Author: An appeal by Panun Kashmir
Publication: Bharatiya Pragna
Date: August 2002
This is an appeal by the intellectuals
of a small yet distinct ethno-religious community, the Kashmiri Pandits
(Hindus) who have a history of more than five thousand years of a rich
cultural tradition and a unique religious philosophy of the universality
of man, peace and amity amongst peoples. Down the ages, this aboriginal
community of the valley of Kashmir has readily opened itself to foreigners
of all faiths, creeds and professions who came as travellers and settlers.
However, it has repeatedly been the tragic victim of religious persecution,
forcible conversion, violence and brutal massacre at the hands of invading
Muslim zealots and religious fanatics leading to repeated exodus of the
community, rendering it a minority in its own land.
This appeal gives a brief outline
of the barbarities that the community faced at the hands of the despotic
Muslim rulers since the heydays of Islamic fundamentalism, as it made inroads
into Kashmir after the 13th century. It traces the present escalation of
human rights violations amounting to genocide of this community to a cruel
and criminal conspiracy by the fanatical and fundamentalist forces which
gained ascendancy and got fresh impetus during the last four decades. It
also provides a bird's eye-view of the sprouting of dormant forces of Islamic
Fundamentalism during these years in the religious schools that mushroomed
in the valley and became nurseries for the growth of religious hatred,
militancy and terrorism. This indoctrination prompted and incited young
cadres to cross over to Pakistan and Pakistan-held Kashmir so as to receive
arms training and carry out the diabolical plan for the muslimization of
Kashmir as a prelude to its, secession from secular democratic India. The,
hounding out of more than three hundred thousand Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus)
from the valley from 1989 onwards was the first phase of this sinister
operation.
This appeal brings out in vivid
detail persecution of the minority community followed by threats, abductions,
extortions, tortures and killing by brutal means of its members from all
walks of life which led to exodus. A virulent disinformation campaign was
started before the mass exodus against this community and followed up with
fanatical zeal, after the exodus, in order to secure total ruination of
the community. The present plight of the community, once given to academic,
philosophical and spiritual pursuits, and now rootless and without identity,
is given in some detail. Over one thousand members of the community have
been killed by the terrorists and the thousands are dying in the miserable
camps for want of basic amenities, shelter, medicare and family support;
and thousands of its youth are getting scattered in search of livelihood.
It is feared that at the present rate of dispersal the community is disintegrating
beyond redemption and facing total extinction.
This appeal invoked the conscience
and compassion of the civilized world to grasp the grim tragedy facing
the Kashmiri Pandit community and to stand up and speak for it and help
if regain its lost status and get rehabilitated once again, with honor
and dignity in its own, homeland.
One of many refugee camps at Jammu.
Appeal
The armed subversion by Muslim fundamentalist/terrorist
youth to destroy the pluralistic, secular sociopolitical character of Kashmir
valley and reduce it to a reactionary, monolithic, theocratic one, has
entered its seventh year of operation. The grand design of this separatist
insurgency is aimed at snapping all historical, economic, cultural, and
political links of Kashmir valley with India and annexing it with Pakistan
which is encouraging it overtly and covertly and lending moral, financial,
political, diplomatic and military support. The first objective of this
diabolical plan i.e. hounding out the Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) ethnic minority
from the Kashmir valley is being pursued with fanatic zeal.
Prime Targets
The Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) in
the valley of Kashmir, irrespective of their age, sex, position status
or situation became the prime target of the terrorists' onslaught. They
were warned and threatened, individually and collectively, through word
of mouth, through insinuation and innuendo, through posters and press and
over loud speakers installed in thousands of mosques all over the valley.
Fear loomed large and the terrorist shadow stalked educational markets
and other public places wherever the Kashmiri Pandits had a representation,
however small. They were identified, and denounced; hit lists were exhibited
on electric poles, office doors and entries to numerous institutions; and
the public at large was exhorted to watch them and hound them out. They
were followed and kidnapped from their homes and places of work and interrogated
and tortured. A spree of killings of the intellectuals of the community
started. This was followed by indiscriminate gunning down, hanging, dismembering,
tying with grenades and blasting into pieces, skinning, burning and sawing
alive the members of this ethnic minority of all walks of life. Many of
the victims after being butchered were thrown into streets as exhibits
for everybody to get terrorised. The bereaved were not permitted to mourn
the dead and perform the last rites. Those who dared to attend the funeral
were earmarked for reprisals. Molestation and rape was the order of the
day.
The gamut of the terrorists' depredations
puts the notorious programs in shade and leaves nobody in doubt about the
design of the terrorists to exterminate Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) who started
fleeing temporarily out of the valley to seek shelter in the Jammu province
of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, in Delhi and in other towns of India
during the months of January-March 1990. A large number preferred to stay
behind, partly hopeful of a let up in the persecution and the frantic killings
and partly on account of the reassurances by their friends, neighbours
and colleagues of the Muslim majority community. However, indiscriminate
murders gained momentum as also the tauntings, ridicule, accusations, denigrations
and warnings issued to the Pandits (Hindus). Those who dared to return
to the valley even after a brief absence were frisked and taken for questioning
and accused of having spied against the terrorists and of having received
arms training to counter the terrorism. They were followed like a shadow
or given a time limit of a few hours or a day to quit the Valley.
Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits.
Intimidatory Warnings
Not content with the tempo of exodus
of the ethnic minority community, the Muslim religious zealots pressed
into service the local daily newspapers and started periodic write ups
in a vituperative and malicious propaganda offensive against the Kashmiri
Hindus, culminating in repeated warnings and final ultimatum through the
pages of "Daily Alsafa" on 14th April, 1990 giving the community two days
to leave the valley or face retribution and death. The good Samaritans
of the Muslim majority community who had offered help, solace and protection
to the Kashmiri Pandits were also threatened, coerced and subdued to fall
in line with the fundamentalist designs and they, therefore, advised the
Kashmiri Pandits to leave the valley for a 'temporary period' till normalcy
returned to the valley. Both gentle and well meaning persuasion was adopted
side by side with covert and overt threats to recalcitrant Hindus forcing
them into exodus. Meanwhile unbridled violence and brutal murders went
on. More than one thousand Hindus have been killed, hundreds are missing,
possibly dead or kept hostage. Women have been held captive in remote hideouts
of the terrorists to satisfy their lust. An unspecified number of those
Hindus who are still living in the valley in mortal terror are victims
af extortion, religious persecution and kidnappings.
Canards Galore
This communal carnage and forced
exodus was followed up with a virulent campaign of vilification and disinformation
against the Kashmiri Hindu community with the twin objective of covering
up the true communal-fundamentalistic character of the so-called freedom
struggle of the terrorists and securing total ruination and annihilation
of this ethno-religious minority. This propaganda offensive was backed
up by canards floated across the length and breadth of the country that:
i) the Kashmiri Pandits migrated
out of the valley because they were touted. By Mr. Jagmohan, the then Governor
of Jammu and 'Kashmir, who promised them relief, ration and land. That
those who were gunned down, hanged or tortured were informers and enemies
of the "freedom struggle". This canard took such deep roots inside and
outside the valley that the poorly informed public even of cosmopolitan
cities like Delhi and Bombay who go by the common knowledge that in India
Hindus are in majority and by corollary the majority in Kashmir valley
are Hindus, failed to understand why Kashmiri Hindus Hindus had to flee
their homes and hearths. Only the committed demographers in the country
realise that Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) are a minority in the Muslim majority
Kashmir valley of a Hindu majority India.
ii) the Kashmiri Pandits are over-represented
in Central and State Government Services and private Jobs and that this
was a major source of irritation with the disenchanted Muslim youth, who
out of frustration took to arms to fight for their justful rights. This
canard has been supplemented and reinforced by distorted statistics and
the thread has been skillfully taken over by some self-proclaimed humanists
and over-zealous politicians of the country who want to prove more secular
than their credentials allow. Infact they found it a useful tool to convince
themselves and the world that terrorism in Kashmir was not an armed subversion
aimed at the secession of the State from the union of India but an act
of frustration of a handful of "disgruntled and misguided youth". This
ill conceived notion though countered by the exiled Kashmiri Pandits, fell
on deaf ears and did not get the attention of the media which were only
vying with each other to score points for the terrorists and their cause.
It did not take long for the communal, fundamentalistic and subversive
character of terrorism to emerge in its true colour.
iii) the Kashmiri Hindus because
of their merit, cunning and influence would become usurpers and take over
educational institutions, professional colleges, trade, industry. Government
jobs etc. in Jammu, Delhi and other places where they have taken refuge.
This disinformation caused tremendous confusion, panic, over-reaction and
even hostility in the host towns which were ill equipped to accommodate
such a sizeable- influx of refugees. especially in Jammu where seventeen
camps have been set up in the suburban dingy areas, Stiff resistance was
put up even for admission to the exiled students in various educational
institutions; jobs were denied to the youth and all doors were closed for
the rehabilitation of professional and non professional personnel of the
community. A community which prided itself in its academic excellence and
high professionalism is idling and rotting, for the last six years.
While torture, persecution and killing
were going full steam side by side with the canards floated against the
fleeing community, the marauding terrorists started loot, plunder and arson
of the properties and estates left behind by Hindus. They desecrated and
destroyed their temples, confiscated their stores and stocks, stole their
kind, harvested their crops and encroached upon and annexed their lands.
Till date more than three thousand Hindu houses have been blasted or razed
to ground. The remaining have been looted, vandalized or occupied.
Terrorists' propaganda.
Colossal Tragedy
Within months of the exodus of Kashmiri
Pandits the Government, whether out of misplaced optimism to placate and;
Appease the terrorists or with deliberate intent, started recruiting and
promoting Muslims to the posts and positions vacated by the Kashmiri Pandits.
This has boosted the sinister designs of the terrorists to discourage and
thwart the minority Kashmiri Pandit community to return to the valley for
it has neither the jobs for livelihood nor the houses for shelter left
behind.
So a tragedy which began with religions
persecution and genocide, climaxing with the exodus of the community, has
now attained colossal dimensions. This ethno-religious minority is presently
going through a grin battle for survival and facing the torment of a bleak
and uncertain future. Having been forced to live under tom and tattered
tents, in ramshackle camps or in one room tenements and stables vacated
by cows and buffaloes and rented at exorbitant prices, they are subject
to the vagaries of a harsh climate, a hostile populace and an indifferent
and callous administration. They have to go through a tortuous procedure
to establish their credentials as exiles to be entitled to a meager relief
and measly rations for which they have to queue up for long hours and face
untold miseries and humiliation to satisfy the whims and moods of relief
commissioners and their minions. They have become the victims of bureaucratic
bungling and corruption. They are pawns in .he hands of political parties
and power brokers. They are being pushed around and harassed for demanding
their justful rights; and kicked, cane-charged and arrested for raising
their voice against a deaf administration. Thus they have been reduced
to abject poverty and a state of utter helplessness and apathy. Their greatest
tragedy is that they have become exiles in their own land, aliens in their
own country which they inhabited for thousands of years.
The community is now caught in a
piquant and unsavory situation. as the State and the Central Governments
are treating it as expendable. The authorities are hushing up the genocide,
the exodus and the present plight of the Kashmiri Pandit community which
have resulted as much out of the total abdication of their authority and
responsibility, as out of the religious crusade of the terrorists. Nor
is the international community aware of the refugee status of this community
as countries around the world recognize refugees only when they are forced
to flee into another country.
Naked Violation
The last two years (Editor's note:
currently ten years as this appeal is eight years old) have witnessed a
perpetuation of human rights' violation against this community which had
to leave the valley helter-skelter and got dispersed far and wide-in different
parts of the country. Most of the nearly three hundred thousand refugees
came out with clothes barely enough to cover their bodies. They came out
with the illusion of a return to their homes and hearths in the near future.
Families got split and scattered in the scramble for shelter and livelihood.
Parents got separated from children, spouses from their partners, brothers
from sisters. They are still on the move from one place to another like
wandering nomads looking for help and succour.
As a result of this dispersal the
social fabric of the community is torn asunder, the economic structure
has collapsed, material possessions have vanished and the political base
has been overturned. The old and infirm of the community have met a premature
end, dying for want of health and family support. A large number of youth
suffered mortal breakdown. Depression, panic attacks, phobias, nightmares
and insomnia have seized all age groups. Unnatural deaths in the form of
sunstroke, snake and scorpion bites, hydrophobia and accidents have taken
a big toll. The terror, a feeling of siege, a sense of rootlessness and
loss of identity, the trauma of forced migration, exposure to an alien
and hostile environment, problem of acclimatization, poor housing, insanitary
conditions lack of basic amenities like drinking water, scarce medicare,
malnutrition and idleness compounded by hurt and humiliation have orchestrated
to result in physical, mental and psycho logical trauma of unimaginable
magnitude. The community has reached the end of the tether and its reserves
of patience and hopes have dried up. The spectre of disease, death and
extinction are haunting the community. It seems unlikely that the community
will ever be able to organise itself again into a cohesive social and political
entity which is vital for its survival and resurgence. Far from regaining
its pristine glory, it is hard pressed to keep body, mind and soul together.
It is indeed deplorable that some
human rights' organisations reporting on the Kashmiri situation have conveniently
ignored the gross human rights violations against Kashmiri Pandits. Their
silence on the genocide of this community and the terrible plight facing
the community after the exodus, is intriguing and exasperating and puts
the credibility of these organisations into shade. The one-sided, partisan
and extremely prejudicial views of certain agencies that have chosen to
black-out the brutalities and murderous killings of Kashmiri Pandit minority
in their reports.
