Chapter 4
Genocide of Hindus
THE MINORITIESWithin the broad scheme of the militarised
secessionist movement in the State, carried on by the Muslims, the elimination
of Hindus from Kashmir had obvious tactical advantages. These were:
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The elimination of the Hindus would
destroy the groundwork of all secular institutionalisation in the State,
which would render all ideological commitments to the secular unity of
India utterly redundant.
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The liquidation of the Hindus and their
exodus would destroy the credibility of the Government of India among the
Muslims of Kashmir.
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The elimination of the Hindus would
break the psychological contact, a large section of the Muslims, still
continued to have with the Indian support structures in the State.
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After having flushed the Hindus from
the Valley, the Muslim psyche could be easily exposed to more persuasive
fundamentalist indoctrination.
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The elimination of Hindus would ensure
the rupture of important communication and feedback channels of the Government
of India, which the Hindus always endeavoured to keep open.
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The helplessness of the uprooted Hindu
masses, would break the resolve of the Hindus in India, as well as the
government of India to hold any furthur in Kashmir.
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The exile of the Hindus would mark the
first step towards the conversion of Jammu and Kashmir into a Muslim State
and its eventual separation from India.
By and large, the militants succeeded
in their broad designs in eliminating the Hindus in Kashmir. They destroved
the traditional population balances which formed the bases of the coordinate
plurality of the State, replacing it by a communal identity of the Musiims,
which found its legitimacy in Islamic fundamentalism. The psychological
contact which had always been vital to the community relations in Kashmir
as well as the Muslim support structures of India, were wiped out and the
Muslims, who did not support the secession of the State, gave way after
they saw the apathy with which the Government of India watched the death
and destruction of the Hindus. The Hindus uprooted from their land, are
now smouldering in exile, unburdened of their illusion about Indian secularism
and Indian commitment to resist separatism and violence.
In utter irrespondibility and abject
surrender to secessionism, the Indian leaders ran from pillar to post making
wild offers to the Muslims, the militants, the subversives, whoever came
their way, flinging to wind, their commitments to Gandhian values, communal
harmony, secularism, socialism, democratic process and national integration.
A delegation of the political parties, in which were included the Indian
leaders of such eminence like Devi Lal and Rajiv Gandhi, and the doyens
of the Left Front, went to Srinagar to be greeted by the worst ever invective
heard by the most ordinary Indian citizen in Kashmir, besides the of repeated
cry of "Indian dogs go back".
The terrorist organisations carried
out systematic operations to massacre the Hindus and flush them out of
the Kashmir Valley. As the death toll of the Hindus increased, they began
to evacuate from the Valley in larger numbers. The State Government reacted
to the elimination of the Hindus with utter passivity and indifference.
The Janata Dal Government lacked the will to deal with terrorist violence.
With the Home Department of the Government of India, placed under a Kashmiri
Muslim, who too was committed to the precedence of the Muslim majority
in the State, and who carried out the behests of the powerful Muslim lobbies
in the Janata Dal, the State Government could not deal with the terrorist
violence with any firmness. The ludicrous drama of the kidnappimg of Rubiya
Sayeed, the daughter of the Home Minister and the consequent breakdown
of the Central Government, had left little moral strength with the State
Government to face the terrorist challenge. The brief spell during which
Jagmohan tried to retrieve the situation, was a half-hearted endeavour,
which ultimately ended in a fiasco.
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