Nehru Took Kashmir to the UN at Mountbatten's Encouragement, Patel Steered Article 370, and Abdullah Was Held for Most of the Next Decade

On 26 October 1947 a Maharaja signed a printed form on which the word "August" had to be struck out. Within ten weeks India had taken the war that followed to the United Nations, and within six years the man India had backed in Srinagar was in jail. People still fight about it: who sent Kashmir to the UN, who wrote Article 370, who ordered Sheikh Abdullah's arrest, whether anyone inquired independently into Syama Prasad Mookerjee's death in detention. This file reads the papers. Patel's published letters do not show the opposition he is famous for. Nehru's note of 31 July 1953 describes how a divided government could be dismissed; his statement to Parliament did not mention it.