Author: PTI
Publication: Mumbai Mirror
Date: November 14, 2006
Introduction: According to a new book by American
historian Stanley Wolpert, Nehru was shocked to hear of it and said Kashmir
won't be abandoned
India's first High Commissioner in Pakistan
Sri Prakash had reportedly told Lord Mountbatten that "for the sake of
peace all around," the "best thing" India could do was to hand
over Kashmir to Pakistan, a proposal turned down by Jawaharlal Nehru.
According to American historian Stanley Wolpert's
new book on the partition of India, when Nehru was informed of what his high
commissioner in Karachi, then capital of Pakistan, had proposed, he expressed
amazement.
In a sharp letter to Sri Prakash, Nehru wrote
that "I was amazed that you hinted at Kashmir being handed over to Pakistan
... If we did anything of the kind our government would not last many days
and there would be no peace...
"It would lead to war with Pakistan because
of public opinion here (in India) and of war-like elements coming in control
of our policy. We cannot and will not leave Kashmir to its fate ... The fact
is that Kashmir is of the most vital significance to India ... Here lies the
rub ... We have to see this through to the end ...," Nehru said.
"Kashmir is going to be a drain on our
resources, but it is going to be a greater drain on Pakistan," said the
former prime minister, according to a report published in Pakistani newspaper
'Daily Times' today from Washington.
Wolpert writes that if Nehru had accepted
Mahatma Gandhi's offer of mediating the Kashmir dispute between India and
Pakistan, history would have taken a different course.
"If Nehru had only listened to Gandhi,
inviting him to arbitrate the Kashmir conflict with (Mohammad Ali) jinnah,
India and Pakistan might have been spared three wars and the tragic loss of
countless lives, at least 50,000 of whom were Kashmiris," the book said.
According to Wolpert, "Mountbatten's
frenzied plans had blinded him (Nehru) to the wretched realities of partition's
monstrous problems, the cause of so many deaths, and 60 more years at least
of fighting and hatred".
Nehru wrote to his friend, the Nawab of Bhopal,
on July 9, 1948 that "it has been our misfortune ... the misfortune of
India and Pakistan, that evil impulses triumphed...
"Can you imagine the sorrow that confronts
me when I see after more than thirty years of incessant effort the failure
of much that I longed for passionately?, "Nehru had said.
"Partition", he said, "came
and we accepted it because we thought that perhaps that way, however painful
it was, we might have some peace... Perhaps we acted wrongly".
Observing that it "is difficult to judge
now," the former prime minister had said that "and, yet, the consequences
of that partition have been so terrible that one is inclined to think that
anything would have been preferable..."
