Here’s the dichotomy: it is both apposite and inappropriate to be reviewing this book almost two and a half years after it was finished. The former being the case because the balance of the world has shifted on its axis on so many levels since the publication of this work, drawing the focus of the West so sharply to South Asia, the latter because the risk that any writer on this region runs is that their conclusion will be out of date the moment it goes to print.

Starting with the apposite: the studies, reflections and rants on the situation resulting from the fallout of Indian Independence in August 1947, and the confused and tardy accession of Kashmir in late October 1947, divide fairly neatly into three categories. The first group is of those written by tub-thumpers with partisan slants. They usually come in the form of the memoirs of military or political characters who, at one time or other, peopled the stage on which the Kashmiri saga is played out. Whether they are pro-India or Pakistan they often make for intriguing reading while leaving the reader feeling uneasy, often knocked about by the pomposity and posturing.

The second category is often the most fascinating for the lay reader. This comprises the overviews by journalists or contemporary political writers, some with angles, some without. They range from dry accounts to heart-breaking human stories, the quality of knowledge being also variable, with the occasional detached and balanced gem.

The third section is that of the books by academics who have studied the region to the point where they have a detailed recall that can tap into all the sub-clauses of each of the eleven UN resolutions, passed on Kashmir between 1948 and 1971, at any given moment, probably even down to the detail of what the resolution draft writers preferred to eat for breakfast. The danger of this category for any lay reader, or indeed any reader trying to deepen their understanding of the conflict and the region, is that the devil is in the detail, or rather the surfeit of detail. As you, the reader, are dragged into a vortex of lost elections, coups, UN resolutions, articles, clauses and sub-clauses, the overview can be lost along the way, only brought temporarily back into focus in the summary, this closing insight being also dependent on the pithiness of the writing.

Outside these three generalised categories there are the wild cards too, the books by ex- or serving leaders of the various militant groups. These are page-turning though seldom balanced.

Whatever the category the more any of these books is condemned by both India and Pakistan the more likely they are to be a realistic study of the reality of the situation in, and on either side of, Kashmir.

There is no question of Vernon Hewitt’s qualification as a member of the third category. Hewitt has already written several books on the region to which he frequently refers in Towards the Future? But why the question mark? There is no direction except forward, whether it be through violence or attempts at more peaceful solutions.

This is Hewitt’s fourth book on the South Asia, and more specifically his second on the political and cultural identity and struggle in Jammu and Kashmir. Rather than being a new book it is a fairly extensively revised version of Reclaiming the Past? (Another question mark) The Search for the Political and Cultural Unity in Contemporary Kashmir published in 1995 by Portland Books. Hewitt was felt by some to have been too openly pro-India in his coverage of the situation in the first edition, something that always makes the falcons swoop on the literary rabbit.

Much of this has been redressed in the newer edition, though Hewitt still makes it clear that he feels that Pakistan has played a consistently dark political game, using Kashmir as its bargaining chip to suit itself primarily in its search