Sat Paul (or Sati) Sahni (1922-2010) was a prominent journalist in Kashmir. He was working as a reporting prior to 1947, reported actively on the events of late '47 and went on to be a director-general of information for Jammu & Kashmir. I interviewed Mr Sahni in Jammu in March 2005, and I am posting a fairly full transcript of our conversation below.
Sat Paul Sahni: partial transcript
Interviewed by AW in Jammu on 27 March 2005
Sat Paul Sahni, 82, was a young war correspondent in Kashmir in 1947-48 and came to be one of Kashmir’s most renowned journalists, working for the Times of India and others. He went on to be Farooq Abdullah’s Director General of Information. He’s a Kashmiri speaker. His family is Punjabi – his father settled in Kashmir in c1909, and Mr Sahni left because of the insurgency in 1989.
Mr Sahni has written several books on Kashmir, notably Kashmir Underground and has his own personal, vast store of photographs taken across the state. He’s spritely, fit and exceptionally articulate – with a very good memory.
My full name is Sat Paul Sahni. … I’m 82 now. … I had done about six months training in London with the London Times in 1946, and I returned home to Srinagar, and we had a family business. I was not very keen to join that. I was almost on a loose end trying to write some pieces etcetera when the Pakistani invasion came about, and then in Srinagar descended on 27th/28th and 29th [[Oct 47]] almost a group of seven or eight journalists from Delhi in Royal Indian Air Force planes.
CAN YOU REMEMBER WHO?
Yes, there was K.S Ramachandaran of PTI; there was M. Sobhan [ph] of Times of India and Indian News Chronicle; there was Pran Chopra of Statesman; four of them came together. Anyway –
ANY FOREIGN JOURNALISTS?
They didn’t come in that particular day, but they did come on 29th or 30th.
WERE YOU A STATE SUBJECT ?
Yes, of course. … I was born in Srinagar and born and educated most of the time in Srinagar. So when they came, now I was interested – I was a friend of the son of the Governor of Kashmir at that time, Mr Maharaj Kishan Dhar. His son Pratap was a good friend of mine. So I was in touch with the Governor’s house – Governor at that time meant the District Magistrate, no more than that. So I knew what was going on and how the attack had taken place and how Mahura had been captured, how a senior officer from Delhi had come which was later learnt to be V.P. Menon and he had met the Maharajah and advised him to go away to jammu etcetera etcetera. So this background there, I was curious. And also I was in touch with Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference leadership at that time since I was a student leader earlier.
IN THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE?
No, I was not part of the National Conference. I was a friend of the leaders of the National Conference but I originally belonged to Congress, although there was no Congress set up there. Bit ideologically speaking. I was General Secretary of All India Students Federation – two general secretaries, one from Lucknow and one from Srinagar at that time. So I was quite close to all the political activists, so I got the feedback from the National Conference and I also got the feedback from the govt side. So I knew what was going on and I was very curious to know a little more. So I used to go up and down Srinagar from the cantonment area to the National Conference headquarters, which was immediately shifted to the Palladium at Lal Chowk … so we picked up that troops would be landing tomorrow morning. So next morning, that is 27th, we kept on looking up at the shies, and ultimately – round about 8 o’clock or so – we heard the drone of a plane. And there was a sigh or relief all over Srinagar. In the meantime the news had trickled in that the Pakistanis had entered Baramulla and they had started killing people, because some people had escaped from B and come to Srinagar and reported to N C. Maqbool Sherwani was not a part of it because he was not allowed to come back. So after these guys, journalists, landed on 28th – I knew two or three of them even earlier. So I went and met them. And they were very happy and they –
WERE THEY STAYING AT NEDOUS?
No they didn’t stay there. You see they were staying as part of the – where the army set-up was, that is near the airport, after the troops landed. Nedous was functional at that time, buhey came to the twon with the army itself with the civil – they had commandeered a local passenger bus, a 14-seater bus, civilian, which was being used by journalists, the PRO, etcetera, because army didn’t have any transport at that time. So we met them on 28th itself and they stayed there 2 or 3 days. The army was very disorganized at that time because they were coming in and there was no infrastructure, no transport, no accommodation, no nothing. So they used to get feedback, local feedback, and I used to take them to the Nat Conf activists etcetera [named] … and Sheikh Abdullah too. Well, before they went back, you see they stayed – some journalists stayed three days, some stayed two days, then they had to go back. Now they wanted a local stringer, and since I had got my training earlier and I was available so to say, so on 30th Oct Sobhan [ph], who was the Times of India and Indian News Chron man, he sd can you do this for us, can you sort of take on this responsibility. I sd yes, and that is how I came into regular reporting. So I became a corr of Indian News Chron … from Srin. And then in about ten days time we got our accreditation from the Defence Ministry, and I became a war correspondent. And as you know the battle of Shaileteng took place on 3rd/4th/5th culminating on 7th and the Pakistani were pushed back to Baramulla. The Baramulla was liberated on 7th, but they didn’t allow us to go until 11th. 11th they allowed two or three individuals, journalists. Among them was Robert Trumbull – and there was one more … I couldn’t recall the name, anyway, they were allowed to go. Then Pandit Nehru arrived in Srin on 13th of Nov and 14th morning they allowed three of us – one All India Radio man, one API (PTI at that time was Associated Press of India) … and myself. Three of us were allowed to accompany the Prime Minister of India when he visited Baramulla.
… HOW DID YO TRAVEL TO B?
Well, … this rickety old bus. By then of course the army had brought in a few jeeps and one tonners. The Prime Minister was taken in an army vehicle, car. Of course, some jeeps accompanied the convoy but three of us plus PRO etcetera, we were given passenger bus, and we traveled in that to B and back.
WHAT DID U SEE IN B?
Well, B looked like a ghost city at that time. I was told that the original popn was something like nearly 11,000 people when B was at its best. It was a major trading town on the S-Rawalpindi route, and also access from Sopore and the Lohar [?] valley and walnut and apple trade used to go thro B. So it was a very prosperous town and there were a no of Christians and Sikhs, and some Hindu shopkeepers were there, but the majority of course were Muslims. And the convent – St Josephs school and St Josephs convent and the hospital – they were on almost the outskirts of B at that time, because the main city, town, was on either banks of the Jhelum. And we were taken to the convent and we saw the freshly dug graves … of the individuals who had been killed during the first two days after the arrival of the lashkar and the Pakistani officers. We also met two or three nuns at that time [sic] still there. And of course we were shown the spot where Sherwani had been killed. And the Prime Minister visited the hospital, he visited the school, St Josephs school, he visited the Sikh gurdwara where some refugees had taken shelter, and he also visited the formation commands, a small headquarters you can say, three tents were there. And a Brigadier was in charge at that time. So what we saw was burnt down buildings, smoke was still coming out although it was almost 12 days after the event – smouldering coals, cinders, some pieces of wood, timber. They were still sort of emitting smoke and smell. That’s about all. We were there for about four hours and then came back in the evening and filed our reports.
WHAT WAS THE MOOD OF THE PEOPLE IN B – WAS THERE ANYBODY IN B?
There were a few people – I think not more than a hundred odd people there. They came to see the Prime Minister and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, the deputy Prime Minister of Kashmir at that time who was accompanying the Prime Minister. Then of course the army Birgadier, Brig L.P. Sen. Was there.
SHEIKH ABDULLAH WASN’T THERE?
No Sheikh Abdullah did not accompany P Nehru on that day to B, because there was a lot of activity in Srin. There was an absence of administration and there was very strict rationing if food and fuel – they were short of supply. And the administration, which had been almost picked up from the roadside you can say, emergency administration headed by S Abd, was very deeply involved in all that, to try to bring some kind of order so that there were no food riots. So he decided to stay back. And so the Prime Minister was going with the deputy Prime Minister who was in charge of home affairs …
DID YOU GO BEYOND B?
No, at that point in time we were not permitted. For two reaons I think. Firstly the army was involved in pursuing the Pakistanis. And secondly since we were part of the entourage of the Prime Minister we were more keen to see exactly what the Prime Minister was seeing and listening to what he was going to say and talk to people. So we had no intention of going. We hadn’t gone to cover the war … we accompanied the P Minister to his visit to B …
… HOW WERE THINGS IN SRIN?
Srin by then had become more comfortable than it was on the 27thy/28th. You see, after the battle of Shaileteng things had improved considerably – and the battle of Badgam, where Major Sharma laid down his life. The mood in Srin had changed radically. People were feeling secure. Life had become – I wouldn’t call it normal but it was no longer abnormal.
… AT THIS STAGE, DID YOU SEE ANY OF THE CAPTURED LASHKAR?
Yes, yes, of course. We were shown the dead bodies of people who had been killed during the action. And we were also- the P Minister was invited into a tent where three of the lashkar individuals, soldiers you might call them, or volunteers, o whatever it is. And they were there. And they were all Pathans, Afridis. We met them, we talke to them, and they said we didn’t know why we were here, but we were asked to go for a jihad, that there were atrocities being committed on Muslims in K, so we were asked to go and liberate them. And we asked them why did you burn the houses and destroy the crops and kill people and loot and so on. And they said we were told that this had to be done, we are not going to stay here, we have come here to kill people and take back whatever we can.
WHAT DID THEY LOOK LIKE, THE AFRIDIS?
Well, they had big built bodies and – I wouldn’t call them looking ferocious but – they looked normal but big built and they were in salwar kameez etcetera. Tow of them were bare headed and only one had a sort of turban tied round. Three of them.
AND THE CONVENT – WHAT WAS THE SCENE AT THE CONVNT, HOIW BADLY DAMAGED WAS THAT?
You see, we went into the main chapel – some of its windows had been broken, one of the stained windows was broken. The main table on the raised platform had been thrown down and some of the utensils there were still lying on the ground. And we were shown the place where one of the nuns had been killed, and there were some blood stains still there. That’s about all we saw inside. But of course in the hospital area, there was more damage. And then we were show the graves, as I sd f0r Col Dyke [sic], Mrs Dyke, Barretto, four or five. And I took photographs of that place which was used in the newspapers with my report. … At that time, Indian News Chronicle. … By middle of November, Blitz weekly from Bombay, they ahd sent Mr Raghavan, their corr in Delhi had come to Srin, and since there were not many journalists or people who cd become journalists he got in touch with me and sd since you are already accredited as a war corr wd it be possible for you to write some pieces also for us. So I started working for them as well as a stringer. But later on I did a whole series for Blitz – but that was in 48 or 49.
AND U WERE A PHOTOGRAPHER AS WELL?
Yes.
AND HOW DID U FILE YR STORIES?
Well, this is a very interesting qn. We were supposed to hand over – either handwritten or typed, whatever the sitn was - hand over our stories to the PRO, Public Relations Officer. At that time …
ARMY?
Yes, army man. At that time, the set up in the Defence Min in Delhi was unlike what it is today. Today you have a Dir of Pub relns etc, at that time it was called Armed Forces Information Office and first it was headed by a full Colonel, later on by a Brigadier. And it used to be almost a Captain, never a Major, during the war. The Captain used to be the PRO in Srin with an army formation and we used to hand over our reports to him. Now depending on what time it was given – if it was till 2 o’clock in the afternoon then he wd hand it over to the air forces and the air force wd carry them – the packet was carried from there and delivered to the Def Min official at the airport at Palam in Delhi. And they bused to scrutinizes the reports and late in the evening they wd telephone our respective offices to come and collect the report from the corr. … If it was after 2 o’clock then we used to hand them over thro the signals, army signals, which used to be transmitted by morse code to Delhi and then transcribed and then handed over to our offices. Sometimes it got delayed by a day.
HOW DOD THE PHOTOGRAPHS GET DOWN?
Well, photographs went through the air force packet.
WAS THERE MUCH CENSORSHIP?
Well censorship to the extent that all the reports had to be handed over to the PRO. We had no means to file directly. And they scrutinized every report at the Armed Forces Information Office in ND at the Def Min. It was virtual censorship.
U CDNT JUST PICK UP A PHONE –
No, it was impossible. We had worked under such difficult conditions that you just can’t imagine it today. There was no telephone system as such.
SO IF YR OFFICE WANTED TO CONTACT YOU –
It used to be a telegram that used to come. The telephone system at that time in Jammu and Kashmir state belonged to the state govt and it used to be routed thro the Indian telegraph service, or telephone service as such. Now that had become part of Pak – under the standstill agreement Pak was supposed to give all these services. They agreed to do that but they squeezed the whole thing in the month of Sept before launching the attack. So we had no postal service with the rest of the country. We had no telephone or telegram service at that time. There were no links.
[band 2] DID U SEE MUCH OF THE WESTERN JOURNALISTS WHO CAME THRO SRIN?
You see we used to meet only at the briefing. They were staying – most of them styayed at Nedous hotel. But one or two of them stayed with Percy Brown in a houseboat. Percy Brown was an art critic and painter of repute. He used to live in a houseboat near Jhelum near the Srinagar Club. Two of them stayed there – and two or three stayed in Nedous hotel. But we didn’t have too much to do with each other, because firstly we were more keen to get the political side also. They were not interested in that time in the political aspect of the story. They were interested in the Pakistani invasion and the armed engagements and action at different points.
DID U KNOW SYDNEY SMITH AT ALL?
Sydney Smith, you see, was there in the last week of October and he hired a motorbike. And he traveled on his own most of the time. He did not attend the briefings at all - none of the briefings at which I was present. … He was not reporting day to day. He wanted an overall picture of what was going on. He was not interested in that aspect. Although he reported – I’m told he reported for the Sydney Herald – he wrote some pieces, but I’m not too sure.
WHAT WAS THE SRIN PRESS CORPS LIKE BEFORE THE WAR STARTED, WHO WAS BASED IN SRIN?
… There was R.K. Kak [?] who worked for Statesman and also worked for Civil and Military Gazette – he died about 14, 15, 16 years ago. He was one, there there was Josh [?] Lal Kaul who used to work for – but not on a regular basis – for Hindustan Times. And that’s about all – I think API was represented but I can’t recall the name, he was a stringer.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE K PRESS ITSELF?
Kashmiri press – of course there were 2 or 3 papers at that time. One was Hamdard, another was Khidmat [?]. … Then there was one - Kashmir Chronicle was another weekly, English weekly. That’s about all.
KASHMIR TIMES?
Oh no, K Times came on the scene much later. 1954.
WERE ANY OF THESE PAPERS PUBLISHED DURING THE TROUBLES –
I think Hamdard and Khidmat continued to publish … there was no electricity, and no nothing, life was very difficult.
WHAT WAS THE MOOD IN SRIN BEFORE THE INVASION?
One of apprehension. People didn’t know what was in store for them. They didn’t know what is likely to happen. There was shortage of almost everything that you cd think of – wheat flour was in shortage, rice was in shortage, there was hardly any sugar available, very little salt available, pulses etcetera, vegetables which had to come from the surrouding rural areas didn’t come because of lack of transport etcetera. All kinds of things. So life was very very difficult. But it was v peaceful, v orderly.
AND S A WAS POPULAR ONCE HE WAS RELEASED FROM JAIL?
V popular – v v popular, there’s n doubt about it. One thing is remarkable that while the rest of India, and Pak after its creation, there was bloodbath all over. There was trouble in Jammu too. But in K valley it was absolutelt peaceful and harmonious life. There was no sense of insecurity anywhere.
[MAHARAJAH]
There were two diametrically opposed views. One was of course the view held by the ruling class, you might say – the govt employees and all – who were all for the Mah. But the popular, public mood was against Mah’s rule. Not as much as an alien or an outsider but more as a sort of autocrat if you like – not allowing people to participate in the administration and not allowing people to secure their rightful share.
DID YOU SEE THE MAH ?
Oh yes. Yes, yes. … I thought he was a fine gentleman, v highly cultured … I met him a no of times. … He was about 5 10 or maybe 5 11 in height, and he was not slim, he was slightly portly looking person, quite handsome. Not bald exactly but receding hair and v pleasant to talk to – used to converse in English … He was fond of good life and v fond of polo [some details of stables etc] …
WAS THE GENERAL EXPECTATION THAT SOONER OR LATER HE WD SIGN UP WITH INDIA?
I wdn’t be able to tell you this part of it cos now, in retrospect, I know how things went, but at that part time we had not much knowledge about that. Except … since I was v close to the family of the Governor, all the reports that used to come in from the border areas used to come in to the Governor as District Magistrate. And since he did not want his official set up to get to know that cos it might leak, and it was highly confidential reports that used to come from various offices and areas, those used to come into his office and he used to bring them to home and since I had a typewriter and since I was v close to the family and almost part of the family, sometimes when his confidential typist was not available, I was doing the typing part of it, of the report. And then his son was my friend, my classmate. In his car we used to go to the palace at night and deliver these reports to his – Mah’s brother-in-law who was a private secretary … [ ? ] Singh. … September October 1947. … These border reports – I’m talking about Kashmir, we didn’t know about Jammu so much – these K reports sd that there was panic in the border areas and the state troops that were posted at Domel – M’bad wasn;t v important at that time, Domel was cos that was the sub-divisional office you might say and one of the state force battalions was posted there, the J and K Rifles. And the reports coming in from there, that covered part of the Poonch area which was S of Poonch, S E of Poonch, and of course the Kishenganga valley and the border area from Murree to Kohala to Domel, reports were coming from that area. And they were reports of panic, reports of scare, of fear. But they had the reports that there was something likely to happen. And some of the people had already started leaving Kohala, Domel, Garhi, even Uri and come to B.
WHEN DID U HEAR THAT THE LASHKAR HAD ENTERED THE STATE?
What happened was that on the 24th Oct was [ ?? ] Saturday, and the Mah used to hold a durbar in what is now the hotel in the Boulevard, Grand Hotel, the Grand Intnl, The present dining hall was the durbar hall at that point. And my father was one of the durbaris or a courtier you might say, and he had gone to attend this durbar. And while the durbar was on., electricity went off. And the only power house we had was in Mahura at that time, which was about 55 miles away from Srin on the road to uri. So we had no idea what had happened. Of course we knew that Pakistanis had already entered the state. So when he returned from the palace. He brought the news that it seems that Pakistanis have reached Mohura and destroyed it or damaged it. So that was the confirmation of the arrival of the Pakistani the lashkar. …
(RESPONSE IN SRIN)
… The apprehension was there already. Now there was no one to hold them back, except a small group under Brig Rajinder Singh … They thought there was nothing between the Pakistanis, lashkar, and Srin. So on the morning of 25th everyone thought that perhaps on that very day the lashkar will arrive in Srin. So some of the people wanted to get away but there was no way to go out and so some of them managed to go to the villages in the surrounding area. But not many peope. Those were the people who either had the means or who had the knowledge about what was happening. But the no was v v small. Otherwise people were – uncertainty about what was going to happen. But there was no panic, and there was no looting, there was no attack on anyone, nothing. But feeling of desperation, feeling of panic, was not there. But – fear of the uncertain.
AND THERE WERE NO SCHEDULED AIR SERVICES AT THATB STAGE –
None. There was no air service. There was no airport as such. This was just a landing strip. There was only one plane that the Mah had. So there was no air service … Till about March of 1947 the Baramulla road was neing used to go to Rawalpindi and from Rawalpindi you come to Jammu … Snow was blocking the road between Srin and Jammu.
WERE THERE PATIALA STATE FORCES IN THE VALLEY?
No. This is absolutely wrong. There were no forces till 27th October.
NOT EVEN PATIAL FORCES ON A FRIENDLY BASIS?
No no no no no – none.
AND WHEN THE INDIAN TROOPS ARRIVED IN THAT MORNING –
They didn’t come to Srinagar. … They [people in Srin] saw then planes alright, but they didn’t know whether it had brought troops or what. There was no means to get the news. Troops landed there – of course the information had come in that troops were landing. So that N C volunteers etcetera managed to commandeer whatever vehicles were available, passenger buses or trucks, and took them to the airstrip or airport, and from there the troops, after they had disembarked, were put in the vehicles and taken straight to Pattan. They were not brought to Srin. They ndidn;t want to lose any time, so they all went straight to Pattan. Some went a little beyond but mist of them were this side of Pattan.
WHAT DID THE PEOPLE OF SRIN THINK WHEN THEY DISCOVERED THAT THE MAH HAD GONE?
… There was no means to get to know things as they were happening. If I got to know that the Mah has gone, the people who hated him were jubilant, those who were part of the govt were apprehensive that now that he’s gone we do not know what wd happen. There was apprehension. But that was a v small circle. … No popular reaction whatsoever because people didn’t know what was happening.
(INSTRUMENT OF ACCESSION)
It was signed in Jammu on the 26th … cos VP Menon came to Srin on 25th but advised him to leave that night, and the Mah arrived – on 26th morning he was in Jammu and VP Menon flew back to Jammu from Delhi with this letter, sorry we can’t give you any assistance unless you sign. And he showed him the Instrument of Accession which was the normal type the State Ministry had sent to all the rulers … After discuission he did agree and he signed it and VP Menon took it back. And that night on 26th evening …the mtg of the Def Cttee took place and there they decided to accept the Instrument of Accession and on 27th morning the troops were flown.
WAS THERE ANY SUBSTANTIAL BODY OF OPINIONS WITHIN SRIN WHICH WAS SUPPORTING THE LASHKAR?
I don’t think so. Maybe v small but not v vocal at all. Because the popular mood was against, and those elements that were perhaps sympathetic to that lashkar invasion did not surface themselves. Because the popular mood was with S A. And the Muslim Conference elements, which at that time was called the bakras – against the shers, mthat is the lion versus the goat or something – and that was the mood – they didn’t want to come into then open, surface themselves, and get beaten up so to say.
{FAMILY – HINDUS?)
Yes. … Punjabi origin. … Myself, my mother and my sister, this was the total family we were in Srinagar, he [father] of course was concerned about my mother and my sister and on 7th Nov – when I became a war corr I got in touch almost every day with air force pilots or army officers etcetera, and I learnt from then that the planes that were going back were taking people out, those who wished to go. But you had to reach the airportm to get into a plane, now how do you reach there? We had a car but there was no petrol, so couldn’t move. So ultimately on 7th Nov my father decided that since the whole thing was uncertain it was safer to send out the womenfolk. So my sister and my mother – my father and myself with our Muslim servant, we took a tonga, a horse drawn carriage, to the airport, and the flight that was going, my sister and my mother were put in that and given the address in Delhi of some relation etcetera … But we stayed back, my father, myself and our Muslim servant and spent the whole winter there. Of course now I couldn’t go away cos I had taken on the responsibility as a war corr. My father stayed back with me and this Muslim servant use to sleep there and we had a couple of guns and one rifle as part of the personal firearms, and the Muslim servant and myself we used to spend the whole night in the attic, for three mo nths we used to sleep there with the guns ready, that in case something happens we can defend ourselves. But nothing happened.
(WORK AS WAR CORR)
Well, at that particular time there was only one front, and that was the Jhelum valley road, and the front was Pattan- Baramulla-Uri. Beyond Uri there was no place to go to.
DID YOU GET TO THE SCENE OF THE FIGHTING –
Yes, of course. … Along the road. But from April onwards we went to handwara and Lolab [ph] and ultimately Titwal. That was in May. The first major war reporting that we did was the Gorezz [??] action in June. We were part of it – it was real war reporting, let me tell you. … And we saw the battle from v close quarters, say 100 yards you might say. … We used to do our dispatch, hand it over to the PRO, of of the PRO was nowhere around, then the signal officer. Those were the instructions. And they used to pass them on either thro the morse signal or the landline to their headquarters who would pass it on to Srin and Srin wd either thro the morse signal or the airforce send it on to Delhi. Sometimes they took three days to get to the office. … I loved it – I reported all the four wars of independent India, except B’desh Ive covered every action, every sector. … (Wriiten widely about experiences)
(AFTER THE~WAR?)
I stayed on [in Srin] then I became the corr of God knows how many papers – I worked for BBC for 22 years as a stringer from that area … (also worked for Reuter, NY Times, VoA, UPI, Nat Geog, Ill London News … allowed to do this under terms as special corr for Times of India) … These two permissions I had [to report fro BBC and Reuters] and the permissions were given to me by Frank Moraes because he was a great editor I would say and somehow he seemed to like me, he had confidence in me, and he liked my reporting etcetera, so I got a special favour from him allowing me to work for these two organizations.
(FRANK MORAES – ACCOMPANY HIM IN K?)
On the second trip that he came. First trip I wasn’t here – Id gone out somewhere. Second trip, yes. Frank Moraes in 1956 asked me to assist this well known broadcaster Melville de Mello to do a whole feature on Baramulla – I was involved in that too. … We went and interviewed Father Shanks, we interviewed three sisters who were still there, we interviewed somebody from Maqbool Sherwani’s family, we interviewed the political activists from that place, one gardener from the convent etcetera, lots of people. … 56 … This was for, I think BBC … Radio. No cameraman was around.
(WITH ToI)
Till 1965. … Then I resigned there and joined UNI, and of course I was working for the London Times and I was working for the BBC etcetera. I stayed on with UNI till late 78. … I gave up day-to-day reporting. … In 82 I was asked by S A and later Farooq Abdullah to join the govt, so they created a new post for me as Director General of Information and I joined them in Dec 82 and stayed on until 89 in that post with a break when F A was dismissed I resigned, when he came back I was reappointed. But in 89 I resigned that post also … I left Srin in 14 Dec 89 … I was under threat because I was D G of Info and v close to F A and I was advised to leave Srin. … 94 onwards I’ve been going there regularly.
WHAT WENT WRONG BETWEEN 47 AND 53
[long answer] … Nehru and Abdullah struck a v early friendship back in 39, S A at that time, it was towards the end of life of Muslim Conf that S A perhaps realized, he hadn’t talked to me on that, realized that he needed the backing of an All India organization, and he found that Congress perhaps was closer to the ideology that he had at that time … (story of gradual breakdown between S A and Delhi) … the sitn in the summer of 1953 was that S A might stand up and say, to hell with you get out, that kind of thing, and Delhi perhaps was sensing the danger …
(SHEIKH ABDULLAH)
Oh, he was a v tall leader of men – charming personality, tall, handsome, wonderful voice, he cd sway the sentiments of people, recite Koran which made an emotional appeal top anyone who listened to it. Then his arguments, he had a way of reaching yr heart and he of course had sacrificed his personal life for the sake of the people, so to say, cos he devoted all his time and he didn’t build up any assets during that period at all, from 1931 to 1947. He went to jail a number of times and he was a v popular leader in K and parts of Jammu. According to me, he was not a good politician, he was not a good statesman, but he was a v popular leader, great orator, and he had charisma about him. I’ve seen women and old men wanting to touch him and they would be thrilled and excited – they used to bring children with affliction to him wanting S A only to touch them and they felt that at his mere touch, the affliction wd vanish, things like that. That kind of following. … I wd rate S A as perhaps greatest benefactor of K people after 15th, 16th century King Zain-ul-Abdin [?], the Great Badshah as he was called. ... And what K was in 47, 48, 49, 50,51, 52, 53, was to a v large extent his contribution.
(A SOCIALIST?)
He was a socialist for two reasons. Firstly between 1936 and 39 he felt that it was not poss to achieve what he wanted for the people mof K if he did not carry the non-Muslims with him. So he enlarged the scope of his party, he converted it from Muslim Conference, and he was v popular with the non-Ms, no doubt. But this his association with the Congress in the All Indian States Peoples Conference – and that was the era when the Second World War had started, and the influence of the Sov Union and the Communists was on the rise. To K also came the Comms from the rest of the country, among them was Dr Ashraf and BPL Bedi and a few others. Either they were sent by the Comm Party of India, I don’t know. But they did come here and they gradually got into an inner circle of the National Conference - that is S A, and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, then Ghulam Ahmed Sadiq [and other names] … and at one point of time BPL Bedi and Dr Ashraf, they were the leading lights of the C Party at that time, they were involved in helping to draft the Nat Conf manifesto which later on became the New Kashmir programme. So it was largely on account of the influence of that and the overwhelming atmosphere of the Soviet influence in India at that time on the Congress because of the war on one hand and because of anti-British feeling on the other hand. So BPL Bedi had quite a major hand, he and his wife, Freda Bedi, had quite a hand … She was English. She later on became a Buddhist monk with Dalai Lama. I met her in 1974 in Dharamsala. Freda was a good friend of mine. So was BPL Bedi. He used to live in Lahore before they came to K. So they made a lot of contribution to the New K programme, and it got that orientation of socialism. It was not against the liking of S A but he accepted that and he got it incorporated. …
(LOOKING BACK)
I think lots of things went wrong and I hold New Delhi more responsible than anyone else, in blunders there were committed, wrong decisions that were taken, rubbing people on the wrong side. … Not foresight and far-sightedness was shown. And I do not absolve the Indian press. I consider even myself responsible for it to some extent. I will put it that way, because I was part of the Indian media which reported from Kashmir. … If Indian media had been a little more involved in Kashmir – K over the last 55, 57 years has been one major element which has influenced and impacted every policy of the govt of India –whether it’s econ pol, defence pol, military pol, development activtities, relationship with yr neighbours, relationship with America, everything. And that mount of attention was not paid to Kashmir. I’m talking of the govt as also the Indian press. … Till about 1980 or so the press corps reporting for the national press was not more than three or four individuals. … And what space wd they give? Not more than a few centimeters. So not adequate attention was paid either by the New Delhi establishment or by the Indian press to the affairs of J and K, its problems, its needs, what was going on here. …