Iqbal Chand Malhotra - Dark Secrets: Politics, Intrigue and Proxy Wars in Kashmir

In his book Dark Secrets, Iqbal Chand Malhotra has revealed the unknown interplay of forces in the great game. A strategist would learn from here, the chessboard setting for the future, with special reference to India. One thing that catches my attention is how the buffer players cause subtle interference and create new claims altering the contour of maps.

Lieutenant General P.J.S. Pannu PVSM, AVSM, VSM,

former Deputy Chief IDS,

former 14 Corps Commander (Ladakh),

former DG Infantry Indian Army

A gripping and action-packed account of Kashmir at the centre of the great game between Britain and Russia from the end of the 19th century to 1948. Iqbal has used literary license to plug gaps left by missing records to write a work of creative non-fiction which makes for a compelling read. The great game was initiated through diplomatic intrigues in Kashgar. For a time, to the utter consternation of the British, the better resourced Russians nearly reached south towards Gilgit, but the competition was resolved in the old fashioned way through the intercession of the two monarchsQueen Victoria, who was the grandmother of the Russian Tsar. The result was the Anglo Russian Convention of 1907. Consequently, the British seized control of Gilgit, Nagar and Hunza, and built roads through these territories. Iqbal gives a detailed account of how the British manipulated royal succession in Kashmir and severely circumscribed the powers of Maharaja Pratap Singh and his successor Maharaja Hari Singh. He traces the growth of popular movements in Kashmir in the 1930s including the secular-communal divide between Sheikh Abdullah and the Mirwaiz. Iqbal avers that Mountbatten and British military leaders manipulated Nehru into making decisions that led to a stalemate in Kashmir in 1948. The reasonand this is the central thesis of the bookwas the British interest in spying on the Soviet nuclear programme from top-secret bases in Kashmir, Punjab and NWFP after the Americans denied them access to the results and secrets of the US nuclear programme. This thesis and some interesting subplots in the narrative will no doubt stoke controversy, for example, Bose, writes Iqbal, did not die in the plane crash in Taipei but escaped to Russia and tried to re-enter India from the NWFP. All in all, a compelling read!

Biren Nanda, former Ambassador to Indonesia and ASEAN,

former High Commissioner to Australia

Iqbal Chand Malhotras book takes us on an exciting exploration of the secret world that shaped Indias north-western frontier and Kashmir. It examines the contours of the last great game between Imperial Russia and Great Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Significantly, it points out how the Soviet control of Sinkiang influenced not only the politics of the British, but ultimately, impacted the partition of India and the Sino-Indian relationship up to the present. Well-researched, with new material to support his fluent narrative, the imaginative re-reading of certain facts lends new depth and understanding to our study of the geopolitics and history of that region.

Professor Dr Ravni Thakur,

Head of Department, East Asian Studies,

University of Delhi

DARK SECRETS

DARK SECRETS

Politics, Intrigue and Proxy Wars in Kashmir

Iqbal Chand Malhotra

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First published in India 2021

This edition published 2021

Copyright Iqbal Chand Malhotra, 2021

Illustrations AIM Television Archives

Iqbal Chand Malhotra has asserted his right under the Indian Copyright Act to be identified as the Author of this work

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ISBN: PB: 978-93-54355-44-8; eBook: 978-93-54355-45-5

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