Thursday, May 21, 2009

Let us make Peace

Last eveing I received an SMS from a very close friend. This is how it read "We are born in Kashmir and we stayed there till 15 to 16 years of ur age-How can I believe in PK concept.Now we should work towards harmony between KM's and KP's...there is only one Kashmir".

I was so disturbed by this sudden outburst that despite my not wanting to engage in a discussion I called my friend. I asked him if it was a forward or was it his idea and emphatically he said, It is my idea and promised me to call me back in 20 mins. I waited all night for the call that never came. Maybe he forgot about it but this pronouncement made me re-visit that time of my life when Pandits were under a siege, when our speaking would have meant death or worse, when watching Ramayan was considered "anti-movement", when notices were pasted for us to leave, when mosques called for our annihilation, when our women were meant to be in Islamic Harems, when we were (to use Jagmohan’s phrase) frightened pigeons in a nest with a big cat wanting to gulp us.


I have neither been a votary nor a detractor of the idea or concept of Panun Kashmir but truth be told I have always found it as a perfect counterweight to the secessionists policy of Azad Kashmir. It has been till date the only political concept that Kashmiri Pandits have. In storms we cling to the last shreds of grass that root themselves and in a storm are we. Kashmiri Muslims have this abomination towards the concept and that’s what makes it worth its weight in Gold. Whether it is a utopia or an el-dorado is not to be debated in a time when dreams are all that we have. It may have hundreds of short comings. The leaders may have betrayed themselves and us by falling apart but the idea lives beyond people. Even when there is none of the A’s the idea will live because the age of the idea is far greater than the age of a mortal. There is no Einstein today but the theory of relatively is even more powerful and pronounced today than Einstein himself.


Over the past few weeks the voices of the harmony wallahs have become shriller and louder. There are statements like”If we have to live in Kashmir we need the goodwill of the majority community”. Taken Sir! But will someone please tell these Johnies that it was their goodwill that forced us to flee, will someone please emaciate the cupid about the goodwill that made them defecate on our deities and write graffiti’s like “Gulzar Bhagwan ki Jai Ho” in Batyar Mandir, will someone please tell them they had a house with a fountain near Rambagh that they no longer own because someone’s goodwill forced them to abandon and later sell it, will someone please tell them that onus of goodwill is the one of the majority. It isn’t the prerogative 0r either the power of the meek (read it weak or minority if you may like) to make peace. Have you ever heard a rat going to a lion and saying let us make peace? May be I am an idiot but I haven’t. Wouldn’t it be laughable if not out rightly preposterous to even believe that we can make peace with a people who have Islamicized themselves so much over the last two decades that they call us people who worship snakes and stones (Please read my dear Kashmiriyat wallahs-the columns in Greater Kashmir and these aren’t written by ignorant and illiterate but the informed and educated but unfortunately grossly Islamicized majority).



India is a secular nation not because the Muslims want it that way but because the majority of us are Hindus and we want it that way. Now can the Harmony Harbingers please name three Muslim Majority nations which are secular?



I am no one to stop anyone from engaging in Nalmot(embrace)with whomsoever they wish to but I will fail I don’t bark.



Sirs, for your information and benefit let me explain to you the Polity of Kashmir today. It starts from right(Islamic right I mean) and keeps going to a point where it reaches obscurantist ideology of Al-Qaeda and the likes.Does your wife wear Jeans? Oh that isn’t Islamic.Do you wash your left leg first while you bathe? That isn’t Islamic either.Privately they may admit that all this is a heap of shit but the hypocrisy of the society has reached a level where collective righteousness has become a virtue with the new Islamic Kashmir.



The space for a rational and reasoned debate has shrunk so much that whatever has to be accomplished has to be under the purview of Fiqh(Islamic Jurisprudence).



Undoubtedly there is no one Kashmir Sirs, if you wish to know there is one on the other side too, the one they(KM’s) want to merge with. Why don’t you start a process of talking to them as well? Sardar Qayoom Khan is a free man these days. He will be glad to accept your invitation. May be it gives you a chance to go to Sharda, a chance none of us got for obvious reasons of goodwill and harmony?



There was one Kashmir till 1334,till the day the Islamic zealots hadn’t breached our borders, hadn’t touched the pious soil of our motherland, hadn’t burnt our libararies, hadn’t dug out the Martand sun temple, hadn’t reduced to ruins Parihaspora, hadn’t built a Khanqah on the Kali temple.



There my dear friend is no one Kashmir now. Sad as it may be…



Take a plunge. Try feeding milk to the snakes…I wish you luck…In your success I shall be happy to retain my burnt house in Kanipora.


(The above article is written by Rashneek Kher.The views expressed are his own.He can be reached at rashneek@gmail.com)

7 comments:

shehjar said...

Very well written. Felt like I am hearing my own views. It is said that time heals all wounds. I am sure time will heal our wounds too, but can it remove the scars?

I cant comprehend how we can even think about such reconciliation!

- Rahul Razdan

Amit Deshpande said...

Truly said, Kashyapur or its 'Turkish variant' Kashmir once a centre of excellence and knowledge has never been the same after the 'BARBARians' stepped upon its soil.

If KM's claim to be majority let them accept the displaced minority too which not only involves the KP's but also 'other' displaced minorities like the Marwaris who over the age had to migrate to 'drier' pastures as they earned the peaceloving religion's 'goodwill'.

Anil said...

For What do every reasons ... things cant change because they are tamed by few... Well written !!

Anonymous said...

Dear Friends,

I have written and spoken to Dr. Vijay Sazawal about several issues. There needs to be a concerted media campaign, such as the one perennially waged against HINDUISM with extreme effectiveness by the English language press & the so-called left liberals in India Outlook, Frontline, The Hindu in the person of N. Ram, Arundhati, Nandita Das, Saba Naqvi Bhaumik etc].

The crimes of murder, aron etc. against KPs by Mehbooba Mufti et al. need to be documented and repeatedly held up whenever Modi & Gujarat come up. Temple desecration also needs to be DOCUMENTED whenever Babri comes up. There has to be an ORGANIZED campaign such as that seen for Afzal Guru. KPs need constantly to write to Pakistani papers Dawn, News, Nation, Daily Times, making sure they publish these pieces.

Why are the highly educated KPs not making a fuss about the IDP issue on the international media or with pro-Hindu elements internationally? I suggested organizing a seminar at Cornell, and a series of seminars at other US universities to get the KP view across, but there seems to be no energy such as that the Israelis demonstrate when their society is under attack. Why is this? Muslims gather together + manage to find liberals to jump to their support. they do this by expending energy and becoming organized. If Hindus & KPs cannot or will not, who can be blamed? In a community of true geniuses, there has been no one who is bothering to step forward and articulate their issues in the same telegenic manner as the snake Omar Abdullah. Whose fault is that?

Anonymous said...

The writer is recovering from Stockholm syndrome. It is a good sign.

How do we know said...

i fully agree.. there can be no peace in Kashmir bcs the majority does not want peace there. i have always maintained that the religions origniating in the middle east are intolerant in their very DNA. Its not a function of the followers - its a function of the tenets of the religion itself.

Anonymous said...

There is a solution simple in concept but that does not mean painless. Only 4 million Sunnis in the Valley and 60% of Poonch, Doda etc. in Jammu are irreconcilable. They should be removed from India in some manner. Indira Gandhi shouldhave done in exchange for the 93,000POWs & 5000 square miles that she returned under international presure without getting anything back. We take in Pakistani Hindus & Ahmadis,whom they do NOT want, they take the 4 million aout whhome they profess great love. Otherwise,they need to understand that the dimunitionof the Pakistani state leads to the iimunition of the Army, eventually. So either solve the Kasmir issue by population transfer, or watch Pakistan bleed & die.

How to force the Indian government? Here, the KP community is completely unwilling to interact with the general Hindu society an understand the terrible rage building up agaisnt the Congress and liberal seculars, the dogs of the Congress.

The KPs got thrown some relief money and the richer KPs are the most selfish & wicked people I have met. Little wonder that Bhagavan Shambhu has brought down so many horrors to open their eyes, without any effect. These garbage people are not even interested in preserving the Shaiva texts, let alone doing any sadhana.

I am a kaula from Bengal and am intimately familiar with Kashmir traditions, including Buddhist. Someone wrote above about Kashyapur, that in itself demonstrates fatal ignorance masquerading as confident knowledge.

Try to inform yourself about the meaning of KASHMIR & KASHMIRAA, when we use both in their conventional and esoteric senses. IT ALWAYS WAS KASHMIR. STUDY YOUR BLOODY ETYMOLOGY,there is a clue right there.

Returning to the complete unwillingness of the KPs to engage the Hindu mainstream, they frfeit harnessing this terrible anger to their benefit anger to their cause.

I spoke at length with Dr. Sazawal, and he seemed most despondent. Where are the Hindus or KPs, who are rich & influential enough, stepping forward? They have the ear of the GOI at the highest level but they are ineffectual or uninterested in pushing their cause.

What is the use of holding fancy weddings & eating richly when the insides are rotten? For decades I have begged that ALL ASMIR SANSKRIT TEXTS be digitized, edited, placed on the web in searchable PDF form with roman, nagari,tamil etc. scripts with word by word translation, sentence by sentence, + word concordance + all critically edited. All the Vaishnav, Shakta, Shaiva texts, all Literature etc.

It would have employed hundreds of KP youth & elders, preserved & spread culture. Zero INTEREST from KP community to lobby GOI. Hypocrites.

Until you people begin to be sincere nothing will change. Who is doing sastra work? John Hughes and SUNY group is publishing Kashmir works widely, Mark D is doing tremendous quantity of digitizing.

You people cannot even put together a well-written history of Kashmir from your POV, well-researched from PRIMARY texts, quotes, citations etc. SHOW ME one that will hold up in an international forum. Not PN Kaul Bamzai that crypto-Muslim & Hindu-hater! That is your KP voice!

The LET/HUJI is putting itself on the line every day for ITS vision of Kashmir, good or bad.

Sacrifice matters on the material plane.Vira bhogyA VasundharA.

Ilyas Kashmiri is out there giving his enemies a black eye. To whom will Mother Earth award victory, you guys or his guys?

DON'T TALK, DO. Marxists DO, Muslims DO, Americans DO, Israelis DO. Hindus BULLSHIT and call shit divine blessing!