Memories and missing pieces of Kashmir

History is the first casualty while writing history. The true history of Kashmir has been controversial, with each side ready to claim victimhood when required, present itself as having more legitimacy, or portray itself as the victor. The fate of Kashmiris has been overshadowed by this narrative-building. As the saying, attributed to Rousseau, suggests, there are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened. This is what defines the October saga of Kashmir.

The history of the Kashmir conflict is laced with complexities, and at the very core is the signing of the accession document by Maharaja Hari Singh. The British formula, premised on religious demographics, entailed Kashmir falling in Pakistan's orbit. In his book, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, Alastair Lamb highlights that the haste - four hours to chart the division plan and five minutes to accept it - created tremors with the partition of Punjab. Muslim-majority areas, such as the three tehsils of Gurdaspur District, were awarded to India along with the non-Muslim majority area of Pathankot. Many independent authors, including Lamb, have revealed that the Gurdaspur Tehsil's award signified Mountbatten's clear political intent of providing India a land link to Kashmir.

The physical link morphed into a means of disregarding Kashmiri aspirations, and one gaffe by the British Viceroy thrust the region into a conflict that still claims lives. Once land access was granted to India, Mountbatten attempted to transition to a judicial resolution through a Standstill Agreement. The Prime Minister of Maharaja Hari Singh proposed it on August 12, 1947. Pakistan signed it; India procrastinated, and no agreement was concluded.

Another overlooked aspect is that India started preparing long before (in September) the Pakistani tribesmen set foot into Kashmir on October 21-22 to support the indigenous Kashmiri resistance. The physical manifestation of Indian military ingress occurred on October 17 when a battalion of infantry and mountain artillery from Patiala was sent to support the Maharaja. This shows the Indian intervention started way before the Instrument of Accession was signed, revealing a major lacuna that weakens Pakistan's narrative even today. In construing narratives, every state follows the principle of 'self above others'. India's early planning and engagement, even before Pakistan's involvement, exemplifies this, and failure to highlight these details has allowed the Indian version of the story to prevail.

Sheikh Abdullah, used as a Trojan horse by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and presented to the Viceroy as the true representative of all the Kashmiris, reflected mainly 'their side'. In reality, rival political currents existed, most prominently the Pakistan-leaning Muslim Conference. But the Indian side of the story prevailed, and Mountbatten espoused Sheikh Abdullah as the 'true' representative of Kashmiris. Abdullah, who played and got played, helped the Indian side on the condition of autonomy.

Considering all the developments after he died in 1982, most significantly the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, Abdullah would have turned in his grave. Had he been reincarnated, he would embody "The Founder's Paradox": the vision he helped enshrine through the instrument of accession ended up as the very means of centralisation he had resisted.

The lesson here is that while every state blends veritable truths with imagined or fabricated glories and traumas, which form the basis of nationalism, it is sine qua non not to eschew 'what really happened' if it lends credibility to your story. This will be pivotal in Kashmir's destiny, which still hangs in the balance. It remains an undeniable fact that Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of the partition plan and an internationally recognised dispute. The Indo-Pak conflict of May 2025 has ushered in the idea that the clouds of war will remain hovering on South Asia horizon as long as the Kashmir dispute is not resolved in line with the UN resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiris.