EXODUS OF KASHMIR'S PANDITS (B.15)

By Samartha Chakrawarti - August 30, 2020

Hello Everyone,

The word exodus means "Mass departure of people from one destination to other". It can be either by the willingness of population or by forceful act by one community on others. There has been an infinite number of cases where one community is being tortured and persecuted on the basis of religion and beliefs. For example (Jews of Germany,)(Hindu, Sikh and Christian of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh), (Zoroastrians of Iran), (Uyghurs Muslims of China). In these incidents, most of the communities which I mentioned above are minorities of their respective countries. Today's point of Discussion is Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs. In India, around 80% of the population is following Hinduism but when we talk about Kashmir and especially Kashmir valley Hindus are in minority and most of the Hindus are Pandits i.e, they are called Kashmiri pandit. They were forced to live their houses, lands, properties from early 1990 onwards and were forced to live as a refugee in their own country. Many people still believe that it was a one-night incident. No, it didn't happen overnight, It was a planned and organized act by the people, politicians and organization of radical Islamic mindset. But to understand this situation we first have to understand a little political history of Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah was a prominent leader in the history of J&K (if you are not aware of sheikh Abdullah refer my previous blogs). But in the early 1980s, he realized that he is losing ground control over Kashmiris, so he decided to change his secular politics into a more radicalized outlook. He started referring to pandits as "others" and this is where it all begins. Though the discrimination was limited to his speeches and was not an outright policy of the government. In the year 1982 Sheikh Abdullah passed away and his son Farukh Abdullah was appointed as the leader of NC (National Conference) and after winning the elections in 1983 he becomes the CM of the state of J&K. In July 1984, just after 8 months, due to some political dispute, the contemporaneous government of centre led by Indira Gandhi decided to organize a coup in J&K. Congress party of India joined by some MLAs of NC and Gulam Mohammad shah, resulted in the fall of Farooq Abdullah government. Then after this coup, Gulam Shah was elected as the new chief minister of J&K but the government formed by this alliance was very unstable. In fact, this was the time when Hindu were directly attacked and temples of Kashmir were destroyed or damaged. During his tenure, Islamist were promoted, no actions were taken against the hate speeches and small riots intended to destroy Hindu temples. Ultimately after all the chaos, prime minister Rajeev Gandhi decided to withdraw alliance with Gulam shah's government and it was decided that again Farook Abdullah will be forming a government with an alliance of congress until the next assembly elections in 1987. The elections of 1987 are very important because this will change Kashmir's history forever. In this election, there were two major parties contesting the election, one was NC with the alliance of Congress and the other new emerging party MUF( Muslim united front). This front consisted of all those organizations and individual who were against the policies of NC and congress party of India. It was believed that MUF will win this election with a heavy mandate. But when results were out they got only 4 seats and later on, it was discovered that the elections were rigged and involved fraudulent practices.

This resulted in outrage and many leaders of MUF turned themselves as a terrorist. The biggest example is Syed Yusuf who later became one of the biggest terrorists of all time "Syed Salahuddin" and formed a terror organization known as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

All this led to the rise of Islamization not only in Kashmir, but globally radical Islamization was rising:

1. The Afgan jihad against the soviet union

2. The Islamic revolution in Iran

3. Radical Islamization in Kashmir

4. The spread of Wahabism in rich gulf country Via Pakistan.

All these events almost happened during the same timeline. Meanwhile, Pakistan also encouraged the Islamization in Kashmir. Pro Pakistan Islamist groups like JKLF and Jammt-e-Islami Kashmir mobilised the fastest-growing anti-India sentiments among the local population of Kashmir. The youth of Kashmir were handed AK-47 and were transported weapons from POK. Anti India organizations organized terrorist camps at the other side of LOC (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) to train the youth of Kashmir and turn them into Jihadis and Terrorist.

This was the sad reality of Kashmir. In the next blog, I will discuss how the rise of Islamization led to the exodus of Kashmiri pandit.

If you like my content do subscribe to my blog and if you are new don't forget to read my previous blogs.

THANK YOU FOR READING
JAI HIND