Why
a separate portion as Homeland when whole of the
valley belongs to us?
Yes,
infact the whole valley is the Homeland for the
Hindu Community who are the original people and
can be traced through the annals of history in the
valley. At heart, each and every member of the
community would desire the conditions to normalise
in the valley and become congenial and conducive
for his return to his original place of abode and
settle down to a harmonious relationship of amity,
friendship and tolerance with his Muslim
compatriots. Yet, we must face the facts and be
brutally frank. We cannot ignore the ground
realities and the compulsions of recent events
that have now got superimposed on the forty five
years of grand Islamization of Kashmir. What
prevails today is the new culture, a cult of
violence for achieving an Islamic State and for
its secession from India. In the new power
equation, the old order, on paper looking secular
but in practice discriminative, majoritarian,
fundamentalist and Islamic, has yielded to a new
order openly, avowedly and blatantly militant,
communal, intolerant, hate- ridden and revengeful.
The Government of India has kept its door open for
a dialogue with harbingers of this order and is
ready to concede greater autonomy tantamount to
granting an Islamic State of Kashmir in a secular
India. What is the place for a Hindu in this new
set up? The new power brokers, amongst the
numerous terrorist outfits operating in the
valley, certainly have one thing in common, that
is to run the State on the principles of Islamic
law, and to secede from the Indian Republic. Under
the Islamic law the non-muslims shall have to be
satisfied with a second class citizen- ship and
under the rules of 'shariat' to shoulder the
burden of taxes ('Jazia') and face
disenfranchisement. A small minority will be hard
pressed to resist the inducements, temptations and
pressures to join the Islamic bandwagon and
convert itself to Islam. Already there are
linguistic and cultural inroads by Islamic
hegemony in the day-to-day Hindu cultural and
religious practices and their conversational
nuances, which were distinct from Muslims. Under
the new setup their identity will slowly get
defaced and lost under the weight of medievalism
and obscurantism towards which the armed
fundamentalists are surely and inexorably leading
the valley. Besides, what guarantees will the
minority community have to their life and property
when the community is scattered and resettled in
small settlements here and there as it was before
exodus. It was because of such demographic
disadvantages that the community had no
representation in the legislature or Parliament
and it could not offer a joint resistance to the
depredations of the terrorists against the
community.
If
the present setup, as it existed before 1989, was
so inimical, damaging and discouraging for the
healthy survival of the Pandit, how can we ever
expect him to survive in the changed
circumstances, when the new forces that have been
unleashed will hold complete sway after the total
eclipse and demise of the traditional politics, of
whatever worth that existed in the State. Can this
forward looking, modernistic, secular and
democratic community ever be allowed to live, let
alone thrive,when preparations are afoot to
resurrect the discredited politicians of the past
who brought Kashmir and the Hindu of the valley to
such a sorry pass and who were also instrumental
in bringing into power indoctrinated, armed youth
and their patrons who take orders from the
theoeratic State of Pakistan and derive impetus
and sustenance from that country? If one can read
the mind of the mandarins in the power corridors
of the Central Government in Delhi and others who
matter, moves are afoot to grant almost everything
under the Sun to the State of Jammu and Kashmir in
order to mollify the militants and bring them to
the negotiating table. Short of secession or total
independence, the Central Government is ready to
give "Azadi" (Independence) to the State
within the constitutional frame-work, whatever it
means.
The
fact remains that the Central Govt. has withdrawn
most of the staff from its offices in the valley
and replaced it with Muslim aspirants while the
State Government institutions have already filled
up the vacancies created by the exodus of the
Hindu employees. Having retracted from civil
institutions, all that remain of India in the
valley are the army and paramilitary forces.
Infact, the Centre has already granted an Islamic
State in the valley. Funher autonomy through
political process will only be putting the stamp
of approval for a theocratic State within India.
What are the guarantees for a Hindu ? Where does
he go ? Where are his house estates and jobs ? How
does he face the institutionalized indoctrination
of hate and intolerance towards him ? How does he
work towards winning the sympathy of the moderate
Muslim who was always his hope and his pillar of
strength but who now has been silenced, subdued
and coerced into submission to the militants'
point-of-view and tows their religious and
political ideology? How does he, with his limited
resources and numbers, counter the disinformation
by militants and their spokesmen in the length and
breadth of the country who, like Goebells, have
been repeating lies after lies about Hindus having
grabbed all jobs in the State? Event the Central
Government goes by the advice of Muslim leaders of
the State - discredited politicians who swear by
the Constitution of India but work towards its
erosion and breach, who have left nobody in doubt
about their sympathies with the cause of the
terrorists and their methods and who are infact
pressurising the Government of India to spell out
the quantum of autonomy for the State of Jammu and
Kashmir. Some amongst them including two Ex- Chief
Ministers of the State have now come out openly
and sided with the militants' demand for
self-determination. The Kashmiri Hindu is at pains
to explain the futility of relying on these
discredited politicians who have become irrelevant
in the valley and whose bonafides and credentials
as secular Indians are suspect. By seeking their
counsel and trusting them and at the same time
ignoring, marginalizing and discrediting the
Kashmiri Hindus who have borne the cross of Indian
secularism for the last four decades, the State
administration and the Central Government are
comitting the greatest blunder and compounding the
tragedy of the valley. The Kashmiri Hindu factor
cannot be excluded in the ultimate solution of the
tangle. In fact, he has a major role to play in
the restoration of Indian hold and claim on
Kashmir because with his exit from the valley the
Indian Government has given the impression that it
is not interested in protecting the rights of its
patriotic citizens but in retaining only the
territory. The Kashmiri Hindu has a pivotal role
in the final solution and if he is neglected, the
Government of India will be making a mockery of
its avowals of 'unity in diversity' and its claim
of protecting the rights and freedom of all its
citizens and not of the Muslims alone.
All
these problems beset and baffle the mind of the
exiled Hindu and he finds himself up against a
blank wall, nay a Himalaya of ignorance and
obstinacy, an ocean of follies. What faces him is
the stark reality of forty five years of naked
persecution followed by the onslaught of unbridled
terrorism. So the community is constrained to make
the only genuine, realistic and positive demand,
staking its claim for its inalienable right in the
valley, in essence, now a portion of the valley
where it can go back and live a secular,
democratic citizen of the Indian Republic. This
will be an area with a Union Teritory Status,
where the Indian Republic can still look for the
"ray of hope" which the father of the
nation once talked about, where the secular
democratic expriment that failed in the valley,
can again be put to test with guarantees of
success since it will be conducted by the true
votaries of this faith.
In
fact, the Government of India once toyed with the
idea of providing a Security Zone in the valley
for the exiled Hindus. Whetber it meant a cluster
of contiguous villages and towns which could be
provided security and which would be considered in
the backdrop of demographic, economic and security
logistics, was never spelled out. Infact it could
have paved the way for granting Homeland to the
exiles. What we are asking is to concretize this
idea and give a proper shape to a Homeland for the
displaced Kashmiris.
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