J&K an artificial construct: Karan Singh

On June 19, 2025, senior Congress leader, son of late Maharaja Hari Singh and former J&K Sadar-e-Riyasat, Karan Singh, gave interview to a Kashmir-based journalist, Mudasir Khan. It was very interesting. He was candid. He said many things and everything that said was self-explanatory.

- PROF HARI OM

He talked about armed conflicts in the world, including Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Iran wars; Yugoslavia and its disintegration; 700-year Muslim rule in India and killings, forcible conversions of Hindus, loot and plunder; partition of India on the basis religion/two-nation theory; Maharaja Hari Singh, JL Nehru, the British, Sardar Patel, MK Gandhi, Sheikh Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mufti Sayeed and Narendra Modi; August 5, 2019 reforms/changes in J&K; disparate J&K and its disintegration; nature of the existing dispensation in the UT etc etc.

It is neither possible nor desirable to reflect on everything that Karan Singh revealed and said in one small essay. Hence, I will focus only on what he said about Yugoslavia and its disintegration, Hari Singh, Nehru, the British, Sheikh Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Mufti Sayeed, Omar Abdullah and Narendra Modi, August 5, 2019 reforms/changes in J&K, disparate J&K and its disintegration and the nature of the existing dispensation in the UT.

First August 5, 2019 reforms/ changes in J&K, disparate J&K and its disintegration and the nature of the existing dispensation in the UT. On the August 5, 2019 changes, Karan Singh said that his was “a very interesting response.” “Of course, there was some regret (conversion of J&K into UT). In any case my father’s state had disappeared. It wasn’t there any longer. However, there were some positive elements; for example lacs of disenfranchised people who came (to Jammu in 1947) from Sialkot (then in West Pakistan), they were not allowed to vote. They could vote for me (if I contested for) parliament. But they couldn’t vote for assembly. They couldn't get a job. Because they were not State Subjects. So they got enfranchised. The thing about women, that if you marry a non-Kashmiri you lose your property; that was also unfair,” he told his interviewer.