But the defender of words against The Word -- the storyteller who argued, and indeed demonstrated, that truth is to be found by mangling history, by distorting it ever so surreptitiously -- has given us a rather bareboned, unambiguous chronology. From a swirling sea of stories, the prematurely grand old man of Indian literature has settled for an achingly symmetric narrative that misleads not by distorting history but by hushing it.

And if you are inclined to nitpick, Rushdie's passionate plea for self-determination "as the world's newest nuclear powers square off yet again", published in leading newspapers in western capitals, includes an uncharacteristically politically correct clarification: ``I have a particular interest in the Kashmir issue because I am morethan half Kashmiri myself, because I have loved the place all my life and because I have spent much of that life listening to successive Indian and Pakistani governments... mouthing the self-serving hypocrisies of power while ordinary Kashmiris suffered the consequences of their posturings.'' This interest established, it is but a matter of sentences before Rushdie presumes to voice what Kashmiris "would still say they feel, if they were free to speak their minds without fear".

But first Rushdie's history. "Back in 1947 the state's Hindu maharaja `opted' for India, and in spite of United Nations resolutions supporting the largely Muslim population's right to plebiscite, India's leaders have always rejected the idea, repeating over and over again that Kashmir is an `integral part' of India." (Note, not a mention of the context of the UN resolutions or of Pakistan's refusal to fulfill its obligation to vacate POK or of the subsequently rationalised Line of Control and its evolution into a de facto border.)Pakistan, on the other hand, he says, is dominated by the army which has a stake in huge defence spending and needs "a dangerous enemy to defend against". The conclusion: "The present-day growth of terrorism in Kashmir has roots in India's treatment of Kashmiris, but it has equally deep roots in Pakistan's interest in subversion."

Yes, an easy, watertight trifurcation -- India, Pakistan and paradisiacal albeit partitioned Kashmir -- serves Rushdie well. It conveniently glosses over the religious, ethnic and cultural plurality of Jammu (significantly, a word not once mentioned in this `Kashmir for Kashmiris' article) and Kashmir as well as its complex sociopolitical dynamics.

It also conveniently lends Rushdie's analysis a false symmetry, fudging the issue at hand. The current crisis is a fallout of a Pakistani intrusion in Kargil (again, a word and an event not once mentioned), whose people have been forced to flee their homes; it amounts to armed aggression on India's borders.

The infiltrators haveviolated the integrity of the Line of Control; while reclaiming its land, India is respecting that Line. There is no symmetry in this reality, there can be no equal apportioning of responsibility. More seriously, it conveniently ignores the context of the current conflict, that the escalation coincides with the Valley's most normal summer in a decade, that the intrusion is aimed at opening another front, at cutting off road links with Ladakh.

Therein lies the problem, what one says about Jammu and Kashmir says that much more about oneself. Its past and its present have been told in so many narratives, there may be truth in each lament, yet not the entire truth. In his most recent book, Rushdie most melodramatically bid goodbye to India. "India, fount of my imagination, source of my savagery, breaker of my heart," he wrote. "Goodbye." Is it a farewell that has cost him the ground beneath his feet?