Kashmiriyat and Kashmiri Pandits  

Prof. S.L. Pandit  

{Prof S. L. Pandit has, in the course of two articles appearing in a Jammu daily, analysed the concept of Kashmiriyat in historical perspective. He has treated the subject in a manner that is at once lucid and succinct. Since these are already in print, we have condensed them into one coherent piece making it concise, and yet comprehensive, for the benefit of our readers-Editor.}

Of late writers and journalists have been discussing the various parameters and dimensions of what is defined as Kashmiriyat. I feel, however, that only discerning. Kashmir-born, and perceptive students of history can adequately analyse and project the full implications of this distinct sub- national syndrome.

So, first about Kashmiriyat in general. While going over the last seven to eight centuries of Kashmir history, it may be noted that for about two centuries following the subjugation of most of North India by the Turko-Afghan Muslim invaders, Kashmir continued to remain under the uneasy domination of a rather effete Hindu administration, and the only Muslim infiltration into the Valley was marked by peaceful activities of Islamic missionaries. In fact, the first short-lived Muslim ruler of Kashmir, Rinchen, who occupied the throne in 1324 A.D., was a convert and not an invader from outside. Then, following an unbroken and sordid chain of plots and counterplots, around the court of the last Hindu ruler and his widowed queen, an outstanding Muslim adventurer from across the Valley, Shahmir by name, established himself as the first firm Muslim Sultan of Kashmir under the name of Shamas-ud-Din. His dynasty lasted about a couple of centuries.

Following the establishment and consolidation of Muslim rule in Kashmir by the middle of the fourteenth century a large number of Kashmiri Brahmins migrated to what appeared to them more congenial regions in the sub-continent. In fact, there is a tradition that some of them moved as far South as the Konkan Coast and merged with the Saraswat Brahmins of that region. There is also a tradition that this movement received a serious impetus following the sustained persecution unleashed against them in the reign of Sultan Sikandar. The racial memory of this period of tyranny has left its stamp on the psyche of Kashmiri Brahmins; and even now it is related that just eleven families escaped this trauma by going into hiding in some inaccessible regions of the Valley. Then came the tolerant and enlightened rule of Sultan Zain-ul- Abidin (1423 to 1474), when a large number of these erstwhile migrants were recalled by that King and rehabilitated in perfect security and honour in the towns and villages of Kashmir. According to our racial lore these recalled migrants are known as Banamasis, while those who had stuck fast to their soil in times of trouble are called Malamasis.

Again, in the administrative and political fields, a new beginning was initiated by Sultan Zain-ul- Abidin, the son of Sikandar the Iconoclast. Zain- ul-Abidin, even till now, after a lapse of five centuries, is widely known in common Kashmiri parlance as Badshah, or the Great King. He was not only an administrative genius but also a learned scholar in Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. His religious tolerance ranks him easily with Akbar the Great, while with the record of his constructive nation- building activities he is second to no ruler of his time. He not only gave full freedom to the non- Muslims to follow their faith, but abolished the hated poll tax, called the jazia, and helped the Hindus to repair their vandalised places of worship and to build new temples.

It was towards the close of the fourteenth century that two basically harmonising religious movements ushered a new peace-generating element among the people. These can be defined as the Islamic Sufism or the Rishi cult and the Brahmanic Shaivism. Apart from the eminent scholarly exponents of the latter movement, obviously the greatest upholder of this universal philosophy, both in action and in its utterance in the common vulgar medium of Kashmiri, was Lal Ded or LALLESHWARI, a MYSTIC WOMAN Saint, who may be regarded also as the first outstanding creator of literary Kashmiri. Her younger contemporary, Sheikh Nur- ud-Din, through his saintly renunciation of the pleasures of the world and through his spiritual utterances in the common native tongue produced an enduring impact on the lives of all common folk of Kashmir. It may be claimed that, through the lives of these two mystic saints, was born an ideal which historians came to define as "Kashmiriyat".

In spite of many turbulent vicissitudes of history, the Hindus and Muslims continued to live together at peace both in the towns and the far-flung remote villages in the countryside. They shared each other's joys and sorrows and showed respect for each other's places of worship. It may surprise some outsiders to know that in the annual calendar of Kashmir a number of dates were dedicated to the memory of the Muslim Rishis, and no orthodox Muslim would take any non-vegetarian foods during the celebrations of the festivals associated with their names.

The Shahmiri dynasty of Sultans was replaced by the Chaks in the early sixteenth century. The Chaks tried to continue the traditions of the preceding rulers, but they were neither efficient nor very firm as administrators. The last Chak ruler, Yusaf Shah, was lured into his political web by Emperor Akbar and Kashmir became by 1585 a province of the Mughal Empire. The Chaks were, moreover, adherents of the Shia sect, and so could not claim the unstinted allegiance of the Sunis who have all through been the overwhelming majority among the Muslims of Kashmir. Yusaf Shah, besides, was an addict to lazy life and pleasures of the arts, and found little time to attend to the more arduous and more prosaic functions of governing. Nevertheless, he has left behind a tradition of culture as embodied in the immortal songs and lyrics of his gifted but ill-fated queen, Habba Khatun, whose verses are still remembered and sung by the high and the low in the villages and towns of Kashmir, by itself a rich legacy of the essence of Kashmiriyat.

The Mughal rule was replaced by the Afghans around 1760 A.D. This was followed by the Sikhs when Ranjit Singh annexed Kashmir in 1819. Following the demise of that redoubtable Sikh ruler, as all of us know, the Sikh empire disintegrated and the Valley was to the Dogra Maharaja Ghulab Singh of Jammu by the East India Company through the infamous Treaty of Amritsar in 1846. The rule of the Dogra Maharajas survived for a century till 1947 under the powerful protecting umbrella of the British Indian Empire. All through these chequered phases of foreign domination the Valley witnessed alternating phases of good and bad administration. But what we may call the basic aspects of Kashmiriyat survived down to our own times.

In the overall setting of their Kashmiriyat, Kashmiri Pandits managed to cling to their distinct social identity both in the Valley and beyond its boundaries. In the Valley itself, they formed a close-knit social group who rigidly stuck to certain hoary traditions governing their modes of worship. the celebration of their religious festivals and the elaborate rituals marking the observance of the birth, initiation, marriage, death and post-mortem propitiation of the departed soul of every member of the community. It is interesting to note in this context that right from the early stages of the Mughal rule in Kashmir numbers of Kashmiri Brahmin families migrated to the leading urban centres in North India and to the princely courts of Rajasthan where most of them found gainful employment because of their proficiency in the use of Persian and their close cultural affinities with the members of the newly-emerging Indo-Muslim ruling classes following the successful efforts by Emperor Akbar to convert the dominant Muslim rule into a national and what is now called a secular order. By the early years of the present century the total number of this migrant Kashmiri Brahmin community may have risen to about ten twelve thousand persons. But, incredible as it may sound now in the context of current constantly fluctuating social mores, this small community successfully maintained their social identity. First, they continued maintaining some tenuous social links with their erstwhile mountain-girt homeland; and apart from and in spite of discarding the use of their Kashmiri mother tongue, they rejected the very idea of intermarrying among any other Brahmin of North India and faithfully observed all the rituals associated with all their mundane and sacred functioning as Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmins. As is so well known, during the past two centuries these migrants, in spite of their negligible numbers, made outstanding contributions to the growth of this vast country as administrators, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, politicians and outstanding fighters in the prolonged struggle for the political emancipation of our sub-continent. While they in due course discarded the use of their native Kashmiri, they adopted Hindustani as their new mother tongue and, through the works of writers like Rattan Nath Dhar Sarshar, Daya Shankar Nasim, Brij Narain Chakbast to name only a few luminaries, they made substantial contribution towards the growth of modern Urdu literature.

Before I close, let me briefly recount the part played by Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley during the past sixty years towards the political developments starting from the historical water-shed of the year 1931. It is true that, to begin with, they enmasse fought somewhat shyly of the new popular upsurge erupting against the feudal and autocratic rule of the Jammu-based rulers. Nevertheless, it may not be forgotten that they were among the foremost champions in espousing the cause of the genuine subjects of Jammu and Kashmir for quite some years preceding the upsurge of 1931. The political events of the past six decades are just recent history, covering the lives of many of us still among the living. May be on occasions, members of our community may have, individually or collectively, adopted slip-slop postures towards the political aspirations of the Kashmiri masses. But no honest observer of our times will deny that a large number of our community faced imprisonment and harassment during the various stages of the political movement led by the leaders of Kashmir and supported by its oppressed masses of common people. And when, during the fate laden and blood- soaked months of 1947, the Valley became a haven of peaceful refuge for victims of communal madness of both sides, the Kashmiri Pandits along with their Muslim brethren, wrought that miracle of inter- religious harmony of which Mahatma Gandhi took an admiring notice. What a pity if this small and inoffensive minority is now driven out of their home-land by forces at present beyond any-one's control. Such a catastrophe by itself alone might sound a death-knell to the centuries old way of life, called Kashmiriyat!

Finally, I may conclude this brief review of the historical and cultural role of the Kashmiri Brahmins by posing a few relevant questions relating to their future as a distinct social and ethnic group. At present most of them have been uprooted from their ancient homeland where even till the close of 1989 A.D. the vast majority of them lived and worked. If they are now forced into permanent exile, with their most important base gone, will they be able to maintain their ages old identity? Apart from a congenial geographic and demographic milieu, what are the factors that hold a group together? Possibly language and religion. So far as Kashmiri Pandits are concerned, most of their younger generations, in or outside Kashmir, have ceased to use Kashmiri during the past few decades. As for religion, its practice has been so much vitiated by modern politics and many other modern fads, that it has ceased to be a cementing force in many numerically small communities. Moreover, with the unprecedented growth during the past forty years of educated and job-seeking women in the community,

it is well nigh impossible now to rigidly stick to marriages within one's restricted social fold. These developments have of late led to numerous inter- caste marriages among most of the mobile work- seeking middle classes of the vast Hindu community. While mourning over the apparent demise of Kashmiriyat, are we sure that we can now for long retain our special traditional ethnic identity? The answers to these questions lie ultimately with an unseen power which an American writer of our time designated as "the Great Novelist who makes history".

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Courtesy:- Prof. S.L. Pandit and 1992 June Koshur Samachar