Kashmiri Pandits are a Rare Specie

Kashmiri Pandits are a Rare Specie

                                                                                                                                        Lalit K Kaul

Persecution of Kashmiris that started nearly 12 centuries ago ended up with a society having a mix of Hindus and Muslims; the latter emerging as a predominant majority. Other religious groups had a miniscule presence in Kashmir Valley.

The one’s among the Kashmiris who resisted conversions survived only by either fleeing to 1) other regions of the sub continent by crossing mountain passes on foot or 2) the dense forests of Kashmir. That section which offered mighty resistance to the onslaught came to be classified as Kashmiri Pandits from being Kashmiris since thousands of years. 

 The perpetuated barbarism of the Muslim rulers (of foreign origin) in forcing conversions upon the “non-believers” came to halt when Guru Teg Bahadur ji set an inimitable example of supreme sacrifice. Pandit Nehru in his book ‘Discovery of India’ records that there was a time in the history of Kashmir when only 11 Kashmiri Pandit families had remained and survived because they found their new habitat in the dense forests.

The spirit of converting others to Islam is very dominating in them as is evident from the comparatively recent historical fact that one of the demands of the then Muslim Conference (founded by Sheikh Abdullah) against the Maharaja rule was to allow conversions by removing the ban imposed on it. Those were the native Muslims and not of the gene of barbaric conquerors.

The conquest by British that saw end of Muslim rule in the Indian sub continent, perhaps, came as the biggest reprieve to the Kashmiri Pandits who no longer had to live under perpetual fear of forced conversions only to be followed by mass killings, on their refusal to convert; as the threat of forced conversions remained in all the territories ruled by Muslim invaders.

Post Independence Persecution:  

The Moguls, the Afghans, the Turks, etcetera were all outsiders who did whatever they chose to do with the natives of non Muslim faiths; as did the British with the natives of Indian sub continent in their secular exploitation of both the Natural and human resources to fill up the coffers of their parent country.

For the Pandits, the existential crisis assumed enormous proportions when the native Muslims started persecuting the native Pandits. During British times and beginning the rule of Maharaja Gulab Singh, the Pandits did migrate on their own sweet will for better options in life, but post independence when political power went into the hands of native Muslims, the Pandits were forced to migrate to other places in free India.

a.       First major forced migration: 

 When the then Prime Minister of erstwhile J&K state, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, implemented the ‘land to the tiller’ programme without offering any compensation to the then owners of the land, it engineered a large scale out migration of the Pandits from Kashmir. No compensation scheme was tantamount to snatching lands like an act of dacoits and there could not have been more absurd display of the communal mind set of the rulers who denied Pandits their right to live and livelihood.

 However, thereafter the migration of Pandits on continual basis continued under all dispensations in the erstwhile state of J&K because of denial of educational and job opportunities to them, even while they remained in the top of the merit list.

 b.      The Forced Exodus:

While land grab without compensation was a step to show non Muslims their place in the Kashmiri society, it turned out to be a civilized way of implementing anti social programmes in comparison to the events in the year 1990 when the near entire Pandit community was forced into exile by raising religious frenzy against them combined with barbaric acts against their men, women and children. The details of this singular act of ethnic genocide are well documented in research papers and history books and details are beyond the scope of this article.

The 1990 event scattered the entire community and they and their generation next were rendered rootless, while the world watched in silence and the Indian leadership put a stamp of approval on the exodus through its Ministry of Home that was headed by Mufti Mohammed Syed- the symbol of Kashmiriat as allotted to him by the National leadership of the BJP!

Why Rare Specie?

The reasons:

1.       The Pandits have survived all the onslaughts and have continued to live in whatever places they chose to or wherever they found themselves to be while fleeing from the torment of Muslim Kings and the onslaught of 1990 to save their heritage, culture and religion. Yes, over the centuries they may have adopted, or got acclimatized to, the local ways, but more importantly the Pandit culture and religion survived.

2.       Wherever they settled in their new and alien environments, they only contributed positively to the needs of their adopted society. One can find many Pandit family names across the country (outside J&K) who served the Indian society while being top judges, bureaucrats, ambassadors, scientists, etcetera.

3.       The Pandits don’t do chest/breast beating; yes they do narrate their tales of woe, but don’t live in history and have this tremendous zeal to move on in life.

4.       True Nationalists despite indifference shown to them by all the political parties in India. They are a living example of the IDEAL that nationalism is not based on give & take because it is rooted in the soil of the land; while they have also shown the capability to move to the places beyond Indian shores and contribute in those societies.

5.       Path Finders:

a.       Imbibed with very strong resilience to fight for life against all odds, due to continued persecutions, the Pandits seem to have developed this innate confidence to individually find solutions for their problems. This sense of self assuredness may be the reason why the Pandit community has never truly sanctioned the idea of having a centralized leadership.

b.      Instinct to renounce the past (and all that associated with it) only to construct the future brick by brick.

c.       Great Spirit of Nationalism apart, they also exhibit traits of being Nomads ever ready to find new destinations while finding themselves tormented socially, economically and politically in the place of their heritage.

6.       The community is blessed with this trait of remarkably and spontaneously invoking the spirit of renunciation in the event of a huge calamity – man made or natural. When asked about loss of their wealth and property in 1990 their spontaneous response was: “perhaps it didn’t belong to us so it did not stay with us”. “It will come back to us if it is to “. This attitude may have been the mantra for the survival of the Pandit community against all odds; an innate spiritual energy to renounce from the very mind that which was bygone and to live and treat life as a continuum of events both good and bad.  

The Pandits have been like a blade of grass which can take any storm or hurricane and survive while the mightiest structures might have collapsed. A poet has said:

“ गुल से लिपटी हुई तितली को गिराकर देखो            گل سے لپٹی ہوئی تتلی کو گراکر دیکھو

हवाओ  तुमने कहीं दरख्तों को गिराया होगा “ ھواؤ تمنے کہیں درختوں کو گرایا ہوگا           

That’s the kind of passion (गुल से लिपटी हुई तितली) a Pandit has for life and the urge to live – no matter what – transcending all ifs and buts of materialism and yet creating that small world of his/her that does not renounce it.