in bits and pieces
Gather you 10,11, 50
Spit and curse
Pot of history we shall churn
gather and tear out
so,
your cock of reason has but one leg
watch 11 cows lose their way
~ Lal Dread, 21st century witch of Kashmir
Unimagine every Sikh you have known in your life time. Imagine you have just heard about them and have never come across one in life. Imagine hearing stories that they used to be your neighbours but don’t live there anymore. Imagine their empty houses and towns. Imagine they are all gone. Imagine Gurudwaras across India, some shut, some crumbling, some looted, some secured by Security forces, some run by Hindu men as part of job or homage to past. Imagine running into an occasional sikh pilgrim who you befriend and talk nostalgia with.
One might ask, “Where have they all gone?”
“Of course, Canada to seek material prosperity. Why they left is another question! Sitting in Canada why they curse India is understandable.”
In 1980s, when Punjab was reeling under militancy, Sikhs were about 3% of Indian population. A prosperous productive community. But just 3%. Yet, it is unimaginable to imagine that this 3% can disappear from India almost overnight. A sick thought. One would imagine, Indian society would forever be needled about an event like this. After all, disappearance of communities doesn’t happen in India. And if it does happen, it is not brushed under the rug of “hota hai, move on!”. Right?
Kashmiri Pandits were just around 3% of Kashmiri society in 1980s. By the end of 1990, this 3% was just gone. Who imagined it? Now, ask that question too often and you are being a nuisance. A nuisance that holds 97% hostage. 97% that in some cases wan’t Hindutva and in come cases an Islamic paradise.
Meanwhile history tells us 1980s saw the migration of Punjabis from border town of Punjab. Some of these Punjabi Hindus moved to a place called Faridabad near Delhi. The land prices sore. When the Punjab militancy settled down in late 90s, the land prices in the area crashed. Just as they crashed, Kashmiri Pandits moved in fleeing hope of returning to Kashmir. They bought land a low prices in arid wild lands where now societies have grown. Land prices in Faridabad have steadily increased over the decades. One can’t imagine them ever going down with a crash.
While in Jammu, I decided to give Kashmir a break and took up Punjab instead. However, Kashmir doesn’t leave you alone once it grabs your soul. I read “My Bleeding Punjab”, a compilation of Khushwant Singh’s notes on the violence in Punjab of 80s.
“A major event of Maharaja Ranbir Singh’s reign which could have changed the whole course of history of Kashmir was the collective approach of Kashmir Muslims to him for being taken back into the Hindu fold. They pleaded that they had been forcibly converted to Islam against their will and were longing to re-embrace their ancestral faith.
Ranbir Singh sought the guidance of Swamy Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, in the matter. Swami Dayand advised him that he could take them back in Hinduism after performing certain rites.
The proposed return of Kashmiri Muslims to their original faith was not to the liking of short sighted Kashmiri Pundits who were having a hey day since the return of Dogra Hindu rule. They tried to dissuade the Maharaja. When they found him adamant they took to a subterfuge. They filled some boats with stones and brought them midstream before Maharaja’s palace on the Jhelum. They threatened him that they would commit suicide by drowning along with the sinking boats as a protest against his decision to take back Muslims into Hindu fold and that he would be then guilty of “Brahm Hatya” i.e. murder of Brahmins.
Ranbir Singh was a brave soldier. But he could not muster courage to face the crafty Brahmins, who were out to misinterpret the Vedic “dharma” for their selfish ends. The plan of return of Kashmiri Muslims to Hinduism thus fell through.”
This is an extract from the book “Kashmir: The Storm Center of the World” (1992) by Balraj Madhok who was instrumental in setting up RSS in the state and BJP in India.
What we read in the passage is something that seems very factual and plausible. The pandits would certainly believe it. In 1992, fresh refugees, Pandits could be made to believe that somehow it was all their own fault. Because in past their ancestors were “shortsighted”. Look to the future, Hindu India is coming, don’t be “selfish”, don’t be weak, don’t make the same mistake again. This is a standard recruitment technique used by any fundamentalist ideology. This wasn’t first time Madhok was recruiting refugees. History becomes a handy tool at such times as fiction is sprinkled with facts and a vengeful dish is prepared, left into the oven for a long time, slow baked, till the oven bursts in flames and out pops a great revolution.
In the entire process, few would after ask about the actual flavour of the facts. So, what are the facts of that episode mentioned by Madhok.
What actually happened was that Dayanand Saraswati in Punjab had proposed such conversions were possible. He was interested in breaking the caste system using religious texts. Ranbir Singh became interested and wanted to try it in Kashmir. Muslims didn’t ask for this Shuddi. He asked the brahmin clergy, who protested as they held caste more dear and so Saraswati was barred from entering Kashmir. In the writings of “sickular” Lala Lajpat Rai, we read that Ranbir Singh had approached the brahmins of Kashi to ponder upon the question. And not Brahmins of Kashmir. In Madhok’s “secular” version Kashi becomes Kashmir. Further in historic writings from Arya Samajists we read:
Once Pandit Manphool said to the Swami: “If you give up refuting and denouncing idol-worship, the people would cease to be angry with you and what is more, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir will also be pleased with you!” The Swami answered:”Shall I strive to please the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, or shall I strive to carry out the mandates of Ishwara- the Sovereign of sovereigns – embodied in the Vedas?”
Obviously, the relation between Dayanand Saraswati and Ranbir Singh were not that hunky-dory.
So, this careful fuddling with facts just because a fresh batch of refugees had arrived and Sangh was recruiting. Today the book is available online on a KP website.
Balraj Madhok was born in Skardu in 1920 and by 1938 he was already a RSS pracharak who moved to Srinagar in 1944. The 1947 Kashmir War meant his birthplace went to the other side and he became busy working on a final solution, a cleaner version of Kashmir. Interestingly, his younger twin born in 1934 in Gilgit, Amanullah Khan, founder of JKLF was doing the same across the LOC, working on a parallel final solution, a cleaner version of Kashmir. The two final solution came to bloom in 1990 feeding off each other. The solution mooted by still-born postcard men of imagined glorious nation preying with half-a-dead brain on half-a-bleeding-heart.
It is interesting that Madhok came from an Arya Samajist family and believed Arya Samaj idea was in-sync with RSS. May be, it is in a natural militant variant of it. Dayanand Saraswati was re-interpreting the Hindu texts in an alternate sanitised ways. Something that people now want Muslims to do with their text and religion. As we can see, even that road is not straight…even in that path we can end up with someone like Madhok and a movement like RSS. Or, we are already on that path.
Kashmiris have come to believe violence is the way forward. No matter which shade of political spectrum it is, no matter if publicly it is denounced, on the ground violence has a certain currency. There is a reason for it. People would say it is the religion or violence is against the oppression and the natural translation of violence is presented as rebellion. However, the simple reason there is violence in Kashmir is because certain people have always benefited from it politically, socially and economically.
On recounting the origins, depending on which political side is talking, 1990 Pandits exodus would be mentioned, the violence against Jamatis would be mentioned, exodus of Muslim leaders to Pakistan in 1950s would be mentioned and finally 13 July 1931 would be mentioned.
1931 is rightly the beginning point. But, how is it remembered. In a Dina Nath Nadim story about 1931, we read about a poor working class Kashmiri planning to murder a rich non-Kashmiri merchant. The man’s child is hungry while the non-kashmiri is rich and fat. It is a classic class struggle. However, that’s how art produced under Kashmiri nationalistic regime remembers it.
What is often not remembered is this little snippet of history provided by Ravinderjit Kaur in her book Political awakening in Kashmir (1996):
“On September 24, 1931, posters were pasted in the entire city, stating that the Muslims had declared Jehad against the Maharaja’s Government. The Superintendent of Police was asked to arrest three Muslim leaders viz. Saad-ud-Din Shawl, Ghulam Ahmad Ashai and Ghulam Mohammad Bakshi. But the police failed to arrest them: their houses were already guarded by numerous crowds. Soon after they were told that the police had gone back, Ghulam Ahmad Ashai and Ghulam Mohammad Bakshi left their homes and went to the residence of Saad-ud-Din Shawl at Khanyar. About fifteen thousand people from Srinagar and other adjacent villages and towns assembled at Khanyar. These people were armed with all kinds of weapons they were having at their homes; for the day before, Moulvi Mohammad Yousuf Shah had called upon the people to assemble at Khanyar with the weapons. In Shopian also the demonstrators assaulted the policemen,with the result that a Head Constable was beaten to death. The mob then entered the police station and burnt the records and other State properties. The police opened the fire. Two persons were killed and some others injured.”
It was perhaps unfortunate that violence lead to political change in Kashmir and the language it spoke in was religion. Violence of 1931 set the bad precedent: mob violence leads to change. Kashmiri needed many more such changes but it was mostly mob violence that got repeated.
In Nationalist Kashmiri narrative, 1931 is celebrated. Meanwhile, in 1931, Pandits mourned their dead and moved on. However, today they remember it as beginning of the calamity that befell them.
In Kashmiri Tahreek narrative, 1931 is celebrated. The anti-Jamati mob violence of 1980s is presented as the justification of their counter violence towards NC workers.
In between all these historic events, in these timelines there is an interesting violent episode that is not recalled. The 1946 Dyalgam incident. While 1931, showed how violence can be used, the 1946 incident saw the first proper use of it to suppress counter political thoughts. How it is mobilized. How the names may have changed but the game remains the same. It shows in which direction politics of Kashmir was going to go.
On 7th April, 1946, in the small village of Dyalgam in Anantnag, a gathering of peasants was called by Kisan Conference, the socialist third front which was battling for power against National Conference of Sheikh Abdullah and Muslim Conference of Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah.
Anantnag was supposed to be stronghold of NC, that something like could happened in their backyard, rattled the NC leaders. Mirza Afzal Beg who had been touring India to seek support for his party, returned to Kashmir to handle the upstart party. On that day, he arrived in the village with a force of 400 lathi bearing men in 9 lorries and 22 tongas. The violence began. Beg expected to win. He had precious experience in managing such violence. Recounting the incident in “The History of Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir“, Premnath Bazaz who was part of Kisan Conference, links the violent method of Beg to the fact that he had earlier tasted success using the method. In 1936, Afzal Beg to settle a land dispute with Pandits of Mattan had arrived at the scene with a mob of 5000 men. Bazaar writes:
“The Hindus being only a few hundred in number were mortally afraid when they saw the big army approaching under the command of Afzal Beg. They shut themselves up in their houses and let the Muslims do what they liked. Happily nothing untoward occurred but the commander was satisfied with the results. The helpless minority of pandits had been humbled. Beg had mistaken peasants for Pandits in Dyalgam. That was his miscalculation and the cause of defeat.”
The peasants offered counter violence to the NC mob and the leader had to beat a hasty retreat. It is said, while he was escaping a peasant woman caught hold of him and to humiliate him put her headgear on his head. But, that was not the end of it. As often happens, he had to explain his defeat and found the easier scapegoats. Outside the town, he addressed his supporters and abused the Pandits for supporting the peasant movement.
Although NC forces were defeated, this did not stop them from using the other Kashmiri method to finish off the political opponents: the veiled threats. One of the victims of these threats was Pandit Prithvi Nath Bhat, B.A. LLB, member of Anantnag bar and vice-president of the Kisan Conference. In the resignation letter (reminiscent of similar letters politicians wrote to militant in 1990, and letters that even now some people write in Kashmir), he wrote:
Post 1948 as NC got more and more powerful with the support of India, the people opposing them politically faced the one natural Kashmiri option – die or exile. In 1951, Abdul Slam Yatu, the President of Kisan Mazdoor Conference was sent off to Pakistan on the condition he would never return. Other leaders of this third front like Shyam Lal Yechha, Pitambar Nath Dhar Fani, D.N. Bhan and Prem Nath Bazaz were thrown out of the valley. Even Moulvi Yusuf Shah was sent off to Kashmir. This in an ideological way was the origin of the proverbial Kashmiri saying that was to be raised by the mob in 1990, ”raliv-challiv-ya-galliv”, mix-runoff-or-die. Or, in a sad comical way the origin of Hindutva’s cry of, “send them to Pakistan”.
As we can see, today in Kashmir, socialists don’t matter. Pandit socialist don’t even exist in Kashmir. Pandits don’t even matter politically. NC, which first used the tool of violence, don’t matter. PDP (which claims to be the flag-bearers of pre-1950s NC), and whose founding-father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 1986 first tested the same violent tool in Anantnag; they too don’t matter. If today Hurriyat or anyone else is using it, they too in future won’t matter. All that would be remaining would be an even more polarised public with even more easily inflammable passions.
The purification cycle will continue till violence is seen as a politically rewarding exercise. Or it will continue till no one is left to purge purify.
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In Greater Kashmir, we read the remaining Pandit families of Tral are collectively mourning Wani who, with a broad brush of humanity, we are told, as a kid was quite a joker.
“I did not eat anything that day, I swear of my son. How could we eat? He was like my son,” Devi said at her home in Tral-i-Payeen locality of the town.”
[Report: http://goo.gl/HY0MSm]
Maybe the poor people have not choice but to say that. After all, they accept their “protectors” are their neighbours and not the government supplied police post next to their house. Or maybe, they do really feel bad. Or may be both.
It reminded me of the passage from Rahul Pandita’s “Our Moon has blood Clots” where his mother in Jammu mourns the death of a kid who died a militant in Srinagar. Also, the report has no input from 10000 odd Sikhs that like in Tral (certainly till recently, a 2002 Report from previous elections: http://goo.gl/UG7q0N)
Meanwhile, BBC Hindi reported the strange case of a man named Jagannath, who had left Kashmir in 1990 but returned home in 2007. In recent violence, his house was pelted with stones and his wife received head injuries. The old man is again preparing to go into “self-exile”. May be would not leave. Maybe, like it is often happening these day, someone else would visit the place and we would hear that the entire news is wrong. All is fine with Jagannath. He momentarily lost sense. It was nothing personal. Violence was everywhere. We are all one in our pain. Pain the new binding glue of Kashmiriyat. Maybe, Kashmiriyat was just that. A quick “fix-it” to put together a broken glass.
[Report: http://goo.gl/ImiTc2]
So what is happening to pandits in Kashmir. Answer is simple: like other Kashmiris, they too are chess pieces in a great game. There are people who would not see the writing on the wall, instead, choose to whitewash the entire wall. Often facts are spun in a way they would make the “tehreek” kaleen look all clean, if not to a local buyer, certainly to a global buyer of great Kashmir conflict narrative factory.
Pandit question was tricky even back then, so it was simply explained away as stupidity of the community, foolish people got taken in by the propaganda of the right. To prove it, a propaganda piece from a Kashmiri paper was used as an alibi. The EPW piece went on to claim:
“They openly acknowledge their mistakes and are expressing their desire of returning to the Valley. An interesting exchange between some among the Pundit refugees on the one hand, and Kashmiri Muslims (including representatives of a militant organisation) on the other, in the columns of the Srinagar daily Alsafa News, indicates the changing mood and also reveals the machinations of the former governor Jagmohan who organised the ‘mass emigration’ of the Kashmiri Pundits in February-March this year. One KL Kaul living in the Nagrota Transit Camp in Jammu wrote a letter in the paper (dated September 18) stating that Jagmohan sent a message to the Pundits of the Valley in the first week of February to migrate to safer places since the government had planned to kill about 1,50,000 Kashmiri Muslims in its bid to overcome the uprising.”
This was the genesis of what would be called the “Jagmohan Plot”. The preposterous theory that all the pandits left because Jagmohan told them to leave so that he can kill 1 lakh-to-1.5 lakh young Kashmiris.
And the fact that EPW published it, lent it the credibility it craved. Credibility that is still shoved into Pandit face. Interestingly, if today you search for the article, it is available at a Panun Kashmir website. At the website, since EPW is not attributed, the article appears as if it was published by Panun Kashmir. In the way internet works these days, even this can be used as a “credible” source, anyone can claim, ”even your own stupid organisation accepts Jagmohan theory…check this link [http://goo.gl/0YqXX5]”. I am sure the threat letters to Pandits published in local Kashmiri papers were never discussed thread bare in the journal. And this fact is now used by right-wingers for their own appropriation of pandit narrative.
Interestingly, the only other “credible” source of this theory is a paper published in Washington, DC, in 1990 by an organisation called Kashmir American Council run by Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai of ISI money fame and a cousin of Geelani of Hurriyat. The paper was simply titled, “Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) Expose Jagmohan’s Plot” and had letter pieces titled “Runaway Pandits Confess”. I have a copy of that paper. More of that some other time.
I am not suggesting that EPW article was an ISI plot. But, the anonymous person (I suspect Balraj Puri) who wrote it was certainly being a fool, if not a tool. In the ideological battle, both left and right would like to see pandit story in a particular convenient way, mend and bend the plot to please themselves, even if the plots sound childish, even if the sources are dubious. They know a war is on, and it has to be won at all cost, even if it means selling a bit of lies.
-0-
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| from searchkashmir collection |
hukus bukus telli wann che kus
Wangan batta photkha deag’e
Aazadi mangkha Kaw kaw
kin
Brahman bayas gardan kich kich
~ Lal Dread Andrabi
violence is the most logical thing
what is 1-1?
[a flying duster to your head]
it is whatever you want it to be
1-1 is “beat me more!”
foot soldier of anti-math brigade
1-1 is “still not the right answer”
zalim teacher
1-1 is “I am just doing my job”
government teacher
1-1 is “death to all governments”
commander of anti-school militia
1-1 is “how much do you want me to say?”
collaborator
1-1 is “not the only question”
historian
1-1 is “Brahmanical curriculum”
leftist
1-1 is “all answers are correct”
liberal
1-1 is “same as 2-1 in Pakistan”
rationalist
1-1 is “a question to be forgotten”
statusquoist
1-1 is “a difficult question”
intellectual
1-1 is “only Sufis know”
pacifist
1-1 is “what was the question?”
silent majority
1-1
is a zero sum game that violence plays
