THE UNTOLD STORY OF KASHMIRI PANDITS

                             THE UNTOLD STORY OF KASHMIRI PANDITS

Kashmir—a Rishi Bhoomi-- has had distinguished past history and rich culture that has been established in the chronicles of great ancient historian-poet Kalhana who wrote “Rajatarangni” (River of Kings) in 12th century. It is most important extant history of Kashmir written in Sanskrit

7,844 verses in 1148AD and completed in 1150AD, based on extensive research. Pandit Kalhana has built dynastic lists of 54 reigns, covering an aggregate period of 3050 years. He has mentioned social, economical, political and religious conditions of the period .The Nilmata Purana gives ‘Kasmira’ as the name of the valley, which is worldwide known as ‘Kashmir’ and to locals ’Kashir’ even today. Jammu and Kashmir state is situated in north of India 72-30’E longitude and 32-37degree N latitude approximately. The total area of the state is 2,22,236sq.kms., 78,114sq.kms.are under occupation of Pakistan, 5,180.km. Pakistan gifted to China and 37,555 sq. kms. are under occupation of China. Kashmiri Pandits have a rich cultural heritage. They possessed numerous religious endowments and shrines. Many Hindu monarchs built numerous elegant temples, some of these still exist. There are many famous centers of religious pilgrimage like the holy Amarnath, the Maharagnya shrine, the Sun temple at Martand, Maa Sharika temple on the Hari Parbat hillock and the high Gangabal lake as sacred as the Ganga. The Shiv- Shakti cult, the Maahayana Buddhism and even the Kamasutra originated from Kashmir. There is lot of literature on religion, history, philosophy and lovelore on Kashmir available all over the world. As much as 35 percent of Sanskrit literature came from Kashmir. The Shiva philosophy got new dimensions in the folklore. In the Lalla Vakh of saint Lalleshwari(1335-1376), we can perceive Kashmir Shaivism in depth which interprets Bhakti as a quest for knowledge. History has it that Buddhism, Vaisnavism and Shaivism flourished side by side in Kashmir. Emperor Ashoka(2632BC)brought Buddhism to the valley. Three centuries later, Emperor Kanishka convened the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir at a place called Kundalvara which led to the founding of its Mahayana sect. Buddhist missionaries from Kashmir carried it to Central Asia and China. Lalitaditya Muktapida (701-737AD) was the greatest Hindu emperor Kashmir has ever produced. He built a number of new towns with temples of great archaelogical importance. “There was not a township, no village, no river, no island where this king did not lay down a sacred foundation.” Says Kalhana. Ever since Islam made inroads into Kashmir, the Hindu influence was forced to wane. Islam spread quickly because there was large-scale persecution of Hindus and their forcible conversion during the Muslim rule. During the reign of Sultan Sikander (1389-1413), nicknamed ‘Butshikan’, only 11 Hindu families survived conversion, and first mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits to plains took place. He destroyed hundreds of temples and built mosques in their place and with their material. With the collapse of the Mughal empire in 1752, Kashmir was taken over by the Afghans. This was perhaps the worst period in the annals of Kashmir unheard of in human history. Maharaja Ranjit Singh conquered Kashmir from Afghan’s in 1819. Within four months of Sikh rule census was conducted in Kashmir. The population stood at 6 Lakhs and out of that only 28,000 were Kashmiri Pandits ! Sikhs ruled Kashmir till 1846.The Dogras ruled the state from 1846 to 1947 till India got independence from the British rule. The last Dogra ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, acceded the state to the Indian Union. Soon after, tribals and regulars from Pakistan invaded the state but the Indian security forces repulsed the attack and pushed the invaders out. In January 1949, a ceasefire agreement was concluded between India and Pakistan with one-third of the state territories still remaining under the illegal occupation of Pakistan. India accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.

The creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a landmark in the struggle for the unification of the Muslim Ummah. Ever since Pakistan was created, it has followed a sustained policy of thrust for expansion towards the east, as a major strategy to spread across Jammu & Kashmir and take the Muslim power to the predominantly Muslim regions of Central Asia, Mongolia and Sinkiang. The terrorist violence in the state is the continuation of the consolidation of the pan-Islamic unity of which the creation of Pakistan was a part. Pakistan claims the state on the basis of the Muslim majority of its population. While terrorism rages in Kashmir, it demands that India be divided again to carry the partition to its logical conclusion by ceding the state to Pakistan.

India has thus been Pakistan’s main target and has been turned by it into its killing field. Apart from three wars and the continuing proxy war raging in the state, we have been witnessing a bomb blast engineered by Pakistani agents in one part of the country or the other virtually every day. Young Muslims, the world over are recruited, brainwashed, trained in insurgency, terrorist strategy and tactics. ’Jehad’, becomes their battle cry. Kashmiri Pandits have lived in the last five decades of Indian freedom and are perhaps the only witnesses of what has been wrought in the state by Muslims secessionist forces and the successive state governments, with the passive acquiescence of the Government of India. Kashmiri Pandits , in the interest of nation and in the interest of history, accept lies and falsehoods as the truth, for that may not only harm the community but also the country and earn us the calumny of having failed in our duty unto our country. Perhaps,more harm has been done to us, by our inability to tell the truth of what has been happening in Kashmir and to our community. There must be no misunderstanding about the fact that the Muslim secessionist forces have been fighting a war against the Pandits in Kashmir. The Hindu community which has stubbornly supported India in Jammu & Kashmir and in fact has the only support base of India in the state, naturally has always been considered by Muslim secessionist forces, as their main enemy in the state. The Pandits have been treated as hostages in Kashmir and have always paid heavily not only for their patriotism but for their commitment to their own faith.

Kashmiri Pandits are historically and traditionally a community of scholars, intellectuals, efficient professionals, administrative workforce and have passion for education,--a community which is almost cent percent educated in varied disciplines. It was thus an unbearable oppression for them when the state authorities worked assiduously and strictly towards restricting their admissions to higher educational courses and institutions. Simultaneously, their opportunities to enter state government employment were slashed and their landed properties were taken over under cover of laws which were unconstitutional, unfair and unequal. State government changed the names of 684 villages, which had Hindu names by a government order No. REV/S/340 of 1981 dated 13-10-1981.The Muslimisation of the various political and economic processes had began earlier and the minorities in Kashmir were at the receiving end.

A lot of crap is being peddled out about Kashmiri Pandits having a dominant position in Kashmir whereas facts speak a different story. The basic fact is that the Muslims are ruling elite in Kashmir. They dominate the entire economic organization and enjoy communal precedence in social forums. Islam is virtually the official religion of the state. They have three-fourth share in legislative bodies, administrative organizations and all the local government institutions. In the Kashmir province, Hindus have no elected representation in local bodies. They constitute less than 5 percent of the administrative services of the state and have less than 1percent share in higher cadres of the state administration. Muslim monopolize 94 percent 0f the state services in Kashmir. More than 90 percent of the admissions to professional, technical and other educational institutions are reserved for Muslims in one form or the other. In financial sphere, the Muslims own 96 percent of agricultural lands, orchards and other urban landed estates. They enjoy monopoly over the entire industrial organizations, trade and commerce, financial resources and exports from the province of Kashmir. The pressure tactics and persecution that the Pandits faced in Kashmir drove almost half their number out of their homes during the four decades of the Indian independence in search of their livelihood. The rest of them were flushed out in 1990, when Islamic terrorist struck the valley and a large number of minority community members were murdered in cold blood, tortured, raped, temples desecrated, their property looted and burnt. .

The rumblings of the storm which engulfed Hindus were heard long before it swept the valley. Right from the beginning of 1989, the Hindus, other than the Pandits in Kashmir, professionally a trading community, were served threats to quit Kashmir because they were Indian Hindus and had acquired interests which impinged upon the rights of Muslims in the valley. The ultimate and devastating blow came on January 19, 1990, late in the night, when hundreds thousands of Muslims came out in streets and the loudspeakers fitted on the mosques started blaring and yelling ‘Kashmiri Pandits, leave Kashmir, without your womenfolk, or else face death!’ Then hell was let loose. Hundreds of innocent Kashmiri Pandits –men, women and children—were killed .Among those picked for killing were the people from all sections of Hindu society ---teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, political activists, media persons, intellectuals and men of small means. The worst victims were women. Torture deaths were resorted. Inhuman practices like strangulation by using steel wires, public hanging, impaling, branding with hot iron rods, torching alive, lynching, gorging of eyes before assassination, slicing, dismemberment of limbs, drowning, dragging to death, draining of blood and slaughter in the open were adopted. During 1989-90 terrorist killings were accompanied by rape, torture and atrocities unheard of in the annals of human history. 24,000 residential houses and 14,430 business houses were destroyed. About 12,500 orchards of Hindus were grabbed by Muslims. The widespread killings, assault on women, the fear of conversions and the shocking experience of being forced to join the militancy campaign against India were main reasons that drove out Hindus from Kashmir. . The traumatic experiences of Kashmiri Pandits were so acute that they found themselves left along to their fate, face to face with death and dishonour. The total breakdown of the law and order machinery spread a sense of insecurity, which was so severe that the most of the Pandits, more than 400,000, fled the valley and migrated to Jammu and Delhi in the dark hours of the night without any belongings. There by the ethnic cleansing of the Pandits was completed. KASHMIRI PANDITS BECAME REFUGEES IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY ! In Jammu, where refugees poured in thousands, the state government failed to rise to the occasion and provide temporary shelter and relief to the hundreds of thousands of Pandits sprawling the streets of the temple city. Were it not for the yeoman’s service of the voluntary Hindu organizations combined with voluntary work force of displaced community, which immediately swung into action to organize relief for the refugees, hunger and disease would have taken a heavy toll of the grief-stricken people, who had suddenly been thrown into wilderness. All state Kashmiri Pandit conference, Srinagar, Kashmiri Pandit Saba, Jammu and many other Kashmiri Pandit organizations swung into action. No help came from any other quarter. The silence of death fell on the liberals, the protagonists of secularism, the radicals and the rest. Gita Bhawan, a temple complex situated in the heart of city, was converted into a reception-cum-transit camp, where the refugees fleeing from Kashmir disembarked. Kashmiri Pandit saba, Jammu also opened their office complex at Ambphalla to receive the refugee influx.

In Delhi, the other main place of refuge, the Kashmiri Samiti, Delhi, took up the work of relief and rehabilitation. A transit camp was set up at Kashmir Bhawan (headquarters of the Samiti) itself for the displaced persons who were later shifted to 14 other camps in Delhi. A band of selfless and dedicated workers of the Samiti worked day in and day out for the displaced brethren. Koshur Samachar—the monthly tri-lingual mouthpiece of Samiti woke up for its new role and responsibility. It exposed the dis-information compaign carried against Kashmiri Pandits and half-truths about happenings in Kashmir. A true and patriotic picture was given out to Nation. The Samiti organized seminars, demonstrations, public rallies and raised their voice against human rights violations, genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits. Apart from ‘Teh-Bazari’ and seeking employment for educated un-employed teachers Samiti played an extremely pivotal role in getting admission in technical and non-technical institutions for the wards of displaced community.

The exodus of the Hindus from Kashmir was followed by wide-spread depredation of their places of worship. The minister of state for home, government of India, stated in Lok Sabha on 12th March 1993 that 28 temples and Hindu shrines were demolished and desecrated in Kashmir during the year 1989 to1991.Actual number of the temples demolished and damaged was much higher. 68 temples and Hindu shrines located in remote villages were burnt, damaged and demolished, about which reports were never collected by state government. In the aftermath of the demolition of Babri structure, erupted into widespread attack on the Hindu temples and places of worship. As many as 97 temples were burnt or damaged in the incidents of terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir from 1992 till July (1995) this year and 1747 civilians lost their lives in the last 19 months, the Lok Sabha was informed on August, 9, 1995. On the same day the minister of state in the prime minister’s office Mr. Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi said in a written reply,’ 31 temples were damaged only this year (1995) and added that security arrangements have been made in vulnerable areas including regular patrolling by security forces for the protection against possible attacks by militants.’ The destruction of the temples and religious institutions was evidently aimed to destroy the Hindu religious traditions and culture, thereby to pave the way for the total Islamisation of Kashmir. In1947 the population of the Kashmiri Pandits was 15 percent in the valley, it came down to 5 percent in 1981 and was reduced to mere 0.1 percent in 1991after forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits by terrorist organizations. The census of 2001 shows Kashmiri Hindus totaling 1,00, 962. Male 90,870 and female 10,020 ! Another glaring example is that it shows 240,003 vacant census houses in the state. This is a factual position that most of the damaged vacant census houses belong to Kashmiri Pandits. This fact was not reported anywhere else in the country. There has been a continuous disinformation campaign about terrorist violence in Kashmir that the Muslims were subjected to economic deprivations which resulted in wide spread poverty among them. Kashmiri youth felt disgruntled and sick. According to their leadership, this was basis of their gun culture. If this were the whole truth, why did not the youth other than the Muslims in Kashmir and the other two divisions namely Jammu and Ladakh take to guns like their counterpart in the valley. A close analysis of the facts would bear out that the valley enjoyed a more hectic economic development than did the other two divisions of Jammu and Ladakh. That is why different commissions, like Sikri Commission in 1979 and Gajender commission in 1967 had to be appointed to look into the lopsided development in Jammu and Ladakh regions.

The Jammu and Kashmir is a prosperous state which in terms of per capita income is placed third among the Indian states. Again, according to National Sample Survey, Kashmir has the lowest poverty ratio as compared to any state in India. Only 3.5 percent of Kashmir’s population was below poverty line in 1999-2000. The national average was as high as 26.1 percent. Maharashtra is the second richest state in India, but its poverty ratio is 25 percent where as Orrisa has highest poverty ratio at 47.2 percent! On an average Central Per Capita Assistance to a Kashmiri is 8 times more than any other fellow citizen in the country. The terrorist violence raging in Jammu and Kashmir is another ‘Direct Action’ that Pakistan and Muslim secessionists inside the state have launched to force a second partition on India. The campaign of terror spread in Jammu and Kashmir follows the same pattern which the ‘Direct Action’ followed in 1946; genocide of Hindus, their ethnic cleansing by forced exodus from the Muslim majority provinces of India and the destruction of their religious identity. Genocide of Kashmiri Pandits is violation of not only Human Rights but also its Constitutional Rights. In a report on Kashmir by Amnesty International released in December 1993,it said, ”Armed opposition groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been responsible for numerous and grave Human Rights abuses, including hostage taking, assassination of politicians and their families, deliberate killing of civilians including journalists, torture and rape….It urged all such groups to release all hostages and respect Human Rights and humanitarian standards.” The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in ruling on the 11th June,1999 stated that, “ The commission is constrained to observe that acts akin to genocide have occurred with respect to Kashmiri Pandits.’ UN Secretary General at the 60th session of the commission on Human Rights in Geneva on 7th April,2004 observed,” When civilians are deliberately targeted because they belong to a particular community, we are in the presence of potential, if not actual genocide.” It is a pity, that in-spite of repeated requests no enquiry commission has been constituted by state or central government so far to bring culprits to book who are responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits, nor the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has acted so far.

Kashmiri Pandits have suffered enough oppression, economic deprivation and religious persecution during last five decades in the state. The Muslimisation of the state ensured by Article 370 has ravaged them beyond repair. They lost their roots, spiritual philosophy, culture, ancient heritage, tradition, history and over all their identity. They lost every thing overnight. A person displaced under force and oppression is rightfully a claimant of adequate relief and compensation. All of us are aware that when huge chunks of population in a country get displaced to facilitate construction of a big dam or a development project, the people displaced are given substantial compensation and even much better conditions of life than they were having at the original place, that is exactly how earth-quake victims are being looked after. What have the Kashmiri Pandits got instead?

Kashmir problem for anyone in the world may be a political problem. For us, it is an ideological one. It is a clandestine struggle between the forces of liberty, democracy, freedom of conscience versus the forces of bigotry and thought control. We have to be with the forces of progress, new world, a world of scientific understanding and not to be part of blinding faith, intolerance, medieval darkness. Kashmir for us is a choice—a history of nearly 6000 years, which produced great poets, historians, litterateurs, sages and saints much before the Muslim rulers came on the scene. There is no option but save Kashmir and its great culture heritage from terrorism.

Of late, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and opening of different points on LOC for meeting point of divided families and relief supply after the devastating earth-quake, will bring the people living on either side of LOC closer. They in turn will access each other’s democratic freedoms, self-governance, land reforms and development of respective regions. It is unfortunate that people living on other side of LOC have not tasted much of these realties. Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, Chairman, United Kashmir People’s National Party and Secretary General, International Kashmir Alliance, while quoting the July,2004,reportof the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said, ” fundamental rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of association are often fringed. There is limited tolerance of divergent views. There are seven or eight political parties in Azad Kashmir but the State’s constitution and election laws debar those who do not subscribe to the so-called accession of Azad Kashmir to Pakistan, from participating in election. Handpicked nominees of the military regime in Islamabad are thrust upon the people as the head of the government, disregarding people’s wishes.” Comparatively, Indian side of Kashmir is much better off politically and economically. The only fear is that once people realize this fact, the terrorists will become panicky. Secondly, bus service is primarily aimed at uniting divided families on the either side of LOC. There is hardly any valley -based, Kashmiri speaking divided family. So the cross-border bon-homie may become cross-border terrorism.

The Indian people and the government of India have to realize the danger which is posed by Muslim communalism and the millitarisation of fundamentalists in the state. Even as the present spurt in terrorist violence, which comes as a severe rebuff to congress chief minister’s Kashmir policy and opening of boarders along LOC, is further pushing Jammu & Kashmir deep into chaos. Today again, leaders are refusing to learn anything from the past. Politicians recognize no limits to their greed to hold on to power and ensure votes at the next hustings even they fail miserably in their gimmicks.

The demand for ‘greater Autonomy’ after 30 years of the ‘Kashmir Accord’ between Late Smt. Indra Gandhi and Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on February 24, 1975 has once again brought into sharp focus the machination and double talk of National Conference. It is unfortunate the Peoples Democratic Party leaders have also raised this bogy. They have gone a step further by demanding Pre-1953 status and arguing that this will be ultimate Confidence Building Measure

(CBM) for the people (Muslims) of Kashmir. The Hindus and Buddhists of the state, who put together constitute about 55 percent of the population, expressed sharp disapproval of any compromise on the issue of autonomy. The Pandits of Kashmir, smouldering in exile, denounced the demand for the restoration of 1953 status, as a tactical manoeuvre to prepare the ground for the separation of the Kashmir valley and Muslim majority regions of the Jammu province from India for which the inspiration came from several western powers. The years that flowed ‘Kashmir Accord,’ the secessionist movement gathered greater strength. A whole generation of the Muslim youth was socialized to the Muslim quest for freedom from India and the unification of the state with Pakistan. The autonomy of the state, envisaged by ‘Article 370’ provided the political context, in which Muslim separatism was recognized as a legitimate expression of Muslim aspirations to freedom. Interestingly, the Muslim secessionist forces and terrorist organizations expressed subdued disapproval of the demand of ‘greater autonomy’ reiterating their claim for self-determination, expressing doubts about the ultimate advantage, the autonomy of the state would provide them.

The government of India should deal firmly with all religious and ideological separatism which have impeded the integration of the political culture of India. If Indian government does not, right now, reverse its policies of accepting religious separatism, as a gradient of its secular organization, it will not be after long, that it will have to face the prospect of a second partition. The cry for the second partition of India has already been raised in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmiri Pandits, therefore, demand that they must have a say in the determination of the future of the state and assert that no political settlement to which they are not party shall be acceptable to them. Article 370 must be abrogated. Full political, constitutional and other guarantees against any further injustices and oppression against them must be assured. Peace in Kashmir cannot be restored if they are left smouldering in their exile. The community in its exile, for last 16 years, is faced by problems of rehabilitation, unemployment, poverty and the crisis of their identity. Lastly, terrorist violence should be dealt firmly to prepare appropriate conditions for the return of Pandits to their ancestral home. Kashmiri Pandits despite of having suffered untold miseries, in the past, have maintained distinct community features. Kashmiri Pandit is a class-less society of Brahmans without any further caste and creed. A farmer, a trader, a teacher, a doctor, an advocate, an employee, everyone is of same class of Kashmiri Pandit. Perhaps this is the greatest strength of its survival!

Let us join our hands to improve quality of life of our community members. Let us co-ordinate and raise our voice and speak truth about Kashmir. Let us work together for economic and political rehabilitation of our community.



CHAMAN LAL GADOO