Return of Hindus to Kashmir
By Dr. M.K. Teng
November 2011
The ethnic cleansing of the Hindus of
Kashmir in 1990, is one of the few episodes, which
occurred after the second World War, and in which
a whole community of people was subjected to
genocide and driven out of its natural habitat.
The terrorist violence with which the Muslim Jehad
in Kashmir commenced in 1989, was aimed to achieve
a number of military objectives which the militant
regimes and the Jehadi war groups considered to be
essential for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir
from the Indian occupation. The ethnic
extermination of the Hindus was one of the primary
objectives, the Jehad aimed to achieve. The Hindus
of Kashmir formed the Sanskrit component of the
social culture of Kashmir and provided the Muslim
majority state of Jammu and Kashmir its secular
identity. More importantly, the Hindus formed the
frontline of the resistance against the
separatists movements in the State, which the
Muslim separatist forces carried on for decades
with the support of Pakistan.
Ever since the commencement of their exile, the
Hindus have been waiting for their return to the
land of their birth, reiterating from time to time
their resolve to return to their homes. The
response of the Indian State to their
remonstrations was always feeble and continues to
be so even now; mainly determined by the inability
of the Indian political class to recognise the
real import of the terrorist violence and its
inaptitude to deal with the Muslim Jehad with any
firmness. The Indian political class closed its
eyes, like the ostriches do, to the death and
devastation, the terrorist violence brought to the
Hindus of Kashmir and to the Hindus of the Muslim
majority districts of the Jammu province.
The Indian leaders never mustered courage to
face the Muslim Jehad, without which the return
and rehabilitation of the Hindus could not the
achieved. Instead the Indian political class
adopted a surreptitious policy of compromise with
the Muslim separatist flanks. The Indian political
class ascribed the terrorist violence to the
alienation of the Muslims in the State which it
traced to the inability of the Indian political
system to recognise the genuineness of the Muslim
struggle for a separate freedom in Jammu and
Kashmir. Assuming a position in between the Jehad
and the Hindus of the State, the Indian political
class sat on judgement on who had done what in
Jammu and Kashmir, to fix the responsibility
for the Muslim alienation and the consequent
upheaval in the State. Expectedly, the Jehad
triumphed and the Hindus continued to smoulder in
exile.
Genocide of Hindus
The genocide, the Hindus in Kashmir, were
subjected to and the exodus forced upon them by
the terrorist regimes, right from the moment they
began their military operations in the State, was
undertaken in accordance with a well laid out
plan. The plan envisaged the ethnic extermination
of the Hindus in the Kashmir province and the
Muslim majority regions of the Jammu province to
bring about the de-Sanskritisation of the part of
the State situated to the west of the river Chenab
and prepare the ground for its separation from the
Shivalik plains, situated to the east of the river
Chenab. The division of the State in between India
and Pakistan had been proposed as a basis for
settlement of the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir,
by the United Nations mediator on Kashmir Sir Owen
Dixon in 1950. When the terrorist regimes,
extended their military operations to the Muslim
majority districts of the Jammu province, they
followed the same “scorched earth”, policy
there to bring about the ethnic extermination of
the Hindus. In Kashmir as well as the Jammu
province the first bullets fired by the militants
were received by the Hindus.
The Hindus had always formed the frontline of
the peoples’ resistance to all forms of Muslim
separatism in the State. The Hindus had fought for
the freedom of the State from the British rule and
when the freedom came, they had paid the heaviest
price to defend it against the invading forces of
Pakistan in 1947. Not many people in India know
that more than thirty eight thousand of Hindus and
Sikhs were killed by the invading armies across
the territories of the state they over ran.
The first staggering blow which the Jehad
delivered to the Hindus in Kashmir was the
assassination of Tika Lal Taploo, a Kashmiri
Pandit leader, who was widely respected in his
community. A member of the National Executive of
the Bharatiya, Janata Party, Taploo was an
indefatigable man, who had fought untiringly
against the marginalisation of the Hindus in the
State. Taploo was given a tearful farewell by
thousands of the people of his community, who
accompanied his funeral procession. While the
funeral procession, carrying Taploo on his last
journey, wound its way through the streets of
Srinagar, stones were pelted on it.
The terrorist violence struck the Hindus in its
full fury in January 1990. The death and
destruction it brought to the Hindus was
widespread. Not much of what happened those days
in Kashmir is known in the rest of the country as
a concerted campaign of disinformation was carried
on to camouflage the ravages the community of the
Hindus was subjected to. By the end of the year,
the death toll of the Hindus had risen to about
eight hundred. The white paper on Kashmir,
the Joint Human Rights Committee, Delhi issued in
1996 noted : “A computation of the data of the
massacred Hindus on the basis of reports in the
local press, news papers published in Srinagar,
and the other townships in Kashmir, reveals that
the number of the Hindus killed ran into several
thousands”. The White Paper notes further
“Among the killed were several hundred Hindus
who were reported missing. Among the missing were
many Hindus whose bodies were never identified and
were disposed off by the State Government agencies
at their will. Many of the people killed and still
to be identified were Hindus.” The chaotic
manner in which information about the killings
were reported is shown by the following wireless
message, transmitting information of the death of
two Hindu men, in Srinagar to their kin in Jammu,
“To SSP Jammu L.B. No: 13 from Police Control
Room Srinagar, 25/6/1990. Please contact Shri
Makhan Lal Sumbli H.No: 28 Bhagwati Nagar and
inform him about the death of Som Nath S/o Shri
Lassa Koul and Chaman Lal S/o Shyam Lal R/o
Pattipora Bala, Chattabal, Srinagar, the above
dead bodies were lying unidentified at Ali Jan
Road. Signature of officer, 1920 ToR, S.P. Police
Control Room.”
As the Jehadi war groups and the terrorist
regimes settled down to carry on a prolonged war
of attrition in Jammu and Kashmir, they changed
their tactics. They reduced the frequency of
sporadic surprise strikes on specifically
identified targets to pre-planned major military
strikes on Hindu localities to carry out
mass-massacres. The mass massacres were brutal and
had s staggering effect on the entire community of
the Hindus in the State. The massacres were
carried out at different places in the Kashmir
province : at Sangrahampora where eight people
were killed; at Wandahama in North Kashmir, in
January 1998, where twenty three Hindus were
killed; at Anantnag in South Kashmir, where twelve
Bihari labourers were killed in July 1999; at
Chattisinghpora where thirty-six Sikhs were killed
in March 2000, at Pahalgam, where thirty-two
Hindus, including twenty-nine pilgrims to Amarnath
Shrine, were killed in August 2000; and at
Nadimarg, where twenty-four Hindus were killed in
March 2002.
In the Jammu province, the mass massacres were
widespread and the death-toll heavier. Seventeen
Hindus were killed in Kishtwar during 13-14 August
1993; sixteen Hindus were killed in Kishtwar in
January 1996; Seventeen Hindus were killed in
Simber, Doda in May 1996; twenty-nine Hindus were
killed in Dakhikot Prankot, Doda in January 1998;
Eleven Hindus (defence committee members) were
killed in Dessa, Doda in May 1998, twenty nine
Hindus were killed in Chapnari Doda, in June 1998;
twenty Hindus were killed in separate terrorist
attacks in Chinathakuri, and Shrawan, Doda in July
1998; seventeen Hindus were killed in Surankot
Poonch in June 1999; fifteen Hindus wee killed in
Thatri, Doda, in July 1999; seventeen Hindus were
killed in Manjakot Rajouri in March 2001; fifteen
Hindus were killed in Cherjimorah, Dodain July
2001’, Sixteen Hindus were killed in Sarothdhar,
Doda in August 2001’, Thirty four Hindus were
killed in Kaluchak, Jammu in May 2002; twenty-nine
Hindus were killed in Rajiv Nagar, Jammu in July
2002; seventeen Hindus were killed in Udhampur in
March 2003; twelve Hindus were killed in Surankote,
Poonch in June 2004; ten Hindus were killed in
Budhal, Rajouri in October 2005; three of a Hindu
family were killed in Chaal, Udhampur in April
2006 and thirty Hindus were killed in Thana
Kulhand, Doda in April 2006.
Exodus
The Indian State having failed in its rightful
function to protect the Hindus in Kashmir from
death and destruction, the terrorist flanks
brought to them, they were left with no other
course except to leave their homes to save their
lives. The massacre of Hindus was aimed to
eliminate them physically and at the same time
fill their hearts with terror to force them to
leave Kashmir. The Hindus, unable to believe that
they would be abandoned by the Indian state, to
face the Jehad as best they could, offered
themselves as easy targets for the terrorist
flanks and allowed hundreds of their brothern to
be killed. But as the holocaust enveloped them,
they left their homes and hearths to save their
lives and the lives of their children. The White
Paper on Kashmir noted: “A deliberately designed
two-pronged plan to dislodge the Hindus from
Kashmir was surreptitiously put into operation by
the various terrorist organisations. Several hit
lists were circulated all over the Valley, in
towns as well as villages. The hit lists were
accompanied by rumours about the Hindus who were
found by the militants to have been involved in
‘Mukhbiri’, complicity, with the Government of
India. The rumours were deadly, because they made
life uncertain”. The White Paper noted further:
“In a number of towns and villages, the local
people issued threats from the mosques and spread
rumours charging the Kashmiri. Hindus of
conspiracy and espionage in order to break their
resolve to stay behind. Larger number of prominent
men among the Kashmiri Hindus, social workers,
leaders and intellectuals were listed for death.
Most of them escaped from the Valley, secretly to
avoid suspicion and interception.”. The attack
was open. The White Paper noted : “In the rural
areas of the Valley, cadres of the secessionist
organisations and their supporters, almost of
every shade and commitment, the supporters of the
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in the
vanguard, did not hide their hostility towards the
Hindus. At many places, even in Srinagar and the
other townships, Kashmiri, Hindus were openly
charged of espionage for India. The indictment
spelt death”.
The exodus of the Hindus picked up pace as the
summer set in. By the end of the year 1990, the
larger part of the Hindu community of Kashmir had
left. The rest followed as the terrorist violence
intensified.
While the Hindus began to leave Kashmir the
Jehadi flanks unfolded their plans to destroy the
Sanskrit heritage of the Kashmir. The homes the
Hindus left-behind, were ransacked and after their
properties were looted, burnt down. Within four
years of the onset of the terrorist violence in
Kashmir, 18,000, Hindu houses were burnt down,
bombed and demolished. The White Paper on Kashmir
noted : “Many of the homes were torched and
during the last four years about 18,000 were
either burnt down or destroyed. Many of the homes,
which were not burnt, were occupied by mercenaries
serving the militant organisations. The premises
of the business establishment, shops and
commercial establishments were also taken over by
the Muslim activists who supported the militancy.
In the rural areas, agricultural lands, orchards,
and the lands attached to the burnt Hindu houses,
were nibbled away by Muslim activists supporting
various terrorist organisatiosn. The cattle and
the livestock left behind by the Hindus, were sold
for slaughter”. In due course of time as
the militancy continued to ravage the province and
the Muslim separatists forces and the Jehadi
flanks gained an upper hand, the Hindus were
dispossessed of whatever they owned, their land,
dilapidated structures of their homes, business
establishments and other assets by what came to be
called the distress sales.
The depredations the terrorist regimes wrought
did not end with the destruction of Hindu
localities, homes and properties. They attacked
the temples and Hindu places of worship with
iconoclast zeal. The Minister of State for the
Home Department of the Government of India
told the Indian Parliament on 12 March 1993, that
thirteen temples were desecrated and demolished in
1989, nine temples were damaged and demolished in
1990, and sixteen temples were damaged and
demolished in 1991. The White Paper on Kashmir
noted : “The actual number of temples demolished
and damaged in Kashmir was much larger and
vandalism to which the Hindu shrines were exposed
was widespread”. In the aftermath of the
demolition of the Babri Majid, the militants and
the Muslim mobs joined to attack the Hindu temples
and places of worship. On 7 December, 1992, one
day after this demolition of the Babri Majsid, two
temples, one in Anantnag and one in Srinagar, were
burnt down. During the night of 7-8 December,
thirteen temples : one each in Kulgam and Sopore;
two in Tangamarg; three in Srinagar and one each
in the Anantnag, Uttrasu, Shadipur in Sumbal,
Pahalgam and Verinag, were damaged and burnt down.
On 9 December, two temples were damaged and burnt
down at Trehgam and Pattan. The demolition of the
Hindu temples continued after 9 December, for many
more days taking the number of the temples,
desecrated damaged, demolished and burnt down to
thirty-nine. The White Paper on Kashmir
noted : “After the demolition of the Babri
Masjid, the wanton destruction of the temples in
Kashmir was reported by the press, though
reservedly. Angry demonstrations and protest
against the descration and systematic demolitions
were held by the Hindu refugees in Jammu and the
other parts of the country”. The protest evoked
no response from the State Government or the
Government of India.
The ancient ruins of the Hindu temples, most of
them protected monuments of the Archeological
Department of the State and the Archeological
Department of the Government of India, were also
subject to attack. The archeological remains of
the ancient Hindu temples stood as an elequent
testimony of the Hindu heritage of Kashmir. The
temple ruins were sacred to the Hindus, who
visited them as a part of their tradition. At many
place the ruins were dug up, in order to
obliterate their last traces.
The Hindu religious places where Hindu cultural
and social institutions and organisations were
located were subjected to bomb attacks or burnt
down. The Hindu educational institutions were
burnt down or taken over. The entire organisation
of Hindu schools and colleges run by the Hindu
educational societies including the institutions
run by Hindu Educational Society, Dayanand
Ayurvedic organisation and the Vishwa Bharti Trust
were seized and taken over by the Muslim
organisation supported by the militant flanks.
Reversal of Genocide
Genocide of the Hindus in Kashmir and their
exile for decades, has changed the geographical
alignments of their community in the province of
Kashmir and destroyed their social and economic
base. The terrorist violence has obliterated the
Hindu religious heritage of Kashmir and almost
efaced the Hindu cultural identity. The return of
Hindus to Kashmir can assume meaning and effect
only in case the genocide is reversed.
The issues which form the core of their return
are : (a) the reconstruction of their economic and
social base; restoration to them of their homes,
land, properties, business establishment and
institutions and assets; (b) recognition of their
right to freedom of which the content is
determined by the imperatives of secularism rather
than the Muslim majority identity of the State;
and (c) acceptance of their territorial claims in
Kashmir in case of any settlement with the Muslims
of Kashmir to reorganise the the state into
a separate Muslim sphere of power on the
territories of India, inside India or outside
India.
No one can expect the Hindus to return to
Kashmir without their sources of livelihood being
restored to them and a level of economic security
ensured for them. They have lived as refugees in
Jammu and the other part of India for two decades.
They cannot be sent to live in Kashmir as refugees
in improvised camps at the charity of the world.
The Indian political class should realise that
the Hindus have lived, almost all over the six
decades of the Indian freedom, within the space
provided for them by the precarious balance
between the commitment of the Indian people to
secularism and the Muslim majority identity of the
State. The Indian leadership should realise that
the Jehad has severely impaired this balance and
obliterated the space for the Hindus to live in
Kashmir. It must be noted that any attempt to
force the Hindus to accept to live in the space
earmarked for them by the Muslim identity of the
State will prove distasterous for them.
For those who rule India, the return of the
Hindus may be a mere change of face, the Muslim
identity of the state is given. But for the Hindus
of Kashmir, it is a momentous, decision which will
determine the future of their generations. The
Government of India must apprise the Hindus
of Kashmir about the baseline of its approach to
any future settlement, it is committed to reach
with Pakistan on the one hand and Muslims of the
State, on the other. The Hindus do not want their
return to be used as a first step towards turning
Jammu and Kashmir into a separate Muslim sphere of
power, on the territories of India but independent
of its constitutional organisation.
The return of the Hindus to Kashmir is a
historical necessity, not only for the Unity of
Jammu and Kashmir, but for the unity of India. Any
cosmetic effort to bring about the return of the
Hindus to Kashmir, aimed to provide a secular face
to what the Indian political class has brought
about in Jammu and Kashmir, during the last two
decades, will spell disaster for the Hindus and
perhaps lead to developments which do not augur
well for the whole country.
After the Hindus were driven
out of Kashmir in 1990, their return to their
homes was never under the consideration of the
people who have ruled India. Indian leaders never
had the courage to deny Pakistan and the Muslim
separatist forces the claim they lay to Jammu and
Kashmir, on the basis of the Muslim majority
composition of its population. Nor did they
possess the resolution to fight against the
religious war that Pakistan and the Jihadi
war-groups operating inside as well as outside the
State waged to unite it with Pakistan.
The Indian political class
assumed complete silence over the death and
devastation the Jihad wrought in Kashmir. In fact,
it spared no efforts to camouflage the genocide of
the Hindus and their ethnic cleansing in Kashmir
and Muslim-majority districts of the Jammu
province.
Stray references by Indian
leaders on the return of Hindus to their homes and
hearths “with honour and dignity” were part of
the propaganda to minimise the impact of the
displacement of Hindus in the State and contain
its effects. Behind the scenes, the Indian
political class tried practically to negotiate
peace with the Muslim separatist flanks inside the
State and their Jihadi mentors outside the State.
Negotiations for peace with Jihadi war groups who
were later joined by Pakistan, left hardly any
space for the return of the Hindus to Kashmir, who
had been driven out by the Jihad for having harmed
the cause of the freedom of the Muslims of the
State.
The Indian Government and the
State Government never made their stand clear on
the genocide of the Hindus and the exodus forced
upon them. They did not make their stand clear on
the reversal of the genocide, which formed the
precedent condition for the return of the Hindus
to their homes. In fact, the Indian Government
never made any formal commitment in respect of the
return of Hindus to their homes and made no
concrete proposals for their rehabilitation.
Disinformation Campaign
The Indian political class
launched a widespread dis-information campaign to
camouflage the portent of the terrorist violence
and conceal the real purpose of the Jihad in Jammu
and Kashmir. The White Paper on Kashmir issued by
the Joint Human Rights Committee, Delhi, noted:
“All over the post-independent era, incessant
efforts were always made by the State Government
and the Government of India to conceal the ugly
face of Muslim communalism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Deliberate attempts were always made to provide
cover to the growth of the Muslim fundamentalist
and secessionist movements in the State, right
from the time of its accession to India. The
various forms of Muslim communalism and separatism
which ravaged life in the State during the last
four decades and which imparted to the
secessionist movements in the State their
ideological content and tactical direction, were
camouflaged under the banners of sub-national
autonomy, regional identity and even secularism.
Largely perceptional aberrations, misplaced
notions, and subterfuge characterised the official
as well as the non-official responses to the
upheavals which rocked the State from time to
time. More often, the real issues confronting the
State were overlooked by deliberate design and
political interest, a policy which in the long run
operated to help the secessionist forces to
consolidate the ranks and their hold on the people
in the State”.
No sooner had the Jihad
commenced in Kashmir than a mild goose chase began
in search of scapegoats to camouflage the forces
involved in the upheaval. “Even after widespread
militant violence struck Kashmir in 1989,” the
White Paper on Kashmir noted, “and thousands of
innocent people were killed in cold blood along
with hundreds of Indian security personnel and the
whole community of Hindus in Kashmir was driven
out of the Valley, the disinformation campaign
continued to cloud the real dangers the terrorist
violence posed to the nation. Indeed efforts still
continue to be made to side track the basic
problems of terrorism and secessionism and the
role of the militarized Muslim fundamentalist
forces in the whole bloody drama enacted in the
State and divert the attention of the Indian
people to trivial concerns, which have no bearing
on the developments there.”
The disinformation campaign
succeeded only partially to provide a smokescreen
to what the Jihad wrought in Kashmir and the
Muslim-majority districts of Jammu province. Yet a
part of the truth was revealed by the leaders of
the mainstream political parties of the State, the
National Conference and the Peoples Democratic
Party, when they admitted that the basic cause of
Muslim unrest was the political issue which
underlined the Kashmir dispute. The rest of the
story of the Jihad which has continued in the
State unabated for the last two decades is still
to be told. A large part of the truth of what the
war of attrition wrought in the State is still not
told.
Perhaps, at one time, the
Jihadi regimes and their over-ground political
outfits found it necessary to tell the Indian
people frankly that the Muslim struggle in Kashmir
was aimed at the liberation of the State from
India.
A part of the truth of what
happened in Kashmir was actually revealed by the
Jihadi regimes themselves and their over-ground
separatist outfits like Hurriyat Conference. The
Indian political class had ascribed the militant
violence to alienation of Muslim youth wrought by
Indian misrule which had led to economic
deprivation and political oppression of Muslims.
The Jihadi regimes told the Indian people and the
world that the Muslim Jihad aimed to liberate the
State from the occupation army of India, stationed
in the State illegally. The Jihadi regimes and
Muslim separatist organisations denied that the
militant operations and Muslim upsurge
accompanying them were in any way related to
political distrust, economic deprivation or
alienation of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. They
made it clear in unmistakable terms that the
Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir had commenced the
Jihad in Kashmir to liberate the J&K State
from the “illegal occupation of the Indian
army” and unite it with the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan.
A part of the truth was told by
the leaders of mainstream National Conference and
Peoples Democratic Party who had ruled the State
before the onset of the militant violence as well
as after it. Without mincing words, they accepted
that Muslim unrest in the State and Muslim
struggle were an expression of the peoples’
desire to seek a settlement of the central issue
underlying the Kashmir dispute. They gave ample
expression to their opinions stating that so long
as the Muslim quest for a separate freedom which
was not subject to the secular imperatives of the
Constitution of India, and so long as a settlement
of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan
and the Muslims of the State was not found, the
distrust would not end.
Yet a part of the truth is
still concealed. The story of the genocide of the
Hindus, their ethnic extermination and how they
were used as scapegoats for the failings of the
Indian political class in dealing with the Jihad,
is yet to be told. This part of the untold truth
is closely linked with the return of the Hindus to
their homes and hearths. The Indian political
class is hiding the truth of what the Jihad has
wrought in Kashmir during the last two decades.
Indian Governments have never mustered the courage
to stand up to the Jihad. The Indian political
class is still following its own plans to use the
Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir as a buffer in between
them and the war of subversion the Jihadi regimes
are waging in the State. The double-speak of the
Indian political class on the return of Hindus to
Kashmir is bound to do them more harm.
The truth is that the security
environment in Kashmir province is severely
strained and the social culture of the Muslim
community has been drastically changed by the
Jihad. The Hindus of Kashmir were driven out on
the point of the gun because of their resistance
to the Muslim separatist movements in the State.
Their opposition to the Muslim Jihad assumed
nation-wide proportions during the last two
decades of their exile. They will hardly find it
easy to come to terms with the conditions that
prevail in Kashmir, while the religious war
continues unabated.
It may not be out of place to
mention here that the over-ground political
outfits of the Jihadi war groups and militant
flanks, including various factions of Hurriyat
Conference, have offered to accept the return of
Hindus and at the same time expressed hope that
after their return they will join their Muslim
brethren in their struggle for liberation from
India!
Changed Milieu
The so called war of liberation, which the
Hindus are expected to join on their return, has
already succeeded in creating a new Kashmir. The
Jihad has upturned the whole social milieu of
which Hindus formed a part before they were cast
overboard. The decades of religious war has
dissolved the mutually accepted rules which
ensured the stability of inter-community
relations in the State, and brought about
imperceptible and drastic changes in the social
organization in Kashmir.
First, the ethnic cleansing of
Hindus has dissolved the pluri-cultural social
organization of Kashmir. The demographic
alignments which existed in Kashmir before the
onset of the Jihad formed the basis of its
multi-religious social organization. In the
tradition-bound societies of former colonial
peoples, demographic alignments have been found to
play a major role in determining inter-community
relations in their social cultures. The social
culture of Kashmir has assumed a dominantly
Islamic expression. No wonder that during the last
several years, Kashmiri Pandits going on
pilgrimage to the shrine of Khir-Bhawani in
Tulamulla on the outskirts of Srinagar on Zeshta-Ashtami,
have been greeted at the gate of the shrine by a
crowd of Tablighi Muslim volunteers who
distributed Islamic literature among the pilgrims.
Secondly, the
fundamentalisation of Muslim society in Kashmir
– a process which began for nearly a decade
before the onset of terrorist violence in 1990,
has led to the regimentation of large sections of
Muslim society on the basis of ideological
commitment to the Islamisation of the State. Most
of the regimented sections of Muslim society are
militarily responsive. The regimentation of Muslim
society has already led to the fundamentalisation
of the entire social culture of Muslim society in
Kashmir.
Thirdly, the regimentation of the Muslim outlook
has severely impaired the secular character of
the social and political institutions in the
State. Suppression of all dissent in Muslim
society in Kashmir by the Muslim separatist
movements increased the acceptability of the
Islamisation of all political and social
institutions in the State. Many of the militant
regimes and in fact all the Jihadi structures
openly reject secularism as a basis of state
activity and governance, and instead insist upon
the regular reorganization of State and society
in accordance with the precepts and precedents
of Islam. Interestingly, the protagonists of the
Islamic order of society and government have
claimed that the Islamic religious injunction
provided for the protection of the peoples who
do not profess Islam and other minorities. Some
Hurriyat Conference leaders accepted without
hesitation that secularism has no place in the
Islamic order of society and government as it
conflicted with the imperatives of authority
which draws sanction from religion.
It is difficult to conclude
that the Indian leaders are not able to realize
the risks in sending back Hindus to Kashmir in a
situation of conflict. The truth is that the
Indian political class follows a measured policy
in regard to J&K, which does not underline the
return of Hindu refugees to their homes. The
Indian political class seeks to graft the return
of Hindu refugees to an overall settlement of the
Kashmir dispute with Pakistan and the Muslims of
Jammu and Kashmir. Had it been otherwise, the
Indian Government would have opened talks with
Hindu refugees of Kashmir, before they conceived
of a settlement with Pakistan or the Muslims of
the State.
Peace Process
A discussion on what
constitutes the Kashmir dispute is outside the
scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that the
Indian political class recognizes Kashmir dispute
to be what Pakistan and Muslim separatist flanks
in J&K construe it to be. The Indian
Government has in principle accepted the Kashmir
dispute to be the expression of the claim that
Pakistan lays to J&K on the basis of the
Muslim-majority composition of its population and
the claim made by J&K Muslims to a separate
freedom to which the Partition of India entitled
them on the basis of the ratio of their population
in the State. Negotiations for a settlement of the
Kashmir dispute, originally initiated by the
Indian Government and which have now assumed the
brand name of “political process”, underline a
quest for an agreement which India seeks to reach
with Pakistan and the Muslims of the State.
The “peace-process” has
been conducted at many levels: between the
governments of India and Pakistan, back-channel
diplomacy, third power mediation and negotiations
between the Indian Government and various Muslim
separatist and mainstream political organisations
and outfits inside the State. Interestingly,
Pakistan has made its position clear that it will
accept a settlement on Kashmir dispute which is
approved by Muslims of the State. The Muslims in
Jammu and Kashmir have also made their stand clear
that they will agree to a settlement on Kashmir
which is acceptable to Pakistan.
The “peace-process” has
largely revolved round the claim Pakistan has laid
to the Muslim majority regions of the State: the
province of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority districts
of Jammu province, and the Kargil district of
Ladakh region, as a baseline for settlement of the
Kashmir dispute. The two countries came close to
acceptance of the reorganization of the
Muslim-majority regions of the State into a
separate sphere of Muslim power placed in between
the two countries under some form of protectorate.
The Manmohan Singh-Musharraf proposals, on which
the two countries are reported to have come to an
agreement, underlined the reorganization of the
Muslim-majority regions of the State into a
separate political structure, which was based upon
the territory of India, but placed under the
political control of both India and Pakistan.
The “peace-process” is
still in progress. But the Indian political class
has given no indication of how it will graft the
return of Hindu refugees to Kashmir to the
commitments given to Pakistan and the Muslims of
the State in respect of settlement of the dispute
over Jammu and Kashmir.
Road Ahead
The uprooting of Hindus from
their homes in Kashmir was one of the major
displacements of people in the aftermath of the
Second World War, in which a whole community was
torn from its roots. The White Paper on Kashmir
notes: “Like the other tradition bound,
endogamous and native people, the Hindus, with an
incredibly long history, extending to
pre-historic, proto-Aryan, later Stone Age
Culture, formed an independent part of the
cultural identity of the State and its
personality. Because of their endocrine cultural
patterns, local ritual structures, blended with
the Vedic religious precept and practice and their
pride in Sanskrit civilization, they had a deep
sense of attachment and belonging to their land,
which they addressed in their worship as the
Mother, who had given them birth”. The
displacement of Hindus thus snapped their history.
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.
Prof MK Teng is Political
Adviser, Panun Kashmir, and retired Professor
& Head of the Political Science Department,
Kashmir University, Srinagar
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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