Tag indian politics

Genocide in Kashmir: Forgotten and buried – Vivek Gumaste

VOI

Kashmiri Pandit exodus from Kashmir (representative image)

The ethnic cleansing of Pandits from Kashmir is the greatest moral lapse of independent India, unmatched in its magnitude, specificity, or completeness when compared to other such similar social upheavals—over a quarter million Indian citizens wronged. – Vivek Gumaste

The passage of time has the uncanny ability to blur our memory, numb our conscience, and mellow the intensity of our reactions, so much so that even the most horrendous of crimes become gradually cemented into history, fade into the background, and come to be accepted as a part of normalcy; accountability is evaded and life moves on. One such horrific event is the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the Valley of Kashmir that began in the late 1980s (more than 35 years ago) and continues to this day. During this genocide, over a quarter million Hindu Indian citizens were driven from their homes to become refugees in their own land, over 1000 were killed, and close to 16000 of their homes were burnt to cinder. More than 500 Hindu temples were desecrated or destroyed. This is unequivocally the greatest moral lapse of independent India, unmatched in its magnitude, specificity, or completeness when compared to other such similar social upheavals—over a quarter million Indian citizens wronged.

The purpose of recalling the horrific, blood-curdling events of those dark days is to reawaken the indifferent conscience of a country that has basically decided to callously brush aside the pain and agony of over a quarter million of its citizens and move on with its life. It is also possible that this indifference stems from ignorance. Today, over 40 per cent of Indians are below 30 years of age, and this pertains to events that happened before they were born. Therefore, it becomes vitally important to make them aware of this gruesome episode of their country’s recent past.

For a democratic, secular nation to be viable, it must demonstrate its ability to uphold the lofty principles it espouses. There is still time to rectify this wrong and salvage the credibility of a nation and prove (not to others) but to ourselves that we truly believe in the ideals of secularism. Hence this reminder.

Definition

The events that transpired in Kashmir were so comprehensive in their cruelty—killings, burning of homes, expulsion, and destruction of sacred sites—that we did not have a single term to describe this phenomenon of evil, then. Only in the mid-nineties, when journalists began to use the word “ethnic cleansing” to describe the forced migration of Bosnian Muslims from Serb territories of the former Yugoslavia, did we realise what had happened in Kashmir and were able to give it a name.

A United Nations Commission, with reference to the happenings in the former Yugoslavia, defined ethnic cleansing as “… rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area.”

As per the United Nations, genocide is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits fits the bill of both ethnic cleansing and genocide. This was also endorsed by the NHRC, headed by the former Chief Justice of India, M.N. Venkatachaliah, which concluded in 1995 that the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits was “akin to genocide”.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide, with reference to Kashmir, are not flippant terms concocted by Hindu fanatics but officially vetted descriptions. By appropriately labelling a crime, we not only define its scope for public and international understanding but also induct a sense of urgency to seek its redress.

Kashmir History

What makes this ethnic cleansing even more egregious is that the Kashmiri Pandits are the original inhabitants of Kashmir and the carriers of a culture and tradition that goes back 5000 years, making them and the land an inalienable part of our Vedic civilisation. The oft-repeated phrase—Kashmir is an integral part of India—is not merely a political slogan to counter Pakistan’s claims but a historical reality.

As per the Nilmata Purana, one of our ancient scriptures, the word “Kashmir” is widely believed to be derived from the Vedic sage Kashyap, who is credited with making Kashmir habitable. Kashmir also finds mention in Panini’s Ashtadhyayi, written around the 5th century BC. Other Hindu scriptures like the Puranas (Vishnu, Vayu, Matsya), which modern methodology dates to around 3 to 10th century CE (in their written form—oral versions existed much before), also refer to Kashmir.

Over the centuries, Kashmir established itself as a great centre of Hindu and Buddhist learning. Sharada Peeth, a temple university now in ruins and located 10 kms from the LOC in Pakistan, flourished between 6-12th century CE. Learned and scholarly, Kashmiri Pandits have produced a galaxy of intellectuals like Abhinavagupta, the noted philosopher and poet, and Utpaladeva (10th CE) and others who expounded the theology of Kashmir Saivism. The holy shrines of Vaishno Devi and Amarnath, located in Kashmir, which thousands of Hindus from all over India visit every year despite terrorist threats and the vagaries of the weather, is another example of the importance of Kashmir to our civilisation.

Historically and spiritually, Kashmir is inextricably intertwined with the rest of India and our civilisation; it is the northernmost outpost as exemplified in the 8th century by the extent of Shankaracharya’s religious outreach. Today, Shankaracharya Hill, a majestic mound overlooking the capital Srinagar, marks the site of Shankaracharya’s stay in Kashmir, testifying to this reality.

The purpose of reiterating these historical facts is to demonstrate that Kashmir is ancient Hindu land from which Hindu Kashmiri Pandits are being driven out, today.

Islam is a late entrant to Kashmir. Kashmir remained predominantly Hindu and Buddhist till the 14th Century, ably defended by Hindu rulers. In 1339, Shah Mir established the first Islamic dynasty of Kashmir and started the process of conversion using both fear and inducement. Sikander Shah (1389-1412), labelled “Butshikan” (iconoclast), the sixth ruler of the dynasty, was notorious for his anti-Hindu atrocities, destroying temples by the thousands and forcing people to convert. By the time he died in 1413, a mere 70 years after Shah Mir established his dynasty, nearly 60 per cent of the population had been converted to Islam, mostly by force. Over the next 600 years till present times, different Muslim kings tried to rid the Valley of its Hindu inhabitants or forcibly converted them to Islam. Times changed, people became more educated, but the intention never changed—Project Kafir, whose aim is to rid the Valley of infidels, remained on track.

After 1819, Kashmir became a part of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Sikh empire and eventually passed into the hands of the Dogra dynasty. While these periods provided some respite to the Hindus, the tolerant nature of both Sikh and Hindu rulers failed to reverse the new culture of intolerance that had been forced on the majority of Kashmiris who now accepted it as their destiny.

Since the reign of Sikander Shah, Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to flee the Valley because of religious harassment at least seven times, under different Muslim rulers. The current ethnic cleansing is the latest in this gory saga of ugly religious persecution.

Grievances

The political aura given to the “Kashmir Problem” in recent times is a sham. Machinations of New Delhi, the rigging of the 1987 elections, and the Pakistani Hand have all been invoked as explanations for the targeting of Pandits. But none of these explanations are logically sound or morally tenable. Secular grievances against a third party cannot justify the killings and expulsion of a helpless minority that is an intrinsic part of one’s community. If that were the benchmark, we would see a hundred reverse-Kashmirs in the rest of India. Even at the height of the Gujarat riots, we did not see the scale of migration that Kashmir has witnessed.

There is and remains only one explanation for this depravity: the Hindu identity of the Kashmiri Pandits. The reasons put forth are mere excuses to camouflage the ultimate hidden agenda—the Islamisation of Kashmir.

Even before matters came to a head in the late 80s and early nineties, what we see in Kashmir from the beginning of the 20th century is a sustained anti-Hindu animosity. Nearly every modern political leader of Kashmir has adopted this game plan.

Sheikh Abdullah (1905-1982), the grandfather of Omar Abdullah, was one of the tallest leaders of modern Kashmir, supposedly known for his broad secular outlook. But under the façade of secularism, he practised a rank communalism that discriminated against Hindus and Kashmiri Pandits. In 1931, he was at the forefront of a popular rising against Dogra rule. On July 13 (observed as Martyr’s Day by Muslim Kashmiris on either side of LOC), the Maharaja’s forces fired on an unruly mob, killing 22 Muslims. The Muslims in turn directed their ire on the Kashmir Pandits, killing several of them, looting their shops, desecrating temples, and raping their women. These riots, called the Maharajganj riots, were the beginning of the latest campaign to evict the Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley.

Following independence, when Dogra rule ended and governance fell into the hands of the National Conference, persecution of Kashmiri Pandits became even more blatant. Land reforms were introduced that effectively stole the livelihood of Kashmiri Pandits, many of whom actually belonged to the low-income group. To justify these reforms, Kashmiri Pandits were cast as rich feudal landlords, a myth that the left-liberal lobby and their lapdogs in Western academia latched on to. The reality was quite different—lucrative sericulture, horticulture, and floriculture land meant for farming of fruits, flowers, and silk was under control of the Muslim majority. Even compensation for the land acquired was delayed, and Pandits were discriminated against in jobs, forcing many Kashmiri Pandits to move away from the Valley.

Ghulam Mohammed Shah, who was the CM from 1984 to 1986, openly followed a policy of communalism. In 1986, he authorised the construction of a mosque in Jammu Secretariat where an old Hindu temple stood. And later that year, when Rajiv Gandhi opened the doors of the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid to Hindus for prayer, he incited Muslims to riot by declaring, “Islam khatre mein hai ” (Islam is in danger). Kashmiri Pandits again bore the brunt of Muslim anger. A mini-pogrom engulfed Kashmir in which Anantnag was the epicentre—hence called the Anantnag riots. An investigation revealed that it was the so-called secular parties that engineered the violence. In Kashmir, there is a thin line between secular and non-secular parties with regard to their core ideology—persecution of Hindus.

In 1986, Ghulam Shah was dismissed and President’s rule was imposed. The 1987 elections that were allegedly rigged, reinstalled Farooq Abdullah as the chief minister. Law and order collapsed during this period, allowing Muslim separatists and Pakistan a free run. Added to this, a weak V.P. Singh government that was both clueless and directionless took power at the centre.

Time was ripe for the final phase of ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and the Islamisation of the Valley that started 600 years ago, to be executed. – News18, 24 January 2026

› Vivek Gumaste is an academic and political commentator based in the US. This is the first part of a two part article.

Kashmiri Pandits demonstrate in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020.

Let’s honour the India that is Bharat and the Hinduism that is Sanatana Dharma – David Frawley

VOI

Bharat Mata

India that is Bharat, which occurs in the beginning of India’s Constitution, highlights the need for a civilisational revival that was an integral part of India’s independence movement, not just creating another modern nation-state. – Dr. David Frawley

India cannot be understood without an equation with its traditional name of Bharat. India is a much older civilisation than Europe and has maintained its continuity uniquely over the millennia. The term Bharat brings that ancient history to mind and its cultural identity as Bharatiya Samskriti, a vast dharmic civilisation with its own unique voice and global influence.

India that is Bharat, which occurs in the beginning of India’s Constitution, highlights the need for a civilisational revival that was an integral part of India’s independence movement, not just creating another modern nation-state.

Similarly, Hinduism cannot be understood without its equation with Sanatana Dharma, meaning the universal, eternal and perpetual Dharma. Sanatana Dharma shows the need to understand the dharmic traditions of Bharat in their own right and according to their own terminology: a profound spiritual, religious, philosophical, scientific, artistic and cultural tradition, with numerous great rishis, yogis and gurus, deity forms and temples, all reflecting a pursuit of higher consciousness and Self-realisation. We should equate Hinduism, Hindu Dharma and Sanatana Dharma, not simply by name but by meaning and implications.

It is great to see India’s politicians today using the term Bharat, or India/Bharat for their identification at diplomatic programs. It is an essential part of decolonization and calls for a reexamination of the global identity of India and what it represents as a civilisation. Similarly, it is important to identify Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma.

Sanatana Dharma refers to the term dharma in a generic way, embracing dharma in all its names, actions, vision and wisdom. Hindu Dharma is known for its many sects and sampradayas, whether Shaivite, Vaishnava, Shakta, Ganapata and Saura such as Adi Shankara recognised long ago, and as Vedic, Itihasa/Purana and Tantra with many modern movements as well. These diverse Hindu teachings are all expressions of a unitary Sanatana Dharma.

Vedic sciences like Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedanta, Jyotish and Vastu that are spreading worldwide reflect the Sanatana Dharma vision of universal consciousness at the foundation of Hinduism. Hindu art and culture with its music, dance, festivals and customs express the vibrant Sanatana way of life, embodied in its magnificent temples, their mystical designs and ornate sculptures.

Bharat and Sanatana Dharma

We must also note that Bharat cannot be understood without its inherent connection with Sanatana Dharma, as Bharat always viewed itself as a dharmic civilisation. Yet this does not mean that by using the terms Bharat and Sanatana Dharma, one will be creating a limited religious state. It will be acknowledging India’s dharmic civilisation and its experiential search for universal truth and consciousness, as in Yoga and Vedanta.

Let us, therefore, remember Bharat as the inner reality behind what is called India, and Sanatana Dharma as the essence of what people refer to as Hinduism. Sanatana Dharma highlights Hindu Dharma as embracing all humanity and all living beings, rooted in the Earth and nature, not any dogma. It has the vision of the world as one family, and the universe, both animate and inanimate as part of one’s own Self, with the Divine not apart from us.

I am not saying we should give up the terms Hinduism or Hindu Dharma but recognise Sanatana Dharma as its foundation. Even the word India we cannot give up, given its global usage, but can equate it with its Bharatiya essence for greater clarity and understanding.

Sanatana Dharma and national elections

Sadly, we still see an equation of Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma in a negative light at a political level with new assertions of the same old prejudices. This is most glaring in anti-Hindu anti-Sanatana Dharma state governments like the Communists in Kerala and DMK in Tamil Nadu who are trying to discredit and eradicate it for their own personal advantage. Meanwhile, India’s Congress party today, their ally, remains silent in the face of these virulent attacks, though it still claims to be Hindu when convenient, but lacks any conviction to express or defend Sanatana Dharma from such denigration.

We must remember that Sanatana Dharma is the ancient basis of Kerala and Tamil cultures, honouring Vedic knowledge and sustaining numerous monumental Hindu temples. Sanatana Dharma was the original basis of India’s Independence movement inspired by the Bhagavad Gita, and there can be no real Congress party apart from it.

Such political parties that oppose this dharmic heritage should be rejected in [any] national election. If they have no place for Bharat or Sanatana Dharma in what they respect or represent, what country, culture or civilisation can they claim to uphold or be part of?

Let us honour the India that is Bharat and the Hinduism that is Sanatana Dharma and we will understand the greatness of both. – News18, 9 Decemeber 2023

› Dr. David Frawley is the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies and the author of more than 30 books on Yoga and Vedic traditions. 

Map of India

Hindutva and other peoples’ nationalism – Koenraad Elst

VOI

Hindu & India Flags

Along with falling from cultural Hindu nationalism to empty secular-territorial nationalism, the BJP has also fallen from solidarity with other oppressed and colonised nations to a short-sighted ethnocentrism. – Dr. Koenraad Elst

The BJP’s subordination of any and every ideological or religious conflict to questions of “national unity and integrity”, this most mindless form of territorial nationalism, is also a worrying retreat from the historical Hindu conception of Indian nationhood and its implications for the evaluation of foreign problems of national unity. Along with Mahatma Gandhi and other Freedom Fighters, the BJS used to be convinced that India was a self-conscious civilisational unit since several thousands of years, strengthened in its realisation of unity by the Sanskrit language, the Brahmin caste, the pilgrimage cycles which brought pilgrims from every part of India all around the country (“country” rather than the “Subcontinent” or “South Asia”, terms which intrinsically question this unity), and other socio-cultural factors of national integration. The notions that India was an artificial creation of the British and a “nation in the making”, were floated by the British themselves and by Jawaharlal Nehru, respectively, and both are obvious cases of unfounded self-flattery. Gandhi’s and the BJS’s viewpoint that India is an ancient nation conscious of its own unity is historically more accurate.

In foreign policy, one can expect two opposite attitudes to follow from these two conceptions of India, the Gandhian one which derives India’s political unity from a pre-existent cultural unity, and the Nehruvian one which denies this cultural unity and sees political unity as a baseless coincidence, an artificial creation of external historical forces. In its own self-interest, an artificially created state devoid of underlying legitimacy tends to support any and every other state, regardless of whether that state is the political embodiment of a popular will or a cultural coherence. The reason is that any successful separatism at the expense of a fellow artificial state is a threat to the state’s own legitimacy. That is, for instance, why the founding member states of the Organisation of African Unity decided from the outset that the ethnically absurd colonial borders were not to be altered. It is also why countries like Great Britain and France, whose own legitimacy within their present borders is questioned by their Irish, Corsican and other minorities, were reluctant to give diplomatic recognition to Lithuania when it broke away from the Soviet Union.

By contrast, those who believe that states are merely political instruments in the service of existing ethnic or cultural units, accept that state structures and borders are not sacrosanct in themselves and that they may consequently be altered. That is why Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn proposed to allow the non-Slavic republics to leave the Soviet Union, and why as a sterling Russian patriot he pleaded in favour of Chechen independence from the Russian Federation: it is no use trying to keep Turks and Slavs, or Chechens and Russians, under one roof against their will. If Russia is meant to be the political expression of the collective will of the Russian people, it is only harmful to include other nations by force, as the Chechens and Turkic peoples once were.

To be sure, even partisans of this concept of “meaningful” (as opposed to arbitrary) states will concede that there may be limitations to this project of adjusting state structures and state borders to existing ethnic and cultural realities, especially where coherent communities have been ripped apart and relocated, as has happened in Russia. Also, cultural and ethnic identities are not static givens (e.g. the “Muslim” character of India’s principal minority), so we should not oversimplify the question to an idyllic picture of a permanent division of the world in states allotted to God-given national entities. But at least the general principle can be accepted: states should as much as possible be the embodiment of coherent cultural units. That, at any rate, is the Hindu-nationalist understanding of the Indian state: as the political embodiment of Hindu civilisation.

Now, what is the position of the BJS/BJP regarding the right of a state to self-preservation as against the aspirations of ethnic-cultural communities or nations? The BJS originally had no problem supporting separatism in certain specific cases, esp. the liberation of East Turkestan (Sinkiang/Xinjiang), Inner Mongolia and Tibet from Chinese rule. At the time, the BJS still adhered to the Gandhian position: India should be one independent state because it is one culturally, and so should Tibet for the same reason. Meanwhile, however, this plank in its platform has been quietly withdrawn.

As A.B. Vajpayee told the Chinese when he was Janata Party Foreign Minister, and as Brijesh Mishra, head of the BJP’s Foreign Policy Cell, reconfirmed to me (February 1996): India, including the BJP, considers Tibet and other ethnic territories in the People’s Republic as inalienable parts of China.[1] The BJP has decisively shifted towards the Nehruvian position: every state, by virtue of its very existence, must be defended against separatist tendencies, no matter how well-founded the latter may be in cultural, ethnic or historical respects. That is, for example, why the BJP is not supporting Kurdish sovereignty against Iraqi and Turkish imperialism.[2] Along with falling from cultural Hindu nationalism to empty secular-territorial nationalism, the BJP has also fallen from solidarity with other oppressed and colonised nations to a short-sighted ethnocentrism.

When you ask why the BJP has abandoned its support for the Tibetan freedom movement, the standard reply is that this would justify other separatisms, including those in Kashmir and Punjab. Exactly the same position is taken by non-BJP politicians and diplomats. But from a Hindu and from an Indian nationalist viewpoint, this position does injustice to India’s claim on Kashmir and Punjab, which should not be put on a par with all other anti-separatism positions in the world. Firstly, while Tibet was never a part of China, and while Chechnya was only recently (19th century) forcibly annexed to Russia, Kashmir and Punjab have been part of the heartland of Hindu culture since at least 5,000 years. Secondly, in contrast with the annexations of Chechnya and Tibet, the accession of Punjab (including the nominally independent princedoms in it) and the whole of the former princedom of Jammu & Kashmir to the Republic of India were entirely legal, following procedures duly agreed upon by the parties concerned.

Therefore, Indian nationalists are harming their own case by equating Kashmiri separatism with independentism in Tibet, which did not accede to China of its own free will and following due procedure, and which was not historically a part of China. To equate Kashmir with Tibet or Chechnya is to deny the profound historical and cultural Indianness of Kashmir, and to undermine India’s case against Kashmiri separatism. Here again, we see the harmful effect of the BJP’s intellectual sloppiness.

To be fair, we should mention that the party considers its own compromising position on Tibet as very clever and statesmanlike: now that it is preparing itself for Government, it is now already removing any obstacles in the way of its acceptance by China and the USA (who would both be irritated with the “destabilising” impact of a Government in Delhi which is serious about challenging Beijing’s annexation of Tibet). In reality, a clever statesman would reason the other way around: possibly there is no realistic scope for support to Tibetan independence, but then that can be conceded at the negotiation table, in exchange for real Chinese concessions, quid pro quo.[3] If you swallow your own hard positions beforehand, you will have nothing left to bargain with when you want to extract concessions on the other party’s hard positions, i.e., China’s territorial claims on Ladakh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and its support to Burmese claims on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. International diplomacy should teach the BJP what it refuses to learn from its Indian experiences, viz. that being eager to please your enemies doesn’t pay. – Pragyata, 13 May 2020 (excerpt taken from BJP vis-a-vis Hindu Resurgence by  Koenraad Elst and published by Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi).

› Belgian scholar Dr Koenraad Elst is an author, linguist, and historian who visits India often to study and lecture. 

References

  1. If earlier BJP manifestos still mentioned Sino-Indian cooperation “with due safeguards for Tibet”, meaningless enough, the 1996 manifesto does not even mention Tibet. Nor does it unambiguously reclaim the China-occupied Indian territories; it vaguely settles for “resolv[ing] the border question in a fair and equitable manner”.(p.32)
  2. In October 1996, a handful of BJP men bravely demonstrated before the American Embassy against the American retaliation to the Iraqi troops’ entry in the Kurdish zone from which it was barred by the UNO. There was every reason to demonstrate: while punishing Iraq, the Americans allow Turkish aggression against Iraqi Kurdistan, the so-called “protected” zone, and fail to support Kurdish independence in deference to Turkey’s objections. But that was not the target of the BJP protest, which merely opposed any and every threat against the “unity and integrity” of Iraq, a totally artificial state with artificial and unjustifiable borders (as Saddam Hussain himself argued during the Gulf War, pointing to the artificial British-imposed border between the Mesopotamian population centre and the Kuwaiti oil fields).
  3. This is not to suggest that demanding freedom for Tibet should only be done to have a bargaining chip, merely to illustrate the principle that concessions, even if unavoidable under the circumstances, should still be made known as such, i.e. in exchange for concessions from the other party, and not made beforehand in exchange for nothing. But Beijing politics may develop in such a way that Tibetan sovereignty becomes a realistic proposition again.

Tibetan Independence