Overview
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on October 31 that Sardar Patel wanted all of Kashmir to merge with India but that Jawaharlal Nehru prevented it.
- Mallikarjun Kharge called the claim false and urged Modi to review Nehru–Patel correspondence and Constituent Assembly debates on the accession.
- Accounts cited from Rajmohan Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha, and V. P. Menon report no evidence that Patel sought a military conquest of the entire state or resented Nehru’s leadership on Kashmir.
- Historians emphasize that the First Kashmir War of 1947–48 and the UN-supervised ceasefire in 1949 determined the de facto division of the region, which the government accepted.
- Kharge alleged that figures linked to the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS once backed an independent Kashmir, while an editorial analysis argued Modi’s framing seeks to validate the 2019 abrogation of Article 370.