Sir — This refers to the article, “Kashmir blunder that bleeds us to this day” (September 13) by A Surya Prakash. The Nehruvian blunder on referring the Pakistani invasion on Jammu & Kashmir to the UN Security Council on January 1, 1948, against the advice of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, when the Indian troops were about to throw out the aggressors in a few days, is so monumental and reprehensible that no amount of generosity or respect for our first Prime Minister’s role in the freedom struggle and independent India’s initial years, can possibly white-wash it.
The author has rightly quoted the IAF chief, Air Marshal Arup Raha’s remarks that Nehru’s tragic thoughtlessness keeps India ‘bleeding to this day’. Alongwith another colossal disaster of Nehru’s romanticism — Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai — that occurred in war with China in 1962, Nehru will down in modern Indian history as a Prime Minister whose errors of judgement created serious problems for the nation, some of which remain.