[Reader-list] Forced Migration & Kashmiri Pandits: A Historical Perspective (Posting 2)

[meenu gaur]

I’d like to begin with a brief cultural and historical introduction to the 
Kashmiri Pandits, which I hope would serve as the background for my research 
on the Kashmiri Pandit refugees in Delhi.

Kashmiri Pandits are the Hindus of the Kashmir Valley. To begin with, the 
designation Pandit that is applied to Kashmiri Hindus was requested by Jai 
Ram Bhan, a Kashmiri Hindu courtier in the Mughal court of Emperor Muhammad 
Shah (1719-1749) in Delhi. Before this period both Kashmiri Hindus and 
Muslims were addressed as khwajah in the Mughal court. Kashmiri Hindus call 
themselves and are called by their Muslim compatriots, batta, from the 
Sanskrit bhartri, meaning master. They are a minority in the Muslim majority 
Valley (which has a more than 95% Muslim population), which in turn forms a 
part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The estimates of their population 
vary from the 7 lakhs of some right-wing Kashmiri Pandit organizations to 
the more moderate figures of about 2 lakhs. As to the Indian census, the 
figures on Kashmir’s demographics have been mired in controversy. (Even then 
according to the government of India census 1981, there were 124,078 Hindus 
living in the Valley in 1981. Assuming a rate of “natural increase” of 2 % 
per annum, one can, more or less, reach an approximate figure). All in all, 
the Kashmiri Pandits are a very small but significant minority in Kashmir. 
Their centrality to the cultural and political life in Kashmir can’t be 
overstressed.

There is much that has been written on the distinct cultural identity of 
Kashmiri Pandits who have a long historical and cultural tradition that goes 
back centuries to pre-Islamic, pre-Buddhist Kashmir. But interestingly their 
peculiar way of life came into being only in the time of the Muslim Sultans 
and the ethnicity which marks their difference from the Hindus of North 
India has more to do with cultural and philosophical exchanges with Sufi 
Islam.

Here we are concerned with the forced migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the 
Valley in 1990s after a pro- Independence armed uprising challenged India’s 
rule over Kashmir. The Kashmiri Pandits were a Hindu minority in a moderate 
Muslim Kashmir up in arms against India. Moreover the uprising turned to 
Islam for inspiration. In early 1990, the Kashmiri Pandits began to migrate 
out of the Kashmir Valley. (The arguments and counterarguments on these 
migrations will be discussed at length in future postings).


The migrations of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley (voluntary or forced) 
have happened across centuries. The 1990 migration, though unprecedented in 
scale (most of the Pandits, barring a few exceptions, slowly but gradually 
left the Valley), seems to be a repetition of earlier such migrations in 
Kashmir’s history. For example, in 1394 A.D Sultan Sikandar came to the 
throne and soon earned the nickname of “Butshikan” or Iconoclast because of 
the fanaticism with which he destroyed the temples of Kashmir. The Pandits 
were offered the choice between exile and death. And many Pandits migrated 
from the Valley. But Zain-ul-Abidin succeeded to the throne in Kashmir in 
1417 A.D and his long reign of 52 years is believed to be one of the 
happiest periods of Kashmir’s history. The chief glory of the great king’s 
reign was his tolerance towards the Kashmiri Pandits, the king manifested 
every desire to repair the wrongs inflicted on the Hindus by Sultan 
Sikandar. He encouraged the Pandits to learn Persian, inducted them into the 
bureaucracy and gave them grants of land. Zain-ul-Abidin repaired some of 
the Hindu temples and revived Hindu learning. As a consequence, the exiled 
Pandits returned to the Valley and with them came many Brahmans from the 
South. Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin came to be known popularly as “Budshah” from 
Batta- shah i.e. the King of the Battas or the Kashmiri Pandits. So, in the 
matter of a century we have both a Butshikan and Budshah. Certain 
commentators on the extreme Hindu Right, however, argue that it is 
Zain-ul-Abidin who initiated the process of what they call ‘the cultural 
colonization of Kashmir by West Asia’, but as a matter of fact it is in the 
reign of Zain-ul-Abidin that arts and culture flourished and added to the 
rich heritage of Kashmir as we witness it today.

The political class in Kashmir has often been tyrannical. Different 
communities ruled Kashmir - the Hindus and the Buddhists, the Shias and the 
Sunnis, the Sikhs of the Punjab and the Dogras of Jammu. And it is in these 
periods that those communities which were persecuted migrated from Kashmir. 
The point being made here is not that the migrations of Kashmiri Pandits in 
the 1990s should be seen in the perspective of such medieval and late 
medieval migrations. But that there are precedents to such migrations in 
Kashmir’s history not without relevance to the ways in which the people in 
the Camps construct their present. For instance, none of these migrations 
were irreversible.

At the Sultanpuri Kashmiri Pandit refugee camp in New Delhi, when I asked 
some residents whether they would return to the Valley, they said that they 
would if they had security of life and employment. When asked whether 
socially it would still be possible for them to live with Kashmiri Muslims, 
a retired teacher told me that it was hardly the problem, “We (the Pandits) 
would apologize to them (the Muslims) for leaving the Valley and they would 
apologize to us for letting us go and things would be the same but the only 
consideration is a secure and free life, full of dignity”. Due to the 
political climate, the relationship between the Hindus and Muslims might 
have come under pressure but has not collapsed totally under the 
machinations of the political elite. The tensions in the relationship 
between the Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims have roots in the post-1947 
developments in Kashmir which I’ll take up in my next posting.

[It should also be remembered that in the last 12 years of insurgency in the 
Kashmir Valley, people have been displaced on both sides of the LOC. The 
migrations from the Valley also include thousands of Kashmiri Muslims to 
India but more significantly tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims migrated 
from the border districts of Kashmir to Pakistan. After the Chittisinghpura 
massacre of 35 Sikhs in South Kashmir there were apprehensions of an exodus 
of Kashmiri Sikhs. But this has so far been avoided.]

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

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