Pandit Dwarkanath Kachru was born in district Srinagar of Kashmir valley in a progressive Kashmiri Pandit family. During his student days, he joined the progressive radical youth group Fraternity formed by men like Damodar Bhatt, Dina Nath Hunjura, Dr. Shaligram Kaul and other such intellectuals for eradication of the prevailing social evils of the Kashmiri society. He was an active member of the fraternity.
As a socially and politically conscious person, he came to the forefront of the national movement during 1937-39 when there was a significant advance in the sphere of Princely States. The organization of All India State Peoples Conference which was actually a pressure point on the princely state rulers eventually got affiliated to the Indian National Congress. Its major concern was the struggle for the establishment of civil rights and responsible government in the princely states.
Dwarka Nath Kachru was one of the delegates of the All India State Peoples Conference. The first conference of the Indian states people convened in 1927 was presided over by a Kashmiri pandit Shankar Lal kaul. Both Dwarka Nath Kachru and Shankar Lal kaul, firebrand Kashmiri pandits demanded that the people of the princely states should oppose the princely order and unitedly struggle against the British rule. Subsequently after, this demand became the official part of the charter of demands of this conference which appealed for repudiation of paramountcy and end of princely rule in the princely states. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru became its president in 1939 and retained it till 1946. Nehru, in 1939, as president of State Peoples Conference, adopted the demand for responsible government for people of all Princely states.
Later, owing to his in-depth political strategic understanding, Dwarkanath Kachru made his mark in the intellectual circle and greatly impressed Nehru who solicited Kachru’s support as his political assistant and appointed him to the post of Secretary General of AISPC. Kachru was extremely active as secretary general of the AISPC. His demand for a responsible government became the panacea of the Kashmiri people. Additionally, National Conference Leader Sheikh Abdullah with anti-British stance in the Kashmir valley forcefully repudiated the feudal order. Sheikh’s appointment as vice president of AISPC at the behest of Nehru in 1946, made him imperious in his dealings with his political opponents.
In May 1946, for launching the Quit Kashmir movement, the Maharaja govt took severe actions and sentenced Abdullah and others for three and a half years of rigorous imprisonment. As Nehru was fully supportive of Sheikh Abdullah, he immediately visited Kashmir despite the Kashmir premiers threat to ban his entry into the state. Kachru was arrested at Kohala while marching with Nehru.
As political assistant of Nehru, Kachru worked tirelessly in the background on the impending grouping of 560 princely states. He used to apprise Nehru regarding the internal affairs of the princely states and kept him abreast with the details on their economic condition, position of peasantry, system of land tenure, private revenues of the princely rulers, on the status of education, condition of civil liberty, growth of political reform movement, public health and sanitation, communal question and strength of Congress. On the basis of Kachru’s research, political decisions were made. In this vein, on April 16, 1947, he wrote to Nehru on the issue of assimilation and absorption of the gaggle of princes and the rapidity with which the princes would have to be incorporated into the new India.
Kachru played an integral part in J&K’s accession to India. In order to provide more clarity on the issue of Accession, he prepared a confidential note for Pandit Nehru in June, 1947, for it offers yet another perspective on Kashmir and its importance to the Indian union. He wrote,
“Geographically, it has been suggested in certain influential quarters that it will no doubt play a great part in determining the course which the state would follow. Due to the proposed division of Punjab, it is, therefore, permissible to argue that Kashmir will find itself geographically isolated from the rest of India. Powerful influences may also develop which will tend to draw Kashmir to the new alignment of forces within areas adjacent to it. But considering the temperament and character of the people of the state and the policy and outlook of the national conference, it can safely be assumed that under the stress of the disintegrating forces, Kashmir would tend to develop a progressive nationalism and a political life of its own rather than join any unhappy combination in the areas adjacent to it.”
This Secret appraisal, of course, was helped by the Radcliffe boundary commission award of critical Gurdaspur road link to India. His inputs to Nehru convinced him that Kashmir was worth fighting for. He was deputed by Nehru in Srinagar during those tumultuous moments of 1947 to serve Sheikh Abdullah. His secret dispatches to Nehru on 5 October 1947, give a glimpse of the procession of Accession of the J&K state which is also reproduced in Sardar Patel’s correspondence.
His secret dispatches and confidential notes addressed to Nehru throughout 1947 and 1948 helped to reconstruct the tumultuous events during the Pakistan led tribal raid in Kashmir.
The entire Nubra valley, and Zanaskar were cleared by the troops and national militia at this juncture. Pakistan thought India was going full tilt towards Gilgit in Kashmir and Kotli and Bhimber in Jammu.
To keep abreast with the developments in Kashmir, Nehru had dispatched his private secretary to the frontline. Along with the army chiefs and military Generals like General Thimaiiya and General Cariappa, Kachru visited on various military operations deep inside the valley and Ladakh regions and talked in length to Nehru about these operations and the consequences arising out of them. These were cataclysmic times and required an urgent feed of information. While the Prime Minister attended to matters of state, his roving private secretary surveyed the borders to post information about the actual development in the frontline. Though Kachru fully apprised Nehru of the military situation on the ground in Kashmir but despite repeated reminders and exhortation from Kachru, Nehru appeared hesitant to move forward more aggressively militarily.
He used to send important dispatches marked as secret and personal to the Prime Minister. The correspondence between Nehru and his private secretary Dwarka Nath Kachru reveal how Nehru’s idealism and stodgy belief stood in the way of the Indian army reclaiming what eventually became POJK.
Had Kachru’s advice to Nehru been heeded, the map of Jammu and Kashmir may well have looked different. There are many stars shining brightly in the firmament of India’s struggle for independence, carrying the flames of patriotism within and Dwarkanath Kachru is one among them. The nation cannot deny him a place of honour.