Written with every variety of purpose, books on Kashmir are legion. Of absorbing interest to archaeologist or historian, and lovelier far, as has been truthfully said, than an artist might imagine in his dreams, this wonder-spot of the world has been home alike to the recluse and the voluptuary. The great Kalhana placed lerming first among the fragrant offsprings of "the region which Kailasa lights up with his dazzling snow, and which the tossing Ganga clothes with a soft garment"; and an enarptured Moghul sovereign exclaimed. "If there be a paradise on earth, it is in Kashmir."
This little work does not contain the outpourings of ecstasy. It has to do with sordid things; it is designed to call attention, in plain and prosaic language, to an exigent problem - of moment 10 the people as well as the governments of the Indian States and British India. Kashmir has Suggested the theme both because of the peculiar position of the pernicious agitation recently directed against it. The narrative in this book and the warning uttered in it are the result of anxious study at firsthand of a distressing situation. There is no picturesque prevarication here, but only an unabdorned statement of truth. Should this unsentimental recital of facts avail to restore a perspective which has been distored in the recent agitation, the writer's purpose will have been adequately fulfilled.
Present book deals with the chapters on Advent of Dogra Rule, Beginnings of Good Government, Under Maharaja Sir Hari Singh, Economic Condition of the People, Communal Troubles: Their Origin, Interference and its Results, The July Disturbances (13th July, 1931) and After, Tendencies and a Warning, the Future, Conclusion. Treaty of Amritsar has been included at the end of the book as an appendix. |
