|
BOOKS
India's
Teardrop
A somewhat
dated analysis of the Kashmiri conflict
By
Pamela Constable
FAULTLINE
KASHMIR :
By: CHRISTOPHER THOMAS
BRUNEL
Price:
Rs. 395 |
 |
Foreign
correspondents in India have two potential advantages over their Indian
counterparts: they have an excuse to state the historically obvious in
new ways, and they have the opportunity to absorb and interpret current
events with a fresh and open eye. In this well-researched but somewhat
uneven book on Kashmir, Christopher Thomas, a longtime foreign correspondent
for The Times of London who spent a decade based in India, is quite successful
on the first count but a bit disappointing on the latter.
Thomas has
read and drunk deeply of Kashmir's history, and he has reached a number
of uncomfortable but undeniable conclusions that are worth pondering as
India and Pakistan once again sharpen their swords while contemplating,
for the first time in years, the tortuous path to peace. He is bluntly
critical of all parties, observing that Pakistan has "shattered its
own democracy" in military pursuit of Kashmir and its guerrillas
have "hijacked the people's rebellion" in the name of jehad.
India, in turn, has increasingly played the Kashmir card with the "rise
of Hindu extremism". "Neither can claim to occupy any moral
or political high ground," Thomas asserts. "It is a conflict
of losers and no winners" in which the Kashmiri people are left abandoned,
confused and frustrated.
Having ventured
such sharp and timely opinions, however, Thomas quickly drops back into
several rambling historical sections on the political travails and personal
quirks of Kashmir's last maharaja, Hari Singh. Describing Singh as a self-indulgent
and ultimately pathetic man who was humiliated by more powerful political
forces, Thomas repeatedly asserts that he did not deserve the blame history
has heaped upon him. The author also devotes a critical chapter to Sheikh
Mohammed Abdullah, whom he accuses of "abandoning any pretences of
democracy" while in power and then, in the 1975 Kashmir Accord with
Indira Gandhi, of repudiating everything "he had spent his political
life fighting for".
While these
detailed depictions are fascinating fodder for readers with an interest
in Kashmir's political history, Thomas' own reporting forays into contemporary
Kashmir are thinner and less insightful. He scatters his book with brief,
often oddly juxtaposed descriptions of military duty on the Siachen Glacier,
refugee camps in Pakistani Kashmir, Hindu Pandits forced to flee to Jammu
and greedy houseboat owners on the Dal Lake.
Although
Thomas makes clear his deep sympathy for the plight of the Kashmiri people,
he fails to bring them alive in the compelling terms he reserves for their
much-written-about former leaders. Most of his on-the-ground reporting
in Kashmir seems to end in 1990 and a final chapter on recent events seems
a dashed-off afterthought.
Faultline
Kashmir makes an important and in many places colourfully phrased contribution
to literature on the region. It's a shame that Thomas, who devoted much
research and reflection to Kashmir's past, could not provide an equally
dramatic portrait of its more recent struggles.
|
Is
the market right in backing cartelisation by cement companies, asks India
Today Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in Au ContrAiyar 