Fwd: National Post (Canada): Forcing Hindus into exile

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Forcing Hindus into exile

Geoffrey Clarfield National Post

October 25, 2005

 

 

On Oct. 10, just two days after an earthquake killed tens of

thousands in

South Asia, Islamist terrorists belonging to Hizb ul-Mujahideen and

Lashkar

e-Tolba killed 10 Hindu civilians in the Rajouri district of

Indian-controlled Kashmir. The attacks were part of an orchestrated

campaign

designed to cleanse Kashmir of its indigenous Hindus and bring the

area

entirely under Muslim governance -- either through a union with

Pakistan, or

as an independent, Sharia-based Islamic state. Apparently, not even

the

massive devastation wrought by mother nature has slowed the

terrorists'

murderous campaign.

 

Kashmir is the only state of India -- there are 27 states and seven

union

territories in the nation -- where the majority of inhabitants are

Muslim.

Indian law prohibits migration of Indians from other states into

Kashmir, in

order to preserve its Muslim character. In 1947 and 1948, when

Hindus and

Muslims were slaughtering each other on either side of the Punjab,

Kashmir

was remarkably peaceful, its Hindu minority lived without fear and

the

Kashmiris welcomed the Indian army, which protected the population

from

invading Pakistani tribes.

 

How was this spirit of tolerance created? The answer lies in the

nature of

Kashmiri Islam.

 

Islam came to the Kashmir valley during the late middle ages. Some

scholars

argue that the slow and gradual conversion of the inhabitants was

the result

of an indigenous version of Islam promulgated by local mystics, or

Sufis,

called Rishis.

 

Rishis were celibate and pacifist mystics. Like the Kashmiri Yogis

and

Buddhists who may have been their models, they were tolerant of non-

Islamic

faiths such as that practised by the indigenous Hindus of Kashmir,

the

Pandits, whose most famous son, Jawaharlal Nehru, founded the modern

state

of India.

 

Rishis established centres of pilgrimage graced by beautiful

buildings

called Ziarat. Many of these places were honoured by Hindus, and

many Rishi

saints were venerated by Muslim and Hindu worshippers alike. Until

the early

1980s, the Hindu Pandits of the Kashmir valley generally lived

peaceably

with their neighbours of the Muslim majority.

 

The basis of this mutual toleration is called Kashmiriat. Roughly

translated

into English, it means "the Kashmiri style or way of life." Unlike

the

Salafist or Wahhabi Islam of Osama Bin Laden and his followers,

Kashmiriat

versions of Islam tolerate dance and music. (The Kashmiri musical

tradition

has more than 180 local ragas and myriads of dances that local

musicologists

are trying to record and disseminate.) For those looking to

reconcile Islam

and democracy, Kashmiriat provides an example of how a tolerant

Islamic

religious and cultural tradition can lay the groundwork for secular

democracy.

 

But during the 1980s, Kashmiriat was dealt a blow from which it may

never

recover. Moderate Kashmiri Muslims woke up to find that their

mosques had

new preachers, many of whom had been trained outside of the country.

They

preached against the old versions of Islam and insisted that their

intolerant Wahhabi strain must be adopted by all Kashmiris. Women

were to

adopt the veil and music was proscribed.

 

They also preached that indigenous Hindus should be forced to leave,

so that

Kashmir could become a land reserved for Muslims. No doubt, they were

inspired by the world's silence following the near total expulsion

of the

50,000-strong Hindu community of Kabul after its conquest by the

Taliban.

 

After a decade of preaching and fulmination, words led to action.

 

In 1990, the local Urdu-language press in Srinagar, the capital of

Indian

Kashmir, published a press release from Hizb ul-Mujahideen demanding

that

the Pandits of Kashmir leave so that Kashmir could join Pakistan. A

poster

campaign followed demanding that Kashmiris obey an "Islamic" dress

code and

that video parlours and cinemas be banned.

 

Shops, businesses and homes of Kashmiri Pandits were marked out, and

notices

were placed on their doors demanding that they leave. In villages

throughout

the region, hit lists of Kashmiri Pandits were distributed. Within a

short

period, gangs of young men carrying Kalashnikovs began random and

indiscriminate killings of Pandit families and any Kashmiri notable

who

opposed the terror.

 

The state government of Kashmir collapsed, the Chief Minister went

into

hiding, and both the regional and national security forces sat idle

while a

flood of Pandit Hindus were driven out. On Sept. 12, 2004, The Times

of

India put the case mildly when it ran a story under the

headline "Hindu

population in decline in Kashmir."

 

The American and British governments have confirmed that more than a

quarter

of a million Pandit refugees have been driven out of Kashmir into

neighbouring states during the last 15 years. Yet the Indian

government has

yet to call these people what they are: victims of terror. As a

matter of

political convenience, it has labelled them "migrants." They

languish in

refugee camps, in squalor and disease -- people who were once famous

for

their pacifist version of Saivite Hinduism and who were once an

inspiration

to Mahatma Gandhi.

 

Meanwhile, the new Chief Minister of Kashmir has asked the Pandits to

return. But each time such announcements are made, there is another

terrorist attack against the remaining Hindu stragglers in Kashmir.

The Oct.

10 attack was of this type.

 

Pakistan was created as an Islamic state. India was created as a

secular

democracy. Although Hindus outnumber Muslims in India by 10 to 1,

the media

and the government have always been fastidious in ensuring that

their rights

are honoured and protected. Allowing the expulsion of a quarter of a

million

indigenous Hindus from their ancestral homeland in Kashmir is not

only a

hateful, collective crime -- it is also a betrayal of the tolerant

creed

that has allowed Muslims themselves to prosper. Qudsia Shah, former

president of the College for Women in Srinagar put it bluntly: "The

exodus

of Hindus is not good for Kashmir. We Muslims are the losers."

 

The Indian government must first recognize the Pandits as legitimate

victims

of terror in Kashmir. They must then give them back their stolen

property

and they must win the war on terror in Kashmir. By doing so, they

will also

allow the moderate Islam of Kashmir to return to that once fabled

Himalayan

paradise. Kashmiriat is good for democracy.

 

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht

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