Autobiography by a freedom fighter, politician and former chief minister from Jammu and Kashmir.

Autobiography by a freedom fighter, politician, and former chief minister from Jammu and Kashmir.

This book is a compendium of the speeches and interviews of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who reigned as Prime Minister of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from 1948 to 1953, and who was a large presence on the political landscape of India for fifty years. The volume is designed to enable a student of South Asian politics, and the politics of Kashmir in particular, to analyze the ways in which experiences have been constructed historically and have changed overtime.

For all of India’s myths, stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world’s largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars and corporate titans—some famous, some unjustly forgotten—bring feeling, wry humour and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.

What Happened to Governance in Kashmir? examines the policies, strategies, and tactics followed by the Indian state and the ‘client’ governments in Srinagar to manage the conflicted state of Jammu and Kashmir during 1948–89 . It shows how the policies deployed to ‘create order in disorder’ functioned inversely and turned Kashmir into a smoldering volcano which erupted in 1989–90. The author argues that as the issue of dispute and policy framework has been constant, the clash between the status quoist state and the society was inevitable. The crisis deepened along with technological, economic, cultural, and social changes. Based on a variety of contemporary sources, this book deals with many aspects of Kashmir’s governance through different political phases. It shows how the personal proclivities and decisions of each prime minister/chief minister played a role in determining the pattern of rule and the course of history with consequences felt many miles downstream.

Many disenchanted Kashmiris continue to demand independence or freedom from India. Written by a leading authority on Kashmir’s troubled past, this book revisits the topic of independence for the region (also known as Jammu and Kashmir, or J&K), and explores exactly why this aspiration has never been fulfilled. In a rare India-Pakistan agreement, they concur that neither J&K, nor any part of it, can be independent. Charting a complex history and intense geo-political rivalry from Maharaja Hari Singh’s leadership in the mid-1920s to the present, this book offers an essential insight into the disputes that have shaped the region. As tensions continue to rise following government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns, Snedden asks a vital question: what might independence look like and just how realistic is this aspiration?

Sheikh Abdullah: Tragic Hero of Kashmir is the first comprehensive, well-documented account of the life of the charismatic leader, the Lion of Kashmir, who contributed crucially to the making of modern India in terms of territory and more importantly to its founding ideology of secularism. The story begins well before independence. Kashmir was the scene of a distinctive political transformation in the late 1930s. In contrast to rise of the Muslim League in much of the subcontinent - which was to lead to partition - the most popular party in the valley turned away from communal politics and embraced secularism. On 11 June 1939, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was successful in changing the name of the party he was leading from Kashmir Muslim Conference to National Conference, and invited all to join it. Backed by Nehru's friendship, Abdullah rose to become the first popular Prime Minister of the State, but also the target of conservative and communal forces in India. His demand that the pledge of special status for the State in the accession documents be honoured was described as anti-national, even pro-Pakistani. As revealed in the book, Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel offered to resign on the issue. The letters he and Nehru wrote to Gandhi explaining their differences make fascinating reading. The intrigue that led to Abdullah's downfall and arrest on 8 August 1953, is well documented as is the role of the Home Ministry's Intelligence Bureau. The elaborate conspiracy case it built up was belatedly rejected by Nehru himself. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, the author takes us through Abdullah's long, tragic periods of detention until he was persuaded to return to Jammu and Kashmir as Chief Minister. He demonstrated his continuing popularity by winning an election before his death in 1982.