They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They?

Instead of letting my bleeding heart stain the monitor, I made a call to Srinagar. 24 Pandits had been killed. “All politics,” said my friend, who is a poet, an atheist and a Kashmiri Muslim by birth.

I watched Zoya as she tried to get Kinshuk to confess his love for her. Over the telephone line, she whispered, “I…I….”. He smiled at the other end, aware of the people in the room but managed to stutter, “Me too….” The word was not stated; it was understood. The two families are Kashmiri – one Muslim, the other Hindu. And when Zoya’s father, Dr. Wani, is arrested for hoisting the national flag on Independence Day at his house by a tough Hindu officer who believes all Muslims are traitors, Kinshuk’s father, Prof. Kachru, bails him out. Strange irony. In a Muslim-majority state where Pandits are being ill-treated, only a Hindu can save a Muslim for being an Indian. Of course, this is a television serial called ‘Kashmeer’, and although 24 Pandits had not been shot dead when this episode was aired, one had been murdered brutally on screen -- Kinshuk’s younger brother, Krishnanshu, who was colluding with the terrorists by getting arms from across the border to make a fast buck and indulge in some adventure. The militants want to make him into an example and expect a Muslim friend of the family to kill him. So, who is trapped here?

Think about it. Who is dying? Every life is precious, just as every life is cheap, but this is not the first time that Pandits have been murdered. But this is the first time that a special 90-minute meeting was held to discuss a “healing touch policy”. L.K.Advani was at the scene of the carnage almost immediately. And he said what he had to say, “This is an act of our neighbour and violence in the state is continuing only because of it.” Rs. 1 lakh compensation was offered on the spot. Security has been beefed up. For whom? The 28 survivors of this little hamlet called Nadimarg. And yes, in other areas as well where the minorities live.

Before starting the drone of, “Obviously, she has no sympathies for Hindus”, it might help if you listened. Earlier, deaths in Kashmir were deaths in Kashmir by militant outfits; no one made an issue of it being a Muslim or a Hindu death. I read a report where someone making a film on Pandits is being lauded as opposed to the “Islamist Bollywood film-makers” who glorify terrorists.

So this is a good time to ask why the Pandits did not become terrorists. One, they were better-off and from 1947 to 1989, they had pretty much say in government matters. They are mainly professionals, not artisans or small businessmen. They lived a relatively safe life alongside their Muslim neighbours because Kashmir never was an Islamic state. They had a great deal of support from abroad. And there is a reason why they are called ‘migrants’ and not ‘refugees’. Because they chose to leave. To now rail against the ‘heroes’ makes no sense if you cannot hold your head high and stay where you are. I have to keep saying this: the campaign posters threatening them to leave were the work of the political forces.

Kuldip Nayyar had stated a while ago, “The plight of the Pandits has only worsened because they have been used as pawns in the game which the various rulers and different political formations have played in Srinagar and New Delhi. Mr. Jagmohan, now a BJP MP, encouraged the Pandits to leave the Valley when he became governor of the state for the second time. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has confirmed this. Mr. Jagmohan gave the Pandits air tickets, provided them with transport and arranged financial and other help to ensure their journey to Jammu. It was as if he wanted them to be out of the way to be able to deal with militants. Did he want to communalise the situation, plan to use the Pandits one day against the Hurriyat’s demand for independence? Whatever the reason, his rough methods provided a spark to an already combustible situation.”

Everyone knows that Pandits are not the only ones targeted. Their religious places are not the only ones threatened. Wasn’t it a Muslim who blew up the Charar-e-Sharif? Why could they not continue to do whatever little work was possible? Why could they not send their sons into the army? Why could they not stand like a protective wall when the pilgrims made their way to the Amarnath Yatra? Instead they chose to leave for Jammu (which is not a Muslim-majority), Amritsar (they should learn a lesson from the Sikhs there for not giving up in the face of terrorism in Punjab, and incidentally there are 35,000 Sikhs who continue to live in the Valley), and Delhi (where the very government that is now weeping has not done a thing in all these years to rehabilitate them). They feel they have been excluded from the negotiations on Kashmir, indicating that it is a Muslim issue. By making such insinuations, they are really playing into the hands of the Machiavellis.

The Pandits feel that Article 370 should be abrogated because:
1). It prevents outsiders from buying property in the State, which further increases the Muslim hold. I don’t see the logic of this. They, who had homes there, ran away, and they assume others would want to settle there? If the grouse is that Pakistan got non-Kashmiris to enter PoK, then Pakistan’s reasons are different.
2). The semi-autonomy gives the Muslims an unfair advantage. Fact: Traditionally, the governor of J&K has always been a Hindu, as also the head of the police force, whose selection is passed by the Union home ministry. Semi-autonomy status to the Valley is mainly on paper, not in practice. Kashmir is not among the most prosperous States and whenever there is an opportunity the Centre leaps in to cash in on selective tragedies. So internal security of the State has now conveniently become the responsibility of the Centre.
3). The Pandits can be free to create their own homeland and bring in technology and industry. Where will this come from when they are complaining about the squalid conditions they are living in? And they want to bring back secularism in the State, which is so ironical considering they are asking for a separation on the basis of their religious identity. And they say they will act as a “buffer against the export of jehad into India”. They who ran away? Who is going to finance them?

‘Panun Kashmir’ is a dangerous concept until such time the fate of the Valley is decided, and it never will be. But the idea is so tantalising that people like Ashok Pandit, a film-maker and leader of ‘Panun Kashmir’, can talk rubbish: “Indians must understand that the Kashmir problem is not just the problem of Kashmir. It is the problem of India. If Kashmir is gone, Delhi will be soon gone. Then Maharashtra will follow and Gujarat. Finally, nothing will be left of India. If one part of India goes, all of India goes. It is as simple as that. We Kashmiri Pandits have now reached a point where we wonder if we have followed the right track. The way we have protested has brought us nothing. We should have perhaps gone the way of the Yaseen Maliks and Shabir Shahs. Perhaps the government would have taken us more seriously then. They are ready to sit across the table with militants, but not with us: that is the tragedy. That is the failure of the way we have approached the Kashmir problem.”

Does he even know what he is saying? I can understand him talking about Kashmir “gone”, but the other States, the Capital of the country? And while organisations like the JKLF have been banned in the past for separatist aspirations, how is it that ‘Panun Kashmir’ has never gone through such a phase? As for going the way of the Yaseen Maliks and Shabbir Shahs, they have not been sitting in the salons of Mumbai; they have been arrested, sometimes without evidence. And the government talks to them because they do reflect the mood of the people today. Incidentally, neither of them has ever talked about the Kashmir problem as a Muslim problem. Neither has discussed the possibility of acceding to Pakistan. And when the Chief Minister Mufti Mohamed Sayeed did visit Mumbai and had a meeting with members of the Hindi movie industry and asked them to shoot their films in the State, he was asked to first visit the refugee camps. How many of these film stars have visited the camps? If they can shoot in the West and go through the ignominy of racial profiling, why can they not go and shoot in the Valley, when the CM of the State is reassuring them? Instead of throwing such hollow challenges, this was the moment to grab. Mr. Pandit who has been talking about technology and industry could have taken a crew there, employed Pandits and sent out a message of hope and unity.

Think of what is happening to those who are still living there. Where every other day there is a curfew and people have to go without food. Those Kashmiris are unemployed, the shikharas are lying desolate, the wood wet, the curtains stained with seasonal changes. And what about those Kashmiri Muslims who have left to eke out a living and are nomads, setting up small shops, roadside thelas, be it in the metros or remote hill stations or beaches? They are migrants too. They don’t call themselves refugees. I have talked to many of them and not one has had a word against the Pandits.

Not all Pandits live in camps. They have made homes for themselves. Had they stayed back, they might have been under threat from terrorists as are the rest, but the security forces would have been with them. No Kashmiri Pandit has ever been arrested by government organisations, not even journalists for downloading research material on militant outfits, as Iftikhar Gilani was. Therefore, it is unfortunate that such groups make it seem like the local population has talked about the extermination of Hindus. This is the only Muslim-majority state in all of India. And while there is a sentimental attachment, even Kasmiri Pandits like Dr. Karan Singh and the Nehru-Gandhi family had done nothing. If the Pandits say their problems started after Partition, then Yuvraj Karan Singh took over as Regent in 1950 and when hereditary rule was abolished two years later he was sworn in as sadar-e-riyasat. In 1961, he was recognised as the Maharaja of the State by the Indian government. So, where was the “persecution by Muslims” of the Pandits? Why were they not protected then?

One often hears about the ‘whining’ of the Indian Muslims. But after the Bombay riots, they did not run away; those in Ayodhya continue to live there; those in Gujarat are staying put. And please don’t tell me it is the government protecting them. Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has publicly stated that he takes “moral responsibility” for the Nadimarg incident, as under all circumstances the minorities in Kashmir must be protected. Other local groups, including militants, and the CM have all expressed similar views, which ought to send out positive signals to the Pandits. They must remember that other States are not so lucky. Due to government connivance the Shiv Sena continues to thrive in Maharashtra, Narendra Modi continues as CM of Gujarat, and a 12-year-old boy and an 81-year-old man get arrested as suspected terrorists in Jharkhand.

Amnesty International has been accused of not being loud and clear about the heinous massacre of the Pandits, simply because they have not condemned any one group. They say they don’t know who the culprit is, neither does the Indian government. Of course, it is terrorists who did it. But who will arrest which one? And even if you do, there are far too many groups. And the local militant outfits have support because they are answering some felt need, or else in a Muslim state where the CM was and is a Muslim, why would the people need these ‘aggressors’? I think the same principle applies as in the case of Veerappan or the late Phoolan Devi or LTTE or ULFA.

Whoever killed those 24 Pandits has only done it to make a ‘clash of civilisations’ scenario appear more glaring than it ever was. If the Pandits believe in ‘Kashmiriat’, then they should not agree to become willing pawns for their short-term interests. I watched the next episode of the serial ‘Kashmeer’ where the SP saab tells Prof. Kachru that he has been posted there, and the Muslim officer transferred, especially to look into the case of his son’s murder and to protect them from “un log”. This simple professor looks dumbfounded, for he does not believe in this sort of pettiness. And while he is sitting at the police station trying to locate his lost friend, Dr. Ashfaque Wani, who is available to the sick and needy at any time, the latter has been taken by militants dressed as cops and shot dead in the stillness of the night.

It is tough in these times for any “healing touch” to survive. And even more difficult to tell the difference between the dead and the dying.