Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)) is that part of Kashmir within Pakistan, separated by a Line of Control from Indian territory. This book is a rarity: it offers a fresh interpretive history of the largely forgotten four million people of Azad Kashmir. The author contends that in October 1947, pro-Pakistan Muslims in south-western J&K instigated the Kashmir dispute-not Pashtun tribesmen invading from Pakistan, as India has consistently claimed. Later called Azad Kashmiris, these people, Snedden argues, are legitimate stakeholders in an unresolved dispute. He provides comprehensive new information that critically examines Azad Kashmir's administration, economy, political system, and its subordinate relationship with Pakistan. Azad Kashmiris considered their administration to be the only legitimate government in J&K and expected that it would rule after J&K was re-unified by a UN-supervised plebiscite. This poll has never been conducted and Azad Kashmir has effectively, if not yet legally, become a (dependent) part of Pakistan. Long disenchanted with Islamabad, some Azad Kashmiris now favour independence for J&K, hoping that they may survive and prosper without recourse to either of their bigger neighbours. Snedden concludes his book by assessing the various proposals to resolve Azad Kashmir's international status and the broader Kashmir dispute.

On the socio-economic conditions of Jammu and Kashmir as a result of political turmoil.

Kashmir is burning in the wake of terrorist activities, stone-pelting mobs and life-crippling curfews. Homes and schools have been burnt to the ground. The government is looking the other way, locals are frustrated, and the youth have gone astray. In the midst of this is the mammoth task of coaching deserving students to help them crack one of the toughest exams in the country, the IIT entrance. Too many hurdles and too less time. Who would be foolish enough to take up the challenge at a time like this?Enter Naved Baig from Lucknow, an IIM graduate and an innovative thinker; a person armed with the blazing desire to dismantle the existing network of ignorance and terror in the valley. Will he succeed? Will he beat a hasty retreat? OR Will he meet a gruesome end at the hands of evil?Come into the world where police officer's ambitions and militant rage come face to face with rugged determination and unconditional love. Find how the power of ONE can set things right for a deviant group of kids with innocence lost and revolutionise even the most negative of mindsets.The Burning School is a story about how good education, purity of thought and self-discovery can help fight for freedom from the demons of the mind and finally make one emerge victorious.

Why has this state of siege in the Kashmir valley continued for 72 years since the Partition of India?What role has Pakistan played in it all of these years? And will there ever be a resolution to the militancy in the state? How will Islamabad get the forces of Islamic jihad--nurtured and based in Pakistan--to ever reconcile to the existing boundaries of J&K? How important is the ownership of the waters of the rivers of the Indus system for Pakistan--despite generous supplies under the Indus Waters Treaty--in determining an end to the siege within Kashmir?What are China's interests in J&K and how does the success of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for oil and gas supplies hinge on Pakistan's occupation of northern areas of Kashmir? Why does the future survival and growth of the Chinese microchip industry depend upon the continuance of China's control of the waters and dams in the Indus river system?Kashmir's Untold Story: Declassified provides answers to these gripping questions and joins the dots in presenting the matrix of a consistent and compelling argument regarding the future of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Today, the state's water resources are coveted by the beleaguered Chinese microchip industry and it appears that this is going to determine the continuing militancy in the state. Malhotra and Raza argue that China and its client Pakistan will actively back the militancy, come what may.Delving deeper, the book also reveals amazing insights into the Government of India's policy towards the state, right from 1889, when it first imposed central rule and dispossessed the rule of the then Maharaja, till date. Owing to its strategic location, the intrigues within the state and the machinations of its neighbours have resulted in the government directly administering its affairs, one way or the other, for the last 130 years. It is a riveting account of the history of Jammu and Kashmir, from the time of its political and geographic consolidation under Maharaja Gulab Singh to present-day India.

What was the reason for the first real armed encounter between Indian and Chinese troops on Chinese soil in the town of Dinghai on Chusan Island in July 1840? Were the orders for the invasion of Aksai Chin issued by Mao from Moscow in December 1949, at Stalin's behest? Was the pluck and raw courage of Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh to hold Nathu La first in 1965 and then again in 1967 the basis for General K. Sundarji's bold moves at Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and 1987? Red Fear: The China Threat catalogues, evaluates and infers the consequences of the political and military confrontations between India and China from the 15th to the 21st century. Contrary to the glowing accounts in popular imagination of a congruence of values and interests between these two nations, the relationship has been confrontational and antagonistic at many levels throughout these last six centuries. The lessons of history are hard to learn. Nevertheless, China seems to have learnt them better than India. It bided its time well and positioned itself to humiliate and denigrate India whenever possible as retribution for the perceived harm India and Indians did to its society and economy during the infamous Chinese century of humiliation between 1839 to 1940. For India, today's post-Galwan situation is reminiscent of the challenge India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru faced in 1962 and the identical challenge India's 14th Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in 2020. Vedic philosophy argues that time is cyclical, and not linear, and by this argument, the year 2020 completes a 60-year cycle that began in 1960. How Modi responds to this challenge will define India's relationship with China as well as its position in the world through the rest of the 21st century.

The seemingly intractable Kashmir dispute and the fate of Kashmiris throughout South Asia and beyond are the twin themes in Snedden's meticulously researched book.