Kashmir – the History – the turmoil – the solution - Part II

This month is dedicated to India; 

                    THE FREEMEN

Dear Brethren,  

In Part-I of Article on Kashmir I had given History of Kashmir from the end of Company Rule in 1846 to present time till 1985. This part contains reasons for present violence;

Kashmir – the History  – the turmoil – the solution Part - II

Lies being taught;

Kashmiri Muslims have been persecuted for years under Hindu Kings and Indian domination. They have been fighting lone battle for their independence from oppressive Indian rule.

Secret History or the reasons for present violence;

There had been no violence or terrorism in Kashmir up till the year 1985. However the status quo of peace changed when after March 1985, when US government adopted National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 166, to fight proxy war against Russia and to drive it out of Afghanistan by using mujahedeen/Taliban now called Al Qaeda. 

1985 Ronald Reagan with mujahedin/Taliban in White House. When they are with us they are called Mujahedin, when they are opposite us the same people are called Al-Qaeda.   Listen to this funny story, the Russians invaded Afghanistan because they didn't want this group called the Taliban to take over the government in Afghanistan. Then the Americans secretly supported the TALIBAN that opposed the Russian forces. And now US are fighting wars against the Taliban to prevent it from taking over the Government in Afghanistan.

Under instructions from Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, the CIA initiated programs for training Afghans in techniques such as guerrilla warfare, kidnappings, armed conflict, assassinations, car bombs, and cross-border raids (into the USSR). CIA poured in billions of US dollars, modern weapons including stinger missiles to prop up Taliban to fight its war against Russia. To take the war into Russia, CIA also trained Taliban to infiltrate and engage in subversive activities inside Russia.

In the picture Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Willian Webster, Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ; Clair George Deputy Director for Operations ; an ISI colonel; and Milt Bearden, senior CIA official, at a mujahedin training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987. (source RAWA).

"The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings ....The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..", (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

"Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the [Islamic] Jihad." (Pervez  Hoodbhoy, Peace Research, 1 May 2005)

Same books and literature were subsequently used by Pakistan to foment violence in India particularly in Kashmir. All Attacks in India like 26/11, Parliament attacks or Akshardham temple attack etc were induced by these hateful teachings initiated by US.

US and Britain used Pakistan for its proxy war against Russia and imported huge amount of modern weapons into Pakistan for transmission into Afghanistan. A large part of these weapons / modern armaments were diverted by Pakistan's ISI and Special Service Group (SSG) to promote insurgency in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hence while there was no violence in Kashmir till 1985, the status quo changed in 1986 when first shots were fired by Pakistani guerrillas who had taken to armaments against Hindus. In January 1986, massive riots occurred in Anantnag (Southern Kashmir), in which the minority community (Pandits) lost nearly 300 homes and two temples were burnt down.

When Russia was finally driven out of Afghanistan in 1989, large number of highly trained terrorists with huge cache of modern arms suddenly found themselves without a cause, without a job and without any money or aid from US. They knew nothing except how to infiltrate and kill. These men were solely trained in terrorism. Pakistan then sent these highly trained terrorists / mujahedin in Kashmir, where propagated that there was a similar freedom movement of Kashmiri’s Muslims against Indian (Hindu) “occupation and control”.

Since 1989, the level of persecution of Hindus increased manifold. The killings, rape and plunder of Kashmiri Hindus started in earnest with the death of a prominent social worker in Srinagar on September 14, 1989, now recognized as the "Martyrs? Day". Starting with prominent citizens in the valley, including political leaders and government officials, the killings became increasingly random and gruesome. On April 6, 1990, Mrs. Girja Tikoo, a housewife in Kupwara district of Kashmir, was gang raped by Islamic militants and then cut into pieces by a wood saw. The Financial Times of London in a story from Srinagar dated April 1, 1992, described the agony of a Hindu family in Srinagar that gave food and shelter to two armed Muslim terrorists who initially promised no harm, but raped the women folk and killed the family any way.

Over ten thousand Kashmiri Pandits, which represent a significant proportion of their population, were killed by Islamic militants in nearly a two year period. The militants had a clear motive to drive non-Muslim "infidels" out of the State to create the Nizam-e-Mustafa (Muslim paradise), and it was not unusual to see posters and announcements asking Pundits to leave the valley. Nearly all of the Kashmiri Pundits, who were lucky to escape from the terror, did so starting from January 1990. Today, practically the entire indigenous population of Kashmiri Pundits is displaced and living in wretched make-shift refugee camps in North India. The statistics do not do full justice to their misery. A total of 72,077 families, were driven out due to ethnic cleansing. 9309 homes have been burnt down, along with 1659 small business shops. A total of 93 temples, 27 Mosques and 2 Sikh Gurudwaras were destroyed in during the period 1986-1997. Today, nearly 50,000 families are living in refugee camps, with approximately 60% camped in Jammu region and the rest in Delhi region. The total number of Kashmiri Pundits refugees (216,820 in Jammu and 143,565 in New Delhi for a total of 360,385). No one seems to care about the fate of Kashmiri Pundits.

There are continuing attacks on villages harboring Pundits in the valley and many Pundits, along with Sikhs and Muslims, have lost their lives. A particularly gruesome massacre took place in Wandhama on the night of January 25, 1998, when the entire population of Kashmiri Hindus; men, women and children; was wiped out by Islamic terrorists. While not a single Muslim was harmed, the terrorists systematically locked Kashmiri Pundits in their homes that were subsequently torched. The choice given to these unfortunate victims was either to be burnt alive or to bail out and be cut down by AK-47s. In the mayhem 23 Pundits lost their lives. Such brutality continues up to this day and will not cease as long as terrorists roam freely in Kashmir.

It should be noted that in spite of brutality and humiliation that Pundits have suffered in the past two decades, NOT ONE case exists where a Kashmiri Pundit has resorted to any violence in return. Kashmiri Pundits have paid a heavy price for their nonviolent and tolerant behavior.

Ms. Mary McGrory, a columnist for the Washington Post explained it this way (August 27, 1992): "Across the globe in Kashmir, blameless people are suffering hellish persecution not for anything they did but for being who they are. The Kashmiri Pundits, a minority Hindu sect that has lived in Kashmir for 5,000 years, would like to go home. They have been driven off their ancestral land by terrorism of Islamic guerrillas who wish to annex Kashmir to the crescent of fundamentalist countries in the area. India, which will do anything to keep Kashmir in its possession, has refused to acknowledge the existence of the Pundits in refugee camps along the border, because they do not want to add a religious element to the problem."

Pakistan government more or less agreed with the assessment that Kashmiri Pundits were victims of ethnic cleansing. In response to the McGrory?s column, Mr. Malik Zahoor Ahmad, the Press Attache in the Embassy of Pakistan wrote to the Post editor on August 28, 1992, "I was surprised to read that the Kashmiri refugees mentioned are the notorious Kashmiri Pundits who had wielded disproportionately excessive powers in the Kashmir valley and have now been driven out by the hitherto oppressed Kashmiri people."

In many ways, problems with the Pundits and the whole issue of religious fundamentalism in India, was fostered by the Congress Party which spoke of "secularism", but really meant appeasement towards a particular religion. The reasons were entirely parochial. The polling research showed that minorities tended to vote as a block, and as the Congress Party degenerated into a dynasty rule where corruption became rampant, the Party discovered a new way to keep itself in power. Obviously, in a multi-ethnic and a multi-religious country, such a move was bound to lead to some reaction, and it did. India has done poorly in debating nationalism in public. And the vote bank politics, invented by the Congress Party and used even more voraciously by successor governments, has done more harm to Indian polity than any other single development in the history of this budding nation.

http://www.kashmirforum.org/violence-against-kashmiri-hindus.htm

Next The Solution ;

To be continued ………

Kaps