When Hindus and Sikhs of Mirpur sent a message to Nehru [via Mehr Chand Mahajan] that their town was surrounded and could not hold out long, Nehru told Mahajan to talk to Abdullah. When Mahajan told Nehru it was useless to talk to Abdullah, Nehru told him to `get lost'.
When Mahajan, despairing of getting any help from Nehru, went to Gandhi, Gandhi told him that the Indian army could not get to Mirpur as snow covered the road from Jammu to Mirpur. When informed that it didn't snow in Jammu-Mirpur region, Gandhi merely repeated his claim again.
The entire Indian leadership, including Patel, cuts an extremely sorry figure in the entire episode. It is a shameful episode, where no one comes out looking good. Most of the time, I get the feeling that Nehru and Patel were playing `good-cop, bad-cop'.
