The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir merged with India in 1947. Two years later, Karan Singh, the son of the state’s last maharaja, Hari Singh, was appointed its regent. After eighteen years at the helm during which he was, successively, regent, Sadar-i-Riyasat and governor of Jammu and Kashmir Karan Singh became a member of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet as minister for tourism and civil aviation. Karan Singh worked closely with Mrs Gandhi for almost the entire duration of her tenure as prime minister of India. They held each other in high esteem and shared great rapport as cabinet colleagues as well as mutual regard on a personal level.
Kashmir and Beyond 1966–84 brings together more than three hundred letters from the correspondence between Indira Gandhi and Karan Singh. It provides an exclusive insight into such historic events as the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, , the Emergency, and Operation Bluestar . And even as these letters map the important landmarks of recent Indian history, they also provide a fascinating glimpse of the inner workings of the government, and the magnitude of the effort of running a country which houses ‘one-seventh of the human race’.
Kashmir and Beyond 1966 84 is an immensely important book, not just for scholars, but for anyone who wants to make sense of the knotty issues that confront contemporary India.
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