This is a revealing account of the first and most important steps in the dispute that continues to haunt us today. Questions that still nag and perplex us are looked at in a new light: why did India go to the UN, why was a ceasefire accepted, what was Nehru's role, and Mountbatten's, how did foreign intervention affect the issue, and many more. Dasgupta has written with authority on these matters, drawing on recently released material from the British archives, and bringing to the task his own wide experience of how governments function. He looks at dry official documents with unusual discernment, to show what they contain, and, just as important, what they conceal. The personalities of the time are described and their impact on events. Every comment is corroborated from the extensive records on the subject, yet this is no academic treatise: deftly written, it delves into hitherto hidden aspects of past history and vividly re-creates the drama of the time.

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An important part of the book is what it shows about the British role in the conflict. While the two prime antagonists have been under the microscope from the start, the part played by the former imperial power has largely remained buried in the files, from where Dasgupta resurrects it. It is no secret, of course, that the armies of the two new Dominions were led by British generals and contained significant numbers of British officers. How these foreign servants of the new countries contrived to serve both their King and their employer is an intriguing tale. Their overriding concern, dictated by Whitehall and not by New Delhi or Karachi, was to avert all out war, and to this end they were prepared to ignore, or to subvert, orders they received from the authorities they served. On at least two occasions, such refusal to obey had the effect of averting full-scale war. On a number of other occasions, the two sides were pushed away from a course that threatened outright strife. Thus the third national element in the sub continent, the British, was able to manipulate the other two effectively. As the author demonstrates, beyond a point it became impossible to give effect to an independent policy without attaining national control of the armed forces.

Actions to avert expanded war may be defensible, but the deliberate tilt towards Pakistan that British policy came to acquire is an entirely different matter. In the initial stages, legal considerations were regarded as all-important, hence Lord Mountbatten's insistence on formal accession before troops went in to protect Kashmir. This fact also weighed heavily in Whitehall, to India?s undoubted advantage, but other factors soon drove British policy away from principle towards expediency. Pakistan?s strategic value in the Cold War and its supposed importance in the Islamic world caused British policy-makers to fear that if they came down against that country, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the dispute, Britain?s larger interests would suffer. At this juncture Philip Noel-Baker, Commonwealth Secretary in the British Cabinet, gave his country's policy a deliberate pro-Pakistani bias from which it could not recover, even when Prime Minister Attlee was disquieted by it. Under Noel-Baker's direction, the UN process was slanted away from its original course of adjudicating on aggression, and Pakistan?s covert invasion of Kashmir was deliberately downplayed. India's concerns were largely disregarded in the cause not of justice but of British interest. What could have been a relatively straightforward matter before the UN acquired the impenetrable complexity from which it has never emerged.

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The events of the time, as reconstructed here, are something of a preview of issues that absorb New Delhi even today. Pakistani support for the ?raiders?, unacknowledged but all too real, prefigured the cross border terrorism of today. It confronted Indian policy makers with the same dilemmas and challenges. Thus an attack on the raiders? bases in POK was seriously contemplated, not dissimilar to what was under consideration some months ago in response to terrorist attacks on India; then, as now, the Government of India eventually desisted. India?s frustrations on this score are ancient.�

The uniqueness of Lord Mountbatten?s position and the part he played is another of the absorbing features of those times. He was no titular Head of State in India, being at the same time the head of the Cabinet Defence Committee during a crucial period. He played a full part in that Committee where he was in close touch with the senior Ministers of the Indian Cabinet. The author shows that his influence derived not from a shadowy relationship with Nehru but from his formal and open authority within the Government. Though Pakistan remains very suspicious about his role, the author demonstrates that Mountbatten was no enemy to that country and played an honourable part in trying to keep the balance between the two contending Dominions.�

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The leading figure from the Indian side was, of course, Jawaharlal Nehru. The portrait of Nehru that emerges from Dasgupta?s narrative gives the lie to accusations of indecisiveness or softness that some recent critics have directed against him. He was a realistic and determined leader. He was not duped by the motivated advice proffered by his own military chiefs, who were British at that point, and he repeatedly pushed them into a more active war effort. Nehru was impatient to replace British officers with Indian successors, from whom he obtained useful advice even before they were formally in command. Nehru and Sardar Patel worked effectively as a team. If Nehru stopped short of expanding the war it was not for want of confidence in the outcome or belief in the rightness of India?s cause. He was aware, however, that war was a costly and uncertain option and that it was best avoided in the prevalent international situation. Even so, he refused a premature ceasefire, despite pressures, and accepted it only when the terms were satisfactory. Thereafter the matter got bogged down as power politics came to dominate the issue, to the point that Nehru was forced to lose confidence in the UN process that he had himself initiated.�

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This is a diplomatic and military history that adds much to what has already been revealed about the crucial early days of the Kashmir dispute. It remains closely focused on its theme and it forces the reader to think afresh about some familiar matters. The author is throughout judicious and balanced in his tone and leads us through highly contentious and disputed issues with objective good sense and judgment. He has no polemical intent but the conclusion to which he is driven reminds us of the strength of India?s case before the UN. This well researched and highly readable book deserves the great success it has enjoyed. It is already in its seventh printing in its first year of publication, and has established a place for itself on every bookshelf of modern South Asian affairs.