Preparation of Kashmiri Hindu Genocide

As a retort to grievances raised by Kashmiri Hindus about their suffering in Kashmir and the exodus, Muslims most commonly relent to their assertion of failure of civil and state administration in implementing corrective measures to curb mass displacement of Hindus. The age-old allegation of the Jagmohan conspiracy springs up that accentuates the role of Governor Jagmohan as a catalyst in the removal of Pandits from the valley. While their argument is chiefly used to obscure the pivotal role of the Islamic onslaught, it does not negate the connivance of the state in amping up the targets of pandits on multiple counts. Here we will look at the role played by the state in fueling the fire by making Kashmiri Hindus the easy targets before the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus.

The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus happened in a democratic India. It is impossible for guerilla groups of armed insurgents sponsored by ISI to practically drive out a mass population without the complicity of state and the bureaucracy. Not only was the state responsible for the failure of administration but also it played a role directly or indrectly in the crimes against the Hindus leading to horrific conditions for Kashmiri Pandits.

State Propaganda against Kashmiri Hindus

Sheikh Abdullah in his autobiography Aatish-E-Chinar gave the title of “Fifth Columnists” to Kashmiri Hindus which means the people who collaborate with the enemies of the state. Obviously, all the guns of Sheikh Abdullah were trained and aimed at the Kashmiri Pandit community to eliminate the community from the secretariat service and then the state itself. This top down approach of dehumanisation of Hindus begin from the tallest muslim leadership to ground level.

A bulwark of India in Kashmir, the Hindu community was a tough resistant and stable force to reckon with by the separatists in Kashmir. The religious onslaught on the minority community was only a preview to the plans set by the terrorists before the armed insurgency had actually commenced in the valley.

“Without Kashmiri Hindu Pandits there is no Kashmir, and also no India in Kashmir”

Kashmiri Pandits have long been engaged in the relentless struggle for survival but what happened in a modern independent democratic India was most unfortunate. The connivance and complicity of the state constituted the anti-Kashmiri Hindu campaign on a government level.

There was a regular and systematic tirade against the Kashmiri Hindus to shut their mouth and suppress their grievances. These were cropping up and touching their different spheres of activists, social, economic, political and religious, It was also done to provoke Muslim militancy for which a congenial atmosphere was being created to encourage it on a mass level and spread it in the length and breadth of Kashmir.

The rulers and the party men in secret collaboration with the State Information Department deployed its staff for the purpose of preparing, bringing out and distributing atrocity literature regularly against the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits at the cost of state exchequer. This published material was distributed in different quarters of the exclusion of Kashmiri Hindus, who were kept ignorant about the campaign.

The peaceful, cultured and microscopic community of Kashmiri Hindus were belittled and denounced and often, provoked to commit any perilous act so as to get an excuse to crush them for which the deck was being cleared and false accusations attributed to them. The government did not hesitate even to dub the Kashmiri Hindus as militants when there were no visible signs of large scale militancy and terrorism on the part of Muslim also. The high handedness was done and demonstrated by others but condemned were Kashmiri Hindus as to why they grieved and complained.

Mattan temple encroachment

In the late seventies, during the Sheikh regime, a chunk of land attached with and subservient to the Hindu shrine at Mattan, gateway to world-famous Amarnath shrine, was encroached upon and snatched by the members of Muslim community. This land was used for centuries past as an important centre for night halt and the rest of the pilgrimage of the “Charri.” In order to obstruct Amarnath pilgrimage, this land was one night snatched and annexed to Muslim Auqaf and the Aufaq flag hoisted there, converting it into a Muslim property forcibly. The Hindus raised a hue and cry and demanded swift action and return of the land. while admitting the facts, the government shielded the miscreants. One of the statements released by the government is given below.

“The mattan incident was misconstrued by them (Kashmiri Pandits) as an instance of encroachment on their places of worship. Needless to recall, when the muslims of the locality misled by certain anti-social and vested interests, tried to occupy a piece of landin the town, the Auqaf flag was removed even in the face of heavy risks of breach of peace.” [1]

It was a deep conspiracy to threaten and harass the Kashmiri Hindus openly. As a result, serious tension prevailed on the spot drifting away the two communities, Hindu and Muslim, was apprehended. The false accusation of organizing themselves against militant lines was publicised against Kashmiri Pandits to create a justification for Muslim militancy, that was in making, which the Muslim leadership desired very much to have. The booklet under reference further writes:

“Even at Mattan, the temple town in Anantnag district, a few year ago mark the turning point in the attitude of the Kashmiri Pandits. It was after that unfortunate incident that they organised themselves on militant lines. Till then the two major communities in the state had maintained highly cordial relations…..

Since the Mattan incident the militancy of the Kashmiri Pandits has become patent enough to warrant any scope for misunderstandings but for the swift action of the state administration that time, a virtual holocause was imminent. Come as that did at a time when the valley was plaing host to tens of thousands of eagerly sought after rourists and more so to the thousands of the Amarnath cave bound yatris, the incident could have escalated into a major clash between the two comunities- Muslims and Hindus and its trial spelt disaster to the state’s not so viable economy.” [2]

And then accusing further that the Kashmiri Pandits have been levelling wild allegations about their imaginary grievances through a series of meetings and resolutions they keep up their tirade thus seeking to build up their militancy.

Squeezing Kashmiri Hindus further

The government put in consistent efforts to tarnish the fair image of Kashmiri Pandits, Involving in and blaming the peace-loving community for a false charge of ‘building up militancy.’ The environment in fact, was being polluted by the government and the atmosphere surcharged against innocent Kashmiri Pandits to justify Muslim terrorism, secession and militancy. It was being instigated and organised to seek the annihilation of Kashmiri Hindus in the valley. The government shamelessly indulged in this campaign of vilification against the Hindu community, smaller in number but stronger in conviction. It is not that they could not take to militancy but they did not choose the creed of violence.

In the same booklet the assertions and charges made are in contradictory terms. THe kashmiri Pandits neither ever threatened of restorting to militancy nor took up to militancy. They only screemed and sobbed over their plight and the discrimination perpetrated upon them. What all that they did was they heaved sighs and wanted to lodge peaceful protests, which the government was not in a mood to permit. The booklet further says:

“Ever since the mattan incident, the Pandit community….has been throwing veiled threats to launch what they call a “courageous peaceful struggle” if their demands were not conceded. Most right thinking people in the state must have been stunned to read a news report in some local dalilies recently in which they had alleged that round about two thousand Hindus desert Kashmir every year in search of employment outside.”[2]

The state government never wanted to see the exposure of true facts about Kashmir not were prepared to face the truth. Hindus wanted to launch an only peaceful struggle for redressal of their grievances and not to resort to militancy. They had never conceived the idea of militancy. the government leaders themselves wanted to create Muslim militancy in the background of such utterances and statements and were preparing the ground for that by falsely accusing the Pandits. the desertion of the valley educated youth for seach of admissions to highger classes of learning in Medical, technical etcc…or for the jobs and livelihood outside the state, which they were refused in state ignoring their merit were admitted facts.

In order to squeeze Kashmiri Hindus fully, the government wanted to deny them the rights to services also. Under the constitution, the government could not do it. They had, therefore, launched a concerted campaign against Kashmiri Hindus, raising the bogey of their “excessive share in service” than their ratio of population warranted. The allegation is still repeated and echoed by many sections of the media including premier mainstream news channel NDTV’s anchor Barkha Dutt, against which Kashmiri Youth Movement launched a campaign of #ApologiseBarkha for reinforcing the aspersions casted by the muslim leadership of Kashmir. In another government sponsored propaganda publication, they wrote against the discrimination raised by the Kashmiri Pandits with a veiled threat so as to cow them down. It said:

“The leaders of this communty have ignored the fact that they have share in servies and professional instituions in excess of what their number would justify. It can be conceded that the Kashmiri Pandits are ahead of other communities on account of better education standards and long tradition of services, but it would be diffiicult to deny that their share is far in excess of their number and it would be difficult to avoid some major social engineering in days to come to restore the balance in favour of muslim majority in Kashmir and the dogras in Jammu region to avoid tensions.” [3]

The fact that this propaganda was powerful and effective is the sign that the repercussions of it were seen in Jammu. It had far-reaching consequences for state politics for the coming decades. The accusation of unfair share equally resonated in the congress ministers and it was echoed by the top brass to defend their failures of coming up with a clear policy on Kashmir. After the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus tried to apply for jobs, colleges, there was heavy resentment in the Jammu by the Dogra community against Kashmiri Hindus contesting for jobs and educational positions on seats of their share. This propaganda was successful.

The grievances and complaints of native Hindus were mostly against the government, state and central. But it was the government and the Muslim leadership of the day that gave it a twist to suit their politics and paint an obnoxious image of the minorities.

Kashmiri Pandit community is one such community that had an unmatchable record of literacy. If one goes by literacy percentage in the state, the Kashmiri pandits are then again great sufferers and have been given a nominal percentage of government jobs in the state services.

“Spreading canard against the Kashmiri Hindus to the effect that they are dominating the state services causing resentment within the Muslim community. True facts are, however quite contrary, to this false assertion. Kashmiri Pandits are constituting one-fourth of the total population of the state while their percentage in government services is not more than 3.5 percent.” [4]

An Urdu journal “Maktoob” published by the State Information department carried in one of its issue in late 70s an editorial openly against Kashmiri Pandits and dubbed the whole community as communal. This tirade agaisnt the small comunnity of Kashmiri Pnadits continued not only during the Sheikh Abdullah regime but in the succcessive governments too.

In the ministry of Farooq Abdullah, one of his former minister and then the speaker asesembly, Abdul Rahim wrote a similar booklet against Kashmiri Hindus. The booklet written in his name in the 80s was another addition to the atrocity literature produced by the state government prepared and brought out confidentially by the State Information Department. It contained false, distorted and damaging versions about Kashmiri Pandits.

The campaign of vilification of Kashmiri Hindus was a part of the conspiracy, therefore, carried out and borne as it was on the Public Exchequer. Another leader of the National conference, Atta Ullah Suharawardi, who was deputy chairman of the J&K Legislative council also spoke strongly against Kashmiri Hindus. The vehement attack started by Sheikh Abdullah’s regime against Hindus, therefore, continued unabated in the regime of his son also.

The unyielding existence of and survival of Kashmiri Hindus in Kashmir was an eyesore to the ruling party and its leadership. The pivotal point of their politics was to curb and crush the Kashmiri Pandit community, least realising that it would later hollow the foundations of their own edifice of power.

Source: Excerpts taken from the book Kashmir Trials and Travails by Pt. Pyare Lal Kaul.