Two Nations and Kashmir

Kashmir and its future has a habit of getting tied up with many subsidiary problems. Fro example, when Mr. Nehru introduced the factor of American military aid to Pakistan, he provided an author with an obvious opportunity for another chapter. The same could be said of the quarrel over the canals and rivers. 5 in the case of the description of American military aid and its repercussions I confess to have wandered somewhat from the strict application to Kashmir and indulged in some armchair speculation. I can only plead that one though leads to another and the picture as a whole should be painted if a portion of it is to be recognized. So far as I am aware no one has yet given much attention to the affairs of the Azad Kashmir Government, nor has the strategic significance of Kashmir in global strategy yet been appreciated. These are some of the extraneous matters which cling round the Kashmir problem and on which I have attempted to throw some light. It is always tempting to insist that a story of this nature chosen to fill a book its of vital and immediate international significance; to portend that great issues hang in the balance and to conclude that only immediate action can save a crumbling situations. It is curious to reflect that in the days when a Maharaja ruled Kashmir not more than a few thousand visitors, Indian and European, took advantage of the facilities to appreciate the country. I believe that once sanity returns, within a few years there will be a railway, into the valley and tourism in all its vulgarity and inconsequence will be back again. And why not? Let them all come, so long as Kashmir may take its legitimate profile. Let us assume, then, that within twenty years the problem will have been solved. Let us not inquire too deeply solved. Let us not inquire too deeply as to the nature of the solution. We picture a homeland in which Kashmiris can once again take pride, and for the advancement of which they themselves will have assumed their full responsibility. If to this we add an open invitation to the world outside in its leisure to come in and bask in its gardens and laze in boats on its lakes, would we be building a castle in the air? I think not: and if I am right, then I can hope that in those distant days, somewhere in a library in Srinagar this narrative of the mid-century Crisis of Kashmir will be sought out and read in bewilderment that sanity, returned, could ever have evolved from so much human folly.