Book review: Kashmir by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Hellfire in a heavenly valley

With Kashmir, Manreet Sodhi Someshwar ends her moving Partition Trilogy. The first book Lahore dealt with the conflagration that flared up in the northwestern part of a then unified India at the time of Partition, and the many innocents that conflagration consumed, even as Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Lord Mountbatten fought hard to contain the fire.

The second book Hyderabad gave us a behind the scenes glimpse of all the machinations that went on to bring the extremely recalcitrant Nizam to the table to sign the Instrument of Accession, how it became a battle of nerves after a while, and yes, how many innocents paid the price for that eventual if uneasy peace.

In her concluding work, the focus shifts to the beautiful Valley of J & K, and presciently shows readers how that jannat was from early days a seething, simmering cauldron. A story that is, as the writer puts it, ancient and current, layered and complex, deep and unsettling.

Just two months into independence, India and Pakistan stand in a tense face-off. Loath to alienate the citizens of his Muslim majority  state, reluctant to anger the Dogras living in Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh is in a cleft- stick position, lacking both the will or the political resources to act. Poonch in western Jammu is in revolt mode. Britain is in wait and watch mode,  and then, the  newly created state of Pakistan decides to act. They orchestrate incursions into Jammu from across the Punjab border as well as send in a horde of tribals, with some of these kabailis  holding very suspect credentials, seeming to be Pakistani army regulars.

And so, this crude and cruel cohort ride into the land of the chinar, wreaking havoc, death and devastation at all their pit stops. But India hasn’t exactly been caught unawares; the Kashmir units are all deployed immediately after the maharaja, his back to the wall, signs the Instrument of Accession; and the Indian pushback is a most effective one.

Just like in the other two earlier books, Sodhi Someshwar unspools events as witnessed and experienced by subaltern characters who come to life on the page, soon getting the reader rooting for them. Here, we have the girl with golden hair and silver skin, Zooni Gujjar, married to the much older Masud Ahmed who is readying to fight against India. Zooni`s village comes under attack, and she has to escape with her co-wife. Zooni`s tracks are tumultuous and most interesting in its trajectory, with her eventually becoming a guide and sniper to the Indian army in the mountainous terrain she knows so well.

Then we have Sepoy Malik who we first met in Lahore, still haunted by his Tara, who is forever counselling him to help the women of  Kashmir since, as she points out, it is women who inevitably bear the brunt of all suffering in wars.

There is Durga Mehra,  widow of the district commissioner of Muzaffarabad, who rises above her own personal  affliction and sets up a centre  to help train other widows, rape victims and snatched women refugees in domestic crafts.

Inferno in the vale

We watch Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir, as he grows in stature and becomes the first head of administration in  Kashmir after the war. We watch a tired and somewhat defeated Sardar Patel defend his strategizing. We watch the Mountbattens prepare to leave the land they had grown to love, and in Edwina`s case, prepare to leave the man she had grown to care for. We watch Pandit Nehru try his level best to contain the inferno consuming the beautiful vale, the land of his forebears.

The author skillfully plots the war maneuvers, taking us with the characters as they fight pitched battles in Srinagar, in Baramulla, on the mountaintops. Sentiment is kept tightly reined in, as events overtake each other in rapid succession, writing a new history for this land of emerald forests, turquoise rivers and crystal peaks.

Sodhi Someshwar states that she wrote the Partition Trilogy with the hope that the books will provide fresh stories about a period in time that still thrums and reverberates today. Readers of these three political thrillers will find the old saying coming true, that we need to know our history so as not to repeat it.

Kashmir by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar. HarperCollins Books. Rs 499. 302 pages. 

https://www.deccanherald.com/features/books/hellfire-in-heaven-2866190

This appeared in the Sunday Herald section of Deccan Herald on 28 January 2024.

Related Links:

Book review: Hyderabad by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Book review: Lahore by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar