The LOST CHAPTER of INDIAN HISTORY: Seventh ‘n Final Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits 1989-90 [Dr Satish Ganjoo]

The agenda for the seventh and final exodus of Kashmiri Pandits was fixed during the communal disturbances of July 1931. This communalism in the state politics aggravated and magnified with the passage of time . It was fed for years with vicious communal propaganda and brainwashing. After independence and accession of Jammu & Kashmir State to the Republic of India, Kashmiri Pandits were pushed back to the barbarous Afghan era. Article 370 of Indian Constitution just reduced them to cipher and liquidated their population. Under the pretext of economic reforms, their jagirs were confiscated and distributed among the Muslim peasants. The administration of Shaikh Abdullah adopted malicious and pernicious approach towards the Saraswat Brahmans of Kashmir. They were taunted and irritated on one pretext or the other. Hindu temples were desecrated, looted and plundered.

Shaikh Abdullah tried to create “ Shaikhdom” for his dynastic rule in Kashmir. But his dreams were shattered when he was arrested in 1953 for anti-national activities. In 1958, he was released but detained again after three months under the Kashmir conspiracy case. However, the case was withdrawn in 1964 because of political reasons. But he was arrested again in May 1965 for his subversive activities and released in January 1968. Again, in January 1971, a ban was imposed forbidding him to enter the Jammu Kashmir state. This restriction was lifted in 1972.

During 1953-1974 Shaikh Abdullah characterized India as an imperialist power endeavouring to subjugate the people of Kashmir. He asserted that the accession of Kashmir with India was his greatest blunder for which history will never forgive him. He also demanded the right of self determination for the people of Muslim – dominated Kashmir, but ignored the Hindu- dominated Jammu and Buddhist- dominated Ladakh regions. The sophist Shaikh advocated plebiscite and unconditional withdrawal of Indian army from the Saffron Valley. He also campaigned against the import of food grains from India and asked people to eat potatoes grown in Kashmir. For such arguments, Shaikh Abdullah was nick named as “Aaloo Bab” --- Feeder of Potatoes. He made emotional solicitations that after death his body should not be buried in the subjugated Valley, but immersed into the sacred waters of Arabian sea. However, today his magnificent tomb stands on the banks of beautiful Dal Lake in Srinagar and is guarded by the Indian security personnel. By such gratuitous and conflicting statement, his secular credentials evaporated into thin air. The prospect of disloyalty and sedition began to haunt the Saffron Valley. Kashmiriyat switched over to political vandalism and bigoted fundamentalism. Shaikh Abdullah desperately held Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri Pandit, responsible for the shattering of his malevolent dreams in 1953. The mortified Shaikh ambiguously decided to retaliate against the whole Pandit community in Kashmir. In vindictiveness, he instigated his associated that while making a choice between a Kashmiri Pandit and dreaded cobra, kill the Pandit first. A vicious campaign of terror was launched against the Aryan Saraswat Brahmans of Kashmir. They were refused entry to government jobs and institutions of higher learning. Besides hurling strong statement against the Government of India and Kashmiri Pandits, the Shaikh derided that the whole lot of Indian army cannot save the Hindus in Kashmir against the malevolence of Muslims. Farooq Abdullah also employed the same approach towards the crumbled Pandits when his brother-in-law, Gulshah, seized the chief ministership in 1984.The reactionary leaders- Afzal Beg, Maulvi Farooq, Mohi-ud-Din Kara and Maulana Masoodi; ignored the very existence of Kashmiri Pandits during their political adventurism. The Kashmiri Pandits were made to pay for every move on the political chessboard in Kashmir because they represented the pseudo-secularism, incognito- socialism and flowering- democracy of India. They were scolded and emotionally hurt in the Afghan fashion.

But then the whole political scenario in Kashmir took a dramatic turn in 1974, when Indira-Shaikh accord was signed by virtue of which the Shaikh became the Chief Minister of the State after the lapse of 22 years. Ignoring the great expectations he had created among the people in Kashmir and his vigorous campaign for plebiscite, the sophist Shaikh began to speak the language of Indian nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism. The slogans of plebiscite, self-determination and independent Kashmir melted away. But the Hate- India virus, infused by him into the blood of the Muslim youth in Kashmir, was exploited by other corrupt self-styled politicians for their own interests from time to time. A vacuum was created because the people were betrayed disillusioned, politically raped and left in wilderness by their own leaders.

The programmes and policies of Bakshi, Sadiq, Qasim, Farooq and Gulshah were also damaging for the Kashmiri Pandits. They were continuously haunted by antagonistic, hostile and rebellious elements. Mufti Syed is even believed to be responsible for the anti-Hindu communal riots of 1986, when cows were slaughtered and temples destroyed in Anantnag district. From 1947-1986 about four lac Kashmiri Pandits silently migrated from Kashmir. Hypocritical atrocities and criminal ignorances of political leaders were responsible for these development. Pakistan, to avenge the defeat of Bangladesh, blatantly sponsored the violence and terrorism in the Valley, resulting in the turmoil of 1989-90.

“Zalimo, O Kafiro, Kashmir harmara chod do” (O! Merciless, O! Kafirs leave our Kashmir);

“Kashmir mein agar rehna hai, Allah-ho-Akbar kahna hoga” (Any one wanting to live in Kashmir will have to convert to Islam);

"La Sharqia la gharbia, Islamia! Islamia!" (From East to West, there will be only Islam);

“Musalmano jago, Kafiro bhago” (O! Muslims, Arise, O! Kafirs, scoot);

“Islam hamara maqsad hai, Quran hamara dasturhai, jehad hamara Rasta hai” (Islam is our objective, Q’uran is our constitution, Jehad is our way of our life);

“Kashmir banega Pakistan” (Kashmir will become Pakistan);

“Kashir banawon Pakistan, Bataw varaie, Batneiwsaan” (We will turn Kashmir into Pakistan alongwith Kashmiri Pandit women, but without their men folk);

“Pakistan se kya Rishta? La Ilah-e- Illalah” (Islam defines our relationship with Pakistan);

"Dil mein rakho Allah ka khauf; Hath mein rakho Kalashnikov" (With fear of Allah ruling your hearts, wield a Kalashnikov);

“Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e- Mustafa” (We want to be ruled under Shari’ah);

“People’s League ka kya paigam, Fateh, Azadi aurIslam” (What is the message of People’s League? Victory,Freedom and Islam).

The final assault on the Kashmiri Pandits started with these slogans. Barbarous terrorists from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Sudan and even Saudi Arabia penetrated into the Saffron Valley. On Jan, 04, 1990, a local Urdu newspaper, Aftab, published a press release issued by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, asking all Pandits to leave the Valley immediately. Al Safa, another local daily repeated the warning.These warnings were followed by Kalashnikov-wielding masked terrorists carrying out military-type marches openly. Reports of killing Kashmiri Pandits continued to pour in. Bomb explosions and sporadic firing by militants became a daily occurrence.Explosive and inflammatory speeches being broadcast from the public address systems of themosques became frequent. Thousands of audio cassettes, carrying similar propaganda, were played at numerous places in the Valley, in order to instill fear into the already terrified Kashmiri Pandit community. Recalling these events, the former Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, M M Khajooria says, “The mischief of the summer of 1989 started with serving notice to the prominent members of the minority community to quit Kashmir.The letter said, ‘We order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed- we are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims, and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here’. The threatening noteended with a warning, ‘If you do not obey, we willstart with your children. Kashmir Liberation,Zindabad.” They signaled the implementation of their intentions quite blatantly. M. L. Bhan of Khonmoh, Srinagar, a government employee, was killed on Jan 15, 1990. Baldev Raj Dutta, an operator in Lal Chowk,Srinagar, was kidnapped on the same day. His deadbody was found four days later, on Jan 19, 1990, at Nai Sarak, Srinagar.The body bore tell-tale marks of brutal torture. The terrific night of Jan, 19, 1990, witnessed macabre happenings, the like of which had not been witnessed by Kashmiri Pandits after the Afghan rule.Those that experienced the fear of that night are unlikely to forget it in their life time. For future generations, it will be a constant reminder of the brutality of Islamic radicals, who had chosen the timing very carefully. Farooq Abdullah, whose government had all but seized to exist, resigned. Jagmohan took over the charge of the Governor just the previous night at Jammu. The curfew was imposed to restore some semblance oforder, it had little effect. The mosque pulpits continued to be used to exhort people to defy curfew and join so-called 'Jehad' against the Pandits. Armed cadres of JKLF marched through the streets of the Valley to terrorise the minorities - Hindus and Sikhs. As the night fell, the microscopic community of Kashmiri Pandits became panic-stricken when the Valley began reverberating with the war-cries of Islamists, who had stage-managed the whole event with great care; choosing its timing and the slogans to be used. A host of highly provocative, communal and threatening slogans, interspersed with martial songs, incited the Muslims to come out on the streets and break the chains of ‘slavery’. These exhortations urged the faithful to give a final push to the Kafir in order to ring in the true Islamic order. These slogans were mixed with precise and unambiguous threats to Pandits.They were presented with three choices — Ralive, Tsaliv yaGalive (convert to Islam, leave the place or prish).Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims poured into the streets of the Valley, shouting ‘death to India’and death to Kafirs.These slogans, broadcast from the loud-speakers of every mosque, numbering roughly 1100, exhorted the hysterical mobs to embark on Jehad the religious war against the 'non-believers'. All male Muslims, including their children and the aged,wanted to be seen to be participating in this Jehad.Those who had organized such a show of force in the middle of a cold winter night, had only one objective; to put the fear of death into the hearts of the already frightened Pandits. In this moment of collective hysteria, gone was the facade of secular, tolerant, cultured, peaceful and educated outlook of Kashmiri Muslims, which the Indian intelligentsia and the liberal media had made them to wear for their own reasons. Most of the Kashmiri Muslims behaved as if they did not know who the Pandits were. This frenzied mass hysteria went on till Kashmiri Pandits’ despondency turned into desperation, as the night wore itself out. For the first time after independence of India from the British rule, Kashmiri Pandits found themselves abandoned to their fate, stranded in their own homes, encircled by rampaging mobs. Through the frenzied shouts and blood-curdling sloganeering of the assembled mobs, Pandits saw the true face of intolerant and radical Islam. It represented the complete antithesis of the over-rated ethos of Kashmiriyat that was supposed to define Kashmiri ethos.The pusillanimous Central Government was caught napping and its agencies in the State, particularly the army and other para military forces, did not consider it necessary to intervene, in the absence of any orders. The State Government had been so extensively subverted that the skeleton staff of the administration at Srinagar (the winter capital of the State had shifted to Jammu in November 1989)decided not to confront the huge mobs. Delhi was too far away, anyway. Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits phoned everyone in authority at Jammu, Srinagar and Delhi, to save them from the sure catastrophe that awaited them.The pleadings for help were incessant. But not a soldier came to their rescue. Therefore, Kashmiri Pandits found best protection in huddling together indoors, frozen with fear, praying for the night to pass. The foreboding of the impending doom was too over-powering to let them have even a wink of sleep.The Pandits could see the writing on the wall. If they were lucky enough to see the night through,they would have to vacate the place before they met the same fate as Tikka Lal Taploo and many others. The Seventh Exodus was surely staring them in the face. By morning, it became apparent to Pandits that Kashmiri Muslims had decided to throw them out from the Valley. Broadcasting vicious Jehadi sermons and revolutionary songs,interspersed with blood curdling shouts and shrieks, threatening Kashmiri Pandits with direconsequences, became a routine ‘Mantra’ of the Muslims of the Valley, to force them to flee from Kashmir. Some of the slogans used were:“Zalimo, O Kafiro, Kashmir harmara chod do” (O! Merciless, O! Kafirs leave our Kashmir), “Kashmir mein agar rehna hai, Allah-ho-Akbar kahna hoga” (Any one wanting to live in Kashmir will have to convert to Islam), "La Sharqia la gharbia, Islamia! Islamia!" (From East to West, there will be only Islam), “Musalmano jago, Kafiro bhago” (O! Muslims, Arise, O! Kafirs, scoot), “Islam hamara maqsad hai, Quran hamara dasturhai, jehad hamara Rasta hai” (Islam is our objective, Q’uran is our constitution,Jehad is our way of our life), “Kashmir banega Pakistan” (Kashmir will become Pakistan), “Kashir banawon Pakistan, Bataw varaie, Batneiwsaan” (We will turn Kashmir into Pakistan alongwith Kashmiri Pandit women, but without their men folk), “Pakistan se kya Rishta? La Ilah-e- Illalah” (Islam defines our relationship with Pakistan), "Dil mein rakho Allah ka khauf; Hath mein rakho Kalashnikov" (With fear of Allah ruling your hearts, wield a Kalashnikov), “Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e- Mustafa” (We want to be ruled under Shari’ah), “People’s League ka kya paigam, Fateh, Azadi aurIslam” (What is the message of People’s League? Victory,Freedom and Islam). Wall posters in fairly large letters, proclaiming Kashmir as ‘Islamic Republic of Kashmir’, became a common sight in the entire Valley. So were the big and prominent advertisements in local dailies, proclaiming their intent: ‘Aim of the present struggle is the supremacy of Islam in Kashmir, in all walks of life and nothing else. Any one who puts a hurdle in our way will be annihilated’. Press release of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) published in the morning edition of Urdu Daily ‘Aftab’ of April, 01, 1990: ‘Kashmiri Pandits responsible for duress against Muslims should leave the Valley within two days’. Head lines of Urdu Daily, Al Safa, of April, 14, 1990: ‘With Kalashnikov in one hand and Quran in the other the Mujahids are openly roaming the streets singing the Tarana-e- Kashmir.’ Brutal, wild and barbarous techniques were employed to hound and kill the Aryan Saraswat Brahmans of Kashmir. Even the helpless ladies were not spared. Sarla Bhat, a nurse in Soura Medical Institute, was abducted on 19th April, 1990, by JKLF militants who repeatedly gang-raped her and eventually killed her on 25th April. Girja Tikoo, a teacher from Bandipur, was kidnapped, raped and eventually shred to pieces by a saw mill on 4th June, 1990. Bimla Braroo from the Nai Sarak, Srinagar, who along with her daughter, Archana, was raped in the presence of her husband, Sohanlal, before all the three were killed on 31st March, 1992. There are dozens of such brutal instances. Even wicked Afghans will be feeling sorry in their graves for the sanatic holocaust of the legendary Kashmiri Pandits. Governor Jagmohan, had written a detailed letter to the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi , on April 21,1990, endorsing the alarming signals. But cowardly Indian leadership was still unconcerned. The barbarous murder of hundreds of innocent Brahmans of Kashmir caused their seventh and final agonizing mass exodus from the Valley. This was the final knock down of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits. The mass massacres at Sangrampora (1997), Udhampore (1997), Prankot (1998), Wandhama (1998) and Nadimarg (2003) were the follow up cleansing operations. Pandits in Kashmir dwindled from 10% in 1947 to fewer than 5% in 1989 and to less than 0.3% today.

Kashmiri Pandits are now literally forbidden and abandoned, causing the death of the great ancient saraswat-vedic civilization.