Author: Vivek Gumaste
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 15, 2006
Despite the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Hindus
from Kashmir - the massacre in Doda being the most recent - we, like ostriches,
have ducked from making a conscious effort to ignore the tragic reality. The
Kashmiri Pandits, who constitute a minority in the Muslim majority State,
are the original inhabitants with a culture and tradition that dates back
to 5,000 years. However, since the arrival of Islam in the region in the second
millennium, this community has been under siege.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there
were close to one million Kashmiri Pandits. Today not more than 9,000 remain
in the Valley. NHRC data indicates that Kashmiri Hindus, who constituted 15
per cent of the population in 1941, now comprise a mere 0.1 per cent.
The current phase of ethnic cleansing began
in January 1991 in concert with the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist campaign.
Terrorists deliberately engendered an atmosphere of fear, making it impossible
for Pandits to continue living in the Valley. Across Kashmir, the muezzin's
routine call to the Islamic faithful was replaced by recorded slogans played
over and over again: "Kashmir men agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna
hai" (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-O-Akbar);
"Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san" (We want Pakistan
with your women and not your men).
A sense of panic gripped the Pandits as these
verbal intimidations turned into physical violence. Hindu homes were dotted
red, houses were set on fire and hundreds of Hindus were killed, forcing Kashmiri
Pandits to flee their ancestral homeland.
The genesis for this lassitude lies in corrupt
secularism that has come to pervade the Indian psyche and become a national
policy. In India, secularism is tantamount to subservience of Hindus to the
non-Hindus. The high level censure (by the UPA Government) of Narendra Modi
for the riots in Vadodara compared to the muted response to the massacre of
Hindus in Kashmir (both occurring around the same time) clearly proves the
charge of minorityism.
While it is easy to blame Islamic militants
for the carnage in Kashmir and point a finger across the border, it does not
absolve the Government of its responsibility. We cannot exonerate the local
Muslim majority of Kashmir either, without whose support, these regular killings
would not be possible.
