KPS at the Crossroad of History

Chaman Lal Gadoo  

All India Kashmiri Samaj (AIKS), the Apex Body of all the KP Samitis of India, held a two-day meeting of the Executives of its affiliated units in Delhi to take stock of the situation facing the KPs and to evolve a consensus on future course of action. In his address to the meeting, Shri Chaman Lal Gadoo who presided in the absence of the President, Shri Dwarkanath Munshi, narrated the plight of our community and spelt out an action plan to ensure that Kashmiri Pandits are restored to their homeland. Here we reproduce his address in full.

THE tragedy that has befallen our community is colossal. I sadder today the fact that for the last three years, during which our community has been in exile, little has happened to alleviate our suffering The State Government and the Government of India still cling to their ostrich-like attitude towards terrorist violence in Kashmir and the depredations to which our community has been exposed.

I sincerely believe that the time has come for us, for our community and for the Kashmiri Pandit leadership not only to ponder over our plight but also to tell the people in India as well as the world about the trials and tribulations we are beset with. Time has come for us to seriously deliberate upon the future of our community, now smouldering in exile and destitution in the so-called migrant encampments in Jammu and the other parts of India. There is an urgent need, more than ever it was, for the community to evolve a plan of action for the future rehabilitation and return of our people to our motherland.

TERRORISTS' GAME-PLAN

I do not need to dwell upon the nature and objectives of the terrorist violence which has ravaged Kashmir during the last three years and the death and destruction it has caused to the Kashmiri Pandits. It does not need to be repeated here that terrorism in Kashmir is not a local eruption of political violence but it is the culmination of the long secessionist movement which has dominated the Government and society in Kashmir during the last forty years and which has been supported by Pakistan, politically, financially and militarily. Evidently, the terrorist violence has been directed against India and her support bases in the state which in Kashmir had always been constituted by the Kashmiri Pandits. Obviously, the first attack of the terrorist movement was launched against the Kashmiri Pandits to liquidate them. They were flushed out of Kashmir, their temples destroyed, their property robbed and their houses burnt. The terrorists have followed this game-plan with accurate precision. After killing a thousand or more of Kashmiri Pandits and having driven the rest out of the valley, the terrorists have now launched a systematic process of defiling, bombing and destroying their religious places and burning the houses left behind by them.

A great deal of disinformation campaign has been spread to cover the real purpose of terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as to camouflage the death and destruction it has wrought. It needs to be clearly understood that the armed rebellion in Kashmir is not a movement to change economic or political institutions as is generally claimed, it is a religious crusade which underlines the aim to destroy the entire fabric of the Indian State and society. The first step in this war is to secede from the Indian Union and convert it into a Muslim State.

PERSECUTION OF KPS

It will not be fair to history if I don't mention here that the Islamisation of the political and economic organisation of the State began in 1947, when the first so-called popular government was formed. The exclusion of Jammu and Kashmir from the purview of the Indian Constitution by virtue of Article 370, in 1950, marked the formal acceptance of the Muslim identity of the Jammu and Kashmir State. In fact Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah told Nehru brazen-facedly that Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim majority state and therefore it could not be integrated into the federation of India, as that would bring the Muslims under the domination of the Hindu majority of India. The so-called autonomy of the State under Article 370 deprived the Kashmiri Pandits of all constitutional safeguards, right to equality, exposing them to severe discrimination, communal persecution, political oppression and economic deprivation. No wonder that during the last forty years of freedom, more than three lakh of people were squeezed out of the State and thrown into the wilderness.

It is an accepted fact that in the absence of fundamental rights to equality and protection against discrimination, successive State Governments established the pre-eminence of the Muslim majority in the Government and the society of the State reducing the minorities, particularly the Kashmiri Pandits, to a condition of servitude. Under the garb of land-reforms plan, land grab was launched to dispossess the Hindus of their land. Properties, industry and trade were appropriated by the State Government in the name of socialism and the of a class-less society, only to be followed by the emergence of a Muslim middle class of vested interests. Not only were the Hindus ruined economically, were also marginalised in the administrative services. Being a small minority, the Kashmiri Pandits were deprived of all participation in political institutions and local bodies. As if this was not enough, they were also excluded from admissions to educational institutions. For admissions to academic and technical institutions and the university, quotas were fixed on the basis of population ratio to keep them out of these institutions.

Today the Kashmiri Pandits are in exile in their own country, most of them without any livelihood and living on meagre assistance the Government is providing them.

 

RIGHT TO MOTHERLAND

I want to make one thing clear. The Kashmiri Pandits will not renounce the right to their motherland. Kashmir belongs to us. Kashmir is our history, Kashmir is our home, Kashmir is our tradition. Our temples are in Kashmir and our entire past is associated with its soil. We will not allow to be dispossessed and our culture to be destroyed.

We have never sought to extend our hegemony over any other community in the State. Our very culture is secular. We have the right to demand equality, freedom and protection against communalism.

In the new world order which is unfolding now, the civilised nations are committing themselves to basic human rights and equality of all mankind. The Government of India which has professed, all through the last four decades of its independence, faith in secularism and freedom, cannot afford to ignore the legitimate rights of our community. In the new dispensation of the world, no civilised state can allow any minority to be destroyed by communal persecution whatever the political compulsions.

KP's PARTICIPATION MUST

We want to convey it from this platform that for whatever decision the Government of India takes with regard to Kashmir, lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits who are languishing in exile must be taken into confidence and consulted. Kashmiri Pandits must be a party to whatever settlement is reached in respect of Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits must be rehabilitated in the land of their birth. If the Government of India finds it necessary to support the cause of the Palestinian people, why should it ignore our claim to our homeland from where we have been driven out at the point of the gun.

I want to make it amply clear that it is not the Kashmiri Pandits, it is not my community which is on the cross roads today. It is in fact the Government of India which is on the cross roads. If India still seeks to retain its secular character, it must put an end to the Muslim communalism which has ravaged Kashmir during the last four decades. Secularism cannot be based upon double standards. The Government cannot apply one law for the preservation of religious shrines in India and the other in Kashmir where more than fifty temples have disappeared during the last forty years. It cannot recognise the vested interest of the Muslim majority in Kashmir and cry hoarse for secular equality in the rest of India.

AIKS PLAN

 

The All India Kashmiri Samaj has in an earlier session adopted a resolution which I am commending to you for your consideration. For the Kashmiri Pandits it is now necessary that:

 

(i) they demand return to their land of birth and in order to make it possible for them to do so, the State Government and the Government of India must end Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism which is raging there:

 

(ii) they demand that all discriminatory constitutional provisions and legislation which recognise communal majoritarianism and Muslim communalism in Kashmir must be abolished:

 

(iii) they demand that the seven lakh Kashmiri Pandits, now in exile, must be resettled in a free zone which is placed under Central administration as a union territory,

 

(iv) they demand that till the Kashmiri Pandits are able to return to their homes in Kashmir, adequate arrangements be made for their temporary rehabilitation.

 

To implement the action plan for the return of the Kashmiri Pandits to their land of birth it is: that: necessary

 

(i) a campaign of awareness is launched through media, printed literature, seminars and workshops to inform public opinion in India and abroad about the wrought by Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism as well as the devastation suffered by the Kashmiri Pandits;

 

(ii) a struggle is launched to persuade and, if necessary, compel the Government of India to take measures for the restoration of Kashmiri Pandits to their homeland.

 

(iii) a struggle is launched to persuade the Government of India to abolish all discriminatory constitutional provisions and legislation in respect of Kashmir and also to provide for readjustment of demographic balances in the state which have been titled adversely against the Kashmiri Pandits during the last forty years.

 

AGENDA FOR ACTION

 

I would now underline the strategy which I feel, should be adopted to carry on the struggle at the grassroot level, to mobilise public opinion at the national level, bring pressure to persuade the Government to change its policy towards our problems and to convey our determination to return to Kashmir. This strategy is envisaged in the following agenda:

 

A-1. Gherao of the Parliament, Legislative Assemblies in the States by respective units of Samaj in States, Government Offices, organisational and party offices and party leaders in small numbers.

 

2. Taking out of small processions in streets with professionals bare-foot and bare-head with placards depicting our demands-silently.

 

3. Picketing of Parliament, Government Offices, Ministers' residences, M.P. quarters, party

offices and other significant places.

 

4. Relay Hunger strikes-5 to 10 people-on chowks and thoroughfares (to be repeated.)

 

5. Street corner meetings in the capital and in other towns of India..

 

6. Carry out small placard processions, 15-25 people moving silently from one place to another, highlighting the exodus and plight of migrants.

 

7. Delegations to wait upon the President and P.M. and other Ministers and M.Ps and if not permitted, squat outside their residences- repeating such performances every week.

 

8. Keep placards and banners on all stalls of Kashmiri migrants in Delhi or wherever they are.

 

9. Hold street plays.

 

10. Take out processions of ladies in pherans. Ladies will resort to picketting and hold meetings.

 

B. Foreign countries

 

1. Meet Ambassadors.

 

2. Take out small processions outside Embassies with placards.

 

3. Send appeals to International Organisations like U.N.O., Amnesty International, UNESCO etc.

 

4. Send appeals to Heads of the foreign Governments.

 

5. Send reports, informative pamphlets to foreign Governments.

 

C. Media War

 

1. Issue small pamphlets, leaflets.

 

2. Release audio-visual cassettes and video- films.

 

3. Hold small street-corner musical sessions about exodus and plight of the community.

 

4. Picket news-paper offices.

 

5. Hold small congregations outside news-paper offices.

 

D. Send teams to stand outside public places like coffee houses, major hotels with placards.

 

E. Conduct socio-economic survey.

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Courtesy:- Chaman Lal Gadoo and 1992 February Koshur Samachar