It should not take much time to register for all those who believe in purity of history that Kashmir has been part of the Indian culture – Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years. The moment has arrived to do so. And this fact of Hindu and Buddhist cultural and religious revivalism has been focused in a new book ‘Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh through Ages’ that Union Home Minister Amit Shah released in Delhi on Thursday.
Post-1947, a fairy tale has been served by the self-serving historians whose pen moved in self-conceived narratives that they were assigned to manipulate and document that Kashmir was a different entity, with no relation with the rest of the country. That helped them to insert Article 370 as an irreplaceable phenomenon in describing the relationship between the country and Kashmir. It was a falsehood. The historical facts brought out by intense research by the writers of the book showed that there were linkages and very strong ones between Kashmir and the rest of Bharatvarsh for ages together, when Kashmir was known as Kashyap, where scholars studied and broadcast their learning and conclusions to the rest of the world. It was a rich Hindu cultural ethos which along with the Buddhism enriched the land and vice-versa. This demolishes the myth that Kashmir was a new entity to the Indian union or the idea of India.
While releasing the book and commending scholars, who compiled the chapters, tracing ages old history and inseparable connect in the land and people deeply integrated into the geo-cultural ethos , Home Minister made several points to tell the world, and especially those who have been seeking to sustain a theory that Article 370 was a panacea for Kashmir , and it had helped built a bridge between the two lands, which in reality were on the same page and cultural ethos for the past over 8,000 years or may be even more.
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Now it is the time that these facts documented in the book should be spread and work undertaken for revivalism of Hindu culture, which had been under assault in Kashmir for many, many decades. It is because of the manipulation and unnecessary adulation of Article 370 before and after its abrogation on August 5, 2019, has polluted the real history. The migration of tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits from their homes and hearths in 1990, and even before that, is the result of the existence of Article 370.
The real plight of Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, and by extension that of Buddhists in Ladakh, remained hidden. The former state has now been rightfully divided into two union territories as per aspirations of the peoples of the two regions. This needs to be highlighted to understand why the revivalism of Hindu and Buddhist roots in Kashmir. It is important to correct the history for giving a new sense of empowerment and identity to them. This transformation has come only after the repeal of Article 370.
The facts stated in the book were known to many, but due to toxic atmosphere, these remained suppressed and obliterated from the public view. The history in its original form remained hidden by layer after layer of lies propounded and propagated by the manipulators.
Union Home Minister has straightened the record and Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh can trace their history from a period that was there in this land 8,000 years ago. The whole idea of Article 370 and its importance for Jammu and Kashmir was built on falsehood, which has been brought to light now after that constitutional provision was removed and buried in the bins of history.
Amit Shah has beaconed the whole of the nation, as also the rest of the world, to see the integral relationship of Kashmir and Bharat through the geo-cultural bonds, all other prisms, including geo-political become irrelevant. Now is the time to look at these bonds since time immemorial and not through the ideas and the artificially inserted provisions in the constitution that left more than 40,000 people dead. Besides that J&K as a state suffered incurable disasters which characterized only death and destruction.
Amit Shah has given a way out of the entire previous crisis and at the same time asked the minds to explore real history that was suppressed all these decades. The days of manipulation of history are over once and for all.