Why a separate portion as Homeland when whole of the valley belongs to us? Yes, infact the whole valley is the Homeland for the Hindu Community who are the original people and can be traced through the annals of history in the valley. At heart, each and every member of the community would desire the conditions to normalise in the valley and become congenial and conducive for his return to his original place of abode and settle down to a harmonious relationship of amity, friendship and tolerance with his Muslim compatriots. Yet, we must face the facts and be brutally frank. We cannot ignore the ground realities and the compulsions of recent events that have now got superimposed on the forty five years of grand Islamization of Kashmir. What prevails today is the new culture, a cult of violence for achieving an Islamic State and for its secession from India. In the new power equation, the old order, on paper looking secular but in practice discriminative, majoritarian, fundamentalist and Islamic, has yielded to a new order openly, avowedly and blatantly militant, communal, intolerant, hate- ridden and revengeful. The Government of India has kept its door open for a dialogue with harbingers of this order and is ready to concede greater autonomy tantamount to granting an Islamic State of Kashmir in a secular India. What is the place for a Hindu in this new set up? The new power brokers, amongst the numerous terrorist outfits operating in the valley, certainly have one thing in common, that is to run the State on the principles of Islamic law, and to secede from the Indian Republic. Under the Islamic law the non-muslims shall have to be satisfied with a second class citizen- ship and under the rules of shariat to shoulder the burden of taxes (Jazia) and face disenfranchisement. A small minority will be hard pressed to resist the inducements, temptations and pressures to join the Islamic bandwagon and convert itself to Islam. Already there are linguistic and cultural inroads by Islamic hegemony in the day-to-day Hindu cultural and religious practices and their conversational nuances, which were distinct from Muslims. Under the new setup their identity will slowly get defaced and lost under the weight of medievalism and obscurantism towards which the armed fundamentalists are surely and inexorably leading the valley. Besides, what guarantees will the minority community have to their life and property when the community is scattered and resettled in small settlements here and there as it was before exodus. It was because of such demographic disadvantages that the community had no representation in the legislature or Parliament and it could not offer a joint resistance to the depredations of the terrorists against the community. If the present setup, as it existed before 1989, was so inimical, damaging and discouraging for the healthy survival of the Pandit, how can we ever expect him to survive in the changed circumstances, when the new forces that have been unleashed will hold complete sway after the total eclipse and demise of the traditional politics, of whatever worth that existed in the State. Can this forward looking, modernistic, secular and democratic community ever be allowed to live, let alone thrive,when preparations are afoot to resurrect the discredited politicians of the past who brought Kashmir and the Hindu of the valley to such a sorry pass and who were also instrumental in bringing into power indoctrinated, armed youth and their patrons who take orders from the theoeratic State of Pakistan and derive impetus and sustenance from that country? If one can read the mind of the mandarins in the power corridors of the Central Government in Delhi and others who matter, moves are afoot to grant almost everything under the Sun to the State of Jammu and Kashmir in order to mollify the militants and bring them to the negotiating table. Short of secession or total independence, the Central Government is ready to give Azadi (Independence) to the State within the constitutional frame-work, whatever it means. The fact remains that the Central Govt. has withdrawn most of the staff from its offices in the valley and replaced it with Muslim aspirants while the State Government institutions have already filled up the vacancies created by the exodus of the Hindu employees. Having retracted from civil institutions, all that remain of India in the valley are the army and paramilitary forces. Infact, the Centre has already granted an Islamic State in the valley. Funher autonomy through political process will only be putting the stamp of approval for a theocratic State within India. What are the guarantees for a Hindu ? Where does he go ? Where are his house estates and jobs ? How does he face the institutionalized indoctrination of hate and intolerance towards him ? How does he work towards winning the sympathy of the moderate Muslim who was always his hope and his pillar of strength but who now has been silenced, subdued and coerced into submission to the militants point-of-view and tows their religious and political ideology? How does he, with his limited resources and numbers, counter the disinformation by militants and their spokesmen in the length and breadth of the country who, like Goebells, have been repeating lies after lies about Hindus having grabbed all jobs in the State? Event the Central Government goes by the advice of Muslim leaders of the State - discredited politicians who swear by the Constitution of India but work towards its erosion and breach, who have left nobody in doubt about their sympathies with the cause of the terrorists and their methods and who are infact pressurising the Government of India to spell out the quantum of autonomy for the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Some amongst them including two Ex- Chief Ministers of the State have now come out openly and sided with the militants demand for self-determination. The Kashmiri Hindu is at pains to explain the futility of relying on these discredited politicians who have become irrelevant in the valley and whose bonafides and credentials as secular Indians are suspect. By seeking their counsel and trusting them and at the same time ignoring, marginalizing and discrediting the Kashmiri Hindus who have borne the cross of Indian secularism for the last four decades, the State administration and the Central Government are comitting the greatest blunder and compounding the tragedy of the valley. The Kashmiri Hindu factor cannot be excluded in the ultimate solution of the tangle. In fact, he has a major role to play in the restoration of Indian hold and claim on Kashmir because with his exit from the valley the Indian Government has given the impression that it is not interested in protecting the rights of its patriotic citizens but in retaining only the territory. The Kashmiri Hindu has a pivotal role in the final solution and if he is neglected, the Government of India will be making a mockery of its avowals of unity in diversity and its claim of protecting the rights and freedom of all its citizens and not of the Muslims alone. All these problems beset and baffle the mind of the exiled Hindu and he finds himself up against a blank wall, nay a Himalaya of ignorance and obstinacy, an ocean of follies. What faces him is the stark reality of forty five years of naked persecution followed by the onslaught of unbridled terrorism. So the community is constrained to make the only genuine, realistic and positive demand, staking its claim for its inalienable right in the valley, in essence, now a portion of the valley where it can go back and live a secular, democratic citizen of the Indian Republic. This will be an area with a Union Teritory Status, where the Indian Republic can still look for the ray of hope which the father of the nation once talked about, where the secular democratic expriment that failed in the valley, can again be put to test with guarantees of success since it will be conducted by the true votaries of this faith. In fact, the Government of India once toyed with the idea of providing a Security Zone in the valley for the exiled Hindus. Whetber it meant a cluster of contiguous villages and towns which could be provided security and which would be considered in the backdrop of demographic, economic and security logistics, was never spelled out. Infact it could have paved the way for granting Homeland to the exiles. What we are asking is to concretize this idea and give a proper shape to a Homeland for the displaced Kashmiris. What claim does the exiled community have for a Homeland? If I die in exile think this of me that there is a corner out there in Kashmir that was for ever my abode, where my soul will come to rest. - Dr. K.L. Choudhary The Kashmiri Hindu is the original inhabitant of the valley of Kashmir ever since the birth of the valley by divine intervention when Kashypa Rishi materialized it from a huge lake. He has a history of more than five thousand years of continuous habibtion. Raj Tarangni, to be highlighted the first historical record of ancient India, was written by a Kashmiri Pandit Kalhana, and is a lucid account of the Hindu Kings and the establishment of rich cultural traditions in the valley. The ruins of the to be highlighted Martand and other temples like Parihaspura at Pattan, Narannag at Kangan and the excavations at Burzhoma in the outskirts of the city of Srinagar speak of the architectural attainments as much as of the religious beliefs and practices of tbe ancient Kashmir. History, Art, Architechre, Mathematics, Astronomy, Theology Philosophy, Poetry and Aesthetics emanated from our ancestors. Kashmir during the days of yore was the centre of learning and the seat of a great University at Bijbehara near Anantnag to which scholars thronged from all parts of the world for knowledge and learning and for the study of Sanskrit, Literature, Philosophy etc. Lawrence in 1899 wrote, the valley of Kashmir is the holy land of Hindus and I have hardly been in any village which does not show some relic of antiquity. Modern Kashmir owes a lot, for its rich cultural heritage, its language, literature and arts, its very Kashmiriat, to the Hindu who laid the foundation for the same and consolidated it as other cultures mingled with it down the centuries. He gave Shaivism to the world in its explicit and practical form. Now reduced to a minority, he is the inheritor of this distinct and glorious cultural, ethnic and religious background which though having so much in common with rest of the Hindu tradition of India is yet so distinct. It is his duty to preserve this distinct heritage, to secure his own roots, to assen his identity and to claim his rights and freedom- religious, political and social. He is peace loving and tolerant. He has not taken up arms to counter terrorist violence. He has suffered silently because he was a minority at the mercy of a brute majority. But Minority Rights are now acknowledged everywhere in the civilized world. The UN Secretary General in his June1992 blue-print about the role envisaged for UN makes a proposal for an International Convention defining inalienable minority rights and a declaration to this effect to be placed before the UN General Assembly. India, the motherland of Kashmiri Hindus, has to recognise this right of Kashmiri Pandits, First and foremost. It has to grant him his rightful claim and share in the Homeland. lt is a test case for India, for the very survival of its unity in diversity, to provide safeguards to each community and uphold the rights and the just aspirations of every ethnic and religious minority. And, India will have to prove to its own people and to the world community that it is determined to safeguard and preserve the aspirations and the rights and privileges of the Kashmiri Hindus. While, on the one hand, the Indian Govemment is ready to concede every demand of the terrorists and Islamic Zealots in Kashmir short of total secession, it will have to save its own face by granting a Homeland to its secular, peace-loving citizens of the valley who sacrificed themselves at the altar of secularism and nationalism. The year 1993 all over the world is being celebrated as the year of indigenous people. Kashmiri Pandits are the indigenous people of Kashmir with the continuity of a distinct ethno-religious tradition of more than five thousand years. Therefore, the world shall have to grant them their inalienable rights to exist in their Homeland with security of life, political liberty, freedom of thought and expression and in dignity and pride. Extracts from From Margdharshan : why Homeland
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 08:38:56 +0000
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