Er P L Khushu
Another Kashmiri Pandit was shot dead by terrorists in Choudry Gund area of Shopian district on October 15, 2022. A police spokesman said that he was fired upon by terrorists when he was in the lawn of his house. He said that soon after the attack, injured identified as Pooran Krishan Bhat, son of Tarak Nath Bhat of Choudry Gund, was immediately shifted to a nearby hospital. He, however, succumbed at hospital, the official said. Pooran Bhat has left behind wife and two minors Shanu Bhat, a class 4th student and Shriya Bhat, a class 6th student living in Jammu. The police authorities say that Kashmir Freedom Fighter (KFF) group, proxy name of a terrorist outfit, has claimed the attack operating in Kashmir. Pooran Bhat has joined the long list of Kashmiri Pandit martyrs, who sacrificed their lives at the cruel hands of the terrorists belonging to Islamic fundamentalists, for being Indians and trying to resettle back in Kashmir after the mass genocide and exodus of KPs from Kashmir in 1990. Kashmiri Pandits killings are unabated and continuous in the valley of Kashmir with more ferocity and tyranny. There are many more gruesome examples of such killings of Kashmiri Pandits, in the valley. Where is the civil society of Kashmir? Are they all supporters of such gruesome killings?
It was disgraceful to witness Farooq Abdullah saying openly that such killings of Kashmiri Pandits, will continue unless justice is not done. What does he mean by saying that justice has to be done? Is he showing his sympathy with the separatists, particularly the terrorists with guns? If it is so then law of the land should take due course and proceed against him as per sedition laws if permissible. At least let someone responsible in the present government ask him his intentions behind such an unlawful statement. Is he a party to such killings? It shows the lack of will and the lack of real endeavor of the government about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. No one in the government is bothered about the Kashmiri Pandits for their unabated sufferings.
It reminds the KPs of their original past periods of tyrannies of Muslim rulers like Moguls’, Pathans, Chaks and the like. While mentioning some of such sufferings, it is essential to refer here Professor K L Bhan’s Book the Paradise Lost, in which he mentions that in the second exodus (1506-1585) ‘The Kashmiri Pandits suffered vicissitudes and misfortune, when under the zeal of Islamic fundamentalism the Sultans made it a state under policy to effect forcible conversion and implements it by issuing decrees to sever and chop off limbs of the Pandits, kidnap them, loot their possessions and imprison respectable people on various concocted pretexts, so as to pressurize them to change their faith and become the followers of Islam, the religion of the rulers.
Professor Bhan further mentions in his book that ‘Kashmir universally known as abode of sufis and saints (Rishiwari) presented scenario of religious harmony, peace and absolute tolerance as long as there was preponderance of Hindu population, be it Saivites, Vaishavites or Buddists. All co-existed amidst amity and maintained very cordial relations and religious intolerance was unknown. This serene and sublime atmosphere was vitiated and poisoned by the emergence of alien Muslim rulers, no matter what class of dynasty they belonged to.
The holy land of Kashmir, the cradle of Trika philosophy, the abode of Rishis and Munis was transformed into an arena of strife and intrigues which very soon saw not only the reversal, but also the annihilation of centuries old and precious socio-cultural attainments. Making a historical evaluation of political and social role of Islam in Kashmir and among various medieval societies, historians have adjudged Muslim ideology as parochial and stereotyped. It is in this ideological framework that, to one’s amazement and shock, loot, arson rape, murder and killing have a religious recognition and sanction. Firstly all this appears legalized under the umbrella of ‘maliganeem’. Secondly, any social strife leading to disorder and anarchy is permissible getting covered under Jihad (holy war). Thirdly any Muslim intoxicated with religious frenzy and going on a spree of killing without rhyme or reason is saluted as ‘Mujahid’ or ‘Ghazi’ (conqueror or victor).
Is it happening again? Let the government of the day investigate it and provide proper security to the KPs, who are in Kashmir or are going to Kashmir as per the rhythmic half truths of the power corridors that Kashmiri Pandits will be taken back to the valley with dignity and honor.
In furtherance to the atrocities met by KPs from time to time, the book of Professor Bhan mentions ‘Terrorised by Tamur the Lame – Syyid Mir Ali Hamdani along with 700 Sayyids, his followers, landed in Kashmir and drove a wide and deep wedge between the majority Hindus and minority Muslims. He dictated the Sultan Qutubud-Din to make the persecution and torture of the KPs a state policy. The code he prescribed for the sultan was a model of hatred, distrust, intolerance, bigotry and malignity against the KPs.
He compelled the Sultan to officialize the persecution and massacre of KPs unless they embraced Islam. He is the architect of desecration and demolition of the Kalishree temple near Fatah Kadal in Srinagar and raising on its plinth a mosque known as Khanqah-i-Mulla. With his repressive and precautionary measures backed by state terrorism he achieved the conversion of 37,000 KPs to Islam during the latter two of his three visits. The Sayyids headed by Mir Ali Hamdani openly preached extermination of Hindu religion and Hindu politics from the soil of the Kashmir in order that Islam might flourish and get unshakably entrenched in their place. Following in his father’s footsteps Mir Mohamad Hamdani urged Sultan Slkandar (1389-1413) notoriously known as the iconoclast (Sikandar but-shikan) to wipe out infidelity (Hindus) root and branch, from Kashmir and let not even a weed of it survive.
The two reinforced by the rabid neo-convert Malik Saifudin unleashed a massive war against KPs with the target of genocide of this highly cultured people. Sikandar having pawned his soul to the Sayyids threw all norms of civilized Life and tolerance to winds and issued an atrocious and barbaric Government decree ordering the KPs to opt for conversion or exile, flight or death. They let loose the floodgates of a reign of terror on the KPs to pressurize them to embrace Islam. Sikander enjoyed and exulted in breaking down images of Hindu deities. No temple anywhere in the city town or village escaped paying the heavy toll. Numerous Hindus fled, numerous were converted and numerous were brutally killed. Many poisoned themselves.
This marks the first ominous exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from their native fair homes. It is this mass migration that occasioned the plight of KPs to the neighbouring regions of Kishtwar and Bhadarwah via SMITHAN pass and to various provinces of India via Batote (Bhatta wath, path of the Bhattas or Kashmiri Pandits).
In the wake of this damned decree of Sikandar, seven mounds of the sacred thread of the murdered Brahmans were burnt by Sikandar and all of their sacred books were thrown into the Dal Lake. The KPs numbering over one lakh were drowned in the Lake and were burned at a spot in the vicinity of Rainawari in Srinagar City known as Bhatta Mazar (The graveyard of Bhattas, the KPs) beyond present day Jogilanker. According to the living memory of the KPs, only eleven KP families stayed back in Kashmir, the rest, rather than abandoning the religion of their father’s, chose to migrate leaving behind their beloved homes hearths, lands and everything, only to protect their religion and faith}.
Jonraj, the contemporary historian draws a graphic picture of the traumatic experiences of the first exodus. Crowds of Hindus ran away in different directions through passes and bypasses. Their social life was totally disrupted; their life became miserable with hunger and fatigue.
Many died in the scorching heat. Some disguised as Muslims roamed about the country searching for their distressed families. Hindus lolled out their tongues like dogs, looking for dog’s morsel at every door. (Jonraj: Kings of Kashmir). Then the Sultan exclaimed proudly that he had succeeded in exterminating all traces of Hinduism from the valley by massacring the Hindus, by ravaging, looting and ransacking their properties and more than most by kidnapping and raping there womenfolk.
This all is a tip of an ice berg. For lack of space in this column, much more such awful and wakeful tales cannot be mentioned here.
Making a mention of the recent times pertaining to pro 1947 era, the rigmarole about the duping the KPs of their fundamental right to live in Kashmir with dignity and honor, started in this period only, when the exodus of KPs started from Kashmir. So it was a process which was well defined and thought of by the Islamic fundamentalists now having captured the sentimental aura of Kashmir under the big psyche of making Kashmir a purely dominated place of Kashmiri Muslims.
Sheikh’s rule in 1947, embedded the seeds of ‘Pseudo Secularism, viz half truths about the real concept of true secularism’, in Jammu and Kashmir, for which the main suffering population of Jammu and Kashmir were the Kashmiri Pandits.
It was in this time only when the Land to Tiller laws were enforced which in particular made Kashmiri Pandits the main targets as most of the Kashmiri Pandits were well established ‘Zamindars’ and their agricultural lands were snatched from them and given to the tillers who were Muslims, with a biased base of communal tinge.
Apart from this enough of partialities occurred during that time when KPs were refused proper representations in the government jobs, educational trainings, etc.
This is the period when the first mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits occurred towards the plains, for earning their bread and butter with dignity and honor. Subsequent governments in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir followed suit to destabilize the base of the KPs from the valley, under a well knit plan, when mass exoduses of KPs took place from time to time, thus limiting the population of KPs to just to a miniscule one in Kashmir.
With the brute advent of terrorism in the year 1989-90, during the national conference rule, abetted by the sympathetic support of the Congress party from Delhi, the situation for the KPs became a death knell for them. Mass genocide and exodus of the KPs occurred, which is reverberating still on the fascia and the minds of the KPs and will continue to be so as long as humanity exists in this universe.
Prominent leaders, intellectuals, politicians, individuals, government officers and the like amongst the KPs were brutally killed in broad day lights in thousands, along with the mass migration of this minuscule community to their destinations of devastations.
It shows an extreme apathy of the government who cannot do much and proper to save the KPs from such selected killings by the terrorists.
It has put the KPs in extreme despair, to crave for their existence as a community of aboriginal connection with Kashmir valley. Does it mean that Kashmiri Pandits have to forget their birthplace and homeland Kashmir? Why can’t the terror of Jehadis and their actions be resisted with an appropriate response by the government.
The only solution under the circumstances to this problem is to create a ‘separate homeland’ for the KPs, with in Kashmir, having a status of “Union Territory”.
This has to be stepped up by creating para military wings within this home land and recruiting mostly the youth of Kashmiri Pandits in such para military wing, by giving them proper military trainings, so that they can guard this home land and the KPs living in such a home land. Such a call is not any political proposition or any such proposal which vitiates the fundamentals of communal harmony, but the only strategic solution to the present scenario of the new terror regime adopted by Pakistan for Kashmir with some local support. Maintaining of communal harmony is not one-way traffic.
It should come from both sides of the coin, which is probably missing in Kashmir now.
Had it been so the entire present civil society of the valley should have come on streets against such heinous killings of Kashmiri Pandits and non Kashmiris, like laborers and other workers etc, which was not visible anywhere other than expressing of lip sympathies about such disastrous killings in broad day lights. Enough is enough now.
(The author is a Chartered Consultant Civil Engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his Motherland Jammu & Kashmir).