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The terrorist violence which has ravaged the state of
Jammu and Kashmir for the last four years is the culmination of the long
secessionist movement carried on by the fundamentalist forces in Kashmir since
1947 and overtly and covertly supported by the Pakistan. Terrorism in Kashmir is
a Muslim religious crusade aimed at the secession of the State from the Republic
of India and its merger with Pakistan. It is founded on an ideological struggle
of which the main tenets are:-
i) that Kashmir which has a majority Muslim population
should become a part of Pakistan on the basis of religion;
iii\) that the rich cultural traditions of Kashmir
hallowed over more than five thousand years of the history be demolished and
replaced by Islamic fundamentalism; Pakistan is deeply involved in its attempts
to subvert the constitutional and administrative machinery of the state of Jammu
and Kashmir in order to strain and snap the relations between the State and the
Republic of India. Its abetment in the terrorist violence by lending moral,
political and military support is common knowledge. The terrorists operative in
Jammu and Kashmir are being trained in camps raised for this purpose in Pak held
Kashmir and the neighbouring states of Pakistan and then pushed into India to
cause large scale anarchy, destruction, arson, murder, molestation and rape.
The Kashmiri Hindus have become the first victims of
terrorism as a result of which they had to flee the place of their abode. The
Hindus in Kashmir have, right from the dawn of freedom faced and fought
communalism and fundamentalism. They are a part of the Vedic heartland of India
and have lived in Kashmir from times immemorial. In fact, they are the original
inhabitants of the Valley of Kashmir, now reduced to an ethnic minority, with a
history of more than five thousand years dating back beyond the" Neelmat Era"
almost contemporary to the Vedic civilizaton of India. The Hindu religious
precepts have borne the message of universal peace, brotherhood and coexistence
of all creeds and faiths. The Hindus of Kashmir are the progenitors of "Shakti"
and Shaivite Monism and Hinyana and Sarvastvadin Budhism which spread to Central
Asia, Tibet and Western China. They propounded the great Shaivite doctrine of
Trika and the theory of recognition. Kalhana, Jonaraja, Praj-Bhat, Shuka and
Shrivara, the great masters of history compiled the historical chronicle of
Rajatarangini. The Hindu Kingdom of Kashmir reached its zenith with the
ascendance of the Karkotas when Kashmir commanded respect and tribute from its
neighbouring Kingdoms till the fall of Utpalas. The ascendancy of Muslim Sultans
in the thirteenth century witnessed fierce religious persecution and attempts at
conversion of Kashmiri Pandits who resisted it with will, and determination,
prefering death to surrender.
The Kashmiri Pandits have played a major role in the
liberation struggle against the British and their colonial imperatives in the
State. The secularisation of the various communal movements which rocked the
State in the aftermath of the growth of Muslim separatism in India was achieved,
mainly due to the efforts of Kashmiri Pandits. They authored and sponsored the
famous declaration of National demand in 1938, which later became the secular
national movement in the state. The political movement for National
self-government received its ideological content from the Kashmiri Pandits who
gave the first call for self-government.
Since the independence of India and accession of Kashmir
to the Indian Union, the Kashmiri Hindus have continued to fight the religious
precedence as well the separatism which accompanied the rise of Muslim
communalism. They were reduced to a plight of slavery, misery and servitude but
they did not react against Muslim communalism as a communal minority. Inspite of
the forces arraigned against them viz Muslim fundamentalists, the Muslimised
State-apparatus and the secessionist group, the Hindus suffered at the stake to
save the secular and democratic image of Kashmir and India. While resisting the
orchestrated moves fostered by Muslim communalists inside the state and their
mentors in Pakistan to Islamise the State and snatch it from the Union of India,
the Hindu became the victims of communal hatred and faced hostility, ridicule
and privation. The Indian leaders, on the other hand, served their petty
personal interests and party objectives leaving the field open for the
fundamentalists to carry out their nefarious designs. The Kashmiri Hindu was the
main obstacle in the attainment of the goal of fundamentalists and was branded
as the agent of the Government of India. Even a leader of the stature of Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah charged them of acting as the fifth column of India. They,
thus became the victims of a dangerous irony, where on the one hand they were
persecuted because of their adherence to the values of secularism and democracy
enshrined in the Indian Constitution and on the other hand they were jettisoned
by the rulers of India.
The Hindus of Kashmir, because of their minority and
almost negligible representation in the State legislature and bureaucracy,
became helpless onlookers to the manouvering, manipulation and distortion of the
established democratic, constitutional and legal institutions of the State which
gave rise to Muslim majoritarianism. Under the system Kashmiri Hindu faced a
deliberate, steady and relentless squeeze of his constitutional, political and
legal rights and was forced into a slow exodus. In the process nearly three lakh
Hindus have already left the Valley during the last four decades.
Muslim majoritarianism is inherently communal in nature.
The Indian partition was not an accident of history nor was it contrived by the
British to contain the Indian freedom movement. It was the culmination of the
Muslim struggle for separate Muslim majority State where the pre-eminence of
Muslim Ummah was recognised. During the last forty years of the history of
Pakistan the Hindus who constituted nearly thirty percent of its population at
the outset are reduced to only one percent as on today. The operative design of
Muslim communalism in Kashmir has almost been similar-the Hindus of Kashmir who
formed about nine percent of the population of Kashmir in 1947 are almost wiped
out of the Kashmir valley by now. As a part of the grand strategy for the
attainment of the Islamic and fundamentalistic State of Kashmir, communal
elements and terrorist are bent upon annihilating the Kashmiri Hindus as a
result of which their exodus has been made inevitable.
The terrorist violence has taken a heavy toll of unarmed,
peaceloving and tolerant Hindus of Kashmir valley. Hundreds of Hindus-men, women
and children, were brutally murdered and hundreds were subjected to inhuman
torture and suffering. The community was driven out of Kashmir valley by force
or on the pain of death. The properties left behind by them have been looted and
their houses burnt or destroyed by dynamite. Right at present a scorched-earth
policy is being followed by terrorists by systematically burning the Hindu
localities, Hindu houses and Hindu shrines and temples.
The Kashmir history is replete with the contribution of
Kashmiri Hindus to the nation's march in general and that of Kashmir in
particular. Kashmiri Hindus have served as a beacon light to the entire national
polity and are the real founders of secularism and democracy in Kashmir. In the
modernization of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, the Hindus have contributed
much more than their share and have imparted to the Kashmiri society its
scientific, progressive and humane outlook. Throughout their history, more
specifically in the modern times., they have tried their utmost to live at
peace with their Muslim compatriots. The secular facade, which Kashmir has worn
all through the last forty three years, has been provided mainly by Kashmiri
Hindus. They have not reacted to Muslim communalism, instead they have faced the
rigours of Muslim dominance with the fervent hope that the thrust on universal
education and scientific progress in the State would pave way for the free flow
of democratic thought, recognition of the human rights, the genuine urges and
aspirations Kashmiri Hindu minorities, religious tolerance equity and justice.
This hope is now shattered. Neither his Muslim brethren
in Kashmir nor the Indian government which swears by secularism came to the
rescue of Kashmiri Hindus at the time when they were being butchered and hounded
out of their homes and hearths, nor at this moment when they have been uprooted
and thrown into wilderness to face a life and death struggle for survival. All
the constitutional guarantees for the protection of their limb, life, property,
their status and dignity have been trampled with impunity. The Hindus of
Kashmir, wherever they are, therefore, unequivocally declare that:-
i) With their deep and firm commitment to social
unity, religious coexistence, democracy and secularism they will not accept a
society which is communalised, obscurantist, intolerant and medieval. They will
not submit to any authority in the State which does not recognise their right to
life, equality, faith and protection against discrimination. They will not be a
party to the present struggle launched against secular and democratic India.
ii) With their history of having lived and died for
freedom and their open espousal of the cause of tolerance peace, amity and
brotherhood between various ethnic, social and religious, groups, they cannot
accept the pre-eminence and predominance of any single religious community at
their cost,
iii) Having been the original inhabitants of Kashmir
from ancient times and being the inheritors of a glorious cultural tradition of
more than five thousand years, Kashmiri Pandits have as much right to live in
Kashmir as any other religious group. Preservation of this community in its
natural and historical habitat is a political necessity.
iv) The present crusade by the terrorists against
Kashmiri Pandits to drive away the last remnants of this proud community from
its rightful place is a shame for the secular India in particular and the world
community in general. Any measure taken to rehabilitate this community outside
Kashmir valley will only result in the dispersal of this community leading to
its dissolution and extinction. This will be a tragedy, as the only relic of a
small but distinct race with an outstanding culture will be destroyed.
v) Because of their equal rights to the land of their
birth they stake their claim to be an equal party to any future deliberations in
the process of normalisation and ultimate solution of Kashmir problem.
The Kashmiri Hindus, therefore, demand:
a) The establishment of a homeland for Kashmiri Hindus
in the Kashmir Valley, comprising the regions of the Valley to the East and
North of river Jehlum;
b) that the constitution of India be made applicable
in letter and spirit in this homeland in order to ensure right to life, liberty,
freedom of expression, faith, equality and rule of law;
c) that their homeland be placed under central
administration with a Union Territory Status so that it evolves its own economic
and political infrastructure;
d) that all the seven lakh Kashmiri Hindus, which
includes those who have been driven out of Kashmir in the past and yearn to
return to their homeland and those who were forced to leave on account of the
terrorist violence in Kashmir, be settled in the homeland on equitable basis
with dignity and honour.
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