Christopher Snedden - Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris

For Esther and Chris

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by

C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,

41 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PL

Christopher Snedden, 2015

All rights reserved.

Printed in India

Distributed in the United States, Canada and Latin America by Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York,

NY 10016, United States of America.

The right of Christopher Snedden to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-84904-342-7
epub ISBN: 978-1-84904-622-0

www.hurstpublishers.com

I have been writing this book for some time. I have acquired a lot of my information while undertaking research for a previous book about Azad Kashmir. Many of the people who helped with that book vicariously have helped with this one. Once again, I thank you all very much. More specifically, I acknowledge and thank my wife, Diane Barbeler, who actively helped me to clarify my ideas, and who astutely edited this book. It is a far better product for Dianes involvement. I thank Len Johnston from Malmsbury, Victoria, for suggesting the title, and the staff at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, for helping me by locating some particularly interesting old maps and old books. This magnificent public edifice and its collection are national and international assets. I thank John Keay for generously allowing me to use an extract from his book When Men and Mountains Meet: The Explorers of the Western Himalayas 182075 in Appendix I. I thank Victoria Schofield for generously giving me a copy of her excellent book Wavell: Soldier & Statesman when we met in Pakistan in early 2014. I am very grateful to my publisher, Michael Dwyer, at Hurst and Co., London, and to my Gandhian friend, Tom Weber, from Healesville in outer Melbourne, for their ongoing encouragement and support. I thank the mapmaker, Sebastian Ballard, for the excellent maps. Finally, I thank my parents, Esther and the late Chris Snedden, Canberra, for encouraging and developing my curiosity. I dedicate this book to them.