The erstwhile princely state of Jammu & Kashmir acceded to India, along with 564 other princely states. None of the other princely states needed an unconstitutional Article 370 to cement their union with India. Acceeding to India wasn’t a gift which princely states conferred on India — the rulers did it to preserve their own skin. When democratic winds swept India in the aftermath of World War II — all rulers feared for their survival. Acceding to India in exchange for maintaining their privy purse was the only ‘contract’ these rulers entered into India with (that all privy purses and titles were cancelled after a quarter century is another matter altogether).

I lived in J&K for nearly 7 years when militancy was at its peak (in the early 90’s). I have returned to it multiple times since to climb peaks in Kashmir and Ladakh — and never in my lifetime has the beating heart of the Vale of Kashmir — Srinagar, felt entirely peaceful or welcoming. Why should Indians be condemned to this fate in their own country?

Kashmiri Pandits at their ancestral house in Kashmir, c.1895. (Image: British Library)

J&K’s demographics — which it so cherishes; have only come about because of two historical moves: 1) The Indian Army’s and Nehru’s ‘reluctance’ to move beyond the current Line of Control to evict insurgents in 1948; 2) The mass exodus and genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989–90.

What the former did, was exclude Gilgit and Baltistan from the state — thereby keeping a semblance of balance between the Hindu inhabitants of the Jammu plains and the Muslim inhabitants of Kashmir. This is also the reason J&K was bifurcated and not trifurcated. Ultimately, India might have to accept that areas beyond the Line of Control will not be part of her territory. That is also a political bullet the government will have to bite — overriding two Parliamentary resolutions to the contrary.

Major William Alexander Brown, commanding the Gilgit Scouts — the only organised force in the vast and mountainous Gilgit Baltistan in 1947, declared Gilgit and Baltistan for Pakistan in a ‘coup’. For his mutinous troubles — he was awarded an MBE by His Majesty’s government and a Sitara-i-Imtiaz by Pakistan.

In any other army and nation in the world, disobeying direct orders of both your military and political masters would be met with a court-marshal and a firing squad. However, this was the Wild West of the Partition, where junior officers in the rank of a Major could chart the course of history just because they happened to be British and white.

The Kashmiri Pandit genocide of 1989–90 ensures that Kashmir remains ‘Mulsim majority’. Even with the Hindu inhabitants of Kashmir, make no mistake, Muslims would be in a majority — but perhaps not so brazenly secessionist.