[Reader-list] Reply to Pawan

[junaid]

Pawan, 

Ranbir Singh wanted to make Jammu the second Benaras. At Purmandel Dogras and their minions fell over each other to construct new lavish temples. Money from which came from Kashmiri Muslim peasantry, who in a few years after the Dogra rule was foisted on them, began to totally give up cultivation. Obviously because it was no longer valuable to pursue it, since most of their produce was appropriated by the landlords. One of the bigger ones was called Sut Ram Razdan. His tales of cruelty are legendary in the place I come from. You only have to listen to some Bhand Pather to understand how the technologies of expropriation were employed by Dogras and their supporters, on peasants. 

It is a fact that most of the shrines that you have mentioned complained to the spineless British that their funds were drying up, while Hindu places of worship like Umanagri in Islamabad was given huge land grants. The drain of hard-produced wealth by Kashmiri Muslim peasants and artisans went to Jammmu and into the hands of Kashmiri Pandits, most of whom did nothing productive. 

I can't go on spoon feeding you like this without you getting up from your armchair, and deciding to read some more serious literature than Organiser and Panchjanya. 

On "Takht-e-Sulaimani" and "Koh-i-Maran". You need to know the difference between Persian and Arabic. These words are not Arabic. That is why I am telling you, you need some self control. Think before you stink. In any case, it was the Kashmiri Hindus who were first to learn Persian to land jobs in Mughal and Afghan adminstration. Well in any case Persion influence on Kashmiri language had only little to do with religion. It had more to do with the trajectory of cultural influence. But Hindus in Kashmir brought in Sanskrit without any apparent reason, but purely religious and opportunistic. This was not only an attempt to assert dominance, over the majority community, as a religious community which shared their religion with the ruler, but also to liguistically lay sole claim to adminstrative employment.            

Islamabad was established as a town by Mughal governor Islam Khan. It had nothing to do with Islam, the religion. From a flourishing town it saw much depredation. Dogras renamed it Anantnag--the land of innumerable springs. The name was sanskritised, on advice of Kashmiri Hindus for whom most of these springs had acquired a religious value. Small little temples came up on the sides of these springs over time. One such example is in Verinag--the fount of river Jhelum--where a temple was placed within an enclosure constructed by the Mughals. Despite much oppresion Islamabad's residents continue to call it Islamabad. In early 1990's when popular struggle for freedom started in Kashmir, Indian forces would beat up and arrest shopkeepers who had Islamabad written on their billboards. In a matter of few months thousands of them put distinct colour patches on them to erase Islamabad and wrote Anantnag over it. Some stubborn people, however, kept the original.

Jihad. Taliban. Say something substantial! It is all wind. Like your name, Pawan. In Sanskrit. 

Junaid  
   
  
Junaid,

A long mail from you , and I would like to few of your points only for time
being . As I have cant write that long for my life is not dedicated to
"Jihad" & "Libeartion" in the name of relegion.

I have learnt to live and behave in a multi religious & cultural society. It
may take "some" many ages and at the cost of millions of more innocent lives
to understand that.

During the land reform act in Kashmir The names of Hindu landlords who were
only two in number were frequently projected as the exploiters and
blood-suckers to solidify the ranks of Muslims on religious grounds for
nefarious political objectives. Ahmad Mir and Musmat Ashraf Begum possessing
4,202 kanals of land and 3,915 kanals of land respectively were never
projected on the public mindscape because of the religion they espoused. Two
Muslim shrines of Baba Reshi and Dastagir Sahib had a land grant of ten
thousand kanals which are said to have been partially snatched away perhaps
again on religious considerations. Despite the Hindu ruler, there was no
Hindu shrine which had in its possession the same measure of land to augment
and supplement its resources.

Talking about current Islamisation of Kashmir , by changing the names of
places I would quote you few examples. You have call AnantNag as Islamabad
though even the official name is AnantNag . I wish you would accept the fact
that this place AnantNag finds mention even in Bhagwad Gita , and I am sure
you knoe Bhagwad Gita existed much before even Islam came to India.

Again you have started calling the world famous Shankracharya Hill as
Takht-E-Suleiman , though the temple was built on Gopadari hill in BC age.

The hill whereShraika Temple is situated is aclled "hari Parbat" which again
you have started to call "Koh-i-maran" .

Junaid If you draw inspiration from Talibans....and still defend the wrong
.......there is hardly i can do anything to help you.

May God Bless you with Wisdom.

Pawan Durani



On 1 Oct 2007 15:34:12 -0000, junaid <justjunaid at rediffmail.com > wrote:
>
>
> Mr. Pawan Durrani,
>
> Possibly you should have read Mridu Rai's book to understand why Dogra
> rule was 'Hindu' and why other rulers Mughals and Afghans could not be
> described as essentially 'Islamic', though it was surely Muslims who ruled.
> (By the way, there were no separate Turks and Mughals who came to rule
> Kashmir). An Islamic rule would be one where laws are made on the bases of
> Koran and Hadith, and would be called as Sharia. Both temporal and spiritual
> realms would be regulated by it. Both civil and criminal law would be
> quintessentially Sharia. And they are made by religious scholars. This was
> not the case for Mughals or Afghans: It was either laws made by the
> sovereign or the tribal laws. And even though both may have invoked Koran
> and Hadith, yet most of their content was inspired by local needs than
> religious zeal or inspiration. (I should not be understood as saying Islamic
> law is anyway superior to other laws, like tribal laws etc. Or that Afghans
> or Mughal rule was any benign.)
>
> For Dogras, who drew a fake Rajput lineage, with an opportunistic support
> from state-sponsored historians, both Dogra and British, the way they
> invoked Hinduism in ruling Kashmir was stupendous. It is no secret that poor
> Kashmiri Muslim peasants were stripped bare by Dogra rulers to fund temple
> constructions in not only Kashmir and Jammu, but in Punjab too. The Dogras
> restarted the hated practice of Begar (forced labour), originally invented
> by ancient Hindu rulers of Kashmir. Begar resulted in wide spread death and
> destruction of Kashmir Muslims. Thousands of Muslim youth perished carrying
> load, like mules, barefooted, to Maharaja's Gilgit frontier. And while this
> was going on, Kashmir's Hindu population, laying exclusive claim to
> literacy, and through their landed influence, sustained this terrible rule
> loyally. (And they were powerful even during Mughal and Afghan times, when
> they occupied much of the bureaucratic positions).
>
> Dogras depended on the so-called Pandits to extract revenue from Kashmir's
> poor Muslim peasants as well as artisans. At times, despite verbal protests
> from even the East India Company officials who were so brutal in their own
> way, Gulab Singh took away half of the produce of the Muslim peasants. In
> his greed to collect more booty he even taxed marriages among Muslims. The
> Hindu Kashmiris were exempt. The Dogras took away the lands of some leftover
> Muslim elite and reduced them to penury, but during this time, the Hindu
> landlords expanded their estates. Thus a miniscule Hindu population, not
> more than 5 percent, came to rule 95 percent Muslims of Kashmir. That too
> brutally.
>
> Pawan Durrani should be given compensation for the grand estates his
> forefathers had to give up. But who will compensate all those millions of
> rickety, malnourished, barely clothed Kashmiri Muslim peasants who were not
> only materially degraded but dehumanized too? In 1947, by a sleight of hand,
> and without bothering to ask Kashmiri Muslims, who constitute an
> overwhelming majority of its people, Kashmir was handed by a Hindu ruler to
> India. In this, some Muslim political leaders were coaxed too; they realized
> but only too late. During this time, many Kashmiri Muslim leaders were
> forced into exile. During the same time, hundreds of thousands of Muslims
> from Jammu were either forced to flee or massacred.
>
> A bearded Kashmir Muslim militant provokes a frenzied response from Pawan,
> and he begins to shout: "Hatay Mauji, Islamic Fundamentalism hay aau!" For
> him an Indian soldier with a tilak on his forehead, a saffron ribbon around
> his waist, a poster of Shivji hanging inside his bunker is Bharat Mata's
> secular poot.
>
> In 1990, Kashmir's Hindus made a choice: They wanted India. That is why
> they left. No doubt there was a threat perception. Some Hindus were killed.
> According to Sumantra Bose out of 273 killings by 20th January 1990, almost
> 73 were Hindus. No doubt, disproportionate. Most of these were highly
> influential Hindus, including a Jan Sangh leader. No other minority left.
> Even though, many Sikhs were killed in Chattisinghpura, (by who, we should
> know by now) they remained in Kashmir. In a state-sponsored exodus one and a
> half lakh Hindus were transported overnight to Jammu and other Indian
> cities. And remember it was a day after Jagmohan took over as governor, and
> promised to punish Kashmiri Muslims. True to his word, after many Hindus
> left, he imposed a protracted curfew strangulating Kashmir's Muslims. Dozens
> of Kashmir's Muslims were massacred at a number of places. Gaw Kadal, just
> being one example.
>
> In Jashne Azadi, nowhere is it said that 60000 Muslims have been killed in
> 15 years. Although even by conservative estimates 80000 Kashmiri Muslims
> have been killed over these years (some believe that even the 10000 odd
> disappeared have been eliminated too), but the film leaves it open. It
> states how the actual number is widely conflicted.
>
> It is not Kashmiri Muslims who Arabicized Kashmiri names. (Give examples
> if you can). It is in fact Dogras who Sanskritised it, and India which
> sustained it. Consider, for example, changing the popular name Islamabad to
> an official Anantnag. And it is not Kashmiri Muslims who deny Kashmir's
> ancient Hindu rulers, but Kashmir's Hindus who deny the existence of
> Kashmir's Muslims. It is as if all Kashmir is about is its miniscule Hindus.
> It is as if the only tragedy in Kashmir is that of its Hindus. As if death,
> destruction, plunder and rapine of its Muslims is not an issue that merits
> world's attention. It is time world speaks about Kashmir's Muslims.
>
> Much has been spoken about Hindus. Many lethargic comparisons have been
> made with Holocaust. Many chick pea-brained 'film makers' have lamented that
> world remained silent, while Kashmir's Hindus got free salaries,
> reservations in education and tremendous material support and publicity. It
> is time for appropriated voices to speak up. For stories buried in fake
> encounters to be exhumed. For alternative histories and memories to unsettle
> the state-sponsored, miniscule-made-mainstream, litanies.
>
> Pawan you really should run after Jashne-Azadi. Follow it wherever it
> goes. It might tire you out of your ignorance, prejudice, and hatred.
>
> Mohamad Junaid
>
>
>
> Pawan Durrani wrote:
>
> Dear All:
> On Thursday September 20th Mr. Sanjay Kak's movie Jashn-e-Azadi (yajynya
> has
> become Jashn-e)was screened in the Louis McMillan Auditorium of the Yale
> University. Rajni Ji  and I attended the screening.
>
> The screening was sponsored by Ms Mridhu Rai, Associate Professor
> mridu.rai at yale.edu. She has recently published a book Hindu Rulers, Muslim
>
> Subjects: Islam Rights & the history of Kashmir. (Apparently this book was
>
> part of the motivation for Mr. Sanjay Kak to make the movie. Given below
> in
> parenthesis is her back ground.
>
> (Mridu Rai joined the department in July 2001 as an assistant professor.
> She
> was educated at Delhi University; the Centre for Historical Studies at
> Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; and Columbia University, where she
> received a PhD in modern south Asian history. Her doctoral research
> focused
> on the problem of religion and politics in the making of protest in modern
>
> Kashmir between the 1840s and the 1940s. In 2004 it culminated in her
> book,
> Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir
> < http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/materials/rai-hindu.html> .
> Professor
> Rai's new research turns to the region of Bihar, to explore the
> relationships between caste, territory, region and nation as they evolved
> from the period of British colonial rule into the postcolonial)
>
> There were 23 people in all present in the screening hall. That included
> Mr.
> Sanjay Kak and us two. Most of the attendants were from the South Asian
> stud
> department of Indian origin. There was one or  two students of Pakistani
> origin and may be two or three of American and European descent.
>
> The documentary is about two and a half hour long monologue. The thrust of
>
> the documentary is to manipulated to portray the burning desire for the
> freedom among 'Kashmiris' (read Kashmiri Muslims). The movie touches upon
> the 500 years of colonization of Kashmir. It was interesting to note the
> wordings of narration and the imagery of this narration. Mr Kak introduced
>
> the Kalhanna's Rajatarangani as the Hindu rule of Kashmir. He also stated
> the "Hindu" rule of Kashmir before 1948. But then he chooses to describe
> the
> 500 years of pre-Dogra rule as the colonial rule of Turks, Afghans,
> Mughals,
> and other nationalities as if it was not an Islamic rule. In that one
> sentence he tries to pass the suffering under these colonizers as the
> sufferings of Muslims and not of Hindus. That during this period 100%
> Kashmiri Hindu population was reduced to at most 25% of the population was
> presented as Muslim suffering. He quotes Kalhanna "that Kashmir can not be
>
> conquered by colonization but by spiritual merit", as the ethos of
> Kashmiri
> Muslims. That the Muslims (both foreign and the converted) were the rulers
> under whose reign Kashmiri Hindu were massacred, humiliated and forced out
>
> of Kashmir (as evidenced by the Saaraswats and Vaadama Ayers and Kashmiri
> of
> Gujarat)  and converted to Islam is completely presented as the sufferings
> of the Muslims.
>
> That since the 1948 till 1990 the successive J&K Governments were formed
> by
> the  National conference (previously "Muslim Conference") and the people
> at
> the helm were Kashmiri Muslims is also presented as the colonization by
> the
> Indians. That this Government systematically marginalized the Hindus of
> Kashmir by putting reservations for the majority, snatching any landed
> property with out compensation (there by violating the property rights of
> a
> minority) is portrayed as the land reform act of the Government.  The sole
>
> livelihood of the Kashmiri Hindus through education was denied and they
> were
> forced out of state (to achieve Islamization) is also supposed to have
> happened because of the colonization by India. That 1947 incursions of
> Pakistan and the development of Islamic Fundamentalism with support from
> Pakistan and the outsiders is completely glossed over. Even though the
> mention is made of the foreign Islamic mercenaries in Kashmir but it is
> portrayed as acceptable and not such an important issue, where as presence
>
> of Indian troops and the Indian tourists is presented as the yoke on the
> local Muslims. (Who shown as pulling the tourists snowy upslope of the
> Gulmarg.)
>
> The presentation of Shaheed (A Islamic category used for the Shahaadat )
> and
> the Mujahideen (An Islamic religious category used for the fighters of the
> faith) is presented as freedom fighters. The time and again portrayal of
> the
> "Muslim Cemeteries"  and dead Muslim Mujahideen is lamentable but their
> killing and raping of the innocent victims both hindu (and Muslims) is
> accepted as the justifiable for the Azadi.
> Mr. Kak mentiones 200 dead and 160,000 migrated in bold numbers with the
> small print of "in one year". One wonders why did he choose only one year
> numbers to show about the Hindu sufferings but boldly says 60,000 total
> dead
> or lost in the last 15 years. This choice is made show the balance in his
> approach like a chameleon Indian leftist/secularist.
>
> Finally when the documentary was screened we were the first one to raise
> hand for questions.  We turned toward the audience and challenged the very
> notion this being a struggle for the Azadi. We put forth that this is
> movement for the Islamization of Kashmir. We also pointed out the 500
> years
> of colonization Mr. Kak mentions is 500 years of Islamic rule in which our
> population was reduced from 1055 to 20% . It was Kashmiri Hindu tragedies
> which Mr. Kak is portraying as the Muslim tragedies. We pointed out that
> the
> first act of this movement in 1990 was to throw out 400 hundred thousand
> Hindus from the valley and became refuge in their own country. If it was a
>
> Azadi movement why would valley be cleansed of the non-Muslim minorities.
> That scenario fits the Islamization movement better.  We asked, why would
> all the imagery and the language of this movement be couched in the
> Islamic
> categorization? Why would Arabic be used instead of Kashmiri language? Why
> would the names of the Kashmiri place names be changed to Arabacized and
> Islamic names? Why would the past Hindu history be denied? Why would
> non-Kashmiri foreign Muslim mercenaries be allowed in and create havoc in
> Kashmir? Why would Pakistan be so heavily involved?
>
> Mr. Kak had no answers for any of these; he tried to pass the Islamic
> language as the normal use of religion in freedom movements. But I asked
> why
> was not inclusive religious symbolism used for the independence?
> Kak admitted to the audience that there was Jihad like situation created
> for
> Kashmiri Hindus who had to leave valley.    Eventually I was asked to
> allow
> others to ask questions. But there were only two other people who asked
> one
> question each, one on the lines of secularism and the other, a Pakistani,
> gave some comments on state of JKLF in Pakistan.
>
> We attended the dinner after the movie and we continued to occupy Mr.
> Kak's
> and several others attention on the dishonest portrayal of the Kashmir
> issue. During dinner we distributed the copies of  Ashokji Pandits
> Documentary ....And world remained silent.... to some of the attendees and
>
> requested them to watch it and pass it on to other students.
>
> That is the story from Yale...
>
> Thanks