A H O U S E O N A H I L L

well as posters, photographs and propaganda material. Much of this material

is now part of the collection of Indiana University at Bloomington, whose
staff has rescued these documents from the near-hopeless condition in which
I found them. In addition to this material, my work as a journalist gave me
considerable access to participants in the conflict. Where possible, I have cite
d
specific documents and sources. I have not, however, referred to conversations
with sources who I cannot name, for I believe that unverifiable citations serve
no purpose.
It is worth acknowledging, at this stage, the fairly obvious limitations of my
sources: to underline the fact that I have only succeeded in peeking through the
window into the secrets that might be contained in the house on the hill. First,
neither India nor Pakistan declassify intelligence-related documentation; neithe
r,
indeed, have a legislative mechanism that would enable them to do so. What I
have obtained was made available by sources I had access to as a journalist. It
is entirely possible, even likely, that new material could emerge in the future
that would challenge all or significant proportions of my conclusions or, at the
very least, my emphasis. One reason that I find the documents I have used to
be credible is because their authors never intended for them to be made public.
Nonetheless, like all official and non-official documentation, they do recount
history from particular points of view. Many key individuals, who I would have
liked to have spoken with had passed away before my work even began, including
Surendra Nath himself. Many others in the covert world, both officials and their
adversaries, were unwilling to talk. I had no access, most importantly, to the
many Pakistani nationals whose stories, should they tell them, may lead to a
reassessment of many of my conclusions.
If this book nudges some of the many individuals who authored the events I
describe to reveal their stories, or to the official disclosure of greater amoun
ts
of archival material from the covert services of India and Pakistan, I believe t
he
effort that has gone into writing it would be worthwhile.
Jihad and terrorism
In the course of my book, the terms jihad and terrorism shall appear with
some frequency. Writing in 2005, at a time when the United States of America s
campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have led both of these terms to be deployed
as polemical abuse, my decision to utilize them requires some explanation. It
is not my purpose here to attempt a scholarly discussion of the meanings of
these words; that is not a project I, a journalist rather than a social scientis
t, am
competent to engage in. My objective is, rather, to make explicit the position
from which I see them, and the meaning I vest in them.
Of these two terms, the use of jihad is perhaps easier to address. I have
chosen to describe the groups who have waged the long war in Jammu and
Kashmir as jihadist principally because they themselves defined their project
in this fashion. It is not, however, intended as a judgement on the legitimacy
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