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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Worswick who wrote (2519)	3/4/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Kashmir: Of kings and Nizams, Worswick: the way I understand the Kashmir situation is that Hindu king of Kashmir was given an opportunity either to join India or Pakistan at the time of independence,the guy hesitated a bit but then fearing annexation by Pakistan chose to join the Indian Union,Kashmir thus becoming an official state of India.No sooner had this happened Pakistan attacked Kashmir and occupied approx 1/3 of Kashmir thus creating the now infamous predicament. It shouldn't matter whether the King was Hindu,Muslim,Sikh,Christian or whatever,but what matters is he was the King and he joined the Union. Whether the King ruled over a majority of Muslims is also irrelevant as such was the case in many instances through out history,particularly in reference to India and the Moguls,so all this talk about muslim majority or hindu majority is nonsense to me. This being the case (at least as I know it) I fail to see what kind of legitimate claim Pakistan or anyone else has over Kashmir.If anything they should return the occupied portion of Kashmir to India,like any 'good muslim' would have,and call it a day and that is the solution. Playing the 'muslim-card' is just a non-issue as India has more muslims than the rest of Arab and muslim world put toghether,so what is that tell you? Oh my god,what am I doing trying to teach a historian history,<gg> hardly,I thought I just bounce of my ideas off of you and see what your opinions are. Also do correct me if my reasoning and facts are flawed,would you please. Ps: yes I heard about Nizam of Hydrebad and the rest of the lot,very interesting history,a gold mine for historians to say the least,I wish I knew more though. Oh if you are not tired already with all the India links I sent you here is one more. <gg> Oh by the way we love our software guys,they are 'kewl' as the kids would say. webpage.com

To: Worswick who wrote (2519)	3/5/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: LKO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Mohan in 1947 Hyderabad State, with a Muslim leader was co-opted into joining India: at the same moment Kashmir, with a Hindu leader ruling over a Muslim population joined India. Therein lie the seeds of the present troubles, but doubtless you know this. A slightly different opinion. If one is to believe the version of pop-history documented in a book called "Freedom at Midnight" by Collins/La pieere, things happened a little differently than what you and Mohan suggest. India was ruled by small and large kingdoms with princes These princes made deals/wars with a Muslim Empires before for 300years These princes made deals/wars with British Empires for another 200 years. These princes signed another deal which created another new country called "Independent India". There were approx 500 such princes and kingdoms varied from few miles across to few hundred miles across. If you theorize, the ones few hundred miles across could have been separate countries. The ones few miles across...surrounded on all sides by big India..or others...after they have not really been independent for 500 years...well I doubt it :-). There have been similar "countries" ofcourse, like Vatican to keep the Catholic religious happy and Lesotho (surrounded by South Africa) probably because the white majority rulers wanted black people to live in ghettos and feel "independent". But survival of such small kingdoms surrounded by a large one is largely impractical. There in lies the difference between Hyderabad kingdom (really small) and Kashmir (substantial size). Unlike what Mohan wrote about Kashmir choosing to join India, it seems the King there had decided to stay independent and the "relative large" countries at times of India's independence (1947) were India, Pakistan and Kashmir. However the book does tell how Pakistan, unhappy with the arrangement sent armed men to capture Kashmir and the king of Kashmir(Hindu)under some duress signed the deal with India to protect his turf after some tough special clauses such as people from other parts of India not allowed to own land etc. The book also tells how Portugal considered Goa to be its territory until 1960s and if you believe their claim that is something India also took away though you will find less sympathy these days for rights of Europeans to have faraway colonies :-) So if you hold a vote in Kashmir to decide instead of the process followed by the British (ask the kings/princes, their version of having "representative democracy" ), you may create similar claims in other parts of India mostly by other men wanting to be kings (not because they have welfare of people at hearts). The most recent place "country-building" was attempted was attempted was Yugoslavia and we know how well that worked. You want to consider the possibility of upto 500 countries in India ? I think it might easier to have people learn to get along :-) Kashmir also has factions that want to be neither with India or Pakistan...if you read enough in NY times. How about that as a version of History ! As these things go, history depends on who gets to write it, so I don't really have a clue. :-) But there is version in the book "Freedom at Midnight" which you may want to read.