The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir: Will They Ever Return Home? [1st ed.] 9789811565366, 9789811565373

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxxi
Introduction (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 1-65
About Kashmiri Pandits (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 67-108
Political Orphans? (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 109-125
Issues in Pandit Community (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 127-139
Main Challenges for Kashmir (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 141-168
The Way Forward? (Bill K. Koul)....Pages 169-201
Back Matter ....Pages 203-273

Citation preview

The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir Will They Ever Return Home? Bill K. Koul

The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir

Bill K. Koul

The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir Will They Ever Return Home?

Bill K. Koul Independent Author Perth, WA, Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-6536-6    ISBN 978-981-15-6537-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-­01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To my Mother Kashmir—Maej Kasheer—and my Kashmiri ancestors and to all those Kashmiris who selflessly work towards and pray for normalcy to return to their valley of Kashmir and long for Kashmiri Pandits to return to their home in Kashmir. To my mother, Rani (Jai Kishori Koul); my guru-mata, Shrimati Bimla Hakhu; and my guru, Shri Bansi Lal Hakhu (Bhaisahib) for their unconditional love and wisdom. Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast … Mughal Emperor Jehangir (seventeenth century) on Kashmir (If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here…)

Abstract

The book attempts to answer why it is important for normalcy and sustainable peace in Kashmir, and its holistic progress and cultural survival, that both ethnic Kashmiri communities—Pandits and Muslims—permanently bury their past bitterness of 1989–1990 and forge one strong, composite Kashmiri community. It exhorts the Pandit community to reestablish personal relationships, on an individual basis, with their earlier Muslim neighbours and friends, and earnestly endeavour to cohere with their Muslim brethren just as they did before 1990. In the same vein, it sends an appeal to the Kashmiri Muslim community to wholeheartedly embrace those Pandits who wish to return out of their own volition and, more importantly, for all right reasons. The book tries to make both communities to understand each other’s perspectives and self-introspect. The book visits the historical, political and regional issues confronting the subcontinent, and the current mindset of Kashmiris and their social issues.

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About the Core Issue

In August 1947, the subcontinent got partitioned, seemingly based on religious demographics, but, strangely, more Muslims stayed back in India than Pakistan’s entire population at that time. Since then, the two countries, born from the same mother country, the British India, have fought several wars, including three over Kashmir, and the tension still continues. The Indo-Pak border zone is the world’s highest militarised area, practically a powder keg, considering both countries possess hundreds of nuclear weapons, obviously for their intended use in some desperate situations. As if that was not enough, they also possess very large armies to fight conventional warfare against each other. Thanks to the Cold War between the USA and the USSR in their playing field, Afghanistan, and the past military dictator of Pakistan, General Zia and his Operation TUPAC, Kashmir saw a significant politico-­religious uprising since the 1980s, which saw hundreds of thousands of indigenous Kashmiri Pandits flee their home in early 1990s and take refuge in the plains of India and subsequently elsewhere in the wider world. Can one say, therefore, that Kashmiri Pandits may have fallen through cracks— between India and Pakistan, and between Kashmiri Muslims and the broader Indian populace? They remain a self-exiled but endangered community since their exodus three decades ago. Some Kashmiri leadership and a few Indian politicians have lately been talking cursorily about their return to Kashmir, but without any serious and deep thinking or addressing the core reasons that had initially led to their exodus. Such surficial gestures by politicians are deemed to be solely for their personal political gains, without any sincere ix

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motives to help the displaced Kashmiri Pandits in their rehabilitation in their home. Kashmiri Pandits are not cattle or commodities who can be loaded in a truck and transported by force and/or without their consent back to Kashmir. They are humans with real emotions and feelings. They have experienced unimaginable and irreversible pain of losing their home. They moan and cry when they miss Kashmir. They have suffered immensely for no fault of theirs. They have paid, and continue to pay, a heavy price for the sins and misgivings of others. Kashmiri Pandits are practically political orphans, mainly because of their minuscule population, education and a peaceful disposition. Indeed, many political parties and politicians have spoken with and for them from time to time, even rendered them symbolic lip sympathy, but nothing of that has ever translated into any substantial or meaningful transformation in their current displacement from their home, and an existential threat to this endangered and vulnerable community. To make things worse for themselves, their political inclinations have always differed within the community and also wavered over time. Prior to the 1990s, a majority of them remained firmly loyal towards Indira Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (INC). However, in the past one decade or so, their loyalty has turned around by 180 degrees towards Mr Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They keep looking around with hope, but only to be left dejected and hopeless time and again. When your (blind) loyalty is taken for granted and you become predictable, you start getting marginalised and taken for a ride. You are considered as a low-maintenance commodity. Your leaders feel assured of your (unwavering) support. They don’t feel any need to give you much in return. No wonder some vulnerable and endangered communities, such as the Kashmiri Pandits, hardly get their fair share of treatment and benefits from their government and political leaders. ‘A closed mouth catches no fly,’ goes an old English saying. In India, figuratively, it means, Bin roye’ maa bhee dhoodh nahin daetee, which literally means, Unless you cry, even your mother won’t feed you. The sudden and shocking abrogation of Article 370 in the Constitution of India, on 5 August 2019, and especially the manner in which it was undertaken and followed up on the ground in Kashmir, may have paradoxically compounded the existential issues of Kashmiri Pandits. Instead of bringing them closer to their homes and their Kashmiri Muslim brethren, it may have pushed the two estranged Kashmiri communities further apart from each other rather than bringing them together.

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Kashmiri Pandits are, therefore, most likely to see a status quo and continue to be called Kashmiri migrants, at least for the next three decades or so. After that, they will certainly be a forgotten community, especially after their current middle-aged generation passes on. It will be a tragedy that, after 2050, not many Kashmiri Pandits will be left to celebrate their most important festival, Herath (called Shivratri elsewhere in India) in the traditional Kashmiri manner and fervour. In essence, Pandits are left with just under 30 years or so to revive and redeem themselves as a community. It is essential that some of them, if not all, return to their mother valley—their Maej Kasheer—before it is too late. For that, it is paramount that their Maej Kasheer attains peace and, more importantly, their Kashmiri Muslim brethren extend a helping hand to them. Only when Maej Kasheer is complete and happy with all her children back in her lap—Pandits and Muslims—Kashmiris will start benefitting and reaping the fruits of her rich blessings. To bring peace to Kashmir, one needs a complete shift in the approach towards achieving this Herculean task. Same input will produce the same output. To improve and change things for better in Kashmir, one needs to completely change the current approach, whatever that is. Someone must keep their eyes open, someone must think deeply and someone must care. All stake holders are that someone. Alarmingly, in the summer of 2018, a responsible Kashmiri Pandit—a senior government officer living in Jammu—replied immediately, without wasting any time, ‘What will be the deal?’ when the author asked her, ‘Will you return to Kashmir to live if a sustainable reconciliation is brought about and an honest agreement is struck between the two Kashmiri communities to welcome back those Kashmiri Pandit families who—out of their own volition—choose to return and resettle down permanently in Kashmir?’ Another responsible Kashmiri Pandit, a retired senior technocrat, made the following frank and honest comments, and critical observations, about Kashmiri Pandits when the author challenged him about the current leadership of Kashmiri Pandits. Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) in Jammu and all over the world are a greatly fragmented society. Each one of us thinks he/she is the most wise person and ­everything said by others is pure trash … just read a newspaper any day and see how many organisations we have of KPs in Jammu. Unless someone like Hitler or Stalin or even Modi comes, the unification of our community is not going to happen. Sadly, even our ladies have also become like the rest of us…

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Maybe if you would have been an Indian, we could have inducted you into the executive and then start making changes. Alas you are not! As we are in midst of things here, our view is entirely different from yours … Just after my retirement, I was approached by … and told to join … party and be a Hindu face. I had closely watched … one day, he would be right at the top and the next day at the bottom. So I refused. I have no desire to join politics. You are very young and have a long way to go … Come here and work at the grassroots … Regards.

In a country where people live selfishly as individuals, and not as a cohesive community, there exists a significant difference between the expectations and the needs of their nation and the personal needs of the people. As a nation can’t truly align itself with the expectations of all people, it is pragmatic and reasonable to expect that people align their personal needs and expectations as much as possible with the expectations and the call of their nation. Only when people cohere and align themselves with their nation, they will live in a cohesive and progressive environment. Such a nation will progress very fast. A fundamental requirement for the sustainability of their alignment is the benevolence and fairness of their nation’s expectations. Therefore, a clear outline of the national objectives is necessary. To develop and implement the measures that are necessary to achieve the defined objectives and the common goal(s), such a nation demands visionary leaders at the helm.

About the Book

This book is about Kashmiri Pandits. It attempts to answer a number of questions about them, including: • Who are they? • Where are they? • What is their problem? • Who owns them now? • Why India won’t care for them? • What are their current existential issues? • Why they must reconnect with Kashmir? • Why history of the region must be revisited? • What is their possible way forward? This book speaks for all Kashmiris who have suffered immensely in the past three decades for no fault of their own, including all those Kashmiri Pandits who crave for their home and hope for miracles to happen for their dignified return. The objectives of this book are not to prove which community is right or wrong—the Kashmiri Muslims or the Kashmiri Pandits—or whose suffering is greater. The book tries to answer why it is important for Kashmir and for both major Kashmiri communities that Pandits return to their native Kashmir, especially those who really want to return home, out of their own volition and for all the right reasons.

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The purpose of this book is to bring about a reasonable and realistic degree of practical and sustainable reconciliation between the two communities, whilst trying to make them stand in each other’s shoes, understand each other’s perspective and pain and then self-introspect sincerely, so that a bridge of mutual trust and acceptance is rebuilt between the two communities, which can then allow those Pandits, who genuinely want to return, to cross over and be home. There is no doubt that, for absolutely no fault of theirs since the British left the subcontinent, Kashmiri Pandits have suffered immeasurable pain and grief due to militancy in Kashmir, whilst also losing thousands of innocent members of their community, directly to militant bullets and indirectly to heartbreak, the diseases of the plains, sunstrokes and snake bites after getting uprooted from their home. Additionally, they also face an existential threat to their unique culture, values and identity, which renders them an endangered community. Many Kashmiri Muslims will also make similar claims, for similar reasons and not-so-similar reasons. For reconciliation and moving forward, it is paramount that Kashmiri Pandits realise and accept that, like them, their Kashmiri Muslim brethren have also suffered immensely in the past three decades. They also carry a bruised psychology. Day in and day out, they witnessed and experienced violent mobs, shootings, bomb blasts, social disturbances and assassinations. Many of them left Kashmir in 1990 or soon thereafter, and some returned only a couple of decades later or so. For security reasons, many Kashmiri Muslims also had to move internally from their original home in Srinagar. So there was indeed some internal displacement of Kashmiri Muslims too. It is a matter of fact that most Kashmiri Muslims, for fear of their lives, may have witnessed silently the mass exodus of the Pandits, for which they may be held eternally responsible by the Kashmiri Pandits. Possibly, many would not have even known in the earliest days of the militancy (1989–1990) about what was really happening on the ground. Undoubtedly, there was an air of confusion abound in the valley. Varied emotions—anticipation, premonition, excitement, anxiety, fear—filled the human minds. The politico-religious movement, which was wrongly, but strategically, being driven in the name of jihad, was riddled with a number of fatal flaws. The architects of the movement had not seemingly thought it out well, otherwise why would they have blundered in scaring away the Pandits and

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engaging in an armed confrontation with professional security forces—the brave local police and the powerful Indian Army? There was absolutely no logic behind those numerous individual attacks on both common and prominent Kashmiri Pandits. It was nothing short of madness. If one thinks deeply, they will understand that this blunder of the architects of the movement did actually sink the movement itself. Their pawn soldiers, the local militants and the foreign mercenaries, were misled and fooled in the name of jihad. The history would have been different if Kashmiri Pandits were not targeted and, instead, consulted and cordially brought on board for launching a peaceful movement. On a brighter note, there are numerous heart-warming stories about many Pandits being cautioned and saved by their Muslim neighbours and friends. On a sad note, however, there are many stories of deceit and betrayal wherein many Kashmiri Muslim neighbours collaborated with militants in getting their Pandit neighbours killed, for a range of reasons— occupation of their houses and properties, business, past vengeance, religious fanaticism and so forth. One must note that the militancy in Kashmir has been driven in the name of Islam, as jihad, which attracted militants and mercenaries from a number of countries—Pakistan, Pak-occupied Kashmir, Afghanistan, many Arab and African countries, Chechnya and even Australia. The mechanism and principle of jihad was hijacked, grossly misused, rather abused, by the architects of the militancy to muffle and neutralise the potential resistance expected from most Kashmiri Muslims. Kashmiri Pandits must, therefore, try to understand the helplessness of a common Kashmiri Muslim and why she/he could not say or do anything, especially if that person knew or was aware, even faintly, that an armed militant or a radicalised youth was living in her/his house—as her/ his son, brother, cousin, father—or in the neighbourhood or was a relative or a friend. Many fathers were killed by their sons and many brothers by their own brothers. Although some of the claims and counter-claims of both parties may be subject to serious challenges, it is prudent that, in the greater interest of Kashmir and all Kashmiris, the two communities now move on and consciously come together before time runs out on them, in which case the history will never forgive them. Proving each other wrong and guilty will not help anyone except the devil of the destruction, which has already claimed nearly a hundred thousand souls (from all sides—average citizens,

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armed militants and the security personnel) in the last 30 years. Everyone has lost and no one will ever win! As a matter of fact, Kashmir has lost! This book explores the possibilities and the logical core conditions for the return of Kashmiri Pandits to their native Kashmir. In Chap. 2 of this book, a snapshot of a unique culture set of earlier Kashmiri Pandits, who lived in Kashmir in the pre-1990 era, is provided. The reason is that their exodus, as well as the past three decades of daily struggles of life, has taken a heavy toll on them. With a steady erosion of their culture over the past three decades, they are an endangered community. If things don’t change for the better for them sooner than later, within the next three decades or so at the most, they will fade into history as an anonymous community, without their traditional culture and roots. Therefore, solely for the benefit of their current younger generations and their future generations, this cultural snapshot aims to provide to some extent a hazy glimpse of their past life, customs, lifestyle, household and rituals until 1990. For the benefit of readers, and completeness of the subject matter, this book briefly revisits the history of Kashmir, during both pre- and post-1947 eras. This book also discusses their current situation around the globe and their existential cultural challenges post their exodus from Kashmir in 1989–1990. This book should also be of interest to all non-Kashmiris, especially the policymakers, political analysts and the people’s leaders in Kashmir and India and to all those readers who are interested in the overall welfare of Kashmir and the Kashmiris. Kashmir is the geographical head of India. Therefore, a healthy, prosperous and peaceful Kashmir is vital for India’s health, and vice versa. In the context of the subject matter, it is appropriate that this book includes the following appendices to provide the reader with related background information about Kashmir and the rest of the subcontinent: • Appendix A—Kashmir’s history in brief • Appendix B—The Pakistan factor It is imperative that when we discuss the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, we will also need to discuss Kashmir and its past political turmoil. That leads us straight into the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, followed by a continued tug-of-war between an Islamic Republic of Pakistan and a secular, democratic Republic of India. Pakistan has remained a confused

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nation since its inception; it has tried to live two lives—one in the first millennium and the other in the second millennium. It is, therefore, logical that this book also provides an insight into the volatility of a confused Pakistan since its inception, which has directly or indirectly played a vital role in sealing the fate of the Pandits of Kashmir and their Muslim brethren. The author wishes to reiterate that the core objective of this book is to bring the two estranged Kashmiri communities—Pandits and Muslims— back together before it is too late. This book had to be largely opinion-based, from the author’s perspective and experience, based on the facts, of course. Facts supporting this book are included in its appendices. Dozens of books—from both sides of the religious divide—newspapers and magazines from around the world over the last 30 years have documented why and how the Pandits had moved out—over a wide period of time—with differing versions coming from different sources. As such, there is no one version, and every version is opinionated, depending upon the author’s religious background, education, political affiliation, socio-economic standing and so forth. Kashmiri Muslims have generally their own set of versions, and Kashmiri Pandits have their own set of versions. Third parties—with different agenda and intentions—project their own set of versions. Governments—State and Central —have their own theories. Different countries have their own stories, and their political parties have their own versions. The author’s first book on Kashmir, 22 Years—A Kashmir Story, documents a series of events in Srinagar (Kashmir), as experienced and witnessed by the author, which led to his exit from the valley in late December 1989, about a month before the exodus of most, if not all, members of his community on and after 19 January 1990. The subtitle of that book, One Lakh Pandit Families May Have One Lakh Stories, reflects a wide range of reasons why and how Pandits would have left. As a matter of fact, the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley has been happening since 1947, for varied reasons. It is more appropriate to reference the author’s aforementioned book, instead of reproducing it here. The original manuscript of this book was written and submitted to the publisher on the morning of 5 August 2019. Later on that day, in a sudden and surprising historical move, the current Government of India abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution of India, under which the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed a semi-autonomous status.

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Subsequently, on 31 October 2019, in another historical move, the Government of India passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act and divided the State into two union territories—the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh. At the time of the submission of the final manuscript of this book, the valley of Kashmir had been under a lockdown for more than nine months, initially imposed by the Indian government for preventing violent reactions in the valley against the abrogation of Article 370, and later in tandem with a preventive lockdown against the spread of COVID-19. On the basis of a largely disturbed life in Kashmir, caused by a continued lockdown and a limited freedom of expression, since the abrogation of Article 370, the book should be logically titled as: The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir—Can They Ever Return Home?

Acknowledgement

Authors must endure and overcome their personal pain for the greater good of the humanity. To write a book on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits will never be easy and will not be without undergoing immense mental pain and emotional rollercoaster for any person coming from this community. Undoubtedly, my journey through the writing phase of this book has left me mentally bruised and exhausted, but also relieved to a great extent. Sometimes, it may be much wiser and safer to leave a bullet inside the body than run a risk in removing it. But that causes moral dilemma. If no one scratched one’s old scars to uncover and revisit those deep wounds, the world will never learn from history. Some humans do bad things which must be righted by other humans, so that the world moves on without returning to dark days. It does not matter if I physically return to Kashmir or not. I am already living there in my spirit. I shall live permanently in my words, in my books. I am fortunate that I have made a niche in the hearts and minds of many Kashmiris who live there, whom I love, so I am reconnected to Kashmir. Humans are all about love and respect. God bless my Kashmir and my Kashmiri brethren. Kashmiris may look weary, teary, dreary, shaky, noisy or lazy. That is only a superficial perception, which may fool many. Deep down, they are extremely hardy, tenacious, pugnacious and resilient. Their history is extremely complex. They have weathered very difficult times in the past, which have hardened them to core. They withstood Alexander’s invasion and repeated invasions of several Mongol chiefs. They survived the rules of alien regimes over more than 600 years—Shahmiris, Pathans, Mughals, xix

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Sikhs and Dogras—who invaded, occupied, ruled Kashmir from time to time and finally disappeared. Yet, Kashmiris did not fade out; they lived and survived as Kashmiris. There is something in Kashmir and Kashmiris that will sustain them for many more centuries as ethnic Kashmiris. Over time, most of them have become quite stoic. Their resilience and stoicism will help them to survive through all times to come. Kashmiris are excellent hosts and universally known for their warm hospitality. They remember every kind word, every kind gesture and every kind favour they receive. Equally, they never forget the pain and injustices they suffer. Some of them may have given in to the external cultures and surrendered a part of their identity. However, most of them, who hold Kashmir in their heart and wear Kashmir on their sleeves, will remain Kashmiris to the core. They are Kashmiris; they will survive. As a born Kashmiri Pandit, I pay my most humble homage to the Sikh Gurus. I remain eternally indebted to Guru Teg Bahadur (1 April 1621–24 November 1675), the 9th Sikh Guru, without whose supreme sacrifice for Kashmiri Pandits, this book was not possible. He must be remembered by every Kashmiri Pandit generation till the eternity. The ancestors of Kashmiri Pandits, also known as Koshur Bhattas, and the Sikh gurus were known to have a close bond and interaction with one another. Both shared common characteristics—knowledge and learning. The word Bhatta, from the Sanskrit word Bhatt, represents a learned person or a student of learning. As such, Kashmiri Pandits can use the title Pandit before their name. Similarly, the word Sikh means a learned disciple of the Guru. My humble acknowledgement and wholehearted thanks to Late Bala Sahib Thackeray (23 January 1926–17 November 2012), without whose benevolence and proactive support, a majority of uprooted Kashmiri Pandits would not have found their feet and reclaimed their lives after 1990. In the same spirit, I also wish to acknowledge and sincerely thank the people of Jammu of 1990 for their benevolence, tolerance and acceptance of a major portion of the uprooted Kashmiri Pandits community in 1990. I also wish to acknowledge all Kashmiris—in Kashmir and elsewhere in India and abroad—with whom I have interacted in my life and particularly since December 1989. I must thank and acknowledge the input of a number of authors whose articles, published in various newspapers in India and abroad, have been referenced and included in this book solely in the context of the book and to supplement my independent thoughts about the subject matter.

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I wish to thank my father, Engineer Jawahar Lal Koul, for painstakingly proofreading the manuscript, and my life partner, A/Prof Dr Rekha Bhan Koul, for her support and bearing with me during my writing journey. I also wish to acknowledge my friend, Dr Farzad Beygi, for proofreading the manuscript of this book and his assistance with its formatting work. My thanks also go to Nick Lowe for proofreading it briefly. Last, but not the least, my sincere thanks to my publisher, Springer Nature, for publishing this book. Perth, Western Australia 26 May 2020

Bill K. Koul

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Victims of an International Socio-religious Political Conspiracy   1 The Truth   4 How   5 Three Decades Since the Exodus   5 Kashmir—A Power Tussle   7 The Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits   8 Nineteenth January  10 An Uprooted Community  11 How Did the Pandits Leave?  14 Migrant Camps in Jammu  16 Current Position of Migrant Campers  16 Current Position of the Kashmiri Muslim Community  18 Kashmiri Muslims Call Pandits to Return  18 What Does the Author Think as a Kashmir Pandit?  30 Was It a Case of Genocide?  31 The Failure of Indian Secularism and Democracy  37 Identity Threat to the Pandits  38 The British Exit  40 Victims of Geopolitics  41 Divisions in India Since 1947  42 Article 370 of the Constitution of India  44 Abrogation of Article 370  46 What Gave Birth to Article 370?  47 xxiii

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Article 370 in Simple Terms  49 Gradual Erosion of Article 370  51 Should Article 370 Have Been Abrogated?  51 Can Pandits Return Home After the Abrogation of Article 370?  53 Who Has Gained Anything Out of the Abrogation of Article 370?  56 Feelings of a Disillusioned Kashmiri Pandit Post-Article 370  60 References  63 2 About Kashmiri Pandits 67 Etymology  67 Geological Behaviour  70 Genealogy  72 Cultural Transformation  76 An Evening in a Kashmiri Pandit Household (1960s–1980s)  78 Dwellings and Household Items  80 Kitchen and Appliances  83 Cooking and Heating Fuel  85 Food and Beverages  85 Sundried Vegetables and Fruit  88 Fasting Days  89 Clothing  90 Birthday Functions  90 Wedding Functions  91 Cultural Parameters  92 Cultural Uniqueness  94 Soundar  95 Kah-nethar  95 Shishür  95 Mekhal  96 Death and Funeral  97 Herath  98 Navreh  99 Punn 100 Gaard-Batt 101 Khyatchi-Mawas 101 Kashmiri Pandits and Secularism 101 A Global Community 104 High Adaptability 105

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Dal-e-Bhatta 106 Politically Insignificant But Part of the Solution 107 References 108 3 Political Orphans?109 What About Kashmiri Pandits? 109 India Does Not Truly Care for Kashmiri Pandits 113 The Bitter Truth 115 Going Forward 116 A Stark Realisation 117 Pandits’ Cry for Justice 118 Were Kashmiri Pandits Cowards? 118 Enigmatic Saints of Kashmir Fought in Their Own Way 123 Swami Nand Lal 123 Bhagwan Gopinath 124 References 125 4 Issues in Pandit Community127 Lack of Political Vision 127 Indifference Towards Kashmir 129 Jingoistic Volatility 131 Erosion of Family Values 131 Dwindling Family and Community Size 133 Loss of Family and Neighbourhood Support 134 Cultural Metamorphosis 135 Divorces 138 Reference 139 5 Main Challenges for Kashmir141 India and Pakistan Must Fight Terrorism Together 141 Pakistan’s Precarious Position 142 India’s Internal Issues 144 Jingoism and Patriotism 145 Terrorism: A Cancer 146 Philosophy 147 The Way Forward 148 A Commentary on the Pulwama Terror Attack 149 Questions to Answer 150 India’s Pre-emptive Attack 150

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India Needs Vision 151 Kashmir Does Not Need Mediation 153 Shallow Kashmiri Character 154 Kashmir’s Cultural Flux 156 Environmental Vandalism in Kashmir 160 Political Instability in Kashmir 162 A Pampered State 164 Will the Kashmir Issue Ever Go Away? 165 References 167 6 The Way Forward?169 Visiting History Is Important 169 Understanding the Root of Kashmir Issue 170 Famous Poets and Mystics of Kashmir 172 What Is Good for Kashmir? 175 Kashmir Sits on a Nuclear Powder Keg 176 Is Kashmir’s Greater Autonomy a Way Forward? 177 Abrogation of Article 370: A Disaster? 178 Kashmir Needs Cultural Fix 178 Pandits and Muslims Need Each Other 180 Moral Dilemma 181 Spiritual and Moral Obligations 181 Identity and Culture 182 Will Pandits Return? 184 How Many Pandits Will Possibly Return to Live? 186 Going Forward: The Role of Kashmiri Muslims 189 Going Forward: The Role of Kashmiri Pandits 191 The Key 193 The Next Five Years 195 To Conclude 196 References 200 Appendix A: Kashmir’s History in Brief203 Appendix B: The Pakistan Factor233

About the Author

The author was born in an educated prominent Kashmiri Pandit family in Srinagar, Kashmir. As Kashmir witnessed a gradual paralysis of administration and law and order in 1989, accompanied with a series of violent politico-­religious incidents and the assassination of a number of eminent members of his community, the author felt deeply distressed and extremely concerned for his personal safety and the safety of his family. Finally, on 23 December 1989, he bid his last farewell to his home (his parents’ house) in Kashmir—the house that he had seen rising from the ground and taking shape brick-by-brick—and that street in front of our house, which he had helped to construct, stone by stone, with his tiny hands. Until then, he had never undertaken any manual labour before; his hands were full of sores and scratches. He left his home because he felt deeply betrayed by his Kashmiri community—his own flesh and blood—and the then two governments, State and Central. He has never been able to understand how and why religion succeeded in separating brothers from one another. After all, they were ONE Kashmiri community, historically related by blood. Amazingly, at that time, the State government seemed to have abdicated, and the Central government was hopelessly clueless about what was happening in the valley. But the author was alert and aware; he had seen it coming and he was afraid, very afraid. Not many people paid attention to his fear; no one listened to his cry, not even his parents. He believes his God may have certainly cried with him when he left his home in deep fear, for an uncertain future. xxvii

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A month later, he was undoubtedly fully uprooted from his soil on the morning of 20 January 1990, when his parents decided to leave suddenly, under duress and after repeated pleas and advice (to leave the valley) from his father’s Muslim colleague. His parents were dropped at the Srinagar airport by their noble Muslim neighbour, Dr Abdul Majid (RIP). At the airport, they crossed path with Mr Jagmohan, the newly (re)appointed governor of Jammu and Kashmir, who had just arrived in the valley. Rest is history! History must not be forgotten or allowed to be distorted. Since 1984, the author had been feeling the tremors that had rocked the valley from time to time. With time, he had also noticed an alarming growth in their intensity. In 1989, he made significant noise to warn his friends and relatives, but they chose to sleep blissfully. Even his parents ignored him. In October 1989, he took his first flight out to Delhi, but got disillusioned and returned a few weeks later. Later, on 23 December 1989, when he could bear it no more, he took a historical flight out of the valley with his young family (but without his parents). The harsh reality of losing his home dawned upon him in the plains of India during the hot summer days. He struggled to breathe; the hot air was unbearable. ‘Delhi or Detroit, it should not matter, go where you find honour, dignity, respect and success,’ a wise Kashmiri Pandit, Mr SK Bhan, advised. He and his family were grounded—poor, hopeless, disillusioned, desolate and helpless—like half a million other people. God helps those who help themselves. So, the family had to work hard to reclaim their lives back. Their first long flight out of India took them to Southeast Asia, where he lived and worked. The family prospered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They worked very hard and tried to save every hard-earned penny that they could. They lived a very modest but dignified lifestyle and focussed mainly on the education of their young children, whilst inculcating in them the traditional Pandit virtues and values, as well as freeing them of many outdated stigmas. They raised their two children as free citizens. The author was fortunate to have worked on some iconic large infrastructure projects in Malaysia, whose foundation design work had his significant input. It was the golden period of Malaysia when Dr Mahathir was the popular prime minister of the country. For technical reasons, however, Malaysia could not be their long-term home, so they started preparing for their next long flight to Australia—the land down under, the land of green and gold, the land of opportunities, the land of Don Bradman and Dennis

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Lillee. But things did not come on a platter. Before allowing them in, their new home rigorously tested their commitment and resolution, worth and qualifications. In those days (late 1990s), immigration to Australia was relatively quite difficult, and the general public, due to a lack of exposure, was a little conservative towards the new immigrants, especially from the non-English-speaking countries. The author was required to pass a two three-hour long written assessments in engineering, called the Test by Examination, conducted by Engineers Australia, which was held over two days at the Australian High Commission in Singapore, which he passed in the late 1996. This stringent assessment process was later scrapped by the then Government of Australia in 1998, as not many foreign-trained engineers could pass it; it was replaced with a new, much more lenient (and potentially corruptible) assessment process—comprising the submission of three project reports. Since 1998, the new assessment process has allowed many more foreign-­trained engineers to freely immigrate into the country. After passing his technical assessment, the whole family had to undergo a full medical assessment—to prove their good health and physical fitness— which was followed by their character assessment. After crossing all these hurdles, they received the final ‘green’ signal—their first embrace—from their new home. Australia adopted them more than two decades ago as its own and gave them freedom, honour and dignity. The peaceful environment in their new home helped them to grow fast within themselves and accelerated their healing process. Although their wounds have healed over time, their mental scars remain. Thankfully, their pain and grief metamorphosed into empathy, compassion and forgiveness. The author has written his personal story about his exodus, and of his pain and suffering, in a book, 22 Years—A Kashmir Story (2018). Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. … Matthew 6:9–13 (RSV-2CE)1

1  The Lord’s Prayer is read in the Parliament of Australia at the start of the day whenever the parliament is in session.

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The author is not affiliated with any political party or any organisation in India or abroad. He continues to be a vegetarian, loves cricket and practices Transcendental Meditation. He remains eternally indebted to Guru Teg Bahadur, the 9th Sikh Guru, for his supreme sacrifice. This book has been driven by heart and will need a heart to read and understand its objectives. It is based on the author’s personal experience as an indigenous Kashmiri and his observations and interactions with the members of both Kashmiri Pandit and Muslim communities. If nothing is done soon, the Kashmir issue may take its natural recourse, as reaction to political and social imbalances, to achieve equilibrium. Kashmir does not look as pristine as it did only a few decades ago. Militancy has taken a significant toll on the human well-being and mental health, as well as the natural environment. The scars of environmental degradation in lakes, rivers, wetlands and forests—due to mindless, myopic and selfish human vandalism—are visible in Kashmir. On the human front, the rate of mental illness has risen. One does not need to be an expert on Kashmir or be a political science graduate to write on the subject matter. Any person who has the ability to think rationally, especially as an ethnic Kashmiri, should be heard. It is a Kashmiri Pandit in the author who, despite living in Australia, a living paradise on the earth, makes him put in very hard yards—in terms of time and effort, serious commitment and personal resources— to try and wake up India, because in India’s survival lies the survival of Kashmir, and vice versa. In the past two decades, Australia has infused in him its core character—if there is something wrong, stand up, make noise and do something about it, but never be a silent witness. This Australian diehard character aligns with the core message of the Bhagwad Gita, which the author follows. Fearless and selfless actions, borne out of noble intentions, align with dharma (righteousness/duty) and set one apart. Such actions alone make this world a better place. Being optimistic is healthy. Unfortunately, in this context, pure optimism bedded with inaction should be considered as burying one’s head in sand, like an ostrich. It is not the time to do nothing to address the core issues that have been disturbing Kashmir. God does not do anything without the human thought and endeavour. Likewise, in the areas of social engineering and the environmental sustainability of the country, visionary humans, as God’s representatives, must stand up and act, to fulfil the wishes of Kashmiris and for the welfare of their future generations.

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Mahabharata, the great epic, painfully reminds one about many learned and brave men, including the invincible Bhishma, well known for his vow of celibacy, who remained passive witnesses to many wrongs being done by others. The country lost, and nobody won. The victory of Pandavas was of benefit to no one, as not many people were left to enjoy the fruit of that victory. Many people, who carry strong bitterness from the past, ask many uncomfortable questions about why things happened in Kashmir in 1990. Fair enough, these are valid questions, but such questions will not help to stitch back the Kashmiriyat. Many of them have advised the author, ‘Why are you so much concerned about Kashmir? You have left Kashmir about three decades ago. Leave Kashmir and Kashmiris alone; they have got what they deserve’. But the author has truly learnt the lesson from the Mahabharata. The author is a firm believer in the best of humanity and knows the importance of looking ahead and being optimistic. His mother, supported by the life experience, has taught him that the past, if ugly, can become a potential seed for new conflicts if unnecessarily nourished by bitter memories and acidic expressions. Kashmir and Kashmiris, both within and outside Kashmir, urgently need healing. The author endeavours to reconnect the two long lost brothers (Pandits and Muslims), which he thinks is extremely important for the welfare of their future generations and for sustainable peace in Kashmir. He believes it is only up to the individual Kashmiri people from both sides to come together and restitch their unique Kashmir community together and forge a peaceful and progressive future of the homeland. The author has no expectations from any politicians or any illusions about what they can or can’t do, and, more importantly, what they will never ever do.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Victims of an International Socio-religious Political Conspiracy The world has not changed much since the human race came into existence about 200,000 years ago except that the human number increased significantly post the dawn of Industrial Age, during the last 400 years or so. Humans still eat, breed and hunt just like their ancestors did; the only difference being that their mannerism and weapons became more sophisticated and subtle over time. At no stage have humans lost their connivance. The current human sophistication may be just skin-deep. When it comes to power—social, religious, military and political—and competition, humans can be as or perhaps more dangerous than other animals. In this day and age—with muscle, might and majority continuing to be right—if an ethnic community demographically comprises less than 5% of the population in their homeland, or around 0.06% of their country’s population and 0.01% of global population, would they make any difference to anyone other than themselves? Their numbers may be considered as traces and, therefore, insignificant, both in the country of their birth and elsewhere in the world. In anthropological and sociological domains, however, they may be considered as significant, as any ethnic group on the planet. But can they be considered important in statistical or political domains? Those members of the community, who know the answer to this question, silently strive on through individual endeavours and manage to survive wherever they exist, whereas others—a much smaller group—who © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_1

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don’t seem to know, or pretend not to know the answer, seemingly make futile noise for their human political rights. Who will listen to them? The situation of this community becomes exacerbated as they exist as individuals, or as individual families, dispersed across their country and globally elsewhere. Their individualistic survival skills, with shades of selfishness and high intelligence, may also have jeopardised their emergence as a forceful community to reckon with. The community that we are talking about are the Pandits of Kashmir, commonly known as Kashmiri Pandits (KP), the indigenous people of the Kashmir. And they are endangered, given their low birth rate. They are the only people in the subcontinent who have historically been entitled to use the title Pandit (Pt) before their name (e.g. Pandit J.L.  Nehru), which refers to a combination of virtues, such as being learned, educated, knowledgeable, wise and intelligent. Until 1990, Kashmiri Pandits comprised just under 5% of the total population of Kashmir, as most of them are reported to have had converted to Islam over the last seven centuries, since about 1339—for a range of reasons—during the reigns of various non-Kashmiri Muslim rulers, as noted in Appendix A of this book, which provides a brief history of Kashmir. Politically, Kashmir is administered in parts by three Asian nuclear powers: about one-half of Kashmir is administered by India, about one-third by Pakistan (PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, since 1947) and about one-fifth by China (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract, since 1962–1964). Geographically, Kashmir is thus situated within the world’s heaviest militarised zone. On 31 October 2019, the Indian-administered Kashmir became a part of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Prior to that, Kashmir was a part of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir (termed herein as the ‘State’), of which Ladakh was also a part. Historically, up to 26 October 1947, it was a princely state and not a part of independent India. Since 1954, the State had enjoyed a special status in the Union of India through the provision of Article 370 that featured in both the Constitution of India and the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, which empowered the State to have a separate constitution, a State flag and autonomy over its internal administration. In a sudden move, on 5 August 2019, the Government of India abrogated Article 370. Subsequently, on 31 October 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act was passed by the Indian parliament and the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir was divided into two

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union territories: Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh. Kashmir has traditionally been known for its natural scenic beauty but, more recently, also for a volatile political environment and armed militancy. In the distant past, however, about a millennium and half ago, it was a world-renowned centre of learning of Kashmir Shaivism and the Buddhist philosophies. The Kashmir valley (34.1667° N, 74.7500° E), about 135 km in length and 32 km in width, is located between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range, at a height of about 1620 m above mean sea level. The valley is under the control of India. Geographically, it is bounded by: • Xinjiang to the northeast • Tibet to the east • Pakistan to the west • Afghanistan to the northwest • Jammu to the south As a result of an international socio-religious political conspiracy, which gave birth to an armed uprising in Kashmir in 1989–1990, hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits were killed by the militants and the remaining were coerced and forced to leave everything behind and flee—in extreme distress and confusion—to save their lives and honour in unfamiliar alien environment outside Kashmir. In essence, they became collateral victims of an international conspiracy that conceived, supported and fuelled an armed uprising against Indian interests in Kashmir. It has been nearly three decades since they lost their home, but no one has ever claimed any responsibility for their loss or apologised to them. As always, politically, they remain insignificant. After their exodus, they dispersed around the world and became a global community. Given their global exposure, which is expected to have possibly caused a significant dilution and erosion of their culture—language, food and spiritual values—one can’t be very sure if they continue to be the Pandits that they used to be in the traditional sense of the word. However, it may be too early to conclude if Kashmiri Pandits have been an unfortunate community or their homeland has been unfortunate to have lost them. History will tell.

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The Truth There was a time, not very long ago, when the world was envious of Kashmiris and their peaceful living. Ladies, wearing gold ornaments, would walk home alone during the dead of night, without fear. In the early 1980s, Kashmir was one of the most peaceful places in the world. The author remembers the day, in the late 1970s, when he was in high school and the whole of Kashmir was stunned with shocking news of a stabbing-death incident, committed by a Nepalese domestic helper, which spread like a wild fire through the valley. Till then, Kashmir people had not heard about any murders in Kashmir. At the most, some ruffians would use Kashmiri kangris (a clay-pot, filled with burning charcoal, used in winter months, to warm one’s hands) or their foreheads as their weapon in late-night street brawls. And it stayed like that until about the mid-1980s. Kashmir changed forever when armed militancy gripped the valley from the late 1980s. How ironical is it that armed militants—or terrorists, when seen from the other side—who claim to fight for any cause or mission, howsoever noble or just that mission may be, cause and contribute to immense and irreparable damage to the mission and the image of their own community whom they claim to represent. They selfishly ignore the fact that there will always be serious repercussions from their violent acts, which their community members will have to bear. Violence has never been accepted or forgotten by people. As a psychological reaction, people tend to forever stereotype the members of the killer’s community, howsoever peaceful and humane they may be otherwise. In most cases, they also face ramifications for no individual fault of theirs. This sad irony of life goes on to prove that militants (or terrorists) are not friends of anyone, neither of their own community nor of the people they target. The question now is not if and when Kashmiri Pandits can return home to their Kashmir valley; the question is how many of them will ever be ready to return to live there permanently, and not just visit their home for summer holidays. Another important question is why their return should be encouraged and facilitated. Kashmir will live only if its spirituality and culture are revived. Its poets and mystics must be promoted at social, literary and political levels. It is important that Kashmiris take pride in their indigenous culture and literature and rediscover their rich cultural uniqueness and true identity. A country is characterised by its culture; if culture is eroded, the foundations

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of the country are eroded. For a while, its name may cover it as a shell, while imposters erode its core. In time, it will perish. A tree will wither away if its roots are not nourished. Kashmir is India’s problem, and not its neighbour’s. India has been and shall remain responsible for the future of Kashmiri Pandits. Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmir are amongst India’s core issues. If Kashmiri Pandits had been  waiting for the abrogation of Article 370 in the Constitution of India, their return to their homeland is highly improbable considering the manner in which the Article was abrogated on 5 August 2019.

How How can Mother Kashmir, called Maej Kasheer in common Kashmiri language, ever be complete without Kashmiri Pandits, her indigenous children? How long will the Kashmiri Pandits be miffed, muffled and deliberately side-lined from any socio-political talks about Kashmir, and their genuine human issues be used by various political parties and numerous selfish individuals for political leverages and material gains? How can any everlasting and sustainable peaceful solution be devised and deemed to be successful without building trust and bringing closer the hearts of the people belonging to the two Kashmiri communities—the Muslims and the Pandits? How can any solution be arrived at without considering the root causes—both indigenous and geopolitical—that have led to a continued strife in Kashmir since 1947, eventually forcing the Pandit community to leave their home suddenly in 1990 and thereafter? How can one talk about solution(s) to both perceived and not so obvious politico-social and religious issues in Kashmir without knowing or having any kind of understanding about the people, as well as about the rich but complex history of this heavenly landlocked valley of Kashmir, which carries immense mythological, historical, spiritual, religious, educational, cultural, geopolitical significance?

Three Decades Since the Exodus It is true that most Kashmiri Pandits were left with no choice but to leave their homeland in January 1990, and thereafter, for a number of reasons, which included:

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• The failure of the Government of India, • The failure of the State Government of Jammu and Kashmir, • The failure of law and order in the State of Jammu and Kashmir and • Inability of Kashmiri Muslims—neighbours, friends and colleagues—to instil confidence and a sense of security in their Pandit brethren community at a time when hundreds of members of the Kashmiri Pandit community were deliberately targeted and killed by the militants—of both foreign and local origins—as part of an ill-conceived scare campaign that was scripted, produced and directed across the LoC. It is true that many Kashmiri Muslims were also targeted for being perceived to have pro-India feelings and leanings. But for such violence, the recent history of Kashmir would undoubtedly have been different! It has been nearly three decades since Kashmiri Pandits were uprooted from their native Kashmir. For political and technical reasons, they are being called Kashmiri migrants, and not refugees. Many of them have died in exile in the last three decades. If the median age of Indians is 29 years, one could say that the younger half of the Pandit population was born after their exodus and shall be carrying only the transmitted memories about Kashmir from their elders, if at all. Add to that those Pandits who would have been less than 5 years old at the time of the exodus. That would, therefore, leave only upper 30 to 40% of the total Pandit population—estimated between 500,000 and 800,000 (Essa, 2011)—to be concerned about Kashmir and craving to return home. But many Pandits don’t know how and when they can return; they have been waiting—in illusion—for successive governments in India to perform some magic and create safe and congenial conditions in the valley for their return. But in essence, no Indian government has sincerely cared or will ever care for their cause, purely because they don’t form any significant vote bank. Also, because they are an educated and intrinsically peaceful community, they don’t carry any nuisance value to attract any meaningful attention from the government. Any care, if at all, has just be been cursory, with some lip sympathy for political correctness. Despite the reality of their political impotence, they have allowed themselves to be exploited by many politicians and the so-called leaders for personal political and financial leverages, which is completely baffling considering they have been considered as an intelligent and wise community. It is important that Pandits are made aware about their disillusion and provided with the right advice about how they can help themselves and

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restore the original tapestry of Kashmir’s cultural fabric. This book aims to dispel their disillusion and guide them along a path of possible reconciliation, albeit on an individual basis, with their Muslim brethren for the greater good of all. And why should Pandits seriously think about helping themselves and reconnect on their own with Kashmir and their Kashmiri Muslim brethren? Realistically, because it is only a matter of time—the next three decades at the most—during which they have the opportunity to reconnect with their native Kashmir. After that, not many Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims would be alive who would have any memories of one another and their historical coexistence in Kashmir. In that scenario, Kashmir will become completely bereft of Pandits. How unfortunate would it be that Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims will become total strangers for each other! Time is of the essence, and they are fast running out of time. This community is truly endangered. Unless they help themselves sooner than later, they will remain Kashmiris only in name—without roots. Pragmatism is the need of the hour for all Kashmiris. The onus is on this older group of Pandits—comprising the upper 50% of the population—to reconnect with Kashmir and preserve their unique identity and culture. • They owe it to their ancestors who endeavoured hard to earnestly preserve their unique Pandit culture for nearly 700 years. • They owe it to those hundreds of Pandits who were martyred in the days leading to and after their mass exodus on/after 19 January 1990. • They owe it to those thousands of Pandits who died in exile out of heartbreak and despair, diseases of the plains, snake bites and sunstrokes within months of their exodus. • They owe it to Kashmir. How can their Mother Kashmir be complete and happy without them? • Most importantly, they owe it to their future generations, who will look for their roots one day in search of their identity.

Kashmir—A Power Tussle Have Kashmiri Pandits fallen through cracks—geographical, political and religious cracks—such as the cracks between India and Pakistan, between Kashmir and India, between Hindus and Muslims, between

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Congress-­National Conference and BJP (Jan Sang) and between Delhi and Srinagar? The so-called Kashmir issue is not a religious or cultural issue; it is nothing but a power tussle between various parties and individuals. In Kashmir, every street, mohalla, suburb and village had its own unique culture. For example, Rainawari was entirely different from Habba Kadal, Maisooma was different from Wazapora, Channapora from Rawalpora and Jawahar Nagar from Karan Nagar. Sopore could not be compared to Anantnag, and Budgam was different from Pulwama. Despite cultural differences, Kashmir has remained as one single entity. For that matter, Jammu and Kashmir are two entirely different places in terms of their cultures, climates and languages, but even then, they have remained as the two essential parts of one single State. It puzzles one how the partition of India was allowed to happen in 1947, considering more Muslims remained with India than those who went to Pakistan. As if that is not surprising enough, the separation of East Pakistan  from West Pakistan, which gave birth to Bangladesh in 1971, is also a big puzzle. In the recent years, India has been seeing the birth of a number of new States, and more new States may be in the offing. Families get divided as the smallest units of any community. To sum up, it is not the religion or the culture which may be causing separations. It is possibly the greed and the lust for power of some individuals that divides people. People divide countries and states to acquire power. They continue to divide the people to stay in power. Human greed, and not religion or culture, appears to be the main cause of human sufferings. Unfortunately, it will always remain so until humans, like other intelligent animals, will continue to pursue the path of power and dominance on one another and other animals. The Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits The rise of Islamic Student League (ISL) and the bomb blasts in Kashmir in 1984, the rise of the Muslim United Front (MUF) and communal riots in south Kashmir in 1986, violent incidents and demonstrations in the valley in 1988 and 1989, the targeted killings of many prominent Kashmiri Pandits in 1989 and the coordinated announcements from the PA systems of most mosques in the valley on 19 January 1990, asking Kashmiri Pandits to ‘run, perish or convert’ (raliv, galiv ya chaliv), deeply eroded the trust that Pandits had in their fellow Kashmiri Muslims with regard to

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their personal safety and security, which led to exodus of nearly half a million Kashmiri Pandit community from the valley (Essa, 2011). Undoubtedly, prior to their forced exodus, Pandits had been feeling somewhat marginalised in Kashmir because of being a minority community in a Muslim-majority State. But they had reconciled to their fate. Minorities, wherever they are, do usually feel that way, for valid reasons or not, as it is also a matter of human psychology. Most Pandits were habitual of facing some degree of harassment on a regular basis, albeit subtle and low. If there was truly any religious group that saw some kind of religious repression in the valley, it may have been  the Kashmiri Pandit community. Despite being indigenous to Kashmir, most of the Pandits had become used to virtually  living as second-­class citizens in the State, as do most other minorities elsewhere. It was an accepted way of life. In fact, in the normal course of life, many Pandits would try to appease their Muslim friends, neighbours, colleagues and superiors and try to keep them happy—a kind of reflex action for survival. The following example provides an excellent illustration of the degree of the appeasement. One day, in 1988, the author overheard one of his Pandit colleagues (at Regional Engineering College, Srinagar) complaining to his Muslim colleagues: ‘Hey, I did not like being served my lunch in a plate in … wedding reception yesterday. Next time, in … wedding reception, I would like to be served in a traami (a large copper plate, shared by four diners) and eat my lunch like you guys.’ In the Pandit community, a golden rule taught by most parents to their children was: ‘Just ignore any provocation and any taunt from any Muslim, pretend you are deaf and move straight, quickly. Act silly, if required.’ This evasive behaviour of Pandits indirectly encouraged more and more indignation and harassment of the Pandits. Despite this, they would not leave their Kashmir, their ancestral home. It definitely needed a massive armed militancy, such as witnessed in the years and months leading up to 19 January 1990, to scare them and force them to flee. The mass exodus of 1990 was not a collective community decision; every family seemed to have taken its own decision if, when and how to leave. In many instances, even brothers did not consult or apprise one another despite living in the same traditional, multi-storey house in downtown Srinagar area or elsewhere. In their exodus, Kashmiri Pandits not only saved most of their lives but may also have indirectly saved some militant members of their Muslim brethren from committing a much bigger bloodbath.

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Nineteenth January Every year 19 January marks the anniversary of the beginning of a tragic mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their traditional erstwhile home— the valley of Kashmir—their Maej Kasheer. Anecdotally, it was their seventh mass exodus from Kashmir during the past seven centuries or so! Across the globe, Pandits silently mourn the day with solemn remembrance, within the confines of their heart and homes. Many Pandits silently shed tears, provided any tears have remained to be shed after having cried for the past three decades. Tears or no tears, their hearts undoubtedly suffer pain and grief. The sudden loss of one’s home, without one’s fault, inflicts a lifelong pain on all members of the home; their memories and nostalgia shall keep tormenting them till they live. They must derive enough spiritual strength to bear the loss and survive as a community. The night of 19 January 1990 shall be remembered forever as one of the darkest nights in the history of Kashmir—a night during which the future course of Kashmir was beamed loud and clear on the PA systems across the length and breadth of the valley. In the days immediately following that dark night, most KPs uprooted themselves, purely out of utmost desperation. Kashmir had witnessed a total collapse in the administration, and the Pandits had lost all faith in the government. They did not see anyone, other than themselves, who could protect them! Historically, following a gradual collapse of all arms of a so-called democratically elected government in the valley—the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, as well as the administrative—during the months leading to 19 January 1990, each KP family head was suddenly agonisingly compelled to decide what to do next and how to act (or rather react) in order to save the family—in terms of not only the physical security but also honour. What happened then is history now, although their scars will never disappear. Now, after these past 30 years, is it the time to keep discussing and arguing WHAT happened then? No, not really. What happened then is important, but only to a certain extent; the whole world knows what happened! For that matter, on individual and family levels, as noted in the author’s book, 22 Years—A Kashmir Story, one lakh (100,000) Pandit families may have (rather shall be having) one lakh true stories to tell. But who has listened to them so far and who will listen to them now, as they don’t make the vote bank? The past 30 years have shown that no government truly cares for them; the politicians, as well as many individuals from

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all sides with vested interests, have been using their cause for getting individual political and financial leverages. Therefore, in 2020 and thereafter, what is more important is to truly understand—without emotions, using a cool and traditional wise Pandit head—WHY it all happened and WHY Pandits were left with no other option but to uproot themselves and virtually commit social suicide? The need of the hour, therefore, is a total—impartial and unemotional—analysis at all levels for taking a deep look into the ever-changing political and social scenarios witnessed by Kashmir during the past 1000 years and, particularly, in the 1980s. Only when one understands the WHY, one can take all necessary steps to prevent such tragedies from reoccurring, not only in Kashmir but elsewhere in India and the wider world. A deeper analysis will reveal a cocktail of sinister geopolitical, national- and state-level agenda, catalysed by individual greed and power politics, which finally became a recipe for the unfortunate exodus of the Pandits. Needless to reiterate this nth time that Pandits must keep trying to help themselves as their resilient and noble ancestors had done to survive and thrive. They must also try and help their own Pandit community, if that is important for them. In 2020, as in the past seven centuries or so, they continue to be practically political orphans. That is one reason why, characteristically, they make such an individualistic community, albeit with brilliant individuals who leave significant marks of highest citizenship wherever they thrive and prosper on the planet. As proven historically and clearly in the past 30 years, Pandits proudly continue to be amongst the finest, most responsible and peaceful citizens of India and of all other countries where they live and contribute. An Uprooted Community The valley of Kashmir was their nest, their nursery, their nesting place, their home, their mother! Fortunately or unfortunately, the politically unstable and socially inhabitable and hostile conditions in the valley, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, compelled most of them to take unplanned flights out of their nests, as birds, to fend for themselves and survive. Everything looked chaotic and hazy, commotion was in the air and

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individual survival became paramount. Every Kashmiri Pandit family was suddenly left on its own to survive and defend itself. In a relative sense, every Pandit was left on his/her own to decide what to do next! Those days can be considered amongst very dark days in the history of mankind. Their flights required them to fly very high—far above the Pir Panjal Range—to be able to find safer nesting grounds in the plains of India. For many older and weaker birds, that initial flight proved to be their most difficult and perhaps their last flight; they had never before flown so high or so long! Their new environment was completely alien to them; unfortunately, many perished soon after their first landing—some due to severe exhaustion and deep shock, some to diseases of the plains, some to the elements and some fell prey to other living beings. No words can ever describe the extent and the intensity of their pain and suffering, and their grief and shock, due to the sudden loss of their motherland, which could be similar to the suffering of a 5-year-old child who has been forcibly separated from his/her living mother! After recovering from that first excruciating historical flight, many younger ‘birds’ (a metaphor for Pandits) started to find their feet again; some took relatively much more time than others. All had to grow new feathers to survive and keep flying. Some took months, and some took years to recuperate, gain enough strength and learn the necessary flying skills before embarking on their next flights—much longer and higher than their initial flight—around the globe—to look for their own piece of Kashmir elsewhere. Their eyes had yearned and craved for years to see those tall poplar and deodar trees, highlands and grassy meadows, snowfall and the shehjâr of Bhüne kül (deeply soothing shade under the Chinar tree). Though their eyes had finally run out of tears, their hearts continued to cry due to the nostalgia and the shocking loss of their ancestral nest; they had lost their mother, their home! As it happens usually in such situations, not all birds could adjust to the harsh alien environment in the plains of India; they started looking elsewhere. Some flew to relatively cooler places within India—Pune, Bengaluru, Himachal Pradesh—whereas many flew to North America, Europe and the land down-under, Australia and New Zealand. All these long-distance migratory birds were required to fly very high to be able to cruise to such long distances. From that cruising height, it was not possible to see any political boundaries; all lands looked similar—the whole world looked as one.

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With time, many of these migratory birds started flying back to briefly revisit their native nest from time to time to pay obeisance and respect to the soil of their ancestors—the soil in which they were born, the soil which nourished them, the sacred soil which is mixed with the mortal remains of their ancestors—the soil that was their mother—their Maej Kasheer. The sacred soil of Kashmir is their pilgrimage, their mother. Undoubtedly, the migratory birds have  remained connected with their roots in their ancestral nest, till death snatches their mortal frame from them. They have indeed become Global Pandits in the last three decades! The onus was always on them—adjust, adapt, assimilate and acclimatise. [As an example, a large part of the author is still a Kashmiri, a part Indian, a large part Australian and everything else Global. The author is one of those migratory birds. But he did not fly out with others; he flew out in December 1989, about a month before the first major wave of exodus. The harsh reality of losing his nest dawned upon him in a few months, when in the plains of India, the hot summer days started burning his tender feathers. He struggled to fly and breathe; the hot air was unbearable.] Kashmiri Pandits have spread out across the planet—Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, the UK, Sweden, Africa, the Middle East, the USA, Canada and of course India. They have acquired different nationalities; they are responsible law-abiding and tax-paying citizens of their respective countries. Empathy and compassion connect them with everyone else living on this beautiful planet earth. Nature gave them one earth, one sun and one moon, and one anatomy, to show that they all are one. Despite their new colours, stripes and nationalities, all of them try to remain close to their roots, in their own individual ways. As people become more and more exposed to other people from other lands across the globe, they become more open and their internal silos disappear. They discover all other people are just like them and there is nothing in them that should make them feel inferior or superior to anyone. They become more humble, more accepting and less closed. They start believing in coexistence of all humans, with no one being higher than the other. Many Kashmiri Pandits have started living in a post-materialistic age, and they care more for the environmental sustainability of the world. After all, the whole world belongs to them now and they belong to the whole world. They may indeed have the blessings of Guru Nanak Dev. They remain, as always, compatible with humans of every race, every ethnicity, every religion and every living being on this planet. They are Global Pandits.

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How Did the Pandits Leave? The Pandit community did not leave Kashmir at the same time on the same day. Most families left within days and weeks of 19 January 1990, and some within months after that historical black day for them. Individual nuclear families left on their own, purely out of fear and secrecy, some without even informing their cousin families living in the same house. In some cases, siblings did not consult or inform one another before leaving, even on the night before their planned departure early next morning. Most families hired private trucks to leave, hiding under the tarpaulin cover. Some used their personal cars or hired private taxis to leave. In winter months, Kashmir sees daylight only after 7 am, as the valley is surrounded by a mountainous range. Anecdotally, those trucks or taxis would arrive early morning, in darkness, around 4.00 to 4.30 am when most people would be sleeping. Most Kashmiri Pandits, especially from the villages, had never ever left the valley. They were, therefore, leaving their home for an unknown future. Udhampur and Jammu were their obvious first destinations. Some Pandits who would move with the Durbar move (annual relocation of government secretariat), between the summer and winter capitals of the state, were familiar with Jammu. Some left in the hope of receiving initial support—mainly a room to sleep—from their relatives and friends living in Jammu, Delhi and other places. Most Pandits first camped at Jammu and its surroundings (e.g. Nagrota and Udhampur). Their immediate need was to have a roof on their head and private toilet facilities; their women and children were vulnerable. Their elders were bewildered and in shock. Men looked lost and moved around like headless chooks, as chaos filled them from  inside and surrounded them from outside. Those who did not know anyone in Jammu, camped in various temple premises. Some knocked at the door of their friends and relatives in Jammu, and some travelled all the way to Delhi where they had some contacts. Sadly, some were turned away on one pretext or the other. There were also some people who lodged themselves in hotels for many weeks. Initially, the community did not really believe they had been uprooted. Most people hoped that, as soon as the conditions would improve in the valley, they would return to their homes. But as days became weeks and weeks became months, the heat of the plains started overwhelming them typically after the month of March. Most of them had never seen anything more than 35 degrees Celsius.

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Government started migrant camps in different areas of Jammu and surroundings, where tens of thousands of homeless people were lodged initially in canvas tents and left exposed to the elements—rain, harsh sun, wind and what not! Those who lived in migrant camps started schools for their children. Education has been the main focus of this community. Some philanthropists—Bollywood actors, religious activists, NRIs (non-­ resident Indians) and businessmen—provided them with some relief—in cash and kind—from time to time. The government also started giving them monthly ration and a nominal cash relief. Snakes, scorpions and mosquitoes were amongst their major threats. Other major threats, especially for their men, were mental illness and a complete loss of will and confidence to join the workforce due to absolute hopelessness. Over time, their everyday lifestyle manifested in a number of diseases, including diabetes and hypertension. Many people living in those camps, and otherwise too, died due to heatstroke during the daytime and snake bites during the night. Being Kashmiris, most of them did not have the experience and necessary skills to live in heat or the ability to differentiate a mosquito bite from a snake bite. Many died due to dengue fever and gastroenteritis during the Indian monsoons. Many died due to shock, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. They felt like unwanted children of the land. They cried and wailed like poor orphans. They had lost their home and livelihood. But who would reverse their plight? They looked up, but there was no answer. Many of them may have temporarily lost their faith in God at that time, or, in some cases, even permanently. They were refugees on all accounts but ironically called migrants by their government, which further rubbed salt deep into their wounds. What was really their fault? They felt marginalised. Why were they not important for the Indian government or any other government on earth? Was it because they were known to be peaceful and did not make the vote bank? That is how most members of this hapless community thought in their extremely distraught mindset. After some time, the government replaced their canvas tents with basic one-room tenements, with asbestos sheet roofing. But their suffering continued, especially in hot summer days and in monsoon. Many of them moved into basic one- or two-room rental accommodations in Jammu. In some cases, where landlords (some  opportunists and some  benevolent) had nothing else to provide, many of them moved into godowns and cowsheds. Those who had contacts—relatives and family—outside Jammu (in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru) gradually moved out of Jammu over the following months and years. About a decade or so ago, the State

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government constructed three- to four-storey high residential camp buildings at several places across Jammu where those initial migrant tent-­ dwellers were housed in basic two-room flats. Finally, after losing hope of any return, many of them spread across the world. As an analogy, drivers stop temporarily at red traffic signal, but only because they know it will turn green after a few moments. But if that does not happen in reasonable time, they start moving on their own, as safely as they can. Likewise, Pandits also moved around after waiting for a few weeks and even months, and some even after years of waiting.

Migrant Camps in Jammu Based on the author’s visit to the migrant camps in Jammu in February 2019, about 30,000 people are believed to be still living in those camps, three decades after they lost their home, which meant most of the original 300,000 to 400,000 exiled Pandits have moved on and possibly live in their own homes or on rent across India or abroad. The distribution of those current migrant camp dwellers in Jammu is understood to be as follows: • Jagti Camp: This is the largest of the four camps. It has 176 buildings, each having 24 flats. About 4220 families are believed to be living there, that is, about 19,000 people, assuming each family comprises 4 to 5 members. • Camps at Muthi, Buta Nagar and Purkoo: Up to about 10,000 people are believed to be living in these camps. • Nagrota Camp: This camp is understood to have 380 quarters, in which about 450 families live, that is, about 2000 people.

Current Position of Migrant Campers The following feedback by the camp residents, in February 2019, provides very useful insight into the general mindset of the people: • A migrant family of four is being paid a monthly financial support of Indian Rupees 13,000 (about USD $185) in addition to free rationed rice and flour. • Central government of India should be blamed for the plight of Kashmir Pandits.

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• Sanjay Gandhi’s death was tragic and very unfortunate for Kashmiri Pandits. • Governor Jagmohan was a good administrator and planner. He did not ask us to leave; we left on our own when we were being killed, threatened and asked to leave. It is completely wrong to blame him for our exodus. He did a lot for the State, and all communities benefitted during his time. For example, single-handedly, he brought water supply to a locality called Tankipora in 1986, which had never ever seen water supply in its history. • Mr Basheer Subla (the ex-controller of University of Kashmir), and many people like him, had made completely wrong comments on the reasons of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and Governor Jagmohan’s role in it. • Historically, Mr Hamid Banihalli (Chief Secretary) and Governor Jagmohan had demonstrated high capability in controlling the general law and order in the State. • Generally, Kashmiri Pandits are individualists and selfish. They have degraded themselves. • An individual Kashmiri Muslim is 101 times better than your own brother, but collectively their behaviour changes completely. • In so far as the return of Kashmir Pandits is concerned, the onus is on Hurriyat Conference (the conglomerate of various separatists’ parties). We don’t trust anyone else. Now we trust only those who are not on television. • We don’t want to live in Kashmir in designated security camps, as is being discussed in some Indian and Kashmir political circles. Then what will be the difference between our current and the new situations? We will also potentially become targets of militant attacks. If we ever return, we want to live there just like we used to live there before, with everyone else. • If Hurriyat Conference gives us a call and provides security, we will return home. Kashmir is not the same as it used to be in 1990, so we are not very afraid. But we need initial financial and logistical support in Kashmir if we go there. • Where shall we live in Kashmir once we return? We have no homes left there. Many of our homes and properties have been occupied by our neighbours or destroyed (fire, flood etc.). • About 3000 Kashmiri Pandit youth have already been working in various government jobs in Kashmir for a few years now. Their families will go if there is a call for return. Most people from villages too will return.

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Current Position of the Kashmiri Muslim Community After the camp visits, the author met some senior representatives of the Kashmiri Muslim community and discussed the matter. The following points summarise their feedback: • Without doubt, we will wholeheartedly welcome back our Pandit brothers, with open arms. In fact, Hurriyat has requested them to return many times in the past. • We will even try to share a part of our zakat (religious donation) and assist them partly with the procurement of land at various places across the valley and in the constructions of their houses. But the government must foot the remaining bill. • We will try our best to provide them with security, as we do it for our own community, but we cannot guarantee it, as the (Indian) agencies that benefit from the conflict and the exodus of Pandits may not like to see them return. Such agencies may target a few Pandits on their return and put the blame on us, as we have seen in the past. But having said that, Pandits can trust us fully and we will protect them. Kashmir is incomplete without them; they are the original inhabitants of the land. • If Kashmiri Pandits are brought back to the valley and settled by the government in those security camp areas that they have been talking about, then we will be their dire enemies, and not friends. The aforementioned last point seems to be in sync with what the Pandit representatives in migrant camps said to the author; they too did not want to live in those government security camps. In such a case, therefore, is it possible the Pandits and the Muslims come together on their own, without any government involvement, except in terms of initial financial and logistical support, and pave the way for the return and rehabilitation of those Pandits in Kashmir who are voluntarily willing to return?

Kashmiri Muslims Call Pandits to Return The author made his first short return visit to Kashmir in April 2014, after a gap of 22 years and 5 months, in quite extraordinary circumstances. Based on that unscheduled trip, he wrote his memoir, 22 Years—A Kashmir Story (Koul, 2018). Since then, he has been visiting Kashmir on

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a regular basis, as he felt a deep sense of belonging to his homeland during his first return trip. During every visit, he has been quite impressed with Kashmiri Muslim youth, their soft mannerism and warm traditional greetings, a reminder of what it means to be a Kashmiri. Many of them, with whom he interacted—shop keepers, taxi drivers, students and strangers—won his heart through their politeness. These young men instilled hope in him that Kashmir’s future is possibly peaceful and bright. The author gives credit to their parents for bringing them up well, without developing any aversion or ill-will towards the Pandits. Most people in the valley with whom the author had met and interacted over a period of about five years, prior to August 2019, had exhorted him and his community to return to the valley. Interestingly, most Kashmiri people were and are concerned about their image, as portrayed by some members of Indian film industry and political activists. In one instance, in the summer of 2018, a couple of young men in their late 20s asked him, ‘Don’t we do anything good? Are we really so bad people?’ The author patted one of them on his back and requested them to not take those comments too seriously. Then one of them asked in desperation, ‘Then why do Mr A (known Pandit political activist) and Mr B (a film actor) spill venom against us?’ The author tried to defuse their emotions till they parted in the car park at Botanical Garden near the famous Mughal Garden, Cheshma Shahi. The following section is based on author’s recent interaction on social media with the members of the Kashmiri community. (1) Author’s Post: 29 April 2019 One of my posts yesterday, ‘Has any PM visited the Kashmiri Pandit refugee camps in Jammu?’, a FB friend has remarked ‘If only 10 percent voters from a community (Kashmiri Pandits) turn to vote, why should any PM visit them?’… My questions are: Are they not humans and citizens of the country? What is their future? Can they go home? Don’t they have emotions and human rights? What are their incentives? Are we waiting for them to die so that the chapter is closed? Isn’t it sad Kashmiri Pandits are refugees in their own country for no fault of theirs? Are politicians only for votes—for coming to power and staying there forever? It is shame that we have forgotten those 30,000 Kashmiri Pandit refugees living in those concrete camps in Jammu, waiting to go home but without any hope. Such things can sadly happen if a community comprises less than 0.1%

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of the country’s population. In India, humans have no value if they don’t form the vote bank. What democracy are we talking about? The post received the following responses from several Kashmiri Pandits (KP) and Kashmir Muslims (KM). For reasons of privacy, their names have been represented by acronyms. Some minor editing has also been carried out—in terms of grammar and spelling—in their responses, without any change, whatsoever, in their meaning: • MA (KM): ‘Dear Kashmiri Pandit brothers, isn’t it pity on our politicians, at the State level as well as at the Centre, who are at the helm of affairs, are responsible for the Kashmir disturbance? … Kashmir was all stable up to 1987, and they pushed us to this turmoil, and they are now making bread and butter for themselves by shedding crocodile tears for you. What will be their intentions about Kashmiri Muslims? Be confident you have to decide and make mind for your return, Inshallah, we will welcome you. ‘Bill Koul jee, I am so much saddened by your exit in 1990. I am yateem (orphan) since those days, because it is not only our Kasheer (Kashmir), it is yours as much also. This (Kashmir) is your country and not rest of the places where you are at present. Whatever is Kashmir is yours and ours. We have to come together, forgetting about the bitter past. You come and I will welcome you, Sir, because I have lost my dears among Kashmiri Pandits. I still dream for them, as if I have lost my family members.’ • AK (KP): ‘We all have to behave like a Kashmiri, and then, a Muslim or a Pandit. We speak Kashmiri language. Our culture and heritage etc. are the same. But we have been exploited by the circumstances, because we were innocent and not exposed. They exploited us to the maximum. We have to come to the original track and behave as we have been behaving pre-1990, and that is love and affection for all. God—Allah bless Kashmiris!’ • FZ (KM): ‘Migration and the transmigration of Kashmiri Pundit brothers and sisters has been a sashayed argot as of now. In my opinion, the question is not to make issues complicated by discussing the mode of migration of KPs, i.e. at whose behest etc., but instead what to do for the return of KPs who all belong to the Soil of Blooming Valley of Kashmir.’ • AS (KP): ‘India is not a democracy but a mobocracy. I regret to say that, due to this mindset of some Kashmiri Pandits, the politicians do

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not pay any attention to them and they become a voice in the wilderness. If only they stand one behind the other, as a phalanx, no politician could even dare to ignore them or their problems.’ • ZI (KM): ‘May be unfortunate but the sad reality is that KPs are a pawn in the games of Hindutva forces … The BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha election manifesto underlined the “return of Kashmiri Pandits to the land of their ancestors with full dignity, security and assured livelihood” … As the party is close to completing its term, the overwhelming support given by the Kashmiri Pandits seems to be wearing off … BJP has failed KPs … Forget everything else, they couldn’t even improve the conditions of KP settlements … Whenever elections are close, there will be a whataboutery?’ • AG (An Indian): ‘Wow, now it is Hindutva to be blamed, once again! Have guts to say what happened to them, who did it, and who is stopping their return to their respective homes? Bill Koul jee, you always have hopes, big hopes, from Kashmiriyat. Wake up, Sir, no Kashmiriyat is left. It was brutally raped, murdered and thrown out of Kashmir in 1990. It was killed; you know by whom. But even you don’t want to say it. Name it.’ (2) Author’s Post: 25 April 2019 Has any Prime Minister of India ever visited KP camps in Jammu in the past 30 years? Who and when? The post received the following comments: • MV (KP): ‘Dr Manmohan Singh.’ • TNVG (KP): ‘Of course, if any country or any community falls in miserable condition, every human-being’s duty is to come and rescue.’ • ZI (KM): ‘At least during elections?’ • KB (KP): ‘Yes, IK Gujral visited the Nagrota camp and Manmohan Singh visited the Muthi camp.’ • AS (KP): ‘They only visit those places from where they can get votes in their kitty so that they can come to power and enjoy the next five years. Why would they care for the KPs? Their only goal is to attain power by hook or crook.’ • CRM (KP): ‘While Manmohan Singh’s government did incredible job to build respectable flats for the community but it would have been encouraging had he visited once. Rest all have used the community to garner Hindu votes only. This community becomes a talk

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of town during elections only. Weird part is that few of our community members have fallen prey to the hyped propaganda.’ • PKG (Indian): In Hindi—‘Why visit those who cast less than 10 percent votes?’ (3) Author’s Post: 19 April 2019 Why can’t Kashmiris bring peace and progress to Kashmir? They are brilliant. It is time Pandits and Muslims join hands. The post received the following response: • MA (KM): ‘Mr. Bill Koul, although you are outside your native place, still then your love towards your motherland is most appreciating, l am proud of you, God bless you dear nephew.’ • VS (Indian): ‘Bill Koul, it was nice to read your call to All Kashmiris to come together and even nicer to read the blessings you got. Truly those who really love Kashmir, this beautiful manifestation of India, are like you; they want inclusiveness and a human solution. Love and friendship once more. There is no other solution. Neither crass majoritarianism or cunning minorities will help in Kashmir and in India. Come what may, if all Indians, including Kashmiris, are to live in peace, we will have to put the hegemony of religion aside … because man is always more important than religion.’ • MA (KM): ‘Bill Koul ji, I am a resident of Dara Harwan, Srinagar. I had many friends, Kashmiri Pandit brothers, for whom I am dreaming day and night to see or to have their contact, not only those but some sisters from Chandeh Pora, Harwan. My wish is to see them before death, for which I am praying.’ • AK (KP): ‘Blood is thicker than water. India or Pakistan may try to divide Kashmiris, they cannot succeed in their mission. Even Kashmiri Muslims from Kashmir held by Pakistan also demand Azadi from occupational Pakistani Army.’ • SK (KP): ‘Because Kashmiri Pandits are not there.’ • RB (KP): ‘Articles 370 and 35A are the biggest obstacles; their removal is imperative for peace.’ • MYK (KM): ‘Why not? Make efforts, everything will be alright.’ • ZI (KM): ‘Unwillingness from both sides!’ • ZI (KM): ‘Bill Koul, I know … I am always there for a good cause, Sir … it will be a pleasure … regards.’

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• FK (KM): ‘Peace would undauntedly prevail in the Blooming Valley of Kashmir and the Jammu and Kashmir State once all stakeholders come close together, selflessly and concentrate on the things with best application of mind and complete sense of humour. This is my personal opinion.’ • AK (KM): ‘Kashmir is famous for sense of humour. Clouds will vanish, and green sky will be seen, as before. Preserve Kashmir and its natural beauty. I have travelled throughout India, but I have never seen such an evergreen valley, with natural flowers all round.’ • KLM (KP): ‘We respect your intentions from the core of our heart. We love you a lot. Our essence is Love. But nature which envelopes from all directions, makes us to behave in three ways: (1) Peaceful attitude of mind, doing virtuous deeds, having fellow feeling and sympathy, doing good deeds for the development of all; (2) Being always active and restless, to gain wealth, name and fame only for oneself … working with selfish and ulterior motives; and (3) Being inert, doing nothing, sleep, slumber, and negative in thinking. Three things can help us to have balance of these natural tendencies—(a) food; (b) the company of holy ones; (c) commitment for right understanding of our real nature and belongingness (which is our essence).’ (4) Author’s Post: 19 April 2019 Who will bring peace to Kashmir so that Pandits could return home and when? The post received the following comments: • AG (KP): ‘It is primarily in the hands of KMs. Also militancy needs to be permanently crushed.’ • AK (KP): ‘Peace will not come. Demand of separatists cannot be met. They want Islamic Kashmir, where Islam and only Islam will prevail. Unless thinking will not be positive, very difficult for peace to return.’ • SK (KP); ‘Only Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims.’ • MYK (KM): ‘Doors are always open, please come.’ • MJJ (KM): ‘Nobody will bring peace in Kashmir; it has become slogan for vote, for all political parties. I appreciate your optimism, looking forward to you. I will be the happiest man.’ • KLM (KP): ‘Three factors will determine return of Kashmiri Pandits to the Kashmir valley: (1) When common masses of Kashmir valley really yearn for their return; (2) When the terrorists are completely

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eliminated or they get transformed and get possessed with human heart; and (3) When Kashmiri Pandits are fully determined to return, with full of confidence in themselves and trust in their brethren in Kashmir valley. Dear Bill Koul, humility, prayers and will of the masses (Divine Will) will culminate in peace.’ • AW (KP): ‘It is the  people of Kashmir and, in particular, Kashmiri Muslims.’ • NK (KP): ‘None can help though majority of Muslims want us back as they were not happy even at our exodus in 1990, but could not stop exodus due to gun culture that time. Pakistan and pro-Pak antisocial elements shall never allow this to happen I am sure about it.’ • MA (KP): ‘People of Kashmir, nobody else.’ • AK (KP): ‘Just throw out imported instigators.’ • AM (Indian): ‘By scraping of Articles 370 and 35A.  Only BJP can do that.’ • RN (KP): ‘Only Kashmiri can bring peace nobody else. I miss you all. Let us stay together as brothers again.’ • AG (Indian): ‘There is a much bigger game at play and common Kashmiris, whether KPs or KMs are being played. The design is much greater and controlled by a global and powerful lobby and the game is age old to let certain economies or individuals or arms cartel thrive and reign over the world. This very powerful defence industry and arms lobby forms the backbone of certain economic cartel and they and their diplomats, politicians and intel agencies control everything, including creating or escalating local conflicts by fuelling hatred, divides and mistrust till the smaller conflicts are blown into full-fledged military conflicts or insurgency where they can supply their arms and ammunitions. This is story in every modern day conflict created in third world, be it in Africa, Asia or South America, all resulting in systemic destruction of certain countries or communities, looting their resources and creating big demands to run the defence industries, destroying lives of innocent civilians which they term as collateral damage. The axis of evil and the nexus they create is like a multi-headed Hydra, when you think they are finished at certain area, they again resurrect themselves in another place or country, in another form or shape. Look at what happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, West Asia or Libya over the years. They have designed the Kashmir issue with the same blueprint and are now escalating it, where the innocent people of Kashmir, even people or governments of the two neighbouring countries are being played

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against each other, just like the way the two communities were played against each other before independence to create two separate countries on the basis of religion. So that they are always at loggerheads and forced to spend an obscene amount of money on their defence budget, element of mistrust and animosity are always created or injected. That is why, after every peace initiative, something horrific or unthinkable always happens and mistrust returns.’ • OK (KP): ‘Only Kashmiris can do that. None else.’ • BLK (KP): ‘If we, the common people, could understand the core issue, why the people at the helm of affairs are not able to understand this, particularly the two governments of neighbouring countries.’ (5) Author’s Post: 1 April 2019 Kashmiri Pandits left Kashmir for a reason. Thirty years later, the same reasons seem to prevent them from returning. Where has the government been these past three decades? How many decades more will the government take to wake up? The post attracted the following response: • RJ (KM): ‘No problem will be solved, Mr Bill. If they do so, how will they play emotions of people and keep their narrative alive during elections. Neither of three will be solved—Mandir, Kashmir or Pandits.’ • VS (Indian): ‘Bill Koul, we are up against what I term as a historically induced genetic disorder in our countrymen. Centuries of slavery have frozen the minds and made Indians incapable of rejecting the b******t thrown at them by our rapacious money and power hungry Netas. People want mai-baap (parents) to give them their rights and freedom. None of these Indian governments will ever do anything to really affect the return of KPs. ‘Forget return of KPs, for the Pandits are a highly intellectual and talented people and have already done well for themselves outside Kashmir … Instead, we have these pot-shots, like surgical strikes … I don’t think it is a lost cause. History did this to us. History of slavery created the dominance of a religion of begging and helplessness. Future history of new generations will create new courage and self-­ confidence to live as all men must live… as lovers of life and warriors for life. The west learnt this long ago and began to live after the mediaeval time. Indians are still stuck with the shadow of karma

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fatalism and their human and stoneware gods. They cannot yet understand the basic truth of their own Vedanta—aham brahm asmi.’ • AS (KP): ‘It won’t. It is more interested in garnering votes and in keeping its vote-bank intact. It only acts for those which constitute its vote-bank and cares a fig for the others.’ (6) Author’s Post: 30 March 2019 Kashmiri Pandits can return to their homeland only when their Kashmiri Muslim brethren accept them back wholeheartedly. No politician or political party are honest and capable enough to bring about that ‘magical’ acceptance. Force can never bring hearts closer, even if the world’s all armies were to combine and comprise such a force. Kashmiri Pandits are constantly being used, misused, abused and deceived by hollow claims and false promises of politicians. Kashmiri Pandits must individually reconnect with their Muslim brethren, same way as they had left Kashmir individually, without allowing any fake involvement of any politician, whosoever he or she may be. This post was followed by the following important conversation: • ZI (KM): ‘This Kashmir valley belongs to you as much as it does to us … you are the first and equal citizens … the truth is that Kashmiriyat is incomplete without KPs … you are an integral part and parcel of Kashmir.’ • Bill Koul: ‘We are all flowers of the same garden. Thank you, ZI sahib. God bless!’ • ZI (KM): ‘Exactly, we all are citizens of the cosmos … thanks!’ • Bill Koul: ‘ZI sahib, we are all children of our Mother Kashmir. God bless you. I don’t know who and how many Pandits will really return, and when, but I am sure and I can envision some Pandits will definitely return to knit back the traditional Kashmiri net, which will carry our future generations together forward into a positive, peaceful, progressive future. That is the call of our Mother ….’ • ZI (KM): ‘Thanks and wish likewise to you too. I have met hundreds of KPs here and even more outside and came to conclusion that there is three fold division among KPs, three generations rather: (1) First generation—those who spent most of their life in Kashmir and are still connected to their roots. They miss their motherland every day and recall all the memories. They talk about them and really want to return back, but it seems impossible Kashmir will return to

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normalcy during their lifetime; (2) Second generation—those born in the 60s & 70s. They suffered the most and still have those scars but they have moved on and created new nests, new life, new identity and are happy with their present. They don’t want to give away their certain life for the uncertainty here in the valley; and (3) Third generation—those who have spent most or all of their life away from their homeland; they may have some faint memories. For them, Kashmir is no less than horror. They would never like to come back as they have no idea what actually that means. They can’t even speak Kashmiri properly.’ • Bill Koul: ‘ZI sahib, your analysis is credible and reasonable. Thank you so much for sharing it. We’ll exchange our notes one day, God willing. I think we have about 30 years left at the most to allow some interested stakeholders (about one-third from both sides) to reconnect and reweave the Kashmiriyat fabric. God bless you, dear.’ • ZI (KM): ‘Bill Koul, thanks and wish same to you and family. Pleasure is all mine … one day we will surely meet … longing for that day … anyway, I wish you a wonderful and safe journey.’ • AK (KP): ‘I was driving my JK registration car to Goa and parked my car in front of a Kashmiri carpet shop sometimes back for tea break at Colva beach. The owner of this shop came out hugged me and took us to his house and I met his mother. She hugged us. It was followed by lunch. That shows how we miss each other. But jokingly, I was asking one of my friends what is the Kashmir problem? He said “Kashmiris were and are being used as topping for sandwich by the local politicians and they accept privileges from both sides of sandwich for their personal gains.”’ • ZI (KM): ‘AK, I completely agree … there are politicians and some miscreants who for their petty gains destroyed the fabric of communal harmony and our Kashmiriyat. Despite several efforts by vested interests to create a divide between us on religious and political lines, we Kashmiris can still rise above petty politics and address each other’s concerns in the spirit of compassion, love and brotherhood.’ • VS (Indian): ‘Well, Bill Koul, you seem to have started an avalanche of emotions in so many people. I knew it was there for I have seen that wonderful phenomenon called Kashmiriyat in the fifties and sixties. Yet I would not have believed your article would work its magic so well so soon. More power to you.’

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• Bill Koul: ‘VS jee, thank you so much. I am not a very well read person or any expert on religion or spirituality, but my life is in sync with the Bhagwat Gita, that is: Keep it simple, do your bit, if you lose your life while doing good, so bit it; good will prevail in the end. I want to invest my life in positive minded people, regardless how they look like or where they are. I want that we all should move on and tread a path of positivity rather than remain buried in the past.’ • VS (Indian): ‘Bill Koul, there is no better way to live than to do this that you say. To live a positive and simple life. The reading and the knowledge help for it is all from the great library of the universal mind. It comes through other men and women who also have received the thoughts from the one source of Intelligence. Good luck with your work and chosen goals.’ • HV (Indian): ‘Kashmiri Pandits can only return if the locals stop supporting the movement which is jihad and converting Kashmir into Dar-ul-Islam, in the name of azaadi.’ • NM (KM): ‘We shall always welcome all Pandit brothers who left the valley out of fear or any reason back to their motherland. We share with them not only the history and heritage but our culture and customs. We love you all and miss you. I hope you don’t become tools in the hands of cheap politicians who want to exploit you for their political ends. You are mature enough to see through their plans.’ • QQ (KM): ‘Yes, this is only way for their return and acceptance in Kashmir.’ • SMS (KM): ‘Haha! Why will Pandits come back to Kashmir, as they are enjoying their life in other parts of country and taking large amount of relief from Government of India (gar beith, which means “while staying home”).’ • SP (KP): ‘Haha! That is why some Muslims living in Kashmir made fake migrant certificate, to take free ration and also avail educational quota in Rajasthan (gar beith). Why don’t you raise questions against terrorism? KPs have suffered a lot and none of them picked guns or shouted any antinational slogans. Do one thing, Sir. Come and live in one room with your family for 20 years and I will give you free ration (gar beith) for 20 years. Come and live a life like KPs lived. It’s easy to talk about KPs but not very easy to live like KPs have lived.’ • ML (KM): ‘We welcome all Pandit brothers and sisters. Come back to your motherland.’

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• IS (KM): ‘We welcome Pandits back to Kashmir. We have lived together with harmony and I, as a Muslim, have enjoyed their company in thick and thin.’ • MAS (KM): ‘Kashmiris welcome our Pandit brothers by hearts not only by words.’ • Er SS (KM): ‘Yes, this is the absolute truth. That is why I believe that time is the best healer.’ • TNP (KP): ‘Joint living of Kashmiri Pandit and Kashmiri Muslim in Kashmir is good step for both communities. But Kashmiri Muslim society in general should make conducive atmosphere for this.’ • MQ (KM): ‘TNP, Sir, it is your homeland, who denies it? Sincerely, I always found conducive atmosphere for Pandit brothers in Kashmir to live in a cordial manner except the year 1989–1990. We all Muslims suffered thousand times more than Pandit brothers but we never left our harmony, which we inherited from our both communities. Need of the hour is to forget the past and think for the better future. Nafrat ki aagh ko bujakar aagay ki zindagi pyar oor muhabat say guzray issi mae ham donu communities ki kamyabi ka raaz muzamir hae, which means “the secret to success and progress of both communities lies in extinguishing the fire of hatred and coexisting in an atmosphere of mutual love and respect.”’ • Er SS (KM): ‘Mr TNP should come here and I will accompany him across the length and breadth of the valley to instil confidence in him how conducive it is for him to live peacefully here.’ • SF (KM): ‘We Kashmiris always welcome our Pandit brothers. What is this: when Kashmiri can accept? How Kashmiris cannot accept? It is not only ours it is yours too. Pandit + Muslims = Kashmir.’ • YK (KM): ‘You are most welcome to return to the valley, we are incomplete without one another. This is your motherland, you don’t need permission. I want to listen to the bells of temple in the morning. Please come back.’ • Bill Koul: ‘YK sahib, you have brought me to tears … please read my dream (in my dream sequence) in Chap. 5 of my book, Issues White-­ anting India (2017). That was (is) a real dream. It was so peaceful and emotional. If God wills, together we will rebuilt Kashmir.’ • MSS (KM): ‘Not long to wait now …’ • MJ (KM): ‘Most of Pandit brothers sold their properties in prime locations of Habba kadal and Rainawari.’

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• SM (KM): ‘I think Kashmiri Pandits are part and parcel of Kashmiri culture. We welcome them to their homeland.’ • MS (KP): ‘Dear Bill Koul, if Kashmiri Muslims realise the futility of their religious strife and set their own house in order by ushering peace in the valley, by defeating terrorist forces. These are the main concerns, which were a big reason for our Mass Exodus and when these reasons are removed, there will be natural process of our return to our Homeland. There will be no dearth of land for Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir. Kashmiri Muslims by and large are aspiring for peace and return of Kashmiri Pandits.’ • MS (KP): ‘MA, give up guns, no other issue. Give up violence; it has a cascading counterproductive effect. Don’t blame anyone except your own doings. That will help you a lot. Nothing can justify the religious terrorism unleashed in Kashmir by Pakistani proxies. Your distorted version of written history not the least … no hysterical lectures please … I don’t need any proof, I know what you have unlearned from history … It just needs mind to think, discern and discuss. I am not in any way contesting with you. We are not to discuss history and whereaboutary of it here. You can go on writing miles of pages to prove your point without addressing the issue, which was raised here, that is how honest you are digressing from the main issue. No further debate with you …’ • Bill Koul: (after seeing the argument between MS and MA): ‘Dear MS sahib and dear MA sahib, can I please beg of you both to move on. It will not help anyone of us to keep digging up the past bones, no one will win. The people of 2019 are not the same of 1990 or 1900 or  1800. Our world has changed. Please. Let us hug one another with trust and brotherhood. I guarantee you both that we will feel good. I beg of you. Dear MA sahib, I will work together with you to a better future.’ What Does the Author Think as a Kashmir Pandit? An eminent author and philosopher, Vijay Shankar, once reminded the author about an important quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the context of this changing world and, in particular, India and Kashmir: The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfils himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what com-

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fort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

In the context of Kashmir, clinging to the past baggage by either side has the potential to inhibit generation of peace and brotherhood between them. Prudence demands that the past be left behind, as old and torn-out clothes are thrown away. It is not wise to spoil the present with the past bitterness. The only way to allow the past wounds to heal goes through positive thinking and looking forward to a peaceful coexistence on the horizon. They must throw away their past baggage to enable them to run fast towards a bright horizon and make up for the lost time over the past three decades. Kashmiris should work for an educated, prosperous and vibrant Kashmir, where both communities cohere peacefully and thrive amicably. They must bring their respective best to the fore and exemplify a great community, as demanded by their Mother Kashmir. The author envisions a modern skyline of a new, clean Kashmir; of a Kashmir which is a regional hub of world-class education and a regional convention centre, as it was in the past when it was called Shardha Peeth; of a Kashmir which will be a regional business hub and service industry, as Singapore is; of a Kashmir which is a regional hub of summer and winter sports; of a Kashmir which is a world-class tourist destination, as Switzerland is; of a Kashmir which is a vibrant hub of culture and spirituality, where temple bells and aazaan from mosques together produce a beautiful spiritual nectar, as in the past; of a Kashmir where Id and Herath are celebrated by all Kashmiris with a great traditional fervour. The author exhorts all Kashmiris to see this dream and work together to translate this vision into reality. Was It a Case of Genocide? Kashmir Pandits claim they were victims of a planned politico-religious genocide in Kashmir. The following excerpts from a post, received by the author from a reliable source and believed to have been written, apparently in extreme frustration and desperation, by a responsible, prominent member of the Kashmiri Pandit community, illustrate such sentiments:

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Often in private gatherings or on social occasions we brag, “We are an intellectual community”. There can be nothing farther from truth than this thoughtless statement … Formal education does make one literate but not an intellectual … Had community in general been honestly intellectual, it would have presented its case on genocide quite honestly … There was no syncretic culture in past when waves of persecution turned Kashmiri Pandits from a majority community in to a minority. There has been no syncretic culture or debased term used for it—Kashmiriyat—in recent present. Had it existed, there would have been no ethnic cleansing …. Shamelessly, a small group of prominent intellectuals in the community, who have no qualms of conscience in visiting all political shops … have been singing (poems) of phoney syncretic culture and hard-core Hindutva alternately depending upon in which gathering they are invited to be as prominent citizens … Times of ethnic cleansing demand speaking truth … Kashmiri Pandits are victims of genocide. They do not have to be apologists, claiming everything was hunky dory back at home. It is not they who have to build bridges. They have committed no crime. It is those who pushed us out have to atone for what they did to us. Will our prominent citizens learn from history or existential present? How long hallucinations of syncretism will continue to obfuscate the grim reality of genocide.

Was it a crystal-clear case of genocide, beyond doubt? As there has never been any mention of genocide of Kashmiri Pandits by the UN or the Government of India, or any international body championing human rights, it is prudent that the decision is left to individual readers to decide if it was a case of genocide. The following paragraphs present the facts. Of a population of about 350,000 to 500,000, the Pandit community is believed to have lost about 300 to 400 members (some claims make the number as high as 1341) directly to the bullets and blades of Islamic militants in Kashmir within a few months in late 1989 and early 1990, and, thereafter, another 3000 to 5000 people to the effects of deep shock, snake bites, heatstroke, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and so forth while living in canvas tents in the refugee camps (unfairly referred to as migrant camps) of Nagrota and Jammu, or in basic rental accommodations across India during the first two to three years of the exodus. Does that qualify to be called genocide? Pandits left their home suddenly in distress, panic and due to extreme fear. They were driven out by the Islamists through a multi-pronged action plan, including a scare campaign, direct threat, coercion and passive aggression. In the simplest terms, based on the actual ground situation

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they faced and perceived (in Kashmir of 1990) on an individual and collective basis, they lost complete faith and confidence in the credibility and the authority of the State and Central governments, and the ability of the security forces to defend themselves, let alone protect them. They left immediately after they felt they were absolutely on their own and responsible for their own security. Everything happened very quickly, in an environment of extreme confusion and political darkness. They saw nothing more important but to leave everything behind and run away from their homes to save their lives. They had no time to think about their long-term prospects; their survival became their main objective in the short-term. Any other life-form would have acted and run away in a similar manner. Arguably, looking from the other side, if the militants had wished to exterminate the whole Pandit community, the Pandits living in the valley in January 1990 would not have survived to tell the tale; they would have been killed inside the four walls of their homes within minutes on any day leading to 19 January 1990 or on that night itself. How hard was it for militants to enter Pandit homes as part of a coordinated mission—at the same time on the same night—and kill each and every member of those completely unarmed, defencelessness Pandit families? But the reality is Pandits were not killed like that; they were warned and scared away through those individual killings of hundreds of members of their small community, including some very prominent members. Some important questions arise. What was the real intent of the militants? Did they plan to completely annihilate the community at any stage, or did they just want Pandits to leave? Were Pandits fortunate enough to have left just in time before they would have potentially been wiped out? In other words, would Pandits have been butchered if they would not have left in time? These questions cannot be answered easily or unambiguously, as both parties will make contradictory claims, for obvious reasons. Personal bias is expected to shape the judgement of any judge. It would, therefore, be useful to analyse the case of Kashmiri Pandits in light of the following definitions of the term ‘genocide’: Cambridge Dictionary (2019) defines the term ‘genocide’ as: the murder of a whole group of people, especially a whole nation, race, or religious group; and the intentional killing of all of the people of a nation, religion, or racial group. In both of these statements, the terms ‘whole’ and ‘all’ are noteworthy.

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As per the United Nations, ‘The word genocide was first coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer, Raphäel Lemkin, in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe … partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people …’ (United Nations, 2019). Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I) … codified as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been ratified by 149 States (as of January 2018). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law ….

Some important excerpts from the United Nations’ Genocide Convention are reproduced: Article I: The crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. Article II: It contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: 1. A mental element: the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such; and 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: • Killing members of the group; • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group … the

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victims of genocide are deliberately targeted—and not randomly—because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals.

Can the following wording from the aforementioned two Articles of the UN Genocide Convention qualify the case of Kashmiri Pandits—their killings in Kashmir and a campaign to scare them, leading to their exodus from their homeland and the subsequent steady degradation of their cultural identity over the past three decades—as a case of genocide? Article I: religious—because Pandits were targeted by Islamists. Article II: The first three bullet points in full or in part: • Killing members of the group • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part Quoting the sources in the government of Jammu and Kashmir, as per an article, in The Hindu, dated 24 March 2010, 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants since 1989 and 24,202 families had migrated out of the valley (Bukhari, 2010). However, Kashmir Pandits have always rejected these figures, whilst claiming the actual numbers are much more than the government figures. As per the articles published in (a) Al Jazeera English by Azad Essa, dated 2 August 2011, ‘Why We Never Fled Kashmir—Kashmir: The Forgotten Conflict’ (Essa, 2011); (b) Greater Kashmir, dated 20 June 2011 (‘399 Pandits Killed Since 1990,’ 2011) and (c) Global Press Journal by Raihana Maqbool, dated 6 July 2015, ‘25 Years After Islamists Drove Out Hindus, Kashmiris Debate Repatriation Incentives,’ the following figures are much more than the government figures (Maqbool, 2015). • 357 Pandits were killed in Kashmir in 1990, as claimed by Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS). • 399 Pandits were killed from 1990 to 2011, based on the KPSS survey in 2008 and 2009.

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As per a publication study paper of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), dated 1 July 2018, titled ‘The Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits,’ a Kashmiri Pandit political organisation, Panun Kashmir, has published a list of 1341 Pandits killed by the militants since 1990. Importantly, the EFSAS article also notes that, other than the individual killings of Kashmiri Pandits, the following five mass killings also took place during a three-year period between 1998 and 2001, which claimed a total of 123 lives: • Wandhama, 25 January 1998: 23 deaths • Prankote, 17 April 1998: 26 deaths • Chapnari, 19 June 1998: 25 deaths • Amarnath, 1 August 2000: 30 deaths • Kishtwar, 3 August 2001: 19 deaths As per  an article published in NDTV, dated 24 July 2017, titled ‘Supreme Court Refuses to Reopen 215 Cases in Kashmiri Pandits’ Killings,’ the Supreme Court of India had refused to reopen the investigation into 215 cases related to the killings of more than 700 Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s (Vaidyanathan, 2017). An organisation called Roots of Kashmir had filed a petition in 2017 to reopen these alleged murder cases. As per the article, the judges—the then Chief Justice of India, J.S. Khehar, and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud—had said that almost 27 years had passed since and it was very difficult for investigators to gather evidence in support of the allegations. ‘It is heart-wrenching … but you sat over it for last 27 years. Now tell us from where the evidence will come?’ they had asked. On this basis, it appears the case of Kashmiri Pandits may never see the daylight and due justice. As per a BBC News article dated 17 March 2017, ‘How Do You Define Genocide?’ some analysts argue that the definition of the term genocide is too narrow to accommodate most mass killings perpetrated since the treaty (‘How Do You Define Genocide?’ 2017). However, there are many who say the term genocide is recognisable. As per the article, the main objections are: • The convention excludes targeted political and social groups; • The definition is limited to direct acts against people, and excludes acts against the environment which sustains them or their cultural distinctiveness;

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• Proving intention beyond reasonable doubt is extremely difficult; • UN member states are hesitant to single out other members or intervene, as was the case in Rwanda; • There is no body of international law to clarify the parameters of the convention (though this is changing as UN war crimes tribunals issue indictments); and • The difficulty of defining or measuring in part, and establishing how many deaths equal genocide. A former secretary-general of Medecins Sans Frontieres, Alain Destexhe, in his book, Rwanda and Genocide in the twentieth Century, says: ‘Genocide is distinguishable from all other crimes by the motivation behind it. Genocide is a crime on a different scale to all other crimes against humanity and implies an intention to completely exterminate the chosen group. Genocide is therefore both the gravest and greatest of the crimes against humanity.’ He believes the term ‘genocide’ has fallen victim to a sort of verbal inflation, in much the same way as happened with the word ‘fascist’. The Failure of Indian Secularism and Democracy Similar to Kashmiri Pandits, how many other communities in free India have chosen to leave their traditional home? It needed strong convictions and guts of this unique community to do so; many other communities would have resorted to other options in order to stay back. The world history is full of those other options. Kashmiri Pandits have by and large remained tall and resolute, peaceful and without malice or hate, progressive and hopeful. A considerable number of Kashmiri Pandits thank the 1990 mass exodus of the community for their current prosperity and the education and bright careers of their youth; of course, some people live with gratitude to many stalwarts and leaders, such as late Balasaheb Thackeray (23 January 1926–17 November 2012), who proved to be nothing short of an angel for the then shocked and grief-stricken internally displaced community. All future generations of the Pandits must remain grateful to Mr Thackeray for his timely assistance. This group alleges the Pandit community was openly discriminated against in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, in so far as their admission to professional institutions (engineering, medical, agriculture etc.) and government job opportunities were concerned.

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There is, of course, another group of the Pandits, also a considerable one, which believes the 1990 exodus has immensely damaged the community in so far as their previously unique identity and culture—language, food and spirituality—is concerned. They still crave for their home—the valley of Kashmir—and continue to suffer internally. Many look forward to their return to the valley, despite their materialistic successes over these past three decades. Many people from this group unfortunately seem to have lost much of their hope of returning to their homeland in their lifetime. The reason being none of the Indian governments, since 1990, have practically made any visible difference to their status; they continue to suffer indignation and are abhorrently known as Kashmiri Pandit migrants—and not even as an internally displaced community. On a brighter note, many members of this second group are tirelessly, on their own and without any proactive support from any government, trying to get in touch with their Muslim brethren in the valley in order to stitch the two communities back together, as they were in the pre-1990 era, and try and revive the famous Kashmiriyat. Both Kashmiri communities, Pandits and the Muslims, have suffered in their own ways, which is altogether a separate topic for discussion, and now both  potentially face the prospect of losing their Kashmiri identity and culture, and the Kashmiriyat. They belong to each other and need each other for the sake of survival of their cultural identity. Kashmiris from both sides of the religious divide, which is not such a serious division because the two communities belong to the same ethnicity and, therefore, are related by blood, must continue to engage with one another and try to recreate and reclaim their unique identity. No government can or ever will help them to reclaim their culture; it will be their own endeavour, which will make some difference. Historically and anecdotally, in the past, there was a time when Kashmir was left with only 11 Pandit families, as most others had left for reasons similar to the 1990 exodus. Those 11 families are believed to have regrown in time. Kashmir was and is their home, and all Kashmiris are their relatives, their own people. Identity Threat to the Pandits The Kashmiri Pandits don’t have the numbers or any strong political backing in India to receive full justice for their sufferings. As in the past, they have no other option but to fend for themselves. They are political orphans. Even after 30 years, many people in India and abroad are

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oblivious to their history and their mass exodus. One reason could be that they did not want to become a nuisance or menace to the Indian or the world communities; they adjusted silently and blended themselves seamlessly with their new host communities, as they had done in the past whenever and wherever they had lived. Alarmingly, many Indians, young and not-so-young, even some ex-­ Indian Army officers ask, ‘Why did the  Pandit community not defend itself by arming itself?’ The answers have been: • ‘How could a minority Pandit community, comprising about five-­ percent of the population, defend itself against armed militancy, which seemed to have a degree of direct and indirect, overt and covert support of many members of the majority Muslim community?’ • ‘What is the security for? Should one assume that the BSF, the army and the local police were incompetent and incapable of defending the country and the unarmed citizens like the Pandits?’ After their mass exodus from Kashmir, Pandits have undoubtedly  become global citizens. They don’t only belong to Kashmir now; they also belong to India, as well as all countries where they have settled. But now, after these 30 years, it is the Pandit community that actually faces a potential existential threat in so far as their cultural identity is concerned. After their mass exodus from Kashmir, they scattered around the globe, worked hard and reclaimed their lives back. A significant number of their youth, both in India and outside, have shown a growing tendency to marry out of the community, which has further exacerbated the potential for the erosion of their traditional culture—language, food, thought and so forth. Unless a deliberate global movement is undertaken by their elders, one can imagine it is only a matter of time before the Pandits completely lose their identity. Pandit elders and youth must, therefore, do everything possible to retain their original Kashmiri cultural identity. They must let their global Kashmiri Pandit umbrella unify them, transcending their nationalities. As for their safe and dignified return to the valley, the onus lies mainly with the Indian government. The final decision to return or not, undoubtedly, remains with the Pandits. It must be their free will and call; they are free humans and not slaves or prisoners or animals who can be herded back to the valley.

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The British Exit Kashmir Pandits have seemingly fallen through the cracks of the partition of the Indian subcontinent. Forty-two years after the British left the Indian subcontinent, Kashmiri Pandits too were forced to leave their native Kashmir. Although the exodus of the Pandits has a direction connection with the British departure, there are differences in why and how they exited. • The British were aliens to the subcontinent, but Pandits were the indigenous inhabitants of Kashmir. • The British left on their own volition, but the Pandits were compelled to leave. • The British returned home for a known, secured and prosperous future, but the Pandits were uprooted and left their home poor and for an unknown future and unfamiliar environmental living conditions. • The British departure was followed and immediately accompanied by widespread violence and the partition of the country. However, the Pandits’ departure was a result of foreign-sponsored armed militancy in their home and the targeted killings of prominent members of their minority community. Their departure and a figuratively social suicide effectively prevented another partition of India. The British voluntarily left India, rather washed their hands of a poor India, after ruling it for nearly two centuries (1757 to 1947), of which the British government formally ruled India for only 90 years. Their premature and hurried departure, accompanied by an ill-planned and bloody partition of the country, was a direct result of the devastating effects of World War II on their homeland. During a couple of decades prior to their departure, they had also become increasingly tired of managing a poor India. However, just two centuries ago, in early seventeenth century, they had entered a much richer India, as traders, for business, in the form of East India Company (EIC). After receiving a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, EIC’s focus over the next century was trade. In the mid-eighteenth century, however, they became more ambitious, and their focus shifted to grabbing the Indian territory. Thanks to Robert Clive’s decisive victory in the historical Battle of Plassey (23 June 1757) over the Nawab of Bengal, followed by Hector Munro’s sealing victory in the Battle of Buxar (22 October 1764), they laid the

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foundations of their rule in India. By 1803, EIC controlled the majority of the Indian subcontinent, with a private army of about 260,000, which was twice the size of the British Army. EIC ruled India till 1858, when the British Crown assumed direct control of the Indian subcontinent—in the form of the British Raj—after passing the Government of India Act 1858. In the words of historian William Dalrymple (Dalrymple, 2015): We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath—[Robert] Clive.

In complete contrast to the British, the Pandits became a collateral casualty, rather sacrificial, in a sinister geopolitical game in the subcontinent in the decades following the partition. The politico-religious situation in Kashmir deteriorated steadily in the 1980s, in tandem with the Cold War military activities in Afghanistan. Towards the end, soon after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the environment in Kashmir suddenly turned hostile for Pandits to the extent they felt extremely insecure even within the confines of their homes. They suddenly lost all faith in the government when they found the security forces and the local administration too defended themselves against the militants, most of whom were foreigners, assisted by local militants who were trained in militant camps being run across the Line of Control. Ultimately, in late 1989/early 1990, Pandits decided to leave when they were asked by the militants to leave. Although, in general, the Muslim community watched passively as they left, there are numerous heart-­ warming stories about how many Muslims assisted and saved their Pandit friends and neighbours. There are equally many heartrending stories about how some Muslim neighbours and colleagues assisted the militants in targeting and killing many Pandits.

Victims of Geopolitics In 1947, the British were replaced by Indian rulers—the white-skinned were replaced by the brown-skinned. When the brown-skinned rulers govern with an erstwhile white-skinned mindset, they can be called coconuts.

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Forty-two years later, in 1989–1990, the Pandits were replaced by armed militants from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Following the Pakistani kabailee intrusion on 22 October 1947, backed by the Pakistan army, the Kashmir king, Maharaja Hari Singh, signed an Instrument of Accession of Kashmir to India on 26 October 1947 in desperation to allow the Indian troops land at the Srinagar airport to push back the Pakistani kabailees. Had the kabailee raid not occurred, Kashmir would have been an independent country, assuming Pakistan would not have grabbed it subsequently. Subsequently, had the  1971 Indo-Pak War not taken place and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) not liberated from Pakistan, perhaps Pakistan would not have been so revengeful. In the same vein, had the Talibans not been raised—trained, funded and armed—by the Americans, with Pakistan’s help, the militancy in Kashmir would have not raised its head during and immediately following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. But all this happened, unfortunately. Amidst so many other sad occurrences, Kashmiri Pandits became homeless. As a thought, would they have not been much better off in 2020  had the British never left the subcontinent?

Divisions in India Since 1947 The people of India have shown a clear degree of heterogeneity after the country was granted Independence by the British 1947. Socio-political cracks have appeared in the country in the last seven decades. As per an article by Arpan Ray, dated 3 June 2018, in Quora, British India had 565 princely states, of which 552 fell within the Indian domain, and the remaining 13 within Pakistan (Ray, 2018). India had none of the current States before August 1947. However, soon thereafter, India initially comprised just 11 States—Mysore, Punjab, Madras, Bombay, Orissa, Bengal, United Provinces, Central Provinces, Assam, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir. The Union Territories were Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands. United Provinces was renamed as Uttar Pradesh on 25 January 1950 and Central Provinces as Madhya Pradesh. India soon started subdividing itself within the next one decade after Independence. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, carved out a number of new States:

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• Kerala from Mysore, • Andhra Pradesh from Madras, • Himachal Pradesh from Punjab and recognised as a Union Territory and • Tripura and Manipur from Assam and recognised as Union Territories. In the following years, due to internal political pressures, more new States were carved out or created: • Gujarat was carved out from Bombay in 1960; • Pondicherry was liberated from the French rule in 1962 and renamed as Puducherry in 1963, and ruled as Union Territory; • Goa, Daman and Diu, as well as Dadra and Nagar Haveli were liberated from the Portuguese rule in 1961 and recognised as Union Territories; • Goa was subsequently carved away from Daman and Diu and given the status of a State in 1987. Daman and Diu continued to be Union Territory; • Haryana was separated from Punjab and recognised as a State in 1966; • Himachal Pradesh was recognised as a State in 1971; • Bengal was renamed as West Bengal when Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) was liberated from Pakistan in 1971; • Bombay (renamed as Mumbai in 1995) was renamed as Maharashtra on 1 May 1960, • Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram were separated from Assam between 1964 and 1971. Tripura and Manipur were also recognised as States during the same period; • Mysore was renamed as Karnataka in 1973; • Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands were renamed as Lakshadweep Islands in 1973; • Sikkim joined India as a State in 1975; • Arunachal Pradesh was separated from Assam in 1987; • Chhattisgarh was separated from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand from Bihar and Uttarakhand (erstwhile Uttaranchal) from Uttar Pradesh in 2000; and • Telangana was separated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

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Interestingly, Orissa (renamed as Odisha), West Bengal, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir are the only undivided Indian States of India after Independence. In October 2019, Ladakh was separated from the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir. Logically, if history is a guide, it is a matter of time before some of these States will also see divisions, especially the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir considering the character of Jammu—environment, climate, demography, politics and culture—differs completely from that of Kashmir. The erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir had been witnessing continued unrest right since 1947, for a number of reasons. Being a border State, its instability and volatility not only made the lives of people difficult over years, including the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their native home in 1990, but also potentially threatened the integrity of India as a whole. One could question and speculate if India is trying to return to its original pre-independence 552 princely states (excluding those  original 13 princely states that also comprised the present day Pakistan). Logically, if there were 552 types of people in the land, such a speculation is not entirely unreasonable. Obviously, when people don’t cohere, or want their own ethnic identity, social autonomy and political governance, new States had been carved out in the last seven decades, and possibly the creation of more new States could be in the offing.

Article 370 of the Constitution of India Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state prior to 1947, and its residents were called State Subjects, and not British colonial subjects. Political movements in the State, in the early twentieth century, are understood to have led to the creation of the term hereditary state subject as the political identity for its people. The Kashmiri Pandit community in the State is understood to have launched a Kashmir for the Kashmiris movement, demanding only Kashmiris should be employed in State government jobs, following which legal provisions were enacted by the State rulers, between 1912 and 1932. In 1927, Maharaja Hari Singh (1895—1961), the last ruling Maharaja of the State, issued the Hereditary State Subject Order to the State Subjects, which granted the right to government jobs and the right to own and use land and immovable property only to the State Subjects (Das Gupta & Bhusan, 1968; Robinson, 2013). On 26 October 1947, the Maharaja ceded control over defence, external affairs and communications to the Government of India following the Accession of State to the Union of India. The Article 370 of the

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Constitution of India, accompanied with a Constitutional Order of 1950, formalised the State relations with India. The Constituent Assembly of the State was established in 1951. It had the power to decide and recommend those articles of the Indian Constitution that would be applicable to State. It was also empowered to abrogate Article 370. Political discussions between the leaders of the State and Indian Government culminated in the 1952 Delhi Agreement, reached between independent India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the then Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mohammed Abdullah Sheikh (1905–1982). As per the agreement, the Indian citizenship was extended to all the residents of the State but the State would have the special power to legislate over the rights and privileges of the State Subjects, who would be hence called the Permanent Residents of the State. On 8 August 1953, Mohammad Abdullah Sheikh was suddenly dismissed as prime minister by Dr Karan Singh, the son of the erstwhile Maharaja Hari Singh, who was the then Sadr-i-Riyasat (The Constitutional Head of State). Intriguingly, he was dismissed on the charges that he had seemingly lost the confidence of his cabinet, but not the House, and denied the opportunity to prove his majority on the floor of the House. Immediately after his dismissal, he was arrested and jailed for 11 years. He was accused of conspiracy against the Union of India. His dissident, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1907–1972), who had been his deputy prime minister, succeeded him as the next prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir and continued to be at the helm till 1964. On 14 May 1954, Article 35A was added to the Constitution of India through a Presidential Order (The Constitution [Application to Jammu and Kashmir] Order, 1954) by the President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, which empowered the State legislature to define the Permanent Residents of the State and provide special rights and privileges to them. The State was also empowered to have its separate constitution, a State flag and autonomy over its internal administration. On 17 November 1956, the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was adopted. It defined a Permanent Resident of the State as a person who was a State Subject on 14 May 1954, or who has been a resident of the State for 10 years, and had lawfully acquired immovable property in the State. On 26 January 1957, the State Constituent Assembly dissolved itself, however, without recommending either the abrogation of Article 370 or any amendment in it. As a result of its dissolution, the article was deemed

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to have become a permanent feature in the Indian and State constitutions. Article 370 and Article 35A defined that the residents of the State— called the State Subjects—lived under a special set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property in the State and fundamental rights, which were different from the laws that applied to other citizens of India living in other Indian states. As a result of this special provision, Indian citizens from other Indian States could not purchase immovable property or land in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Non-permanent residents of the State, despite being Indian citizens, were also not entitled to availing the State government employment and other State benefits, such as higher education and health care. Under Article 35A, a Permanent Resident woman would lose her right to inheritance if she married a non-­ permanent resident. Her children would also forfeit this right, as they would not be granted the Permanent Resident Certificate (also called the State Subject Certificate), which was necessary for owning immovable property and land in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Abrogation of Article 370 After their exodus from the valley, in and after January 1990, many members of the Kashmiri Pandit community believed that the abrogation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution will help to restore peace in Kashmir and enable them to return to their homeland. They believed the abrogation will allow Indians, especially Indian Hindus, to move into the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which will not only bring prosperity—through setting up of Indian industries and, thus, the creation of private jobs in the State—but, more importantly, change its demography, which is currently dominated by the ethnic Kashmiri Muslim community. Historically, major nationalist organisations, such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, established in 1925 (Priti Gandhi, 2014), and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), aiming to evoke general Hindu sentiments and win Hindu votes during the past general elections in India, are known to have echoed similar views, which would possibly have contributed to the Pandits’ beliefs. In its manifesto for the 2014 General Election in India, the BJP had pledged to abrogate Article 370 but, after winning the elections in 2014, did not fulfil the promise in the next five years. However, the promise of abrogation continued to feature in the list of the BJP’s manifesto in the

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Indian General Election in 2019 (11 April to 19 May), which BJP won comprehensively. In 2019, out of a total of 543 seats contested, the BHP won 303 seats on its own, securing about 37.36% of the total votes cast. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a total of 353 seats, securing a combined vote share of about 45%, which gave it a decisive majority in the Indian parliament. Out of 911 million eligible voters, the voter turnout was more than 67%, which was the highest ever in the country. These votes gave the BJP the necessary confidence, which it had been aiming for a long time, and do the unthinkable about Jammu and Kashmir. On 5 August 2019, in a sudden, shocking and controversial move, after putting the Kashmir valley in a strict lockdown in the days leading to it and over a prolonged period of several months after it, with all known means of communication—fixed and mobile phones—and the Internet snapped across the valley, the Government of India abrogated Article 370. A new constitutional order was issued on 5 August 2019, which superseded the Presidential Order of 1954 about Article 370 and Article 35A. The new order made all the provisions of the Constitution of India applicable to the State of Jammu and Kashmir after a resolution was passed in both the houses of the Indian parliament with a two-third majority. Following the resolution, a further order was issued on 6 August 2019, which declared all the clauses of Article 370, except Clause 1, as inoperative. On 31 October 2019, the Government of India changed the course of the history when the Indian parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act and divided the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, called Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh.

What Gave Birth to Article 370? The story goes back to August 1947, when the subcontinent got divided into India and Pakistan. At that time, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, wanted his princely state to remain as an independent nation. However, on 22 October 1947, when Pakistan invaded the State to annex it, he desperately pleaded for help from India. But India did not send any help until he signed the Instrument of Accession to India. At the time of the  partition, all princely states of the erstwhile British India were required to sign two documents: (a) the Instrument of Accession and (b) the Instrument of Merger. However, Maharaja Hari Singh signed only the

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Instrument of Accession (Instrument of Accession, 2003). Before he could sign the Instrument of Merger, independent India’s first Prime Minister, J.L. Nehru, announced (on All India Radio) that India was ready for carrying out a referendum in the State, which was relayed to the United Nations. In consultation with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the first Governor General of independent India (1947–1948), Nehru decided to introduce Article 370  in the Constitution of India to establish a legal relationship between India and the State of Jammu and Kashmir (Mustafa, 2019). However, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, India’s first law and justice minister and the architect of the Constitution of India, did not accept Nehru’s request to prepare the draft of the article [Article 370, 2018; The Times of India, 2014] On Nehru’s request, Sir Gopalswami Ayyangar, a member of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution and a leader of the Rajya Sabha  (the Upper House of Indian parliament), prepared the draft. Sir Ayyangar was a cabinet minister without portfolio but looked after Kashmir Affairs. He represented India at the United Nations Security Council. The draft of Article 370 was passed in the parliament in 1949, thus, granting autonomy to the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir. In May 1949, the rulers and representatives of all princely states of erstwhile British India met with India’s Constituent Assembly and agreed that separate constitutions for individual States were not necessary. They accepted the Constitution of India as their own constitution, which later became effective on 26 January 1950. However, the representatives of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir requested that only those provisions of the Indian Constitution that corresponded to the original Instrument of Accession should be applied to the State. Accordingly, Article 370 stipulated that the other articles of the Constitution would apply to the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir only with the concurrence of the State’s Constituent Assembly. This was a temporary provision because its applicability was intended to last only till the formulation and adoption of the Jammu and Kashmir’s own constitution. When the State’s constituent assembly dissolved itself on 25 January 1957 without recommending either abrogation or amendment of Article 370, by default, it became a permanent feature of the Constitution of India, as confirmed by various rulings of the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir. As per Clause 7 of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, the State could not be compelled to accept any future Constitution of India and that it was within its rights to draft its own Constitution and decide what additional powers it could extend to the

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Government of India. In essence, in its true spirit, neither India nor the State could  unilaterally amend or abrogate the Article except in accordance with the terms of the Article itself (Nayak, 2016). Article 370 specified that, except for defence, foreign affairs, communications and ancillary matters, as specified in the original Instrument of Accession, the Indian Parliament needs concurrence of the State government for applying all other Indian laws to the State. Jammu and Kashmir is the only State in India that has its own constitution, flag and criminal code, called Ranbir Penal Code (RPC), which came into force in 1932 (Chowdhari & Gupta, 2016). The indigenous people of Jammu and Kashmir carried State Subject Certificate as proof of their citizenship of the State. Thus, they had been living under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, property, marriage and fundamental rights, as compared to other Indian citizens. Although similar provisions for special status are in place in tribal areas of India, including areas in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Himachal Pradesh, it is only the Jammu and Kashmir State’s accession to India, as disputed between India and Pakistan, which possibly still appears on the agenda of the UN Security Council. Vide the Indira–Sheikh Accord of 1974, India had committed itself to keeping the relationship between the India and the State within the ambit of this article. On 5 August 2019, however, India changed that relationship unilaterally, without seeking consent from the people of Jammu and Kashmir, or undertaking any consultative process with them or their elected representatives, most  of whom were actually house-arrested for several months soon thereafter. The Indian move could be deemed comparable to China’s move vis-a-vis Tibet.

Article 370 in Simple Terms At the time of framing, Article 370 originally encompassed the following special provisions for the State of Jammu and Kashmir: • It is exempted from the complete applicability of the Constitution of India, and allowed to have its own Constitution. • Government of India’s legislative powers over the State were limited to the defence, foreign affairs and communications. • Other constitutional powers of the Government of India’s could be extended to the State only with the concurrence of the State Government.

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• The concurrence was only provisional and had to be ratified by the State’s Constituent Assembly. • The State Government’s authority to give concurrence lasted only until the State Constituent Assembly was in place. Once the State Constituent Assembly finalised the scheme of powers and dispersed, no further extension of powers was possible. • The Article could be abrogated or amended only if recommended by the State’s Constituent Assembly. Mohammad Sheikh Abdullah, who was the leader of the Muslim populace in Kashmir and the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir after the State’s Accession to India, was apprehensive about with the wording Temporary and Transitional Provisions in Article 370. Based on his suspicion that the State’s special status could potentially be lost in time, he started advocating for independence from India, following which his government was dismissed and he was placed under preventive detention for 11 years, on 8 August 1953. As per Article 370, the provisions of the Indian Constitution did not automatically apply to Jammu and Kashmir. Every time, when the matter was not related to defence, external affairs and communications, a Presidential Order had to be passed for extending a provision of the Indian Constitution and any amendment in it to the State, which required the concurrence of the State government. In 1954, a Presidential Order, extending various provisions of the Indian Constitution to the State, was made with the concurrence of the State government and ratified by the State Constituent Assembly. After the adoption of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, on 17 November 1956, and when  the State Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 26 January 1957, the only authority (the State Constituent Assembly) that could have  provided or extended more powers to government of India had  disappeared. Therefore, in later years, other provisions from India were extended to the State with the concurrence of the State Government. Preamble and Article 3 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir states that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India (Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, 2002). Article 5 states that the executive and legislative power of the State extend to all matters except those with respect to which Parliament has power to make laws for the State under the provisions of the Constitution of India. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was adopted on 17 November 1956 and came into effect on 26 January 1957.

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Gradual Erosion of Article 370 After the dissolution of State Constituent Assembly in 1956 and the birth of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir came in 1957, it is understood that more than 40 Presidential Orders had followed the first Presidential Order of 1954, extending many provisions of Indian Constitution to the State. It is understood the sheer number of the orders and the circumstances under which they were issued had considerably eroded the State’s special status as promised under Article 370 (Haji & James, 2019).

Should Article 370 Have Been Abrogated? The relationship between the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union of India, questioning the relevance of Article 370, had all through been the subject of vigorous political and social discussions at many levels since the States’ Accession to India in 1947. On page 306 of the Constitution of India, the first line of Article 370 read as: Temporary provisions with respect to state of Jammu and Kashmir (Constitution of India, 2019)  Therefore, could  Article 370 have  been revoked unilaterally if it was supposed to be temporary? Yes, it could have been abrogated with just one signature of the President of India. It did not require any two-third majority in Lok Sabha or any majority in Rajya Sabha. But it was not that easy. The erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir had also its own constitution and the same very Article 370 was written in it too  (Anand, 2006). In the erstwhile  Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, it is also written that any amendment made in Indian Constitution will not automatically apply to the State without the concurrence of the State Constituent Assembly. So even if Article 370 was removed from the Indian Constitution, it would still remain in the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, creating legal contradictions and potentially leading to an unprecedented regional political turmoil (Noorani, 2011). The Clause 3 of Article 370 stated that the President of India may, by public notification, declare that the Article shall cease to be operative but only on the recommendation of the State Constituent Assembly. That means, in simple terms, Article 370 could have been revoked only if a new State Constituent Assembly was convened and which was willing to recommend its revocation. If that was not possible, then the only way it could have happened was by passing an amendment in the Constitution of India. But that would have been subject to a judicial review, which may  have

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possibly found that Clause 3 was a basic and core feature of the relationship between the State and India and, therefore, could not have been amended. As per  an article in The Wire, dated 11 October 2015, ‘J & K High Court Says Article 370 is Permanent, Can’t Be Abrogated,’ the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir ruled that Article 370 cannot be abrogated, repealed or even amended, based on an explanation that the Clause 3 of the Article conferred power to the State Constituent Assembly to recommend to the President of India on the matters related to the repeal of the Article (The Wire, 2015). However, as the State Constituent Assembly did not make any such recommendation before its dissolution in November 1956, the Article 370 had taken on the features of a permanent provision despite being titled as a temporary provision in the Constitution of India. The State High Court is understood to have declared that Jammu and Kashmir had absolute sovereign power on account of Article 370. In December 2016, the Supreme Court of India set aside the aforementioned judgement of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, stating the State of Jammu and Kashmir had no vestige of sovereignty outside the Constitution of India and that the State Constitution was subordinate to the Indian Constitution. On 3 April 2018, however, the Supreme Court of India upheld the earlier 2015 ruling of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, accepting the Article 370 had acquired a permanent status. It stated that, since the State Constituent Assembly did not exist, the President of India would not be able to fulfil the mandatory provisions required for its abrogation. Article 370 had given India legal right over Kashmir. Its abrogation always had the potential to undermine that right and detrimentally impact the constitutional relationship between the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union of India. In practical considerations of all the aforementioned factors and the ground reality, Article 370 could not have been easily abrogated. On the contrary, to usher in peace and progress of Kashmir, the Article should have been amended to give Kashmir a greater sense of autonomy so that Kashmiris discovered a greater sense of belonging to their homeland, with greater responsibility to work sincerely towards its sustainable peace and progress. The author’s view that Article 370 should not have been scrapped has been validated by the way the whole act of abrogation was undertaken and the fact that the valley has been in a continued lockdown since then, on one pretext or the other.

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In the short term, the abrogation of Article 370, on 5 August 2019, may seem to be the current Indian government’s big political win. However, the long-term picture will possibly take some time to emerge, in particular, when the valley witnesses similar living conditions as the rest of the country, particularly in terms of the people’s freedom to move around physically and, especially, when their freedom of expression is restored and the additional security forces, which were rushed to the valley in the first week of August 2019, are completely withdrawn. The post-August 2019 developments in the valley have validated the author’s claim that, on the basis of the political history of Kashmir—both before and after 1947—and that of the wider region, there would  be a severe local, and possibly a regional, backlash against the abrogation of Article 370. On the basis of the author’s independent observations and the published news from across the world, the overall picture in the valley currently appears to be hazy and subject to a range of speculations—ranging between some wishful optimism and a more realistic pessimism. The valley is currently experiencing strict restrictions on the general movement of people, with their communication via Internet and mobile phones restricted to a good extent. Many prominent political leaders have been languishing in house-arrest since August 2019. Of those, although a few of them have been released lately, albeit on strict conditions, thousands of political activists are understood to be lodged and silenced in various jails across India. At this stage, therefore, one must not be carried away in making any definitive conclusions about the future of Kashmir, howsoever, wishful or tempting that may seem to be.

Can Pandits Return Home After the Abrogation of Article 370? Kashmiri Pandits are (were) the original State Subjects of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir. Each one of them carried a Permanent resident Certificate (State Subject Certificate), which is a proof of their citizenship of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir under the erstwhile Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. As such, they did not need the abrogation of Article 370 as a pre-condition for their return to their homes in the valley.

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The sudden and unthinkable abrogation of Article 370 may have driven a deep wedge between the two communities, making the return of the Pandits very difficult, if not impossible. Instead of bringing them together, the abrogation of Article 370 may have paradoxically separated them further apart to virtually  a point of no return. India’s political gain could potentially prove to  be Kashmiri Pandits’ permanent loss of home. Regardless of what happens in Kashmir from hereafter, Kashmiri Pandits may have possibly lost Kashmir, perhaps forever. Kashmiri Muslims may never forgive them or accept them back, as the former see them allied with the RSS and the BJP and the Government of India in scrapping the Article 370. The Indian television showed many Kashmiri Pandits celebrating the abrogation of Article 370 on the streets in other parts of India soon after it happened, which has not gone very well with the majority Kashmiri Muslim population in the valley. In addition, the social media posts from many Kashmiri Pandits, in support of the abrogation, have added salt to the injury. Can the welcoming reaction of a small section of the Kashmiri Pandit community to the abrogation of Article 370 be construed as a brazen exhibition of their sadistic form of retribution? If yes, is that because this section of the Pandit community has assimilated themselves with the rest of India so well and  to such a deep-rooted extent that they don’t see themselves returning to the valley and cohabitating with the majority Muslim populace anymore? If the answer to these questions is ‘no,’ then what could be the reason they welcomed the abrogation of Article 370 with such fervour? Many Kashmiri Muslims have historically been drawing parallels between the exodus of Pandits from the valley in 1990 and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims on their annual Amarnath Yatra and hundreds of Indian students from National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, in early August 2019, in the days leading to the sudden abrogation of Article 370. In general, Kashmiri Muslims have always maintained that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 was triggered and facilitated by the then Indian government, a claim that has historically been rejected by most Kashmiri Pandits. As a core condition of their return to the valley, before the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Kashmiri Pandits needed a sense of security, housing and a source of sustenance and livelihood in the valley upon their return. Their housing in the valley could have been organised by the government, and their source of livelihood could have been the government

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funding in the beginning and for a fixed period of time. As for their sense of security, that would have primarily depended upon their relationship with their Muslim neighbours, friends, acquaintances and the common person on the street, and not necessarily only on the security personnel. The Indian Army, which has been stationed in Kashmir since 1947 and operating in the world’s heaviest militarised area, was very much present in the valley when the Pandits left home in 1990, and so was the State police, but they did not do anything to stop them from getting killed and then leaving in 1990 and thereafter. Could they have prevented the exodus of the Pandits? One feels safe inside one’s home and on the street only when one’s neighbours and the common man on the street accepts one as a fellow citizen and does not look and act threateningly or show any disrespect. As far as the return of Kashmiri Pandits is concerned, that can only happen when the majority Muslim population greets and receives them warmly, from the heart. But hearts can never be stitched back by force. Pandits can never be pushed back to the valley in the same manner as hundreds of thousands of Indian troops have been pushed into the valley over the last three decades. To cohere and thrive in Kashmir, Pandits undoubtedly need warm hugs and an expressed acceptance of goodwill, with a warm hand of friendship from their Kashmiri Muslim brethren. It appears, therefore, in political terms, Kashmiri Pandits may have been made a sacrificial community, a collateral casualty of India’s recent abrupt action via-à-vis Kashmir, which appears to have been done to fulfil the generational ambitions of millions of Indians to own properties in Kashmir. If Kashmiri Pandits had not existed in Kashmir until 1990, despite being only about 4 to 5% of the population in Kashmir, India could not have held on—morally, politically or otherwise—to a 100% Kashmiri Muslim populated valley, based on the principles of the partition of British India, particularly if Kashmiri Muslims did not want to live with India. India and Indians owe Kashmiri Pandits a great debt for their historical sacrifices, both before and after 1947, and, thereafter, again in 1990 and 2019. India’s political win may possibly prove to be Pandits’ permanent loss of home. After the abrogation of Article 370, the subtitle of this book should have logically been changed to: Can they ever return home? Time alone will tell if they can. They have less than three decades left to redeem themselves and reconnect with their roots in Kashmir, which undoubtedly run through the people living currently in Kashmir—the Kashmiri

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Muslims—who have endured not only the armed militancy in the valley in the last three decades but also a draconian lockdown following the controversial scrapping of a semi-autonomous status of their State, which has subsequently been divided and downgraded to the status of a union territory, humiliating them and stripping them of their leftover  dignity and pride. In humans, unlike robots, it is invariably a matter of heart rather than head, and heart invariably dictates one’s feeling and alliances. In the matters of heart, the application of force always proves to be counter-­ productive. Force never brings hearts together. The erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, an independent princely state until October 1947, has finally been merged forcefully with the Union of India, in August 2019, and subsequently divided and downgraded to the status of Union Territory without undertaking any consultative process with the people of Kashmir, or their elected representatives, or seeking their consent.

Who Has Gained Anything Out of the Abrogation of Article 370? In the days leading to a sudden lockdown in early August 2019, in addition to nearly half a million soldiers of Indian army already  stationed  in Kashmir, additional tens of thousands of Indian troops were clandestinely rushed and spread across the valley, clamping it down firmly with an iron hand, and that too just before the Muslim festival of Eid, on the pretext that terrorist attacks were expected on the Indian Hindu pilgrims participating in the annual Amarnath Yatra. But once the valley was firmly locked down and secured, with all known modes of communication snapped without notice, Article 370 was scrapped in the Indian Parliament and the unthinkable act announced to the world. The valley was cut off from the rest of the world for months, not only physically but also in the cyberspace, and continues to be under a lockdown at the time of writing this book, albeit now on a different pretext (COVID-19). All voices of dissent from the valley have been muffled with the arrest of most, if not all, prominent politicians and political activists and the elected representatives of the people, including those who have been known for their pro-­India stance. It must be emphasised that, on the basis of his interaction with many educated and responsible members of the Kashmiri Muslim community, it is the author’s reasonable opinion that, more than the act of abrogation of

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Article 370 itself, it is the surreptitious and deceitful manner in which the entire act was carried out that has deeply shaken and angered the people of Kashmir. They have lost complete trust and faith not only in the current Indian government but also in the entire political system of India. It will be a very hard and a time-consuming process to restore their confidence, if at all. It must be noted that there is an ethnic difference between the Indian Muslims  and Kashmiri Muslims, and ethnicity plays a major role in the cultural differences between people and in the generation of conflicts. For example, take the case of East Pakistan and West Pakistan and how they fought each other and separated in 1971, just 24 years after independence. There is a vast difference in how the Indian Muslims chose to be a part of India and how Kashmiri Muslims were a made a part of India. Unlike Junagarh, a plebiscite never took place in Jammu and Kashmir. In its place, therefore, Article 370 practically represented a constitutional promise made by the Union of India to the people of Kashmir about their semi-­ autonomous State. Now that it has been abrogated, most Kashmiri Muslims, and many Kashmiri Pandits, feel humiliated, shocked, betrayed and extremely disillusioned. Many exiled Kashmiri Pandits too have felt deeply saddened with the manner in which Kashmiri Muslims have been treated in the valley since early August 2019 and how Kashmir has been insensitively  treated as a whole by the current and all earlier Indian governments. Many exiled Kashmiri Pandits feel greatly empathetic towards their Kashmiri Muslim brethren but also believe their return to home (Kashmir) may have well and truly been compromised by the current Indian government. For fear of retribution, however, on social media or otherwise, most of them prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves and not vent them in public. Many Kashmiri Pandits, who had initially welcomed the abrogation of Article 370, are also increasingly feeling betrayed, compromised and disillusioned, as they have received nothing in return from the current Government of India, except promises and assurances. The author is aware that numerous members of the exiled Kashmiri Pandit community have reached out to their Kashmiri Muslim friends and erstwhile neighbours and colleagues, and empathised with them. But the author is not aware if the Kashmiri Pandit community as a whole, represented by any known social or socio-political organisation, has ever reached out to their Kashmiri Muslim brethren and publicly empathised with them in their hour of hardship in the last 12  months or so (since 5 August

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2019). In such a situation, it seems unrealistic that the Kashmiri Muslim community will ever readily welcome the exiled Kashmiri Pandit community. Thus, the process of grafting and stitching back the two ethnic Kashmiri communities and restoring their mutual trust seems like an uphill battle. Unless and until that mutual trust and acceptance develops between the two communities, the abrogation of Article 370 cannot be justified as far as the safe and dignified return of the Pandits and their cohabitation in the valley with their Muslim brethren is concerned. In hindsight, if a due consultative process had been followed by the current Government of India with common people of Kashmir and/or their elected representatives, as would be normally expected in a democratic system, and people taken into confidence, before taking any drastic decision about the timing and the draconian mannerism in which Article 370 was abrogated, the outcome could have possibly been different. The Indian government would not have completely lost the trust and faith of Kashmiri people. There would have undoubtedly been some violent reaction in the valley, but the lockdown would not have possibly lasted so long. It is not hard to imagine that a government that loses the faith and trust of people can never succeed in winning their hearts anytime soon or with any ease. Monetary packages to the valley may provide a superficial balm but the inner wounds of the people may never heal, as their dignity and pride have been challenged and compromised with heavy-handedness. In just two months on April and May 2020, the people of India complained against a strict lockdown imposed by the current government of India, on 24 March 2020, to stop the spread of COVID-19. They may have just tasted only a little bit of what Kashmiri Muslims have been enduring for a long time in Kashmir, nearly 12 months now. And that is only the physical aspect of the lockdown. Indian people don’t have the experience of living without the Internet and phones (both mobile and fixed) for months as Kashmiri Muslims have been living in Kashmir. Ironically, except a few world leaders, the world has turned a blind eye and remained mostly silent on the whole episode, possibly because India is seen as a major trading partner in the world, being one of the largest markets due to its large and young population of nearly 1.4 billion, 93% of whom are younger than 60 years. More importantly, the median age of Indians is around 29 years, that is, nearly 0.7 billion people are younger than 29 years of age. Who would like to miss this market by annoying the current Indian government?

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Looking at the whole episode, one cannot stop wondering why Article 370 was scrapped and for whose benefit? Other than fulfilling the BJP’s electoral promises of 2014 and 2019, and allowing wealthy businessmen of India to own immovable properties—holiday homes, hotels and resorts—in Kashmir, what else did it achieve? It may not have helped the respective cause of both Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits or the average Indian person. The Kashmir valley does not have much land left for residential purposes which can be bought by an average Indian citizen. The capital city of Srinagar has sprawled aggressively right up to the foothills of the mountains encompassing the valley, which is approximately 135 km long and 32 km wide, during the last three decades or so. Due to a growing local demand for residential land, a considerable area of cultivable lands, including orchards and wetlands, has sadly been transformed into residential land. Even where the residential land may be available, it will be very difficult for most Indians to buy any immovable property or land in the valley for reasons of unaffordability and the expected unwillingness of the locals to sell it to non-­ Kashmiri buyers. Indian tourists and pilgrims would historically visit the valley uninhibited all through the history of Kashmir, so nothing has changed for them. Indian Army has been living and operating there since 1947, so nothing has changed for them too. As noted earlier, the median age of Indians is around 29 years, which means more than half of the present Kashmiri Muslim population (and of Kashmiri Pandits) was not born at the time of the exodus of Pandits in and after January 1990. Add to that around 5 to 10% population comprising people who would have been less than 10 years of age at that time. This means around 60 to 65% of the current population of Kashmir had absolutely no hand in the exodus of the Pandits in 1990  or may have any memory thereof, or any direct knowledge of the factors that would have led to the exodus of the Pandits. It is this overwhelming two-third portion of the current Kashmiri Muslim population that has experienced first-hand an extraordinarily difficult life in a continued lockdown in Kashmir for nearly 12 months now, which is likely to remember it lifelong and pass on their painful memories to their future generations. Coupled with their abnormal circumstances and untold sufferings during the lockdown, they have also seen many Kashmiri Pandits welcoming and celebrating the abrogation of Article 370 on the streets of India and supporting it vigorously on social media. Logically, therefore, they may believe every single

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word spoken in the past in the valley against India and Kashmiri Pandits, irrespective of that word being factual or not. Therefore, will they ever accept or welcome the exiled Kashmiri Pandits back into the valley? Only time will tell! Kashmir falls within a border area of India. Logically, when the border area of a country is restless and unhappy, the country as a whole remains restless. So, who has realistically benefited from the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and how? In hindsight, was it just a political move to keep winning future Indian General Elections? Time will soon tell.

Feelings of a Disillusioned Kashmiri Pandit Post-Article 370 In May 2020, the author had an interesting phone conversation with a Kashmiri Pandit relative—a retired senior State Government officer in his mid- to late-70s—who lives in the city of Jammu. After exchanging customary greetings, the gentleman became emotional, sounding frustrated and angry. Our community has paid a heavy price for being peaceful Kashmiris, while also being good Indian citizens at the same time. But look what has happened to us? (He sighed deeply!) We had to leave our home for none of our fault. Since then, no one has ever really cared for us sincerely. We have been called Kashmiri migrants, not even refugees. Did I migrate? Did we migrate? Did we have a choice? I had to leave. We all had to leave, we had no other option. The living conditions in Kashmir were completely unsafe for us then, so I escaped with my family. I had no home outside Kashmir at that time; I became a refugee for no fault. Hurtfully, many Indians have been calling us cowards; many have even blamed us for causing the instability in Kashmir. Now tell me, are these allegations true, you are also a Kashmiri? Tell me. You have also left, haven’t you? As you are living in Australia, you may have forgotten everything but I am living here in Jammu, I can’t forget anything—my sufferings or my painful past. I live it every day of my life. Another hot summer is at my door. Once again, it is becoming agonisingly unbearable here in Jammu. And then barsaat mausam (Monsoons) will follow, which is even more uncomfortable and unbearable. With that, there will be mosquitoes, Dengue fever and what not. I was not used to such climate in my homeland. What is my fault? You live in Australia, so you have no idea.

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Before the author could say anything, the gentlemen again sighed deeply and continued: Every year, for the last couple of decades or so, I have been hiding for a few weeks in Srinagar from those hot summer and uncomfortable barsaat days. This year where shall I go now? I don’t know if anyone will talk to me there. I don’t know if I’ll be welcomed anymore. Now my Kashmiri Muslim friends don’t talk to me the same way as they would talk to me before August 2019; they believe my community was responsible for the abrogation of Article 370. How do I explain to them to them that we have not been responsible for it, although a small percentage of us may have supported it? Now what did I get out of the abrogation? How has it helped me or my people here? I am a State Subject; I did not require any legal permission from anyone to live in Kashmir. All I needed was a peaceful environment in Kashmir to live there but will that ever happen? A few months ago, three dozen Indian minsters visited and lived in Kashmir for several days. They don’t even have the clue about what is good and important for us Kashmiris and, in particular, the Kashmiri Bhattas. Can they bring our hearts together? I thought we had lost our home, honour and health 30 years ago but now I strongly believe we may have lost everything—our culture and identity. Can you believe it? They (Indian government) are now asking us Kashmiris to reapply for claiming our domicile status of our homeland? Can there be anything more demeaning, insulting and downgrading than that? Was the division of our state and degrading to the status of union territory not enough? I feel stripped of my dignity and pride. It seems we did not lose our home in 1990 but we have undoubtedly lost it now, thanks to the government. They never cared, we lived in an illusion. They got what they wanted and we were simply sacrificed. We have been fools.

He sounded very sad, angry and emotional. He was sobbing too. His painful memories had returned to him. He was feeling nostalgic and suffering from a deep loss of home. The author too became a little emotional and struggled for words. After gathering himself, the author tried to console the gentlemen with some amusing wording, comical to some extent: Sir, please keep heart and be patient, a little bit more. Your loyalty will be rewarded. Government is doing so many things for you. Your status has been upgraded; you are now living in a Union Territory, which is higher than a State. The President of India is himself looking after you, he does not trust anyone. The current government has recognised that the erstwhile State and Central governments were not sincere to the people of Kashmir. The government

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says Article 370 had left you all poor and backward all this while. Now, the current Central government is committed to make all the necessary amends. They will undoubtedly compensate you for your loss. The displaced people like you will be given a new house in Kashmir and a reasonable cash compensation for your suffering, which I think should be at least one lakh rupees for each year of your loss. Keep heart please, I request you.

On suspecting a hint of sarcasm in the author’s consolatory speech, the gentlemen reacted and bellowed angrily, before hanging up suddenly: ‘Do you think I am a fool? Why are you making a fool of me? I was made a fool all these years by everyone but not anymore. Please don’t hurt me any more than I am already. Good day.’ The author kept looking at his phone for a long time, with deep sadness and blurry eyes, trying to reconcile. As he closed his eyes, two little tears rolled down his eyes. This gentleman loved Kashmir like no other, while he was equally proud of India. He had never left Kashmir for greener pastures despite being one of the brightest students of his time and an outstanding professional. He worked his whole life in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir before retirement. Most of his friends were Kashmiri Muslims. Anecdotally, in the mid-1960s, when many Kashmiris went abroad, he had resisted many an attractive offer to go abroad at the start of his career. He had also never thought of working elsewhere in India; reportedly, he had turned his back on several attractive prospects with national corporations and companies where he could have risen professionally to much greater heights. At the time he got uprooted in 1990, he had no property outside Kashmir, not even in Jammu. He continues to feel uprooted 30 years later. Despite that, he continues to love Kashmir, and equally feels proud of India. Nonetheless, he feels betrayed by one and all. He is a gentleman who has paid a heavy price for being a Kashmiri—a good and peaceful person. He can’t figure out why he has had to pay such a heavy price for being what he is. In hindsight, if an unresolved issue of the past had the potential to become a seed of death and destruction in the future, it should have been extracted with extreme care and caution, and defused safely just as a buried bomb is defused by experts in that work. Sometimes, however, it is much wiser and safer to leave a bullet inside the body, due to its delicate location, than run a risk in removing it. Some tricky past issues are best left untouched. Some muddied waters take a very long time

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to clear if disturbed. It is not always advisable to uncover buried mess or open a can of worms if there is no effective and proven solution to control the consequences. May be it is best to let the demon sleep, undisturbed.

References 399 Pandits Killed since 1990. (2011). Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http:// www.greaterkashmir.com/mobi/news/news/399-pandits-killed-since1990-kpss/97140.html Anand, J. A. S. (2006). The Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir (5th ed., p. 67). Universal Law Publishing. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.in/ Books-Anand-Justice-A-S Article 370. (2018). What is Article 370 ? Why Dr. B.R Ambedkar Refused to Draft Article 370? Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://lawcorner.in/ article-370-why-br-ambedkar-refused/ Bukhari, S. (2010). 219 Kashmiri Pandits Killed by Militants since 1989. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/ldquo219Kashmiri-Pandits-killed-by-militants-since-1989rdquo/article16006510.ece Cambridge Dictionary. (2019). Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide Chowdhari, H. L., & Gupta, K. (2016). The Jammu and Kashmir State Ranbir Penal Code SVT 1989 (1932 AD). Jay Kay Law Reporters Pvt Ltd. Constitution of India. (2019). The Constitution of India. The Ministry of Law and Justice of India. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.india.gov. in/my-government/constitution-india Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. (2002). The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http://jklegislativeassembly.nic.in/ Costitution_of_J&K.pdf Dalrymple, W. (2015). The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders. The Guardian. Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders Essa, A. (2011). Kashmiri Pandits: Why We Never Fled Kashmir. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/kashmirtheforgottenconflict/2011/07/201176134818984961.html European Foundation for South Asian Studies. (2018). The Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.efsas.org/publications/ study-papers/the-exodus-of-kashmiri-pandits/ Gupta, D., & Bhusan, J. (1968). Jammu and Kashmir (p. 54). Springer. Retrieved from https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789401192316 Haji, M., & James, K. (2019). A Blow Against Article 370. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-blow-against-article-370/article26656330.ece

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How do you define genocide? (2017). Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-11108059 https://lawcorner.in/article-370-why-br-ambedkar-refused/ Instrument of Accession. (2003). Year 1947: Instrument of Accession Signed between Ruler of Kashmir and Lord Mountbatten. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20030818year-1947-instrument-of-accession-signed-between-ruler-of-kashmir-andlord-mountbatten-791850-2003-08-18 Koul, B. (2018). 22 Years—A Kashmir Story. Vitasta Publishing Private Limited. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.in/22-Years-Kashmir-Bill-Koul-ebook/ dp/B0756XNFRV Maqbool, R. (2015). 25 Years After Islamists Drove Out Hindus, Kashmiris Debate Repatriation Incentives. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://globalpressjournal.com/asia/indian-administered_kashmir/25-years-after-islamistsdrove-out-hindus-kashmiris-debate-repatriation-incentives/ Mustafa, F. (2019). Article 370, Federalism and the Basic Structure of the Constitution. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.theindiaforum. in/article/article-370-federalism-and-basic-structure-constitution Nayak, V. (2016). Exclusive: For the First Time, a True Copy of Jammu & Kashmir’s Instrument of Accession. Retrieved on August 2, 2019, from https://thewire.in/history/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrumentaccession-india Noorani, A.  G. (2011). Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://global.oup.com/ academic/product/article-370-a-constitutional-history-of-jammu-and-kashmir-oip-9780199455263?cc=au&lang=en& Priti, G. (2014). Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh: How the World’s Largest NGO has Changed the Face of Indian Democracy. DNA India. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/standpoint-rashtriya-swayamsewak-sangh-how-the-world-s-largest-ngo-has-changed-the-face-of-indiandemocracy-1988626 Ray, A. (2018). How Many States were There in India in 1947? What are They? Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.quora.com/How-many-stateswere-there-in-India-in-1947-What-are-they Robinson, C. (2013). Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists (pp.  34–35). University of California Press. Retrieved from https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520274211/body-ofvictim-body-of-warrior The Times of India. (2014). Dr Ambedkar was Against Article 370: Subramanian Swamy. Retrived August 2019, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

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india/Dr-Ambedkar-was-against-Article-370-Subramanian-Swamy/articleshow/37877569.cms The Wire. (2015). J&K High Court says Article 370 is Permanent, Can’t be Abrogated. Retrieved on August 2, 2019, from https://thewire.in/law/ jk-hc-says-article-370-is-permanent-cant-be-abrogated United Nations. (2019). Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.un.org/en/ genocideprevention/genocide.shtml Vaidyanathan, A. (2017). Supreme Court Refuses to Reopen 215 Cases in Kashmiri Pandits’ Killings. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.ndtv. com/india-news/supreme-court-refuses-to-reopen-215-cases-in-kashmiripandits-killings-1728500

CHAPTER 2

About Kashmiri Pandits

Etymology Kashmir (Snedden, 2015) comprises the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent. It is bounded by the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the north-east, by the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east (both parts of China), by Pakistan to the west and by Afghanistan to the north-west. To the south, it is bounded by the Indian States of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. The Kashmir region has a total area of about 222,200 square kilometres. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the term Kashmir denoted only the Kashmir Valley siting between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. At present, it denotes a much larger area, which includes the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir (Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh and Siachen), the Pakistani-administered territories of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. The Kashmiri Pandits are the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley. Also known as Kashmiri Brahmins, they are a Saraswat Brahmin community from Kashmir. According to folk etymology, the name Kashmir means desiccated land. As per the Rajatarangini (Pandit, 2009), the valley of Kashmir was formerly a lake. Legend has it that Rishi Kashyapa (son of Marichi, son of Brahma)—the saint of antiquity—reclaimed the land of the Kashmir valley from a vast lake, known as Satisar, after goddess Sati, the consort of Lord © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_2

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Shiva. According to the Hindu mythology, Rishi Kashyapa cut the hills at Baramulla (Varaha-mula, in Sanskrit) to create a gap for water to flow out. After the relatively higher areas of the valley of Kashmir were drained out and habitable land reclaimed, Rishi Kashyapa is believed to have invited Brahmins from all over the world to settle down in Kashmir. These Brahmins have later come to be known as Kashmiri Pandits (Dhar, 1986, 1992, 2011). Kashmir has been known by several names over the years: • Káśmı̄ra, the earlier Sanskrit word for Kashmir, • Sati-saras (Lake of Sati), from the Nilmat Purana, • Kashyapamar (Kashyapa’s lake), after Rishi Kashyapa, • Kashyapa-meru (Kashyapa’s mountain), after Rishi Kashyapa, • Kashmira, popular, but uncertain—a land desiccated from water, • Kasperia, from ancient Greeks, as identified with Kaspapyros of Hecataeus of Miletus (and Stephanus of Byzantium) and Kaspatyros of Herodotus, as also believed to be the country meant by Ptolemy’s Kaspeiria, • Kashimilo, as called by Hiuen-Tsang, the noted Chinese pilgrim who is believed to have visited the valley in the seventh century AD, • Cashmere, an archaic spelling of Kashmir, as spelled in some countries and • Kasheer, as called by Kashmiris in their spoken Kashmiri language. The Nilamata Purana, an ancient text that dates around sixth to eighth century AD, contains information on Kashmir’s history, geography, religion and folklore. Along with Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, it is considered as the national epic of Kashmir. Kalhana, the first historian of India, referred to the Nilamata Purana as one of his main sources for knowing Kashmir’s history when he wrote the Rajatarangini (circa 1148 to 1150), which literally means the River of Kings. He was born in Parihaspora (Paraspore) in the Baramulla district of Kashmir, to Chanpaka, who was a minister in the court of King Harsha of Kashmir. The ancestors of the current generations of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir traditionally practised the Shaivite thought of Hinduism, called Kashmir Shaivism or Trika. As per Avinash Singh (Singh, 2019), Kashmir, once a great centre of Shaivism, is considered as the land of Shiva (Singh, 2019). In the words of Grieson,

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For upwards of two thousand years, Kashmir has been the home of Sanskrit learning and from this small valley has issued masterpieces of history, poetry, romance, fable and philosophy. Kashmiris are justly proud of the literary glories of their land. For centuries, Kashmir was the house of the greatest Sanskrit scholars, and at least one great Indian religion of ‘Shaivism’ has found some of its most eloquent teachers on the banks of the Vitasta. Some of the greatest Sanskrit scholars and poets were born, and wrote in the valley and from it has issued in Sanskrit language a world famous collection of folk-lore. (Panchatantra)

By the time of their exodus from Kashmir in 1990, Kashmiri Pandits comprised just about 5% of the population of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Anecdotally, it was said about one lakh (100,000) Pandit families lived in Kashmir in 1989–90; therefore, their total number could have figured somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 lakhs. The ancestors of most of them are anecdotally believed to have either converted to Islam over the past 700 years—since about 1339—or left the valley on a regular basis over the past centuries due to its geographical location, foreign invasions and a volatile history. Even the followers of Kashmir Shaivism had considerably dwindled in Kashmir—in terms of their proportion of the total Pandit population left in Kashmir—despite a considerable influence and popularity of Swami Lakshman Joo (9 May 1907–27 September 1991), a world-renowned mystic, proponent and scholar of Kashmir Shaivism, whose followers and students came across from across the globe (Kamal, n.d.; Raina, n.d.). It will be difficult to ascertain now the exact proportion of Kashmir Pandits who still practise Kashmir Shaivism, as most of its Kashmiri followers, in particular, belonging to their older generations, would have passed on in the past three decades or so since their exodus from the valley. Realistically, therefore, unless they return to the valley sooner than later, Kashmir Shaivism may possibly become history in the next three decades from now, as has Sharda, the traditional language of Kashmir and Kashmiri Pandits. Professor Somnath Wakhlu has provided a decent account of the cultural and characteristic aspects of Kashmiri Pandits in his book, Kashmiri Pandits – Cultural & Historical Introduction (Wakhlu, 2011).

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Geological Behaviour The (clayey and silty) type of the soils that Kashmiris are born from may also figuratively explain their general nature and behaviour. Clays are sticky and mouldable, but silts are erodible. In combination, as silty clays and clayey silts, they are both erodible and mouldable. Similarly, the original Kashmiris have been very mouldable (adaptable), as reflected by the history of Kashmir. After their exodus from Kashmir in 1990, Kashmir Pandits have also demonstrated an extraordinarily high degree of adaptability to their new conditions of habitat around the world. Their global spread reflects their silty nature, and their seamless adaptability reflects their clayey nature. Unlike clayey soils of Kashmir, sandy soils, such as in Rajasthan and parts of Delhi, are inert and controlled by gravity, without carrying memories of the past. Sands generally  remain where they are formed, unless they are moved by wind (forming aeolian deposits and sand dunes) or transported by humans. The valley of Kashmir is an oval-shaped basin, about 135 to 140 km in length and about 35 to 40 km in width, orientated in a north-northwest to south-southeast direction. The geology of Kashmir comprises the Cenozoic deposits, which are primarily fluvial, lacustrine, fluvioglacial and aeolian in origin. In simple terms, the subsurface soil of Kashmir comprises unconsolidated muds—clayey silts and silty clays—and gravels. Numerous plateau-shaped terraces characterise the valley above the plains of Jhelum and its tributaries, which are called Karewas or Vudar in the Kashmiri language. The valley of Bhadarwah in the Jammu division is also characterised by Karewas (What Is Karewas? Formation of Karewas, 2018). Karewas are understood to have formed about one million years ago— when the entire Kashmir valley was under water—during the Pleistocene period. The rise of Pir Panjal Range of mountains formed a basin and impounded the drainage, creating a lake, about 5000 square kilometres in area. The water subsequently drained out in a westward direction, through the gorge at Baramulla and Uri, towards what is now called Pakistan. As the water receded—for geologically unexplained reasons—numerous flat-­ topped mounds of earth, called lacustrine deposits (lakebed deposits)— characterised with fossils of mammals and localised peat (decayed organic matter)—appeared, which are known as Karewas. They are believed to be up to 1400 m thick.

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The geological evidence backs the mythological belief amongst Kashmiris that the Kashmir valley, called the Satisar in Hindu scripts, originated from its Satisar Age, as discussed in the previous section of this book. The valley was under water once upon a time, before Sage Kashyapa is believed to have created a pathway for waters to leave to reclaim the habitable land. Karewas are divided into upper and lower Karewas—representing argillaceous and arenaceous facies, respectively. • The upper Karewas characterise the middle strip of the valley— Pampore, Srinagar, Burzuhom, Dilpur, Pattan, Parihaspora and parts of Baramulla. These are less fossiliferous than the lower Karewas. • The lower Karewas characterise the entire belt along the foothills of the Pir Panjal Range. Their sections at Aharbal, Anantnag, Arigam and Baramulla were exposed by the rivers that originated from the south of Kashmir—Veshav, Rembiara, Romushu, Dodhganga, Shaliganga, Boknag nar and Ningli. As noted earlier, the Kashmir soils are primarily clayey and silty in nature and exist as clayey silts and silty clays. Clayey soils are sticky and mouldable, and used in pottery and mud plaster. Silts are erodible and produce dust, as evidenced on the roads and streets of Kashmir and in the generally dusty environment in dry weather conditions. • As per common engineering classifications, clay-size particles are smaller than 0.002  mm, silt-size particles between 0.002  mm and 0.075 mm and sands exist in the range of 0.075 mm to 2.36 mm. • Clay particles are generally needle- and sheet-shaped. They carry a net negative charge on their surfaces and a positive charge on their ends. Like humans, they have a thirst for water, which they need to satisfy their charges. Water is a dipolar medium. • Clay particles have a very large specific surface (ratio of surface area divided by particle volume); they are chemically and electrically active, like humans. They remain in suspension for a very long time when in water and take a long time to settle down. In suspension, when two clay particles come closer to each other—end to end or surface to surface—they repel each other, changing each other’s path, similar to humans. This phenomenon is called the Brownian

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movement. Like humans, clayey subsoil deposits carry memory of the stresses that they may have been exposed to in the past.

Genealogy Following an invasion in 326 BCE by Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), the Indian King Porus, who is believed to have bravely fought against Alexander to stall the latter’s advance into India, is known to have sought help from Abisares (the king of Kashmir) in the Battle of Hydaspes (called River Jhelum in Kashmir), which Porus lost, and following which Abisares gifted elephants and treasure to Alexander. As a significant portion of Alexander’s army is believed to have settled in the region after his return, some people believe some of the present-day Kashmiris—based on their European physical features, such as a fairer shade of complexion, lighter eyes (mix of blue, green, grey and brown), shades of brown hair and chiselled nose—are possibly the descendants of the ethnic Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Persians, Turks and so forth who comprised Alexander’s army. Many Kashmiris also believe they have Jewish roots. They base their reasons on the traditional use of the term Joo after their names in both Pandit and Muslim communities, such as Rahman Joo or Shridhar Joo. Some also claim to notice some striking similarities between Kashmiris and Jews in terms of their natural characteristics and general behaviours, personal appearances and facial features, and traditional dress of both men and woman. In his extremely interesting and extraordinary book, Jesus in the East – Incredible Saga, Professor Fida Hassnain has tried to explore possible connections between Jesus and Kashmir, as well as Jews and Kashmir, based on his extensive research over years of dedicated and sustained hard work (Hassnain, 2002). Professor Hassnain has extensively referred to Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, the Old Testament and numerous other literary works— in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Tibetan, Bengali and English—by a number of scholars from Kashmir and many other parts of the world. Some questions arise: ‘How many, if at all, Kashmiris have Jewish, West Asian and European roots? Can the modern science prove anything?’ To answer these questions, reference has been made to an article published in 2016, in the ‘US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health,’ titled, ‘A Genome-Wide Search for Greek and Jewish Admixture in the Kashmiri Population’ (Downie et  al., 2016). The researchers

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maintained that ‘a longstanding hypothesis is that this population derives ancestry from Jewish and/or Greek sources. There is historical and archaeological evidence of ancient Greek presence in India and Kashmir. Further, some historical accounts suggest ancient Hebrew ancestry as well.’ Using genome-wide genotyping and admixture detection methods, the researchers determined that ‘there are no significant or substantial signs of Greek or Jewish admixture in modern-day Kashmiris.’ Some important excerpts from the article are reproduced here: • ‘The Kashmiri population is an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group … The precise origins of the Kashmiri population are unknown. It has been suggested that they are descendants of one of the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel who were exiled in 722 BCE … believed to have travelled along the Silk Road into the countries of the Middle East, Persia, and Afghanistan until they reached the Kashmir Valley and settled there. The claim of Israelite ancestry is widespread among Kashmiris, who cite historical records and the similarity of geographical names and cultural and social traditions.’ • ‘It has also been proposed that many of the rural tribes of Kashmir are of Greek descent as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great. It is thought that many of Alexander’s conscripts and soldiers settled in parts of India, including Kashmir, and intermixed with the local population once his conquests ended in India. This hypothesis has been supported by archaeological evidence of ancient Greek presence in Kashmir. For instance, a number of ancient Greek coins that date from shortly after the time of Alexander the Great’s presence in India have been found in Kashmir. Furthermore, there is evidence that a number of Grecian words have been adopted into the local Kashmiri vernacular. There were also multiple Indo-Greek kingdoms, which were the remnants of further Hellenistic conquests into India that ruled in what is now modern-day northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The rule of the Indo-Greek kingdoms began in the Second Century BC and continued until the early First Century AD, furthering the notion of a substantial ancient Greek influence in Kashmir. It is thus reasonable to hypothesize that the current Kashmiri population may possess significant Greek ancestry.’ The authors claim that no genome-wide analyses had earlier been performed to ascertain the degree to which Jewish or Greek genetic

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contributions exist in the Kashmiri population, and, as such, their study was possibly the first of its kind. Some important excerpts of the research methodology are summarised as follows: • ‘DNA was collected from 15 Kashmiri individuals from the Kashmir Valley who provided written consent. The collection and study of DNA from these individuals was approved by institutional review boards at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences and the University of Utah School of Medicine (IRB 00017665). The families of these individuals have resided in the Kashmir Valley for at least three generations and have no history of marriages outside of the valley or to a non-Kashmiri ….’ • ‘A large number of previously studied individuals (2457) from 20 European countries, including Greek and other Balkan populations, were included to test whether the Kashmiri population contains Greek admixture.’ • ‘Several methods were used to test for evidence of global Greek or Jewish ancestry in the Kashmiri population ….’ The excerpts of the results are summarised as follows: • ‘The principal components analysis (PCA) demonstrates clear genetic patterning of populations in European, South Asian, and East Asian subcontinental groups … A number of populations fall between the subcontinental genetic clusters (North African, West Asian, South Asian, and some East Asian populations).’ • ‘The Kashmiri samples are grouped near other previously studied groups from northern India and Pakistan, which indicates similar genetic ancestry … the mean principal component 1 and 2 coordinate of a previously studied population in Kashmir (15 Kashmiri Pandits) is found to plot in the centre of the collected Kashmiri cluster, indicating similar heritage and validating the quality of the Kashmiri genotypes.’ • ‘A number of populations residing in nearby Pakistan also show genetic similarity to the Kashmiris, including the Burusho, Balochi, Brahui, Sindhi, and Kalash.’ • ‘Principal components 1 and 2 also show that the Indo-European ethno-linguistic populations from northern India lie on a cline

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between western European populations and Dravidian ethno-­ linguistic groups of southern India. This pattern suggests that Indo-­ European ethno-linguistic groups of northern India, including the Kashmiris, share a complex ancestral history with both west Eurasian and Indian populations.’ • ‘None of the Kashmiris clustered near the northern Greek or Sephardic Jewish (Greece and Turkey) populations in principal components 1 and 2.’ • ‘While PCA and Fst can robustly determine how genetically similar distinct populations or individuals are to each other, they do not directly estimate individual ancestry proportions.’ • ‘None of the ancestral components of the Kashmiris appear to be derived specifically from Greeks or Sephardic Jews, which would make the Kashmiris appear dissimilar from nearby populations.’ • ‘The ancestry profile found in the Kashmiris is virtually indistinguishable from the 15 previously studied Kashmiri Pandit samples.’ • ‘Our results do not support the hypothesis of a substantial genome-­ wide Greek or Sephardic ancestral contribution to the Kashmiri population … In addition, we found no evidence of substantial Greek admixture in the Burusho, Kalash, or Pathans, which have all been suggested to have ancestry derived from Alexander the Great’s armies and the Greeks … results suggest that the Kashmiris are very similar genetically to other geographically proximate populations … the Kashmiris derive a significant amount of ancestry from Indian/ South Asian and western Eurasian sources. These results, together with those of previous investigations, suggest that substantial Greek or Jewish admixture did not occur specifically in the Kashmiri population. Instead, the results suggest that the Kashmiri population, and nearby surrounding populations, share genetic ancestry broadly with west Eurasian and South Asian populations.’ • ‘There are, however, a number of possible reasons why recent Greek or Jewish admixture might be undetected in these analyses … Another potential explanation for the lack of Greek and Jewish ancestry in the Kashmiris is that the Kashmiris sampled here are not representative of those who lived when the supposed admixture event took place more than 2000 years ago. The same is true of the putative Greek and Jewish ancestral populations. As previously discussed, there is archaeological evidence to suggest that the ancient Greeks were in the Kashmir region. Another limitation of this study

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is the small Kashmiri sample size. It is reassuring, however, that this sample is genetically very similar to the 15 previously studied Kashmiri Pandits.’ • ‘It is also possible that the Southern European and Mediterranean admixture seen in the Kashmiri individuals represents Greek or Sephardic Jewish ancestry. However, these patterns are not Kashmiri-­ specific and are seen in a number of nearby Indo-European ethnolinguistic populations in northern India and Pakistan. Taken together, these findings suggest strongly that the Kashmiri population is genetically similar to nearby populations and does not have a distinctly different ancestral origin.’ To conclude, therefore, while the results of the aforementioned study don’t prove, or disprove, the Greek and Jewish ancestry in the Kashmiris, it does leave some room for continuing with the common beliefs in terms of the limitations of the study, that is, small sample size and different timelines of admixtures. The researchers do concede that the Southern European and Mediterranean admixture, as seen in the Kashmiri individuals, may represent (indirectly) Greek or Sephardic Jewish ancestry.

Cultural Transformation Cambridge dictionary defines the word ‘culture’ as follows (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019): • The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time; and • the way of life of a particular people, esp. as shown in their ordinary behaviour and habits, their attitudes toward each other, and their moral and religious beliefs. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term ‘culture’ as follows (Merriam-Webster, 2019): • The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; • The characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time;

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• The set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic; and • The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. All these definitions can be used to assess the transitional culture of Kashmiri Pandits in the past half a century or so, in particular, due to a sudden mass exodus three decades ago from their native homeland of Kashmir and their subsequent global spread. Prior to their exodus from Kashmir, Kashmiri Pandits reflected a cultural uniqueness. Their Kashmiri language, comprising a mix of Sanskrit and Persian words, was unique in itself. So were their spirituality, customs and rituals. But all that has changed significantly in the last three decades. Change is only constant in the human history, and that law applies precisely to a fast-changing culture of Kashmir Pandits. Given a fast recent cultural change of Kashmiri Pandits, it would be more appropriate to discuss this term in terms of decades, such as the culture of the 1960s, 1980s, and so on. The rate of change related to their culture and general lifestyle accelerated after wired electricity and piped water supply reached their homes in the early twentieth century. Significant changes occurred in their general lifestyle and attitude to living at a relatively much faster pace since about early 1960s. Before that also, changes had been occurring but at a relatively much slower pace, as the valley sits in a geographically  land-­ locked  setting. Education, being the prime focus of their life—both for earning livelihood and knowing the wider world—catalysed the changes, as did mass communication—such as radio and television—and their travel outside the valley. They kept embracing modernisation with open arms as the world moved forward. With advances in mass communication and mass transportation, catalysed by their intrinsic curious nature and thirst for knowledge, their vision and mindset kept on broadening with each successive generation. As such, within about five or six decades, they transformed from Kashmiri Pandits to Global Pandits culturally, physically and spiritually. Whilst some natural changes can be reasonably expected to occur in any ethnic group, mainly due to education, affluence and advances in science and technology, in the case of Kashmiri Pandits, their cultural dilution, rather erosion or degradation to be apt, has been exacerbated due to their

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sudden loss of home and their subsequent conscious efforts to adapt and fit in with their new host communities for survival. To make things much more difficult for their cultural survival, their new host communities, spread throughout the world, are relatively culturally much stronger than Kashmiri Pandits. For example, in India, Dogras, Punjabis, Gujaratis, Biharis, Maharashtrians, Bengalis and South Indians have successfully preserved their ethnic cultures—languages and food at least—to a much larger extent than Kashmiri Pandits have, primarily because they are geographically located farther from India’s north-­western border and West Asia, and, as such, they have not witnessed much influence of the foreign cultures and the historical onslaughts of invaders from West Asia and Eastern Europe. In both India and outside, the new host cultures have been brought into their homes primarily by their younger generations, leaving their older generation with not much choice but to embrace such new cultures, leading to a gradual dilution, or even complete replacement in many cases, of their original culture over the past few decades. The following sections are aimed to provide the current generations of Kashmiri Pandits with some idea about a gradual and subtle shift in their culture over the last half a century or so. As discussed in the subsequent paragraphs of this section, it would not be wrong to say that the culture of earlier Kashmiri Pandits who lived in Kashmir has diluted significantly and is poorly reflected, as a minor percentage, in the lifestyle of their current generations that live outside Kashmir. As such, the culture of current Global Pandits from Kashmir is a faint reflection of their Kashmiri Pandit ancestors. If the trend of dilution continues as it has, it is not hard to imagine that, in a few decades, their younger generations will suffer from a severe identity crisis. An Evening in a Kashmiri Pandit Household (1960s–1980s) Most Kashmiri Pandit families would be together at home by the time it would be dark. As most Kashmiri Pandits belonged to working class—professionals (engineers, doctors, lawyers), teachers and clerks—most working men would be home by dusk, in both winter and summer months. As educational institutions would be closed for about 2 to 2.5 months, from about 15 December to 1 March, for winter vacations, sometimes extended by up to two more weeks due to heavy snowfall events towards the end of February or early March, teachers would be home during those three long

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months of winter. As for government office workers, they would be home generally by about 5 pm or so after leaving for work by about 9 am. In Kashmir, due to mountainous ranges surrounding the valley, the days are shorter than plains at the same time of the year. As such, sun sets earlier in Kashmir than in the plains. In summer months, the effect of mountains on the duration of the day is not felt very profoundly, but in winter months, the daylight hours reduce considerably, and it is usually dark by about 5.30 pm even on a clear day. On cloudy days, homes and shops would switch the  lights on by about 5  pm, but only if they had power supply. Otherwise, they would rely on candles and kerosene lanterns for light in those long evening hours, especially in winter months due to a low generation of hydro-electric power. Soon after dusk, many families would sit together and offer sandhya-­ paath (evening prayers), in which they would usually recite Sanskrit hymns, such as Indrakshi Mantra, Gauri and Shiva Strotra, Shiva Mahimnapaar Strotra or shlokas from Panchastavi. (In complete contrast to the past, these days families don’t sit together. If at all, they will keep busy with their mobile phones and television in the privacy of their individual rooms.) In the 1960s to 1980s, electric power supply in Kashmir was always plagued with low-voltage issues and frequent power outages. Localities would have their own designated hours of power outages on designated days of the week, so people would be prepared for the evenings with alternative sources of lighting in their homes. By the time of their exodus in early 1990, many affluent people had those noisy mini-power generation units (diesel gensets) at home and car batteries to power their mini television sets. Kashmir has traditionally relied on hydro-electric power generation. In winter months, due to a much reduced water flow in the feeder-rivers (low discharge), power supply would be heavily impaired. On most evenings, people would do their chores in candlelight or kerosene lanterns. In a nutshell, evening hours would be well spent and invested in family activities, such as prayers, education and creative art. On most evenings in Kashmir, Pandit families would huddle together in the common living room of their house, exchange their notes of the day and discuss things together. Elders would tell stories of morality and bravery—from history, literature and scriptures—to their children, as part of their informal home-­ education for character-building. In addition, children would be informally tested in puzzles, mental mathematics and English grammar with an objective to sharpen their intellect. In the later years, board games—such as chess, ludo and snake and ladders—as well as other activities—such as crosswords and word-building—would feature as part of the  typical

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evening family activities. Mothers would knit and do crochet, while children and men would be busy in the aforementioned activities. School students would complete their homework in the evening. Many children would also be tutored by their parents. Elders would read newspapers and magazines, such as India Today, Bhavan’s Journal, Blitz, Reader’s Digest, Illustrated Weekly, Filmfare, Sarita and Dharamyug. Amongst the newspapers, Indian Express was the most popular newspaper, followed by the Times of India and Hindustan Times. The popular comics and comic characters amongst the children were Phantom, Mandrake the magician, Lot-pot, Parag and Chandamama. Men would habitually listen to radio—Radio Kashmir, the  BBC, the Voice of America, Radio Ceylon, Radio Moscow, as well as the All India Radio and Vividh Bharti—to stay in touch with the world affairs. Many people would excitedly look forward to listening to Binaca Geetmala on radio on Wednesday evenings, hosted by veterans, Ameen Sayani and Tabassum. Radio Kashmir would feature interesting radio plays on Monday and Thursday evenings, played by veteran radio artists, such as Mr Som Nath Sadhu and Mr Poshkar Nath Bhan, which people would listen to with their eyes closed, while drifting in imagination into the story. This would enhance their creative side. (In contrast, these days, television plays don’t leave much for imagination). Popular sitcoms, such Zoon Dubb and Hawa Mahal, were aired daily for raising current issues. Another daily radio programme, Vaadi kee Awaaz, was aimed to connect with Kashmiris living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Dinner would generally be served around 9 to 10  pm. Most people would retire for the night by 11 pm. Dwellings and Household Items Within just about half a century, Kashmiri Pandits had moved from their original multistoried shared pitch-roofed dwellings, with a common front courtyard, to individual flat-roofed houses and apartment dwellings. The traditional houses, with fine clayey mud-plastered walls and wooden beams, a common wooden and mud-plastered staircase and a common thakür küth (worship room), would be home to two to three families of four to six members each. The house roofs changed steadily over the years, from original thatched mud roofs to wooden shingle roofs, then to galvanised iron corrugated sheeted roofs and, finally, after their exodus, to flat reinforced-concrete rooftops.

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The window shutter in the roof to allow one to step onto the roof—for undertaking roof repairs and clearing snow during winter—would be called woga. In the woga area, many people would sun-cook vegetable pickles, such as monja anchaar, in mud-sealed earthen pots, called martabaan. The top-most storey of their original house in Kashmir, called kaenee, would usually comprise a large hall, covering most of the footprint of the house, and a large kitchen and a small store. It would be used for summer-­ living as well as for hosting weddings and other social functions of the host family as well as their neighbours and relatives. The ground floor, called wot, would be used for winter-living. Some relatively wealthier families would move between kaenee and wot twice a year. The roof gable area, called braer-kaenee, would be used as a storage space to stock firewood (zün), driftwood (hukh) and coal for use in long winter months; other provisions such as large bags of rice and cereals, sun-­ dried vegetables and fruit; and kangrees (caned clayey fire pots) and numerous other household items. The family ghar-divta (house deity) was believed to live in the braer-kaenee. The word braer means a cat. As such, every roof attic had a resident cat or several cats. Cats would take care of rodents, called gagür. (Many Pandit families have been known by their nicknames: braer [distorted as Braroo], and gagür [distorted as Gagroo]. Some Pandit  surnames like Kher or Khar are derivatives of word Khar, meaning a donkey. A species of multi-legged insects, which would breed in damp areas around the kitchen or the bathroom—about 1 to 1.5  cm long, greyish-pink in colour—are also called khar.) Some rooms would be partitioned by a flexible/collapsible wooden board system, called shaansheen, to create two separate sleeping areas for night. As the walls would be much thicker in those traditional olden houses than the houses these days, up to about 60 cm thick recesses would be created in the walls, called taakhüch, which would serve as shelves to keep lanterns and candle stands, books and other household items. Some wealthy families had also taakhaan, which is a partial basement, where they would also have a hammaam, which is a bathroom with running hot water, heated by wood-fired dhaan (indigenous stove made of brick and clay) in the kitchen. Taakhaan would be used as the main living area in winter months. The floor (called pathür) would traditionally be mud-plastered, over which basic flooring would comprise two different types of woven grass

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mats: wagüv (about 2 to 3 m in size and 2 cm thick, relatively coarse) and patij (about 1.5 to 2  m in size and 1  cm thick, relatively smoother). Relatively wealthier families would also lay woollen tchhadar or colourful embroidered namdas and gabbas over wagüv or patij. Richer families would also use expensive Kashmiri or Persian carpets to cover their floors. Most people would roll down thick cotton-filled mattresses on the covered floor to make their beds for sleeping during night. Some families had proper wooden beds. The beddings—mattresses, sheets, thick quilts, woollen blankets and pillows—would be neatly rolled back and stacked in one corner of a designated room to re-create the living area for the day. Latrines, called taich, would initially comprise outdoor dinghies, which were cleared on a regular basis by farming guys, who would use the excreta as night soil (manure) on the farms. With time, dinghies changed into outdoor water closets, gradually making their way into the main house. Bathrooms, like latrines, would be constructed outdoors, immediately adjacent to latrines. Some families had no bathrooms; they would use galvanised iron bathing tubs. Gradually, bathroom also made its way into the house, as modern toilets. Prior to bathrooms, many people would wash themselves in streams and rivers, even in cold winter months. Anecdotally, many young married ladies would regularly visit their parental homes for washing themselves over a number of years after their wedding, reasons being shame and/or lack of bathing facilities at their in-laws. The shared common front yard, called aangün, would be used to host social wedding functions, as a playing area—for playing cricket, badminton, marbles and so forth by the kids—and for drying vegetables and grains placed over large cotton or canvas sheets and wagüv or patij. Most aangüns had a stone kanz, which is granitic stone pounding vessel for breaking paddy, dry chillies and other grains. The main entrance to the house would be about 20 cm to 1.5 m higher than the aangun level. Depending upon the level difference, stone cobbled steps would lead to braandh, which is the raised level area immediately in front of the main entrance to the house. The door shutter at the entrance would be called burr. The wooden latch on the entrance door was called tor, and the sliding steel bolt system was called künda. The main door frame and shutters would be artistically carved by craftsmen.  People would remove their footwear outside on the braaandh, or just after entering the house, in the hallway, called wüz.

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Kitchen and Appliances Just about 50 years ago, home cooking in Kashmiri Pandit homes would be done on traditional wood-fired dhan (fireplace), which was made from bricks, lined with mud plaster. Most kitchens had two- or three-­ mouthed dhaan. Gradually, other cooking stoves, such as dhamchool (stove fired by sawdust), followed by kerosene pressure stoves, kerosene wick stoves, electric heaters and finally, in the 1970s, LPG stoves entered the kitchen. (In contrast, although LPG is still used in most Kashmiri Pandit kitchens, microwaves, ovens and induction cook-tops are also widely used these days.) Every kitchen had saundar, about 1 m by 1.5 m in size, which was an area designated for washing dishes and kitchen vessels. Traditionally, rice was cooked in tin-lined rounded bronze vessels, called deechas. Vegetables and meat would be cooked in tin-lined open bronze vessels, called bhoguns, or even in clay pots (laej). Both deechas and bhoguns came in several sizes and shapes, depending on the quantity of food to be cooked. Gradually, bronzed utensils gave way to aluminium and steel vessels. Sunken bowl-shaped plates made of bronze, called thaals (around 45 cm in diameter), were used for eating meals, which changed gradually to flat steel thaals (around 30  cm), then to plastic plates and finally to chinaware. (Use of chinaware was not acceptable and not considered to be hygienic in most  Pandit households, possibly due to the use of animal bones in making chinaware.) Other common bronze utensils included gadva (used for storing water and walnuts during the festival of Herath) and tumba (for making kahwa tea and ironing purposes). These disappeared with time. Tea was taken in bronze cups, called khose. A khose that would resemble a wine glass would be called a kyanzi-khose. People would hold a khose with a handkerchief or a hand towel to save their hand from getting burnt. (Many families adopted their nickname khosa as their surname.) The common measure for quantifying rice and other grains was called langun, a carved wooden vessel with a handle, which had a holding capacity of 1 to 2 litres. A large trapezoidal winnow, called a shüp, about 30 to 45 com in size and made of thin bamboo shoots, would be used to clean rice and other cereals.

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Every home had a stone grinder, called gratta, about 45 cm in diameter, which comprised two circular chiselled granitic stone plates (each about 5 cm thick), with a hole at the centre around a central pivot and a handle on the periphery, which was generally used for grinding water chestnuts, rice and other cereals, pulses and spices. In addition, granitic stone vessels (5 to 15 cm in diameter), called wakhul, would be used for pounding spices like cardamom, cinnamon, chillies, mint and hakh, with an oblong granitic stone, called kaaj watth, with sizes corresponding to the capacity of the wakhül. (Many Pandit families adopted nicknames such as hakh and wakhül as their surnames.) In summer, people would use a colourful handheld fan, called vaavij, with about 20 cm diameter blade and a 30 cm long handle. The blade and handle were usually made of bamboo shavings and shoots. Usually vaavij would have a colourful frilled cloth border as decoration and for greater effectiveness. With easy hand movements, the fan blade would be made to rotate around the handle. In summer, drinking water would be stored in near-spherical-shaped earthen vessels, called nott (about 30 cm in diameter) and mutth (about 60 cm in diameter). Due to a slow seepage of water through the pores of the vessel and a gradual evaporation of the seeped water from the outer surface of the earthen vessel, the water inside the vessel would remain cool. Water would also be stored in aluminium and steel buckets. In winter, kangris—about 150 cm diameter earthen pots with woven caned exterior and handles, carrying slow burning charcoal/lignite— would be used as individual heaters. Each member of the family would have his/her own kangri. Generally, the burning charcoal would be sourced from the kitchen dhaan. Some people would also use a central wood-fired or coal-fired steel heater, called bukharee, which would also be used for cooking delicacies. The bukharee—about 30 to 45 cm in diameter and 60 to 75 cm in height—would be installed at the centre of the living room and fitted with an overhead steel pipeline measuring 10 cm in diameter and L-shaped, for sending the smoke outside the home. When the bukharee would be burning, the family members would only wear lighter clothes inside the common room and not use individual kangris. Tea would be cooked in samavaar, a jug-shaped, tin-lined bronze teapot, usually about 15 cm in diameter and 30 cm tall, with a 5 cm diameter central shaft for placing burning charcoal and the surrounding annular space used for boiling water and tea leaves. The ashes fall through a perforated partition into a basal space.

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All these household items—kangri, langun, gratta, wakhul, kaaj watth— were part a distinct Kashmiri Pandits culture in Kashmir. After exodus, everything has changed. Cooking and Heating Fuel Traditionally, mainly firewood, called zyun, was used for cooking. However, other alternative sources were also used from time to time, sometimes several around the same time on different stoves. These included: • Wood coal (lignite), called tchinni, • Chunks of dried driftwood, called hukh, • Semi-burnt leaves collected during the autumn season, called punn-­ tchinni and • Dried corn cobs, called kashirr. Food and Beverages Kashmiris fast acquire the local culinary habits, be it within India or overseas. Their food habits have changed significantly in the last three decades. Gone are the days when one would enter any Kashmiri Pandit’s home in Kashmir and be served almost the same kind of food as he/she would be served at his own home in Kashmir. Food would not look or taste any different between the families. However, now, anything can be expected to be served in any Kashmir Pandit home, and most likely it will not be typically Kashmiri. Looking back, in Kashmir, the traditional diet of Kashmiri Pandits normally comprised a mix of Satvik and Rajsik types of foods. A variety of seasonal green leafy vegetables—with nearly a dozen types of hakh (kailan in Chinese and saag in Hindi)—and boiled rice, with zaamüt dodh (plain yoghurt), comprised their staple food. In addition, siders like monja aanchaar (pickle of Kohl Rabi) and marchhavangun chatin (ground chilly with salt) would feature on their thaal (plate). Amongst seasonal green leafy vegetables, sochhal, vosta-hakh, kaanül hakh, al-kanij, leesa, obüj and koshür palak were very popular.  In Perth, Western Australia, the author’s family delightfully cook hakh, which is sold at Chinese vegetable shops, and monja a few times in a week. They also enjoy cooking sochhal and obuj, which grow as weed  in open areas  and along the river.

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On the days of fasting, they would eat only one  meal a day, which would generally comprise boiled rice with moong daal (mung bean lentils) with nadür (lotus stalk), dum-aalloo (a deep-fried potato dish cooked in oil and red chilli powder), aaloo churma (French fries, with a dash of red chilli powder) and other vegetables. Kashmiri dum-aalloo, cooked in its original form (i.e. without any garlic, tomato or onions), has retained its traditional importance to this day. (Monga is a Pandit surname, originally a nickname.) On a routine basis, green leafy vegetables, lotus and turnips would be cooked with lamb’s meat. Lamb’s meat, on its own, would be cooked in a range of delicacies, such as Rogan-josh, Kaliya, Muttch, Yakhni, Kabargah and Chok-tchrvan. (Note that none of these meat dishes would be traditionally cooked with garlic, tomato or onions.) Kashmiri Pandits were quite fond of local fresh water fish, such as Schizothorax and common carp, which usually came from various local water bodies (Dal Lake, Wular Lake, Aanchar Lake, River Jhelum and Taelbal nallah). In late 1980s, trout from glacier-fed rivers (Liddhar and Sindh), as well as from the local government trout farms, was also consumed. Deep-fried fish would be generally cooked in spicy form (oil and red chili powder), with large, thick slices of monja (Khol-rabi), gogja (turnip) or nadür (lotus stalk). (Note that, unlike Kashmiri Muslims, Kashmiri Pandits would not add tomato, onion, coriander or garlic to their fish.) Soupy dried fish (called hogaard), cooked with hakh, was also a delicacy. Many Kashmiris would also cook fish fingerlings (güran) with tomato. Kashmir Pandits would not generally consume smoked fish (fhyri), consumed generally by their Muslim cousins. In winter months, some families would also consume pacchin, which were Siberian migratory birds shot by professional hunters under license issued by the government department of Games & Fisheries. Until the mid-1970s or so, chicken was not generally consumed by Kashmiri Pandits at their home, as it was considered to be impure and tamsik. Food would be served from choka (kitchen), and the thaal carrying food would be placed and eaten on a shallow wooden mini-table, called chooik. Each member had his/her own chooik. After meal, each chooik would be rinsed and air-dried for the next meal. This practice slowly changed into eating buffet meal where all food bowls were placed on a large printed plastic or cloth sheet, around which all members of the family would sit and serve themselves. Gradually, plastic/cloth sheet got replaced by dining table in many homes.

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Kashmiri Pandits are traditionally rice-eaters. They would consume locally grown Kashmiri rice (not basmati rice), which is aromatic, starchy and has more rounded grains. Kashmiri rice, called tamül, comes in various exquisite varieties, such as Ishkabüdij, Ghyavtheer and Zag tamül, each with a distinct flavour. The starch level varies with the type of rice. Unless a person would be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, in which case homemade flat breads—roti or chapatti—would be generally recommended to that person, boiled rice, called batta, was the preferred cereal.  Paratha bread, called ghyav chot, would be served to special guests along with minced lamb balls (called mutchh) on special occasions. On a daily basis, traditionally bread would come from professional bakers, called kandür. Depending upon the time of the day and the occasion, kandür chot would come in a range of shapes and sizes. Kashmiri kandür would prepare different types of breads in the morning and different types of breads for the evening tea, which included crispy and crunchy külcha (with or without white poppy seeds), tael-wor (bagels with sesame seeds) and katlum (puffed breads). Not many people knew how to make chapatti at home using wheat flour. However, consumption of flat-breads made from rice flour and maize flour was quite common, especially on special cultural functions and religious occasions. The traditional Kashmiri tea would include sweet Moghal-chay, which is a green leafy tea (also called kahwa) in the mornings (around 7 to 8 am), which would also contain saffron, green cardamom and cinnamon for health benefits and flavouring purposes. Pinkish, salted sheer-chay would be taken in the evenings (around 4 to 5 pm). Traditionally, tea would be prepared in a samavaar and served in a khose, both made of bronze. Gradually, khose changed to steel cups, plastic cups and china mugs; samavaar changed into electric kettle and open tea pot with time. Breakfast would traditionally comprise Moghal-chay and kandür-chot (baker’s bread, such as girda, lavas and chot). Children would be given half a kandür-chot and elders one complete kandür-chot. With time, traditional chay-chot in the morning was replaced by a more North Indian type nashta, which comprised a vegetarian or meat dish, eaten with a kandür-­ chot or homemade paratha or fülka. Gradually, nashta transformed into a more Western-style breakfast and initially comprised hard- or half-boiled eggs or omelette, with toasted bread and butter, transitioning gradually to Maggi noodles and then moving slowly on to cereal and milk, with or without fruit. Currently, it can comprise anything; there are no hard and fast practices.

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During the years of Moghal-chay and kandür-chot in the morning (up to the mid-1970s or so), most working people and school students would eat rice (batta and süin), which would include white boiled rice with cooked vegetables or mutton, or both cooked together, around 8 to 8.30  am immediately before leaving home. School students would also carry the same batta in a tiffin carrier as their lunch at school. Plain yoghurt, called zaamüt dodh, but mistakenly called curd by most Kashmiris in English, comprised an essential part of meal and when batta (rice) was eaten, both in summer and cold winter month. (One just could not separate a Kashmiri Pandit from plain yoghurt even when it would be snowing outside or even in sub-zero temperatures. Non-Kashmiri Indians would wonder in disbelief how Kashmiri Pandits would delightfully consume yoghurt (dahi in Hindi) in cold winter months.) Kashmiris would cook in mustard oil, as mustard grows in Kashmir. Cooking oil would be stored in large 40 to 50 litre mud-lined spherical earthen vessels, called teel mutths. Many families would produce their own cooking oil from mustard seeds (called teel-gogül). Amongst commercially available oils, P-mark (from Moga, Punjab) was the most popular brand of oil used for cooking. Gradually, some families replaced P-mark oil with more fashionable  and trendy cooking  oils, such as Saffola and Dhara, understandably for health benefits. Traditionally, until their exodus in 1990, not many Kashmiris would consume coriander, garlic and tomatoes. After their exodus, Pandits gradually acquired varied tastes and adopted many non-Kashmiri food ingredients and eating habits from other regions of India. For example, South Indians generally don’t use coriander in masala dosa and uppama, but Pandits, out of their newfound love for coriander and garlic, do tend to add these lavishly to both. Sundried Vegetables and Fruit During winter months, the atmospheric temperature in Kashmir would drop significantly and generally range between about 2 and 10 degrees Celsius. The ground would be practically frozen, or wet and muddy or covered with snow. The sky would look depressing grey and murky. Kashmir would be cut-off from the rest of world for weeks during heavy snowfall events, which would cause the closure of the only highway (NH1A) that links Kashmir with Jammu. On bad weather days, before the arrival of turbo-jet planes, even connectivity through aeroplanes would become heavily impaired for days together. As such, the arrival of

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provisions, including fruit and vegetables into Kashmir, from Jammu and the rest of India, would be at the mercy of weather god. Kashmiri Pandits would traditionally sun-dry many fruits and vegetables at home in late summer and autumn months for their consumption during harsh and long winter months, when not many locally grown vegetables would be available. The most common sun-dried vegetables were gourds, eggplants (brinjal or aubergines), bitter gourds, chillies and turnips. The most common sun-dried fruit were apples and tomatoes. For sun-drying, slices of vegetables or fruits, as also marigold flowers for use in traditional religious rituals and red Kashmiri chillies, would be threaded together in the form of large garlands, about 0.5 to 0.7 m long, and hung in the sun on open verandas and balconies exposed to sunlight. Dried gourds (called ull-hutchi), dried eggplants (called vangun-­hutchi) and dried turnips (gogji-hutchi) are traditionally considered as Kashmiri delicacies. The former two are cooked with each other, but, individually, all three are also cooked with lamb’s meat. Dried whole chillies would be used in cooking, but these were also used in the ground and powdered form. Fasting Days Every month, Kashmiri Pandit elders, particularly ladies, would observe a number of fasts (called faka). On fasting days, they would not consume anything that contained meat (süin), chicken (kakür), fish (gaard), cheese/paneer (tchaamun) or eggs (thool). However, amongst animal products, only milk, yoghurt and ghee (purified butter) were permitted for use. Fasting generally meant eating only one-time meal, from around 1 pm to 4 pm. Some common fasts observed by most mothers every month were: • Aetthum (the eight day of waxing moon), • Pünim (the full moon day), • Mavas (the no-moon day) and • Saenkraath. In addition, twice a month, the lady of the house would observe the fortnightly fast of kah, on the 11th day of waning and waxing moon, which would be without the intake of any cereals and pulses.

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Most older men and women would also observe full-day fast on Zaram-­ satam (Shri Krishna Janam Saptami). On that day, after the moonrise, they would eat only fruit and pakoras (vegetables and fruit), made from chestnut flour (gari-ot) or buckwheat flour. Similar full-day fast was also observed on the Herath day (Shivratri). Most elders, particularly women, would observe complete fast, without consumption of cereal and pulses, on Navratri, the festival of Mother Goddess, over the first nine day of Kashmiri New Year, called Navreh. This fasting is known as Nav-Durga faka. Anecdotally, some Pandits, particularly the women folk, would also observe fasts in tandem with their Muslim neighbours and friends—on some or all days—of the month of Ramadhan, the fasting month of Muslims, out of their own volition and faith. Clothing The Kashmiri dress is ferün. Ladies would wear taranga and men would wear saafa or dustaar (a turban) as their headgear. During winters, people would wear a number of layers comprising an undershirt and a shirt, plus one or two jumpers (sweaters) and a woollen (tweed) ferün, which can resemble a jumbo-size (about 1 to 1.5 m wide), knee-length shirt. Unless people would be working, they would keep their arms inside their ferün with its sleeves dangling freely outside the ferün. Inside the ferün, they would also hold a kangri. Gradually, for safety reasons and ease of working, in many homes, kangris were replaced by flannel-cased rubber hot water bottles. Every winter, one would hear about many house fires caused by kangris, as many people would fall asleep in their bed while still holding on to their kangri, which sometimes tipped over and burnt their thick cotton mattress and quilt. Anecdotally, some forms of skin cancers, especially in the thigh and abdomen areas of the body, caused possibly due to extensive use of kangris close to bare skin around these areas, had started becoming news items in Kashmir in the 1980s. Birthday Functions Traditionally, Kashmiri Pandits would celebrate birthday anniversaries based on lunar calendar. That is, if a person was born on the eight day of waxing moon in a particular month, the birthday anniversary would be

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celebrated on the same day of waxing moon in that month. Over time, gradually, it has shifted more to solar calendar, mainly for convenience and the ease of remembering the day. Some people, however, mark both days. On the day of the birthday, traditionally, the birthday boy or girl would wear new clothes and would not eat anything till the ritualistic birthday puja would be performed early morning by a professional priest, called Brahma jee. The puja would take up to 2 hours to be completed. It was performed on a clean woollen blanket. Yellow rice, called taher, mixed with mustard oil and salt, was the main item around which the puja would be performed. Other delicacies, both meat- and vegetable-based, would also be cooked for consumption with taher. Ordinarily, turmeric, known for its health benefits, would be used for yellow colouring; however, some relatively more affluent Pandits would also use saffron, also for health benefits. After the completion of the  puja, taher would be ritually  distributed to every member of the household and also ceremonially distributed in the neighbourhood. Kashmiri Pandits would characteristically cook taher to celebrate all good events and happy occasions, as a mark of good omen, and to thank God for blessings. On birthdays, families would invite their close relatives and friends to their home over lunch or dinner. The most common gift would be an undershirt, a handkerchief or, in special cases only, a piece of cloth for stitching a shirt and/or a pair of trousers. (Newly-wedded men would receive a suit-length expensive piece of cloth.) Symbolically, the guest would also offer a handful of green cardamoms, mixed with almonds and sultans, to the birthday boy/girl and to the head of the family, while hugging and loudly uttering the words, ‘Wohorwod Mubarak,’ usually with a kiss on the forehead. Over time, birthday celebrations have become more westernised  for Kashmiri Pandits. Nowadays, most people prefer to go out to eat and celebrate this day with their friends and family, instead of performing  the traditional birthday  puja and inviting guests over lunch and dinner  and  cooking for them. This shift marks one of the most significant changes in their culture. Wedding Functions Wedding is known as khandur or nethar in Kashmiri. Until mid-1980s, wedding functions would be performed usually at homes. Where required, neighbours would generally lend their aangun and kaenee. Large utensils for wedding functions—bronze thaals, deechas, konda, pahraath, toors—would be collected by the family members and

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neighbours from their immediate neighbourhood and relatives living elsewhere. Large quantities of food during wedding and other social functions would be cooked by professional cooks, called vaazas, on six- to eight-­ feet-­long firewood ovens, called wura, made for the purpose using bricks, with mud lining. Guests would be served while seated. Two people, generally relatives and neighbours of the host, would help the guests to wash their hands while sitting. One of them would carry a large basin and the other a jug of water and soap, with a towel sitting on his shoulder. After washing their hands, a clean,  3-feet wide, white cotton sheet would be rolled out  in front of them and a large bronze thaal placed in front of each guest. Thereafter, a beeline of a team of servers—children and young people from the host family, relatives and neighbours—would serve them with food and many additional servings. The used thaals would then be collected by the serving team and taken for cleaning done by another team, who would use ashes and sawdust for cleaning, before rinsing them with water and finally wiping them  dry with a towel. The used white sheets would then also be rolled back and fully shaken of food particles and cleaned outside in the open before being reused for serving another batch of diners. Originally, the groom’s family would carry their own kahwa in the wedding procession (baraat) to serve their baraatees, with the intent to reduce the pressure on the bride’s family. The Kashmiri married women’s symbolic ornaments, daejhor and atahor, would traditionally be made of flowers. With affluence, since about the early twentieth century, they have been made with 22-carat gold. With time, however, atahor has become purely ornamental and much shorter (one-fourth to one-tenth of its original length) and daejhor has become purely symbolic and much smaller (one-fourth to one-sixth of its original size and weight). Culturally, both carry a spiritual importance. Cultural Parameters In the simplest terms, the culture of Kashmir Pandits can be assessed through various parameters, such as their language, food, traditions, religious rituals and the spiritual bent of mind. Have all these parameters remained constant with time? No, all these parameters have steadily diluted with time, and with each passing generation and, in fact, with each passing decade. The process of dilution has been exacerbated by their sudden mass exodus in early 1990. They simply camouflaged and blended in with their

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host communities for local acceptance and survival. They quickly learnt the local languages, adapted to local cultures and  adopted local foods, festivals and religious practices wherever they settled on the planet. Their characteristic global thought transformed into a hybridised global culture, uniquely their own. They are now by and large multilingual and multicultural. Do Kashmir Pandits currently have one culture? The answer is no. They have adopted a range of cultures, each having a distinct shade of a local culture. Their younger generation don’t speak much Kashmiri; in fact, hardly in most cases, as they feel shy! In India, most of them speak in Hindi and English languages even amongst themselves. Many people alarmingly consider speaking in Kashmiri language as a mark of backwardness. Their food is no longer the same as their ancestors. In Kashmir, not many Kashmiri Pandits would consume chicken, garlic and onions up to the 1960s. After exodus, however, not only these foods but also other animal foods have made entry into their kitchen. Their use of garlic, tomato and coriander has increased phenomenally in the last three decades since their exodus. Many Global Pandits consume all imaginable kinds of edible animal foods. Unlike the homes of their ancestors before 1990, alcohol in all its forms has founded a regular place in most Pandit homes. Their present  lavish and relatively  complex  wedding functions  hardly resemble austere and relatively much simpler wedding functions of their ancestors in Kashmir. Such pomp and show, with din and the Punjabi bhangra, with international cuisine served in a buffet style, and alcohol served freely on trolleys, reflect a new Kashmiri Pandit culture. Strongly influenced by Bollywood and fuelled by a social rat-race, the actual wedding ritual, used mainly for video filming and photography—and directed by the cameraman—now lasts for a couple of hours or so, instead of nearly 8 to 10 hours at the time of the traditional wedding of their ancestors in Kashmir. A significant proportion of Kashmiri Pandits marry out of the community. Destination weddings are a new fad. So what culture are we talking about? At present, Kashmiri Pandits culturally represent just about 20% to 25% of the culture of their ancestors in Kashmir up to about three to four decades ago. With time, at such progression, but not too far into the future, they will possibly  remain Kashmiri Pandits only in name.

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At present, not many Pandits, especially the younger generations, follow traditional Kashmiri Pandit’s festivals and important religious days. For example, not many people remain strict vegetarians or observe fasts like their ancestors did on Ashtami, the eighth day of waxing moon. Same applies to Punim (full-moon day) or Mawas (no moon day). Not many people are now aware about monthly fasting on Saenkraath day or fortnightly fasting on kah (the 11th day of waxing and waning moon). Important festivals of Herath, Zaram Satam, Punn, Khyachhi Mawas, Gaad Batta, Kaw Punim, Haar Satam and Har Mandül have lost their traditional fervour and perhaps also their relevance. On the contrary, due to Indian influence, traditional Kashmir names of their main festivals have been replaced by Indian names; for example, Herath by Shivratri, and Zaram Satam by Janam Ashtami. Indian festivals, such as Holi, Lohri and Diwali, are now being celebrated with much more fervour than traditional Kashmiri festivals. Many Kashmiri Pandit ladies also observe Karwa Chauth as a matter of choice. In short, the traditional Kashmiri Pandit’s culture has, over time, metamorphosed into a range of new hybrid cultures, with its uniqueness, of course, wherever they live on the planet.

Cultural Uniqueness Prior to their exodus from Kashmir, Kashmiri Pandits reflected a cultural uniqueness. Their Kashmiri language, comprising a mix of Sanskrit and Persian words, was unique in itself. So were their spirituality, customs and rituals. • Kashmiri Pandits never touched the feet of their elders unlike their other Indian counterparts. Gently uttering the greeting, namaskar, with folded hands and a slight bow with their head, was their only greeting at any time of the day. But ladies were not expected to fold hands or bow to anyone. • In Kashmiri language, there are no words for ‘thank you’. Instead, blessings in the form of orzhü (good health), dhor-koth (strong knees) and Putra Gaash (prosperity of you son) are given to the person who helps. • Married Kashmiri ladies never put sindoor (red oxide of iron) in their hair parting. Their tilak/teeka (dot on their forehead) would be made of saffron or sandalwood paste. Kashmiri Pandit girls and

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women never shaved their hair, so there was no ritual of mündun ceremony. A Pandit widow would not shave her head upon the death of her husband. Kashmiri Pandits would perform a number of rituals over the lifetime of a person, starting soon after one’s birth: Soundar It marked the naming ceremony and would be performed on the seventh day of the birth. This day is characterised with cooking and serving gaard-­ batta (fish and rice) and other delicacies. Ritualistic prayers (Pooza) were characterised by burning a piece of bark from a papyrus tree. Close relatives, neighbours and friends are invited over lunch. Kah-nethar The ceremony would be performed for both male and female babies. Technically, it should be done on the eleventh day of the baby’s birth so that the breastfed baby’s parents resume their normal married life. The word kah means ‘eleven’ and the word nethar means ‘wedding.’ It would be a day-long ceremony, performed at home, and attended by close relatives from both mother’s and father’s side. Lavish lunch, usually vegetarian, followed the ceremony. Although this ritual is supposed to be performed on the eleventh day of one’s birth, after the exodus of Pandits, its importance has somewhat diluted; people generally tend to defer it for several reasons. But, in any case, it must be performed technically before their wedding ceremony. In case of male children, it must be performed before their Mekhal ceremony, as discussed here. Shishür It would be performed during the first winter of a new bride or a newborn. The day would be characterised by cooking kaliya (lamb’s meat cooked with turmeric  powder), served with homemade fülka (Kashmiri twin-leaved flat bread). Other traditional meat dishes would also be cooked and served to close relatives, friends and neighbours over lunch.

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Mekhal Similar to Kah-nethar, this ceremony is one of the most important ceremonies in a boy’s life. Without performing this ceremony, a male child cannot be considered as a Brahmin or even get married. Technically, it is an initiation ceremony for male children before they start school, generally around the age of eight years. But like the dilution of other rituals and ceremonies, most people perform it now just a few days before the wedding ceremony of the groom, mainly out of a socio-­ religious compulsion it seems. On this day,  traditionally, the male child starts wearing the sacred thread, called yauni (or janyav in Hindi). As a bachelor, he wears a hip-­ length, three-strand thread around his neck and over the right shoulder. On his wedding day, he receives three more strands, possibly for and on behalf of his life partner. The three strands of the sacred thread is supposed to remind him of his duty towards his elders, gurus (teachers) and the community. He is supposed to respect it and uphold its sanctity and  significance  till his last breath. On a daily basis, he is supposed to wash and wear it immediately after taking his early morning bath, while reciting the Gaytri Mantra. The Mekhal ceremony would traditionally be performed at home and would take nearly two days to be completed. It would be performed with the same zeal and fervour as a wedding ceremony, except that there would be no wedding on this day. The actual ceremony is preceded by Maenzraath, just like a wedding, and followed by Kushal homme. Technically, it is a homme (havan), performed for the initiation of the child. The Maenzraath is performed mainly during the night hours and involves the application of maenz (henna) on the palms and the feet of the Mekhali Maharaz (the boy whose Mekhal is being performed), followed by singing of cultural and religious songs, folk dance and music, and eating of lavish vegetarian food. On the Mekhal day, the boy’s’ hair would be shaved off, leaving only a thin lock / tuft of hair at the top-back of his head. He would be tactfully made to consume a few drops of a calf’s urine, mixed with milk, at some stage of the ceremony, without being made aware that he has consumed it. During the ceremony, he would be symbolically made to beg to his relatives, for supporting his guru, as his distant ancestors would have done at Gurkul (Guru’s ashram, which was a kind of a boarding school for children  in those days of a distant past). The relatives  would  respond by

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affectionately and symbolically  blessing  him with their  love and best wishes  and also  giving him cash, which would be donated to the priest who performed the Mekhal ceremony. The core message of the symbolic ‘begging and receiving cash in return’ was  to inculcate humility in the young person, develop respect for teacher and be humble in life. The Kushal-homme is like a thanks-giving ceremony, performed after the successful completion of the Mekhal ceremony. On this day, the ashes of the homme are collected and immersed in a clean river. The day is marked by lavish food and celebrations. Many people would serve both meat and vegetarian dishes during lunch, although some prefer only vegetarian dishes. Death and Funeral Kashmiri Pandits cremate the dead body as soon as possible, preferably before the first sunset after death. In such scenarios where it is not possible, the cremation may be deferred, at the most, by a day. The funeral pyre is usually lit by the eldest son. If he is not available, then other children can do it. Ashes are collected on the third or fourth day and carried to a river for immersion, as part of the ritual. All flowing rivers, especially the Ganges, are considered to be sacred for bathing, holy dip and the immersion of ashes. In Kashmir, they would immerse ashes in Gupt-Ganga or River Jhelum (in Srinagar). In Jammu, they immerse the ashes in River Chenab (at Akhnoor) or in River Tawi (at Jammu). In Delhi, people  immerse human ashes in River Yamuna. Unlike most other Hindus, Kashmiri Pandits mourn for 12 days. No meat is cooked at home for the first ten days after a death. The tenth-day ceremony is the most important one and performed usually on a river bank, with fast-flowing water. Usually, the son who performs the rituals gets his hair and moustache fully shaved off as a mark of respect for the departed soul, as part of the normal grieving and mourning process, which also reflects a symbolic personal sacrifice of one’s ego and pride in the remembrance of the departed person. The 11th- and 12th-day ceremonies are quite elaborate full-day ceremonies. They are repeated after 6  months (shadmos) and 12  months (vaharvaer). Offering and rituals are also observed on a monthly basis (maasvaar). During the first year, the son who has performed the rituals

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makes offering (with water) everyday, as the first thing in the morning, to the departed person. Death anniversaries (shraad) for the departed members of the family are marked by prayers at home and donations (uncooked rice, fresh vegetables and fruits, clothes and money) to the needy. Herath This is the most important religious day of Kashmiri Pandits. It marks the wedding of Shiva (Shamboo) and Parvati (Uma, the daughter of Himalaya), thereby marking the origin of the Creation. There are other stories too why this day is celebrated. In the valley of Kashmir, located at about 1700 m above the sea level, Kashmiri Pandits celebrated Herath in the winter of Kashmir. The day would be invariably marked by a heavy snowfall. In the plains of India, the festival is called Shivratri, and it would be celebrated the next day but not in the same manner as Kashmiri Pandits would do in Kashmir. In terms of traditional excitement, hectic preparations during the weeks leading up to this day and the celebrations on the day and over the next couple of days, Herath may be comparable to other festivals, such as Diwali in the Hindu world, Christmas in the Western world and Eid in the Islamic world. In Kashmir, the weeks leading up to this day would witness great excitement in every Pandit household—abuzz with numerous activities—full cleaning of the house; buying new clothes for each member of the family; stock all provisions for this day (due to usually heavy snowfalls and inclement weather during the Kashmir winter); undertake lots of cooking of traditional Pandit food—especially fresh fish from the rivers and lakes of Kashmir; offer traditional ritualistic prayers on this day and through the following night—to celebrate the marriage of Shiva with Shakti; and indulge in full celebrations the next day (called Salaam)—wear new clothes, eat a rich Kashmiri food, play with sea shells (haar), exchange greetings within the community and with Muslim friends and neighbours. The day would help to strengthen the bond between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims. Kashmir would become alive with positive sentiments on all sides. Elders would give many gifts to younger people, including cash, called Herath Kharach. Unfortunately, after their exodus from the valley in 1990, celebrations of this day have dwindled gradually over time. In India, other Indian

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festivals such as Diwali, Holi and Lori have gained much more prominence in the Pandit homes. The 1990 exodus also replaced the traditional joint families with small nuclear families, scattered around, which took away the traditional excitement and teamwork between the family members. In Kashmir, there used to be a two-day public holiday for celebrating this festival, but no such holiday exists elsewhere in the world on this day. In the Islamic world, can a Muslim imagine going to work on the Eid day? In the Christian world, can a Christian imagine going to work on the Christmas day? But that is exactly what has happened to Kashmiri Pandits; they have no holiday to celebrate this day outside Kashmir. One can imagine their mental suffering, which is a very heartrending matter for the author. It is heartbreaking to see the traditional Kashmiri Pandit culture and identity gradually disappearing before our very eyes. Tragedy is that  not many Kashmiri Pandits will be left to celebrate Herath after 2050 in the traditional Kashmiri manner or fervour. To preserve their unique identity, if for any reason, they are unable to celebrate Herath as did their ancestors in Kashmir, their elders are advised to at least narrate the story of this day to their younger generations, bring home its significance and how it would be celebrated by their ancestors, whilst refreshing their own childhood memories. They owe it to their ancestors who must have endeavoured very hard to remain Pandits and endured immense hardships over centuries to preserve their unique identity and culture. It is just a story that they need to tell; unfortunately, that is what Pandits will become one day, lost in history! Navreh The first day of the Kashmiri Pandit’s New Year is called Navreh. It falls on the first new moon day around the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere. Traditionally, on this day, first thing in the morning, Pandits would look into a thaal (a large bronze bowl-shaped plate), filled with rice. Various items, including a pen (the sword of Kashmiri Pandits), a janthri (Kashmiri Pandit calendar), almonds and walnuts (both grow in Kashmir), yoghurt (staple food of Pandits), flower (yemberzal, narcissi), vye (a plant), sugar, salt, cooked rice, bread and a currency note would decorate the thaal, amongst other items.

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Later in day, people would wear new clothes and eat rich traditional Kashmiri food, including taher (yellow rice, with saffron or turmeric). Families would visit their favourite places of worship in the morning and, thereafter, enjoy garden parties and picnics through the day in Kashmir. One such place was badaam vaer (almond orchard) at Hari Parbhat in Srinagar, where sweets, pakooras and many other paper and plastic toys would attract children. Many children would play cricket with beera (wooden ball) in the nearby open, gently sloping foothill areas. Kashmiri Muslims would warmly greet their Pandit neighbours and friends through the day. Kashmiri Pandits still do celebrate this day to some extent, but the same zeal and fervour is missing. Outside their home (Kashmir), it will never be the same, as will their other festivals, such as Herath. Ladies would visit their maalyun (parents’ home) on Zang trai, the third day of Navreh. Punn The word punn means thread. On this day, the mother of house would take the assistance of a young unmarried girl in weaving a cotton thread from cotton balls, which she would wrap around her ear while cooking and performing the ritual. On this day, a particular traditional story— involving the story of a king, and  how he had  lost his kingdom and then regained it back—would be recited by the mother (or father) of the family, which signified the virtues of humility, nobleness and surrender to Nature. The day would be performed around the months August/September, on and around Vinayak-Chorrum (Vinayak-Chautarthi), as dedication to Ganesha. Pandits prepared and widely distributed roth, which is a deep-­ fried (in ghee), about 1.0 to 1.5 cm thick, sweet flat-bread, with cardamom seeds, almonds and cashew nuts, sprinkled with white poppy seeds on the top. Some people also add grated coconut flakes to the dough. A piece of edible silver paper would also decorate the roth for distribution to special people. Along with roth, thin dual-leaved chapatti, called duwari fulka, would also be prepared and gladly eaten with büz-vangün, a dish made up of mashed roasted eggplant, mixed with plain yoghurt and a dash of table salt, with lots of diced green chillies. After the completion of the Punn ritual at home, Roth and fulka would be widely distributed amongst the neighbours, friends and relatives.

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Gaard-Batt This day would be celebrated during the cold winter months. It involved the preparation of a large quantity of Kashmiri-style fish dish, which would be offered first to the deities and then consumed delightfully by a Pandit  family, usually in the warm company of their close relatives and friends who would be invited over lunch or dinner. Khyatchi-Mawas This day would also  be celebrated during the cold winter months and involved the preparation of a mixed vegetable (or meat) rice, with mung-­ daal and ghee. (It could be also  called khichhidi in Hindi.) Originally, until about the end of 1970s, it would contain small chunks of lamb’s meat. But in the later years, lamb’s meat was replaced with small chunks of potatoes and cauliflowers. However, mung-daal has remained constant as its essential core ingredient.

Kashmiri Pandits and Secularism The term ‘secularism’ has in the recent years divided the people in India, and Kashmiri Pandits are no exception. Do Kashmiri Pandits believe in the current ‘Indian secularism,’ or do they crave for ‘secularism’ in its original and unambiguous form, as used in the Western world? Some support it, and some are not happy with the way it has been used, or rather misused, by many people. At present, it is not very easy to assess if the Kashmiri Pandit community as a whole could be deemed as ‘secular,’ given that some members of the community expect the community to be ‘non-secular’ as a reaction to their mass exodus from Kashmir in 1990, at which time they were targeted and mistaken for Indian agents solely based on their religious background. What are their options, other than not being secular? Note that the meaning of the term ‘non-secular’ cannot be deciphered easily and without an element of ambiguity, only just because the meaning of the term ‘secular’ itself has been rendered ambiguous in India, possibly intentionally, by its designers. Before we can answer these questions, it is important that we first define the terms ‘secular’ and ‘secularism.’ The word ‘secularism’ has different meanings in India and in the Western countries.

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The fundamental differences in the interpretation and the common use of the word ‘secularism’ have alarmingly led many people to believe, reasonably or unreasonably, that India is not a secular country, rather a strategy used by some people for achieving their political goals, and, therefore, on ground, it counteracts its stated intentions. The skewed version of ‘Indian secularism’ has been dividing people, which poses a real threat to the oneness of the country and its people. On the one hand, the supporters of ‘Indian secularism’ see Indian Muslims as culturally different from Indians of other religions, and, therefore, claim ‘secularism’ respects their religious rights. They maintain a uniform civil code (i.e. equal law for every citizen, irrespective of one’s religion) would be unacceptable to Muslims. They fear a uniform civil code would potentially impose majoritarian Hindu ideals on Muslims and endanger their separate cultural identity. On the other hand, the opponents of ‘Indian secularism’ argue that India’s acceptance of Sharia and religious laws creates plurality of unequal citizenship and, therefore, violates the fundamental principle of equal human rights amongst all citizens. They complain the ‘Indian secularism’ divides people and undermines India. A recent shift in the cultural and social paradigm in India has affected the psyche of many Kashmiri Pandits. One must revisit their pre-1990 political inclinations when they lived in the Kashmir valley. In the pre-1990 era, there were predominantly two groups of Kashmiri Pandits in Srinagar—both were secular in their own ways and individual behaviours. • The first group comprised the die-hard followers of the Nehru-­ Gandhi family, primarily due to their Kashmiri roots. In the author’s personal opinion, they comprised the predominant group. These people would, by default, follow the Indian National Congress party. Their loyalty seemed to be skewed more towards the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. For them, it was a case of ‘India is Indira and Indira is India.’ These people lived mainly in the downtown Srinagar—Zainakadal, Alikadal, Nowakadal and Safakadal areas—as well as in the newer colonies, such as Bal Garden, Karan Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Raj Bagh, Sanat Nagar, Natipora, Chhanapora and Rawalpora—and similar other areas which had significant Muslim population. A multi-faith environment around their homes, and their daily interaction with their Muslim neighbours and friends, had made a visible difference in their general mindset and outlook.

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• The other group, although minor but also significant, were the followers of Jan Sangh, later rebranded as Janta Party, and finally the BJP. Their loyalty was more towards the integrity of India, and not so much towards the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. In the author’s opinion, these people lived mainly around Habbakadal, Fatehkadal, Sathu Barbarshah, Ganpatyaar, Rainawari and other similar areas that had predominant Pandit population. Some interesting questions: • At present, do Kashmiri Pandits continue to be as (Indian) secular as they were in the pre-1990 era? What, if any, has changed? • Is it important for them to be (Indian) secular? • If not (Indian) secularism, what other options do they have? • If some, or all of them, have become intolerant towards other religions, do they qualify to be called Hindus? • Is Hinduism intolerant towards other faiths? One must note that the word ‘secular’ was added to the Preamble of India’s Constitution in 1976, about 29 years after Independence, via the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution. Some simple questions arise: • Was the 42nd Amendment necessary? What was the threat perceived by the then Government of India that necessitated the amendment? • What was its purpose, considering the founding fathers of independent India had, for some reason, felt no need to introduce this term in the Preamble? • Did the amendment achieve its intended purpose? • Are its objectives well defined—in simple language—and understood by the common Indian masses? • Is there any historical evidence that the Hindu rulers prior to (or post) Muslim rulers were not ‘secular’? Interestingly, the term ‘ism’ of ‘secularism’ figures in all main Indian religions—Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. But amongst the Abrahamic religions, it figures only in Judaism, but not in Christianity and Islam. The term also figures in ‘sectarianism’ and ‘populism’, but also in ‘pragmatism’ and ‘pluralism’.

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One must ask if the skewed version of Indian ‘secularism’ works for or against the country’s integrity. What threats does it pose to the oneness of the people and the country, and how should those threats be managed? Shouldn’t India adopt the original, more neutral version of ‘secularism,’ as practised in the Western world? Appeasement potentially does more harm than good to not only the appeased party but to all parties, and the country as a whole. It creates deep bitterness in the people who are not appeased and those who feel marginalised. Management of human psychology is important—of all citizens, and not only of some.

A Global Community After their exodus from Kashmir, in a relative sense, all lands were foreign to Kashmiri Pandits. None of their ancestors ever lived away from the Kashmir valley, so even Jammu and Delhi were also foreign to them. Numerous Kashmiri Pandits died of heatstroke and snake bites in unfamiliar environments soon after their exodus from Kashmir in 1990, only because they had no local survival skills required for living outside Kashmir. There is hardly any resemblance between the (Hindu) people of Jammu and the Pandits from Kashmir, except religion. Language, food, traditional clothing, culture and so forth are all different between the two peoples. Even Herath (called Shivratri in India) is celebrated differently by the two communities. Pandits from Jammu (and elsewhere in India) are generally vegetarians, whereas Pandits from Kashmir are generally meat-eaters. Kashmiri Pandits have generally always been progressive, with an open and global mindset. Wherever they have spread around in the world, they have seamlessly assimilated with the host communities, be it in India or outside India. It is their resilience which has kept this community alive. Their mantra has been: Adjust, Adapt, Assimilate and Acclimatise. Wherever and whenever they found their identity or name was an impediment to their development and progress, they made minor adjustments in themselves, if they could, to move ahead, instead of whinging or forcing themselves on others. Many Kashmir Pandits, after their 1990 mass exodus, now fluently speak in a variety of non-Kashmir languages at home—Hindi, Dogri, Punjabi, English and so forth. During the Pathan rule, many Pandits were

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well-conversant with the Persian language. During the Maharajah’s time, they became well-conversant with Urdu and English languages. They adapt. Many Kashmiri surnames, such as Turki, Misri, Raina, Razdan and Kadalbajoo, have foreign origins or connections. The surname ‘Magazine’ is a distorted form of a Kashmiri nickname (mekhzene); the original family would have  been different. For that matter, not many official names amongst the Pandits are quintessentially Kashmiri; they are typically Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi or South Indian. Some Pandits also had neutral names, such as Iqbal, Ghazal, Tarranum, Sahil and Sameer, used by both Muslims and Hindus. In Kashmir, many people of the author’s generation, as well as before and after him, were called with a range of Western names, which shows a futuristic global tendency of this community: Anita, Baby, Bailey, Beauty, Billu, Billy, Bulla, Bubbly, Bubbloo, Bunny, Candy, Cherry, Chunky, Chinky, Daisy, Dicky, Dolly, Fanta, George, Honey, Jolly, Jimmy, Kevin jee, King (jee), Kitty, Pilly, Pinky, Pintu, Pummy, Mini, Mona, Nina, Rinnie, Rinku, Rita, Rosie, Ruby, Sheena, Tina, Prince (jee), Pansy, Promilla, Romilla, Rosie, Sheela, Sweetie, Tarzan, Queen (jee), Vicky, Vimi and so forth.

High Adaptability As per a common local perception, based on their versatility and natural ability to fit in a wide range of situations and be compatible with alien cultures, Kashmiri Pandits are generally termed as vaangun (Kashmiri, for ‘an eggplant or a brinjal’). Their natural ability to quickly adjust to new environments, acquiring a foreign language and cultural habits, has historically served well all those Kashmiris who have migrated out of the valley during the last couple of centuries in their survival. This ability is more or less akin to the chameleon characteristics of Kashmiris. The only problem is that, in the past, wherever the Kashmiri went to live, they held firmly onto their Kashmiri roots and did not replace their Kashmiri culture; however, the trend looks somewhat different at present. A high adaptability of Kashmiri Pandits may, however, potentially undermine their cultural uniqueness in the longer run. A considerable number of Kashmiri Pandits reasonably believe that, after a couple of decades or so, they may remain Kashmiris in the name only. Few questions to the community are as follows: What are they doing at the present to

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prevent their fast cultural erosion? In which direction are they moving, if at all? Is that the right direction for the community’s broader and long-­ term interest? The author’s observation indicates an alarming movement. To prevent a complete erosion of their unique culture and traditions, both Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits must work consciously and rediscover themselves before it is too late. They must preserve their language and traditional food at least. They must proactively keep nourishing their traditional value system and spiritual roots wherever they live on the planet.

Dal-e-Bhatta The Kashmir Pandit community has traditionally been nicknamed (by Kashmiri Muslims) as Dal-e-Bhatta (weak Pandits like dal) or Dal-e-­ Gadva (pot of dal). It may appear that, for their survival in Kashmir, being a minority community, the Pandits (also known as Bhattas) had to exhibit a fluid like tolerance and resilience, so the nickname. Interestingly, in the pre-1990 era, the Muslim community would consume much more dal (pulses), using it in a much wider range of cuisines than the Pandits. For example, unlike the Pandits, the Muslims would cook dal even with hard-­ boiled eggs or meat. Strangely, however, it is the Pandits who are nicknamed Dal-e-Bhatta! Philosophically, in nature, there is nothing as gentle and soft as air or water; both can’t be seen if clean. Both sustain life. Being ‘soft’ and ‘gentle’ do not necessarily mean being ‘weak’. As fluids, both don’t have any strength to carry anything in their natural condition. But who does not know the power of wind and water when they move with purpose? Storms and floods destroy everything in their way. There is nothing in the world that does not have elasticity, which means the ability of the material to deform under a certain level of stress. Young’s Modulus of Elasticity is an important engineering parameter, which can be simply defined in simplest terms as the ratio of stress to the corresponding strain that it causes. Even soils and rocks have their own degrees of elasticity to absorb loads imposed on them. Brittle materials crack and break under pressure. Therefore, in the engineering world, common construction materials, such as steel, concrete, plastics or rubber, all have elasticity to bend or twist or compress within the limits of their respective tolerances, which allows the materials to withstand the operational stresses. A person’s strength must never be gauged based on that person’s demeanour or gentle behaviour. Just because a person may naturally be

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soft spoken, or may appear to be so by enculturation, education or environment, does not mean that person is a weak person. Intrinsically, strong people don’t need to show off their strength; they know they are strong. That self-knowledge instils enough  confidence in them and imparts high stability to their mind. Such people are self-assured and come across as gentle. On the contrary, short-tempered or violent people represent weakness and insecurity. They tend to prove to themselves and the world that they are strong. Violence and violent behaviour are the signs of weakness, and not of strength. As they say, quiet rivers run deep, and the loudest person in the room is the weakest. The nick names of Dal-e-Bhatta or Dal-e Gadva for Kashmir Pandits must not be construed as the names for a weak community. Kashmir Pandits have the natural gifts of tenacity, resilience and the flexibility to adapt successfully—to a very wide range of harsh environments and the people—without imposing themselves on the host communities or causing harm to anyone. They are natural thinkers. Thought comes before the action, and the world moves due to thought. As such, Kashmiri Pandits have and will never be weak, as mistakenly or ignorantly claimed by some. They will possibly survive their exodus and continue to spread their inherent goodness all around.

Politically Insignificant But Part of the Solution Without the Kashmiri Pandits and their active involvement in finding a viable solution to the so-called Kashmir issue, Kashmir can never return to its original peaceful character and glory. Kashmiri Pandits have a major role to play in restoring peace and normalcy in the valley—socially and politically. Different parties—countries and politicians—define the Kashmir problem differently, based on their respective vested interests and skewed perspectives; as such, there is no one definition. As for the Kashmiri Pandits, they have lost their home, and as for the Kashmiri Muslims, they have lost peace and normalcy in their lives. It makes sense that the people from the two Kashmiri communities interact and strive to regain what they have lost, and not wait for any politicians and/or governments to meddle. History teaches one to beware of politicians, as they generally tend to feed and thrive on exploiting and deepening existing social divisions and strife. The social activists from either side must keep the role of politicians limited to the extent of only facilitating the people to meet.

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Force does not bring hearts and minds together; interaction and mutual trust-building exercise between the people does. The onus, therefore, lies truly on the people. Kashmiri people from both sides—the Pandits and the Muslims—must extend a warm hand of friendship towards one another and start a trust-building movement, and finally embrace one another.

References Cambridge Dictionary. (2019). Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://dictionary. cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide Dhar, S. (1986). Jammu and Kashmir Folklore. Marwah Publications. Dhar, S. (1992). Tales of Kashmir. Anmol Publications. Dhar, S. (2011). Jammu and Kashmir (India, the Land and the People). India: National Book Trust. Downie, J. M., Tashi, T., Lorenzo, F. R., Feusier, J. E., Mir, H., Prchal, J. T., … Koul, P. A. (2016). A Genome-Wide Search for Greek and Jewish Admixture in the Kashmiri Population. PLoS, 11(8). Retrieved August 2019, from https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27490348 Hassnain, F. (2002). Jesus in the East – Incredible Saga. Kashmir, India: Dastgir Publication Trust. Kamal, J. K. Pt. (n.d.). Swami Lakshman Joo – The Safe of Ushaber. Retrieved on August 3, 2019, from http://www.koausa.org/Saints/LakshmanJoo/ article2.html Merriam-Webster. (2019). Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide Pandit, R.  S. (2009). Rajatarangini: The Saga of the Kings of Kasmir (2019). Sahitya Akademi. Raina, G.  N. (n.d.). Swami Lakshman Joo. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from http://www.koausa.org/Saints/LakshmanJoo/index.html Singh, A. (2019). What’s the Ancestry of Kashmiris? Where Do They Originate from? Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.quora.com/Whats-theancestry-of-Kashmiris-Where-do-they-originate-from Snedden, C. (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Hurst Publications. Wakhlu, S. (2011). Kashmiri Pandits  – Cultural & Historical Introduction. Kashmir: Gulshan Books. What Is Karewas? Formation of Karewas. (2018). Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.geographyforyou.com/2018/09/what-is-karewas-formationof-karewas.html

CHAPTER 3

Political Orphans?

What About Kashmiri Pandits? Kashmiri Pandits! Who? What is their problem? Why did they leave Kashmir? Why did they not fight back in Kashmir? They were millionaires—could they not afford a gun? Oh, so they left Kashmir? So sad! Where did they go then? These are some of questions that many fellow Indians—in India, Malaysia and Australia—have asked the author during the past 30 years. Sadly, only 10% to 20% Indians, perhaps even lesser, may know about their exodus and the reasons underlying it. The reasons are simple. Kashmiri Pandits (KP), being an educated and peace loving, non-violent, generally lower-middle and middle-class community, didn’t fight either against the government or against their fellow Kashmiris in the valley. They did not cry in public or throw stones at the police. As such, they have no political backing at the State or Centre levels or any nuisance value in India. They rely mainly on themselves. In May 2018, on a return flight from a mining site located to the north of Western Australia, George (a colleague of the author) had an interesting chat with a fellow passenger, who happened to be of Indian origin. George mentioned to him about the author, as one of his principals. The Indian fella did not seem to be very much pleased with the word ‘Kashmiri’ and advised George that Kashmiris are not trustworthy at all and, as they are problematic he (George) should be very careful and keep an eye on the author. The Indian fella seemed to be completely ignorant, like millions of © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_3

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others, about Kashmir and the Kashmir situation. Out of his misgivings about Kashmiris, perhaps caused by his sheer ignorance and a stereotypical mindset, he believed all Kashmiris are simply problematic people. His careless announcement about Kashmiris also depicts his irresponsible attitude towards Kashmiris in general. This is what causes people’s issues amongst the otherwise peaceful communities, which then leads to social strife and violent inter-community disturbances. Sadly, misinformed people make stereotypical impressions about other people based on their race, caste, colour, creed and so forth. Possibly, the Indian fella could also be whinging about (an imaginary) racial discrimination in Australia. As if this is not sufficient to wrongly stereotype the Pandits, the following words can be considered to be completely irresponsible and abhorrent, as they simply rub salt to the wounds of Pandits: Kashmiri Pandits are partly responsible for the situation in Kashmir and their own plight. When they lived in Kashmir, they happily supported Article 370, which does not allow people from the remaining part of India to migrate and settle in Kashmir. Pandits wanted to live the life of maharajahs in Kashmir, but see what has happened to them eventually!

These words were spoken in September 2018 during an informal chat by an educated lady of North Indian origin living in Perth, who comes from a large family of ‘mid to high’ level Indian army officers. Interestingly, her husband, a retired senior Indian Army officer, also questioned why KPs left the valley (in 1989–90) instead of fighting the armed militants in Kashmir. These comments were extremely distasteful and hurtful for a community for whom the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur, laid down his life—a community which has traditionally been extremely peaceful; a community which has at best been a ‘middle’ class; a community which has had no say, whatsoever, in the politics of Kashmir; a community which faced a noticeable degree of marginalisation in Kashmir, being a minority community, and was disadvantaged due to an age-old appeasement policy of the Indian politicians and erstwhile Indian  governments  towards the majority Muslim community. The author had to restrain himself although he was deeply hurt. This was not about him; this was about his entire community which was being held responsible for their exodus and the instability in Kashmir—a community that comprised only around 5% of the population in Kashmir; a

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community which belongs to the Saraswat Brahmin cadre; a community which lays emphasises mainly on education (educating others and getting educated); a community of mostly professionals, clerks and shopkeepers; a community that comprises the indigenous people of Kashmir. Politely, the author explained as follows, with a little  tear in his moist eyes: Have you ever wondered how we KPs remained Pandits till our exodus? Just because of a strong conviction and sacrifice of our ancestors over several generations. They must have suffered considerably—in the face of saam, dhaam, dhund, baedh (counsel, bribe, punishment, blackmail)—and never succumbed  to sustained socio-political pressures for conversion or to the material temptations and incentives to convert to Islam. Colloquially, it is known Hindu valad Rupiya, but that did not fit with my ancestors. So, I am a son of those hard-core Pandits, for whom Guru Teg Bahadur gave supreme sacrifice. I bow my head in deep reverence to the Guru and to all my ancestors. I am an authentic Hindu whose ancestors have had to fight consciously to retain their unique spirituality and faith. Did my counterparts from the other parts of India have had to face similar pressures to remain Hindus? No, possibly not! So what do they know about us Kashmiri Pandits? If Kashmir is still with India, it may be because of us, our sacrifices. If there was no Pandit in Kashmir in 1947, where would Kashmir be in 2018?  In all probability, not with India!

Obviously, such misgivings and careless opinions can’t be expected to be limited only to this couple; these thoughts must be shared by their other family members and by many other people from the wider Indian community, in Perth and in India. Reportedly, many other North Indian people living in Perth have been heard venting a similar opinion about Kashmiri Pandits. The alarming part is how many other Indians also share such ignorance about KPs? This was not the first time someone had asked why KPs did not fight the militants instead of leaving their home. Earlier also, many Indians, including several retired defence personnel, had asked him this hurtfully annoying question. Such reckless comments from a senior retired defence personnel, one who claims to have fought in the 1999  Kargil War, raises an eyebrow. Logically, one goes on to wonder what and how much do people actually know about Kashmir, India and the wider world, and most importantly, what do they possibly not know!

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As for Article 370, some basic questions must be answered: • Do we know the real reasons and the practical compulsions why it was included in Indian Constitution? • Did KPs have any role in its inclusion in the Indian Constitution? • How would KPs have  benefitted by its inclusion in the Indian Constitution? Maligning an aggrieved and uprooted community for its plight is unacceptable at all levels. People must first undertake a proper research through history and facts, and then think responsibly before casting aspersions on this misunderstood community. Many Kashmiri Muslims, who are related to Pandits by blood—as both share a common ancestry—also think KPs were cowards. Such misgivings, rather slander, have been addressed in the author’s book, 22 Years  – A Kashmir Story, which emphatically turns the argument around. Interestingly, a retired Kashmiri bureaucrat from the valley has also challenged the author as follows: I read your brief regarding your academic endeavours. Please keep it up with same zeal and vigour and, of course, with credible evidence, facts and figures. I am not sure about the credibility and authenticity of claim that half a million KPs migrated. This is … and the people like … and … narrative. It is like the KM narrative that an equal number of civilians for last 70 years have been killed by army and security personnel. Hope to receive you soon in the valley.

The author politely replied as follows: Since my childhood, I have heard 5 lakh KPs lived in the valley, although no one actually counted them physically. The census data in India was always thought to be questionable. So, the number quoted is purely symbolic in many ways. I had never cast a vote in Kashmir, as I did not have any Voter’s card or anything … Although the actual number of Pandits can be disputed but their actual feelings and sufferings can’t be challenged. I left a month before my parents left the valley in Jan 1990. The year 1989 saw me mentally crippled due to extreme fear. The same can also be said about my Muslim brethren.

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Feelings and sufferings are what actually matter! Fifty thousand or five lakh, how does it matter? Over time, as I grew in life, my fear metamorphosed first into anger, then desperation, frustration and finally to empathy and compassion. Right now, I have nothing but compassion for all … I always have been, and will continue to strive to bring peace to my motherland—my Maej Kashmir, and prosperity and happiness to all her people.

Coming back to KPs of 1990 in Kashmir, they were never cowards and had absolutely no say in Article 370. They did what they deemed right in those dark days of 1990: they left! They felt betrayed by everyone—by their Muslim brethren, by the then Indian government and by the security personnel! Otherwise, who leaves one’s traditional home? After nearly three decades of their getting uprooted—purely because the then Central and State governments could not protect them—do Kashmiri Pandits now deserve to be misunderstood, by both their Kashmiri Muslim brethren and their fellow Indians, in the same way as they were misunderstood in 1947 and later in 1990? Ironically and wrongfully, both communities have called them cowards. Both Kashmiri Muslims and many Indians expected Pandits to fight the militants instead of leaving. But how would they fight the militants? Are civilians expected to be armed? The world does not need armed civilians to fight one another; it needs compassion, dialogue and sincerity to resolve all issues amicably. It needs civility and humanity. In conclusion, what was their fault? They lost their home, and, unfortunately, no one has ever claimed the responsibility or apologised for their plight in the so-called democratic India.

India Does Not Truly Care for Kashmiri Pandits Kashmiri Pandits are an endangered community. It seems to be only a matter of time before they disappear as a community, considering how their world suddenly turned upside down about three decades ago and has, unfortunately, continued to be drifting away since. Many Pandits, who had to bid goodbye to their homeland in 1990 and thereafter, may have died in exile in the past nearly three decades. Many of them, especially the older generations, would have breathed their last in despondency, carrying memories of and cravings for their early life and home in Kashmir. And many surviving members, especially the older ones, must still be living in the hope of spending at least the sunset

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months  or  years, if lucky, in their homeland. And many must have just given up that hope in disgust and hopelessness! But do Pandits really matter for India, the world’s second most populous country—a massive country of nearly 1.4  billion people and still growing? The bitter truth is that, practically, they don’t. They do not have the numbers, or any political base, or any nuisance value. Pandits have a characteristically low child-birth rate; their main focus has always remained generally on a healthy upbringing and good education of their children, on which they don’t compromise. As for the current population of Pandits, it is relatively difficult to estimate their actual numbers in India and abroad because of their wide dispersion across globe after 1990. Kashmir Pandits are dispersed in different parts of India. It is hard to find figures, but the Joshua project gives quite detailed analysis and points to a current population of around 725,000, but few now reside in their homeland the Kashmir valley. (Kaul, 2019)

In an extreme case, even if the population of Pandits is considered to be one million, they may comprise just about 0.07% of the Indian population at the most, which, in simple terms, means there is just about one KP amongst nearly 1400 fellow Indians. So statistically, they don’t matter. It is not hard to imagine how much of say or weightage a lone Pandit would carry in a set of 1400 people. They have also  not been proactively helping themselves to preserve their identity and culture, and survive as a community. They are undermining themselves through gradual dilution and replacement of their language and their traditional customs, due to various factors born mainly out of their inherent struggle to survive and prosper. After their 1990 exodus, they just blended-in with their host communities in India and abroad, which has worked both ways—they have progressed individually, but failed as a community. Inter-ethnic marriages have also not helped the preservation of their language, traditions and culture. As per the  2001 Census  data, India has 1635 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages. Kashmiri language is one of those 22 major languages. Its original script, Shardha, is all but gone (‘Languages of India,’ 2019). As if that was not enough, the educated Kashmiri community—both Pandits and Muslims— have shown a conscious bias against their mother tongue, which has

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accelerated after 1990, by speaking mainly in Hindi, Urdu and/or English languages, both in home and social settings. Instead of practising dignified austerity, many KPs have also been performing lavish weddings every year—at Jammu or Delhi or elsewhere— and the misleading messages that they have been constantly sending to the world and, in particular, to their fellow non-Kashmiri Indian citizens and the establishment, is that they are not in any visible shock of losing home or in any kind of distress or, for that matter, an uprooted, downtrodden, or helpless community. It is a different thing that, whilst suffering from a rat-race syndrome  to put up such glittering  shows, many of them take hefty loans from banks or sell their properties and valuables, and endeavour to save every penny over their entire lives, only to (foolishly) show-off their (hard-earned) life savings and securities in those weddings, and to whose benefit? Their political and social activists must step up and educate them against running the rat-race.  The Bitter Truth Kashmiri Pandits are a misunderstood, misrepresented, misused, mistreated and misled community. As they don’t have the numbers and one leadership, they do not have any effective political base. Individuals have been performing at their individual levels, but as a community, they are simply losers or, in other words, political orphans. In a so-called secular, democratic, republic of India, where numbers matter, it would be unthinkable if the political leadership or bureaucracy will ever show any genuine concern or sincerity towards them. They are mere sacrificial pawns in political terms! Other than politics, there is no profession on the earth, involving white-­ coloured jobs, where KPs have not individually performed exceptionally well. They have traditionally thrived based mainly on their sharp individual survival skills, acquired genetically over centuries of living in their homeland, Kashmir. Be it academics, performing arts (acting, music, singing, painting), literature, engineering, medicine, defence, agriculture, science and technology, law and order or civil administration, KPs—acting individually but based mainly on their hard work and intelligence—have been traditionally leaving their mark and have risen to the top wherever they are. As such, many non-Kashmiri Indians feel jealous of them and their intelligence, tenacity, uprightness and doggedness. Their individual progress has, over time, made other ethnic groups become wary of them and

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see them as professional threats. In politics, however, their representation has remarkably been extremely low, which could be one of the reasons why, as a community, they are not generally perceived as politically important or as a threat. As numbers alone are significant in India, for a displaced Kashmiri Pandit, the claims of India being a ‘secular democratic republic’ practically mean nothing. Losing one’s home, as the KPs did, is practically a blot on Indian secularism and democracy, as the country  has not been able to uphold the rights of an indigenous—peaceful and educated—community, howsoever, minuscule that community may have been in terms of its numbers. Numbers do talk in India but humanity is also important; no wonder the country is seemingly moving towards a total chock-a-block in a few years from now, as her nearly 1.4 billion people keep breeding without any governmental control, political direction or any national vision. Going Forward Based on the manner in which the KPs left the valley—individually, in January 1990 and thereafter—they should be well-advised to show prudence and not expect any government to assist them in their dream return journey and/or seamless rehabilitation in Kashmir. They must come out of any illusion that any government will ever help them, as explained herein. Well, it is true that their 1990 exodus was a direct result of the total failure and impotence of the then Central and State governments, as well as of the law and order in the valley at that time. But, practically now, they have no other recourse but to act individually—once again, as they have characteristically always been doing so—and re-establish their contacts and bases in Kashmir. That requires a sincere commitment and effort by them, accompanied with an honest endeavour to earn the trust and sincerity of their Kashmiri Muslim brethren. If at all any government gets involved, it will be riddled with utter confusion as to how to help them because, due to lack of one leadership, KPs may not have one community demand, they may have numerous individual demands. It can also be reasonably expected that some genuine demands of KPs may collide with the interests of the majority Kashmiri Muslim community. In anticipation of such a possibility, it would be foolish to expect that the current or any future government of India will ever pay any serious attention to any of their core demands. As per history, the Government of India will always take the path of appeasement to win over the majority

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community, and that will generally be at the cost of the KPs. In India, as numbers matter, the Indian democracy and electoral system run on the majority vote.  As such, minorities get short-changed regardless of their religion. A Stark Realisation In hindsight, a Kashmiri, whether a Pandit or a Muslim, would rue why Pakistan tribal backed by Pakistan Army invaded Kashmir in 1947? But for that invasion, Kashmir would have been an independent country in 2020, provided neither country would have subsequently  occupied it. India’s first Prime Minister, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru—himself an erstwhile Kashmiri— was reluctant to send the Indian Army to Kashmir to push back the rebels. Understandably, he had refused to provide any assistance till the last Dogra king of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, did not accede to India. If all KPs would have left Kashmir in 1947, India would have had no moral jurisdiction to include Kashmir in its territory post-1947, given the basis and philosophy behind the Partition. Therefore, if KPs had to pay such a heavy price for being Kashmiris, would they have not been better off leaving Kashmir, if at all, in 1947 rather than in 1990? Just a thought … It would not be unreasonable to think that, knowingly or unknowingly, the presence of KPs in Kashmir has given India the moral authenticity of calling Kashmir a part of the union. But KPs have paid a heavy price for it, and, ironically, India has never truly acknowledged that role or practically cared for their  rehabilitation in their own homeland. On its  part, India simply replaced the KP refugees with its  army—comparable  in terms of sheer numbers—to fight the militancy in Kashmir. And the truth is that KPs lost their home, seemingly forever! In that regard, can we say that, in the pre-1990 era, each KP represented an unarmed and peaceful solider who innocently stood and suffered for India? One can’t be sure how the history will judge Maharaja Hari Singh for (a) his initial reluctance to join either India or Pakistan, and (b) his subsequent Accession to India after Kabailees (Pakistani tribal), backed by Pakistani army, invaded Kashmir in October 1947. On the one hand, many Kashmiris, mostly the Muslims, may or should logically rue Pakistan’s intrusion, but for which Kashmir would have been an independent country post-1947. On the other hand, many Kashmiris, especially the Pandits, may and should  logically thank Pakistan for raiding Kashmir, without which India would not have entered Kashmir.

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To conclude, history may prove in a few years that all Kashmiris— Pandits and Muslims—will realise that they lost Kashmir when the Pakistani Kabailees raided Kashmir in 1947. Both communities may rue that day forever! Can it be said that 22 October 1947 was a Black Day for all Kashmiris?

Pandits’ Cry for Justice Kashmiri Pandits have been crying for justice for the last 30 years, and so have Kashmiri Muslims, albeit for entirely different reasons. But what does the word ‘justice’ mean? To the Pandits, the word ‘justice’ may carry one or a combination of the following: • Monetary compensation for the loss of life and property, • Capital punishment to the perpetrators of violence against the Pandits in and around 1990, • Capital punishment to several self-declared killers of many Pandits, • Peaceful return to the valley, and • A separate autonomous area for the Pandits within the valley. An important question arises: ‘Can justice be really meted to all? Is it humanly possible that all demands of all one crore (ten million) Kashmiris be met?’ Any person of reason and rationale will say that it is not humanly possible to serve justice to all Kashmiris—the Pandits and the Muslims—especially if their respective definitions of ‘justice’ are conflictive and contradictory. But for a peaceful resolution and sustainable peace, all fair and reasonable demands of both communities, albeit within the framework of Indian Constitution, must be met. And then, after that, what should they do? They should all move on. That is the only way that one  can bring peace to the valley and all her people.

Were Kashmiri Pandits Cowards? There are many people who have challenged the author why Kashmiri Pandits left their home in 1990. These include Kashmiri Muslims and North Indians, and several retired Indian Army officers. Surprisingly, one

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of these officers has served in Kashmir in the past and even fought in the Indo-Pak war of 1999 in Kargil. Pandits chose to leave the valley out of their own volition, albeit under distress. In Kashmir, they cohered peacefully with their Muslim brethren. They were known to be educated, polished, soft and gentle people, and none of these characteristics reflect their weakness. To show off power or demonstrate strength, one does not have to carry a gun or a sword or shout abuse. Kashmiri Muslims complain that the Pandit community left them in lurch at a time when they were also struggling against the effects of the newly arrived  militancy  in Kashmir in1990. They say Kashmiri Pandits chickened out and escaped because they were cowards. Contrary to what many people may think, Pandits did not show cowardice in their escape from the valley in 1990 or thereafter. To save one’s life and honour from armed militants is not cowardice. If Kashmiri Pandits would have been cowards, they would have begged for their lives and/or offered themselves  to be  converted to Islam. Instead, mirroring their Pandit ancestors, they chose to remain steadfast, resolute and determined to retain their faith. They sacrificed everything they had, including their homes, and headed out for an unknown and uncertain future. One must be very brave and courageous to do so. They did not succumb.  Some individuals from the Kashmiri Muslim community have also abhorrently regarded them as cancer. After exodus, Pandits spread far and wide, and cohered peacefully with the global community. Cancer is aggressive and does not spread the way Pandits spread out  across the globe. Pandits lost Kashmir, but the rest of the world adopted them. Given that Pandits cannot practically defend themselves in the valley against such wrong and malicious  allegations, the onus lies on the leadership of the Kashmiri Muslim community as a whole to correct and contain such mischievous individuals in the valley, so that hate (like cancer) against Pandits does not spread and affect the Kashmiri Muslim youth. The coward label is also being used by many North Indians for Kashmiri Pandits. They even go to the extent that Kashmiri Pandits were responsible for the introduction and the continuation of Article 370 and the Kashmir uprising. They say Kashmiri Pandits wanted to live the lives of rajas and maharajas, so they favoured Article 370. Such irresponsible and insensitive comments rub salt into the deep wounds of Kashmir Pandits, as if they have not suffered enough. A friend—celebrated author and journalist—made the following interesting comments:

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I have often asked my Pandit friends why they did not rise against oppressor in Kashmir … not now but through the centuries. Most Kashmiri Muslims are Pandit converts. The Pandits were in majority in earlier centuries. There was hardly any resistance ever. Pandits were and are a great intellectual and cultured people. But like all Hindus, they were brought up in maya illusionism, withdrawal from material life and all the Hindu fatalism. Even in Aurangzeb’s time, they went to Guru Teg Bahadur of the Sikhs for help because they could not fight themselves. My apology if this offends. I have never got an answer as to why the Pandits and Hindus never took to the sword.

The author provided the following response: ‘I am not in a position to comment on why my ancestors did not fight with a sword or a gun, but I am so proud about them, and shall remain deeply indebted to them forever, for staying true to their faith. Despite all tactics of the oppressors, they stayed put and did not change their faith.’ ‘Fighting with a sword or a gun is much easier but to remain determined and not to succumb to pressures, directly or indirectly, requires enormous guts and convictions. At this very moment, as I am writing these words, tears roll down from my eyes just by imagining what my ancestors must have gone through, yet they remained steadfast. It is their resilience and tenacity that flows through me, in the form of my blood and my independent thoughts. When most people around them were converting, they remained resolute and defiant. They showed passive resistance. They had no guns or swords or numbers to fight. They derived their internal strength and chose to follow their own path of spirituality. Had they followed the path of armed resistance against their oppressors, they would have undoubtedly been completed erased, with no one left to tell the story.’ ‘Anecdotally, in the last 680 years, they chose to uproot themselves and leave Kashmir seven times but did not change their faith. There was something in them—of course, their virtuosity and spirituality—that the great Guru Teg Bahadur sacrificed his own life for them. My humble homage to the great Guru! It is not without reason that they are entitled to use the title of “Pandit” before their names.’ ‘You can appreciate their constant struggle to remain independent, and not follow the herd, by the same way as you and I are currently striving to remain independent in our thoughts. Both you and I tend to follow the middle-of-the-road approach. You know very well how hard it is to keep our heads up and feet anchored firmly on ground when we encounter such barrages of polarised opinions from most people around us. My own close friends are beginning to challenge my neutrality and I am risking losing

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them, God forbid, by remaining neutral. But I won’t succumb, as my ancestors did not.’ ‘Coming back to our history, it has been 680 years since Kashmir had any Pandit king. Things changed suddenly in 1339, thanks to 317 years of rule by Kashmir’s Lohara dynasty (1003–1320), which was fraught with oppressive taxation, corruption, internecine fights and rise of feudal lords (Damaras), leading to foreign invasions and eventually undermining the Pandits. Who does not know the extent of significant damage that Sultan Sikandar (1389–1413), also known Sikandar Büt-shikan, did to Kashmiri Pandits and to their temples? His onslaught and plunder virtually broke the backbone of the Pandits permanently, as  they never recovered thereafter. Appallingly, he was greatly helped by some recent Kashmiri Pandit converts.’ ‘In 1586, Kashmir lost its last Kashmiri king, the noble Yusuf Shah Chak (1579–86), who fell to the trickery of Akbar, the so-called great Moghul Emperor, and his emissary, Raja Bhagwan Dass. Much to his credit, Yusuf Shah Chak had earlier defeated Akbar’s army twice. His brave son, Yakub Shah Chak (1586–89) continued his father’s fight but was eventually defeated and killed. Since then, Kashmir has been ruled by alien powers and rulers—first the Mughals, then the Sikhs, then the British who handballed Kashmir to the Dogras, and finally, after Oct 1947, India. It has now been exactly 430 years since Kashmir lost its independence and since it had its last indigenous king.’ ‘As for Kashmir Pandits, who does not know the Great Lalitaditya Muktapida (c. 699–760 AD) from the famous Karkota Empire of Kashmir (c. 625–855), also known as the Alexander of India, who is believed to have  conquered all the way to Iran on the west, Turkistan on the north, Tibet to the north-east, present Orrisa to the south-east and present Gujarat to the south-west? So, nearly two-third of the current geographical extent of India was possibly within Lalitaditya’s empire.’ ‘Since 1947, numerous Kashmiri Pandits have served India as top bureaucrats and senior officers of Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. They have proved Kashmiri Pandits are no less than the rest in so far as their valour is concerned.’ Kashmiri Pandits have a natural disposition to spirituality. They are not a warrior race. Pen is their sword. Thinking is their strength. Spirituality is their path. ‘As for their recent exodus in 1990, the problem till the last minute was that Pandits never admitted there was any issue; they thought it as a routine political disturbance. My elders told me that they had witnessed numerous such disturbances in Kashmir in the past. However, I was not convinced by their repeated ignorant assurances. To me, they seemed to have adopted an ‘ostrich attitude.’

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‘Based on what I saw and felt, I kept crying and warning everyone I knew and met, but no one listened to me, not even my parents. They thought I had gone senile and psychotic. Finally, in December 1989, when I could take no more, I left in anxiety, extreme fear and disgust, after losing full faith and trust in the then Central and State governments, and the security forces. The security forces were defending themselves, so how would they protect us individually?’ ‘Even if Pandits would have accepted the issue and been alarmed in advance, they had no one leadership to follow. Everyone was selfishly individualistic. Unfortunately, their complicated history has made them characteristically so. To survive, they never wished to look threatening to the majority Muslim community. Who kicks a deflated football? They never wanted to bring undue attention to themselves less they would be targeted; so, they kept low and pretended to be blind, deaf and dumb in the face of what was so obvious.’ ‘Before leaving individually, many Pandit brothers did not discuss their individual departure plans amongst themselves. Anecdotally, many did not even inform one another that they were leaving in a few hours, mostly before the daybreak. Thus, it is inconceivable that they could have fought against those well-trained and well-armed militants. Pandits had neither the arms, nor the training. They had never conceived that they will ever be targeted. So, they were not prepared mentally or physically  for what happened to them.’ ‘In any case, one cannot reasonably expect that 5% unarmed Kashmiri population comprising Pandits would have fought the battle-hardened militants, many from Afghanistan, Pakistan and several other countries, without getting completely annihilated within a few hours and, in the process, losing their children and women to the militants in a manner as seen in the Middle East—Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places in the warring world. Even 5-lakh (half a million) strong Indian army has been struggling to win over the militants in Kashmir in the last three decades.’ ‘Unlike Pandits, Kashmiri Sikhs were relatively  envisioned and united under one leadership. They successfully negotiated with the Muslim leadership and still continue to live there. Plus, they were not individually targeted. Remember, nearly 300 Pandits were individually gunned down, some quite barbarically.’ ‘I think this reality provides some insight into why Kashmiri Pandits did not and could not fight the militants.’

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Enigmatic Saints of Kashmir Fought in Their Own Way Kashmiri Pandits may not belong to a warrior race. But they are known to have immense spiritual strength. It is a common knowledge that Kashmir has produced many saints and sages of high calibre all through its history, and there are many anecdotal stories around about them, which illustrate their spiritual powers and prowess. Although Kashmir is proud to have produced many spiritual giants, in both Muslim and Pandit communities, amongst the most recent ones, Swami Nand Lal (also known popularly as Nand Bub or Nand Mot) and Bhagwan Gopinath (also known as Gupa-Bub) are briefly discussed in the following paragraphs as two towering examples of the Kashmiri spirituality. (Note: Humble apologies are rendered to the followers of many other Kashmiri saints for not describing them herein, as that is outside the scope of this book.) Swami Nand Lal Swami Nand Lal (30 Dec 1896–10 October 1973) was a well-built and an enigmatic mystic, with a face that radiated spiritual effulgence (Trisal, 2011). He had joined the Police Department after finishing his education. The story goes that once a senior police officer was to inspect his police station. However, at the time of the inspection, he was found to be present simultaneously at two different places. Several witnesses had seen him in deep mediation at Devi-Angan (at Hari Parbhat) around the same time when he was also found to be present at his police station, which greatly astonished everybody. From that day onwards, his enigmatic personality came to be known around Kashmir and his miracles started coming to light. After some time, on the basis of his proficiency in languages, Urdu and Persian, he undertook the job of a Petition Writer. One day, he was approached by a person for drafting a mercy-petition, who had falsely been accused in a murder case. Swami Nand Lal drafted the appeal and also included his own verdict on the petition paper, which greatly annoyed the judge concerned, who put him behind bars. That evening, the judge became terribly restless. After pondering over the issue, the judge ordered the immediate release of Swami Nand Lal.

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He was known to always carry three Holy Books with him—the Gita, the Koran and the Bible. During his last days, it is said that a lady, with a hunchback, had come to see him from Mumbai. When he beat her physically, she ran away and fell into a mire. Later, when she bathed, her physical deformity had disappeared completely. He is known to have made amazing predictions during Indo-Pak wars of 1947, 1965 and 1971, as well as the 1962  Indo-China War. In the Indo-China war, he was heard saying, ‘Shahi Cheena, Fish Kar Lutak,’ a day before the ceasefire. Swami Nand Lal had made predictions about the rise and fall of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1907–72), who was initially the deputy prime minister (1947–53) under Mohammad Sheikh Abdullah and then the prime minister of Kashmir (1953–64)  after the Sheikh was arrested in 1953. Swami Nand Lal was held in great esteem by both Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India. Sati-Ded, a contemporary of Swami Nand Lal, had predicted the current exodus of Kashmiri Pandits: Batni Watnuk Loal Mai Oai, meaning, ‘Oh, Kashmiri Pandit lady, are you craving for your homeland?’ Swami Nand Lal is reported to have been close to her in the spiritual domain. Bhagwan Gopinath Bhagwan Gopinath (3 July 1898–28 May 1968), born Gopinath Bhan, was a mystic saint and also called a jivan mukta (liberated soul). It was around 1946–56 that he came to be called as ‘Bhagwan’ (God) by his devotees. He is known to have suggested Bhagwad Gita as one’s spiritual master (‘Bhagwan Gopinath,’ 2019). He regarded the practice of atma-vichara (self-enquiry) as highly effective in attaining self-realization. He considered lust and ego as impediments in one’s spiritual development and extolled the virtues of honesty and truthfulness. He did not differentiate between religions, regarding Pandits and Muslims to be one and the same people. He recommended meditation to the seekers of spirituality, as he considered meditation as  beneficial for  spiritual purity and refinement. He spent considerable time meditating in various shrines in Kashmir. He was essentially an introvert, a man of few words, with a straightforward demeanour. He is known to have shunned publicity and covered himself with anonymity. He lived a life of celibacy.

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He is said to have started the daily practice of circumambulation around Hari Parbat in Srinagar from the age of 22 years, and was often found meditating for long hours in the courtyard of the Hari Parbat shrine. At the age of 25, he is said to have had a vision of Mata Sharika Bhawani, the deity of Hari Parbat. At later stages, he is known to have resorted to self-­ abnegation methods, such as fasting for months together. He was  also known to confine himself in a dark room, with only an oil lamp that would be lit up at all times. It is said a rat had once nibbled a hole into one of his heels; seemingly, he must have been oblivious of his physical pain. His followers have recorded and attributed various miracles to him, such as blessing issueless couples with children, treating incurable diseases, bringing back dead people to life, bilocation, mindreading, materialisation and helping people to visualise the deities of Kheer Bhawani and Hari Parbat in human form, as well as in the form of their effulgence. He was sighted on the battlefront during the 1947 Indo-Pak War by an officer of Indian Army. However, his devotees swore that he had never left his home. Even long after his death, it is reported that, on 3 July 1999, an officer of the 18th Battalion of The Grenadiers regiment of Indian Army sighted him directing the assault operations at the battlefront to recapture Tiger Hills during the 1999 Kargil war with Pakistan. In 1998, India issued a postal stamp in his honour. In conclusion, Kashmiri Pandits cannot be termed as cowards. Even their saints are known to have maintained vigil on the borders of the country. They may not have been using conventional weapons to terrorise others or defend themselves, but they are known to have operated within a much broader spiritual domain.

References Bhagwan Gopinath. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from http://www.bhagavaangopinathji.org/ Kaul, S. (2019). What Is the Estimated Population (in 2016) of Kashmiri Pandits? Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-estimatedpopulation-in-2016-of-Kashmiri-Pandits Languages of India. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from http://censusindia. gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/data_on_ language.html Trisal, C.  L. (2011). Swami Nand Bab Ji Saint of Miracles. The Better Truth. Retrieved from http://ashokkoul.blogspot.com/2011/10/swami-nand-babji-saint-of-miracles.html

CHAPTER 4

Issues in Pandit Community

Lack of Political Vision In February 2019, during his visit to Jammu, the author had a chance meeting with a senior member of his community at his uncle’s place. This well-read, intelligent and charismatic Kashmiri Pandit gentleman initially challenged and dismissed the author’s views on Kashmir and his approach to dealing with the Kashmir problem. However, that evening, over phone, he exhorted the author to have an audience with the executive council of a community organisation, which the author accepted gladly. On the day of the meeting, it rained heavily in Jammu. Many people would have chosen to stay indoors, but some people were committed and keen to meet. The author, accompanied by his father, reached the venue about half an hour before the scheduled start of the meeting. His father drove through heavy rain and the Akhnoor Road construction bottleneck, braving the Jammu traffic to reach well before time. After reaching the venue, the author paced back and forth, like a caged lion, on the open veranda outside the president’s office—with multiple thoughts flowing through his busy mind, about the purpose and likely outcome of the meeting—while his father settled back in a chair inside the office. After about half an hour, three gentlemen arrived to attend the meeting. There were five people in the meeting room, which included the president of the organisation, three senior members of the community—all retired government chief engineers—and the author. Most of the chat © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_4

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occurred between the president and the author, whilst the three, graceful and youthful, retired chief engineers looked on intently. The author proposed how the Pandit community could help itself and the valley of Kashmir using an out-of-box, positive approach. He emphasised why it was important that the Pandit community took the necessary initiatives and reconnected individually with the members of the Kashmiri Muslim community. He also proposed the Pandit community must support the local politicians of the State instead of relying on non-State politicians, based on valuable lessons learnt in the past. Interestingly, all five people have healthy and strong connections with many responsible members of the Kashmiri Muslim community; all members could easily exemplify the concept of Kashmiriyat. Special Kashmiri tea—kahwa—was served two times, with Kashmiri baker’s kutlum (pastry puffs) and tael-wor (bagels with sesame seed). The president expressed his regret a few times about why the author had not met him during the last two years after launching his books in India. He also conceded that, while he had heard about the books and the book launch, it had never occurred to him that the author could be an indigenous Kashmiri, as his (global) name had misled him. On his part, the author silently wondered at both the statements made by the president. Towards the end of the meeting, the author presented the president a signed set of his first four books, which was followed by a photo session. About a week later, the author left Jammu. A couple of weeks later, he called the president to follow up on their meeting and was advised that many members of the executive council were busy with social commitments, as the wedding season was on. After a few days, the author followed up with the first gentleman to learn about the decision of the council and whether they had agreed to his proposal; he was promptly advised that the council had outrightly rejected his proposal. The author was also advised that, following the Pulwama terror attack, the reported Balakot strike by India had completely changed the mindset of people in favour of a more popular movement in India, and, as such, no one was prepared to consider his proposal. Later, the author wrote to the president but never received any response in return.

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Indifference Towards Kashmir Some Kashmiri Pandits carelessly brush away any discussions about Kashmir, whilst making such irresponsible sweeping statements as, Why should we discuss Kashmir, we don’t live there anymore? There is not a chance that our children or we are going to live there, so why do we care? … They ousted us from our home, so we hate Kashmir and all people there … We have suffered so much discrimination and prejudice when we lived there. Now, take a look at the progress that we have made in all these years since our exodus. We have settled well outside Kashmir. Such statements are made without much thought. They must be painful and provocative for any Kashmiri who cares for Mother Kashmir. Such irresponsible statements can be considered to be abhorrent and detestable in the overall picture. Have the traditional Kashmiri social, ethical and moral values been replaced with materialistic desires, objectives and outcomes? Does Kashmir become important for a Kashmiri, or anyone else, only if one is able to physically live and prosper there? Do people, places and things assume importance only if and when we are able to use (or misuse) them? How can one be so carelessly indifferent and unwise? Should people abandon their old parents when they are physically of not much use to them? How can one speak on behalf of the entire displaced Kashmiri Pandit community and profess we should stop thinking or caring about Kashmir? Does anyone know how many Pandits deeply crave for their return and how many people really work hard to create opportunities for their return? How can one take away the birthright of Pandit children, and their future generations, to return to the land of their ancestors, by feeding lazy, shallow and myopic thoughts? Citizenship is not about the prosperity of only the individuals; it is about the common and collective good of all members of a community. Citizenship requires one to transcend one’s likes or dislikes for the sake of the community. Kashmir is much beyond one’s hedonic needs. Kashmir is the geographical and spiritual head of India. Kashmir acquires a sacred motherly identity to Kashmiri Pandits because: • Since the fourteenth century, Kashmir has witnessed, over the past seven centuries or so, a steely resolve, numerous hardships, deep convictions, struggles, tenacity and resilience of their ancestors, who would have undoubtedly endured all imaginable hardships to keep their Kashmiri Pandit identity intact, especially when most people

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around them had converted or were converting. Aren’t Pandits obliged to respect their commitment and sacrifice? • Guru Teg Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, offered supreme sacrifice for Kashmiri Pandits when he was beheaded by the then Mughal king of India, Aurangzeb, in exchange of their freedom from religious persecution and • Kashmir contains the mortal remains of Pandit ancestors. There is no doubt that both Kashmiri communities have suffered immensely during the past three decades or so and seen unimaginable hardships and tragic loss of numerous lives, permanent dislocation(s), loss of assets and income and irreparable mental agony and disease. Undoubtedly, the prime causes of their respective sufferings may differ to a reasonable extent, but, after these three decades or so, it is true both communities have truly suffered to a significant extent, both also facing a potential existential threat in the process. It is that suffering, and their respective disillusionment, together with their common Kashmiri roots and their unique culture, which must bring them proactively back together to weave a new social tapestry, turn on a new peaceful leaf in the book of Kashmir’s history and help their homeland regain her health. The years of 1989–90 can’t be brought back and retrospectively fixed, but 2020 is here and now. Kashmiris should be wise, pragmatic and prudent enough by now to help themselves, without relying on government for facilitating any such help. Similar to their Kashmiri Muslim brethren, Kashmiri Pandits have also suffered from a strong disillusion, albeit of a different kind. But the past three decades would have logically removed a few veils of their disillusion. They are practically on their own. It does not matter if people love or hate Kashmir, or if they are able to live there or not; what is more important is that, as Kashmiris, they are obliged to remain connected with their homeland—spiritually, socially and culturally—wherever they are located globally, and work coherently together with one another—across the two communities—to bring their motherland back to health, prosperity and glory, without any mutual distrust, hate or animosity—for Kashmir and Kashmir alone.

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Jingoistic Volatility Through their provocative and hateful posts on social media, many members of the Kashmiri Pandit community vent their anger and frustration and, therefore, may be promoting—inadvertently or deliberately—bitterness and mutual hate between the two communities. Consciously or reactively, such members of the Pandit community may be jeopardising the possibilities of fostering peace and reconciliation between the two Kashmir communities, and, in doing so, they may also be undermining sincere efforts made by responsible members of both communities to facilitate the return of some Kashmiri Pandits who are willing to return to their homeland. As a psychological defence mechanism, if one has lost home, one quickly adopts a new home and hangs on to anything that gives them joy. An open and jingoistic exhibition of their joy about India’s perceived military successes (against India’s neighbours) and India’s scientific progress can be construed as an involuntary reaction to their exodus. As supported by scientific laws, it seems many members of the Pandit community have been undergoing a psychological rebound process after having felt suppressed in Kashmir over a long period of time. They could easily wear the badge of India’s most patriotic and nationalistic community, if there was such as badge. The emotional intelligence of Pandits seems to have been affected immensely over these past three decades after their exodus. It appears their emotional capacity, figuratively a vessel, seems to have lost its depth, and, unlike their ancestors, they don’t seem to handle their emotions too well. Their loud jingoistic celebrations depict the siltation process that would have happened over years in their vessel (mind), resulting in shallowing of its capacity. Years of emotional suffocation in Kashmir has possibly made many of them a little volatile, intolerant and reactive after their exodus, as their life had suddenly  turned on its head overnight three decades ago when they felt suddenly uprooted and gasping for their breath to live. As one extreme gives birth to another extreme, many Pandits can now be seen as extremely polarised to the extent that they openly ask, on social media, for India to be declared a Hindu country. Their tone reflects a hint of religious extremism.

Erosion of Family Values During the last three decades, many stories of neglect, abandonment and abuse of elderly parents and socially single parents by their grown-up children have been making news on a regular basis within the social circles of

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the Kashmiri Pandit community across India and overseas. Such stories were not common prior to their exodus. In many cases, elderly parents were reported to have been abandoned by their grown-up children outside an old age home in Jammu or the Jammu railway station. In Kashmir, before the mass exodus of Pandits in January 1990, Kashmiri Pandits lived in joint families, and such issues did not generally arise. The community was generally known to live traditional family values, as a direct result of a closely knitted social fabric and proactive involvement of neighbours—both Pandits and Muslims—and relatives, all of which would serve as deterrents against any such occurrences. With their exodus, however, families broke into small, nuclear families that became scattered all over the world, as did their relatives. Due to political correctness, their (new) neighbours in India or abroad, who may not be Kashmiris, are less likely to get involved in their personal or family matters. During the COVID-19 time, sad stories of many overseas children taking turns, as roster, to visit India and perform the last rites of their parents have also surfaced. Grown-up children have started competing with their siblings regarding sharing responsibility for their elderly parents, with tendency to handball them around. Ironically, therefore, many parents having several children have, in effect, no one to take care of them. Therefore, it seems the elderly members of the community may be gradually falling through cracks, thanks to the exodus of this community. In many cases, due to social embarrassment and intrinsic care for their children, many parents choose to suffer silently, without complaining against their children. As such, they lose the opportunity to receive any legal assistance. The big question is whose responsibility is it to look after elderly parents, especially after one of them passes away. Should they, therefore, be allowed to slip through the cracks in the social fabric? Are the elders purely at the whims of their children? Whose responsibility are the elderly parents after all—government, community or the children? In many cases, children send their parents to old-age homes. It seems the sheer availability of such facilities may be encouraging them to do so. As a complete shift in their traditional values, old-age homes are now being accepted by this community, which is traditionally known for its conservatism. Do old-age homes absolve children of their accountability and responsibility towards their parents? Most parents work tirelessly for their children and also take hefty loans for their education and wedding. After the completion of their education, grown-up children find jobs and gradually become financially independent. They marry and have children of their own. In the meantime, their parents also grow older and finally retire from work. A time comes when

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the roles of children and parents interchange and parents need the care of their children. A question arises: Why are many parents being abandoned by their grownup children? In many cases, the finger may point towards the parents themselves. Perhaps they failed to set good examples for their children. Perhaps they did not exemplify care towards their own parents. Perhaps they encouraged their children to be too competitive and selfish, as survival tactics, especially in a country like India, which has such a large population. Perhaps they never inculcated good social and ethical values in their children.

Dwindling Family and Community Size The family size of Kashmiri Pandits has shrunk considerably over the last half a century of so. In the mid-twentieth century, married couples would typically have three to four children between them. Of course, exceptions used to be there; some couples had no or only one child, mostly due to medical reasons, or some had more than four children, mostly driven by a desire to have male children. In the later part of twentieth century, the couples started to have typically about two to three children, for reasons such as providing better education and care for them. After their exodus from the valley, the number of children per Kashmiri Pandit couple typically came down to just one or two children, regardless of gender of the child or children. Of course, some choose to have no child. Education of their children has always taken the highest priority for Kashmiri Pandits. Exodus seems to have taken a big toll on the size of this community. The current trend indicates one-child policy being followed by many young Pandit couples, regardless of the gender. The reasons being: • Gender equality, as both female and male children are more or less seen as equal in the community, at least since the exodus, • Increased geographical distance between married couples and their parents, which has led to low or a lack of parental support required to raise the children. Parental and wider  community  support was generally  available  in Kashmir from a typical joint family structure and relatively closer geographical proximity between families, • Respective working conditions and the geographical locations of the work places of the couple, as both tend to work professionally. In many cases, they  may be working in two different cities of a same country,

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• Paucity of time to attend to home duties outside long working and commuting hours, which is a direct consequence of (a) continued population growth, in particular, in India, (b) urban sprawl and (c) congested traffic conditions, • Tendency to focus on improving the general quality of life and the education of a child, rather than have many children, • Rising cost of raising children—in terms of education and co-­ curricular activities—and stiff competition in most aspects of life, again as a direct result of population growth in India, and • Infertility in some cases, for example, due to impotence, which may be due to high levels of stress—mental, physical and financial—they may be exposed to in their normal daily lives. Subject to a proper research study, the total fertility rate (TFR) of this community currently could be between 1 and 2. As such, their size will keep dwindling with time. Therefore, can they be considered as endangered? As per The Hindu, dated 27 February 2019, ‘What Is Sub-­ replacement Fertility in Demography,’ if TFR is less than 2.1 children per woman, which can be as high as 3.4 for some communities, the new generation will be less populous than the older generation (‘Sub-replacement Fertility,’ 2019). Globally, for sustainable population, TFR is considered as 2.33 children.

Loss of Family and Neighbourhood Support As noted in the previous section and elsewhere in the book, large joint families—comprising a number of cousin nuclear families—would traditionally live in the same three- to four-storey houses in Kashmir. They would share the same courtyard and other facilities of the house. On happy occasions— births, birthdays and weddings and so forth—all members of the large family would work together as a team to mark and elaborate the occasion. Similarly, on rainy days and during difficult times—death, sickness, matrimonial issues and separations—the larger family structure  would provide the necessary emotional and physical security cover. In addition to the members of a larger family living in a house, the members of the community living in the immediate neighbourhood would also become a part of the support group, especially during death, financial distress and weddings. A family matter would be a matter of the whole mohalla (neighbourhood), as the mohalla was considered a part of the extended family. Be it

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a wedding or a death in a family, the whole neighbourhood, regardless of the religious divide, would come together and support a family in need. Nobody in the mohalla would need an invitation to attend a wedding or accompany barat (groom’s wedding party). All neighbours would participate and contribute regardless, quite informally. Even people of the adjacent mohallas would participate without invitation. A child living in a house would be a child of the whole house, and not only of its parents. For that matter, a child belonged to the whole neighbourhood. Everyone knew every other person in the immediate and greater neighbourhood. There was never a dull moment. The community generally shared the joy and grief of all members of the community. It was not unusual between neighbours—or between members of individual nuclear families living in a house—to regularly share the dishes they would cook, or utensils or other household appliances. Anecdotally, up to the 1960s or perhaps even in the 1970s, people would even borrow formal clothes—such as men’s suites and ladies’ sarees—from their neighbours and relatives without suffering from any shame or ego. Since about the 1970s, as new residential areas started coming up in Kashmir, larger joint families living in traditional ancestral houses started breaking into smaller and more individual nuclear families, as those nuclear families moved into their own independent houses in new residential colonies. However, in general, most parents would still continue to live with their children as relatively  smaller  joint families, or at least with  one of their children. With exodus, however, as the community dispersed across the globe, the whole social structure changed suddenly. The community lost all its everyday social support from their over-arching larger families, neighbours and other relatives. The size of nuclear families suddenly reduced to typically four to six members, with a much reduced family and parental support as compared to their ancestors. Perhaps, the loss of support could be one of the factors that may be contributing—directly or indirectly—to the development of mental illness in some members of the community, as is the case in most other communities in this day and age of hedonic materialism and selfishness.

Cultural Metamorphosis The exodus of the Pandit community manifested in a range of changes in their general lifestyle, culture and thought process. The sudden increase in the geographical distances between families allowed the influence of their host communities to erode and take over their original Kashmir identity.

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The original script of Kashmiri Pandits was Sharda, which has almost become extinct. The history is, therefore, not in favour of the survival of their language. The growing tendency of Pandits to marry people from other ethnicities may have also resulted in the unpopularity and the dilution of the spoken Kashmir language. Generally, the exiled Kashmir Pandits use a mix of non-Kashmiri languages (Hindi, Punjabi, Dogri, English) for everyday communication, both at home and outside. Their food preferences and tastes have also changed over time to more non-­ Kashmiri flavours and food choices. For example, none of the original Kashmiri Pandit dishes contained tomato, onion or garlic, or even green coriander, but there has been a growing tendency in many Pandit homes to make customary use of these ingredients. The wedding functions have also changed significantly in terms of dresses, music and dance, and the introduction of new rituals and non-Kashmiri food items, which have become a new norm now. The exiled Pandit community may have, consciously or unconsciously, metamorphosed into a different community, living with varied hybrid cultures across the globe. The traditional Kashmiri ethos, such as simplicity and modesty, seem to be virtues of the distant past. Boisterousness and extravagance seem to have taken over as the new order of the day. Before the exodus, the older people in Kashmiri mohallas would take responsibility for the members of the community, as their own family members, especially in terms of matters of concern. For example, if a youth was seen smoking or drinking or in a cinema hall, or just loitering around the streets, after playing truant at his school, the news would invariably  reach his home by the end of the day. So was the case with unmarried girls. If she was seen walking with a stranger or at a place where she was not supposed to be, she would be reported to her parents by anyone who would have seen her. These days, however, everyone minds his or her own business. No one cares or seems to be afraid of anyone. These days, older people turn a blind eye to most things lest they are rudely challenged by younger people. In this day and age of materialism, self-interest generally governs a person’s interaction with his friends, colleagues, extended family, relatives, neighbours and the society at large. Due to the growing social and professional competition, the individual survival and material successes, with shameless show-off, has now become the sole requirement for many people, who consciously discard traditional principles and scruples. In the past, Kashmiris used to sacrifice their self-interests to uphold the common ethical principles. People may be more affluent now, but they have also

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become time-poor. Social interactions generally happen more at wedding parties in wedding seasons. The general thinking goes like this: If you are not of much use to me now or likely in the future, why should I waste my time with you? Traditionally, in Kashmir, relatively affluent class of Kashmir Pandits would endeavour to maintain a relatively modest and simpler lifestyle so as not to appear as showing off or cause any jealousy or inferiority feeling in their relatives, neighbours and friends. Showing off was considered to be unacceptable and a sign of shallow character and reflection of new-riches. Sobriety was a core Kashmiri trait. Now, as evidenced in lavish wedding receptions and social parties, it is the opposite. The traditional Pandits wouldn’t spend their hard-earned money indiscriminately, such as in lavish weddings or other social functions. It seems now everyone is in some form of social competition with the rest in flaunting their wealth (clothes, adornments and other displayable material possessions), and, in particular, how they perform the wedding functions of their children. It may appear most Pandit parents earn for the caterers and marriage-hall owners. The affluent class doesn’t seem to be providing a right direction to the community  in general. The wealthy  don’t seem to realise that mindless social competition and tendency to show-off inadvertently not only promotes an unnecessary rat-race but also develops jealousy and inferiority feelings in the same very people they lean on emotionally during their bad times. The social pressure—generated by the relatively more affluent class of Pandits—has undoubtedly mounted heavily on relatively less-affluent class. Social responsibility of relatively well-to-do and influential Kashmiri Pandits is seen to be missing. People have also become overly egoistic and self-aggrandising over time. Their ego and pride generally dictate their social and family lives. In the past, people would attend a social function by the word of mouth. Wedding invitations card would be meant for the whole family, and not for individual members of the family. These days, however, parents and their married son’s family, living in the same house, need to be invited separately. Also, people are expected to personally deliver the wedding cards—which are also lavish and shameless  reflections of wealth—otherwise the invitees tend to  mind and complain, and may not attend the function if their ego is not serviced. Overall, since their exodus,  the exiled Pandit community appears to have become more  intricate, materialistic and selfish; narcissist and self-­ aggrandising; and jingoistic in many ways. In general, mindless show-off, rather than their traditional sobriety, defines them now. They tend to waste

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no opportunity in flaunting anything they can show-off  and anywhere they can, on social media or in general social settings. Their overall uncharacteristic behaviour could possibly be an impulsive reaction to deep-seated psychological wounds that they suffered 30 years ago.

Divorces Divorces were few and far between in this community before its exodus. Bride burning cases, due to dowry issues, were also non-existent, and so was female foeticide.Traditionally, most marriages in Kashmir used to be arranged and facilitated by parents, relatives, friends and neighbours. Elders would try to ascertain if the candidates would be compatible with each other, mainly based on the following considerations: a) Respective family background—social and financial status, b) Caste differential—there were at least three social sects of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir: karkun, non-karkun and bohri, c) Upbringing and educational background of the candidates, and d) Astrological considerations based on their horoscopes. In most cases, the traditional marriages in this generally patriarchal community would last for a lifetime, albeit not always for the right reasons but for a range of factors, including: • Poor education or complete illiteracy of women, leading to their financial dependency, • Financial dependence of an educated housewife on her working-­ class husband, • General expectations, around a traditional image, from a married woman to be only a housewife and a mother, and • Some form of social taboo or stigma against a traditional housewife stepping out of home for work. Typically after the 1970s, choice marriages had gradually started to become acceptable in Kashmir, most of which would, however, be within the Pandit community itself but, only occasionally, also with other communities, particularly, if the candidate was studying or working outside Kashmir. With exodus, the rate of choice marriages has suddenly shot up, possibly due to:

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• Sudden increase in the volume of exposure of the Kashmiri Pandit youth to the youth from the mainstream Hindu community of India, and • General preference of Kashmir Pandit girls to marry non-Kashmiris, possibly as a reaction to (a) the (perceived) orthodox treatment and the (narrated) experiences of their mothers in this traditional patriarchal community. The patriarchal tendency of the community seems to have diluted over time, particularly after its exodus, and (b) the global resistance against gender inequality. Although a considerable percentage of Kashmiri youth choose their own partners now, a significant portion of those choice marriages also fail soon after the wedding, some as early as two days, but mostly within about a couple of years after the wedding. The reasons for failed marriages are generally seen as: a) General incompatibility, personality clashes and ego of one or both, b) Global fight against gender inequality, driven by women, c) Misplaced expectations from each other, and d) Impotence of the male partners, possibly driven by a busy lifestyle and work stress. It appears Pandits may have caught up with the rest of world in making or breaking their marriages. Given the high probability of a marriage breakdown, mainly the wedding catering agencies and marriage resort owners benefit from their lavish weddings. Instead of satisfying their ego by performing such lavish weddings, parents would be much better off focussing on strengthening of the foundations and  essentials of a marriage and, therefore,  investing in proactive ways to strengthen the marriage of their children, as well as  save their life-savings for their own rainy days, old age, sickness or even travel around the world, if possible.

Reference Sub-replacement Fertility. (2019). What Is Sub-replacement Fertility in Demography (2019). The Hindu. Retrieved August 2019, from https://www. thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/what-is-sub-replacement-fertility-in-demography/article26390014.ece

CHAPTER 5

Main Challenges for Kashmir

India and Pakistan Must Fight Terrorism Together History has proved terrorism transcends geographical or religious boundaries, as both India and Pakistan have been suffering due to terrorist acts and mass casualties on a regular basis. Similar to Indian Army, Pakistan’s army too has constantly been battling terrorism on its soil. One could argue that Pakistan perhaps  deserves it, as the terrorists are primarily grown and raised on its soil, with possibly receiving both overt and covert support from its army and intelligence. Indians want Pakistan to close all terrorist camps running in that country so that both countries could benefit and breathe an air of peace, but that is not as easy as it sounds. While Indians term it as terrorism, many Islamists in Pakistan call it a jihad (religious war) against India. If only Pakistani government could draw a sharp line between the two terms and take appropriate actions against the terrorists, the region would change for the better. Equally, if India also addresses the concerns of Kashmiri separatists and genuinely wins them over, peace would be sustainable in the subcontinent. Incidentally, Pakistan loses many more people—all Muslims—to acts of terrorism than India does, carried out by similar players. Terrorism must be dealt with on its own, and not seen in terms of religion. It will not be prudent and fair to divide the world into Hindus and Muslims, in so far as terrorism and patriotism are concerned. India is home to world’s third largest Muslim population. Indian Army and Jammu & Kashmir Armed Police (JKAP) have decent representation of Muslim © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_5

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soldiers who have also  been fighting against the militancy for years  and sacrificing their lives in the process. Their proven integrity and bravery is absolutely unquestionable. Both India and Pakistan have currently very capable prime ministers. Both have received their people’s mandate to lead their countries. Coincidentally, both leaders face numerous internal challenges. Both have inherited legacies left by their past governments. With so much in common, apart from their common history and culture before 1947, prudence asks that both leaders fight together as one team against their common enemies—terrorism, poverty, gender discrimination, poor education, environmental vandalism, dwindling liveability and growing mental illness. It would be appropriate to reproduce a quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfils himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

Lord Tennyson’s quote is so very pertinent to the current socio-­political scenario in the world, including such delicate relationship between India and Pakistan, their leaders and the people. The world has changed significantly in the past seven decades. India’s population has grown four times since 1947. The leaders of the past are replaced by the current new visionary leaders, who are expected to develop and follow relatively much more constructive and progressive policies than their predecessors. The past baggage inhibits human growth and impedes national progress. What has happened in the past is dead and buried; it is totally imprudent that buried bones are unnecessarily dug out. Why should one spoil the present with the past bitterness? Energies must be solely focussed on today, to heal all past wounds and then be able to surge ahead with greater zeal and enthusiasm. Pakistan’s Precarious Position The current Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr Imran Khan, is a well-­educated and reasonable person. He is known worldwide and respected for his work and achievements from the time before he joined the politics. Unlike India, however, no civilian government in Pakistan has been autonomous. With all its best intentions, for fostering peace and friendly

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relations with India, this current civilian government in Pakistan—headed by Mr Imran Khan—cannot do really much to punish the terrorist organisations that operate from Pakistan’s soil, at last in the short term. He will not be able to rid his government of the toxic interference and influence of his country’s military and intelligence in a day. He will need time and immense support—from both inside and outside his country—to win over the relevant players and stakeholders in his country. The Indian leadership must appreciate Mr Khan’s good intentions towards his country, but also remain acutely aware about the legacy that he has inherited, as well as his practical constraints and his precarious position in so far as battling terrorists in his own country  is concerned. Prudence requires that he should not be subjected to undue external pressures from his neighbours and expected to deliver something that he cannot practically do, at least in the short term, without compromising his leadership position. He may not have much room to manoeuvre. Mr Khan is actually caught up between the deep sea and the devil. If he resists those organisations, he potentially faces a military coup. On the other hand, if India pushes him too much, he does not have much room to manoeuvre, so he will be forced to react desperately. As the history of his country goes, any impatient expectations from him have the potential to weaken him and make his position untenable and possibly bring back the Pakistani army at the helm. So, it is no use pushing him and expecting things that he can’t deliver, as he is in a very tight spot. India must understand that a civilian prime minister of Pakistan is not a very free person. A civilian leader has to appease many people whom he/ she may not like or respect. But without their blessings, he/she can’t function. The world knows that Pakistan has been fighting itself, seemingly a constantly losing battle. Pakistan has been suffering much higher casualties than India due to terrorist attacks within the country. If one takes a look at its history since 1947, and the statistics of terrorist acts inside Pakistan, one can realise its current precarious position (Walsh, 2010; Wasim, 2007). This country is relatively more impoverished and globally isolated, for valid reasons though. That is why Mr Khan received the people’s mandate to lead the country. Like their Indian counterparts, Pakistanis are also sick and tired of nepotism and cronyism, due to a thriving feudal system, which have plagued the country. Like his Indian counterpart, Mr Khan is seemingly working hard to bring some health and prosperity to his country. He inherited numerous issues created by erstwhile governments in Pakistan, and is dealing with their legacies.

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The whole situation in Pakistan is currently delicate. One would hope that it remains geographically intact and politically stable as one country; otherwise, the whole subcontinent may be destined for a very dangerous future. Pakistan’s political instability and a growing religious extremism can potentially cost not only Pakistan but also India, and the world as a whole. So, the world must come together to help, encourage and coerce Pakistan in dealing with its religious extremists who have the potential to not only destroy their own country but also cause immense harm beyond its borders. India’s Internal Issues The current Indian Prime Minster, Mr Narendra Modi, was re-elected in 2019 after receiving a huge mandate from his people to lead the country for another five years. His current tenure is  extremely challenging and possibly India’s last chance to turn its diving liveability curve upward and integrate the nation. The Indian community is currently deeply divided along the lines of caste, region, religion and socio-economic conditions, which are open for exploitation by India’s enemies—both internal and external—for their personal gains. Mr Modi will need to erase the divisions and bind his people together. For any Indian prime minister, it is never easy to lead this massive country of 1.4 billion, especially if many people constantly try to tear it apart. There is only one other nation on the planet, China, which has a comparable population and would have faced similar political and social issues in the past as does India now. But, through their entirely different political infrastructure and a communist system of governance, China is perceived to have been able to keep a lid on its issues. One must, therefore, imagine how hard it must be for Mr Modi, while functioning in a democratic system, to do his job and keep the country integrated and strong, particularly in the face of numerous undermining agencies lurking and functioning inside the country under the cover of democracy. As a huge challenge for Mr Modi, India needs one common Civil Code for all Indians in order to urgently control its population growth rate, fight poverty and poor education, gender discrimination, dowry, corruption, adulteration, pollution, environmental vandalism, disease (tuberculosis, cancer and mental illness), and now COVID-19. Mr Modi needs people’s proactive support to run the country and improve its liveability towards a sustainable future.

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Jingoism and Patriotism Many Indians and Pakistanis are obsessed and paranoid about each other’s country. It seems jingoism blinds them to a falling liveability and numerous internal issues that constantly undermine their countries. In order to usher in sustainable peace and mutual trust between the two countries, it is paramount that both leaders actively stop jingoistic cries and acts on their respective lands—on both television and social media. It is important that, in the light of the bigger picture, irresponsible civilians, religious leaders and exservices personnel are stopped from echoing hateful jingoistic sentiments. The players playing the Kashmir game—the neighbouring countries, local politicians, militants, security forces and government—appear to be just playing their regular respective roles. They do just what they are known to do. Wisdom requires one to deal with delicate and potentially volatile situations with vision, patience, pragmatism and positive emotions, and, in doing so, focus energies mainly on strengthening the defence structures and becoming stronger and capable of thwarting potential terrors attacks with greater effectiveness and deterrence. After the February 2019 Pulwama attack, many people cried on the Indian television and social media for strong punitive actions against Pakistan and terrorists. Unless jingoistic people are personally ready to face the consequences of war and experience what soldiers experience during every moment of their active lives on border and be prepared to die in the call of duty, jingoism can be deemed as an  extremely cowardly  act, both irresponsible and reprehensible. Warmongering and jingoistic war cries in television studios or in the comfort of one’s home—to vent one’s personal frustration—only generate an environment of hate, fear and tension, and practically do nothing to help prevent terrorist acts in the future. Angry negative emotions only sow negative seeds in nature, which manifest in hate and violence in the future. Negative reactions only help to widen the divide and escalate the degree of hatred between the communities. In both countries, true patriots must cement the social cracks and build bridges between the countries so that people in the region can cohere peacefully. Jingoistic rhetoric and extreme views on religion, politics and nationalism undermine the foundations of a country. When people lose the ability to see logic and reason, they become very dangerous and hostile, and the country loses in the process.

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On the one hand, jingoistic people just talk, and, on the other hand, patriotic soldiers leave their families behind and fight for  the country, braving all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable hardships. They remain prepared to lay down their lives so that civilians can live happily with their families. They stand guard while people sleep. In that respect, their moral status is much above the civilians. Therefore, it is extremely irresponsible for jingoistic people to expect that the soldiers fight and die on the border while they shout war cries in television studios. Instead, civilians should work to erase social divisions and help to create coherence within the country to reflect their own shade of patriotism. Soldiers know their job and don’t need to be told what to do. Being jingoistic is not being patriotic; there is a vast difference. Patriotism means having to dedicate one’s life in the service and progress of the country, whereas jingoism is effectively nothing but a war cry. Such war cries on television and social media do not bring peace and prosperity to the country. Sheer imagination about the consequences of another full-­ scale war between the two countries, especially if it escalates—for any reason, stupid or otherwise, and potentially acquires a nuclear dimension—is  bone-chilling insofar as its consequences are concerned. Given the consequences, therefore, people must be encouraged actively to be soldiers of peace, and not soldiers of hate and destruction. Terrorism: A Cancer Some people call terrorism a cancer. It would be useful if the term terrorism is broadened beyond its common interpretation (i.e. terrorism by only the religious fundamentals). In that respect, the subcontinent and many parts of the world are gripped with terrorism in various forms—domestic, social, political and religious. The poverty of more than half of the population in the subcontinent and rapes of young girls and women can also be construed as terrorism. A rape is reported every 15 minutes in India. How do we get rid of subcontinent’s known cancers—religious terrorism, poverty, gender issues and inequality, poor education, environmental degradation, dwindling liveability, corruption, mental illness and growing rate of biological cancers? All these cancers grip the very fabric of the community in the subcontinent. Because of poverty and poor education, thousands of young kids in the subcontinent are virtually bought or stolen from their families and admitted to various schools of extreme versions of a religion and trained to fight the so-called infidels.

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Philosophy Nature made this world, and humans bred right from the time the first woman and the first man evolved on this unique planet, called Earth. Since then, humans have incessantly kept biologically producing more and more humans, albeit for various reasons. Humans produce their children, and God does not produce their children. Humans also created religions— at different times—for various reasons too, God did not. If one supports the thought that everything is created by God, and by God’s Will alone, then one must also accept all kinds of people and their religious beliefs. Going by that logic, their hate and fight against the people of different faiths and beliefs can be construed as blasphemous. One can’t accept some things created by God or as per God’s Will, and reject other things as per one’s personal choice and for the sake of convenience. Either one accepts God’s Will, in everything that happens to and around us, and stays quiet, or one takes the responsibility and becomes accountable for everything that happens around them. There are reasons why things have happened in the past and why they happen now. One must introspect deeply and visit the reasons underlying common problems before blaming and stereotyping others. To find solutions to chronic problems and usher in peace, people must learn to introspect, contemplate and do everything possible to promote peace and humanity. Humans have one earth, one sun, one moon and one God. So, as God’s one people, they must think, cohere and talk peace. If input remains same, output will also remain same. Therefore, to make positive changes, one must think deeply and change one’s approach. The leaders of the two countries must think outside the box. They are capable of forging a strong bond and bring peace and greater progress to the subcontinent. For that, they will need a vision and their people’s proactive support. The world must not give up on  any hope of friendship and brotherhood between the two countries: India and Pakistan. Impossible things can happen if all relevant stakeholders work coherently together and make them happen. If there were no dreamers, who dared and thought out of the box, there would be no electricity and light bulb, planes and space crafts, mobile phones and the Internet, underwater tunnels and sky bridges, and delicate organ transplants and cures for diseases. Given that many Indians and Pakistanis are madly obsessed with each other’s countries, they may be possibly in love with each other. Lovers sit in each other’s hearts and minds, as is generally believed. Love and hate

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are two sides of the same coin. One seldom gets angry at strangers. Pakistanis and Indians are not indifferent to each other. They do think about each other, for whatever reasons. Culturally and historically, they are not much different, they think and act alike. Why is so difficult to be peaceful? Why do people allow the Satan of death and destruction possess them? Instead, why cannot they fight to bring down the walls of distrust and animosity between the two countries? Why do they allow their past to ruin their present? This is an entirely different world, and the laws in this current world are also entirely different to those of the first millennium. In this third millennium, things can be sorted out with dialogue, instead of armed aggression. If one can call over phone or send out an email (or SMS) to convey a message, one does not need to write a letter on parchment, as would happen 2000 years ago, and send it through a messenger, on foot or horseback.  With peace on the radar, and will in the heart, newer and simpler ways can be discovered and adopted to achieve it. The Way Forward Why a certain thing has happened, and how it can be prevented in the future? These are the questions that one must answer honestly. If war is the solution, then India must go for it till it achieves its logical conclusion. But before going for that, all heads must stay cool and consider all ramifications. Unless India is prepared to accept all possible consequences, India must not go for war. The same advice applies to Pakistan too. All things considered, as the only sensible way forward, India and Pakistan, instead of fighting against each other, must join hands to fight together against their common enemies—terrorism, poverty, illiteracy and poor education and gender discrimination. For this, Pakistan must change its total approach towards India—from seeing India as its foe and nemesis to seeing India as its friendly elder sibling. A serious change in heart is required in Pakistan. A similar advice would apply also to India, it takes two to tango. The truth is the two neighbours can’t abandon each other. They were born from the same country—INDIA; they have essentially the same DNA. Between the two neighbours, one would wish that at least one of them keeps its eyes open. The truth is one can’t move the two neighbours away from each other. It is their destiny to live in neighbourhood. They must learn to coexist peacefully for the sake of their peace-loving people.

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What other options do they have? The cost of another war may be way too high for both countries. Can the two neighbours learn from Australia and New Zealand how to coexist peacefully as close and friendly neighbours, or from the US and Canada, or from the European countries? It will be a much better world when Indian and Pakistani professionals (teachers, engineers, doctors etc.) work in each other’s countries, and the armies of the two countries conduct joint war exercises to fight common wars against common enemies, such as COVID-19.

A Commentary on the Pulwama Terror Attack The Pulwama attack, on 14 February 2019, may have changed the destiny of India, as it had a significant bearing on the outcome of Indian general elections held in May 2019. The attack practically divided the Indian community, including the exiled, uprooted Kashmiri Pandit community, which has been a hapless direct victim of the militancy in Kashmir. The terrorist attack, which killed over 45 Indian security (CRPF) personnel and injured many more, and the distasteful support that it received thereafter from some Kashmiri Muslims in the valley, has continued to rub salt deep into the wounds of Kashmiri Pandits, whilst also attracting a significant angry reaction and protests from many Indians—on social media, press, candlelight vigils and demonstrations on streets. One must be a naive person if one did not expect any kind of reaction— verbal or otherwise—from any average person in India against the Pulwama attack and the tacit support that it subsequently received from some irresponsible Kashmiri Muslims living in the valley or in other parts of India. Following the reaction, the irresponsible role that the Indian media and the human rights activists also played speaks volumes about the current state of the country. It seems Indians enjoy too much of freedom and some strange kind of entitlement that they can do and say anything without being accountable towards their country. On the other end of the spectrum, following the Pulwama tragedy, the Indian television was abuzz with numerous jingoistic debates every day. As such, everyday skirmishes take place in the subcontinent, but, thankfully, most of them are fought mainly on the television or on social media. TRP ratings are important for television business.

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Questions to Answer Before moving further, it is important to answer the following two questions: • Is there a signed agreement between militants and security forces in Kashmir that militants will not use RDX explosives or car bombs in their attacks on the security forces, which the militants broke? • Has Pakistan ever signed an agreement with India that it will not support the militancy in Kashmir, which it broke? If the answer to both above questions is a big NO, why was the car-­ bomb attack seen in India as something extraordinary? • Aren’t the security forces expected to put in place all necessary measures of deterrence and defence against such car-bomb attacks? • Wasn’t it a classic case of security lapse? Why and how did the Pulwama  attack happen?  Whose responsibility was it to manage mobile check posts? Did they not allow for such a scenario in their Risk and Hazard Management Plans? Either their Safety Management Plans were inadequate or it was a result of human error and/ or wilful negligence. Perhaps, someone was compromised. Politicians try to politicise and, thereby, disrespect the fallen soldiers, by offering lip sympathies, who were the victims of negligence of the people who were supposed to look after them and  their safe transport. The ground reality is that the Indian security forces have been fighting militants—born and raised in several countries—for the last 30  years in Kashmir. Security forces are well-trained, competent and experienced in the guerrilla warfare being fought in Kashmir; as such, they are expected to be prepared and ready to fight off the Pulwama-type terrorist attacks. Security forces are also not unfamiliar with the situation in Kashmir. But in this case, there has been a major security lapse, which cost many soldiers their lives. Someone let them down. It was a security breach. India’s Pre-emptive Attack After several days of speculation, early morning on 26 February 2019, India is understood to have taken a strong punitive action against the terrorists when a number of Indian fighter jets reportedly carried out a

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successful pre-emptive strike across the Line of Control (LoC) and destroyed a number of terrorist camps and their facilities, claiming to have killed about 350 militants in the process. (One would question why did the Indian Air Force not carry out similar punitive actions against the militants and the perpetrators of terrorism in Kashmir in 1990, when about 300 Kashmiri Pandits were gunned down by the militants, and, once again, post the 2008 Mumbai attacks.) Within the next 24  hours of the Indian strike, Pakistan reportedly responded with its own aerial attack across the LoC into Kashmir, hitting some open-ground areas in Kashmir, as a demonstration of its air prowess. However, when Pakistani planes were challenged by Indian fighter planes, Pakistan is believed to have lost two fighter planes, both crashing inside its own territory, as claimed by Indian authorities. One Indian plane was also shot down inside the Pakistani territory and its pilot captured by the Pakistan army. In a much televised affair, as a matter of goodwill, Pakistan returned the pilot to India within the next two days. It has always made so much sense to sit down and talk sincerely to resolve all bilateral issues, right from the beginning. But the fact is the past meetings between the two countries have not resolved anything substantial or any end to terrorism. So the frustration on the Indian part has escalated over the past years.

India Needs Vision Despite claiming to be a democratic nation, the political infrastructure of independent India has proved that the erstwhile kings and princes of pre-­ independent India may have been replaced by self-aggrandising politicians and the so-called leaders who act mainly for themselves. Cronyism and nepotism continue to be well and truly alive. More than 70% of population living in the villages is generally poor and uneducated. The country’s wealth and education have not spread uniformly. The country’s recent economic growth has come at a cost of its liveability, natural and social environments, with increasing rates in mental anxiety and depression disorder, unhappiness, student suicide, rapes, obesity and diabetes, cancer and other affluent life-style diseases in mainly the upper socio-economic community. In the past seven decades, Indian population has quadrupled. As a result, the country has been witnessing increase in aggressive competition. People have learnt indigenous and ingenious ways to survive and prosper and get things done through smart shortcuts and corrupt practices, by

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hook or by crook. Following centuries of poverty and illiteracy, they seem to be hungry for wealth. As a result, they have become materialistic, selfish, whimsical and unpredictable. There is a wide gap between their expectations from themselves and the expectations of their country from them. The Indian community has increasingly become polarised along religious regional and caste lines. The Indian politicians have sowed deep-­ seated elements of distrust amongst the communities. The environment and liveability of the cities have been dwindling. The Indian cities are becoming increasingly polluted and congested, and characterised with women insecurity, traffic woes and diseases. People inhale toxic aerosols through the polluted air and consume adulterated food and water. Without connections and bribes, not many works can be accomplished. Corruption and competition seem to have made their home in the average Indian DNA. The country appears to be moving aimlessly, seemingly in a more reactive mode. People are deliberately polarised, for a purpose though, but still remain at the mercy of political leaders. Policies, if any, change with changes in governments. Political leaders indulge mainly in mud-slinging and digging out the past misdeeds of erstwhile governments, without focussing much on the present and shaping a better future for all people. That is not how countries must be run. It is unacceptable to run such a large and populated country without a clearly defined vision for the country. The country’s vision and blueprint must be independent of any ruling party or any ruler. In practical terms, every ruling party is like a contractor chosen by the people to deliver the country’s vision, if defined, using proven and established systems and processes. It is the system that must run a country. Without a published blueprint for the country and a clearly defined Vision 2050 and Vision 2100, how do Indians know what they are trying to achieve and in how much time and through which processes and systems that can be achieved? How do they know if their country will be able to meet the global challenges of the future? People must be given the future vision of their country. Even private companies have written vision statements for their shareholders and employees. India is not a weak country. Unfortunately, political leaders induce their followers into crying foul and playing victims too. This is done to divert the attention of people from the current existential issues, because politicians don’t have either the will or any solution to address those issues. People are deliberately made to get involved in the issues of the past, sometimes imaginary, and/or fear psychosis for the future. India has world’s third largest army, fourth largest air force and fifth largest navy. India is also a nuclear power, with more than 130 nuclear warheads. In

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addition, India also has a very large police force and home-guards, plus a formidable paramilitary and border security forces. In recent years, a significantly large and growing force of private security agencies have been looking after private residential and commercial properties. If all these forces perform as intended, India is safe and sound. Unfortunately, most Indian politicians, based on region, religion and caste, have been fanning the victim mentality amongst the public. Their game plan is simple: to distract people from real issues and  lord over the country.  People are kept embroiled in useless issues of the past. To keep the nation integrated, peaceful and progressive, India urgently needs a strong and visionary leadership to bring the country back to environmental and physical and mental health, to bind its people and integrate the nation, to educate all women so that they are empowered and operate in their daily lives on an equal footing with men, to strictly control population growth for country’s sustainability, to control food and medicine adulteration, to control and reduce air and water pollution and to eradicate corruption and poverty.

Kashmir Does Not Need Mediation India calls Kashmir its integral part and, therefore, deems  the Kashmir issue as its internal matter. However, Pakistan has been trying to claim Kashmir and crying for justice for Kashmiri Muslims since 1947. India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and abetting the militancy in Kashmir, which Pakistan denies. Pakistan claims it only provides moral support to the freedom fighters in Kashmir, which India calls meddling. India claims Pakistan has been providing the necessary logistical support and even the fire-cover to the militants when they cross over the Indian territory. Pakistan claims innocence and says the Kashmir struggle is indigenous. It has always refused to accept the evidences produced by India from various terrorist attacks on India, such as Mumbai terrorist attack and the Pathankot Airbase attack, which possibly confirm India’s allegation. Pakistan calls militants operating in Kashmir as freedom fighters and India calls them terrorists.   As per Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, the definition of mediation is, one that works to effect reconciliation, settlement, or compromise between parties at variance … But if one party involves a third party without the consent of the second party, aiming to gather support from the third party, and the third party involves itself in the matter without seeking the consent of the second party, it will be deemed as a case of meddling.

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Per Merriam Webster, the definition of meddling is, to interest oneself in what is not one’s concern: interfere without right or propriety … Pakistan has been championing the cause of Kashmiris around the world—at the UN, with the OPEC and with Islamic countries—and trying to put political pressure on India. Pakistan has been making allegations of atrocities by Indian Army against Kashmiri Muslims. But that is not enough. It must approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with evidence to support and substantiate its accusations. If the UN and ICJ have reasons to believe Pakistan, they must mediate. But even the UN has been found wanting on many occasions in the past. • Do all Pakistanis support Pakistan and militancy in Kashmir? No. • Do all Indians support India in Kashmir? No. • Do all Indians see the Kashmiri militancy as genuine and indigenous? No. Can the UN mediate in Kashmir without receiving an invitation from India? So can Kashmir expect fairness from the UNSC? As reflected from books on history, third parties can have their own agenda and axe to grind. If at all, the third party must be ideally impartial and without any past, present or future conflicts of interest. Any bias by the mediator will exacerbate the strife and potentially worsen the situation. Mediators who tilt towards one party, by not verifying the facts, get blinded to the truth, thereby becoming a party to the strife. Does Kashmir need mediation or meddling by a third party? It acceded to India in 1947 and, thus, is an integral part of India. Militancy in Kashmir is limited to a small percentage of people, not every Kashmiri Muslim supports it, as explained elsewhere in this book (Ref. Appendix 1). People are sick and tired of strife and want to live a peaceful and progressive life. Since Kashmir has been hijacked by several internal and external agencies, all with their own vested interests in the issue, it is not going to see peace any time soon, unless such agencies are alienated.

Shallow Kashmiri Character Socio-political instability in Kashmir during the past decades has considerably eroded the sense of Kashmiri nationalism, self-respect and pride of an average Kashmiri. They have become experts in receiving dole from all sides without having to work for it. Similar to their affluent counterparts

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in the subcontinent, they take pride in acquiring and boisterously flaunting their material wealth, which marks a significant shift from their traditional Kashmiri ethos. Alarmingly, they seem to have become blind to ecological and moral sustainability of their homeland. Their current mindset seems to be all about material and consumption. Metaphorically, therefore, the current state of Dal Lake, which has significantly  shrunk and become shallow with a considerable weed growth, represents the current Kashmiri character. On the basis of the author’s regular visits to Kashmir since 2014, the capital city of Srinagar appears to have sprawled in all directions. Areas that used to be considered as out-of-town rural areas three decades ago are now urbanised. In addition, agricultural lands—paddy and orchards— have been converted into residential areas. Big residential and shopping complexes and mansions can be seen from the roadside. Simple arithmetical calculations don’t justify how most salaried people in Kashmir could  have been able to afford such lavish lifestyle and palatial houses within and outside Kashmir—Jammu, Delhi and other places in India. Many of them also own a number of houses in Kashmir, including the houses left behind by the Pandits. A number of questions arise about the basis of the new-found affluence of the affluent class. What has been the source of their ‘additional’ income? Have they been receiving regular dole across the LoC? Have they been stealing from the foreign funding to keep the militancy going? Have they been stealing from the funding from India supposed to be used for the development of infrastructure in the State and for controlling the militancy? If so, why would this influential and affluent class of Kashmiris like to see the return of normalcy in the State? Apart from the affluent class, average working-class Kashmir people do not look happy or satisfied. Mental anxiety and depression disorders have risen alarmingly in Kashmir in these past three decades. Militancy and constant civil disturbances could have played a major role in their mental illness. Perhaps, the costs paid by some of them, if not all, for their recent affluence could also have taken a toll on their individual moral, spiritual and physical health and that of their community as a whole. Historically, prior to 1990, due to a wide power and wealth differential, the corrupt practices by the traditional political elite and their close affiliates had left a considerable section of the Kashmiri community with bare-­ bones and disillusioned, which could have exposed them to exploitation by normal suspects. Therefore, is it possible, a major reason underlying the

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socio-political unrest has been the unhindered and rampant corruption— over decades—by the political elite, their affiliates and other affluent and influential members of the Kashmir community? Was the relative poverty of the common person exploited in the name of a religious uprising?

Kashmir’s Cultural Flux Kashmir has been known as a valley of spiritual people—saints, sages and dervishes—from both Pandit and Muslim communities. The creation of the valley itself has a strong mythological reason. The Kashmiri culture has roots in pre-Islamic indigenous spirituality (Kashmir Shaivism) and Sufism. Like trees, if the roots are not nurtured, the consequences can be devastating, with potential to undermine the whole community. Systematic erosion of the traditional Kashmiri values, tolerance and culture, and their replacement with alien cultures, has occurred steadily in Kashmir since the early 1980s, driven by Islamists and the influential members of the Muslim  community. It seems Kashmiri Muslims have been directed to get rid of their historical Sufi flavour and the spiritual roots and align more with an international Islamic identity and a more fundamental version of Islam. Religion and culture have two different meanings. In Kashmir, however, these two terms have been confused with each other. Like Indonesia, most Kashmiri Muslims had Pandit ancestors before the arrival of Sufi saints from West Asia who initiated the process of conversion to Islam in the fourteenth century. However, unlike Indonesia—the largest Muslim country in the world that has consciously preserved its original identity—Kashmir has been consciously and proactively trying to change its identity in the recent decades. The traditional (Kashmiri) names of many towns have gradually been replaced—at least in spoken language—with Islamic names. For example, Anantnag (which means a perennial spring) is commonly called as Islamabad; Umerheer (actually Umbar-heer, which means a ladder to the sky) is now known as Ahmad Nagar; and Reshvaer, which means a garden of (Hindu) Rishis, as Kashmir used to be known, is now called by the locals as Peervaer, a garden of (Muslim) Peers. Appendix 1 of this book provides a quick journey through the history of Kashmir. The following paragraphs provide a quick glimpse of a range of cultural and religious flux which Kashmir has undergone during the past 2300 years. Historically, Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) and Abisares, the king of Kashmir at that time, are known to have interacted in 326 BCE during the Battle of the Hydaspes (the Greek name for River Jhelum).

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Abisares (or Abhisara), called Embisarus by Diodorus, was an Indian king beyond the river Hydaspes, whose territory lay in the mountains, who sent embassies to Alexander the Great (Alexander the Great, 2019) both before and after the conquest of Porus in 326 BCE, although he was inclined to espouse the side of the latter. Alexander not only allowed him to retain his kingdom, but increased it, and on his death in 325 BCE appointed Abisares’ son as his successor. After Alexander’s return, a considerable portion of his army—comprising Greeks, Romans, Macedonians, Persians and Pathans—settled back in the area. It is expected, therefore, the area could have developed a hybrid culture, comprising a mix of the indigenous culture of Kashmir at that point of time and an alien hybrid cultures brought in by Alexander’s army (Downie et al., 2016). Kashmir became a part of the great Mauryan Empire around 300 BCE, which also brought in Buddhism through Ashoka (304–232 BCE) (Ashoka, n.d.). Ashoka founded the city of Srinagari (the present-day Srinagar) around 250 BCE. The Fourth World Conference of Buddhists was held in Kashmir during the Kushan dynasty’s rule around 150 AD. By fourth century AD, Kashmir was known to be a seat of learning for both Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhism reached Tibet and China through a great Kashmiri Buddhist scholar, Kumarajiva (343–413 AD), who travelled to China and influenced the Chinese emperor, Yao Xing (‘Kumarajiva,’ 2019). He got many Sanskrit works translated into Chinese at the Chang’an monastery. Kashmir has been recognised for its unique spiritually in the world. Jesus Christ is believed to have travelled all the way from Jerusalem and lived in Kashmir for 14 years before his crucifixion and again after his resurrection, about 2000 years ago (Hassnain, 2002). About 800 years later, the main proponent of Hinduism, Adi Shankara or Shankaracharya, is also believed to have travelled all the way from the south of India and lived in Kashmir for some time (‘Shankaracharya,’ 2019). He is believed to have engaged the local spiritual giants in rigorous spiritual discourses but finally conceded to their wisdom. A few hundred years later, a number of well-­ known Sufi and Muslim saints from West Asia also arrived in Kashmir. Kashmiris are historically known for spirituality, adaptability, resilience, intelligence and hospitality. Some important questions: • What could have been the reasons for Kashmiris to be spiritual? Philosophically, the perceivable difficult living conditions in the valley would have forced people into living a life of high interdependence

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and communal harmony, with high reliance on the spirituality for treating physical and mental ailments. Logically, therefore, it seems spirituality would have weaved itself into the mainstream Kashmiri thought and ethos, language and the food, thereby producing a unique Kashmiri culture. • What was in Kashmir that had attracted so many spiritual giants to travel and live in this valley? Was that ‘something’ Kashmir’s Shaivism (‘Kashmir Shaivism,’ n.d.), including its earlier forms, which was practised by Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the valley? (Shaivism is one of the major branches of Sanathan Dharma, revering Shiva as the Supreme Being. Followers of Shaivism believe that Shiva is All and in all, the creator, preserver, destroyer, revealer and concealer of all that is. Kashmir Shaivism is a group of nondualist Tantric Shaiva traditions from Kashmir. The goal of Kashmir Shaivism is to recognise one’s already existing identity with Shiva, the deity who represents Universal Consciousness. Shaivism in Kashmir is understood to have developed between the eight and the twelfth centuries of the Christian era. Kashmir Shaivism is idealistic and realistic in essence, strongly advocating a pragmatic approach to life. It is naturally compatible with Sufism in many ways.) • Why did the West Asian Muslim and Sufi saints really come to Kashmir? Did they perceive the valley as Reshvaer (in Kashmiri, it means a garden of rishis and sages) or as a valley of infidels? Were they attracted to the valley to avail its rich indigenous spirituality, or did they arrive with intentions to erode its original spirituality and replace it with Islam? With the arrival of Sufism and Muslim saints from West Asia in the last 500 years, conversion of Kashmiri Pandits—initially from mainly the lower socio-economic strata—to Sufi Islam started, possibly due to the relative simplicity of original Sufi thought, which was naturally compatible with indigenous Kashmir Shaivism, and the absence of expensive rituals in religious Hinduism. However, after Kashmir fell to alien Islam rulers in 1339, a majority of the Pandit community converted to Islam, at times due to extreme religious persecution and oppression by some Islamic rulers. Most conversion took place during the 24-year oppressive reign (1389–1413) of Sultan Sikander, whose full name was Sikandar Shah Miri, also known as Sikandar Butshikan (i.e. Sikandar the Iconoclast) (‘Sikandar Shah Miri,’ 2019). As the sixth sultan of the Shah Miri dynasty

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of Kashmir, he is known for his strenuous efforts to convert Kashmiri Pandits to Islam by perpetrating extreme hardship upon them. It is believed that Sikander committed atrocities against non-Muslims under the influence of a Sufi saint, Mir Mohammad Hamadani, who preached fundamental Islam. As per author M.K. Kaw, Sikandar became infamous for his atrocities on Hindus and Buddhists, and did not permit them to worship. He became to be known as büt-shikan or idol-breaker for desecrating and destroying numerous temples and other holy places of worship of Hindus and Buddhists. He also illegalised several art and cultural activities, such as dance, drama, music and iconography of Hindus and Buddhists, terming them as heretical and un-Islamic. He even stopped Hindus and Buddhists from cremating their dead, compelling them to bury the dead bodies as per the Muslim rituals. He also imposed the Jizya, a Muslim religious tax, on them, with a heavy levy (Kaw, 2004). According to Baharistan-i-Shahi, a chronicle of medieval Kashmir, written originally in Persian manuscript (circa 1614) and translated by Prof K.N.  Pandita towards the far end of his life, Sikandar passionately demolished idol-houses (temples) and idols of the infidels, including a massive temple at Beejbehara. He wanted to destroy all Hindu temples and completely annihilate the community of infidels (Pandita, 2013). During Sikandar’s reign, a large number of Kashmiri Pandits converted to Islam. Many Pandits are believed to have fled the valley during that time. The remaining Pandits  who stayed back in Kashmir were either killed for their refusal to convert to Islam or committed suicide. About a couple of decades after Sikandar’s reign, many Kashmiri Pandits returned to Kashmir during the 50-year reign of a benevolent Muslim king, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1420–1470), primarily due to a pivotal role played by Shri Bhat, a wise Pandit vaid or hakeem (doctor, surgeon), who successfully treated a debilitating boil on the body of Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (also known as Bud-Shah, which means ‘a Great King’) (Sehgal, n.d.). For the next 100 years or so, the home-again Kashmiri Pandits lived a relatively stable life till the last Kashmiri Muslim king, Yousuf Shah Chak (1579–1586)—a noble person and a poet at heart, who had earlier thwarted Moghul Emperor Akbar’s advances into Kashmir and defeated his army twice—was tricked, under a conspiracy, into visiting Delhi for a peace treaty with Akbar but instead was arrested and imprisoned in Bengal till his death, and finally buried in Bihar. After him, Kashmir fell to the Mughal kings (Zahir-ud-din, 2016).

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Six decades later, hard days fell on Kashmiri Pandits again when another Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, who reigned over a large part of the subcontinent for a period of 49 years (1658–1707), became a major driver of religious persecution and a large-scale conversion of Kashmiri Pandits to Islam. The ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, resisted religious persecution. He met Aurangzeb and challenged him to convert him as a precondition of the conversion of Kashmiri Pandits  to Islam, which Aurangzeb accepted. However, when Aurangzeb failed to convert him, Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded on 24 November 1675 (Khalid, 2017). His three followers, who had accompanied him to Aurangzeb’s court, were also killed mercilessly. About five decades after Aurangzeb’s death, Kashmiri Pandits witnessed another oppressive 70-year period (1751–1820) during the reign of Afghan Durranis, who repressed Kashmiris of all faiths. The relief came when their last ruler, Ahmad Shah Durrani, was defeated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1820. The 24-year Sikh rule (1820–1846) was followed by 101-year (1846–1947) rule by several Dogra kings. With time, the Kashmiri spirituality comprised a unique tapestry of Kashmir Shaivism and Sufism, but only till 1990. After 1990, the Sufi thought has been more or less replaced by a more fundamental version of Islam. It seems Kashmir’s troublesome past—over centuries of political and religious flux—and its geographical isolation, combined with a relatively harsh environment during the winter months, followed with a poor post-1947 industrialisation and scarcity of jobs and a high dependence on others for food and commodities, exacerbated by a high population growth and sustained corruption by the influential class and political elite, have made a significant negative impact on the common Kashmiri psyche and their general behaviour over the last seven decades since the British left the subcontinent. They have become an individualist, selfish, opportunist and a chameleon community.

Environmental Vandalism in Kashmir Kashmir valley is known to have a delicate environment and eco system due to its geographical location. However, a relentless environmental vandalism—widespread deforestation, reclamation of wetlands, streams and lakes for urban use—undertaken mindlessly by corrupt and irresponsible, influential elements of the Kashmiri community over the past decades have endangered its eco system.

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The world-famous Dal Lake, located in the heart of Srinagar city, looks considerably shrunk and shabby. In many areas, it looks to be infested with algae, and numerous localised areas of weeds protrude its water surface. It may potentially cease to exist in a few years, as its carrying capacity and the aerial extent have dwindled steadily over years by unhindered reckless encroachment activities undertaken by local houseboat and hotel owners. There is an island in the middle of Dal Lake, called Char-Chinari, which used to feature four large chinar trees in the 1970s. It used to be an attractive tourist destination and accessible only by shikaras—decorated rowing boats. Over time, it has lost three chinar trees. Logically, therefore, it could be renamed now as Ek-Chinari (means an island with one chinar tree). Effluent discharge from houseboats and hotels, which flourish on its periphery, has significantly contributed to an alarming growth of weeds in it. The lake does not appear to be what it used to be about four decades ago. In some areas, it resembles more of a wetland, with densely populated weeds protruding over most of its surface and localised areas of red and blue algae in the nearshore areas. To a large extent, similar is the case with two other lakes, Anchar and Wular. The River Jhelum, which runs through the valley, has significantly silted due to domestic effluent coming from residential areas and those numerous houseboats that permanently sit on river. Its tributary, Doodh Ganga, which used to function as a flood channel to receive the flood water from Jhelum and Dal Lake, has alarmingly silted over time. Greedy encroachers have tried to fill up Doodh Ganga for the construction of their houses on its bed. River Jhelum, Doodh Ganga and the flood channel need urgent dredging works to restore their original carrying capacities, otherwise large-scale inundation of residential areas adjacent to these remains a real possibility with undesired outcomes, as witnessed during a massive flood event in 2014, and in the subsequent years. In 2014, the lake inundated its original expanse, flooding all those residential areas that were originally a part of the lake shore (‘JAMMU AND KASHMIR FLOODS, 2014,’ 2014; ‘Too Much of Development in Jhelum’s Flood Basin Led to the River’s Fury,’ 2014). Until the 1980s, there used to be a navigable nallah (stream) through the down areas of Srinagar, called Nallai Maer, which was connected with some wetlands and localised wet bodies, called Maer. Historically, it facilitated local transportation (by naav or shikara) and also acted as a flood relief channel during heavy rainfall and flood events. However, following

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a bizarre decision taken by the then State government, it was filled and a road constructed in its place. This tragic development not only would have affected the local eco system—the hydrogeological and groundwater regime—but also adversely affected the natural flood mitigation and control processes, significantly exacerbating the likelihood of the city getting inundated in the future heavy rainfall and flood  events, as witnessed in 2014. Since then, the city has remained on edge, with nervous city-­ dwellers, during heavy rainfall events. In the past three decades, owing to a growing population despite militancy and political disturbance, residential structures in the traditional wetlands, orchards and paddy lands have mushroomed, which could have endangered the ecosystem and have definitely reduced the land areas for agriculture purposes. During the past half a century or so, the traditional forest areas and world-famous tourist destinations—Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Sonamarg and so forth—have seen reckless deforestation and a sprawl of residential and commercial development, which have potentially endangered the eco system and the local climate of these areas. As a result, cloudbursts are a regular feature in these areas. If the Kashmiri people and their government don’t stop the aforementioned environmental vandalism immediately and take appropriate mitigation measures, Kashmir is destined to suffer from massive flood events, cloudbursts and dry winters, with a much greater frequency in the future. Possibly, it may not remain to be a Heaven on the Earth, as it has been historically known.

Political Instability in Kashmir Due to its continued socio-political instability, Kashmir is stalling and possibly decaying. Alarmingly, young Kashmiri children and youth, mostly from the underprivileged and lower socio-economic communities, have been misused—by the separatist leaders, in the name of Islam, through the payment of money or coercion, incitement, motivation, inspiration and encouragement—in the last decade or so to throw stones on the security forces and, in return, possibly get killed and become mujahids and (sham) freedom fighters so that the world knows: • Even children in Kashmir are fighting for freedom, and • The Indian forces are repressive, heartless and cruel, and supress human rights in Kashmir.

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Kashmiri children are encouraged to fight jihad (a religious war), but against whom? The separatists ask them to fight for azadi (freedom), but do they know what that term means? They are being raised with hate, anger and violence. They are instigated into provoking and attacking the security forces with stones and sticks. Such acts are equivalent to committing suicide, particularly if they try to snatch the weapons from the security personnel. Not surprisingly, the separatist leaders are known to have shielded their own children from such violent public demonstrations and stone-throwing events. As noted elsewhere in this book, before 5 August 2019, it was the only State of India, which had its own constitution, flag and penal code—the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC). Despite its erstwhile semi-autonomous special status, it is bizarre that some Kashmiri  separatists had been  calling for seceding from India and/or joining Pakistan. Can their historical cries for separation from India be construed as the main reason why India unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s status in August 2019 to set the matter finally at rest? If so, will history be ever kind to those separatists or call them well-­ wishers of Kashmir? Perhaps not! Instead of calling  for separation, they ought to have engaged more with India and the Indian government. India is home to world’s third largest Muslim population in the world who live harmoniously with other communities. Although Pakistan is an Islamic Republic, is it peaceful? In comparison to most other countries, India is by far the most peaceful, tolerant, progressive and strong country in the region. The onus is only on the people of Kashmir. Prudence demands they exercise wisdom in analysing the Kashmir situation in light of the regional politics. It is not prudent if Kashmiri people use religion as the main criterion in their decision-making. Instead, it would help them if they use the following parameters to assess their neighbours: • Political stability • Democratic values • Social stability • Future for youth • Global position • Economic strength • Military strength

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Unless Kashmiri leaders show prudence and genuine care for Kashmir and their people, especially for the future of their children and youth, Kashmir will never attain peace and progress.

A Pampered State India had been pouring a huge amount of money into the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir the—as subsidies, reliefs and miscellaneous political investments—a significant part of which may not have been accounted for. In addition, the erstwhile State had also been receiving many concessions, compensations, subsidies, incentives and cash doles from time to time. Where has all the money been going? The answer to the question can provide some understanding about the unrest in the valley and possibly a solution to the unrest itself. A common perception has been the bulk of the money has been pocketed by a number of politically elite and other influential members of the Kashmiri community. The erstwhile State had been receiving disproportionately much more funds than all other Indian States, giving back far less tax revenue in return. In 2015, the State figured at 17th place, with a tax revenue of Rupees 346  billion out of India’s total tax revenue of Rupees 30,330  billion, which means the erstwhile  State contribution was just about 1.1% of India’s total tax revenue, which nearly equates with its percentage of population. On 24 July 2016, The Hindu reported, ‘J & K gets 10% of Central funds with only 1% of population.’ Some excerpts from the news report, by TCA Sharad Raghavan, are reproduced here (Raghavan, 2016): Jammu & Kashmir, with a population of 12.55  million according to the 2011 Census, received Rupees 91,300 per person over the last sixteen years while Uttar Pradesh received only Rupees 4,300 per person over the same period … The state received Rupees 1.14 lakh crore in grants over the sixteen years under review, according to the Union Finance Ministry’s data, which is more than a quarter of the Central funds disbursed to the 11 special category states in that period. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in 2015 castigated the Jammu and Kashmir government for the pendency of a large number of inspection reports and observations highlighting serious financial irregularities … “There were persistent errors in budgeting, savings, excess expenditure

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and expenditure without provision,” the CAG report on the State’s finances for the year ending 31 March 2014 said. According to the CAG report, 32,625 audit observations, containing 8,518 inspection reports pertaining to the period 1998–2014 were outstanding as of 31 March 2014.

Will the Kashmir Issue Ever Go Away? The Kashmir issue, as perceived, is unlikely to go away, at least in the near future. It has been keeping many influential and powerful politicians and various religious and militant organisations operating on both sides of the LoC in business. In an unlikely scenario, if the foreign funding from certain countries (for a certain cause or agenda) and the involvement of international arms dealers stop, it will certainly disappear, but that is a big ‘if.’ Geopolitics and internal divisions—social, religious, political, ideological—are necessary for economic reasons. If there was peace in the world, many industries would shut down, affecting many economies. Similarly, if all the people in the world were healthy, millions of people would become jobless. Issues, strife and maladies keep many aspects of the world going, albeit for wrong reasons. Kashmir is not only important for Kashmiris but, for entirely opposite reasons, it also carries big stakes for the subcontinent and the other major global players. In such a case, it is hard to imagine if those stakeholders will ever like to see a normal progressive and peaceful Kashmir. The Kashmir issue is not an indigenous movement by Kashmiri Muslims against India, otherwise would they have not helped Pakistan when it invaded Kashmir in 1947 and 1965? Every division in the subcontinent has potentially benefitted major faceless players, based both within and outside the subcontinent. The partition of the subcontinent in 1947, followed by the division of Kashmir in 1947–1948 and again in 1962, and finally the division of the subcontinent in 1971, kept introducing new economic dimensions to the subcontinent. Obviously, the players would benefit more if more divisions are created and exploited. The regional stability poses a threat to the big international players, and therefore, they will do everything they can possibly do to undermine it. Those players remain hidden and work through their trusted pawns on the ground. Those pawns—called leaders—are made to believe in particular

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ideologies and see threats to those ideologies from certain people and then made to fight against them. If a burning fire helps many stakeholders, why extinguish it? To keep it burning, more issues need to be created. The superficial complication of the perceived Kashmir problem is deliberate, just to mask the working and intentions of the regional and global players. Contrary to the claims of secessionist leaders, Islamists and pseudo-intellectuals, it is not associated with any religious suppression of the local Kashmiri Muslims. India is the world’s third largest Muslim country and its army is secular. In essence, the issue is a historic power tussle between the local secular-minded Kashmiri Muslim politicians and the Islamists, all of whom want to benefit from power. Since 1947, Kashmiri Muslims have enjoyed a predominant representation in the State police, administration and bureaucracy in all successive State governments. In addition, they have also served in the Indian armed forces (Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry), bureaucracy and successive Indian governments. Since the start of the uprising in 1989–1990, hundreds of Kashmiri Muslim policemen and scores of Kashmiri Muslim soldiers serving in Indian Army have laid down their lives fighting against the armed militancy in Kashmir and elsewhere in India. Ironically, many Islamist Kashmiri separatist leaders are known to have been feeding on Indian dole. Their personal security and healthcare are taken care of by the Indian taxpayer at no cost to them. Those who have been calling for Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan unbelievably appear to be blinded to the fact that Pakistan (dominated by the Punjabis) has been riddled with numerous ethnic issues due to its past treatment of the other ethnic groups as Muhajirs (the Muslim migrants from India in 1947), Sindhis and the people in the North-West Frontier. Pakistan lost East Pakistan (Bangladesh) due to its treatment and genocide of Bengali Muslims. Pakistan has been ridden with terrorism-related issues driven by Pakistan Taliban and other radical militant Islamist organisations—supported and possibly managed  by  elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)—and annually loses many more people to Islamic terrorism than India. One must be naive to believe Kashmiri Muslims would have a better future with Pakistan than with India. Unlike any other parts of the subcontinent, Kashmiris lead a far laidback lifestyle than anyone else in the subcontinent. Their staple diet is generally meat and rice, and, in general, they don’t pay taxes. Many of them own residential and commercial properties not only in the valley but also in Jammu, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi. They are intelligent enough to know that if Kashmir becomes

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independent from India, Pakistan will not waste a minute in annexing it, where they will be treated as second-class citizens, like their brethren living in the  POK.  Is it not reasonable, therefore, to conclude that the Kashmiri separatist leaders have been using the Kashmir issue mainly as a bargaining chip with both India and Pakistan to enjoy importance and attract funding from both and also  from other countries, funnelled through Pakistan? Sincere leaders solve issues and do not create them. They don’t incite their people into undertaking violent resistance; they don’t exhort and sacrifice the lives of youth and children. They care about the safety, security and well-being of the people, as they would care for their own children. Not surprising, most veteran Kashmiri leaders have not lost any member of their family in the uprising during the last three decades. Many years ago, a Muslim woman advised the author, Son, please don’t tell people (Kashmiri Muslims) that you are acquainted with him (referring to a prominent Islamist politician). Be careful, they may react to you. He is not liked or supported by many people; he is greatly blamed for the current disturbance in Kashmir and the unfortunate loss of many young lives. The radical Islamists and Muslim fanatics may have been calling for freedom (azaadi), but, paradoxically, by introducing and promoting alien names (Arabic style), Urdu language in common usage and adopting stereotypical Islamic appearances, they may have also seriously undermined Kashmir’s cultural identity and traditional ethos, and, thus, surrendered Kashmir to alien cultures. How do they support their claim for Kashmir if they don’t speak Kashmiri or don’t even look like traditional Kashmiris? If cultural identity is lost, everything is lost.

References Alexander the Great. (2019). Alexander the Great. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great Ashoka. (n.d.). Ashoka. Cutural India. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https:// www.culturalindia.net/indian-history/ancient-india/ashoka.html Downie, J. M., Tashi, T., Lorenzo, F. R., Feusier, J. E., Mir, H., Prchal, J. T., … Koul, P. A. (2016). A Genome-Wide Search for Greek and Jewish Admixture in the Kashmiri Population. PLoS, 11(8) Retrieved August 2019, from https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27490348 Hassnain, F. (2002). Jesus in the East – Incredible Saga. Kashmir, India: Dastgir Publication Trust.

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JAMMU AND KASHMIR FLOODS, 2014. (2014). Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://www.actionaidindia.org/emergency/jammu-and-kashmirfloods-2014/ Kashmir Shaivism. (n.d.). Kashmiri Shaiva Philosophy. Internet Enylopedia of Philosphy (IEP) – A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.iep.utm.edu/kashmiri/ Kaw, M. K. (2004). Kashmir and It’s People: Studies in the Evolution of Kashmiri Society. APH Publishing. Khalid, H. (2017). The Tale of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Aurangzeb Embodies Simplification of Sikh-Mughal History. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1311274 “Kumarajiva”. (2019). Kumarajiva and Madhyamaka School of Thought. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http://ignca.gov.in/wp-content/ uploads/2017/05/ab_bachchan_kr.pdf Pandita, K.  N. (2013). Baharistan-i-shahi: A Chronicle of Mediaeval Kashmir. Kashmir: Gulshan Books. Raghavan, T.  S. (2016). J&K Gets 10% of Central Funds with Only 1% of Population. Retrieved June 2019, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/ national/other-states/JampK-gets-10-of-Central-funds-with-only-1-ofpopulation/article14506264.ece Sehgal, N. (n.d.). Shri Bhat – Light in the Darkness. Retrieved June 2019, from http://www.koausa.org/Leaders/ShriBhat.html “Shankaracharya”. (2019). Adi Shankaracharya. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.culturalindia.net/indian-religions/shankaracharya.html “Sikandar Shah Miri”. (2019). Sultan Sikandar  – A Cruel Crusader. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://ikashmir.net/wailvalley/b1chap12.html Too Much of Development in Jhelum’s Flood Basin Led to the River’s Fury. (2014). Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.thehindu.com/todayspaper/ldquo219-Kashmiri-Pandits-killed-by-militants-since-1989rdquo/article16006510.ece Walsh, D. (2010). Pakistan Suffers Record Number of Deaths Due to Militant Violence. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2010/jan/11/pakistan-militant-violence-death-toll Wasim, A. (2007). Terrorism Dogs Pakistan in ’06: Over 900 Killed in 657 Attacks. Retrieved from https://www.dawn.com/news/226760/terrorismdogs-pakistan-in Zahir-ud-din. (2016). October 6, 1586: Kashmir Loses Sovereignty to Akbar. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/ kashmir/october-6-1586-kashmir-loses-sovereignty-to-akbar/

CHAPTER 6

The Way Forward?

Visiting History Is Important For gaining some understanding about Kashmir and the psyche of Kashmiris, it is essential that one first gains some knowledge about the history of Kashmir. People’s ignorance about the history of Kashmir makes it not only a little enigmatic but also a region taken for granted for its natural beauty and a continual political strife. But Kashmir is much more than that. Perhaps the solution to her strife, as seen in the past three decades or so, lies in her history. In late 2018, the author delivered a number of lectures in Perth, Western Australia, on Kashmir and its history. These audiences included (a) a senior’s group comprising senior Australians of Indian background, who had previously worked as professionals in India, and (b) the U3A (The University of the Third Age), affiliated to the University of Western Australia, which comprised mostly white Australians, coming from a range of background. On the basis of the author’s interaction with the first group, it was evident that senior members of Indian origin had by and large quite poor knowledge about Kashmir, its relatively glorious past (before 1300 CE) and a relatively much complex and unsettled history thereafter. The common knowledge amongst the members was: Kashmir is beautiful but riddled with political issues. In that respect, the group was a typical representation of both Kashmiris and Indians across the world, including India, with whom the author has interacted in the past and who, © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3_6

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annoyingly, did not really know much about Kashmir and the complexity of its affairs. However, the author received a very useful feedback from the coordinator of the second group, the U3A, a day after the lecture. Some excerpts of his email are reproduced here: Bill, your lecture was such a success … Not only did we have a near record attendance … this morning, I’ve had a number of emails from members who took my advice and read your blog that I had sent out … The history is so complex for an audience who have been brought up with an education system emphasizing European history to the detriment of the region around Australia … As you pointed out, there were an extraordinary number of regime changes. I wondered if you might select the most important and try to find pictorial imagery of their style of clothing or architecture etc. that had a major effect on Kashmir. The subject was obviously one that held great interest. On reflection, I think that it is too big a subject to cram into one lecture and, in my opinion …

The bottom line is that not many people know much about the earlier history of Kashmir, not even Kashmiris themselves. It is prudent that Kashmiris and all those people who deal and interact with Kashmiris must learn about the earlier history of Kashmir before preaching solutions, if any, to the so-called Kashmir issue. No one except Kashmiris themselves can help Kashmir to achieve everlasting peace, stability and progress. For doing so, all Kashmiris must come together peacefully and bury the hatchet in order to turn a new leaf in the history of Kashmir. If people are ignorant, politicians too, who represent people, can be considered to be ignorant and deemed irresponsible if dealing particularly with Kashmir. The possible ignorance of politicians becomes a major factor in prolonging the Kashmir issue and the suffering of Kashmiri people—both Pandits and Muslims. Politicians must learn and truly understand the psychology of Kashmiri people and the history of Kashmir before proposing and outlining short-term fixes for Kashmir. Kashmir needs long-term robust measures to heal and stabilise it.

Understanding the Root of Kashmir Issue To find a solution, one must first understand the root of the problem. In that respect, the complex history of Kashmir has a signification bearing in making and shaping the psychology of Kashmiri people. Over many

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centuries of political turmoil, Kashmiris have acquired many survival skills and unique behaviours, which include their good acting skills and throwing tantrums, with an objective of maximising their material gains with bare minimum input. As history bears witness, Kashmiris are characteristically melodramatic and expert in hatching conspiracies against one another, just for materialising personal benefits or sometimes for fun. They are skilful in the art of prospering with minimum possible effort by simply pitting others against one another. The seemingly conniving and intelligent, but unwise, Kashmiri politicians blackmail and milk the governments of both India and Pakistan, using two different approaches. They are aware about the political and living conditions and religious conservatism in Pakistan, but, as opportunists, some of them use it for gaining sympathy and financial assistance. On the Indian side, they achieve similar outcomes by crying foul and spreading rumours to exploit people’s sentiments. With the result, both India and Pakistan have been pumping money into Kashmir, albeit for two different outcomes—one for making noise and the other for diffusing that noise. Historically, that money does not seemingly reach the grassroots but instead lands in the pockets of several leading political families in Kashmir, leaving a majority of the  Kashmiri Muslim population hungry and primed for further politico-religious exploitation. If money keeps coming in, why would these hungry individuals like to kill the hen that keeps laying the golden eggs? If it was a case of religious suppression in Kashmir, why would the Muslim policemen and soldiers in Indian army fight the Muslim militants? The following argument supports a view that Kashmir is a power game, played for political gains: • Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a Muslim, did not join Pakistan after Maharaja Hari Singh left the valley in October 1947. He was the unequivocal leader of Kashmiri Muslims in the Muslim-majority State  of Jammu and Kashmir. As per  an article, dated 8 February 2017, published in The Hindustan Times, Sheikh Abdullah’s note to Nehru, on 26 October 1947, saved Kashmir from falling into the hands of Pakistan (Ahuja, 2017). The story has been narrated by the then Prime Minster of Jammu & Kashmir, Mehar Chand Mahajan, in his autobiography, Looking Back. Reportedly, the meeting between the two had taken place at Nehru’s residence.

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• Maqbool Sherwani, a 19-year-old Muslim man, was executed at Baramulla, on 7 November 1947, by the invading Pakistani kabailees (tribal). They tied him to two pillars of Khan Hotel, near Regina Cinema, and put 14 bullets in him, says Khaliq Parvaiz, a writer from Baramulla. As per one version, Sherwani reportedly tricked the Pakistani invaders when they reached Baramulla on 22 October 1947. Instead of showing them the correct direction to Srinagar, he misled them in a wrong direction, which considerably slowed down their advance and allowed the Indian Army to land at the Srinagar airport on 27 October 1947. In another version, riding on a bike, he urged them not to move towards Srinagar, mouthing a lie that the army had already landed. When the invaders realised that they had been tricked by him, they hunted him down at Sumbal, about 35 km away from Baramulla, and brought him back to Baramulla where they executed him. Reportedly, his body stayed nailed up on the two posts for many days. If not for his sacrifice, the history of Kashmir would have been different. • Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar of 1965 collapsed when the local Kashmiri Muslims did not cooperate with more than 30,000 Pakistani Army personnel, dressed in tribal outfits, which had infiltrated into the valley to start an armed secessionist movement in Kashmir. The local Kashmir Muslims tipped off the local police and the Indian Army about the presence of the infiltrators. Kashmiris were known to be spiritual, patient and wise, as Sufis. They were relatively simple people and comprised a God-fearing community. In a heavenly land-locked valley, they were relatively immune to the influence from their neighbours. As it may appear now, Kashmiris lost their way in the late 1980s. Thanks to the Cold War, the traditional Kashmiriyat eroded. The subcontinental history may never forgive General Zia-ul-­ Haq, the late president of Pakistan, and the international players who supported and armed him to teeth.

Famous Poets and Mystics of Kashmir After Kashmir fell to the Shah Mir dynasty in 1319, Islam gradually became the dominant religion in Kashmir. However, during this time only, Kashmir gave birth to two of its most outstanding ascetic philosophers—Lal Ded and Nünd Resh—who were not only mystics but also gifted with global consciousness. Both are remembered and quoted in this day and age.

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Their philosophy and wisdom have survived Kashmir’s tumultuous history during the next half millennium. They inspired many later-day famous Kashmiri Sufi philosophers: Makhdoom Sahib (1493–1563), Resh Mir sàeb (Resh Moul, born 1504) and Shamas Faqir (1843–1901) (Dar, 2015; Gul, 2015; ‘Shamas Faqir,’ 2019). In the fourteenth century, Lalleshwari (1320–1392)—popularly known as Lal Ded—was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school, known as Trika before 1900 (Datta, 2013). Born in a Kashmiri Pandit family, her verses and mystic poetry, called Lal vatchhün or Lal vakhs (speech, voice), are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and represent an important part in the history of modern Kashmiri literature. Inspiring many Sufi saints, she has been known by various other names: Lalla Aarifa, Lal Diddi, Lalla Yogishwari and Lalishri. In the fifteenth century, Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani (1377–1440)— traditionally revered as Sheikh ul-Alam by Muslims and popularly known as Nünd Resh or Nünd Rishi by Pandits—was a Kashmiri ascetic and mystic who combined elements of Kashmir Shaivism with Sufi mysticism in his discourses (Razdan, n.d.). Lal Ded, his contemporary, is known to have had a great impact on his spiritual growth. In one of his poems, he prays to God to grant him the same level of spiritual achievement as God had bestowed on Lal Ded. Also known as Sheikh Noor ud-din Wali and Sheikh Noor ud-din Noorani, he is regarded as the patron saint of Kashmiris and the founder of the Rishi order of saints that deeply influenced many later-­ day well-known mystics. In the sixteenth century, Kashmir gave birth to Habba Khatoon (1554–1609), a Kashmiri Muslim poetess, originally named as Zoon (‘moon’ in English) (Khan, 2018). Considered as the Nightingale of Kashmir, she was the wife and beloved of the last Kashmiri ruler, Yusuf Shah Chak. After her husband’s deceitful imprisonment by the Mughal Emperor Akbar, she turned into an ascetic and spent the rest of her life wandering (looking for her husband) and grieving, whilst singing songs in heartrending plaintive wail. In the seventeenth century, Kashmir’s most revered mystic saint was Resh Peer sahib, born in 1637 in a Kashmiri Pandit family and popularly referred to as Peer (Sufi) Pandit (Guru) Padshah (King). He had large following amongst both Muslims and Pandits (Raina, n.d.). In the eighteenth century, Kashmir gave birth to Arnimal, a Kashmiri Pandit poetess. She was married to Munshi Bhawani Das, also a poet and an erudite Persian scholar in the court of Jumma Khan, the Afghan

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Governor of Kashmir (1788–1792) (‘Arnimal,’ 2019). She composed and sang many heartrending love lyrics in plaintive wail, just as her predecessor, Habba Khatoon about 200 years earlier. Her lyrics are considered as masterpieces of Kashmiri literature. Arnimal and Habba Khatoon mirrored each other in their expression and feelings. Both appear to have been inspired and overwhelmed by Nature, unlike Lal Ded who seemed to have risen and attained cosmic consciousness. In eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a Kashmiri poet, Mahmud Gami (1765–1855), made a major contribution to Kashmiri literature through his epic poem, Yusuf Zulaikha, comprising 700 verses, which was rendered into the German language by a nineteenth-century European scholar, Fredrich Burkhard. His lyrics are soaked in Sufi and love themes (‘Mahmud Gami,’ 2019). Also in the nineteenth century, Kashmir gave birth to another great naturalist poet, Rasül Mir (died 1870), popularly called as the John Keats of Kashmir. Considered as one of the most celebrated Kashmiri poets, he brought rivers, valleys, birds, fruits and imagery of Kashmir into his poems (‘Rasul Mir,’ 2019). In the twentieth century, many noted poets were born in Kashmir, who significantly contributed to Kashmiri literature. Master Zinda Kaul (1884–1965) was a well-known Kashmiri poet and writer, who wrote in Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu and Persian. He was the first Kashmiri poet to win the prestigious Sahitya Academy award, in 1956, for his book of poetry compilations, Sumran, which was later also published in the Persio-Arabic script by the government (‘Zinda Kaul,’ 2019). In 1896, at the age of 12, he is known to have recited first poem, on unity and sympathy, at the Sanatan Dharm Sabha meetings in Srinagar. In 1942, he started writing in Kashmiri, and his mystical poems were soaked in the themes of devotion, philosophy and peace. He was said to have been influenced by Lal Ded and Parmanand (c. 1846–1934 or 1791–1879 or 1879–1885) (Razdan (Mahanori) n.d.). Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad (1887–1952) was a contemporary of Zinda Kaul. Better known by his pen name, Mahjoor, he is called the Wordsworth of Kashmir (Magazine, 2015). He introduced a new style into Kashmiri poetry, expanding Kashmiri poetry into previously unexplored thematic realms. His poetry eulogised Nature in the form of flowers, birds (e.g. the golden oriole), animals, vales, lakes, glens, meadows, mountains and trees, whilst engaging with themes of love, communal harmony, social reform and the plight of the Kashmiris. Many of his poems expressed freedom and

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progress and awakened latent nationalism among Kashmiris. He also wrote on youth, peasant girls and gardeners. In addition to Kashmir, he also wrote poems in Persian and Urdu. With his passing away, the romantic era in Kashmiri literature ended. Abdul Ahad Azad (1903–1948) is considered to be one of the pioneers of the modernist movement. Often referred to as John Keats of Kashmir, he also wrote modernist poems; he died in early 40s (‘Abdul Ahad Azad,’ 2019). His two books of poetry, Kuleat-e-Azad and Haraam-e-Saba, were both dedicated to God and aimed to develop sensibility and consciousness amongst people. Dinanath Nadim (1916–1988) started an era of the modern Kashmiri poetry and led the progressive writers’ movement in Kashmir (‘Dinanath Nadim,’ 2019). He wrote many famous operas, such as Bombur ta yamberzal (Bumble Bee and the Narcissus Flower), Vitasta, Safar ta Shehjaar, Heemaal ta Naaegrai and Shuhul Kull. His famous poem, Me Chhum Aash Paghich (I am hopeful of tomorrow), is a cry against war. Kashmir would greatly benefit if its spirituality is revived. In doing so, its poets and mystics must be promoted proactively at all levels—social, literary and political—so that Kashmiris take pride in their indigenous culture and literature, and rediscover their rich cultural heritage and uniqueness, and true identity. A country is characterised by its culture; if culture is eroded, the foundations of the country are eroded. For a while, its name may cover it only as a shell, while imposters erode it from within. What Is Good for Kashmir? Kashmir can be seen from three different perspectives: • Kashmir’s perspective • India’s perspective • Pakistan’s perspective What may be in the best interest of Kashmir may not necessarily be in the best interests of India or Pakistan. In the best interest of Kashmir and the regional peace, it is prudent that Kashmir be seen from the eyes of a common Kashmiri and how that Kashmiri would look at  Kashmir and its future. The relationship between Kashmir and India can be seen analogous to typical relationships, including characteristic tussles, between parents and

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young adults. Legally, young adults are entitled to exercise all rights of any other free citizen. If a young adult, who also happens to be extremely important for her/his parents, for a range of reasons—strategic, psychological, financial and personal—wishes to lead an independent life, outside the day-to-day control of her/his parents, is it prudent that the parents prevent her/him from doing so? On the basis of normal human behaviour, common-sense says any such controlling measures and patronising attempts used by parents are likely to cause tensions within the family, sour the parent-child relationship and possibly stifle the child to the point of rebellion, which will undoubtedly hurt both the parents and the child and their short- and long-term interests. For a healthy relationship, therefore, prudence requires the young adult be given the necessary space and reasonable freedom to manage her/his own affairs, albeit with love and care of parents, as and when required by the child, or vice versa. Kashmir Sits on a Nuclear Powder Keg Kashmir is and has been the geographical and spiritual head of the subcontinent. The State is divided into three parts, each part carrying significant strategic importance for India, Pakistan and China. Pakistan, which holds about one-third of the State, calls Kashmir its jugular vein. China, which holds about one-fifth of the State (PoK), is not expected to let go of its territory (Aksai-Chin) for its strategic interests. As for India, it will be inconceivable—for a range of reasons—for it to release  its hold on the remaining one-half of the State. In the light of these international conflicting interests, Kashmir’s complete independence is a practical improbability, as it carries immense potential to severely damage the strategic interests of the aforementioned three nuclear-armed neighbouring countries. In that respect, therefore, it is virtually sitting on a nuclear powder keg. From practical considerations, therefore, it could be deemed as a sheer waste of time and energy for Kashmiris to continue their freedom struggle and work towards a hypothetical state of independence. In a hypothetical scenario,  even if  one or two countries release the parts they control and administer, it can be deemed next to impossible that the third country will also follow suit. Kashmir must, therefore, reconcile to its fragmented destiny.  In an ideal scenario, if British would not have left the subcontinent and the partition would not have happened, in all probability, Kashmir would have still been enjoying the status as an independent (princely) State.

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Should Kashmir be, therefore, sacrificed so that the interests of its neighbours are met? Has Kashmir no right to remain independent? A moral dilemma! Kashmir’s independence goes against the core interests of at least two of neighbours—India and Pakistan. Politics aside, on ethnic and moral grounds, both Pakistan and India should not claim Kashmir. British had won it from the Sikhs in 1846 and then sold it to the Dogra dynasty of Jammu for a paltry sum of 7.5 million rupees (under the Treaty of Amritsar) as reward to their treachery against the Sikhs. Is Kashmir’s Greater Autonomy a Way Forward? For sustainable peace in Kashmir and with due considerations to all prevalent geopolitical factors in the region, and following the aforementioned analogy of parents and children, it would be fair and prudent that Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood and semi-autonomous status be restored and, in fact, expanded into a greater autonomy so that it can manage its own affairs, albeit under the broader purview of India’s Constitution. In doing so, Kashmir could be given enough freedom to independently attract much needed foreign investments to develop its civil, industrial and educational infrastructure, as well as exploit its vast indigenous resources— natural and human—and develop its economy, without being dependent too much  on India. For peace and progress of Kashmir, it is vital that Kashmiris—Muslims and Pandits—rediscover a sense of belonging to and ownership of Kashmir, which will instil in them a much-needed sense of responsibility towards the peace and development of their homeland. Kashmir must reclaim its identity and pride, which are both most important for its long-term interests and sustainability. As a possible solution, the erstwhile  Article 370 could be rejigged and rebranded under a different name and introduced to encompass the objectives and the spirit of helping Kashmir. An amended new  Article could serve as a mechanism, as politically and practically possible, to being close to independent. The autonomy should include the necessary provisions to enable Kashmiris travel, when they require, to and from both their neighbours, albeit within the provisions to border security of both countries, similar to the arrangements between Australia and New Zealand, or between Canada and the USA. With affairs like border security and currency staying with India, Kashmir could focus sharply on more important affairs without having to invest in its own army. In doing so, Kashmir could also serve as a buffer State between India and Pakistan, a move that

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could usher in peace and stability in the region, thereby helping the economies of both India and Pakistan. Both countries can also focus on more essential issues like poverty, population, environment, education and so forth. From the lessons learnt from Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, Pakistan is expected to have learnt that religion alone is not sufficient to annex any territory; ethnicity too is important. From that point of view, Kashmir is ethnically different from Pakistan. Furthermore, the general Kashmiri Muslim populace did not historically assist Pakistan in its bid to annex Kashmir in 1947 and 1965. Abrogation of Article 370: A Disaster? Article 370 should not have been abrogated in the shocking manner it was done on 5 August 2019, if Kashmir was to be nursed back to its health and glory. Article 370  connected  Kashmir with India. Abrogation of the Article  has generated significant resistance from most Kashmiris—at all levels and in all imaginable shapes and forms—against India. Even if India manages to put the lid on the resistance—using muscle and money—and allows people from the rest of India to move and invest in Kashmir, the valley will undoubtedly lose its unique cultural identity. Kashmir will no longer be Kashmir; it will become like any other part of India—polluted and a mongrel.  Is that the destiny of Kashmir that has such a glorious distant past?

Kashmir Needs Cultural Fix Before 1990, many Kashmiris lacked a sense of belonging to Kashmir, and, sadly, many still do. Many members of the majority-Muslim community looked to the West and many members of the minority Pandit community to the south of their homeland. Kashmir nationalism was disappearing fast. Sophistication and education meant being able to speak in any other language other than Kashmiri, which was fast being left for the people of the lower socio-economic community and the people living in the downtown areas of the old Srinagar city. Somewhere since the 1960s, as relatively more affluent Kashmiris— both Pandits and Muslims—gradually started moving from their ancestral downtown areas, laid out on both sides of the seven bridges (Amira-kadal, Fateh-kadal, Habba-kadal, Zaina-kadal, Ali-kadal, Nawa-kadal and

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Safa-­kadal), into new suburbs and colonies—Karan Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Indira Nagar, Shivpora, Rawalpora, Chhanpora, Natipora, Hyderpora, Bemina, Buchhpora—their spoken language and general lifestyle started changing. The factors would have been several, including: • Sudden growth in private, English medium schools, which mushroomed in the 1970s and 1980s, • Tourism from the subcontinent and elsewhere around the world, • Television, both Pakistan television and Indian television, which beamed popular programmes in either Urdu and Hindi languages, • Cinema, both Indian and Western, and • General affluence that enabled people to travel across India and abroad. Most school children and college/university students coming from the newer suburbs would generally communicate at home and with one another in either Urdu or Hindi. A minority amongst them had started communicating in English. Pandit children would generally speak in Hindi and Muslim children in Urdu to reflect their newfound sophistication. Their parents too would feel proud to see their children communicating in ‘educated’ languages. The everyday clothing style and dresses also changed. This metamorphosis kept occurring unhindered in Pandits after their exodus in 1990 from Kashmir, and equally in Muslims in Kashmir. Pandits living in other parts of India started acquiring the characteristics of their host cultures, whereas Muslims started acquiring the characteristics more from the non-Kashmiri Islamic world. It seems, with affluence and education, consciously or inadvertently, Kashmiris have been tending to wash off their Kashmiri identity. One major reason could be some kind of vacuum which they have felt in being a Kashmiri and/or in traditional Kashmiri culture. Perhaps, they also feel it is not so cool to be a Kashmiri or look like a Kashmiri due to a dominating influence of people from other dominant cultures around them in the subcontinent. Perhaps they think their Kashmiri ancestors were hillbillies. Whatever being the reasons, they have undoubtedly been undermining their identity and culture and acquire alien identities. Cultural scour and spiritual erosion—and not physical displacement— mark the demise of a community. A community that replaces its mother tongue with alien languages morally loses its claim to its ethnicity. A

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community that feels shy and inferior in speaking its mother tongue at home is truly an uprooted community. Forsaking one’s language is equivalent to forsaking one’s parents. Kashmiris would do themselves and Kashmir a great favour if they learn from the people from other cultures (e.g. Punjabis, Gujaratis, Bengalis, Tamils, Marathis) who don’t compromise on the language they speak at home, or use in communicating with one another, or replace their core culture (language, food, customs, spirituality). Why do they feel they are inferior to any one of them? For Kashmiris take pride in their ethnicity and to instil a sense of belonging in them with regard to their native Kashmir, it is important that they are introduced or reintroduced to their rich heritage, literature and ethos through a number of great philosophers, poets and mystics that Kashmir has produced through its history. Kashmir has produced great thinkers, poets and mystics, such as Lal Ded and Nund Resh, both great mystics in the fourteenth century, followed by such stalwarts as Rasul Mir, Shamas Faqir, Habba Khatoon and Arinmal. Each century gifted them with a great mystics and poets. In the twentieth century, they were gifted with such great stalwarts as Master Zinda Kaul, Mehjoor (called the Wordsworth of Kashmir), Azad (called the Keats of Kashmir) and Dina Nath Nadim sahib (who wrote many famous operas and poems). Kashmiris must earnestly connect with their roots and with one another, and rediscover ourselves. The day all Kashmiris—Pandits and Muslims— take pride in being Kashmiris and accept their roots, a new Kashmir will be born.

Pandits and Muslims Need Each Other There are at least four philosophical reasons why Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims must come together and coexist once again in the valley of Kashmir: • Spiritual • Moral • Identity and culture • Completeness of Kashmir These reasons may stand on their own or may appear to intertwine with one another. It is not very important to know which is the most important

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reason; what is more important is that all these reasons contribute to the argument that the two communities need to sincerely extend hand to each other and thrive together as good neighbours and brothers. If they don’t, it is possible their future generations may ask questions and condemn them for not reconciling in time and forging their lost brotherhood, as not everything is lost yet. Moral Dilemma The future generations of Kashmiri Muslims are likely to raise questions, born out of their conscience, about why the indigenous Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homeland and never returned. They may feel guilty of the crime that they perceive their ancestors may have committed. Such things do happen. For example, the current Australian youth—from all ethnic backgrounds—feels burdened with a sense of guilt and deep shame caused by the excesses their ancestors may have committed on the indigenous people of Australia; they keep apologising to them now for the acts of their ancestors and keep asking their government to apologise and make amends, if possible. Similarly, the future generations of Kashmiri Pandits may also ask questions of their ancestors why they did not try enough  and return  home in time. So, it is a case of moral dilemma for both communities. They must come together for the sake of their future generations. Spiritual and Moral Obligations Both communities need each other. Together, they need to reweave the unique tapestry of Kashmiriyat, which derives its nourishment from a composite Sufi—Shaivaite thought. In the bigger picture, this tapestry is also important for binding India together as one nation. Pandits must reconnect with Kashmir as part of their spiritual and moral obligation towards their ancestors who never left their Mother Kashmir despite all odds and cohered with the Muslim brethren over the last seven centuries or so since the Islam arrived in Kashmir. Like any mother, figuratively, the valley of Kashmir also craves to see all her children with her. She will be complete when all her children, whom she has carried in her womb and who then played in her lap, are with her. Figuratively, as she is incomplete with her some children—the Pandits—she must be feeling restless.

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Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims need each other, not only for the sake of their Mother Kashmir but also to prosper holistically in one another’s company and coexistence. They need one’s another faith, trust and blessings as a precondition to receive the rich blessings and love from their Mother Kashmir. Before the demon of myopic materialism devours them further, Pandits and Muslims of Kashmir must come together and help each other to get reconnected with the spiritual roots of Kashmir— the garden valley of Rishis and Peers—to nourish themselves, to thrive and to prosper. It has already been three decades since most Pandits have not received their Mother’s blessing; they may soon wither away, in spiritual terms, if not reconnected. Strange are the ways of Nature. It is Nature’s paradox that the path of Kashmiri Pandits, to reconnect with their spiritual roots in Kashmir, runs through their reconnection with their Muslim brethren. Similar is the case with their  Kashmiri Muslim brethren, who also need Pandits—the original inhabitants of the valley—to reconnect them with the original spiritual thought of the valley. As the branches of a tree receive nourishment from the roots of the tree, Kashmiris need their roots to survive, which lie in traditional Kashmiri values and spirituality. During the last 700  years or so, the mainstream tapestry of Kashmiri spirituality is weaved with the threads of Kashmir Shaivism and Sufi thoughts. The practitioners of Kashmir Shaivism are Kashmiri Pandits, and the proponents of Sufi thoughts are Kashmiri Muslims. Together, they make that unique Kashmiri spiritual fabric. The role of Kashmiri Pandits is essential for Kashmir to become once again what it has been known to be. So long as Kashmiri Pandits don’t return home, Kashmir is incomplete. Kashmiri Muslims must get reconnected with the spiritual roots of the valley, which runs through Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the mythological vale of Kashmir, who practised Kashmir Shaivism. It was that rich spirituality of the valley that had attracted many Muslim Peers and Dervishes from Persia and other parts of West Asia, who brought Sufi Islam to Kashmir, to travel all the way on foot from their original home to make Kashmir their new home. Identity and Culture The mass exodus of Pandits may have physically separated the two communities, but not their memories of each other. Who can deny that they are one ethnic Kashmiri community, who are related by blood and share a

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common ancestry, speak the same Kashmiri language, eat the same Kashmiri food and share similar values? Their younger generations have, however, been left deprived of the experience of coexisting as an interwoven social fabric. They cannot, therefore, be blamed for being generally ignorant about how the two communities were intertwined in the past. People born generally after 1986, in particular, during 1990–1991, will have absolutely no, or not much, memory of coherence of the two communities in Kashmir.  As such, Kashmiri youth from both communities, who may be as old as 35 years, will currently have mainly a transmitted memory of the pre-1990 life in Kashmir. There was a time, not very long ago, when the world was envious of Kashmiris and their peaceful coexistence in Kashmir. Even Mahatma Gandhi saw a ray of light in Kashmir in 1947. When Hindus and Muslims in the rest of the subcontinent were at each other’s throat, both communities cohered peacefully in Kashmir. The author recalls, how during his childhood days in Kashmir—in the 1970s and 1980s—Pandit ladies (addressed as raaz-bhai, meaning ‘queen,’ by Muslims) wearing gold ornaments during wedding seasons would walk home alone during the dead of the night, without fear. In the early 1980s, Kashmir was one of the most peaceful places in the world. The author recalls a day in the mid-­1970s when the whole of Kashmir was stunned with a shocking stabbing-death incident (committed by a non-Kashmiri domestic helper). Till then, people had not heard about any such murders in Kashmir. At the most, some ruffians would use kangris (caned earthen fire-pots, containing burning coal and ash) or their foreheads to fight one another in late-night street brawls. Reintroducing a traditional composite Kashmiri culture is, therefore, the need of the hour. Metaphorically, as an analogy, alloys are much stronger and durable than individual metals. Similarly, water is a compound made of oxygen and hydrogen, both are individually highly inflammable. Salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine, both are individually hazardous to health, but together they are essential for human survival. The five fingers of a hand make a powerful fist; all fingers also have their own individual roles to play. No two humans look alike. A garden looks much more beautiful when it contains flowers of different colours, sizes and shapes. No two seasons are alike. In the cosmos, no two planets are the same. Nature loves variety. The valley of Kashmir becomes complete as Kashmir is known to have been  only when both Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits cohere

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peacefully with one another and together hear the beautiful sounds of azaan and temple bells in their homes, when they exchange warm brotherly greetings on Id and Herath days, when they support one another through thick and thin, through sad days and happy days, as good neighbours do.

Will Pandits Return? Philosophically, as noted earlier, Pandits should logically return home. But, in practical terms, will they be prepared to return? If they do, Kashmir will be complete, and both communities could potentially benefit materially, spiritually and culturally. There are a number of factors that work against their return to their homeland, such as: • Their past memories of pain, fear and insecurity, • The effects of Hindutva and Indianisation over the past three decades, • Prosperity and stability of a considerable portion of the community, • Politics and scare campaign by those who benefit by their exodus, • Their individualistic character, and • Vocal hurdles caused by some self-proclaimed leaders of their community. The past memories of Pandits can potentially inhibit their future decisions to return. Painful memories of the past can become mental impediments and  seeds for new conflicts. Many Pandits have constantly been questioning why they were targeted and had to leave home. They keep asking what their fault was. In the past three decades, no one has apologised to them. So their broken hearts never received any healing balm. On the basis of author’s interaction with the members of refugee community in Jammu camps, Pandits may not return home till the Kashmiri Muslim leadership sincerely and unconditionally requests them to do so. Despite that, it is most unlikely that all Pandits will ever consider returning home. They are scattered across the planet and, generally, doing well materially. Many Pandits are relatively settled, over the past three decades, in many parts of India and overseas. From practical considerations, it is not possible that they will uproot themselves once again and return to their homeland unless they are promised to receive huge materialistic benefits and incentives to return, which is not likely to happen. Many Pandits, especially living in India, see India as their home, rather than Kashmir. Many of them,

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or their children, are married to people from other Indian communities, so they are believed to be culturally diluted and metamorphosed. The recent waves of Hindutva and the current resurgence of Indian nationalism may have diluted brotherly feelings of a considerable number of Pandits towards Kashmiri Muslims. Such people have historically asked for the  abrogation of Article 370 and a  change in the demography of Kashmir as a condition of their return. Characteristically, Pandits are known for not following any religious or a political leader slavishly. Generally, known for their pride, intelligence and education, they are known to be individualistic. Occasionally, in scenarios of common interest, their actions may appear to be synchronised. However, as they left Kashmir individually, in the same way they are expected to follow their own discretion and decide if and when to return to Kashmir. All these factors make the return of all Pandits less likely. As the past three decades have shown, there are not many people amongst the two communities, with vision, wisdom, forbearance and the leadership qualities, who could proactively work—without their personal ego or pride or interest corrupting them—to facilitate the return of Pandits and bring the two communities back together. In addition, there are also  individuals on both sides who make irresponsible statements—on social media and electronic media—and keep putting acid on the stitching work done by some people. Video clips and social media posts have been sending the following messages: • The valley is not ready or willing to take Pandits back, • Pandits were like cancers in Kashmir, it is good they have left, • Pandits were cowards; they left us in lurch and are enjoying themselves, • First remove Article 370 and change the demography of Kashmir, and • People in the valley received us warmly when we last visited the valley, but they are not ready to accept us living there permanently. Such careless statements by some Kashmiri Muslims not only undermine the confidence of the Pandits to return, but also keep feeding to their anger. As for Pandits, it would be useful to be more specific and responsible before writing on social media, that is, who told them what, when and why, for rendering some authenticity to their messages. It is important to ascertain if all, or only some, Pandits who visit the valley

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receive similar unfriendly messages from some members of the Muslim community. Just because some Kashmiri Muslims may have said something does not mean all Kashmiri Muslims have similar thoughts. It is important to prevent the water from getting muddier and to know why such unfriendly words were uttered? What was the provocation? Was there any past history involved? What was the reaction from the Pandit members when they heard unfriendly words? Did they expect red-carpet welcome or warm bear hugs from the people on their return visit to the valley? At that time, were they cognizant of the day-to-day suffering of the Kashmiri Muslims? Did the mushroomed growth of residential houses in Srinagar and the outskirts cloud their thought process? On a personal note, the author has been visiting the valley on a regular basis since April 2012. So far, he has not come across even a single individual who did not welcome him or who may have uttered any unfriendly words. In fact, many people have encouraged him to buy a residential property in Srinagar and even offered to assist him in doing so. His father, who also visits Srinagar on a regular basis, shares a similar experience. People can say anything out of resentment or negative emotions, but it does not necessarily indicate that they mean what they say. Many members of the Pandit and Muslim communities may harbour genuine complaints against one another, but such complaints can be short-lived, they disappear once people  talk cordially over a cup of tea—kahwa or sheer chai (noon-chai)—and revisit their shared past life and their common roots. After all, they are one people—Kashmiris, the children of the same land. A genuine hug between two people has the potential to melt away their differences, mutual distrust and complaints. The word genuine in thoughts and actions—by individual people, leaders and politicians—is the key to achieving the noble outcome of the reconstruction of relationship between the two communities.

How Many Pandits Will Possibly Return to Live? Pandits chose to leave the valley out of their own volition, and the decision to return to the valley will always be their own. They cannot be herded back to the valley just because some politician wants them to return or a government wants them to resettle them back in the valley. Managing their psychological wounds is a matter of extremely high importance before they are rehabilitated in the valley, and, in any case, that must happen with their full agreement.

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After the (unplanned) globalisation of the Pandit community in/after Jan 1990, it is not realistic to imagine all current members of the Pandit community will ever return to the valley to live there on a permanent basis. A whimsical talk of the return of the entire Pandit community is not realistic. Those members of the Kashmiri Muslim community who don’t like to see the return of all Kashmiri Pandits, for whatever reason(s)—genuine or whimsical—should not logically be overly concerned. For fairness—as prudence dictates and justice demands—they could help Kashmir in greeting and welcoming—with traditional Kashmiri mother’s  warmth—any Pandit son or daughter  who wishes to return home  to  his/her Mother Kashmir. Undoubtedly, it is every Kashmiri Pandit’s birthright to return home. One must realistically appreciate that only those Pandits will ever think of returning home who: • Love Kashmir, • Trust the Muslim community and have no fear in resuming life in the valley, • Have some means of sustenance in the valley, and • Are prepared to withstand daily stresses and strains in the valley, similar to those experienced by the members of the Muslim community, born out of a range of characteristic issues in the valley—social, political, economic, environment, weather and unemployment. As explained in the author’s article in Dainik Bhaskar, dated 22 November 2018, Why Should India Care About Kashmiri Pandits? not many politicians in India or Kashmir really care for the return of Pandit community (Koul, 2018). The only way Pandits can live back in the valley is if and when they are accepted by their Muslim brethren. No force on earth will ever get them that acceptance. Force does not work in the matters of heart and trust-building. Pandits and Muslims must, therefore, keep trying their best, with sustained persistence, on an individual or even collective basis to regenerate mutual acceptance. No government ever will get Pandits that acceptance, as they don’t comprise the vote bank in India. In essence, they don’t matter for government or are worth attracting any government attention or intervention. Yes, it may be true that, from time to time, they do receive occasional lip sympathy, as sweeteners, from some Indian and Kashmiri

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politicians, who may have some other axes to grind elsewhere. In an unlikely scenario, even if the Indian government genuinely wanted to help them, it has no clue about how to do that, at least until this book appears before their eyes. Some good politicians may take a clue or two from this book. The next question is: How many Pandits will possibly return? India’s median age is 29 years, which means nearly half its population is less than 30 years old. When those numbers are applied to the subject matter, it is logical to deduce that the younger half of Kashmiri community— both Muslims and the Pandits—have no experience or recollection of coexistence of the two communities in the valley or any memory of one another. Indirectly, this also means the younger half of both communities may have no drive or urgency to live together. This issue gets exacerbated by the fact the younger half of the Pandit community is dispersed across the globe and generally tends to marry out of the community. That leaves the older half of two communities to do something worthwhile and practically realistic to come closer. One would expect about 10% to 20% people, in the age group of 30 to 40 years, would have been up to 10 years of age in early 1990 when the Pandits left the valley. It is not hard to imagine that this group may also not have much memory of coexistence and of one other. That leaves just about 30% of people on either side that may have good memories of Kashmir in the pre-1990 era and decent experience of coexistence of the two communities in the valley. Therefore, the main onus for bringing the two communities closer to each other lies on this uppermost 30% group. A big question is will they or do they have the will to do so, considering the predominant lower 70% of the population on either side may possibly  be disinterested, indifferent, demotivated to undertake any efforts to do so. This uppermost 30% group—falling in the current age group of 40 to 80 years—will possibly be halved in the next 20 years or so and completely gone in the next 40 years or so. Thus, time is of essence for them to do something worthwhile, which means many  people from that age group will have to come out of their comfort zone and work honestly to fulfil the objective. On the basis of language used in their posts on social media, it appears around 80% to 90% Kashmiri Pandits are not forgiving or reconciliatory of what happened to them in Kashmir three decades ago. They see their future more with India rather than in Kashmir. The reasons can be both safety and employment. For them, Kashmir is more of a bitter past and a

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punching bag now. Of course, they want to avail any material benefits doled by the government if that comes forth in the form of cash compensation or a plot of land outside Kashmir or an apartment in a secured complex in Kashmir, which they want to avail during their summer holidays in Kashmir or for rental or sale purposes. Such people don’t foresee the future of their children or future generations in Kashmir. It is these people who predominantly support the nationalist BJP government in India and, in particular, Mr Modi. Figuratively, like burnt children from Kashmir, they see India as their new home and believe Mr Modi is the right person to set their new home (India) right and rid it of anti-national elements to secure it for them and their future generations. In a way, it could be seen as a selfish reaction, mainly for their individualistic interests and material prosperity. The remaining 10% to 20% seemingly want peace in Kashmir so that they could return home. The language of this group of people on social media contrasts the earlier group. This group of people appear to be quite angry at all past and present State and Central governments of India and frustrated with most politicians, including Mr Modi. In terms of their numbers, they could comprise between 30,000 to 100,000 people. These people also include about 20,000 people living in the migrant camps in Jammu (around two-third of about 30,000 campers). These numbers tally with half of the one-third of the total Pandit population in India, assumed to be around half a million. About one-third population of the total population is estimated to be in the age group of 40 to 80 years, which is expected to have memories of their past life in Kashmir. Which means about half of nearly 150,000 people may realistically be craving for their return. In a nutshell, therefore, there could be a maximum of around 75,000 people who would possibly consider returning home if the conditions in Kashmir are favourably peaceful. The remaining Pandit population seem to have Indianised over time and may have given up on their return to Kashmir, except as seasonal tourists  or to avail  material benefits and compensation.

Going Forward: The Role of Kashmiri Muslims It is not  unreasonable to expect that Kashmir needs to be stabilised in order to attract Pandits back to their homeland. They must feel safe and comfortable in their return. They must be able to see that they will be

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accepted and respected by their Muslim brethren in Kashmir. To commit themselves to return needs a huge leap of faith on their behalf. They should be able to see that they and/or their children will be able to thrive and prosper peacefully in their homeland. Kashmir needs a healing balm after what it has seen in the past few decades. Kashmiris have the right to thrive in an environment of peace. Reconciliation and trust-building is required between the two Kashmiri communities, which must be done by reminding them of their common ancestry, culture, language, food and numerous other commonalties. It is paramount that focus must be sharpened on the commonalties between them and not on the (religious) differences. In any case, if the two communities are to thrive cordially in each other’s neighbourhood, religion must not be allowed to come in between. Relationships are all about heart and commitment. When hearts are hurt, patient healing is needed, which must be based on sincere intent. Force can never bring hearts together. Even if world’s all armies are put together, they can never succeed in bringing hearts together. Relationships are founded on mutual respect and trust, like concrete and steel in the foundation of a structure. It is essential that, for the two communities to come together, mutual respect and trust between them are cultivated provocatively by all stakeholders. Also, as an essential requirement, to move forward, one must focus on the present rather than stay buried in the past. As one of the healing measures, it will be useful that some misgivings, white lies and myths about Pandits, such as they were cowards and cancer, as spread by some nefarious elements in the valley, be nipped in bud. Arguing about the old disputes gives birth to new conflicts. Instead, forbearance and common vision are the need of the hour to resolve issues in good faith. It is useful to revisit history, but never at the cost of losing the objectives of achieving sustainable peace to the valley. History teaches that all chronic disputes and conflicts eventually found some kind of peaceful resolution. In the interest of sustainable peace and progress of Kashmir, the new leadership of Kashmiri Muslims must be visionary and take all necessary measures to immunise people, in particular, the Kashmiri youth, against any further exploitation from outside Kashmir. Kashmir belongs to its youth. To make progress, it will be futile and possibly counterproductive to keep focussing on the older leadership of the community, as that is regressive and can potentially push Kashmir back in a Catch-22 situation. Older people tend to bring their past baggage with them.

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It is essential the Kashmiri Muslim youth is instilled with hope and pride about Kashmir, with a sense of ownership of their homeland. Their apprehensions about India should be addressed by proactively exposing them—through a range of organised educational, social, cultural and sporting activities—to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-faith India. They must be made to believe that India belongs to them, by providing them with incentives and opportunities to study and work in the country within a non-discriminatory environment. Those individuals who incite violence under the garb of freedom of speech and misuse their rights provided by the Constitution of India and the current Indian democracy, must be sternly dealt with. Most Kashmiri leaders don’t want to have independent Kashmir or go with Pakistan. They may just be using these cries as bargaining chips to either keep milking the cash cow or achieve greater autonomy of Kashmir within the union of India. They know that, in an independent Kashmir, they will have to work much  harder for nation-building and maintaining independence. They are not used to working hard. They have all along been enjoying free facilities and money from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other countries, albeit at the cost of the Kashmiri Muslim masses, who have been exploited by them in the name of religion. They know, if they become independent, Pakistan will sooner or later annex them and take away all their sovereignty. They know Pakistan will reduce their status to anonymity, as it wants the territory to address its potential water problem, and not for any love for Kashmiri people.

Going Forward: The Role of Kashmiri Pandits Due to the effects of political turmoil in Kashmir during the past millennium or so, Kashmiri Pandits have an intrinsic tendency to externalise their issues, instead of helping themselves. Historically, they requested Guru Teg Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, to save them against religious persecution in Kashmir by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, which cost the Guru his life. Since 1990, they expect the State and Central governments to help them in their return to the valley. On the surface, their expectations may appear to be logical, but, as an educated community, they could also assist themselves based on the lessons learnt from history. One would wish Kashmiri Pandits would have learnt something from history, in particular, the Indian political infrastructure and what drives the politicians. It may not be practical or prudent for them to expect that any

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government in India, the second most populated country on the globe, with about 1.4 billion people and growing, would go out of way to help this community of little more half a million people and, in the process, make the majority Muslim population in Kashmir potentially unhappy. It does not stop there; some Pandits also expect their Kashmiri Muslim brethren to beg forgiveness and request them to return home and then lay a red carpet to welcome them on their return. It is this tendency of theirs to put themselves at the mercy of others that has worked against them as a community, perhaps not so much as individuals. Kashmiri Pandits, having all such unrealistic expectations, apparently tend to forget that, for whatever reason(s), their Kashmiri Muslim brethren have also suffered during all these years and possibly suffered much more than Pandits in terms of colossal loss of lives, life opportunities and mental distress due to continued strife. Expectedly, common people living in the valley are sick and tired of the political instability and strife in the valley. As humans, Kashmiri Muslims may not have much tolerance, strength or enthusiasm left to work for something, howsoever noble that may be, which falls beyond their routine day-to-day chores. Life is not very easy in Kashmir. In the past three decades or so, similar to the rest of India and the subcontinent as a whole, in addition to constant suffering and unsettled life due to political strife, the valley has also been witnessing the effects of a high population growth and urban sprawl, which can grind one physically and mentally on a daily basis. Kashmiris also witness numerous day-to-day life issues, such as traffic woes, high rate of unemployment, frequent shutdowns and militant attacks, frequent crackdowns by security forces in their search operation for militants, inconsistent electric power supply and the closure of the national highway that links Kashmir to the rest of the country. In addition, Kashmir has also been seeing the effects of changed weather conditions, environmental vandalism and degradation in social values. Many Pandits do not realise that it is they who left the valley individually, for all valid reasons they had at that time, but, now, after these past three decades, the onus is well and truly on them, and them alone, to try and help themselves insofar as their individual return to the valley is concerned. Kashmiri Pandits are political orphans, as far as the return of their entire community is concerned. There is basically no political will in India, or in the rest of the subcontinent, to help them in their return. As explained in the author’s article in Dainik Bhaskar, dated 22 November 2018, Why

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Should India Care About Kashmiri Pandits?, for political correctness, no Indian government will ever sincerely help the Pandits in their return (Koul, 2018). Therefore, if Pandits feel the urge to return to their home, they must take the necessary individual initiatives, tune their mindset to realism and pragmatism, choose a prudent approach and undertake appropriate action(s) for their return, without any expectations, whatsoever, from anyone—the government or the people. Importantly, they must be prepared to live the life of their Muslim brethren in the valley and be committed to face similar day-to-day challenges. Pandits will, therefore, require a serious commitment and conviction, sincerity, patience and forbearance in their rehabilitation in the valley. Most importantly, they must come across as genuine Kashmiris to their Muslim brethren and return home for the right reasons, and not as seasonal tourists or mainly to avail material compensation and  monetary benefits that are  logically expected to be  associated with their return. Those Pandits who think Kashmir is important for them must work to help themselves. If not, they must just forget their dreams of their return and continue to live their lives wherever they are on the planet.

The Key The key lies in bringing the youth of the two communities closer to each other. But how can that be done? • The Pandit youth must be encouraged and facilitated to regularly visit the valley on a regular basis by their parents and relatives and the community as a whole. • Through a range of social, cultural and educational government initiatives to promote interaction between the two youths within and outside the valley. • Through positive socio-political initiatives undertaken by the upper 30% of the population to give rebirth to Kashmiriyat, which the valley was renowned for. The direct people-to-people interaction is the sole key to reconnect the two communities, with the aim to facilitate the return of those Pandits who genuinely want to return and restart their lives in their erstwhile home. Members of the two communities must be made to recognise and

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revisit their common roots and connecting threads, with aim to earn back each other’s trust and goodwill. But if people keep nurturing their past grudges, the mutual trust-building will never happen. All Kashmiris must transcend their personal grievances and individual suffering—in the broader interest of their community and their future generations—and embrace each other. People’s characteristic myopic individualism will not be helpful in this case. Unless and until the two communities accept each other as equal members of their larger Kashmiri family and proactively endeavour to reconnect with each other, Kashmir will never ever return to its peaceful glorious past, as seen by Mahatma Gandhi in 1947, and both communities will lose themselves. The onus is well and truly on the people, and people alone. In the geopolitical terms, the so-called Kashmir issue is a myth, created deliberately for arm-wrestling, and driven and promoted by some selfish individuals for business and power, as noted in the author’s book, Does India Need a Dictator – To Rescue a Sinking Nation? (2018). As far as the majority Kashmiri Muslim community is concerned, its issues are real and the people’s lives continue to be disturbed. They continue to live in an environment of uncertainty and political instability and volatility. They have suffered immensely as a consequence of a hybrid power and money game played by their selfish leaders, who have misled them and used religion to use, abuse and misuse them. Unfortunately, many Kashmiri youth continue to be exploited in the name of religion. On the other hand, the minority Kashmiri Pandits—the  political orphans— have become  a collateral casualty in the process and continue to be uprooted from their home. Individual or groups who challenge the solution(s) for the return of Pandits, as provided herein, are advised to propose viable alternative solutions. The author maintains such alternative solutions do not exist. If this solution cannot be implemented, nothing else will work. All other band-aid measures will potentially fail to deliver the intended long-term objectives, although such measures may just help to bring power and money to some individuals. Any person who claims to have any other solution is just making a fool of himself and the people, plain and simple!

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The Next Five Years The next five years are extremely significant for the stability of Kashmir and the well-being of both major Kashmiri communities. Kashmir poses a gigantic challenge for the government of India, which must prove its sincerity in winning the hearts of all Kashmiris—both Muslims (in the valley) and Pandits (in exile). For Pandits to return home, the valley must be first at peace. Pandits are not cattle who can be just transported to the valley and dumped within a secured, barricaded area—like a concentration camp—somewhere on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir and alienated from their Muslim brethren. Unless and until both communities cohere peacefully together, as neighbours, Kashmir can’t be considered to be normal and at peace. So, very hard testing times are waiting for all stakeholders. If Kashmir is not resolved within these next five years, and Kashmiri Pandits are not home  and accepted wholeheartedly  by their Muslim brethren, the Indian  government would have failed  Kashmir yet again. Lip sympathy towards Kashmir and Kashmiris is not likely to work anymore, as the world is watching. An unstable Kashmir and unsettled Kashmiris will not help the image and report-card of Indian government. Can the current Indian government, therefore, rise to the challenge and prove its sincerity towards Kashmir? Only time will tell. India (in terms of population, pollution, radicalisation and corruption) and Kashmir (in terms of unrest) are fast reaching a tipping point. The next five years will undoubtedly prove the vision, honesty, strength and sincerity, or, alternatively, the incompetence, impotence and ineffectiveness of the leadership of the current government in India. As such, the next five years will be an acid-test for India and Kashmir. Strong and sincere decisions, reinforced with decisive actions, will alone define the fate of the country and the effectiveness of the government. Sincerity and the will are the key words. In all probability, based on the past performances of all present and previous Indian governments since early 1980s, one can’t expect any miracle to happen in regard to population control in India and the hopeless cause of Kashmiri Pandits in the next five years. So, it looks likely the current Indian government may also prove to be as ineffective as earlier governments. India may possibly continue to limp on and keep coughing due to ever dwindling liveability and environmental pollution. Kashmiri Pandits

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are likely to remain an endangered community in exile, as disillusioned political orphans, unless they help themselves, as suggested in this book.

To Conclude A vibrant Kashmir is necessary to make the whole subcontinent vibrant, whereas a sick Kashmir will potentially make it sicker. Kashmir—the geographical and spiritual head of the subcontinent—is the key to peace in the region. Patriotic Kashmiri Pandits have an important role to play, as Kashmir will eventually decide the destiny of the subcontinent. Calling the exiled Kashmiri Pandit as Kashmiri migrants is being unfair to the Pandit community. They did not leave Kashmir out of their choice or sweet will; the politico-religious uprising compelled them to leave everything behind and run for their lives about three decades ago. About 30,000 Pandit refugees still live in camps in Jammu. There are more than 600,000 displaced Kashmiri Pandits, who are dispersed across India and crave for their ancestral home, especially in Indian summer. Genetically, they are not used to the hot and humid Indian climate and challenging environmental conditions. The Indian government must attend to Kashmir sincerely and pragmatically. It has no other option. Kashmir problem can’t be allowed to be ignored for long. It is the home to 10 million or more people. It is the responsibility of the government to do everything that it can and must do to normalise Kashmir, and as early as possible because the time is running out on many Kashmiris on either side. To begin with, without any further delay, the Indian prime minister must meet with Pandit refugees and listen to them with patience and sincerity, and then try to address their genuine grievances in a timely manner. Importantly, the prime minister must also meet common Kashmiri Muslims in the valley, in designated meeting venues across the valley, and listen to them individually, without the presence of any middlemen or politicians, and then try to address their fair and just demands. The Indian government must realise that having army in Kashmir is not the solution to Kashmir problem nor is the regular greasing of the palms of a few individuals, who pretend to be Kashmiri leaders. Both traditional tactics of Indian government do not make the life of common Kashmiris any better. Kashmir has seen Indian army since 1947. For sustainable peace, Kashmiri hearts must be won with sincerity and sincerity alone. Sincere positive engagement with common Kashmiris—and not their

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time-tested, self-styled leaders—is the first step to understand the core issue(s). At present, it seems not many Indian politicians have any clue about the issue(s) or patience to understand them; they just listen to those self-styled Kashmiri leaders who have little or no following in Kashmir because either (a) they are exposed or (b) people have realised, over time, that they just lead family parties. Kashmiris have long been suffering due to proven insincerity and corruption of their so-called, self-styled leaders. In 1989–1990, it was completely wrong and extremely irresponsible for Kashmiri Muslims to stereotype the entire Kashmiri Pandit community in Kashmir as Jan Sangh or RSS workers or intelligence agents of India, because such stereotyping not only forced Pandits to leave their homeland for an unknown life of untold sufferings in alien environments but, most unfortunately, also cost several hundreds of lives before leaving home and several thousand lives afterwards due to a range of factors. Prior to their exodus, around 95%, or more, Kashmiri Pandits were the supporters of the Indian National Congress party or the local National Conference party or both. The prime reason for their political inclination being both political parties claimed to be secular and had Kashmiri connections. Kashmiri Pandits possibly followed the Congress Party because of Pt J.L. Nehru, who claimed to have Kashmiri ancestry. As observed by the author, in the 1970s and 1980s, it seemed logical that they also followed his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and then her son, Rajiv Gandhi. Pandits would send Indira Gandhi customary gifts, especially around Herath (Shivratri), in the same manner as they would send gifts to their own married daughters in the valley. Pandits had accepted her as a daughter of Kashmir. In fact, a few days before her assassination, Indira Gandhi had visited the ashram of Swami Lakshman joo, at Ishbur, located near the famous Moghul Nishat Garden, in Kashmir. (Swami Lakshman joo was a world-renowned scholar and philosopher of Kashmir Shaivism.) Similarly, it is also completely wrong and irresponsible for Kashmiri Pandits  to stereotype the entire Kashmiri Muslim community as being radicalised and as a militant community. Like Pandits, based on the author’s observations, more than 95% of the Kashmiri Muslim community have been mainstream and tolerant Muslims, and generally follow spiritual Islam, as evident by shrines of many Sufi saints. (Note: In terms of numbers, the remaining 5% people, who could be radicalised, may comprise a significant force, powerful and influential enough to control and direct the thoughts and actions of the remaining 95% people.] To earn mutual trust

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and goodwill, therefore, it is extremely important that stereotyping, which generally poisons human thoughts and outlook, is corrected by both communities with reason, logic and evidential facts. Tearing apart the two communities is an immature child’s play, but to stitch the two communities back requires honest people from both sides, with wisdom, vision, guts, sincerity, perseverance and dedication. Many Pandits will reasonably argue why did the mainstream Muslims not oppose the armed militants in 1990 and stop Pandits from leaving? The most plausible answer to this question could be: ‘Because of the gun.’ How many people can dare to speak if they know or suspect a gun could be lurking somewhere in their close vicinity? It is not unknown that many Kashmiri Muslim fathers and brothers were killed by their own blood. Figuratively, those were very dark days in 1990; everyone was virtually blinded, as gun was new to Kashmir. People did not know what to do. One must note that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Kashmiri Muslims, serving in the State police and the Indian armed forces, have also laid their lives in the last three decades fighting the militants. In desperate times, people tend to lose long-term vision and become impatient. At such times, resorting to violent methods may look attractive, as short-cut, to achieve the goals but, as history warns time and again, its ramifications always return and haunt everybody. In war, no one wins. Gun harms everyone, always has. It puts dust on the core issues. No one has ever benefitted from gun, except the gun vendors. What sincere dialogue can achieve, gun can never achieve. Peaceful and persistent negotiations are the way to resolve issues.

Gun has undoubtedly undermined the well-being of all Kashmiris, as statistics prove, but that is past. Let all well-meaning Kashmiris now come together and see what can be achieved. Reason and rationale have always worked, and always will. Violence and force have and shall always be counterproductive. All stakeholders are encouraged to learn something crucial from the Hindu epic, Mahabharata. Lord Krishna knew and had envisioned the outcome of the looming war of the Mahabharata, so He did not give up the process of peaceful negotiations until the last moment. Unashamedly, He kept going back and forth between the two warring parties within the same family—the Kaurva and the Pandava—to prevent them from fighting each other, which irritated the Kaurva. Intoxicated by their arrogance and overconfidence, Kaurvas, who opted for His army (instead of Him), even tried to kill Him, which prompted Him to reveal

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His true Cosmic identity to Arjuna, the great archer. He knew that nothing will be left after the war and that is exactly what happened—Kaurvas were defeated and killed but Pandvas survived. However, no one actually won, as there was nothing left that they could lord over. Kashmiri people from both communities are encouraged to take the necessary initiatives and establish direct contact, on an individual basis with the members of the wider Kashmiri community and discover and nurture those natural bonds, without the intervention of any opportunistic middlemen and/or politicians. The author wishes to acknowledge two of his classmates, Mr Mohammad Mateen Wani (a Kashmiri Muslim) and Mr Ravinder Pandita (a Kashmiri Pandit), who have been trying to stitch the Kashmiri fabric back together through their positive interactions with the members of each other’s community. Mr Pandita has been tirelessly working hard to preserve the history and culture of Kashmir. In the same vein, Mr Ramesh Hangloo should be genuinely acknowledged for his invaluable service towards the Kashmiri community and culture. His rich contribution over the past decade through his initiative, Radio Sharda 90.4 FM (from Jammu), is amongst the greatest services that one can offer towards one’s people and homeland. Since its inauguration in December 2011, Radio Sharda has been working for the preservation of unique Kashmiri culture, ethos and identity. If language is preserved, a community is preserved. Alarmingly, it has been observed that affluent Kashmiri Pandits generally follow a more materialistic-capitalistic lifestyle, as seen from their overall wealth-flaunting  behaviours and lavish socio-religious rituals and wedding ceremonies, which marks a major paradigm shift in their mentality, from characteristically spiritual to more material. As a reaction to their exodus from Kashmir, they would have copied this behaviour from other (host) cultures in India. Figuratively, this shift can be compared to a petrol engine being run on diesel. It will undoubtedly undermine their identity and culture unless they restore a balance between materialistic and spiritual lifestyles. It will be some time before Kashmiri Pandits either return home or finally accept their permanent settlement outside Kashmir. In either case, they are obligated to look after what they have been known for and not try to acquire any new identity. Their most important asset used to be their ability to think, and use  their wisdom and intelligence  before speaking or acting. This physically uprooted community must not uproot themselves spiritually also. They must do everything to preserve their original identity and spirituality.

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People in the subcontinent are constantly being fed with seemingly credible and believable information through numerous commercial, medical, religious and political propaganda channels. Not many can practically verify if such information is genuine. Some do, but not before it is too late. Suppose, one day, they find out that everything they were made to believe about other people or the  so-called  issues were well-crafted white lies. How would they turn back the clock and make amends? Consequences can be irreversibly hurting. People generally tend to blame others for their failures and miseries. Those who can analyse the cause and effect of their past actions, inactions and misadventures will find no one else to blame but themselves. While people brood and fight for the past, they miss living in the present moment, which provides them with the only opportunity to improve their lives. Their past not only ruins their present, it also works as a bad seed for their future, without causing any improvement in their lives. It may be reasonable to an extent, if at all, to worry about the future and how it unfolds, given the uncertain and whimsical nature of life. But it is most unhelpful for people to fight over their past, which is known to different people in different shades, but does not exist anymore. Thus, one and the only one way to allow peace to enter and prevail in the valley is for all Kashmiri people to move on—hand in hand—from the complexities of the past into a future full of hope and human progress—from the past distrust to mutual trust and brotherhood as one Kashmiri people.

References “Abdul Ahad Azad”. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.poemhunter.com/abdul-ahad-azad/ Ahuja, R. (2017). How Sheikh Abdullah’s Note to Nehru Saved Kashmir from Falling into the Hands of Pakistan. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https:// www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/how-sheikh-abdullah-s-note-to-nehrus a v e d - k a s h m i r- f r o m - f a l l i n g - i n t o - t h e - h a n d s - o f - p a k i s t a n / s t o r y ob6o1p3BTQl9ZjUOjjJJoM.html “Arnimal”. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.ikashmir.net/ arnimal/index.html Dar, B.  A. (2015). Sultan-ul-Arifeen: A Saint with Spiritual Heights Hamza Makhdoom. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from http://risingkashmir.com/ news/sultanularifeen-a-saint-with-spiritual-heights Datta, R. K. (2013). Saint Lalleshwari. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https:// www.dailyexcelsior.com/saint-lalleshwari-2/

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“Dinanath Nadim”. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.poemhunter.com/dina-nath-nadim/ Gul, K. (2015). Locals Foil Shrine Ablaze Attempt in Islamabad. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/localsfoil-shrine-ablaze-attempt-in-islamabad/ Khan, V. (2018). The Life & Legend of Habba Khatoon. Retrieved on August 3, 2019, from http://vargiskhan.com/log/habba-khatoon/ Koul, B. K. (2018). Why Should India Care About Kashmiri Pandits? Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://dbpost.com/why-should-india-care-aboutkashmiri-pandits/ Magazine, G. K. (2015). Mahjoor: The Poet of Kashmir. Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/gk-magazine/mahjoor-thepoet-of-kashmir/ “Mahmud Gami”. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.poemhunter.com/mahmud-gami/biography/ Raina, C. L. (n.d.). Peer Pandit Padshah Reshi Peer Sahib. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from https://www.shehjar.com/list/87/761/1.html “Rasul Mir”. (2019). Retrieved August 2019, from https://www.poemhunter. com/rasul-mir/ Razdan, P. N. (n.d.). Gems of Kashmiri Literature and Kashmiriyat – Nund Reshi. (2019). Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http://koausa.org/kashmirigems/ nundreshi.html Razdan (Mahanori), P. N. (n.d.). Gems of Kashmiri Literature and Kashmiriyat, The Trio of Saint Poets  – I.  Parmanand. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http://koausa.org/KashmiriGems/Parmanand1.html “Shamas Faqir”. (2019). Retrieved August 3, 2019, from https://sheshrang. wordpress.com/shamas-fakir/ “Zinda Kaul”. (2019). Retrieved August 3, 2019, from https://www.poemhunter.com/zinda-kaul/

 Appendix A: Kashmir’s History in Brief

Earliest History of Kashmir in Brief The earliest history of Kashmir is provided by Nilmat Purana (sixth to eighth centuries AD), which is considered as the epic of Kashmir, followed by Rajatarangni (twelfth century AD) by Kalhana, who is considered as India’s first historian. In brief, some significant figures and events in the history of Kashmir are captured in brief in the following bullet points: • A Neolithic settlement existed at Burzahom in Kashmir as far back as 2920 BCE (Singh, 2008). • Alexander the Great and Abisares, the king of Kashmir, interacted during the battle of Hydaspes in 326  BCE.  Hydaspes is the Greek name for River Jhelum that runs through most of Kashmir valley and flows finally in Pakistan. It is also known as Vitasta in Sanskrit and Vyeth in native Kashmiri language (Green, 1970; Heckel, 2003). • Kashmir became a part of the great Mauryan Empire around 300  BCE (Sastri, K.  A. N. 1988). Ashoka the Great (from the Mauryan dynasty) brought Buddhism to Kashmir and founded the city of Srinagari (the present-day Srinagar) around 250  BCE (Chatterjee, 1998). • The Fourth World Conference of Buddhism was held in Kashmir during the Kushan dynasty’s rule around 150 AD (Pal, 1989). • Buddhism is understood to have reached Tibet and China through a Kashmiri Buddhist scholar, Kumārajı̄va (c. 343 to 413 AD), who is © The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3

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believed to have travelled to China and influenced the Chinese emperor, Yao Xing, before being asked to spearhead the translation of many Sanskrit works into Chinese at the Chang’an monastery (Singh, 2008). • By fourth century AD, Kashmir was considered to be a seat of learning for both Hinduism and Buddhism (Pal, 1989). • The great Karkota Empire (from Kashmir) ruled Kashmir for 230 years (c. 625 to 855 AD). Amongst the most notable kings of the empire were Chandrapida and his youngest brother, Lalitaditya Muktapida (c. 719 to 760 AD). (Singh, U. 2008) Chandrapida was understood to be brave, courageous, generous and humble and recognised by the Chinese emperor as the king of Kashmir. Lalitaditya Muktapida is recognised as Alexander of India. Arguably the mightiest warrior in the Indian history, he ruled Kashmir for 41 years. He is believed to have stopped the Arab invasion and extended his empire as far as Tibet to the east, Iran to the west, Turkestan to the north, Orrisa to the southeast and Gujarat to the southwest of Kashmir. He is credited with founding Parihaspora (now Paraspora) as his capital in Kashmir, constructing the grand Martand Sun Temple, which is known as one of three sun temples in India and perhaps the largest one (Majumdar, 1977; Wink, 1990)  • Avantivarman (855 to 883 AD) from Utpala dynasty, who founded the city of Awantipur, is considered as another great king of Kashmir. He and his Prime Minister, Suyya, are understood to have desilted River Jhelum (Majumdar, 1977) • The foremost proponent of Hinduism, Adi Shankara (c. 788 to 820 AD) (also known as Shankaracharya) is known to have visited Kashmir in early ninth century. Being a philosopher and theologian, he consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta and is believed to have explained the key difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, stating that Hinduism asserts existence of Atman (soul, self), while Buddhism rejects this assertion. • Abhinavgupta (c. 950 to 1016  AD) was a Kashmiri philosopher, mystic and aesthetician, and a scholar of Trika (called Kashmir Shaivism after 1900). As a polymath, he is known to have influenced Indian culture as a musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian and logician (Lidke, 2016).

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Instability in Kashmir started after the death of Queen Didda (c. 930 to 1003 AD), who was a daughter of Simharāja, the Lohara king, and granddaughter (from maternal side) of Bhima Shahi, one of the Hindu Shahi of Kabul (Haraniya, 2018). After marrying the king of Kashmir, Ksemagupta, she joined the Lohara kingdom with Kashmir. After her death, the oppressive rule by the kings from the Lohara dynasty for 317 years (c. 1003 to 1320 AD) weakened the kingdom, with widespread corruption and the rise of feudal lords, finally leading to foreign invasions. (The Lohara kingdom was located on a trade route in the Pir Panjal mountainous range, between western Punjab and Kashmir.)

Islam Arrives in Kashmir Mongol Empire invaded Kashmir sometime after 1235 (Allsen, 2001). The Mongol king, Möngke Khan (Great Khan), appointed a Buddhist master, Otochi, as darughachi (administrative governor) of Kashmir. But around 1254–55, the Kashmir king revolted and killed Otochi. But later, Mongols killed the Kashmir king and Kashmir fell to the Mongol Empire for many years. Around this time, Sufi missionaries from the Middle East and Central Asia had started arriving in Kashmir and converting Kashmiris to Islam. Rinchan Shah The first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, who ruled Kashmir from 1320 to 1323, was a converted Tibetan Buddhist prince, Rinchan Shah (Lhachan Gualbu Rinchana), who had arrived in Kashmir as a refugee from Ladakh. He is also known as Rinchan, Rinchan Malik, Malik Rinchan and Sadruddin Shah (‘Rinchan,’ 2019). Rinchan was the son of Lhachan Ngos-gruba, who ruled Ladakh from 1290 to 1320. Before arriving in Kashmir as a refugee, he had unsuccessfully revolted against his uncle, who had succeeded his father as the new ruler of Ladakh. The Kashmir king, Suhadeva, gave him refuge and appointed him as a minister. At the same time, Suhadeva had also appointed Shah Mir, a Muslim from Swat (now in Pakistan), as a minister. Rinchan and Shah Mir became good friends, and that changed history. Earlier, the Mongol leader, Zulju (Dulacha), invaded Kashmir with a large army of 70,000 soldiers. The Kashmir king, Suhadeva, was defeated and fled to Tibet. After the Mongols left, Suhadev’s Prime Minister, Ramachandra, occupied the throne and appointed Rinchan as an

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administrator, but Rinchan betrayed him. His men, in the guise of merchants, killed Ramachandra and took his family as prisoners. Following the coup, Rinchan took over the throne of Kashmir and employed Shah Mir as his most trusted courtier. But, being aware of his Ladakhi background, he also worked tactfully to win support from Kashmiris. So, first he won over Ravanachandra, the son of Ramachandra, and appointed him as his chief adviser, with a title of Raina, and offered him Ladakh and Lar as his jagir (property). He also married Kota Rani, Ramachandra’s daughter, and wished to convert to Hinduism. But, to his dismay, the head guru of the Brahmin community refused to accept him as a Hindu convert because of his involvement in Ramachandra’s murder (Kaul, 2016). It is said, in Rinchan’s court, there was a competition and conflict between the followers of Buddhism and Hinduism. One day, after being rejected by Kashmiri Brahmins, Shah Mir is believed to have suggested to a despondent Rinchan that he could convert to the religion of the first person that they would meet during their walk the next morning, which Rinchan accepted. Shah Mir is believed to have secretly pre-planned a morning meeting with a Turkistani Sufi mystic, Syed Sharaf-ud-din Bulbul Shah, popularly known as Bulbul Shah (Sikand, 2010). In accordance with his plan, the next morning they met Bulbul Shah who was performing his morning prayers. Thereafter, Rinchan converted to Islam and adopted the title of Sultan Sadr-ud-din Shah. With him, around 10,000 Kashmiris, including Ravanachandra, are also known to have converted to Islam. (Bulbul Shah is widely credited with introducing Islam to Kashmir when he converted Rinchan [‘Was Rinchan Shah, the ruler of Kashmir in 1320, tricked into converting to Islam?,’ 2018]. As per  an article in Greater Kashmir, dated 6 March 2014, by Dr Farooq Ahmad Peer, ‘Profiling Bulbul Shah’, ‘the preacher among the preachers of Islam in Kashmir’ is believed to be Hazrat Syed Sharaf-ud- din Abdul Rahman (RA), who is believed to have reached Kashmir in 1301–20.) (Peer, 2017) After his conversion to Islam, Rinchan renamed the capital city of Srinagar as Rinchanpora. On the site of a grand Buddhist temple (near Khanyaar), he also built the biggest ever mosque in Kashmir, known as Bod Masheed. The original structure, the Buddhist temple, was burnt and replaced with a smaller structure. In the honour of Bulbul Shah, he built another mosque at Ali Kadal and khanqah, which had langarkhana (public charity kitchen), known as Bulbul Lankar, where the poor were provided with free meals twice a day.

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In 1323, Rinchan was killed in a rebel attack. After his death, Kota Rani married Suhadeva’s brother, Udayanadeva, who became the ruler of Kashmir. But it was Queen Kota Rani who practically ruled the kingdom; she was known to be an intelligent and shrewd person. Around that time, Kashmir was once again invaded by a Mongol-Turk, Achalla, and Udayanadeva fled to Tibet. Kota Rani fought and killed Achalla and drove away his troops. After Udayanadeva died in 1338, Kota Rani became the ruler of Kashmir in her own right. She appointed Bhatta Bhikshana as her prime minister. She was a very brave and an able ruler. In 1339, when Shah Mir deceitfully pretended to be sick, Prime Minister Bhatta Bhikshana visited him to enquire about his health. Shah Mir sprung out of his bed and leaped at him. After killing him, he staged a coup and announced his intention to marry Kota Rani. But she is known to have bravely fought him back, trying her best to save her kingdom. The odds were always too heavy for her, and she was defeated at Jayapur (modern Sumbal). The reason was her kingdom had weakened by the earlier Mongol attacks. According to the historian Jonaraja, Kota Rani committed suicide and offered her intestines to Shah Mir as his wedding gift. Kota Rani had two sons. Her elder son from Rinchan, Haidar Khan, was under the care of Shah Mir from the beginning. Her younger son from Udayanadeva was under the care of Bhatta Bhikshana. It is not known what happened to her sons. Kota Rani is credited with constructing a canal, called KutKol, named after her, to save the city of Srinagar from frequent floods. The canal receives water from River Jhelum at the entry point of Srinagar and merges back with River Jhelum beyond the city limits. (Jonaraja was a Kashmiri historian and Sanskrit poet [Dutt, 1986]. He died in 1459. His Dvitiya Rajatarangni, which is a continuation of Kalhana’s Rajatarangni, describes vividly the decline of the Lohara Hindu dynasty and the rise of the Muslim rule in Kashmir.) S hah Mir Dynasty Rule (1339–1561) Shah Mir (Shams-ud-din Shah Mir) became the ruler of Kashmir after defeating Kota Rani. He ruled for three years (1339 to 1342), and he founded the Shah Mir dynasty. After him, 19 more kings from his dynasty ruled Kashmir till 1561 (Rafiqi, 1998; Ummah, 2017; UNESCO).

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S ultan Sikandar Shah Miri Sultan Sikandar Shah Miri was the sixth sultan of the Shah Mir dynasty and infamously known as Sikandar Butshikan. He is remembered for his oppressive 24-year rule (1389–1413), in which he destroyed many Hindu temples and idols, imposed taxes on Pandits and strenuously converted them to Islam by force. He initiated the first wave of exodus of many Pandits from the valley to avoid persecution. Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, the eighth sultan, also known popularly as Bud-­ Shah for his benevolence, ruled Kashmir for 50 years (1420 to 1470). It is said he had a crippling boil on his body, which could not be cured by any hakeem (doctor), even those who were invited from as far as Persia. But, finally, he was successfully treated by a Kashmiri Pandit vaid (surgeon), Shri Bhat. In lieu of his remuneration, Shri Bhat requested the king that the self-exiled Kashmiri Pandits (from Sikandar Butshikan’s time) be invited back to Kashmir and resettled with honour and dignity. The benevolent king obliged. Bud Shah also invited many artists and craftsmen from Central Asia and Persia to train local artists in Kashmir. During his reign, the arts of wood carving, papier-mâché, shawl and carpet weaving prospered. • Sultan Hajji Khan, who succeeded Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, faced rebellion from Jammu, Poonch and Rajouri in 1470, which was crushed by his son, Sultan Hasan Khan, who took over in 1472. • During the reign of Sultan Shams al-Din Shah II (1537–38), Kashmir issued silver and copper coins. The silver coins were square and the copper coins were round, each weighing typically between 6 and 7 gm. By the mid-sixteenth century, as Muslim missionaries arrived in Kashmir from Central Asia and Persia, the influence and role of Kashmir Pandits in the court diminished. The Sanskrit language was replaced by the Persian as the official language of Kashmir.  irza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat Beg (1500–1551) M Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat Beg (1500–1551), a Chagatai Turco-­ Mongol military general and a historical writer (in the Persian), briefly ruled Kashmir (Grousset, 1970). He was the first cousin of Prince Zahir,

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later known as Mughal Emperor Babur. He first attacked Kashmir in 1533, on behalf of Sultan Said Khan of Kashgar and drove out Kamran, second son of Babur. After suffering a military defeat, he made a treaty with the sultan of Kashmir and struck coins in the name of Said Khan, who died later that year. He again attacked Kashmir in 1540, this time on behalf of the Mughal Emperor Humayun, the first son of Babur. He was installed as the new sultan of Kashmir. In 1546, he struck new coins in the name of Humayun. In 1550, he was killed in a battle with the Kashmiris.  he Chak Dynasty Rule (1554–1589) T The Chaks, who were ethnically Dards and residents of the Gilgit-Hunza area, unseated the last king of Kashmir from the Shah Mir dynasty, Sultan Habib Shah (1557–61). Known for their large and strong built, they were known to be formidable fighters. They successfully resisted the attempts of Babur and Humayun to annex Kashmir. Most Chaks practised the Shia form of Islam, and their recent converts retained their Hindu names. Due to a sectarian divide in Kashmir, some disgruntled Kashmiri Sunni Muslim were not happy with Shia Muslims lording over them; they conspired with Moghul Emperor Akbar to conquer Kashmir. A weakened Kashmir saw tumultuous time during and after the last sultans from the Shah Mir dynasty, with conspiracies and deceits being a regular feature of the time. Mughals, nobilities and even individuals tried take to over the kingdom (Wani, 1987). Ghazi Shah Ghazi Khan became the ruler in 1554 (Pandita, n.d.). He faced many conspiracies, intrigues and rebellions but successfully crushed them heavy-­ handedly with the help of his brothers, Malik Hussain Chak and Ali Shah Chak, converting Kashmir into a virtual fortress. He crushed the invading Mughal Emperor Akbar’s army, which was boosted by section of Kashmiri soldiers, presumably Sunni Muslims. Ghazi Shah was succeeded first by Hussain Shah Chak and then by Ali Shah Chak. • Ali Shah Chak became the ruler of Kashmir when he dethroned Hussain Shah Chak in 1570 and ruled till his death in 1578. • Yousuf Shah Chak succeeded his father, Ali Shah Chak, in 1579 and ruled Kashmir till 1586. With a much smaller army, he defeated Akbar’s army twice. Under a conspiracy hatched by some Sunni Muslim nobles, he visited Delhi—against strong advice of his poetess

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wife, Habba Khatoon (Zoon), who was a Sunni Muslim—to meet Akbar for signing a peace treaty. However, on reaching Delhi, he was arrested and sent to Bengal where he was imprisoned. After his death, his body was brought back to Bihar for burial. Although his son, Yakub Shah Chah, continued his battles for three more years, Yousuf Shah Chak is acknowledged widely as the last indigenous Kashmiri king of Kashmir. • Yakub Shah Chak ascended the throne in 1586. After seeing the betrayal of his father by some Sunni subjects, he turned to be a fanatical Shia Muslim ruler and persecuted his Sunni subjects, whilst also imposing jaziya (religious tax) on Hindu subjects. He continued his fight against the Mughals but finally surrendered to Mughal Emperor Akbar, on 8 August 1589, in Kashmir. He is believed to have died in 1593, possibly due to poisoning. Mughals ruled Kashmir for about 161  years, from 1589 to 1750 (Dughlat, 2008). Successive Mughal emperors, Jahangir and Shahjahan, laid several famous Mughal gardens in Kashmir and constructed many mosques and palaces When Aurangzeb took over the Mughal Empire in 1658, religious persecution and discriminatory taxation peaked in Kashmir. The ninth Sikh Guru, Teg Bahadur, asked Aurangzeb to stop religious persecution of Kashmiri Pandits and their forced conversion to Islam, but he was killed by Aurangzeb on 24 November 1675. After Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, the influence of the Mughal Empire declined. • In 1700, a servant of a wealthy Kashmir merchant is known to have brought Mo-i Muqqadas (a relic of Prophet Muhammad) to Kashmir, which was housed in the Hazratbal Shrine on the banks of Dal Lake. • Nadir Shah’s invasion of India in 1738 weakened Mughal control over Kashmir. Afghan Durranis ruled Kashmir for 70 years (1751 to 1820) during which all Kashmiris from all faiths were repressed. Finally, Ahmad Shah Durrani (Ghilzai, 2016) was defeated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1820 and Kashmir fell to the Sikh Empire (India Today, 2019; The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908) The Sikh Empire ruled Kashmir for 26  years, from 1820 to 1846 (Allen, 2001; Grewal, 1998; Hernon, 2003). However, following the

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First Anglo-Sikh War between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company, between 1845 and 1846, a treaty was signed by the Sikhs and the British, called the Treaty of Lahore, on 9 March 1846, which marked the end of the war (Anglo-Sikh Treaty, 2017) The Treaty of Lahore was signed by the Governor-General Sir Henry Hardinge for the British (and two officers of the East India Company) and the seven-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh Bahadur (6 September 1838–22 October 1893) and seven members of the Lahore Durbar. As per the treaty, the Sikhs were required to pay an indemnity of 15 million rupees to the East India Company. However, in lieu of ten million rupees, the Sikhs agreed to cede Kashmir, along with other areas and territories, to the British. Later, in the Treaty of Amritsar, executed on 16 March 1846, East India Company sold Kashmir for a payment of 7.5 million rupees to the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh (17 October 1792–30 June 1857), and granted him the title of Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908). Dogras ruled Kashmir for 101 years (1846 to 1947). Their rule ended when the last Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh was raided by Pakistan on 22 October 1947, and he left Kashmir to sign an Instrument of Accession with India on 26 October 1947 (Noorani, 2017; Rai, 2004).

Power-Tussle After 1947 Since 1947, Kashmir has seen a very wide power differential between a few politically elite families and the common person. Most political power has historically resided with Mohammed Abdullah Sheikh (5 December 1905–8 September 1982), known widely as Sher-e-Kashmir or Sheikh Abdullah, and his immediate family and within a wider circle of his relatives. His group and followers, known widely as sher (the lions), aligned more with Kashmir leaning towards India, with a relatively secular thought (Ahuja, 2018). Sheikh Abdullah, the founder of National Conference (NC), had led agitation—mainly on communal lines—against Maharaja Hari Singh (23 September 1895–26 April 1961)—the Dogra ruler of the princely state (Singh, 2018)—demanding self-rule for Kashmir. Later, in his letter, dated 26 September 1947, he apologised to the Maharaja and pledged his loyalty to the throne.

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After the accession of the erstwhile  State of Jammu and Kashmir to India, in October 1947, Sheikh Abdullah was appointed as the second prime minister of the State. After six years, on 8 August 1953, he was dismissed and replaced by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad as the new prime minister. In 1965, the terms Sadar-i-Riyasat and prime minister, as used in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, were replaced with the terms governor and chief minister, respectively, to align the State with the remaining States of India. Following the 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord, Sheikh Abdullah took over as the chief minister of the State till his death in 1982. He has since been represented and succeeded by his son, Dr Farooq Abdullah (born 21 October 1937), and later by his grandson, Omar Abdullah (born 10 March 1970), both as chief minsters of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from time to time, and ministers in the Central government of India. Sheikh Abdullah’s two other sons, Sheikh Mustafa Kamal and Sheikh Tariq Abdullah, also held ministerial positions from time to time in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah’s political main nemesis was Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq (Moulana Moulvi Muhammad Farooq Shah), the Mirwaiz of Kashmir and the chairman of All Jammu & Kashmir Awami Action Committee, a coalition of disparate political parties in Jammu and Kashmir. His group and followers, commonly known as bakras (goats), tilted more towards Pakistan, with a fundamental Islamic ideology. He was assassinated on 21 May 1990. A pro-Pakistan militant organisation, Hizbul Mujahideen’s Mohammad Ayub Dar was convicted for the murder. His son, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, succeeded him after his assassination. The power differential between the two families and the rest of the Muslim populace was gradually filled by a third political front, initiated by a number of disillusioned academics, mainly from south Kashmir, in the form of Muslim United Front (MUF), who would have been frustrated seeing the political elite milking the system for their personal benefits, with the common person’s condition remaining relatively unchanged over generations. The MUF later evolved and finally gave birth to Hurriyat Conference, as noted in the following sections.

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October 1983—The First Signs of Socio-political Instability During a One Day International (ODI) game of cricket in October 1983, in Srinagar cricket stadium, many spectators, waving Pakistani flags, supported the visiting West Indian team and booed the Indian cricket team players. The year 1984 witnessed the beginning of violence in Kashmir soon after Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, the founder of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was hanged in February 1984. Kashmir witnessed a number of violent attacks in a relatively quick succession in the next three months. A bomb blast rocked a tourist resort in Nagbal in March 1984. A month later, in April 1984, Kashmir University library was rocked by a similar bomb explosion. A few days later, Judge Neelkanth Ganjoo, who had sentenced Mohammad Maqbool Butt to death, was personally attacked. In the same month, a bus stand in Sopore was attacked by militants. The daring violence escalated by several notches when, on 29 May 1984, Indian army vehicles were attacked in Srinagar, wherein five soldiers were injured (Koul, 2018a). The general perception created by the Islamists and the political opponents of the then Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, was that he had lost control over the civil administration and the general law and order in the State. As a result, his NC government was dismissed, on 2 July 1984, by Mr Jagmohan Malhotra, the then governor of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Following a bizarre turn of political events, seemingly as a political conspiracy, Dr Farooq Abdullah was replaced by his brother-in-law, Ghulam Mohammad Shah (G.M.  Shah), who was the head of Awami National Conference (ANC), a breakaway group of NC. The remainder of 1984 and the following year saw an unpredictable political environment in Kashmir, and the general life remained unstable, mainly due to see-saw battles and political rift within the political elite family. Due to regular curfews imposed by Chief Minister G.M.  Shah’s government, he came to be infamously known as ‘Gul-Curfew.’ A short time later, things turned a full circle, and G.M. Shah’s government was dismissed, on 12 March 1986—following communal riots in Anantnag district, in south Kashmir, in February–March of 1986—and Dr Farooq was reappointed as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir by Governor Jagmohan.

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This was a tricky period in the history of Kashmir, when it witnessed a debilitating power tussle—between NC and ANC, and between Dr Farooq and Mr Jagmohan—that resulted in serious dissatisfaction amongst the public. Islamists exploited the volatile situation to their advantage, to create their own niche in the corridors of power in the valley. They were supported by (a) the Jamat-e-Islami from across the LoC, (b) Pakistan’s ISI and (c) the Deobandi Islamists, who had started working in the valley—as halwais and mullahs—and marrying into the local Kashmiri Muslim community.

February 1986—Anantnag Riots and the First Wave of the Exodus of Pandits The year 1986 foretold the future developments in Kashmir. The months of February and March of 1986 witnessed communal violence in Anantnag district in south Kashmir. Many Kashmiri Pandits were targeted by militants and a number of their temples desecrated and ransacked. The riots were reportedly instigated by Muslim United Front (MUF), a group created by a number of academicians who had been fired from work on reports of their anti-India activities. Around the same time, many Muslims defied curfew and shoot-on-sight orders in downtown Srinagar, and shouted the freedom slogans of azadi (Koul, 2018). As a result of the communal developments in Anantnag and Srinagar, the Kashmiri Pandit community was suddenly instilled with fear and bewilderment, triggering their first wave of exodus from Kashmir, mostly from the Anantnag district. Most of the people who left at that time bought residential plots and constructed basic dwellings at Udhampur and Jammu.

March 1987—Jammu and Kashmir State Elections Catalysed the Uprising The State elections in Jammu and Kashmir, held on 23 March 1987—a day that also marks the Pakistan Day—are believed to have been massively rigged by the incumbent NC government and supported by the Congress government at the Centre, in New Delhi. Farooq Abdullah continued as the chief minister of the State (Koul, 2018a, 2018b). In the months preceding the elections, the Islamist Jamat-e-Islami had aligned with the MUF to arouse the Muslim sentiments in the valley,

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along communal lines, as reflected by communal riots in Anantnag. Some political experts, however, believed the riots were deliberately orchestrated by the so-called secular parties to malign the Islamists. MUF stood for the Shimla Agreement—between India and Pakistan—to resolve bilateral issues between the two countries and the Kashmir issues, and the introduction of Islam law. MUF—apparently the parent organisation of the current separatist organisation, Hurriyat Conference—liaised with the Jammu-based leaders of BJP, an Indian nationalist party, to form a coalition government in Srinagar. Despite such contrasting ideological differences, MUF and BJP had surprisingly come together to oust NC from the power. BJP was born from erstwhile Jan Sangh, a Hindu nationalist party. The coalition marked an important political development in the State in the sense a pro-Muslim Kashmiri party and a pro-Hindu Indian nationalist party had wanted to forge a political alliance to oust NC, a so-called secular party that had the full backing from another so-called secular Congress party at the Centre. (Note: The history was repeated in 2014 when BJP made alliance with People’s Democratic Party [PDP], which is known for its pro-Pakistan and pro-Islamic bent. The two parties, with opposing ideologies, formed the State government in 2014, pushing NC and Congress into the opposition seats in the State Assembly. Such alliances prove the opportunist mindset of most Kashmiri politicians. Their public behaviours and political slogans turn around 180 degrees when they are in power—exhibiting a more pro-India tilt—and when they are out of power—exhibiting a more pro-separation and/or anti-India tilt. Such contrasting behaviours demonstrate Kashmir’s political tussle for power-grabbing and not a result of any religious suppression or freedom struggle. Pro-freedom or anti-India slogans have been the expressions of political blackmail and used as bargaining chips.) The election saw a high turnout, with some estimates indicating as high as 80 per cent eligible voters in the valley voted. Despite the popular expectation, the so-called secular parties (NC-Congress alliance) were declared to have won the most seats (66), with MUF and BJP four and two seats, respectively. Rigging in the elections and corruption in the State administration was exploited by secessionists. They claimed the people had been denied their democratic rights. People questioned the validity of the Indian democracy. Some excerpts of an article by Daanish Bin Nabi, dated 5 August 2015, in Rising Kashmir, ‘The 23rd March 1987, the Day That Changed

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Kashmir as Never Before’, are reproduced herein as bullet points (Nabi, 2015). • Three professors—Abdul Gani Bhat, Abdul Rahim and Sharief-ud-­ Din—were instrumental behind MUF’s creation. Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, a professor of Persian language at Sopore Degree College, was dismissed from services in February 1986 along with two other professors for their ‘anti-India’ activities. ‘I along with two other professors, Abdul Rahim of Geology Department and Sharief-ud-Din of Arabic Department was dismissed on February 27, 1986. Our services were terminated on the ground that we constituted a threat to the security of Indian state,’ recalls Prof Bhat. (Comments by the Author: Who made the complaints against the academics? The likelihood is that complaints would have been made by their own fellow Muslim colleagues, as Muslims had the highest representation in academics and every State government department, which is not much dissimilar to how the local Muslims had presumably tipped off the State police about the Pakistan infiltrators in 1965. This proves only a few disgruntled, power hungry, educated people were acting on behalf of the script writers across the LoC.) • Prof Bhat: ‘First, we organized ourselves as Muslim Employees Front (MEF) … MEF was formed at Prof Ghulam Rasool Bach’s Sopore home. MEF took care of Muslim Employees and MUF dealt with political issues of Muslims. The constitution of MUF was adopted on 13 July 1986 … There were financial, transportation and communication constraints. We were absolutely dependent on the JeI … With time not at our disposal, we still managed to mobilise the masses … then chief minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, got jittery about the peoples’ movement and in panic went to meet Rajiv Gandhi, then PM of India, and decided to rig the elections. For me, it was the moment when India changed Kashmir forever…’ (Comments by the Author: The Anantnag riots, a result of the birth of MUF, manifested in arson and desecration of Pandit temples and houses. The timing seemed to be linked to the withdrawal of the Soviet forces

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from Afghanistan and the entry of Afghan Mujahedeen into the valley. The following paragraphs prove it has all been about the power struggle between NC and the Islamists (MUF). The first prime minister of India, J.L. Nehru, and Sheikh Abdullah had developed an interesting love and hate relationship between the Congress party (which ruled India for over 60 years) and NC (which ruled Jammu and Kashmir in parallel for almost a similar duration). Both parties practised similar tactics to stay in power—the divide & rule policy (under the garb of secularism), cronyism and nepotism—and exploited the emotions of uneducated and simple-minded masses. The Congress leaders in Delhi were somehow convinced that, without the NC party at the helm in Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir would be lost to the Islamists. Perhaps, such a political compulsion was also created through a constant political blackmail by the NC party. As a result, the Congress party had seemingly given the NC party a free rope to secure the 1987 elections at any cost (e.g. rigging), which backfired. As a result, Kashmir was pushed into an extreme politico-social instability. Although the rigged 1987 elections decimated the MUF, it produced Hurriyat Conference—a conglomerate of several separatist organisations—in the later years. Islamists saw the growing unrest in 1984–86 as an opportunity to gain their own share of power and control in the valley. With support and indoctrination from Jamat-e-Islami from across the LoC, and the activities of Deobandi Islamists living as halwais and mullahs in Kashmir, they stared making inroads in the mainstream Muslim populace. All this was actively facilitated and backed by Pakistan’s ISI.) The Tala party, comprising mainly the local students and an influential organisation in 1984, was one of the founding feeder organisations of the MUF.  In 1986, it was renamed as the Islamic Students League (ISL). Mohammad Yasin Malik was its first general secretary. Other excerpts of the article are as follows: • ‘The 1987 elections were fought to control the assembly, not for governing Jammu & Kashmir but to find a constitutional way out for creating international pressure on India so that it respected the aspirations of Kashmiris. Whether we would have passed the resolution or not is debatable, but the important thing about MUF was that all the constituent parties were pro-independence or pro-right to self-­ determination. Our primary objective was to pass a resolution,

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favouring Kashmir’s independence. That way we could have demonstrated to the world what Kashmiris wanted,’ recollects Altaf Shah. (Comments from the Author: The MUF had contested the elections seemingly with a motive to declare independence from India [or alliance with Pakistan]. Had they succeeded, their intentions would have undoubtedly been detrimental to Kashmir’s position within India. Some questions: a) Is it possible that, if Dr Farooq Abdullah had known about their motives, could he have successfully persuaded Delhi and obtained their  consent to do whatever was necessary to prevent the MUF from entering the State Assembly? b) Did the name Tala originate from Afghanistan’s Taliban? The two bomb blasts in 1984 were linked to the Tala party, which indicate the MUF had a militant wing, as part of a two-pronged approach to achieve their objectives.) Mohammad Yusuf Hakeem, then member of MUF’s governing body, is quoted as: ‘I was one of the members from Shia Rabita Committee. Pakistan had no hand in creating MUF. This amalgam was totally indigenous. The root cause of militancy in Kashmir is the rigging in 1987 elections.’ (Comments from the Author: Mr Hakeem’s claim does not hold good. Militancy in Kashmir had started in 1984 with two bomb blasts in March and April 1984, at Nagbal and the Kashmir University library.) • The building-up to the 1987 elections was euphoric. MUF’s public rallies would mostly reverberate with religious slogans. Islam was invoked to mobilise the masses and attract the potential voters. Songs like ‘Aei Mard-e-MujahidJaag Zara, Ab Waqt Shahadat Hae Aaya,’ (O’ brave warriors, wake up, the moment to achieve martyrdom has come) became popular in MUF’s election rallies. MUF’s election rallies and campaign songs became a major attraction for Kashmiri youth who enthusiastically participated in rallies and went crazy while dancing. (Comments from the Author: In democratic elections, songs of martyrdom in election rallies are meant to sow the seeds of armed resistance, leading to the potential loss of peoples’ lives. Undoubtedly, the MUF was not innocent. In such a situation:

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a) If NC knew MUF’s plan, was it being a genuine friend of India to rig the elections? b) Was there any other recourse to avert a potential disaster in the State Assembly? c) Could the elections have been postponed and the State put under governor’s rule and the proven anti-nationals put in jail? d) Did both the Central and State governments show immaturity, and a lack of vision? Rigged elections undermine democracy and the faith of the people in the system. If anti-national activities are criminal, rigging of elections is also criminal. Similarly, if rigging of elections is criminal, armed militancy (terrorism) is also criminal. Two wrongs never make one right; the end does not always justify the means.) Other excerpts of the article are as follows: • ‘… the NC Government were responsible for rigging. They feared that MUF might win it big … Since 1947, NC has had a formula of winning … Dulat in his book has categorically said that we would structure the elections in Kashmir, which says it all,’ says Dr Javid Iqbal, a local commentator. • Former chief of the JeI, Khwaja Mohammad, is reported to have said, ‘Elections were always rigged in Kashmir. That’s why MUF jumped into the election fray to provide genuine democracy to people … Ali Mohammad Watali, the then DIG Police, was at the forefront in this tamasha. Army supported him (Watali) in every possible way. Rajiv Gandhi, then India’s Prime Minister, also gave it (rigging) a go ahead. On the counting day, our (MUF) fate was sealed.’ • Altaf Ahmad Shah says: ‘The statecraft of Delhi always foresees things in Kashmir. New Delhi had all the data and profiles of the MUF candidates and it knew if MUF came to power it would not remain silent on the disputed nature of Kashmir. Delhi conspired against us and rigged the election through agencies.’ • Dr Javid Iqbal says, ‘The people got disillusioned with Indian democracy and thought that democracy might not be a solution to their problems. In despair, people lost all hope in the democratic process.’ (Comments from the Author: If there was a cause, there would have been one single organisation fighting for that cause, and not 23 groups.

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Do these groups reflect 23 different kinds of interests? How many people did these 23 groups represent in terms of percentages? The secessionist leaders believe that the Indian democracy has failed them, do they want to see a dictatorship in India?)

January 1990—The Kashmir Uprising The political and security conditions in Jammu and Kashmir deteriorated steadily over months through the years 1988 and 1989. Kashmir saw targeted assassinations of many prominent and common Kashmiri Pandits, bomb blasts in public places and frequent curfews and calls for shutdowns by Islamists. It seemed the government had no clue about what to do and was struggling to control things. Eventually, a call for an open war cry for freedom was made on 19 January 1990, when Pandits were openly asked to leave—through posted wall notices and over loud-speakers from mosques. Within weeks of the call on 19 January 1990, most Pandits left their home for an uncertain future in the plains of India. Forty-seven people lost their lives in a couple of police shootouts on 1 March 1990. Of those, 26 people were killed in army shooting at a road blockade at Zakoora where 2000 to 2500 protesters, shouting pro-­ freedom slogans, were marching towards the office of United Nations Military Observers Group on India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). The same evening, 21 people were killed in army shooting at Batamaloo in which two buses were attacked that carried people on their roof-tops who chanted anti-India and pro-freedom slogans. Earlier during the months of 1988 and 1989, the rigged elections of 1987 served as a catalyst for an undercover movement, scripted, driven and directed by Pakistan’s ISI from across the Line of Control. The rigged elections were used as an excuse for uprising, and to mask General Zia’s Operation TUPAC, to avenge Pakistan’s successive defeats in the previous Indo-Pak wars and the loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Pakistan’s work was made very easy by many power-hungry leaders in Kashmir who had been declared losers, albeit wrongfully, in the 1987 rigged elections, who were also physically beaten by the State police— comprising mostly Muslims—which acted on behalf of the then NC government, headed by a Muslim and mostly comprising Muslim MLAs and bureaucrats.

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It was mostly an affair of Kashmiri Muslim politicians, all fighting for power— some seeking India’s help to stay in power and some seeking Pakistan’s assistance to grab power.

Blinded by their personal indignation and the loss of opportunity to enjoy power, the defeated Kashmiri leaders decided to initiate an uprising against the State government and India, unfortunately in the name of religion, blaming India for imaginary religious atrocities on Muslims in Kashmir, with their cock and bull stories about the lack of religious freedom in the valley. In the process, they were willing and prepared to sacrifice the lives of thousands of Kashmiri Muslim youth who would get involved in the uprising, most of whom were uneducated or poorly educated, and mainly from the lower socio-economic community. Other than the unfairness during and after the rigged 1987 election, the claims by the defeated Kashmiri Muslim leaders that they have been suffering at the hands of the Indian authorities and forces is laughable, as they have been feeding on Indian dole, with free personal security and the VIP healthcare. They don’t want to even recognise that India had more Muslims than Pakistan at the time of the Partition, and in 1990 and still has the world’s third largest Muslim population. It looks illogical that some of them called for Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan, which is riddled with numerous ethnic problems, such as Muhajirs, Sindhis, NW Frontier and Pakistan Taliban, and has not made much progress since 1947. What looks more surprising that, despite knowing their potential fate in Pakistan, if Kashmir were to merge with Pakistan—based on how Pakistan had been historically treating Kashmiris in the POK since 1947—they were  exhorting Kashmiris to  join  Pakistan. Obviously, they were not so naive as not to know their lavish lifestyle, freedom and power would be a dream in that country. They also knew if Kashmir became independent from India, Pakistan would quickly grab it. It appears, therefore, they used the so-called Kashmir problem only as a bargaining chip with both India and Pakistan to keep receiving funding from both sides. (Note: In Kashmir, most people eat meat and rice as their staple diet. Generally, they don’t pay taxes. People are laidback and lead a relatively much easier and comfortable life as compared to other people in the whole subcontinent. Many affluent Kashmiri Muslim families own properties in Jammu, Pune, Himachal Pradesh, Bangalore and Delhi.) Anecdotally, a Kashmiri Muslim was asked in the 1970s, ‘How many Kashmiris are with Pakistan?’ and he replied, ‘Hundred percent.’ When he asked how many were with India, he said, ‘Hundred percent.’ Another

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Kashmiri phrase from the 1970s goes like this: Zuvjaan vandayo Hindustanus, Dil chum Pakistanus, which means, My life for India but my heart goes to Pakistan. If the Partition was created on the basis of religious ideology, why is it surprising a Kashmiri Muslim’s heart is with Pakistan just like a Kashmiri Pandit’s heart is with India? In general, most Kashmiri Pandits, born and brought up in Kashmir, are heard admitting, Kashmiri Muslims are generally very warm and very good people individually, much better than many other people in the rest of the subcontinent; but in a mob their behaviour changes due to mob mentally. Undoubtedly, as vouched by Pandits, most Kashmiri Muslims were quite tolerant and respectful towards Pandits and that was the reason why Pandits lived in Kashmir till 1990. Pandit women used to be called Raaz-­ baeye, which means a queen, and Pandit men would be called Pandit jee, with respect. Of course, there was also a small percentage of Muslim population that held an element of hatred and resentment towards the Pandits. Hateful curses and taunting slogans, such as Battan hun byol khodayan gol (May God destroy the seed of the Pandits!) and Battnee battnee dodhyey muss, yeh keh kortham dal-e-gadvus (Hey Pandit lady, what have you done to the sissy Pandit? May your hair burn!) were common. The reasons underlying such hate could have been the historical resistance of Pandits to convert to Islam and/or land-lordship (pre-1965) of a small section of the Pandit community. Around 60,000 to 80,000 people are believed to have lost their lives due to militancy in Kashmir since 1990, which comprise up to about 1.5% of the population. These include militants, members of public in collateral and the security forces, including hundreds of Kashmiri Muslim policemen and army soldiers who laid down their lives while fighting the militants. Most of these deaths could have been prevented if a wise and genuine leader, fighting a genuine cause, could have led at least half of the Kashmir population towards the LoC in a one-off event. In conclusion, questions arise about how many Kashmiri Muslims have been with the movement?

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Why Did the Uprising Fail? The politico-religious uprising in 1989–90 was doomed to fail due to a number of fatal flaws in its planning. It seemed its non-Kashmiri alien planners were relatively unwise and completely lacked any vision, direction and sincerity for Kashmir. The biggest fatal flaw in the uprising was the targeting of Kashmiri Pandits, which forced their exodus. It is possible that if the Pandits had been taken in confidence by the secessionist leaders and by the common Kashmiri Muslims, and assured of security to their life, honour and property, history would have been different. The Pandit community may have proved to be an invaluable asset to the Muslim community. In hindsight, were Kashmiri Pandits targeted and scared away only for grabbing their jobs and properties in Kashmir? The second biggest flaw was attacking the formidable Indian forces. Who did not know that such a daredevil move was ridden with significant risks to life of the militant youth, who were brainwashed, in the name of Islam, to wage a jihad against India, which justified their death in the process? Interestingly, none of the children of the leading secessionist leaders was an alarmed militant or died in the uprising. Did the secessionists not expect that the police and the army would retaliate in equal measure if they were attacked by armed militants? Perhaps they expected such youth deaths would attract a world-wide reaction, which did not happen. Their miscalculation was that, in 1990, India had the second largest Muslim population in the world, which coexisted peacefully with other Indians. They also forgot that the Indian Army is secular. Soldiers have nothing personal against the citizens whom they are sworn to defend. They are trained to defend. The third flaw was that too many militant groups were involved in the uprising—some pro-Pakistan and some pro-independence—and many leaders, which divided people and diluted its effect. As they say, too many cooks spoil the broth, the Kashmir uprising had many leaders with differing interests and ideologies, some contradictory to one another, which reflected a struggle for power amongst them. If there was actually ONE cause, there would have been one supreme leader, which was not the case. If it was a genuine people’s movement in 1990, led by a leader like M.K. Gandhi, at least 50% of the Muslim population in the valley, that is, about 2.5 million people, would have come out of their homes and peacefully marched towards the LoC. No army in the world could have been

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able to stop them, albeit some people may have been killed. But if that would have happened, the UN and the rest of world would have immediately jumped in and conducted a referendum. Possibly, Kashmir would have gained freedom. Instead, a very small section of population (0.5–1.0%)—cumulatively comprising about 25,000 to 50,000 people at different places across the valley—had reportedly demonstrated on the streets against India.

Philosophy Underlying the Kashmir Problem The so-called Kashmir problem appears to be more or less a myth insofar as any socio-religious struggle of Kashmiri people is concerned. The problem is deeply rooted in greed and power struggle of some individuals in the valley, as well as the outstanding settlement of an old score by Pakistan. As such, there has been no religious persecution or suppression, whatsoever, of Kashmiri Muslims by anyone—in Kashmir or elsewhere in India—as has incorrectly been claimed by some separatists and Islamists in the valley and parroted internationally by Pakistan. Note that the world’s third largest Muslim population lives in a secular, democratic Republic of India. Of course, some pseudo-seculars and pseudo-intellectuals, who seemingly attempt to please the secessionists in the valley, and their directors across the LoC, for whatever reasons, also keep crying about it. In essence, it is a power tussle between various Kashmiri Muslim politicians, some pro-Pakistan Islamists and some relatively more secular-minded, all of whom want power and the political authority, with all imaginable material benefits. The general law and order is looked after by the local, predominantly Muslim police. Kashmir, as any other business, has been filling bottomless pockets of many people on either sides of the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan, who will not like to see a progressive and peaceful Kashmir. The superficial complication about the so-called Kashmir problem has been deliberately created to serve the interests of such individuals, as a deliberate diversion to camouflage its script writers and directors operating from across the LoC and mask its roots in the concept of the 1947 Partition of India and the birth of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan nine years later, on 23 March 1956, thanks to untiring efforts of Jamat-e-­ Islami, an Islamist organisation whose base is in the heart of India, in the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh.

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If Kashmir problems were an indigenous movement by Kashmiri Muslims against India, Kashmiri Muslims and their past leaders would not have sided with India after the Partition and helped to thwart Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar in 1965. Kashmiri Muslims have had a predominant representation in the local administration, State police and State bureaucracy, in all successive State governments. Additionally, they also have had good representation in Indian Army, (Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry, JAK LI), Indian bureaucracy and the successive Indian Central governments. Since the politico-religious uprising of 1989–90, Kashmiri Muslim policemen and soldiers of Indian Army have been fighting against the militancy in Kashmir, and hundreds of them have been killed in the last three decades in the call of their duty. Kashmir has been witnessing a proxy war waged by Pakistan, which has been fighting India—overtly through cross-­ border wars (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999) and covertly through jihadi terrorist activities since 1984. Pakistan’s intelligence agency (ISI) has exploited the internal political power struggle in Kashmir, with Jamat-e-­ Islami, which had not initially succeeded in Kashmir till about 1983, as the main brain behind the proxy war. In early 1986, during unrest in the Anantnag district of south Kashmir, many Jamat-e-Islami activists were targeted, as were Kashmiri Pandits, possibly by the activists of the so-called secular-minded local political parties to rout the Islamists. Many Jamat-e-Islami activists were physically beaten and their houses burnt, which attracted a backlash in the form of the birth of Islamic Student League (ISL) and the Muslim United Front (MUF), both driven by fundamental Islamic ideology. After being unfairly routed in the March 1987 rigged elections, the Islamists aggressively grew their tentacles across the valley—riding on a wider sympathy wave across the general public for how their electoral candidates were inhumanly mistreated by the State police and the activists of the so-called secular parties during the elections, albeit with blessings from the then Central government of India for all wrong reasons (nepotism and cronyism)—and succeeded in eroding the spirit of traditional intra-­ community Kashmiriyat and introducing a fundamental, but alien, Islamic mindset in the valley, which manifested eventually in the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in early 1990 and thereafter. Not many Kashmiri Muslim men would grow a beard before 1990, but now, most youth and men can be seen with a beard, as a distinct mark of religious identity. Many people

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prefer to speak in Urdu. The women’s outfit has acquired a more Arabic style, with head and large parts of face covered. It is ironical that, while the Kashmiri Muslim fanatics have been calling for azaadi—independence from India—their recently adopted alien habits and appearances have done injustice to the preservation of their previous unique Kashmiri cultural identity and ethos. Their Arabic names, a common use of the Urdu language and stereotypical Islamic appearances paradoxically undermine their claim for Kashmir. As demonstrated by their unwise and myopic directions, the past three decades have illustrated that the separatist Kashmiri leaders have misled the public and, in doing so, not proved to be genuine well-wishers of Kashmir and the Kashmiri people. Sincere and visionary leaders would not have called for Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan and incited the public to rise violently against India, which was the world’s second largest Muslim country (after Indonesia) in 1990. Between the two neighbours, India has been a much more progressive and a fast developing country, as also a secular democratic republic. In hindsight, it was sheer madness and utterly irresponsible for such leaders to ask people to fight, in the name of Islam, for merger with Pakistan, a much weaker economy, which is a terrorist-­ infested country and has all along been battling the identity, ideological and politico-religious issues. Visionary leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr, chose the path of non-violence and thought about the safety, security and well-being of the people. But such leaders come rarely in a millennium. On the other hand, an independent Kashmir is inconceivable due to (a) Pakistan’s masked hawkish intentions to grab it and (b) the general inability of the Kashmiris to survive on their own. It takes a strong national character and dedicated hard work by citizens to maintain the sovereignty and economy of an independent country. As far as the common Kashmiri Muslims are concerned, both these requirements are questionable. They are used to shortcuts and an easy way of life. It is important to note that most of the Kashmiri separatist leaders have not lost any member of their family during the past three decades in the uprising. But, sadly, they have been exhorting the youth to fight to save Islam and attain martyrdom in the name of jihad, a term that has been misquoted and misused by these leaders to serve their own selfish ends. If they would have loved Pakistan so much, they would have migrated to Pakistan. There was no need to incite masses and get young people killed.

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A leader is one who strives for the well-being of the people. Some questions about the current leadership are as follows: • Who does not know that the bulk of local economy of the State of Jammu and Kashmir runs mainly based on tourism and exports of seasonal fruit, nuts, handicrafts—shawls, carpets, papier-mâché, walnut furniture and so forth? • Who does not know the livelihood of millions of Kashmiris depends on the tourists? Kashmir has been one of the world’s most famous tourist destinations, so why would any leader incite the youth to attack tourists, as was seen in 2018? Does a person who exhorts youth to pelt stones at tourists deserve to be called a leader? • Does a human being who pays youth to injure or kill unarmed civilians deserve to live a free life? • Will a well-meaning Kashmiri try to adversely affect the livelihood of fellow Kashmiris? If the answer to all these questions is ‘no,’ then who are the people who undertake or encourage the acts of violence to sabotage the local tourism and the livelihood of Kashmiri traders and artisans? A simple answer could be: They are not well-wishers of Kashmiri but foreign infiltrators who are bent upon or paid to disrupt the traditional peace and quiet of Kashmir.

Demographics It is important that, in the context of the subject matter, readers are provided with some statistics for gaining an insight into the demographic aspect of Kashmir (Demography, n.d.; India Census Data by State, 2015). 1901 Census of British India: • Jammu and Kashmir, including Ladakh and Gilgit, had a total population of about 2.9  million, which included about 2.1  million Muslims (72.4%), about 0.69 million Hindus (23.8%), about 0.9% Sikhs and about 1.2% Buddhists. • Kashmir Valley had a total population of about 1.15 million, which included about 1.08  million Muslims (93.6%) and about 61,000 Hindus (5.2%), mainly Kashmiri Pandits. • Jammu had a total population of about 0.62  million, of which Hindus constituted about 60%.

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• About 91% of the total Hindu population in the State lived in Jammu. 1911 Census of the British India: • Jammu and Kashmir had a total population of about 3.1  million, which included about 2.4  million Muslims (77.4%), 0.7  million Hindus (22.6%), about 1.0% Sikhs and about 1.2% Buddhists. 1941 Census of British India (estimated based on the 1931 Census): • Jammu and Kashmir had a total population of about 3.9  million, which included a Muslim population of about 3.0 million (77%), a Hindu population of about 0.8 million (20.5%) and the Sikhs comprised about 1.4% of the population. • Kashmir Valley had 93.6% Muslims and about 4% Hindus (mainly Kashmiri Pandits). During the Dogra dynasty rule (1846–1947), Kashmiri Pandits comprised generally 4% to 5% of the total population in the valley. Around 20% Kashmiri Pandits are understood to have left the Kashmir valley around the partition, possibly soon after the invasion by Pakistani army and tribal (Kabailees). 2001 Census: • Kashmir division had a total population of about 5.5 million. Muslims comprised about 95% of the population in Kashmir, whereas Hindus are recorded to have comprised about 4% of the population. Note: The percentage of Hindus in Kashmir is questionable as most of Kashmiri Pandits had left the valley during the 1989–90 exodus. • Jammu division had a total population of about 4.4 million. Hindus comprised about 67% of the population in Jammu, whereas Muslims are recoded to have comprised 27% of the population. 2011 Census: • Kashmir division had a total population of about 6.9 million. Muslims comprised about 95% of the population in Kashmir, whereas Hindus are recorded to have comprised about 4% of the population. Note: The percentage of Hindus in Kashmir is questionable as most of Kashmiri Pandits had left the valley during the 1989–90 exodus. • Jammu division had a total population of about 5.4 million. Hindus comprised about 67% of the population in Jammu, whereas Muslims are recoded to have comprised 27% of the population.

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This means with a decade (2001–11), the population in the Kashmir division increased by about 1.4 million (25.4%) and by 1.0 million (22.7%) in the Jammu division.

Important Statistics Jammu and Kashmir (under India) has an area of about 101,380 square kilometres, of which Kashmir division comprises 15%, Jammu 26% and Ladakh 59%. About 85% of the State area is not dominated by the Muslim population. The State has 22 districts, of which mainly five districts—Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Kulgam and Pulwama—have seen the politico-­ religious uprising in the form of stone-pelting, bomb blasts, hoisting of Pakistani flags and anti-India demonstrations since 1989–90. Interestingly, these districts are not located near the border or LoC with Pakistan. The remaining 17 districts are not known to have witnessed much of disturbance. The districts of Poonch and Kargil, both located relatively close to the border or the LoC with Pakistan, have more than 90% Muslim population but are not known to have witnessed any anti-India or separatist movement. The uprising is known to have been driven by mainly the Sunni Muslims living mainly in the aforementioned five districts. Other religious and ethnic groups in the State—Shia Muslims, Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs, Dogra Hindus, Buddhists (Ladakhi), Gujjars, Bakarwals, Paharis, Baltis and Christians—are not known to be involved with any anti-India or freedom movement. This section should logically end with a vital question: Are all Muslims in Kashmir unhappy with India and fighting for freedom? The simple answer is: No.

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Sastri, K.  A. N. (1988). Age of the Nandas and Mauryas. Motilal Banarsidass. Singh, M.  K. (2018). Remembering Maharaja Hari Singh. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/ voices/remembering-maharaja-hari-singh/ Singh, U. (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India. Sikand, Y. (2010). Hazrat Bulbul Shah: The First Known Muslim Missionary in Kashmir. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713680363?journa lCode=cjmm20 The Imperial Gazetteer of India (Volume 15); Karachi to Kotayam, Great Britain Commonwealth Office, 1908, ISBN 978-1-154-40971-0. Ummah. (2017). Shah Mir Dynasty (Islamic dynasty in Kashmir). Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.ummah.com/forum/ forum/library/islamic-history-persons/507445-shah-mir-dynastyislamic-dynasty-in-kashmir UNESCO. The Regions of Sind, Baluchistan, Multan and Kashmir: The Historical, Social and Economic Setting. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/knowledge-bank/regions-sindbaluchistan-multan-and-kashmir-historical-social-and-economic-setting Was Rinchan Shah, the Ruler of Kashmir in 1320, Tricked into Converting to Islam? (2018). Retrieved June 2019, from https://www.quora. com/Was-Rinchan-Shah-the-ruler-of-Kashmir-in-1320-tricked-intoconverting-to-Islam Wani, N. (1987). Muslim Rule in Kashmir, 1554 A.D. to 1586 A.D. Jay Kay Book House. Wink, A. (1990). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th–11th Centuries. BRILL.



Appendix B: The Pakistan Factor

The Birth of Pakistan A good understanding of the Pakistan factor is very important in the context of Kashmir. Readers must note that the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was not part of the erstwhile British India, but the present Pakistan was indeed its part. Since its inception in August 1947, Pakistan has failed to find its feet and has remained a confused nation, caught between the present and the past. The country has not been able to create an identity of its own, possibly because it has tried to live two lives: one pulling it back to the first millennium, and the other struggling to live in the present era. Possibly also because it has no history before it was conceived in the late 1930s (Talbot, I. 1998, 2010). Nearly half of the time since it has been born, the country has been ruled by a number of military dictators, who could be likened to erstwhile kings who used to have all power at their disposal. The remaining time, a number of democratically elected civilians—some of whom have been known to be corrupt—have tried to pull it back in the modern era. In the garb of Islam, the country was apparently born out of aspiration for materialistic prosperity and power of some individuals, which subsequently led to secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). If not for the Kashmir issue, the country would find it hard to remain intact.

© The Author(s) 2020 B. K. Koul, The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6537-3

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 he Partition: August 1947 T Earlier, the British (East India Company) took nearly 100  years, from 1757 to 1857, to conquer and consolidate India before passing it on to the British Empire, which then ruled it for the next 90 years, from 1857 to 1947. The British East India Company was one of the greatest powers in the Indian subcontinent, but definitely not its ruler. The British foothold started with Bengal, a major kingdom in India, when Robert Clive won it in 1757. Thereafter, Mysore State was won in 1799, Marathas defeated in 1818 and the Sikh Empire fell by 1849. With the suppression of the 1857 mutiny, India was officially taken over the British Empire (The Imperial Gazetteer of India; Wolpert, 2005). About 90 years later, Britain’s intended withdrawal from the subcontinent, as a result of its World War II devastation, was announced soon after the Labour Party won the British general election of July 1945. Before the war, India was ravaged by the Great Depression and mass unemployment. During the war, inflation and the shortage of food grains were exacerbated by rationing of food and the Bengal Famine of 1942. People were frustrated due to poor or absence of governance, and the country was slowly descending into chaos due to a number of factors, including complex communal issues and Britain half-heartedness to resolve those issues. Britain wanted to focus on its own redevelopment and not stretch itself into the subcontinent and get embroiled in its issues. The Indian National Congress party launched the Quit India Movement in 1942, which resulted in widespread violence across India and catalysed Britain’s decision to leave the subcontinent. The movement was followed by frantic political discussions about the future governance of the country, sadly on the religious lines. The Muslim leaders, who supported the idea of partition and Pakistan, were seen to be siding and cooperating with the British, thereby passively coercing them to divide the country (Ambedkar, 1945). Four years after the launch of the 1942 Quit India Movement, M.A. Jinnah called for a Direct Action Day, on 16 August 1946, in support of his demand for Pakistan. The demand for Pakistan was strongly supported by several influential, opportunist Muslim landlords, based in the Punjab and Sindh, seemingly for their material prosperity in Pakistan where they would not have any competition from the influential Indian businessmen. For similar material reasons, the poor peasants of East Bengal also supported the demand for Pakistan, for escaping from the clutches of Hindu moneylenders.

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Towards the start of 1947, the British government announced its intention to grant independence to India by June 1948. However, for some reasons, the British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, decided to advance the date of independence by about eight months, to August 1947. The last months of the British rule saw the colonial government’s main focus on a speedy transfer of power. The country felt neglected, and people were frustrated. India witnessed a naval mutiny and widespread wages strikes and demonstrations. In June 1947, various political leaders of erstwhile Indian subcontinent, such as J.L. Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad (Indian National Congress), M.A. Jinnah (Muslim League), BR Ambedkar representing the untouchable community and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to the partition of India along religious lines—the Hindu dominated India and the Muslim Pakistan (Majumdar, Raychaudhuri & Datta, 1950; Riddick, 2006). In August 1947, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned into three parts: (1) West Pakistan (the present-day Pakistan), (2) East Pakistan (the present-day Bangladesh), which was about 1700 km to the east of West Pakistan and (3) the present-day India. Pakistan declared its independence on 14 August 1947. The Punjabi Muslims were rewarded with West Pakistan and the East Bengali Muslims with East Pakistan. India declared itself independent on 15 August 1947. The new border between the two countries was not announced until 17 August 1947. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, who had hardly any knowledge of the Indian conditions, was asked to hurriedly draw it up at a short notice—as per the Radcliffe Commission—based on out-of-date maps and census materials. The partition witnessed the largest mass migration in human history of some 10 million people. The division of the two Indian border States—Punjab and Bengal—led to widespread communal rioting, especially in the Punjab where more than one million people— Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs—were killed. It seemed the British desperately wanted to wash their hands off the subcontinent and return home. Their hurried withdrawal in 1947—and the partition of the country—senselessly cut numerous communities, families and farms into two. It would have been prudent that British and Indian leaders should have taken a reasonable period of time to agree on the new borders and not rushed through it without considering permanent social and political ramifications. Perhaps, all sides were losing control and were, therefore, keen to strike a deal before the country descended into chaos.

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Anomalies of the Partition India ended up having more Muslims than Pakistan, which puts a question mark on the veracity, vision and objectives of the partition. The idea of Pakistan is believed to have not been born until the late 1930s. The partition is commonly seen as a result of conflict between the elites of the two nations. Possibly M.A. Jinnah also wished to use the demand for Pakistan as a bargaining chip to secure the power and rights of Muslims within a loosely federated Hindu-dominated India (Jaffrelot, 2004; Khan, 2007). Despite having about 23% of the undivided land mass, Pakistan inherited disproportionately less (about 17.5%) of the financial assets of an undivided British India. Its economy was mainly agricultural and controlled by the feudal elites who actively supported the partition for their own material benefits. Ironically, the major support for Jinnah’s Muslim League, for religious reasons, was from the heartland of India—the United Provinces, the current Uttar Pradesh—which was not included with Pakistan (Riddick, 2006; The Imperial Gazetteer of India). Muslims from India, especially from the United Provinces, who wished to live in a Muslim Pakistan, uprooted themselves and fled to West Pakistan, where they are called the muhajirs and have felt marginalised. Their fight for their rights and sustenance has witnessed ethnic conflicts in Pakistan, especially in the Sindh region. The British India comprised 580 princely states, and the ruler of each State was asked to decide to choose between India or Pakistan as per the geographical locations of the States and the wishes of their people. Most States acceded seamlessly except Junagadh, Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir. Hyderabad, located in southern India, was the largest of the princely states and ruled by the Nizam—a Muslim—who preferred to remain independent. It had a population of about 17  million at that time, and the majority of them were Hindus. Following a year of negotiations with the Nizam to join the union of India, the Indian government sent its forces to invade Hyderabad on 13 September 1948 and annexed it. Pakistan protested and took the matter to the UNSC, but failed to reverse it. Junagadh, located along the Arabian Sea coast, about 210 miles to the southeast of Pakistan, had a mostly Hindu population and was ruled by a Muslim prince. On 15 September 1947, he signed a document of accession to Pakistan. Objecting to his accession, India demanded a plebiscite

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and amassed troops along its borders. The prince fled to Pakistan. Later, in a plebiscite, the people overwhelmingly approved joining India. Pakistan has claimed that the document of accession signed by Junagadh’s Muslim prince is legally valid and should take precedence over the plebiscite. Interestingly, Pakistan’s stance is exactly opposite to its seemingly hypocritical stand on Jammu and Kashmir. It was only after Pakistan’s surprise invasion on 22 October 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh, the king of Kashmir, requested India for help, which arrived in the form of Indian troops landing in Kashmir but only after the Maharaja had signed an Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947. A retired judge of the Supreme Court of India and a former chief justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Justice A.S. Anand, claims Kashmir’s accession is analogous to that of Texas to the U.S. (Anand, 1997). The first condition for the plebiscite in the State, to be undertaken by the UN, requires Pakistan to completely vacate the areas of the State that it forcibly occupied during its invasion in October of 1947, which Pakistan has refused to do. Pakistan occupies about one-third of the original geographical area of Jammu and Kashmir, which it calls Azaad Kashmir (Free Kashmir). India calls it Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). Later, following the Chinese invasion in October 1962, about one-fifth area of the State fell to China. The current Indian part of the State, called Jammu and Kashmir, comprises just about half of the original area of the State. A Line of Control (LOC) separates it from the POK and the Pakistan-controlled Gilgit-­ Baltistan to the west and north, respectively. Another Line of Actual Control (LOAC) separates it from the Chinese-administered territory of Aksai Chin to the east.

Islamic Republic The founding father of Pakistan, M.A.  Jinnah, died on 11 September 1948, about a year after the partition, at the age of 72 years. Upon his death, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, an influential Deobandi Islamic scholar, described him as the greatest Muslim after the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, whilst also comparing his death to the Prophet’s passing. He also exhorted Pakistanis to fulfil Jinnah’s dream: To create a solid bloc of all Muslim states from Karachi to Ankara, from Pakistan to Morocco …to see the Muslims of the world united under the banner of Islam as an effective check against the aggressive designs of their enemies (Koul, 2018).

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Pakistan tried to take the leadership of the Muslim world. A Muslim League leader, Khaliquzzaman, proposed that Pakistan could bring together all Muslim countries to form a pan-Islamic entity, called Islamistan, which was rejected by some Arab countries. However, despite that failure, as a self-appointed leader of the Muslim world, Pakistan championed the right of self-determination for Muslims across the world, playing an active role in the independence movements in Algeria, Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia and Eritrea. In March 1949, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, introduced the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, following a strong movement led by Maulana Usmani and Maulana Mawdudi (from Jamaat-i-Islami), which declared that sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah, with a core objective to transform Pakistan into an Islamic State. On 23 March 1956, through a vote of confidence in the State parliament, Pakistan was the first country in the world to modify its republican status—by adopting the adjective Islamic—and declare itself an Islamic Republic, which meant it was going to be governed by Islamic laws. The Constitution of Pakistan, Part IX, Article 227 says: All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah, in this Part referred to as the Injunctions of Islam, and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such Injunctions. The date 23 March commemorates the Pakistan Day and the Pakistan Resolution Day after the Lahore Resolution, dated 23 March 1940, and the adoption of the first constitution of Pakistan during the transition of the Dominion of Pakistan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This date, 23 March 1956, may have permanently changed the history of Pakistan and significantly affected the general life in Kashmir and the rest of the subcontinent, or perhaps the whole world (Haqqani, H. (2005, 2010). Despite declaring itself an Islamic republic in 1956, Pakistan did not have a State religion until 1973. In 1958, its army took over the controls of the country. The first army rule lasted for 14 years, 1958 to 1971; the second for 12 years, 1977 to 1988; and the third for nine years, 1999 to 2007. That is, in the past 72  years, Pakistan has remained under army rue for 35  years, which is nearly half its history.

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Indo-Pak Wars Pakistan and India have fought four wars, including one undeclared war in 1947, and frequent border skirmishes and military stand-offs. Except the Indo-Pak War of 1971—also known as the Bangladesh Liberation War, which was born out of uprising, genocide and freedom movement in East Pakistan (the present-day Bangladesh)—Kashmir has been the main cause of all conflicts between the two countries (Dixit, 2002; Lyon, 2008; Schofield, 2003; Wrising, 1998).  he Pakistani Raid in 1947–1948 T This first Indo-Pak war, known also as the First Kashmir War, started soon after the British left the subcontinent when Pashtun tribal forces (kabailees), backed by regular Pakistani troops, invaded Kashmir on 21 October 1947 (Prasad, 1987). Pakistan feared that the king of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, would accede to India. The sudden invasion forced the Maharaja to desperately turn to India for help, which India did not readily do. The India intervention and help arrived only after Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to India on 26 October 1947. Indian troops pushed the invaders back, initially suffering heavy casualties but making significant gains over the next few months. On 1 January 1948, India lodged a complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) against Pakistan—under Article 35 of the UN Charter—and requested the UNSC to ask Pakistan to stop the invasion. Pakistan denied any involvement in Kashmir and made counter-­accusations that India had obtained the accession by fraud and violence and was conducting genocide against the Muslims of Kashmir. Surprisingly, despite the State’s accession to India, India announced at the UN that it was prepared to conduct a plebiscite in the State and promised to abide by the results of the plebiscite. This announcement, which would sting India in the later years, was perhaps a gesture of extreme benevolence and statesmanship by India’s first Prime Minister J.L. Nehru. On 20 January 1948, the UNSC passed Resolution 39 and established a three-member Commission to look into the matter, which, however, did not happen till May 1948, during which time the war continued. On 21 April 1948, the UNSC passed Resolution 47 and increased the size of the Commission to five members: Argentina, Belgium, Columbia, Czechoslovakia and the USA. The Resolution 47 recommended a three-­ step process before the plebiscite could be undertaken in the State.

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• Step 1: Pakistan will withdraw all its nationals and troops from Kashmir. • Step 2: India will progressively reduce its troop numbers to the minimum level required for maintaining the law and order in the State. • Step 3: India will appoint a plebiscite administrator, as nominated by the UN, to conduct a free and impartial plebiscite. Both countries welcomed the UNSC’s mediation but objected to the Resolution. After the UNSC’s further mediation, the Commission amended the initial Resolution and adopted two resolutions of its own, which were accepted by both countries. On the night of 1 January 1949, a formal ceasefire was declared by the Commission. With that the undeclared war came to an end; however, the Kashmir conflict continued. A ceasefire line, called the Line of Control (LoC), was established and a UN peacekeeping force was also established to monitor it. Pakistan continued to occupy roughly one-third of the State and the area of Gilgit-Baltistan. As a condition of the ceasefire, the UN recommended that both countries should fulfil their commitment of holding a plebiscite in the State, which never happened, primarily because Pakistan was reluctant to fulfil the first condition of the three-step process, that is, to withdraw all its troops and people from the area it occupied. Accordingly, a truce was never achieved over the process of demilitarisation in the area. The Commission acknowledged its failure to resolve the conflict in December 1949. Five years later, in 1954, Jammu and Kashmir’s constituent assembly ratified the State’s accession to India. Three years later, in 1957, the State approved its own constitution, which it modelled along the Indian constitution. Since then, India has regarded the State as its integral part. On the other side of the LoC, Pakistan has been administering roughly one-third of the State. A small area that Pakistan calls Azaad Kashmir and India calls POK, is understood to be semi-autonomous. Jammu and Kashmir has a special status in the union of India. It is the only State that has its own State flag and a constitution of its own, which works under Article 370 of the Constitution of India. In addition, instead of Indian Penal Code (IPC), it is the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) that works in the State, which is after Maharaja Ranbir Singh (August 1830–12 September 1885), the third son of Gulab Singh (17 October 1792–30

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June 1857) who was the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir. Maharaja Ranbir Singh ruled Jammu and Kashmir for about 30 years (20 February 1856–12 September 1885). Some intriguing questions: • Why did India not push the Pakistani forces fully back across the international border between the two countries? • Why did India announce its promise at the UN to carry out plebiscite in Kashmir when the Maharaja had signed a legitimate Instrument of Accession to India? Why was Kashmir given a special status unlike Hyderabad and Junagarh? In 1955, a warlike situation developed at the Indo-Pak border, due to aggressive posturing from both sides, which did not materialise into a war. I ndo-Pak War of 1965 In 1965, Pakistan attacked India second time in 18 years, since its birth, which resulted in this 17-day war (6 to 23 September 1965) between the two countries over Kashmir (Rachna, 2015). Retrospectively, numerous skirmishes had taken place between the two countries since 8 April 1965 in the Rann of Kutch (Gujarat) area. Historically, in 1956, a dispute arose between the two countries over the Rann of Kutch, but India ended up regaining control over the area. Nine years later, in January 1965, Pakistani forces clandestinely intruded and began patrolling there, which was resisted by India. On 8 April 1965, the two armies faced each other and started attacking each other’s posts. Numerous skirmishes took place during the subsequent months, which became a concern for the international community. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson persuaded the two countries to set up a tribunal to resolve the dispute. (Later, in 1968, as per the tribunal, Pakistan gained 350 square miles of the area, as against its original claim of 3500 square miles.) Emboldened by its perceived success in the Rann of Kutch in attracting the international attention, Pakistan believed a quick military campaign across the LoC could win it Kashmir, based on the assumption that the Indian Army was relatively weak following the heavy losses that it had suffered from the earlier 33-day Indo-China War of 1962 (Prabhakar, 2003). As a two-pronged approach to ensure its success, Pakistan planned to

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precipitate an uprising in Kashmir, misbelieving Kashmiris were discontented with India. Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar: 5 August 1965 On 5 August 1965, under Operation Gibraltar, around 26,000 to 30,000 regular Pakistani army soldiers, dressed as Kashmiri mujahedeen, crossed the LoC and dispersed within Kashmir (Singh, 2012). However, to their surprise and dismay, they were discovered by local Kashmiri Muslims who tipped off the local police and the Indian forces. The infiltrators were arrested and killed when they resisted and fought back. On 15 August 1965—the Independence Day of India—Indian Army counterattacked Pakistan. After a prolonged artillery barrage, they quickly captured three important mountainous Pakistani positions. In the following days, Pakistan advanced in Tithwal, Uri and Poonch. Between 28 and 30 August 1965, India made a significant victory when it captured the Haji Pir Pass (Singh, 2012) located about 8 km inside PoK, which was the main route used by the Pakistanis for infiltration into Kashmir (THEPRINT Team, 2018). The Indian victory encompassed several operations, starting with Operation Faulad—to clear the approaches to Haji Pir Pass—and ended with Operation Bakshi (after Lt General Harbaksh Singh), to capture Haji Pir Pass itself. (With the capture of Kahuta on 10 September 1965, the mouth of the pass was sealed [Singh, 2012]) Pakistan’s Operation Grand Slam: 1 September 1965 Operation Grand Slam was planned by Pakistan President General Ayub Khan, in May 1965, aimed to capture the border town of Akhnoor in Jammu region, take over the vital Akhnoor Bridge over River Chenab, which was the lifeline of the Indian forces in the area, take over Jammu and, thus, sever Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of India (Rachna, 2015). Pakistan was aware that the Akhnoor sector was lightly defended by India and its infantry was stretched thinly along the border. Although both countries had a similar number of battle tanks, Pakistan would have been encouraged by a common perception (perhaps not correct) at that time that its main battle tanks (the US-supplied M47 Patton and M48 Patton) were superior to the Indian battle tanks—the British-made Centurion Mk 7 and the light (13-tonne) French-made AMX-13). On early morning of 1 September 1965, three days after the fall of Haji Pir Pass, on 28 August 1965—after the Pakistan Army found itself under

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intense pressure to save Muzaffarabad against repeated attacks from the Indian forces—Pakistan launched a major offensive, under Operation Grand Slam, which took the Indian forces by surprise. The entire Chhamb area came under massive Pakistani artillery bombardment. With an overwhelming ratio of troops and technically superior tanks, Pakistan made significant gains against unprepared Indian forces, who retreated from their defensive positions. According to a Pakistani military historian, Major (retired) A.H. Amin (Amin, 2001): The Pakistani forces in Operation Grand Slam had a 6 to 1 advantage over Indian AMX-13 tanks, which were like ‘matchboxes’ in front of the Pakistani Pattons. In terms of artillery, Pakistan’s 8 inch guns were superior to anything that Indians had at that time and had an overall superiority of 6 to 1.

In retaliation, the Indian Air Force (IAF) made urgent air strikes against the Pakistani Army, marking the aerial phase of the war. The next day, Pakistan Air Force (PAF) attacked the Indian forces and air bases in Kashmir and Punjab. The PAF has claimed it was outnumbered by the IAF, by around 5:1, during the war. The IAF flew British and Soviet fighter planes—Hawker Hunters, Indian-manufactured Folland Gnats (nicknamed Sabre Slayers), de Havilland Vampires, EE Canberra bombers and a squadron of MiG-21s. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) largely flew American origin planes—F-86F Sabres and F-104 Starfighters and B-57 Canberra bombers—which were widely reported to be superior to those of the IAF. (Note: The two countries made contradictory claims of combat losses during the war. The PAF claimed it had shot down 104 IAF planes, while losing only 19 of its own. However, the IAF claimed it had shot down 73 PAF planes, while losing 59 planes of its own. It seemed both countries were more or less honest about their own losses, whilst exaggerating the enemy losses. As per independent sources, the PAF could have lost about 20 aircraft while the IAF could have lost 60 to 75, indicating (a) either it had an edge over the IAF, perhaps based on the superiority of its planes, and/or (b) the IAF had flown disproportionately much higher number of sorties than the PAF.  Although no country achieved air superiority, Pakistan was not able to prevent IAF fighter bombers and reconnaissance Canberras from flying daylight missions over Pakistan.) On 2 September 1965, fortunately for India, Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik, who was the GOC of Pakistan’s 12th Infantry Division

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and commanding the overall forces in the area, was replaced by Major General Yahya Khan, the GOC of the 7th Infantry Division. This surprise movement not only slowed down the operation by one day, it also caused confusion among the Pakistani officer cadre and, in the meantime, allowed the Indians to rush in reinforcements. By 3 September 1965, the Indian forces were sufficiently reinforced to be able to hold out for a few more days, but lacked the strength to launch a counteroffensive. The next two days did not witness any significant gains by Pakistan. On 6 September 1965, India opened up a new front on the west and crossed the International Border in the Punjab, overcoming heavy resistance from Pakistan. When the Indian advance threatened to cut across the right flank of the Pakistani attack, Pakistan stopped its thrust into Kashmir and diverted forces to counter the Indian incursion. When the Indian 15th Infantry Division, under Major General Prasad, who was a World War II veteran, was close to Lahore International Airport, its further advance was stopped suddenly, reportedly following a US request for a temporary ceasefire to allow evacuation of its citizens from Lahore. On 23 September 1965, a ceasefire was declared following a diplomatic intervention by the USSR and the USA. Both countries claimed victory. Neutral assessments agree that India had an upper hand at the time of the ceasefire. The conflict is generally seen as a strategic and political defeat for Pakistan. It did not succeed in instigating an uprising in Kashmir and failed to attract any international support. Pakistan’s tactical blunder on 2 September 1965—of losing one day in the replacement of Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik with Major General Yahya Khan—was possibly a saving grace for an underprepared India; it may have saved Jammu and Kashmir by a whisker. Furthermore, Pakistan’s overconfidence in its firepower and particularly its main battle tank, Patton, could have also played its part. Author, David R. Higgins, in his 2016 book, M48 Patton vs Centurion, says (Higgins, 2016): The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 witnessed some of the largest tank battles since World War II … The armoured clashes at Asal Uttar, Chawinda and Phillora would demonstrate that the Centurion, with its powerful gun and lower profile, generally proved superior to the faster, lighter but overly complex Patton … the two leading tanks of the Cold War era that were never designed to fight each other, but rather to line up on battlefields as allies.

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The war reportedly witnessed the largest engagement of armoured vehicles and battle tanks since World War II.  At the start of the war, Pakistan had a numerical advantage over India in battle tanks and the overall firepower of its equipment. It had about 15 armoured cavalry regiments, each with about 45 tanks in three squadrons. Largely American-­ made, the Pakistani armour consisted mainly of Patton M-47 and M-48 main battle tanks, as also about 200 M4 Sherman (Medium Tanks), 150 M24 Chaffee light tanks and a few independent squadrons of M36B1 Jackson tank destroyers. On the other hand, India had 17 cavalry regiments. The Indian tank fleet largely comprised of 188 British-made Centurion Mk 7 main battle tanks, 164 AMX-13 light (13-tonne) tanks, some older versions of American M4 Sherman tanks, a small number of M3A3 Stuart and PT-76 light tanks. Despite its qualitative and numerical superior armour, Pakistan was reportedly outfought on the battlefield by India, while making progress into the Lahore-Sialkot sector and halting Pakistan’s counteroffensive on Amritsar at the same time. • The Battle of Asal Uttar was fought between 8 and 10 September 1965, when Pakistan captured the Indian town of Khem Karan, about 5  km inside the International Border (Singh, 2012). The Pakistani intrusion was repulsed by a fierce fight put up by Indian troops, based on better war tactics and strategies shown by the Indians. When Pakistan captured Khem Karan, the GOC Indian 4th Mountain Division, Maj. Gen. Gurbaksh Singh ordered the division to fall back and take a horseshoe-shaped defensive position, with Asal Uttar as its focal point. As per a battle strategy by Brigadier Thomas K. Theograj, the Indian troops flooded the sugarcane field during the night. The next morning, Pakistan’s 1st Armoured Division—comprising mainly M47 and M48 Patton tanks—were bogged by the swampy ground after entering the horseshoe trap and could not move. It is believed Pakistan lost 99 tanks, which comprised mostly Pattons but also a few Shermans and Chaffees. The Indians claimed to have lost only ten tanks. This battle is compared with the Battle of Kursk in World War II for how it tilted the outcome of the war in India’s favour. War historians regard Pakistan’s defeat in this battle as one of its greatest defeats in the war.

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• The Battle of Phillora—coinciding with the Battle of Assal Uttar— was fought on 10 September 1965 during the Sialkot Campaign. It started when the Indian 1st Armoured Division attacked positions held by Pakistani 6th Armoured Division in Pakistan’s Sialkot sector. During the three days of intense fighting before retreating, Pakistan is believed to have lost 66 tanks. The Indians admitted to losing six Centurion tanks (‘Battle of Phillora,’ 2019). • The Battle of Chawinda was fought over five days, between 14 and 19 September 1965, soon after the Battle of Phillora (Indo-Pakistani War 1965, 2012). The fighting at Chawinda intensified after Pakistani forces retreated from Phillora. It is reported to be one of the largest tank battles in the world history since the Battle of Kursk in World War II. Pakistan claimed it had destroyed 120 Indians tanks, whilst losing only 44 of its own (Ali, W. 2016). However, India confirmed it lost only 29 tanks. Although, on the whole, Pakistan had a relatively much more modern artillery than India, which out-ranged the Indian artillery, the Indian British-made Centurion battle tanks, with 105 mm gun and heavy armour, are understood to have performed better than the Pakistani American-­ made Patton tanks (Higgins, 2016; 1965 War, 2018). At the end of the war, as per independent sources, India held about 710 square miles (1840 square km) of the Pakistani territory, including the towns and villages of Phillora, Deoli, Bajragarhi, Suchetgarh, Pagowal, Chaprar, Muhadpur, Tilakpur south-east and east of Sialkot city, which were returned to Pakistan following the 1966 Tashkent Declaration. In comparison, Pakistan held only about 210 square miles (540 square kilometres) of the Indian territory. The Return of Haji Pir Pass—India’s Gigantic Tactical Blunder The Haji Pir Pass victory was quite significant for the Indians. However, for mysterious reasons, India agreed to return Haji Pir Pass to Pakistan on 10 January 1966, following the signing of the Tashkent Declaration between Indian Prime Minster Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan President Ayub Khan. The talks were facilitated by Soviet Union. To add to the mystery, Prime Minister Shastri died in Tashkent itself, on 11 January 1966, a few hours after signing the Declaration. The return of Haji Pir Pass signifies an unforgettable tactical blunder by India. Not only does the Pass allow infiltration from Pakistan into Kashmir,

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it dominates Kargil town and many other strategic areas. Significantly, it reduces the distance from Jammu to Srinagar (through Poonch and Uri) by over 200 km (Thapliyal, 2015). This tactical blunder of gigantic proportions by India will haunt it forever. Perhaps, the Kashmir uprising in 1989–90 would not have happened if Haji Pir Pass would have remained under India’s control. Perhaps, Pakistan also would have focussed more on its internal development— modern education, health and the alleviation of poverty—instead of dreaming an impossible and unrealistic dream of capturing Kashmir. Philosophically, therefore, the return of Haji Pir Pass to Pakistan by India, on 10 January 1966, may have not only significantly damaged Kashmir, and India to some extent, but caused much more damage to the stability and very fabric of Pakistan itself, as the history unfolded. Pakistan’s unfulfilled dream emboldened it to burn its resources in causing the Kashmir uprising of 1989–90 and, thereafter, launch the Kargil attack in 1999. Perhaps by now, the two countries would have reconciled and settled down peacefully as good neighbours, and Kashmir may have been breathing healthy air.

The following excerpts from an article, ‘Return of Haji Pir Still Haunts Us,’ written by D Kumar in The Tribune, dated 30 August 2016, are significant and worth noting (Kumar 2016): At 10.30 am on 28th August … a group of soldiers of the Army’s 1 Para led by Major (later Lieutenant General) Ranjit Singh Dayal wrested control of the Haji Pir Pass … A Pakistani counter attack the next day was effectively repulsed and by August 30, the Indian Army had established complete control over the Pass along with most peaks in the vicinity … The initial victory had come after a 37-hour pitched battle by a stubbornly brave and innovative 1 Para against all odds comprising rain, slush, fog, a steep hostile terrain and, of course, enemy fire. The attack was part of a multi-pronged assault by a total of five Infantry battalions supported by the equivalent of two Artillery regiments … Interestingly, the taking of the Pass marked the Army’s only decisive and successful offensive military action undertaken from start to finish during the entire duration of the 1965 India-­ Pakistan War …

The following excerpts from D. Kumar’s article illustrate the strategy importance of the Pass:

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The 8,652 feet high Haji Pir Pass, a dominating feature located on the western fringe of the formidable Pir Panjal range that divides the Kashmir Valley from Jammu region, provides a direct road link between Poonch, located west of the Pir Panjal in Jammu region, and Uri, located across the mountain range in the Kashmir Valley. Apart from significantly reducing the road distance between Poonch and Uri to just 56 km compared to the current 282 km long revived old Mughal route via the Poonch Valley, Shopian and Srinagar, the Haji Pir Bulge provides a direct ingress to both the Jammu region and the Kashmir Valley. And it is through this since militarily heavy fortified Pass, infamously returned to Pakistan five months after its capture, that Islamabad has been infiltrating terrorists into Jammu & Kashmir for the last 27 years. The taking and return of the Pass is both as spectacular as it was infamous, respectively, in India’s military and diplomatic history. The military operation was necessitated because Pakistan then, as part of its dubious Operation Gibraltar, was using the Haji Pir Bulge to launch the main influx of its infiltration campaign into the Kashmir Valley …

The following excerpts from D. Kumar’s article illustrate how the capture of Haji Pir Pass had foiled Pakistan’s catastrophic design for India: The capture of the Haji Pir Bulge did put a dent in infiltration and unbalanced the Pakistanis. But then Pakistan’s grand design, as revealed three days later, involved launching Operation Grand Slam on September 1 comprising a major armour and Infantry thrust in blitzkrieg style reminiscent of Hitler’s Wehrmacht in the carefully selected Chhamb-Jaurian sector to capture the solitary bridge in Akhnoor followed by the town itself on the Jammu-Poonch highway. They were to then head to Jammu to capture the Jammu-Srinagar highway. In doing so, Pakistan would have wrested control of the land route to both the Jammu region and the Kashmir Valley thus severing the state from the rest of India … It was only after the Indian Army’s XI and I Corps, much to Pakistan’s surprise, crossed the international border into Pakistani Punjab and headed towards Lahore and Sialkot, respectively, on September 6 that India got much needed relief and was able to prevent a catastrophe. Pakistan responded by immediately withdrawing a major portion of its medium armour and artillery along with an Infantry brigade that saved Akhnoor bridge from capture in, what then Western Army Commander Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh terms, “the nick of time” in his book War Despatches. (Singh, 2012)

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Some Intriguing Questions from the 1965 Indo-Pak War • After making swift and significant advance on the very first day of Operation Grand Slam, why did the Pakistan President General Ayub Khan waste the next day in replacing Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik with Major General Yahya Khan? On 2 September 1965, Pakistan could have captured Akhnoor and potentially cut off Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of India, this fulfilling the objectives of both Operation Grand Slam and the previously failed Operation Gibraltar? Was it a deliberate or an inadvertent tactical blunder? Or did it reflect Pakistan’s overconfidence and incorrect assessment of India’s military capability? Or, most intriguingly, was General Ayub Khan pressured (by external forces) to allow the Indians bring in the necessary reinforcements for fending off the Pakistani advance? • Why did India sign the Tashkent Declaration on 10 January 1966 and commit a colossal tactical blunder of returning the strategic Haji Pir Pass to Pakistan? Which powers compelled India to do so? What did India gain out of it? • How did the Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri die around 2 am on 11 January 1966, a few hours after signing the Tashkent Declaration? No post-mortem is known to have ever been conducted on his body. His face is known to have turned blue, and he is believed to have died of poisoning. Who had poisoned him and why? Had he threatened to expose the power(s) that may have forced him to sign the Declaration? • Is Kashmir problem really an indigenous problem of the subcontinent or a power game played by external hidden powers? The aforementioned questions, as well as the earlier questions from the First Kashmir War of 1947–48, raise important questions about the possibility of hidden, powerful players who used the two countries—for their own commercial and strategic benefits—and made them to play the war games. Intriguingly, 15 days after Shastri’s mysterious death, India was again stunned by the tragic death of Homi Jehangir Bhabha (30 October 1909–24 January 1966), whose Air India Flight 101 had crashed into Alps, supposedly due to pilot error, when he was going to attend a conference in Vienna. Homi Bhabha is colloquially known as father of the Indian nuclear programme. He was the founding director and professor of

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physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and also the founding director of the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET), now known as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physics in the years 1951 and 1953–1956. The Mysterious Death of Lal Bahadur Shastri Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (2 October 1904–11 January 1966) died in Tashkent, reportedly due to a heart attack, a few hours after signing the Tashkent Declaration. Many people, including his wife, refused to accept the cause of his death, and a foul play was alleged. His wife, Lalita Shastri (1910–13 April 1993), alleged that he was poisoned, as narrated in a book published in 1978 (in Hindi), titled Lalita Ke Aansoo, authored by Krant M.L. Verma (Rohit, 2019; Team Odian News, n.d.). Surprisingly, the Indian Government did not release any information about his death. Intriguingly, the Indian media also had remained silent. To add to the puzzle, it is not known whether any post-mortem was conducted on his body, in Tashkent or in India. Forty-three years later, in 2009, Anuj Dhar, the author of CIA’s Eye on South Asia, raised a query, under the Right to Information (RTI), to declassify documents related to his death (Dhar, 2009). However, the Prime Minister’s Office refused to oblige (Dhawan, 2009). The official government response was that it could potentially harm India’s foreign relations, cause disruptions in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privileges. The Indian home ministry has never accepted or denied if a post-mortem was ever conducted on Shastri’s body or if any investigation had ever been conducted into the allegations of a foul play. In 2001, Gregory Douglas published an interesting book, titled Conversations with the Crow, which claims to have uncovered the mystery shrouding Shastri’s death (Douglas, 2013). The book is reportedly based on his secretly recorded telephone conversations, over a period of four years, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, Robert T. Crowley, also known as The Crow, before Crowley’s death on 8 October 2000, reportedly due to a heart failure. He was also reportedly suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. It is believed, since its inception in 1947, Crowley had spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also known as the Department of Dirty Tricks, in the CIA.

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(Robert Trumbull Crowley was a former director for Clandestine Operations for the CIA, second-in-command of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, which was in charge of covert operations.) Reportedly, Crowley had contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he had found Douglas was going to publish his book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo. That started a series of long telephone conversations between the two of them, over a period of four years, during which Douglas began to secretly record their conversations after getting entranced with the nature of the material that Crowley was sharing with him. As per the book, Crowley had claimed that the CIA was responsible for eliminating both Lal Bahadur Shastri and Homi Bhabha because it was wary of India’s rigid stance on its nuclear policy and Lal Bahadur Shastri, who wanted to go ahead with nuclear tests, which needed a strong deterrence. CIA was also concerned about Russia and India collectively dominating the region. Important Questions • Lal Bahadur Shastri could not have died due to heart attack. He was understood to have no major history of heart disease and was known to be in good health. Why did his body turn blue? • Why have the government documents related to his post-mortem (if any) and investigation into the cause of his death (if any) been kept secret? • Three main factors come into play to assassinate a person—the motive (why), the means (how) and the opportunity (when). Indira Gandhi could be a suspect, as she succeeded Shastri. Assuming she had a motive, but she had no means, unless the Russians—who had the means and the opportunity—had helped her. They were India’s ally, so why would they? In 1965, she was not very influential, not even a senior-level cabinet minister. In the light of all these points, therefore, does Gregory Douglas’s book, Conversations with the Crow, throw some meaningful light on the truth about Shastri’s death? R.D. Pradhan provides interesting revelations about the war (Pradhan, 2007). His book, based on a personal diary written by India’s defence minister during the war, Y.B.  Chavan, throws an interesting light on India’s intelligence failure about the timing of Pakistan’s attack; why he (Chavan) launched aerial attack on Pakistan without informing Prime

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Minister Shastri, and why the Indian Army did not march into Lahore? It also assesses if India lost its battlefield gains in Tashkent and how the Indian political leadership overcame bitter memories of failure in the 1962 Sino-India war and normalised its relationship with the defence forces. I ndo-Pak War of 1971 This 13-day war between Pakistan and India (3 to 16 December 1971) was not fought for Kashmir. It was a result of a much bigger, nine-month long war between two entities of the same Islamic country, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, with two different ethnicities. The partition of British India was based on demography. Although ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis (West Pakistan) and Bengalis (East Pakistan) initially transcended their ethnic differences and joined hands to form an Islamic Pakistan, their marriage fell to their ethnic differences and, just about 24  years after their marriage, resulted in a bloody divorce. This point is important in the context of Kashmir, where Pakistan has been fomenting trouble and staking claim based only on the religion of the majority Kashmiri Muslim community, knowing very well that their ethnicity, like the Bengalis, does not fall in line with influential Punjabis, Sindhis and Indian migrants (muhajirs) of Pakistan. This argument raises serious questions about the validity of Pakistan’s historic stance and behind-the-curtain role in Kashmir. Can Pakistan call itself a champion of Islam after carrying out such atrocities on Bengali Muslims in 1971? Pakistan’s Operation Chengiz Khan: 3 December 1971 The first general elections in Pakistan, in December 1970, caused a deep wedge between West and East Pakistan, the latter part feeling betrayed and marginalised. On 26 March 1971, East Pakistan leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, declared independence but was arrested by the Pakistan Army. Thereafter, Bengali resistance fighters, called Mukti Bahini, started a civil war against the (West) Pakistani establishment. India provided the Mukti Bahini with active support—logistical, military, political and humanitarian—in their freedom struggle. For the atrocities that it was committing against Bengalis, Pakistan came under increasing criticism from a number of countries that included India, the Soviet Union, Japan and European countries. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi vehemently highlighted the plight of the refugees, and their negative impact on the Indian economy, at the UN and on a number of global tours. On the other hand, the United States and China actively opposed

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any aid, intervention or support to the Mukti Bahini (Shrivastava, 2011). With India’s unabated support, their fighting with Pakistani forces grew increasingly intense (India-Pakistani War of 1971, 2017). On 9 August 1971, at a time when the Indian intervention in the secession of East Pakistan was becoming inevitable, India signed a 20-year cooperation treaty with its ally, Soviet Union (USSR), wherein the two countries promised to provide military support to each other in the event they were attacked by any third country, which provided India with a safety cover if Pakistan fought a war with India with any intervention from its allies—Chinese or Americans (Shrivastava, 2011). By October 1971, the Mukti Bahini had started carrying out massive raids deep into East Pakistan with active support of the Indian Army troops. By the end of November 1971, the situation in East Pakistan had deteriorated to a state of full war. Indian forces and the Mukti Bahini launched intense offensives against Pakistani forces on both the eastern and western borders of East Pakistan. Indian Army troops destroyed the Pakistani military armour at Garibpur where two Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets were also shot down. Another PAF jet was damaged in the Battle of Boyra. Offensives were also launched against Pakistani border posts in Atgram. The Mukti Bahini’s final assault on Jessore made Pakistan desperate; they realised East Pakistan could not be defended for much longer time. At dusk of 3 December 1971, the PAF launched Operation Chengiz Khan and carried out pre-emptive strikes on the 11 forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air Force (IAF): Amritsar, Ambala, Awantipur, Bikaner, Halwara, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Pathankot, Bhuj, Srinagar and Uttarlai, and one deep into India at Agra, followed with a number of night-interdiction air missions and artillery strikes in Kashmir (Lyon, 2008). The Indian Air Force (IAF) responded after a few hours, flying 23 sorties and attacking eight Western Pakistani airbases at Murid, Mianwali, Sargodha, Chandhar, Risalewala, Rafiqui and Masroor, inflicting heavy damage to Sargodha and Masroor airbases. The IAF also attacked airbases in East Pakistan. Within days, India achieved air superiority over Pakistan (1971 India-Pakistan War, 2004). Pakistan Army, fighting alongside Pakistan Navy, launched major attacks on India’s western border. However, the Indian Army succeeded in penetrating into Pakistani territory and made some quick gains. The final days of war witnessed the highest number of casualties in any of the Indo-Pak conflicts. The Indian campaign’s blitzkrieg techniques in East

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Pakistan exploited the weaknesses in the Pakistani positions and caused insurmountable losses. The Pakistani military capitulated within days and psychological panic spread in their military leadership. On 16 December 1971, two weeks after Pakistan’s Operation Chengiz Khan, the Indian Army encircled Dacca and issued an ultimatum to Pakistani military to surrender in a 30-minute time window. Pakistan immediately called for unilateral ceasefire and surrendered its entire four-­ tier military to the Indian Army. Pakistan’s Lt-General A.A.K.  Niazi (Commander of Eastern Command) and his deputy, Vice-Admiral M.S.  Khan, signed the Instrument of Surrender to a joint command of Indian and the Mukti Bahini forces in Dhaka. Thus, Bangladesh became independent. General Yahya Khan resigned on 20 December 1971. He was replaced by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who became the country’s first civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator since 1958, as well as first civilian president of Pakistan. During the war, Pakistan suffered heavy losses—about 8000 killed and 25,000 wounded—while India lost about 3000, with about 12,000 wounded. Reportedly, Pakistan also lost half its navy, a quarter of its air force and a third of its army during the war. More than 90,000 Pakistani military and civilians were taken as the Prisoners of War (POW), the largest ever since World War II. On 2 July 1972, following the Shimla Agreement between India and Pakistan, India returned about 15,010 square km of the Pakistani territory that it had captured during the war—located in the PoK, Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh sectors—along with the 90,000 Pakistani POWs. Bangladesh Liberation War: 1971 The Bangladesh Liberation War (26 March 1971–16 December 1971), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an armed revolution in East Pakistan by Bengali nationalists and their struggle for self-­ determination, resulting in the independence of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (Bangladesh, 1971; Schendel, 2009). Retrospectively, on 12 November 1970, a major coastal cyclone (Bhola) struck East Pakistan, which killed hundreds of thousands of Bengalis and displaced millions. People were outraged due to a perceived ineffective response and poor assistance from the Central government of Pakistan based in West Pakistan, which led to the start of unrest in East Pakistan. The Pakistan government was termed to be intentionally negligent. However, the West Pakistani politicians attacked East Pakistan’s main

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political party, Awami League, for allegedly exploiting the crisis for their political gains. The dissatisfaction and unrest amongst the general public led to divisions within the civil services, police and army. In reaction, West Pakistan launched Operation Blitz to crush this Bengali nationalistic political uprising in East Pakistan. On 7 December 1970, for the first time in its history, Pakistan (East and West Pakistan) held General Elections in 300 parliamentary constituencies to elect members of the National Assembly of Pakistan (Schendel, 2009). The elections saw a fierce contest between mainly West Pakistan’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and East Pakistan’s Awami League. In West Pakistan, however, the socialist PPP also faced severe competition from various conservative Islamist parties: Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan. To the alarm of West Pakistanis, especially the ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis, East Pakistan’s Awami League, which had a Marxist socialist tilt, won an absolute majority of 160 seats in the National Assembly of Pakistan, which also included Northwest Frontier Province and Balochistan. The PPP won only 81 seats, which includes seats in Punjab and Sindh. The Awami League also had a landslide win (298 seats out of 310) in the Provincial Assembly of East Pakistan. Due to contrasting ethnic and political differences, West Pakistan, dominated by ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis, resisted Awami League forming the Central government. Accordingly, President Yahya Khan did not form the Assembly, causing extreme disappointment and deep unrest in East Pakistan, which escalated into a civil war. On 22 February 1971, at a conference, Pakistani President General Yahya Khan is reported to have said, ‘Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands’ (Liberation War Museum, n.d.). On 7 March 1971, General Tikka Khan (Los Angeles Times, 2002) landed in East Pakistan as governor-designate, amidst a severe political turmoil (Singh, 2019). He took over as Martial Law Administrator (MLA) and General Officer Commanding in Chief Pakistan Eastern Command. On the night of 25 March 1971, West Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight against the people of East Pakistan for the systematic elimination of nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel. The military operation, which Pakistan retrospectively justified on the basis of anti-Bihari violence by Bengalis in early March 1971, aimed to control East Pakistan’s major cities on 26 March

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1971 and then eliminating all Bengali resistance, political and military, within a month. A prolonged Bengali resistance was not anticipated. On 26 March 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared independence, but was arrested by the Pakistan Army (Schendel, 2009). The following months saw East Pakistan on the boil. Bangladeshi freedom fighters, Mukti Bahani, supported actively by Indian Army, fought bravely against the Pakistani Army, inflicting heavy losses on them. On 16 December 1971, with India’s military intervention, Pakistani troops finally surrendered before a joint command of the Indian forces and the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahani in Dhaka, and the war ended with the independence of Bangladesh (Instrument of Surrender of Pakistan forces in Dacca, 1971). During the nine-month-long war, Pakistani Army and Jamaat-e-Islami are reported to have carried out a systematic campaign of genocide and rape. Between 300,000 and 3,000,000 people are reported to have been killed. And between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women are reported to have been raped, reportedly supported by Muslim religious leaders, who declared Bengali women as public property (Branche & Virgili, 2012). It is estimated up to 30 million people got internally displaced and between eight and ten million people (mostly Hindus) took refuge in India. It is believed around 150,000 to 500,000 Urdu-speaking Bihari Muslims were also killed by Bengali Muslims.  he Kargil War of 1999 T Third time in its history, in early 1999, Pakistan made a clandestine incursion into Jammu and Kashmir, which started a nearly three-month-long war between Pakistan and India, called the Kargil War (3 May 1999–26 July 1999). During the first four months of 1999, Pakistani troops clandestinely sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir and occupied a number of strategic posts of the Indian Army, located on high grounds in Kargil district (Nanda, 1999). Historically, every winter, the posts would be temporarily vacated by Indian troops, as the area witnesses extreme wintry conditions, with temperatures often dropping to −48°C. Even in summer, the area has a relatively colder climate, with frigid nights. Kargil is a Himalayan town, located about 205 km from Srinagar—the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. It faces the northern areas of POK. To vacate the infiltrators, India launched Operation Vijay Kargil India, comprising a major military and diplomatic offensive to drive out the Pakistani infiltrators. Fighting numerous daring uphill ground battles,

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with an able air support provided by the IAF, Indian troops took more than two months to retake most of the ridges occupied by Pakistani infiltrators. During the conflict, Pakistani army suffered heavy casualties, but, interestingly, Pakistani government refused to accept the dead bodies of its soldiers (Kargil, 1999). Although Pakistan did not initially acknowledge its casualties, but its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif later accepted that over 4000 Pakistani troops had lost their lives and the country had lost the conflict. Retrospectively, following the start of insurgency in Kashmir in 1989–90, widely believed to be armed, abetted and politically openly supported by Pakistan, tensions between India and Pakistan were high. After both countries conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, the tensions flared alarmingly to a belligerent level. In an attempt to defuse the situation, in February 1999, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his counterpart, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, signed the Lahore Declaration (1999) in a much widely covered televised press conference, hailed worldwide as a major breakthrough in bilateral relations and a historic step towards thawing tensions in the region. Amidst great fanfare and media attention, Vajpayee had arrived in Pakistan, to attend the summit, by the inaugural bus service between New Delhi and Lahore. At the Wagah border post, he was received by Nawaz Sharif, and the Pakistan Army gave him a guard of honour. Marking a historic visit to Pakistan, the inaugural bus also carried several Indian celebrities and dignitaries. During the (planning) days leading to the summit, and the summit itself, India and Vajpayee would never have imagined that, during the same period, Pakistani Army was surreptitiously occupying the Indian strategic posts in Kargil that were vacated temporarily by Indian Army at the onset of winter. Reportedly, as the political events had unfolded in Pakistan, even Nawaz Sharif did not know what General Parvez Musharraf, the head of Pakistan Army, was independently doing in Kargil at the time of Lahore Declaration. The unusual division of power in Pakistan, and the tradition supremacy of its army, has played a major role in the development of mistrust and poor relationship between the two countries—one run by civil government (India), and one run off and on by army (Pakistan), directly or indirectly. Pakistan attracted worldwide condemnation of its deceitful intrusion in Kargil post Lahore Declaration. Apart from losing face heavily, Pakistan also suffered from a loss of faith and severe embarrassment, which led to

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severe tension between Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf. After months of contentious relationship with Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif unsuccessfully attempted to remove him from the leadership of army. In retaliation, on 12 October 1999, Musharraf led a bloodless coup d’état, seized the control of the government and declared himself as the Chief Executive. Nawaz Sharif was put in a house-arrest and then moved to Adiala Prison for a trial. Two days later, on 14 October 1999, Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. A year later, on 10 December 2000, Nawaz Sharif was unexpectedly pardoned by Musharraf, and allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia on a private jet provided by the Saudi Royal Family to him and his immediate members. On 20 June 2001, Musharraf became the President of Pakistan, and later, on 1 May 2002, he won a controversial referendum which awarded him presidency for five years. At the same time, he remained the Army Chief until his retirement from the army in 2007.  akistan’s Hidden Wars on India P Regular skirmishes reportedly take place at the International Border between the two nations and the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir (Prabhakar, 2003). In addition, since 1993, various Pakistan-backed Islamic militant groups—Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and others—are believed to have been involved in the following daring attacks in India. The following terrorist incidents are from published news sources from India: • On 12 March 1993, twelve bomb explosions rocked Mumbai, the India’s financial capital, and killed 257 and injured 713 people. • On 21 May 1996, a bomb blast in Lajpat Nagar (New Delhi) killed 13 and injured 39 people. • On 22 May 1996, a bomb blast on a bus in Dausa (Rajasthan) killed 14 and injured 37 people. • On 1 October 2001, the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar was attacked, killing 38 people. • 13 December 2001, the Indian Parliament in Delhi was attacked in which six Delhi Police personnel, two Parliament Security Service personnel and a gardener were killed. All five militants were also killed (‘2001 Indian Parliament attack,’ 2019). • On 25 August 2003, twin car bombings in Mumbai killed 54 and injured 244 people.

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• On 29 October 2005, three bomb blasts in New Delhi killed 62 and injured at least 210. • On 11 July 2006, seven bomb blasts over a period of 11 minutes in Mumbai trains killed 209 and injured over 700 people. • On 13 May 2008, nine bomb blasts took place within a span of 15 minutes Jaipur (Rajasthan), which killed 63 and injured 216. • On 26 July 2008, twenty-one bomb blasts hit Ahmedabad (Gujarat) within a span of 70  minutes, which killed 58 and injured over 200 people. • On 13 September 2008, five bomb blasts that took place in Delhi within a span of few minutes that killed at least 20 people and injured more than 90. • From 26 to 29 November 2008, during Mumbai attacks, a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai killed at least 174 and injured more than 300. • On 13 July 2011, three bomb explosions in Mumbai killed 26 and injured 130. • On 7 September 2011, a suitcase bomb blast outside Delhi High Court killed 15 people and injured 79. • On 27 July 2015, a police station in Gurdaspur (Punjab) and a civilian bus were attacked by three gunmen dressed in army uniforms. Three civilians and four policemen were killed, including a superintendent of police. • 2 January 2016, a heavily armed group attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station. • On 18 September 2016, the Indian army base at Uri in Kashmir was attacked by four heavily armed militants, killing 23 and injuring eight people. In retaliation, Indian Army carried out a surgical strike across the LoC on the militant camps on 28–29 September 2016. • On 29 November 2016, the Indian Army base at Nagrota (Jammu) was attacked by three militants, in which seven Indian soldiers, including two officers were killed. All three militants were also killed. • On 10 July 2017, Hindu pilgrims returning from the Amarnath Shrine (Kashmir) were attacked, killing seven and injuring at least 18. • On 10 February 2018, the Indian Army camp at Sunjuwan (Jammu) was attacked in a predawn attack, killing 11 soldiers and 1 civilian. Fourteen soldiers and six civilians were also injured. • On 14 February 2019, at Pulwama (Kashmir), 46 security personnel were killed in a car-bomb attack on a convoy of vehicles carrying

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security personnel. In retaliation, India claimed to have carried out air strikes across the LoC on the militant camps a week later (Prabu, 2019).

General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq—A Game Changer History may never forgive Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the then prime minister of Pakistan, who controversially promoted a three-star general, Lieutenant General Zia-ul-Haq, to four-star general rank, on 1 March 1976, and appointed him as the Chief of Army Staff. A little more than a year later after his out-of-turn promotion, General Zia overthrew Bhutto in a military coup on 5 July 1977, following a civil disorder, and imposed martial law. Bhutto was arrested on 3 September 1977 and tried for the alleged murder (in March 1974) of a political opponent. His trial lasted for five months. He was declared guilty of murder and given death sentence by the Lahore High Court on 18 March 1978. Six months later, General Zia became the president of Pakistan on 16 September 1978 (Koul, 2018). Bhutto was hanged on 4 April 1979 after a controversial trial by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Numerous appeals of clemency from around the world failed to save his life. Nine years later, President Zia was assassinated in a plane crash on 17 August 1988. Despite being credited for ousting Soviet Union from Afghanistan, albeit with American help, and promoting economic prosperity, Zia-ul-­ Haq actively Islamised and polarised Pakistan. He also weakened democratic institutions by passing laws that encouraged religious intolerance. His promotion has undoubtedly cost Pakistan and the rest of the subcontinent, especially Kashmir dearly. The whole area has been fighting radicalised Islamic mujahedeen for the last three decades. It seems Bhutto misread Zia-ul-Haq as a religious and apolitical military officer and, therefore, not a threat. Ironically, a similar move was made two decades later by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with respect to General Pervez Musharraf in which case, however, Nawaz Sharif was fortunate to have escaped with his life. In both cases, Kashmir paid a heavy price.  akistan’s Operation TUPAC P To avenge the debacle of past President General Ayub Khan’s Operation Gibraltar (1965) and avenge the loss of East Pakistan in 1971, President Zia conceived and launched Operation Tupac in 1988, as the Soviets

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started leaving Afghanistan (Wrising, 1998). The operation not only kept the mujahedeen engaged, it also tried to mirror East Pakistan in Kashmir (Koul, 2018). The operation, run by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), provided covert support to the Islamic militancy in Kashmir since the late 1980s. Its three part objectives were: • Disintegrate India, • Use the spy network to act as an instrument of sabotage and • Exploit porous borders between India with its neighbours and set up bases in Nepal and Bangladesh to conduct operations in India. But for the operation, mujahedeen would have been handful for Pakistan at that time, which it eventually became after 2000. Figuratively, the hands that handle snakes can also be bitten by them. Pakistan has been consistently bitten in the last couple of decades by the same snakes which were raised to bite India, all thanks to General Zi-ul-Haq (Ali, 1985; Prabhakar, 2003). Despite being an Islamic republic and a self-proclaimed champion of Islam, Pakistan has been bleeding at the hands of terrorist acts carried out by the Islamists. The personal journey of Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousef and the likes of her illustrate issues in Pakistan due to a sharp rise of Islamic radicalism.  rom a Villain to a Hero F When Bhutto was hanged on 4 April 1979, General Zia was seen as a villain in Kashmir, rather more of a monster. Nine years hence, when he died in an air crash, he had become a hero. Kashmir had changed. On 4 April 1979, the news of Bhutto’s hanging spread like wildfire and Kashmir was stunned. The city of Srinagar and surrounding areas witnessed many tense days leading to the day of hanging; people hoped the world leaders would prevail on General Zia. When that did not happen, Zia was portrayed as a villain. Bhutto was mourned as a hero. People remembered how he had cleverly secured the release of over 90,000 Pakistani PoWs, offering nothing in return, in the Shimla Agreement of July 1972. The Shimla had turned out to be a personal triumph for Bhutto and a diplomatic victory for Pakistan. After Bhutto’s death, Srinagar and many other towns in Kashmir witnessed a curfew-like situation for about a week. Kashmir also saw

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widespread protests, with slogans against Zia, whilst Bhutto was hailed as a martyr. The author remembers, as a 16-year-old student then, walking in a mile-long students’ procession from Kashmir University (Hazratbal) to Srinagar, a distance of more than 6 km, and shouting Zia-Kod hai like all others did. The term Zia-Kod meant a tyrant Zia or Zia with a whip (Koul, 2018). In the next nine years, peoples’ hearts changed. The author vividly remembers how General Zia’s death, on 17 August 1988, caused widespread disturbance and rioting in Kashmir. His family had to abort their excursion at Verinag on 18 August. Risking their life and the vehicle, it took them more than 15 hours, filled with nervousness and tension, to cover a distance of about 88 km to reach their home. Kashmir valley saw widespread violence and damage to numerous vehicles and government properties. Violent mobs shouted anti-India slogans based on a rumour that India had a hand in the air crash. Kashmiris are known for their characteristic whimsical nature, but, as the future unfolded in the next couple of years, Kashmiri hearts had indeed been dyed with fundamental Islamic dye by Jamat-i-Islami and the ISI, the legacy of General Zia. General Zia had at his disposal the funds and weapons supplied by the USA and other countries arming for mujahedeen and an idling manpower, post the Russian retreat, comprising mainly the Pakistani and Afghanistan mujahedeen, which he pushed into Kashmir. He was killed soon after launching Operation Tupac. Evidently, by then, he had successfully sowed deep seeds of instability and unrest in the region. As the author recalls, in early 1988, the valley was abuzz with some ominous excitement in wait of some forthcoming events. Common people, especially the shopkeepers, could not hide it.

Kashmir Has Paid a Heavy Price for the Cold War Pakistan’s ISI had written the script of the uprising as per Operation Tupac to avenge Pakistan’s previous defeats in the Indo-Pak wars. The rigged State Elections of 1987  in Kashmir served as a catalyst. Pakistan would have derived inspiration from the successes of King Bruce of Scotland, who is reported to have exhorted his troops in 1314, with his words, If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again, before defeating the English troops at Bannockburn. Anecdotally, he was inspired by a spider stoically weaving his web in a cave where he was hiding from his English pursuers.

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Pakistan must have felt heavily demoralised due to its failures in 1947–48 and 1965. It had not succeeded in winning Kashmiri Muslims populace on both occasions. And, then in 1971, it lost East Pakistan too, thanks to the Indian intervention, which must have rubbed salt into its earlier wounds. But Pakistan persisted, believing and claiming that Kashmir was its jugular vein. In the late 1970s, it saw another opportunity of snatching Kashmir when the CIA launched Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan, whereby the Afghanistan mujahedeen were armed and financed by the CIA between 1979 and 1989 (against the Soviets), with active involvement and full support of Pakistan and General Zia (‘Operation Cyclone,’). Pakistan is believed to have received funding also from the Britain’s MI6 and SAS, Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China for this work. Between 1978 and 1992, ISI is reported to have armed and trained over 100,000 mujahedeen and encouraged the volunteers from the Arab States to join the Afghan resistance (Koul, 2018). Earlier, in the mid-1970s, Pakistan had begun lobbying the USA and its allies to send assistance to the Afghanistan mujahedeen. But, as it had strained ties with the USA at that time, due to its nuclear programme, nothing arrived from the USA. But in January 1979, President Carter is understood to have announced his intentions to repair relationships with Pakistan, primarily because of its tensions with a Shia Iran. Accordingly, the US government decided to help the Sunni mujahedeen, with assistance from a Sunni Pakistan. Four months later, in May 1979, the US officials began to secretly meet the mujahedeen through Pakistani government officials. Later, as per the Reagan Doctrine, the USA expanded the anti-Soviet resistance programme. CIA’s Special Activities Division paramilitary officers used ISI as its main conduit and arm to fund, train and arm the mujahedeen with a range of weapons, including anti-aircraft Stinger Missiles (Koul, 2018). The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan started on 20 July 1987 and ended on 15 February 1989 when the last Soviets left the country. Soviets are reported to have lost over 14,000, and over 50,000 were wounded. It is believed the funding of Operation Cyclone had risen from about $20–30 Million per annum (in 1980) to about $630 Million per annum (in 1987), and continued during the Afghan civil war from 1989 to 1992. Under ISI’s Operation Tupac, as the Soviet started withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 1987, some mujahedeen were given the task of training Kashmiri youth in various camps in the PoK, under the supervision of

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the ISI and the Pakistan army. The trained Kashmiri youth and their trainers would then be pushed by Pakistan to fight against the Indian troops. The rigged elections in Jammu and Kashmir, on 23 March 1987, played in the hands of Pakistan’s ISI and the uprising started in Kashmir. Soon after all the Soviets left Afghanistan, in February 1989, the intensity of uprising increased significantly, eventually leading to the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in January 1990.

Important Reflections on Pakistan’s Role: 2018 An article in Jammu Kashmir Newspoint, dated 18 March 2018, by Syed Junaid Hashmi, ‘When Will We Accept, J & K Muslims Are Just Pawns on the Strategic Chessboard of Pakistan?’, provides an important reflection on Pakistan’s role in exploiting the Kashmiri youth in the name of religion (Hashmi, 2018b). The author, a Muslim himself, has raised numerous fundamental questions about the modus operandi of Pakistan, whilst asserting Islam does not allow anything that is being used by the militants in Kashmir. The article also exposes the Kashmiri separatist leaders who have either misread the teachings of Islam or deliberately tried to exploit any ambiguities in the teachings of Islam for their selfish ambitions. The following excerpts from the article support the author’s assessment that the Kashmir problem is a game play written, funded and directed by Pakistan and played by its paid actors in Kashmir. It is noteworthy that none of the Kashmiri separatist leaders have lost their children or kin in the uprising. ‘When we are enemy of a nation which was created in the name of “Islam”, why Mr. Syed … and his ilk support terror and militant outfits seeking the merger of Kashmir with Pakistan is a question, which baffles you when homes of poor Gujjar and Bakkarwal Muslims are shelled along the line of control (LOC) … Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan, his wife and three minor sons were killed as shells hit their house in Devta Dhar village in Balakote sector. His two daughters are injured. A family has been wiped out …’ The following comments from the article raise a number of questions about Pakistan’s two-faced policies and practices: • ‘People repeatedly cry against Oppression, but curiously fall silent when the killing bullet is Pakistani.’

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• ‘Ramzan’s two orphan daughters ask us: “Why was our home shelled by the army of a nation that was created in the name of Islam? Without our father, how do we protect ourselves in these times when the beasts of humanity do not hesitate in raping even one year old baby girls?”’ • ‘One gets perplexed why the army of the Mumlikat-e-Khudadad (State Given by Allah) does not hesitate in killing even those who profess the same faith?’ • ‘Pakistan has always had aversion towards all other faiths, the state of Pakistani Hindus and Christians is a fitting example. But when it guns down poor Gujjars and Bakkarwals living along the line of control, it shows that it employs religion as a tool to achieve strategic ambitions in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan follows a policy of a thousand cuts against India.’ • ‘Kashmiri youngsters are only just tools to achieve Pakistan’s strategic goals. They are influenced by YouTube Jihadis from Pakistan and Middle East to pick up guns against Indian security and get killed in the process.’ With a sense of frustration, the author has raised a number of fundamental questions against violence by the militant Kashmiri youth: • The Kashmiri youth ‘should explain what in Islam justifies collateral damage? What in Islam justifies killing innocents and unarmed civilians? • What in Islam justifies killing of security forces when they are unarmed and when they cannot retaliate in equal measure? What in Islam allows killing a holidaying BSFJawan? What in Islam allows planting an IED with intent to kill soldiers either returning home or on routine patrol? • What in Islam justifies killing young and old, women and men, children and even new born babies to achieve strategic aims? What in Islam allows a Maulana to deliver emotive and provocative lectures which is equivalent to blackmail? What in Islam justifies keeping youngsters miles away from reality? • Where in Islam is picking up guns to liberate a piece of land justified? Where in Islam is space for celebrating killings be it of the commoners or the security forces? And how can Pakistan which is not even an Islamic state perse, claim to being sole custodian of a religion which established

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permanent peace in a state where even cock fights would lead to human causalities? The author has made some important conclusions about Pakistan’s designs: • Pakistan has nothing to do with Kashmiris and if required, it won’t mind dropping a nuclear bomb over Kashmir if that would be of any strategic help. The sooner those who call Kashmir the jugular vein of Pakistan realise this, the better it would be. • A state where Sunnis kill Shias for their faith, Barelvis are after Deobandis and vice-versa, Salafis call all others non-believers and deviants; and killings are a matter of routine should not be the one we wish to be part of. An Indian state with all its communal and caste issues is a far better option on any given day. • Killing of Mohammed Ramzan’s family bears testimony to the fact that Pakistan views every individual living on Indian side as an enemy and every youngster picking up gun a pawn on its strategic chessboard. The author of the article also made some noteworthy comments on India’s secularism, tolerance and the rule of law, and comparison with Pakistan: ‘Indian state is more about winning election and less about calling “my faith (is better) than yours” and killing innocents. It will for centuries continue to be a battle between secularism and communism, right-wing and left-wing but it will never be allowed to boil down to a war between religions, fought with automatic weapons, bombs and rocket-launchers. Indian state bows to electorate, which is wise enough to understand who should be given the chance to rule and who should be condemned. Though he (Afzal Guru) was hanged (in 2013), it took the Indian state eleven years to hang a member of the minority community allegedly involved in (2001) Indian Parliament attack. In Pakistan, the so-called Islamic state, none knows who is hanged, where and why? Poonch killing should open our eyes. And if it does not, none can save us from doom.’ Another significant article in Jammu Kashmir Newspoint, dated 20 March 2018, by Syed Junaid Hashmi, ‘If Sajjad Lone, Why Not We? Kashmir’s Moderate Separatists Likely to Plunge into Electoral Politics?’, throws light on a changing paradigm in Kashmir’s political scenario, justifying the author’s viewpoint that it has always been a power struggle

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between various opportunistic Kashmiri politicians, which has been exploited by Pakistan (Hashmi, 2018a). Pakistan is known to have mentored, financed and armed the various Kashmiri separatist leaders and their followers, remotely or on ground. These leaders have kept receiving money from both Pakistan and India, albeit for contradicting objectives. In the article, a separatist leader has been quoted admitting the Kashmir issue has a significant global economic dimension, which will fight against all peace initiatives for the valley, proving Kashmir issue is a thriving business conducted through the exploitation of Islam and the Kashmiri youth. The following excerpts of the article are noteworthy: In what could be easily termed as significant change in the political landscape of Kashmir valley, some moderate Kashmir-based separatist leaders are mulling the option of changing track and taking-up the electoral route to further their agenda of seeking resolution of the Kashmir issue, according to the aspirations of the people of Jammu & Kashmir. “If staunch supporter of plebiscite and merger with Pakistan, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, once considered elections an option, why should we refrain from entering the political battlefield? We must contest elections. What is the harm? If people support us and we are their real representatives, why should we desist from taking on these mainstream politicians?” is what a Hurriyat leader told Jammu Kashmir Newspoint on the condition of anonymity.

A pragmatist separatist leader’s attack on Pakistan and the newfound vision for Kashmir are reflected as follows: Times have changed. Pakistan is not in a position to convince the world on Kashmir. We have to accept that the terror charge has destroyed the credibility of Pakistan world over. And with India assuming an important role in the world economics, we have no option but to change track and save our younger generation from death and destruction. It is madness to continue with a hard-­ line approach when you know it is not yielding much.

The aforementioned separatist leader is also reported to have provided the following advice to other political parties to save the lives of Kashmiri youth: Hurriyat should join electoral politics and by winning seats from all over the state, put a complete stop to the propaganda that Hurriyat is not the real

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r­ epresentative of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. We have to come out and speak in one voice. It doesn’t make sense if we continue on a beaten track. We are losing young men on a daily basis and there is no one in the world to listen to why they are getting killed. We must change track.

The separatist leader, fearing he may be alleged to be an Indian agent, has asserted that such allegations will not stop him from telling the truth. Whilst maintaining his anonymity, he is quoted as follows: • Important thing is message should be conveyed to the top leadership and not who is the one conveying the same. • When the organisation whose leaders always promoted the idea of merger with Pakistan extended support to a mainstream political party during the 2014 assembly elections, we have no reason to sit silent for fear of getting killed. We have to call a spade a spade. The sooner we do it, better it would be. • This is my opinion and it is not binding on anyone. I have a right to have my opinion … I live in pathetic state yet I am of the opinion that changing track has become need of the hour. Otherwise, we would be left with no option but to sit back and watch our young kids getting killed. • Business of separatism and separatist ideology is feeding several thousand homes in Kashmir valley, then why would someone want permanent peace in Jammu & Kashmir? If peace returns, thousands of shops across the world would be shut and people would be rendered jobless. The author of the article, Syed Junaid Hashmi, claims several separatist (Hurriyat) leaders share similar views as the aforementioned (ex)separatist leader, but the fear of facing personal repercussions prevents them from coming out. The article is concluded as: • ‘Though direct participation of separatists in elections is seemingly impossible, given their stand over Kashmir, they are likely to field proxy candidates and then, extend all possible support to them to ensure their victory. Most of these moderate leaders who are holding these parleys have for most part of their political career in a separatist amalgam opposed the ideology and stand of firebrand Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani.’

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• ‘They have also been too vocal in differentiating between participation in electoral politics for Bijli, Pani, Sadak issues and being the proponents of Azadi at the same time. Sources said that these separatist leaders are also likely to contest assembly elections. Now, ask for confidence of these two so-called separatists in the Kashmiri electorate who has seen these leaders holding massive rallies for Azadi and Pakistan; you would be referred to Minister for Social Welfare and Chairman of the Peoples Conference (PC), Sajjad Lone.’ To conclude, it is useful to discuss an article published in The Times of India, dated 21 March 2018, ‘Sikh Youth Being Trained at ISI Facilities in Pakistan, Says Indian Government.’ The article substantiates a claim that Pakistan is deeply involved in causing disturbance in other parts of India, other than Kashmir, by arming and abetting anti-national elements in India—Kashmir, Punjab and the North-­ East—using routes through Kashmir, Nepal, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. The following excerpts of the article are self-explanatory: The Home Ministry has conveyed to a parliamentary panel that Sikh youth are being trained at ISI facilities in Pakistan to carry out terror activities in India, and members of the community who are settled in Canada and other places are also being instigated against the country with false and malicious propaganda. Top officials of the home ministry, led by the Union Home Secretary told the Committee on Estimates … that radicalisation of youth by terrorist groups through the misuse of internet and social media has emerged as a big challenge … The “commanders” of terror groups based in Pakistan are under pressure from ISI to further the Pakistani spy agency’s terror plans not only in Punjab but also in other parts of the country, it said.

The report is known to have said: Sikh youth are being trained at ISI facilities in Pakistan. Interdictions and interrogations have revealed use of jailed cadres, unemployed youth, criminals and smugglers by Pakistan-based Sikh terror groups for facilitating terror attacks. Sikh youth based or settled in Europe, the US and Canada are also being misguided and instigated against India with false and malicious propaganda, but the situation is being watched closely by the central and state agencies and they are taking lawful action as and when required …

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