Part
I: Chapter 9
COMPROMISE
AS TACTICS
As
evidenced by historical records, the Muslims usurped the seat of power
by a coup d'etat and fully aware of the Hindu personality of Kashmir,
they trod the Kashmir soil very warily and cautiously lest they should
slip and meet disaster. Sanskrit was allowed as the language in government
circles not because it was a continuation of the past legacy, but because
it at that locus of Kashmir history could not be replaced by Persian which
had yet to register any imprint and headway in the courts of Sultans. Brahmans
were tolerated in the rungs of services as a matter of tactics and compromise.
The dominating and essential concern of the Muslim rulers at the initial
stages was to entrench their rule and also to break the Hindu resistance
as the first step towards forcible conversions. Shah Mir encouraged inter-marriages
to dent the wall of Hindu resistance and a vital step he undertook was
to pattern and model his administration and modes of governance after the
system prevalent in Muslim countries. Damaras, fierce and garrulous, as
centres of Hindu resistance, were annihilated and Lavanyas and Tantrins
as peasant soldiers were disarmed and butchered.
The moment
Muslims felt sanguine and sure that a final and decisive war could be waged
against the Hindus, it was carried out without dither and tergiversation.
To stein, the conversion in Kashmir was gradual and a matter of slow process
but the dismal fact remains that a sudden conversion to Islam with the
fury of a crusade was effected by the troika of Mir Mohammad Hamadani,
Sultan Sikandar and Ali Shah through unholy means and cruel strategies.
Conversion of large masses of Hindu population to Islam during the latter
half of the 14th Century is an accomplished tact for Stein, true but how
the conversions were effected anti realised did not draw his keen attention
and deep concern.
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