c.l.gadoo

                                 

                                   CHAPTER II

             UNTOLD STORY OF KASHMIRI PANDITS  

                            DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN

            The mass massacre of Hindus and the Sikhs in the territories of the State occupied by Pakistan in 1947, the uncertainly which followed the exclusion of the State from the Indian constitutional organisation, the dismissal of the first Interim Government, the virulent secessionist struggle led by the Plebisicite Front that followed, and the induction of thousands of armed infiltrators into Kashmir to 1ead a Muslim rebellion against India, were events which went unheeded. The real import of these events was deliberately ignored. Even after widespread militant violence struck Kashmir in 1989, and thousands of innocent people were killed in cold blood along with hundreds of Indian security personnel and the whole community of the Hindus in Kashmir was driven out of the valley, the disinformation campaign to cloud the real dangers the terrorist violence posed to the nation continued to dominate the flow of information about Kashmir. Indeed, efforts still continue to be made to sidetrack the basic problems of terrorism,

secessionism and the role of militarised Muslim fundamentalist forces in the whole bloody drama enacted in the State and divert the attention of the Indian people to trival concerns, which have no bearing on the developments there. The disinformation campaign, has been aimed to confuse the Indian public opinion about dangerous import of the militarisation of Muslim separatism in Kashmir and its implications for the unity of the whole country.

(WHITE PAPER ON KASHMIR, Drafted by Dr. M.K.Teng & C.L.Gadoo)

KASHMIRI HINDUS AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY

                  The plight of the community becomes an issue of national concern. If Kashmiri Hindus represent the values of the Indian nation, then the state bears a responsibility to protect their lives and properties in the Valley, to provide support for them in exile, and to facilitate their return home. The state’s failure to fulfill this responsibility constitutes an act of heartless neglect, deliberate indifference,

and even “inexplicable and ignoble conspiracy.” This moral failure is a betrayal of the nation and its people…..     (International Journal of Hindu Studies by Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Ohio University, Athens)                                

                                                                              

   

KASHMIRI HINDUS MAIN OBSTRUCTION IN ISLAMIZATION

         Kashmiri Hindus are represented as a small and innocuous community whose very presence in Kashmir Valley obstructs the movement of fundamentalist Islam. This representation suggests that the militants have directed their violence against the Kashmiri Hindus because the Kashmiri Hindus represent the secular values of the Indian nation. “Pakistani rulers realize that as long as Kashmiri Hindus even though miniscule in size stay in Kashmir, their dream of Islamization of Kashmir will remain unrealized,” one article states. “A Kashmir without Hindus, whatever their numbers, would be a Theocracy ripe for the Fundamentalists to establish their command post for further forays into the very heart of India” (O. Trisal 1991). The conflict in Kashmir thus emerges as the inevitable culmination of the clash between Hindus and Muslims, India and Pakistan, and secularism and fundamentalism in South Asia, with Kashmiri Hindus as its victims.  (International Journal of Hindu Studies by Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Ohio University, Athens)

INTERACTION WITH MEDIA, JURISTS, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVITS           AND EMINEN PERSONALITIES ON KASHMIR  

  

                  

          KOSHUR SAMACHAR March 1991, REPORTS 

     

KOSHUR SAMACHAR Sept. 1991, REPORTS                                             

                                                        

       

   

                   

                   

                                PANUN KASHMIR REPORTS   

                 Right from 1947, the Islamic forces in the Valley have been mustering support from within and outside this country for creation of NIZAM-E-MUSTAFA in the Valley of Kashmir. The Kashmiri Pandit who was the only remanant of Indianness in the Valley, therefore, was the only resistance in the way of Islamic Jehad. That is why his being hounded out from the land of his ancestors became imperative in the design of the secessionists.

              To see the problem in its entirety one needs to look into the figures of the Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir which tell a tale of their own.The total area of the state including the area under POK, area under the illegal occupation of China in Ladakh and area illegally handed over to China by Pakistan, is 2,22,236 Sq. Kms. The area under the illegal occupation of Pakistan & China adds up to 1,20,849 Sq. Kms. The net area left over works at 1,01,387 Sq. Kms. Population wise Kashmir division is left with a slight edge over the other two divisions of Jammu & Ladakh In fact, the population of Kashmir division works at 31,34,904 while the population of Jammu division is 27,18,113 & that of Leh & Kargil put together is 1,34,721. The population of Kashmir division comes to 52.35% of the total population of the state. The percentage of Jammu division & that of Ladakh division work at 45.39 and 2.24 respectively. It is a misnomer to say that Kashmiri Pandit has been hounded out from his native land today only; in fact, ever since Independence and even centuries before that he has been suffering persecution at the hands of the majority community and their fundamentalist leadership.     

                

            

                               IMPORTANCE OF HOMELAND        

          “Today, the Hindus of Kashmir are a displaced people, torn from their social and cultural moorings, scattered in a state of diaspora, which threatens them with the loss of their identity. Nearly half the people of the community are living at subsistence level in refugee camps in various parts of the country.

          Ever since the commencement of their exile, the Hindus of Kashmir have been waiting to return to the land of their birth, reiterating their resolve from time to time to go back to their homes and hearths. The Hindus were driven out of their homes by a religious war which brought them death and attacked their faith. The political class of India is yet to accept that the delegitimisation of the religious war is a precedent condition for the reversal of their genocide.

          The Hindus have as sacrosanct a territorial right in Kashmir as their Muslim compatriots. The claim made by Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir State on the basis of the Muslim-majority composition and the claim made by Muslim separatist flanks inside the State for a separate freedom, do not in any respect prejudice the territorial right that Hindus claim in Kashmir.” (Dr. M.K. Teng. Nov. 2011)

            “A call for the homeland is a reinforcement to the Indian claim to Kashmir which has been the crown of India ever since the Vedic times and the cradle of civilization of which the Kashmiri Pandits are true heirs, defenders and inheritors. A call for a homeland is a cry for survival among the loyal Indian citizens from Kashmir. The Pandits have become a refugee in their own country where they got a shabby treatment worse than what India has given to the refugees from Tibet, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan.” (Koul A J, 2005: 52).

   Smt. Nancy Koul, Daughters of Vitasta and Sh. Vijay Tickoo, Panun Kashmir