Heir Apparent: an autobiography

Dr Karan Singh is a well-known thinker and statesman of contemporary India.

Born in 1931 as heir to the then princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, he was catapulted into political life at the early age of eighteen. In 1949 he was appointed Regent of Jammu and Kashmir by his father Maharaja Hari Singh on the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru, and thereafter he was continuously Head of the State for a further eighteen years-as Regent up to 1952, as elected Sadar-i-Riyasat from 1952 to 1965 and as Governor from 1965 to 1967. In 1967 Dr Karan Singh was inducted into the Union Cabinet and at thirty-six he was the youngest person ever to become a Central Cabinet Minister in India. On this appointment, he resigned his Governorship and was elected to Parliament. He has been an M.P. ever since and, over the years, held several major Cabinet posts.

In this autobiography, the author covers the first twenty-two years of his life, deftly evoking the changing times and places in which he matured, and the collapse of a feudal order. As Dr Karan Singh was also in a unique position to observe and participate in major political events, he provides important and fresh insights into the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India, the genesis of the so-called Kashmir dispute and other political developments in the State during the crucial years up to 1953, when Sheikh Abdullah was imprisoned. Politics apart, the volume brings alive aspects of several eminent figures, including Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Lord Mountbatten and, in particular, Jawaharlal Nehru-the author's 'political guru'.