From the archives, 11 Oct 2003

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Apropos Book Review by Maj Kapil Rana of ‘Beyond Terrorism – A New Hope for Kashmir’ published in Infantry (India), June 2003, pp. 126-27.

Firstly, it is not understood why such a dated book has been reviewed. Book Review columns are generally devoted to bringing desirable books recently published to the attention of the readership or to refocus on books that have acquired the quality of being classics. The reviewer claims, as late as June 2003, that ‘the book sheds new light on the Kashmir problem’! The only reason the review could have been acceptable is if the reviewer had elaborated on his cryptic comment: ‘Another interesting thing about this book of 1994 is that the events professed by the author in a ‘Soothsayer fashion’ are turning out to be correct.’ Only on reflection on how the author’s crystal ball gazing has been retrospectively validated could have lent credibility to the review. Not doing so raises the issue as to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion of book reviews being followed by Infantry (India) and the necessity for their revision.

 

Secondly, and more pertinent are the passages below:

 

‘He (Mr. Khurshid) was the Minister for (sic) External Affairs when he wrote this book and this makes it more significant and authoritative.’

 

‘The unique feature of the book is that it presents India’s viewpoint about the J&K Issue (sic) with the author being the incumbent (sic) Minister of External Affairs besides being a ‘Indian Muslim’s’ view – the ones who are supposedly oppressed in the eyes of the Western world.’

 

It is not understood as to why the reviewer deems it necessary to remark on the religious affiliation of the author of the book under review. Why is it thought so ‘interesting’ in the reviewer’s words? The questions that arise are:

 

- Why does the reviewer think that an ‘Indian Muslim’s’ view would be different from ‘India’s viewpoint’ as to remark on the coincidence?

 

- Even if in the ‘eyes of the Western world’ ‘Indian Muslims’ are ‘supposedly oppressed’ (an arguable proposition at best), how does and why should a Muslim Indian’s ventilating of his views justify the Indian position any more than that of any other Indian?

 

The point that emerges is that the idea of Muslim Indians being different from the so called ‘national mainstream’, the spreading of which has been the agenda in certain political quarters, appears to have found a constituency in the Army, as witnessed by the reviewer’s inviting of attention to the fortuitous and entirely irrelevant aspect of religious affiliation of the author then serving as Foreign Minister. If this is true then this is truly an unfortunate development.

 

Lastly, Hari Singh’s ‘historic letter’ has been dated to ’26 Oct 1944’!