This letter from Sheikh Abdullah has come to light in the archives of the Communist Party of Great Britain, held at the People's History Museum in Manchester. It was written to Rajani Palme Dutt, the eminence gris of the British CP (born in Cambridge, his father was a Bengali doctor and his mother was Swedish) who was then making his first trip to India.
Palme Dutt spent four months in India, arriving in late March 1946. During that time, he met not simply the leaders of the CPI but most of the movers and shakers in Indian political life, including Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Sheikh Abdullah's letter suggests that he was expecting Palme Dutt in Srinagar, and was disappointed that he changed his plans. Abdullah was writing just as the Quit Kashmir campaign - the biggest mass mobilisation that the National Conference ever attempted - was getting going. The 'Bedi' he mentions is the Punjabi Communist B.P.L. Bedi, husband of Freda Bedi, who had been the principal architect of the 'New Kashmir' manifesto two years earlier.
Three days after Sheikh Abdullah wrote this letter, he was arrested - and was only released from the maharaja's jails in September 1947. Palme Dutt did get to Kashmir, but only in July 1946 at the very end of his time in India. He met Bedi in Lahore before travelling to Srinagar, where he talked to Freda Bedi and other key figures in Kashmir - and had the chance to attend part of Sheikh Abdullah's trial in Srinagar and indeed talk to the defendant.
Palme Dutt was nominally travelling around India as a correspondent for the London-based Daily Worker. From Srinagar, he wrote for the paper about Sheikh Abdullah's court hearings.
Palme Dutt spent four months in India, arriving in late March 1946. During that time, he met not simply the leaders of the CPI but most of the movers and shakers in Indian political life, including Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Sheikh Abdullah's letter suggests that he was expecting Palme Dutt in Srinagar, and was disappointed that he changed his plans. Abdullah was writing just as the Quit Kashmir campaign - the biggest mass mobilisation that the National Conference ever attempted - was getting going. The 'Bedi' he mentions is the Punjabi Communist B.P.L. Bedi, husband of Freda Bedi, who had been the principal architect of the 'New Kashmir' manifesto two years earlier.
Three days after Sheikh Abdullah wrote this letter, he was arrested - and was only released from the maharaja's jails in September 1947. Palme Dutt did get to Kashmir, but only in July 1946 at the very end of his time in India. He met Bedi in Lahore before travelling to Srinagar, where he talked to Freda Bedi and other key figures in Kashmir - and had the chance to attend part of Sheikh Abdullah's trial in Srinagar and indeed talk to the defendant.
Palme Dutt was nominally travelling around India as a correspondent for the London-based Daily Worker. From Srinagar, he wrote for the paper about Sheikh Abdullah's court hearings.
Palme Dutt's fullest account of his time in the Kashmir Valley was published in the journal he edited, Labour Monthly. The issue for October 1946 reported that Sheikh Abdullah had, the previous month, been sentenced to three years in jail for sedition. It published part of Abdullah's speech from the dock. The same issue included the final section of Palme Dutt's India travel notes - the portions relating to Kashmir, which he described as 'the political storm centre of the Indian fight for freedom', are posted below.
Andrew Whitehead
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