Title PARTITION: Tape 78 (cont) Side B Writer 255MODEM Mod Date & Time 255MODEM May 03 11:32 Dr Karan SINGH ... was heir to the last Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh; born 1931; in J and K post-partition; says that scrapping of state saved him from 'a fate worse then death'; served as Regent and Governor of state, later as Indian cabinet minister; now member of Rajya Sabha, and one of India's most prominent political thinkers; insists he is not a Kashmiri, 'I'm a Dogra', different from Kashkiris in language, culture and cuisine; Hindu; supported Farooq Abdullah in 96 state elections, tho never a member of Natnt Conferece (however his son, an MLA, is a party member - a remarkable reconciliation between the two families); Farooq supported him for a RS seat; believes he may in the future have a role to play in settling the problem - still has properties in J and K, inc the house in Srinagar in which he largely grew up; says that, unlike the Abdullahs, his stage stretches far beyond J and K, and unwilling to talk too much about the state; sd he wasn't part close to his father interviewed at his smart and very central home, 3 Nyaya Marg (with an open-air pool in the internal courtyard), opposite the Chinese embassy; working black tunic and his trademark black Jinnah-style hat; photo'd by Ros - 2 May 1997 11 - 'I was v young ... I was in a wheelchair, I had some trouble with my hip ... but we had begun getting these rpts of molestation womena nd inc problems, part after partn; that culm'd in the full-sc tribal invasion ...' 25 - [molestors] 'this was being donw by tribesmen; I don't think they belonged to the state, they were people from outside' 30 - 'they came in plundering and killing, and raping ... inc the convent at Baramulla; but it was a terr time ... the whole of I was in flames' 36 'I remember sitting around the radio with my father, listening to the fact that the Br had withdrawn; I have a hunch that my father never really that the Br were going to go in that way, cos the old princely states wre in some ways v insul'd from the rest of I; one of the probs of feudalims is that you tend to get isolated; I do remember that whole period, and how the sitn blew sjy high; and then there was a full-scale war' 50 - [as raiders approached] 'I rem'r vividly, my father was holding court in the city palace ... in Srin ... I think this was 22 or 23 Oct, and the lights went out, and we realised the raiders had reached a place called Mahoora ? where our solitary power station was, about 70 miles away from Srin ... it was a terr time ... the whole thing seemed to me a nightmare ... it was not a v happy time' 72 - 'it was V.P. Menon who persuaded my father to come down to Jammu cos the instrument of accession ... after 15 Aug 47 theoretically my father had become ind cos he had not acceded to either Ind or Pak, ... while this whole thing was still on, the invasion was unleashed; our state forces were v good, but they were all strung out in penny packets along a huge state ... and some mutinied ... the result was he appealed to I for help, and that help cd only be forthcoming if the inst of acc's was signed, so he was advised by VP M'n to come to J, which