Kharge counters Modi, urges reading Nehru-Patel letters on J&K
Kharge counters Modi, urges reading Nehru-Patel letters on J&K
Kharge counters Modi's claim on Nehru's stance on Kashmir, urging him to read Nehru-Patel correspondence and Constituent Assembly discussions.
New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday countered Prime Minister Narendra Modi's latest claim about Jawaharlal Nehru's position on Kashmir's accession, saying the PM should read the historical record before making such assertions. Kharge challenged Modi to examine the correspondence between Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and to review the Constituent Assembly debates from that era. He said Patel’s private secretary, V Shankar, who supported Patel during the negotiations for J&K’s accession, compiled a book of correspondence between Patel and other leaders, titled “Selected Correspondence of Sardar Patel.” “If Pandit Nehru had not been involved in the process of J&K’s accession to India, would there have been so much correspondence between Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru during that time?” he asked in a Hindi post on X.
Kharge also pointed to what he described as earlier statements by leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, and later the Jan Sangh, that Kashmir should be declared an independent country. He framed his rebuttal as part of a broader push to reexamine the public record on the run-up to the accession, a topic that has long been debated in Indian political circles. Modi, in his remarks on Friday, had launched a sharp attack on Nehru, contending that the country’s first Prime Minister prevented Patel from fully integrating Kashmir into the Indian Union.
Kharge's response emphasizes the importance of consulting primary documents to understand the historical positions of Nehru and Patel, and it highlights the existence of a compiled collection of their correspondence that purportedly sheds light on the negotiations of the time. The exchange comes amid ongoing political disputes over how the Kashmir issue is remembered and taught in public discourse. The call to revisit the correspondence and Assembly debates signals a broader effort by Kharge’s party to assert a more documented account of the events surrounding Kashmir’s accession.
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