Prof Hari Om
Fearing extinction, the internally-displaced and persecuted Kashmiri Hindu community has decided to advocate a three-child norm so that it is able to sustain its numbers and not evaporate into extinction. Apart from holding the forced exodus of the community responsible for the dwindling growth rate, the community leaders have blamed the community itself for the negative growth rate. They have said that it is not just the one-child norm but also the “delayed marriages and delayed child-bearing”, which have played havoc with community, and accused the “more self-reliant and self-sustained” families in the community of being “complicit in this crime of self-annihilation”. Other factors responsible for the decline in the growth rate among the Kashmiri Hindus, according to the community leaders, are premature menopause in women, hypo-function of the reproduction system, lack of adequate accommodation and privacy.
Only a few days ago, the concerned community leaders adopted a resolution making a fervent appeal to all parents to take responsibility to educate their children about the dimensions of self-destruction. The resolution, inter-alia, read: “The ruthless and genocidal destabilisation has been of catastrophic implications for the demography of Kashmiri Hindus. In exile maintaining and perpetuating our demography is a prime task for all of us. Our own responsibility in creating a growth rate which can arrest the trend of dwindling numbers in our stock is a prime responsibility for all of us.
We have to realise that one-child norm is taking us to a negative growth trend, which is so steep that the specter of extinction does not look impossibility. Even a two-child norm per family doesn’t take us out of the vicious negative growth curve. Our family planning has to undergo a revolutionary change if we have to escape from silent destruction. This silent destruction will be our own creation. It will be a self-inflicted suicide”.
“We marry our children at an age at least five years ahead of the present average norm and we must have more children to maintain our demography” was the operative part of the resolution. The internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus have been struggling hard since their forced exodus from the Valley in early 1990 to achieve a “status of equality” and all fundamental civil and political rights the Indian Constitution confers on the Indian citizenry.
Their struggle is not just a struggle for their self-preservation, but also for attracting the attention of the Government of India and the nation as a whole to the fact that their population is dwindling very fast – a trend, if not reversed forthwith, will result in the extinction of the microscopic minority. Sadly, however, their relentless struggle in the State and outside to expose the ugly face of the so-called secular freedom movement in Kashmir has failed to produce the desired results even after 27 years of their exodus, as the authorities in New Delhi never considered them a factor in the political situation in Kashmir.
Similarly, their struggle to blunt the edge of a widespread misinformation campaign unleashed by the Islamic secessionists in Kashmir and their mentors in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world and put the human rights situation in the militant-infested Kashmir in perspective has failed to attract the attention of the powers-that-be in New Delhi. On the contrary, certain elements in the establishment have all along considered them a problem between them and Islamic zealots in Kashmir.
The hounded out Kashmiri Hindus have not been putting in efforts for seeking any special favour from New Delhi. Their efforts have been in fact a response to their unflinching commitment to India and urge to link their destiny with New Delhi for better, for worse. It was indeed natural for them to expect a national opinion and sensitivity to emerge recognising the fact that they had become prime targets of secessionists and had to confront a situation that culminated in their wholesale internal displacement. Their efforts and passionate pleas should have motivated the various organs of the Indian State, particularly the Government of India, to assess and evaluate the challenges posed by this internal displacement to them and to the nation as a whole, but to their misfortune nothing of the sort has happened so far.
It is no wonder then that a state of virtual siege continues to exist vis-à-vis dealing with any aspect of their problems. Thousands of them have died in refugee camps and elsewhere; growth-rate of the community is showing a negative trend; and the educational profile is also showing a downward trend with increased drop-out rate. An unwritten and undeclared ban exists so far as recruitment of the Kashmiri Hindu youth is concerned. More than half of the state government employees among the displaced population have retired. The plight of traders and other self-employed persons, including agriculturists and horticulturists, is worse. Hundreds of writ petitions settled by the state courts in favour of the displaced to get justice are a clear indication of the government’s cold attitude and apathy towards them.
Another fact of the distortion campaign being indulged in by the political parties at the helm in the State and at the Centre is the refrain that they are all committed to their return to the Valley with honour and dignity. This refrain, it appears, has been invented to befool the public at large. In the light of these apparent ‘reassuring’ commitments, a systematic campaign to destroy any chance of their return is going on, unnoticed. Terrorist-financed and directed operations are in full swing to effect sale of the properties of Kashmiri Hindus.
“Several hundred of their properties have been burnt down and hundreds of their houses have been purchased through the campaign of ‘distressed sales’. Revenue records have been “tampered with” and hundreds of their houses, shops and business establishments/premises have been illegally occupied by militants and their supporters. Several temples and properties attached to them have been burnt down, damaged or destroyed. Orchards and agricultural land owned by the community already stand destroyed. They are also being usurped either through tampering of revenue and land records or through illegal encroachment.
In the atmosphere that has been existing in the Valley since 1989, the displaced Kashmiri Hindus are being asked repeatedly by the Governments in the State and at the Centre to go back to their homes and hearths without convincing them and allaying their fears. None in the Governments deems it fit to discuss their demands and problems. On the contrary, the powers-that-be in New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir day in and day out invite the known terrorists for talks and make announcements that they are prepared to listen to them and accommodate their demands as far as possible “within the constitutional framework”.
All this leads one to three inescapable inferences. First, the South and North Blocks do not appear to visualise any role for the minority in the nation-building process in Jammu and Kashmir. Second, a subtle operation is afoot to permanently push the Kashmiri Hindus out of the State. And lastly, a situation of deliberate bias and discrimination against the entire minority community is being kept alive for ulterior motives.
Will New Delhi look all these facts in the face, help the community avert the possibility of its extinction and empower it politically and economically? It must.
