Sinha has a long association with the problem in J&K — indeed, as long as the problem itself. In October 1947, he, as a 21-year-old officer in the Indian Army, was posted in Srinagar when the newly carved out Pakistan tried to annex Kashmir by launching a military attack. How did the people of Kashmir Valley react to this invasion? Sinha, still energetic and remarkably articulate at 82, recounts with a sparkle in his eyes the slogan he had heard in the streets of Srinagar: “Hamlewaar khabardaar / Hum Kashmiri Hindu-Musalmaan hain taiyyar”. (Invaders, be warned. We Kashmiris, both Hindus and Muslims, are ready to throw you out.)
That was then. Now, 61 years later, we have a situation in which separatist forces have the audacity to take out a pro-Pakistan march to Muzaffarabad by raising the bogey of a non-existent economic blockade by the people of Jammu. On Independence Day, they pulled down the tricolour at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and hoisted their own green-coloured flag. It is a measure of how utterly badly the affairs of Jammu & Kashmir have been handled over the past six decades by most governments at the state and national levels.
Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, had another great opportunity to secure a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue in the wake of the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. Pakistan had tasted a humiliating defeat and was internationally discredited for its unspeakable atrocities in the eastern Bengali-speaking part of its territory. Worse still, the Indian Army had as many as 93,000 Pakistani POWs. From this position of strength, Indira Gandhi could have easily compelled a defeated and demoralised Pakistan to accept a final settlement of the Kashmir issue. Alas, the 1972 Shimla accord postponed the settlement to a future date, which has still not arrived.
... contd.
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