Needless to mention that Kashmir forms an integral part of Independent India, the incumbent government at the center has affirmed it with a strong message to the world at large. Though, India has been making it amply clear to the international community, there is a stubborn neighbor who would still like to keep its people under the shadow of darkness. No
Kashmir has been used unabatedly by the neighboring country as a tool to keep Kashmir in an unending turmoil and unrest. The youth of Kashmir off late have been identified as the soft target by those who want Kashmir to get submerged under the misery & apathy of terrorism, just to implement their nefarious designs to destabilize the Indian polity.
Well, whatever is happening in Kashmir nowadays, is not the matter of days, months or for that matter years, it is a state of affairs that goes back decades and decades down the history. Kashmir, if we summarize in brief has been a strong and powerful seat of peace, tranquility, religious amity and brotherhood. Even Gandhi Ji once said that if he sees any ray of hope for peace and brotherhood, he can see it coming from Kashmir. But, it happens to be a hard irony that Kashmir got hit by the political highhandedness and subsequent political opportunism made hell, out of what otherwise was a paradise on earth. As a French traveler, Burnier, who visited Kashmir during Aurangzeb’s rule had termed Kashmir as, “Terrestrial Paradise of Indies”
Kashmiris have a mixed history of peace, prosperity, brotherhood, cruelty, torture, oppression, conversions, religious supremacy, community bias, suppression and despite all these ups and downs, what can be made out as the gist of Kashmiris existence in Kashmir is the communal brotherhood and religious harmony.
Jammu & Kashmir enjoyed independence during the British rule in India. When Gulab Singh ruled the independent state of Jammu & Kashmir, he was given complete independence forever by the British on the basis of his good conduct and a settlement of ₹ 7.5 Million to the British. This was on March 16, 1846. Starting then, the state of Jammu & Kashmir stayed an independent state until 1947 when Maharaja Hari Singh signed an agreement with Independent India, transforming power and undergoing accession.
By the time India became independent, Muslims, under the leadership of Mohamad Ali Jinnah wanted a separate country, where they could propagate Islam and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan came into existence. It was only when Pakistan had nefariously thought of bringing Kashmir into its dominion, that King Hari Singh was forced to make an agreement of accession with India. Though India, through Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, had put a note in the United Nation security council for a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue, the same became unenforceable due to the most impractical suggestions coming from the neighboring country Pakistan.
Pakistan calls it a dispute which it is not, and it is this stubbornness on part of this hostile neighbor that India had to fight war triggered by Pakistan in 1965, 1971 and then again in 1999(Kargil War). 1999(May to July), Kargil War, was an aggression thrust on India, collectively by the Pakistan Army and the Terrorist organizations of Pakistan under the patronage of General Parvez Musharraf, the then Pakistan Army Chief.
Communal unrest had taken place in Kashmir in 1986 as well, but there were no or fewer casualties. An exodus took place which was not widespread and the situation normalized as the dust settled. It was only in 1989 when terrorism in Kashmir was launched on a much larger scale and massacre of Hindus had already been unleashed by the local and Pakistani terrorists.
Prior to it, in 1987, a political front by the name of “Muslim United Front – MUF”, came into existence. MUF participated in the elections but as is believed in the local political circles, the elections at that point in time got rigged just to bring the local political party, “National Conference and the Indian National Congress”, into power as MUF was considered to be Anti-National and terrorist centric party. This was considered to be a drastic shift in the state politics and the overall political health of the country.
September 1989 to March 1990, was the darkest part in the history of Kashmiri Pandits, in the valley of Kasmir. Mass exodus took place, as the same was forced on the Pandit community by the separatist fundamentalist groups of people who had willful intentions to make Kashmir a fundamentalist Islamic State.
As a result of increasing unrest, provocation, ethnic cleansing, Kashmiri Hindus fled the valley of Kashmir leaving behind their homes and hearths not knowing as to what fate they would be subjected to with almost nothing to sustain the unprecedented misery and hardship that was awaiting them.
Though their brethren in the Jammu province, the Dogras and the people in other parts of the country, welcomed the Kashmiri Pandits with open arms and treated them as their own brothers and sisters, the darker part in their life had yet to come.Kashmiri Pandits had to register themselves as the refugees and were kept in tenements in the open ground with almost zero sanitation facilities.
The tenaments created for the community were much worse than the slums. Coming from the place where temperatures would not go beyond 37 degree celsius, Kashmiri Hindus had to live under the scorching heat waves where temperatures would even touch 47 degree celsius. Those who could not withstand the heat died an untimely death and those who sustained it, had to bear the plight of inhuman living conditions.
Though the state administration was extending a very friendly gesture to the pandit community government employees by allowing them to draw their salaries even without attending to duties. Life was not all that simple for them.
Education was one of the biggest challenges faced by the children of the Kashmiri Pandit community. But thanks to the undying endurance & efforts of the children, the community showed the world that they could excel irrespective of the conditions averse to the educational atmosphere.
For the children of Kashmiri Hindus, this mass exodus has most definitely proved to be a “blessing in disguise”. Children exploited their capabilities, potentialities, and wisdom to the extent that they are now at very prestigious and big positions in administration, medicine, and technology.
Coming to the mass exodus, it did not stop there. In fact, mass exodus became a reason for those who wanted to take political mileage out of it. Both local and National political parties started exploiting the exodus, simply to meet their own selfish political ends.
If the successive governments at the center would have been serious in resolving the Kashmir issue, once and for all, it would have been settled quite a long time ago and that too with all political grace and people’s aspirations. But to be very frank, no party at the center or not even the local political parties wanted this issue resolved at all. Because Kashmir for them happens to be the sole source of political survival in the region and in the process, the most Nationalist Kashmiri Hindus had to shoulder the whole brunt and face the odds which they would have not even thought of.
After displacement from the valley, the Kashmiri Pandits were victimized not only by the political parties but also by their own people who started calling themselves as “The Voice of Kashmiri Pandits in Exile”. They surfaced as the leaders of Kashmiri Hindus and these self-styled leaders started gathering support from our brethren in the western countries and more importantly from those in the United States of America.
It is believed that after they were impressed upon by these self styled kashmiri Pandit leaders, they came out with a helping hand and very rightly so. They thought that if they could contribute towards the well-being of their brothers and sisters, it could be through financial aid only. And, it is believed, they donated huge amounts of financial aid for the welfare of the community, Well,who collected the donations and how the funds were utilized for the betterment of the community, that still remains a million dollar question.
That was not all, these self-styled leaders who took the advantage of the poor, illiterate, innocent and the most submissive sections of the society took the community for a ride. They floated the most ridiculous and vague concept in the shape of a demand for a homeland for the Kashmiri Pandits in the valley of Kashmir to which they said, as an explanation, that they know it is not something which is going to be a reality but they can at least place this demand as a pressure tactics for the central administration. This was something which inadvertently proved to be contra-effective for their smooth sailing in befooling the community brethren in particular and the central and state administration in general.
Creating a homeland for Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley was a false promise made by the people who believed in propagating an element of vengeance and hatred for the Muslim community in the valley. A learned lawyer pleading the case of sikhs, brutally murdered in 1984, has said that Hindus did not kill sikhs, it is the Congress workers, who killed them. Similarly it is not the Muslims who killed kashmiri Hindus, it is the militants who killed them. So creating a sense of hatred in the minds of kashmeeri pandits, is what all these self styled leaders have been propagating.
Kashmiri Pandits got scattered in different parts of the country and abroad, and their return, in the true sense of the term, is far from reality, at least for the younger generation. So in such case, what Kashmiries need to work for is consolidation not separation. Further fragmentation of Kashmeer is in no way going to help kashmiri Hindus. It will be an invasion on national integration.
Kashmiri Pandits in exile can help the current government at the centre, by not opting for vague, misguiding and meaningless demands propagating homeland. They can instead strengthen the hands of Prime Minister Narinder Modi, in solving the Kashmeer issue with consolidation and grace.They should take pride in uniteing the already fragmented Kashmir rather than in fragmenting it further.
A ray of Hope can be seen in the proactive approach of Prime Minister Narinder Modi, where the day is not far when Kashmir will unite again. And that is what we should take pride in.And, under his dynamic leadership, it can be possible.
So, it is high time for all those who propagate separatism and hatred among both the communities, be it Muslims by the jehadi separatists or the Hindus, by the so called self styled kashmiri Pandits leaders, to mend their ways and start coming in the national main stream and work for peace, prosperity brotherhood and above all the national unity and integrity.
We have to unite Kashmir, not fragment it.
It has to be, ” All Kashmir For All Kashmiries “. In fact for all “nationalist” Kashmiries.
Jai Akhand Kashmir
Jai Akhand Bharat.