh Abdullah, the popular Kashmiri leader, one of whose major contributions has been land reforms and abolition of feudal land holdings in the state.
Raza, which was chief secretary in 1988, in his new book “Kashmir: The Land of Regrets”, says, Nehru arrested Abdullah on advise of Kashmiri Pandit advisers as he was told that Adbullah wanted “full independence” for Kashmir, so “sooner you get him out better it would be India.”
Raza suggests, the blunder stemmed from the Kashmiri Pandit advisers hostile attitude towards the “whole area”, i.e. Kashmir.  Interviewed by senior journalist Barkha Dutt, who praised the book as “fascinating”, talks of "Four culprits responsible for Kashmir crisis – Mountbatten, Hari Singh, Jinnah and Nehru", even as listing "Nehru's big three blunders".
The other two “blunders” of Nehru were, says Raza, his decision to refer to Kashmir to the United Nations, and later backtrack his decision to go in for plebiscite in Kashmir, though adding, it would have been a “headache” to take back the areas that form part of the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) such as Muzafarabad and Gilgit, as these areas were "already Muslim."

Comments

Post a Comment

NOTE: Hateful, abusive comments won't be published. -- Editor

TRENDING

Neville Cardus: The man who turned cricket writing into poetry

By Harsh Thakor*  Neville Cardus was one of the most remarkable literary figures of the twentieth century. A prolific English writer and critic, he achieved distinction in two vastly different fields: cricket and classical music. Entirely self-taught, Cardus rose from humble beginnings to become both the cricket correspondent and chief music critic of The Manchester Guardian . His achievements in these contrasting disciplines earned him widespread acclaim and established him as one of the foremost critics of his generation. In February 2025, the cricketing and literary world marked the fiftieth anniversary of his death, which occurred in February 1975.
Post a Comment
»

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.
59 comments
»

The politics of dreaming: Savita Singh's feminist imagination

By Ravi Ranjan*  In contemporary Hindi poetry, few voices have explored the philosophical and creative possibilities of women's experience as powerfully as Savita Singh. Across collections such as "Svapna Samay" (Dream Time), Aapne Jaisa Jeevan, and "Prem Bhi Ek Yatana" Hai, she has developed a poetic world in which woman is not merely a subject of suffering or social commentary but a creator of knowledge, meaning, and alternative realities.
Post a Comment
»