[Reader-list] GENOCIDE-TOPSY TURVY

[Pawan Durani]

GENOCIDE-TOPSY TURVY

The Kashmir Pandit petition to the NHRC was a history sheet of
happenings and events culminating in their genocide at the hands of
Kashmiri Muslim fundamentalists. It is true it did not essentially
conform in size and form to a petition but it did recount wants and
happenings that faced the community at the hands of these well armed
and treacherous people. To treat it as falling short and shora  of the
legal form or being lax in its strict determinations called upon in
such matters in the prevailing circumstances was to expect for the
moon.
The community in fear and terror, uprooted from its ethos and roots,
haunted and disgraced for being Hindus i.e., Kafirs to Muslim
fundamentalists, was at its wits end and even so managed to cry foul
of this dread pestilence, though it may not have conformed to strict
codes of ‘definitions’ formalities, which under the circumstances was
neither possible nor practicable and insistence upon the same with
digressions of space and time has made the petition more or less
infructious merely on technicalities. It is a pity that the hon’ble
Commission has not appreciated the wounded collective psyche which
formed the body of the petition. It is no wonder that the hon’ble
Commission none of whom had to be a witness to this high tragedy not
to say suffer its agony could bring itself to the agonised level of
the victims of this catastrophe and therefore not expected to do full
just ice to their trauma and tragedy.
The commission has insisted  too much on the letter of the law the
‘intent’, i.e. the intention. behind the collective crime to classify
or place the tragedy within the ambit of ‘genocide’ which it has found
lacking in the killings of the KPs by the Kashmiri Muslim
fundamentalists. It has instead found the immediate intent in their
i.e. of the fundamentalists urge for secession, the resultant
‘genocide’ removed a fool farther behind this urge and therefore
resultant and not the instant intent. Indeed such calamities cannot be
found to fit the confines of this or that authority on the subject of
genocide which assumes different aspects in different historical
situations. Definitions can not evunciate situations the latter in
fact modifying definition from time to time according to the
exigencies of each situation.
Law can not be a shait jacket if it is assumed the so, it become an
ass! Any definition or motivations is provided by the circumstances
obtaining in each historical case. A definition arrived at decades
leak can not mechanically be transplanted and applied for entirely a
different set of historical circumstances. It has to be in a flux,
continuously assuming different contuous in different historical
settings. It is difficult, if not impossible to find two similar cases
in different historical contexts to fit squarely within the confines
of an earlier definition. The definitions too do ask for enrichment a
continuous involvement, or else they fade out as irrelevant. This the
historically provided motivation is more relevant then any other
mechanical application of “definitions” evolved in different
historical contexts.  There is nothing innuctable not even the so
called “definition”. It is the historical motivation that is relevant
and a determinant in each and every case. Let us, therefore, visit the
history of Kashmir to form an idea of the intent behind the repeated
‘genocide of Kashmiri Pandits at the hands of Muslim fundamentalist
from time to time, the fast impulse the first intent providing the
eradication of ‘Kufur’ infidelity-either by killing them wholesale or
mass conversions. And these episodes directly from the history looks
written by men of faith and not Kafirs are revealing and as well
instructive.
Records Baharistan-i-Shahi with the help of some of the chiefs of this
land, some of them had reverted to the customs of infidels and
polytheists. These apostates had resumed idolatry some of the infidels
related that during the hours of offering prayers and worshipping of
idols, they would place a cops of the Quran under their launches to
make a seat to sit upon. Thus idol worshipping proceeded him as they
sat on the divine book, when the news and details of these doings were
brought to Amir Shamsuddin Iraqi he summoned Halik Haji Chak to him
accompanied by Malik Ali and Kh Ahmad, his two counsellors and
administrators, Halik Kaji Chak presented himself before the venerable
Amir who declared to them.
This committing of idolators has after entracing and subnuthey to the
Islamic faith now gone back to defiance and apartsay... Thus seven to
eight hundred  infidels were put to death”.
Baharistan-i-Shahi further records “those killed were the leading
personalities of the community of infidels at the time, men of
substance and Govt functionaries. Each of them wielded influence and
sway over hundred families of other infidels and hactics. Thus the
entire community of infidels and polytheisls in Kashmir was coerced
into conversion to Islam at the point of sword.
During the Govt of Malik Musa Raina, all the depraved ... of this
land-Kashmir-had been converted to Islam, recofs Bahrishan-e-Shahi.
The Bahrustan-e-Shahi also records But with the support and authority
of Malik Musa Raina, Amir Shamsuddin Mohd. Undertook a wholesale
destruction of all those idol houses as well as the ruination of the
very foundation of infidelity and disbelief on the site of every idol
house he destroyed the ordered the construction of a mosque for
offering prayers after the Islamic manner... It is publicly known that
during his life time, with the virtuous efforts and elaborate
arrangements made of the fortunate Malik Musa Raina twenty four
thousand families of staunch infidels and shibborn hectics were
enrolled by being converted to Islam.”
Reads Tohfatul Ahbab- “At the behest of Shaus Irafi, Musa Raina had
ordered 1500 to 2000 infidels to be brought to his door steps any day
.. his followers. They would remove their sacred threads, administer
‘Kalima’ to them, circumcise them and thrust lumps of beef into their
mouths”.
ii) As may as eighteen big temples in the city of Srinagar and in
rural areas of the Valley were completely destroyed under the
instructions and orders of Shamsuddin Iraqi and Malik Musa Raina”.
Towards the fag end of his life Sultan Sikander was injured with a
zeal for demolishing idol houses, destroying temples and idols of the
infidels. He destroyed the massive temple at Bijbehara. He had designs
to destroy all the temples and put an end to the entire community of
infidel-records Bharistan-i-Shahi.
“Many of the Brahman rather than abandon their religion or their
country poisoned themselves, some emigrated from their houses while a
few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mohammadans” writes
Farishta. Twenty four thousand families were converted at one stroke
to the faith of Islam by force and compulsion (qahran and gabran” )
Records Hassan in Tarikh-i-Kashmir page 223. Enough of these
historical samples where number is though legion.
The aforesaid quotes from the histories of Kashmir are a pointer to a
particularly consistent and common running through ale the loots, the
massacres and killings of the community as an ethno religious
minority. This has not however, been peculiarly common to a certain
period in history but has been the usual feature in the modern times
too from time to time the genocide of 1989-90 not being at all an
exception for which any other dominating factor has to be sought for;
the only distinctive feature being transition from swords and sticks
to bullets and bombs etc supplied in an external agency for reasons of
its own which bears a larger dimension against the Hindu majority of
India. In the case of Kashmir, the perpetrators already having history
of genocide propensities right for the advent and Muslim rule.
Mercifully been the hon’ble commission had in its judgement in para-62
through observed interalea... And there can be no gainsaying the acute
suffering and deprivation caused to the community... the commission is
constrained to observe that while acts akin to genocide have occurred
in respect of the Kashmiri Pandits, grave as they undoubtedly are,
fall short of the ultimate crime genocide.
In other words, it is conveyed that the acts akin to genocide, the
commission is restricted by the formalities prescribed in this behalf
by experts who though have had an experience of an entirely different
character in a different context.
The historical witnesses quoted here-in-before are proof enough of the
orgy repeated genocide of Kashmiri Pandit Community from time to time
for no other reason than of being a religious minority in the Valley
of Kashmir, the same intent and impulse having also generated the
genocide of 1989-90 in a new historical situation when the local
maranders found new allies extra territorially.
The Hon’ble Commission has exclusively depended upon the reports of
the state agencies and not deemed it necessary to make an independent
and impartial investigation to arrive at the truth. While state has
the capacity and the means to distort the truth, the dispossessed and
expropriated victims have neither the capacity nor the means to
compete in this sordid business in which the truth is casualty. An
in-depth and impartial investigation above is expected to bring out
the real truth without the need of an over dependence on professionals
for their fees are supposed to represent both the victim and the bully
with equanimity and the least pangs of conscience.
The acts akin to genocide having been acknowledged to have happened
along with the motivation in the minds of some perpetrators. There
would appear no reason why the Hon’ble Commission falling short of
calling a spade a spade thus making truth itself a casualty supposedly
in the minds of people on account of competitive secular--non-secular
considerations.
A distinction would need to be made in the proceedings as between a
commission and a govt the later strictly depending upon the capacity
of the parties to prove their point on the strength of their witnesses
and the capacity of the extending legal luminaries which necessarily
does not lead to the divulgence of truth for both the witnesses and
the law-without of course, any disrespect to any quarter can be
purchased which, however, is beyond the capacity of dispossessed and
expropriated community. In the process truth becoming the casualty.
The Hon’ble Commission would therefore, need to go deeper into the
roots of the tragedy on its own inlegal parlance suo-moto again a
fresh without much dependence on the state agencies which have
mutiliated and manipulated the whole truth are in every way interested
in camoflouging the reality as the state administration was and is all
along biased against the complainants. Indeed it is the very same
cover up of the truth off and on that has perpetuated this menace. It
is worth while mention here that the entire state administration a
right from the beginning of the socalled, “Peoples Raj” and move
particularly so since the onset of ‘terrorism’ against KP community
has made common cause with this brutal force as the state bureaucracy
and the law and order machinery comprise largely the elements from
anti-national outfits like the Al-Fateh and Plebiscite Front etc
instructed all along on the lore of Muslim fundamentalism. Thus the
whole atmosphere been fouled dependence upon the state agencies to
present a factual position to the commission has been misplaced which
explains the imperatives of an independent enquiry; the only means to
arrive at the unvarnished truth.
The state government has enlarged the time frame from 1989 to 1997
instead of restricting it to 1989-90 as such a course has provided the
state statistical support for dilution of the change of genocide
against the Pandits committed largely since the end of 1989 to the end
of 1991 when definitely no Muslim was targeted and the ourslaught was
exclusively directed against the Pandits, the only victims who had to
leave their homes and hearths to escape the fate of hundreds of their
co-religionists and were on notice of the terrorist outfits to quit or
face the inevitable. Subsequently Muslims also fell victims of these
terrorists. It was and has largely been for reasons of inter and intra
terrorist gang rivalries and not for any other reason and if some of
them have assumed the garb of ‘migrants’ it has been a contrived
affair by both the state agencies and the political wing of the
terrorists in attempt to escape the shame and slur of genocide of
Pandits. Here it may also be stated that the exception of some Pandits
having stayed back and survived in fact proves the rules as even in
similar situations in the past which bears testimony there existed
once only eleven KP families in the Valley. In any event these
unfortunate Pandits are living as Pandits on borrowed time.
There still is hope in the Pandit mind that the truth will at last prevail.



Source: Kashmir Sentinel