Author: Francois Gautier
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 3, 2003
The massacre of six million Jews
by Hitler and the persecution they suffered all over the world in the last
15 centuries has been meticulously recorded after 1945 and has been enshrined
not only in history books, but also in Holocaust museums, the most famous
of these being the one in Washington DC. It has not been done with a spirit
of vengeance: Look at Israel and Germany today, they are in the best of
terms; yet, facts are facts and contemporary Germany has come to terms
with its terrible actions during Second World War.
Hindus too have suffered a terrible
Holocaust, probably without parallel in human history. Take the Hindu Kush,
for instance; probably, one of the biggest genocides in the history of
Hindus. There has practically been no serious research on the subject or
mention in history books. The Hindu Kush is a mountain system nearly 1,000
miles long and 200 miles wide, running north-east to south-west and dividing
the Amu Darya valley and the Indus valley. The Hindu Kush has over two
dozen summits of more than 23,000 feet and historically its passes, particularly
the Khyber, have been of great military significance, for they provide
access to the northern plains of India. Most foreign invaders have used
the Khyber Pass: Alexander the Great in 327 BC, Mahmud of Ghazni, in 1001
AD; Timur Lane in 1398 AD; and, Nadir Shah in 1739 AD.
Yet, in the first millennium before
Christ, two major Hindu kingdoms, those of Gandhaar (Kandahar) and Vaahic
Pradesh (Balkh of Bactria) had their borders extending far beyond the Hindu
Kush. The kingdom of Gandhaar, for instance, was established by Taksha,
the grandson of Bharat of Ayodhya, and its borders went from Takshashila
(Taxila) to Tashkent (corruption of Taksha Khand) in present day Uzbekistan.
In the later period, the Mahabharat speaks of Gandhaari as a princess of
Gandhaar and her brother, Shakuni, as a prince and later as Gandhaar's
ruler (the last Hindu Shahiya king of Kabul, Bhimapal, was killed in 1026
AD).
Then came, in 3rd century BC, Buddhist
emperor Kanishka, whose empire stretched from Mathura to the Aral Sea (beyond
the present day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Krygzystan) and under his influence
Buddhism flourished in Gandhaar. The two giant Buddha sandstones carved
into the cliffs of Bamian, which were destroyed by the Taliban, date from
the Kanishka period. In Persian, the word 'Kush' is derived from the verb
'Kushtar' - to slaughter or carnage. Encyclopaedia Americana says of Hindu
Kush: "The name means literally 'Kills the Hindu', a reminder of the days
when Hindu slaves from Indian subcontinent died in harsh Afghan mountains
while being transported to Moslem courts of Central Asia."
Encyclopaedia Britannica on its
part mentions "that the name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the
writings of Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, who said the name
meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers".
Unlike the Jewish holocaust, the exact toll of the Hindu genocide suggested
by the name Hindu Kush is not available. "However, writes Hindu Kush specialist
Srinandan Vyas, "the number is easily likely to be in millions."
A few known historical figures can
be used to justify this estimate. Encyclopaedia Britannica recalls that
in December 1398 AD, Timur Lane ordered the execution of at least 50,000
captives before the battle for Delhi; likewise, the number of captives
butchered by Timur Lane's army was about 100,000. Encyclopae-dia Britannica
again mentions that Mughal emperor Akbar ordered the massacre of about
30,000 captured Rajput Hindus on February 24, 1568 AD, after the battle
for Chitod, a number confirmed by Abul Fazl, Akbar's court historian. Afghan
historian Khondamir notes that during one of the many repeated invasions
on the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, which used to be part of the
Hindu Shahiya kingdoms, "1,500,000 residents perished". "Thus," writes
Vyas, "it is evident that the mountain range was named as Hindu Kush as
a reminder to the future Hindu generations of the slaughter and slavery
of Hindus during the Muslim conquests."
Since some of the Muslim conquerors
took Indian plainsmen as slaves, a question arises: Whatever happened to
this slave population? The startling answer comes from The New York Times
(May-June 1993). The Gypsies, who used to be wandering people in Central
Asia and Europe since around the 12th century, have been persecuted in
almost every country (the Nazis killed 300,000 gypsies in gas chambers).
Until now their country of origin could not be identified, as their language
has very little in common with the other European languages. Recent studies,
however, show that their language is similar to Punjabi and to a lesser
degree, Sanskrit. Thus the Gypsies probably originated from the greater
Punjab. The time-frame of Gypsy wanderings also coincides with early Islamic
conquests; hence, it is most likely their ancestors were driven out of
their homes in Punjab and taken as slaves over the Hindu Kush.
Why does not the Government of India
tell Indian children about the Hindu Kush genocide? The horrors of the
Jewish holocaust are taught not only in schools in Israel and the US, but
also in Germany, because both Germany and Israel consider the Jewish holocaust
a "dark chapter" in the history. Yet, in 1982, the National Council of
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) issued a directive for the rewriting
of school texts. Among other things, it stipulated: "Characterisation of
the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is
forbidden." Thus, denial of history, or negationism, has become India's
official "educational" policy. Fortunately, the present Government of India
has initiated a rewriting of History school books, although this policy
has come under attack as "a dangerous saffronisation" of history.
This is why the Forum Against Continuing
Terrorism (FACT), which sponsored the recent exhibition in Delhi on the
plight of the Kashmiri Pandits - an exhibition which opened also in Bangalore
on September 1, and will be in Poland on September 10, and then in Berlin
on the 15th - would like to start a project aiming at having a Holocaust
Museum in New Delhi. It will record not only the genocide of Hindus at
the hands of Muslim invaders, but also the terrible persecution by the
Portugese (hardly mentioned, too, in Indian History books), or of the British
(nobody knows that 25 millions Indians died in famine between 1815 and
1920, a genocide in the true sense of the term, as the Britsih broke the
agricultural backbone of India for raw materials like Cotton, jute, etc.
FACT needs the support of all Indians for this museum to come into existence,
so that Indian children know their history and what their forefathers had
to endure.
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FACT, which stand for Forum Against
Continuing Terrorism has three trustees: Francois Gautier, KG Suresh of
PTI and another journalist, Deepak Bajaj. Its registered office is for
the moment at 41 Jorbagh, New Delhi 110003 and this where the cheques in
the name of FACT can be sent, or else they can be directly credited to
the FACT account: ICICI Bank Limited, New Delhi, Karol Bagh Branch, 2877,
First Floor, Hardhyan Singh Road, Karolbagh, New Delhi 110 005, a/c N°
629105037071. For those donating abroad, they can also be donated
via an organization which has a charity tax exemption (ours will take some
time to be obtained), such as IDRF USA, or Kashmir Overseas Organization.
FACT is in the process of obtaining tax exemption.
