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LETTERS exchanged between individuals down the ages bear testimony to extant emotional ties, human relationships and inadvertently the contemporary political scenario, be it regional, local or global. These epistles are important primary source material for the reconstruction of history and personalities of the era in which they were jotted. Of course, letters can be formal or informal. By far the most prominent published set of letters in India to this day remain those of Jawahar Lal Nehru to a young Indira, quite phenomenally encapsulating the gamut of world or national history. In fact, I wonder why famous personalities foresee that their letters would be scanned by posterity as source material and sometimes even stir up controversies.
Dr Karan Singh’s letters reflect his vantage point of having been a witness to India’s history as it morphed, juxtaposed by his status from Sadr-i-Riyasat (after the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir merged with India in 1947), then as a Union Minister in Mrs Gandhi’s Cabinet, as India’s Ambassador to the US, and a Rajya Sabha member. Currently, he heads many intellectual bodies and continues to be a prolific writer and orator par excellence. Prior to this book, Penguin India had published Dr Karan Singh’s extensive correspondence with Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, whom he considered as his "political guru", as he says in the preface to this book. Interestingly, he reminisces a breakfast at Teen Murti with Nehru, Indira and the two boys where he "did not realise it then at that time; it was an extraordinary occasion as at the breakfast table were one incumbent and two future Prime Ministers of the country". Apart from this occasion, he was witness not only to an era in history but also had a first-hand interaction with epoch-making dramatis personae. So, Kashmir & Beyond is the inevitable sequel to Jammu & Kashmir 1949-1964. For all the people mentioned above, Kashmir was their raison d’`EAtre, as it continues to be the determinant in Indo-Pak relations. The book is interspersed with the emergent history of Jammu and Kashmir throughout the letters. This compendium of 336 letters, stretching over a period of 35 years, reveals a deep insight into the modern Indian history as some contemporaneous episodes from Karan Singh’s life have now entered the pages of history. For instance, he was witness to Mrs Gandhi’s announcement of the fall of Dhaka to the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini; he was standing behind her in Lok Sabha. This, according to him, was a high point in her life and to an extent a compensation for India ’s defeat at the hands of the Chinese a decade earlier. If the former "was her zenith, the Emergency, which she herself later admitted to have been a mistake, was the nadir". Jawaid Alam of Jamia Islamia University has chosen the letters and has annotated these so that the background information can bring interesting enriching facts of the collection to the fore. He has cosseted the text with lucid and detailed footnotes. In subtle overtones, the mutual respect and understanding that existed between the two emerges, apart from being a commentary on the political perceptions, the developments in Kashmir in particular and India in general. Apart from their political affiliation, they had shared a personal rapport and had a family association dating back to Nehru’s sojourns to Kashmir. As the correspondence commences in 1966, Karan Singh grew closer to Indira Gandhi; their commonality apart from the picturesque vales of Kashmir was the common political role model, i.e. Pandit Nehru. In 1967 Karan Singh entered politics ending one phase of his life and "moving from the crown to the heart of India". The letters from 1968, apart from administrative matters, provide an insight into the detailed talks between Karan Singh and Sheikh Abdullah about the latter’s house arrest, Kashmir national integration and secularism in Indian polity. Even in 1966 Indira wrote: "Our people have shown, time and again, that they can sink all differences when they have to meet a national challenge. They did so in 1962 and again in 1965 when our territorial integrity was threatened. We can be proud of the fact that the conflict with Pakistan aroused no communal passions. Indeed, it led to a new upsurge of nationalism and united the people of all sates and all religions in a common cause." There are certain other interesting insights which the book provides, like, Karan Singh’s request for an air-conditioned car, today taken so much for granted. The book, along with some old black and white photographs, is like traversing a historical arcade replenishing historical episodes. The book is essentially a politico-historical treatise on events such as the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, the Emergency and Operation Blue Star, mainly espousing Dr Karan Singh’s views. It is also a first-hand revelation of the functioning of the government machinery for almost three decades, so good source material to research on the period. However, for an in-depth understanding of individuals, informal letters are far more interesting and real with manifestations of humour, romance and a few peccadilloes. Letters which have been typed, vetted and are within the constraints of formality are hardly reflective of the human side of an individual. The book is as staid and formal as the cover portrait of the two individuals whose letters these are. Skeletal facts are available in any reference library but in a correspondence, there should be scope to flesh out human and real stories, too.
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In this correspondence
between an erudite royal-turned-politician and one of India's most
shrewd political leaders, one sees her emergence from being her father's
daughter into a seasoned politician.