[Reader-list] Let Truth Prevail

[Wali Arifi]

Dear all,



Tarun Bhartiya's post has essentially demonstrated that punctuation marks in
histories cannot be read as the history. The discussion (by a few at least)
on this list has so far been trying to wrap an entire stretch of J&K history
in an extremely inadequate punctuation mark. What Tarun brings up by
advancing the conversation is that it unravels how an average Indian citizen
got introduced to the Kashmir conflict in early 1990's. Secondly, it
examines the claims of "holocaust of a minority". Third, it attempts to
interrogate the "number game" that generates an argument of victimhood out
of the punctuation narratives. Fourth, it raises questions about the flight
of Kashmiri Pandits in the light of their unshaken faith in the Indian
state, and, very importantly, informs the questions more as to the Kashmiri
movement and why the minority felt 'unsafe'.



It's very important to understand the status of Kashmiri Pandits in the
Indian power structure.



Post 1947, majority of people in Kashmir never accepted India as their
country. New Delhi desperately needed its constituency, a trusted brigade,
in the Valley. Hand picked politicians filled the gap but the control over
public opinion and information flow came from the only trusted Pandit
minority. Subsequently, Kashmiri Pandits not only became eyes and ears for
India in Kashmir but also came very close to the power structure in New
Delhi. They assumed the centre stage and became a 'lever' vis-à-vis policy
on Kashmir.



The Pakistani politicians and junta too had a handy issue in Kashmir for
their rabble-rousing. In fact, Kashmir became the only issue where Islamabad's
establishment and its public had a meeting point, and the issue was
conveniently used to subvert the internal dissent in that country.



The year 1990 saw a mass uprising in Kashmir, a revolution if you will.
Kashmiri Pandits had to migrate/were made to migrate/chose to migrate!
Contesting claims, yet to be interrogated dispassionately…



But the important question is who benefited from this flight of the Hindu
minority? I suppose, as is evident from most of the post 1990 writings on
Kashmir and the movement there (including mainstream media), it has been the
Indian state.



Indian state found a very politically motivated and crafted argument in the
shape of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, allowing it to brand the movement for
right to self determination in Kashmir as "Islamic terrorism". The book "My
frozen turbulence in Kashmir" by one of the most famous, or should it be
infamous, Governor in Kashmir (read ruler), Jagmohan, is testimony to this.



There is no doubt that the Kashmir's movement has been greatly influenced by
Islam. But, New Delhi has all along used, and sometimes successfully, the
exodus of Kashmiri Hindus as a tool to strip off the Kashmir movement its
political content.



So in essence, Kashmiri Pandits, as a community, has been used as a
political tool against another community – Kashmiri Muslims. Let's say it:
some among them have conveniently agreed to be used and some have
unwittingly been used.



I believe the silent majority of Pandits do not approve the methods of
A.R.K.P. brigade. Or, at least are lukewarm to this approach.



In my cumulative understanding so far, it appears that the exodus of Kashmir's
Hindu minority was a result of the movement for political rights in the
state attempting to achieve democratization of power within its population.
I believe it later got reversed by the use of Indian forces through impunity
and imposition of black laws that suspend rule of law. So finally, the
Pandit exodus as it exists so far in the mainstream political discourse,
scuttled efforts at real democratization. In this background it is very
important to bring in the narrative of those Kashmiri Pandits in their
thousands who continue to live inside the valley.



The Pandits were complicit in this contextual murder of the larger truth
perhaps because they for the first time felt like a minority in Kashmir. The
continued trumped up association of the likes of A.R.K.P. with the Hindu
majority of a state of a billion people is a testimony, and goes against the
grain of being a Kashmiri citizen.



Best,



Wali