history-of-kashmir

"Kashmir may rightfully boast of a long tradition of producing histories and historical works of considerable value. No fewer than a dozen histories are referred to by Kalhana which, besides other materials, served him as sources for his celebrated chronicle Rajatarangini written in Laukika 4225 corresponding to A.D. 1149/50. Kalhana's impact on the historians and chroniclers who followed him is evident in at least the works of four of them who endeavoured to carry on the tradition of recording the events of the rulers of their time: Jonaraja, Srivara, Prajyabhatta and Suka. While the work of Prajyabhatta is lost to us, the history of Suka takes us to the time of the second tenure of Sultan Fath Shah in A.D. 1538. The historical accounts of these four Sanskrit historians are relatively brief; they make only veiled references to events which deserved to be treated in greater detail. But they wrote under several constraints, and that perhaps explains why their perception and presentation of events did not match that of Kalhana's. It is also likely that what has survived the ravages of time is only a fragment of what they had written. Nevertheless, these accounts are valuable to us; at least we have something to fall back upon."

"I should like to warn that histories of Kashmir written by Kashmiri Hindus in modern times are worse than useless for this purpose. I have read almost all of them, only to be left wondering at the piteous state to which the Hindu mind in Kashmir has been reduced."

"Increasing evidence suggests that terrorism in Kashmir is transforming into an all-India pan-Islamic campaign. There have been reports of mercenaries, especially Afghan mujahideen joining forces with the Kashmiris to fight a jihad ...."

"Although sectarian violence is stigmatized, the use of terrorism in Kashmir is widely seen as a legitimate last resort in the Kashmiri “freedom struggle”—although this struggle is never called terrorism."

"To suggest that the only terrorism in Kashmir is the one at the hands of the security forces is to make a travesty of the real situation there ."

"Pakistan's view that terrorism in Kashmir is a legitimate national liberation war and is to be distinguished from any global campaign against terrorism is something that India should carefully take note of.."

"The phrase of "crackdown" that the Indian army uses really is a euphemism of mass destruction. And rape. And brutalisation. That happens all the time. It's still happening now. … The decision to treat all Kashmiris as if they're potential terrorists is what has unleashed this, the kind of "holocaust" against the Kashmiri people. And we know ourselves, from most recent events in Europe, how important it is to resists treating all Muslims as if they're terrorists, but the Indian army has taken the decision to do the opposite of that, to actually decide that everybody is a potential combatant to treat them in that way. And the level of brutality is quite spectacular. And, frankly, without that the jihadists would have had very little response from the Kashmiri people who were not really traditionally interested in radical Islam. So now they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and that's the tragedy of the place."

"Many people in the country do NOT know this #KashmirFiles fact: first batch of 70 terrorists trained by ISI were arrested by J&K Police but ill-thought political decision had them released & same terrorists later on lead the many terrorist organizations in J&K. #KashmirFilesTruth"

"It was not as if the terrorists had not given hints of attacking the temple of Indian democracy. In an equally audacious attack, three suicide bombers had barged into the J&K assembly premises on 1 October 2001. The attack claimed 38 lives. The Indian establishment reacted strongly, but only in words. Fortunately, none of the leaders of the state were injured in this attack. Emboldened by this attack, the terrorists chose the Indian Parliament as their next target."

"What do Kashmiris want freedom from? India’s Constitution. What is offensive about India’s Constitution? It is not Islamic. This is the issue, let us be clear. The violence in Srinagar isn’t for democratic self-rule because Kashmiris have that. The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must be under, and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution. Hurriyat deceives the world by using a universal word, azadi, to push a narrow, religious demand. Kashmiris have no confusion about what azadi means: It means Shariah. Friday holidays, amputating thieves’ hands, abolishing interest, prohibiting alcohol (and kite-flying), stoning adulterers, lynching apostates and all the rest of it that comprises the ideal Sunni state....The Kashmiri separatist movement is actually inseparable from Sunni fundamentalism."

"Some kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both India and Pakistan. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces. This is feeding right back into society even in the domain of elementary civil rights."

"Kashmir has been an eye-opener for the Hindus if one was needed. In the first part of 1990, more than two lakhs of Hindus, practically the entire non-Muslim population, were driven out from the Valley. Refugee Arvind Dhar testifies: "The aggression has been entirely one-sided. All central government employees (generally Hindus) were asked to leave their jobs, and those who did not were placed on a hit-list. One newspaper (Al-Safab) had a headline in March asking all Hindus to vacate within 48 hours of face bullets"."

"Usually the conflict in Kashmir is presented by Muslim advocates in terms of justice, with globalist ramifications. (As I stated earlier, it is not clear whether the cause of Kashmiri self-determination or independence is served by the close link with globalist radical Islam.) This is revealed by Abd al-Rahman Makki, another leader of the Lashkar, who sees the liberation of Kashmir first as an Islamic imperative, but also as a means to ensure the Muslim future of Pakistan. Without this process of con�stant fighting, Makki fears that the Muslims will become too settled and sedentary and will never advance toward the greater goal: the Islamization of all India. His rhetoric raises the question of whether victory in Kashmir would be beneficial for the radical Muslims. It may very well be that they have deliberately prolonged the conflict in order to highlight and promote their larger goals. Ultimately the Kashmiri cause has merged with globalist radical Islam in a way that the Palestinians have thus far sought to avoid."

"The Kashmiri militants, Bushan Bazaz, Syed Shahabuddin, the Nehruvian defenders of Article 370, they are all, each in his own way, objectively part of the strategy of the anti-Hindu forces on the Kashmir front. The Kashmir Samiti has produced a report titled Riots in Kashmir, listing 85 temples destroyed in the valley, and claiming that 550 Hindus had been killed (630 with security men included; official figure 495) in the Islamic purification campaign in 1990. ... All the talk of Kashmiriyat as a bond between Hindus and Muslims have proven to be just wind as soon as the call for a separate Dar-ul-Islam was spread."

"India had barely become independent, in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The mahara­jah fled, and the people of Kashmir, led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help. Lord Mountbatten, who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn’t be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population. So our leaders decided to sign a document by which they bound themselves to go to war with Pakistan. And Mahatma Gandhi, apostle of nonviolence, signed along with them. Yes, he chose war. He said there was noth­ing else to do. War is inevitable when one must defend somebody or defend oneself."

"Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection."

"India is using troops in Kashmir. They are losing the battle of heart and minds. It's like treating cancer with dispirin."

"In Pakistan, in particular, the military are seen as the bulwark and protector of the nation and are largely free from civilian control and scrutiny. The infamous Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate has backed and funded terrorist groups in India, the disputed territory of Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia, not for the good of those countries or of Pakistan itself. It is widely accepted that some of Pakistan’s generals have sold nuclear technology to North Korea. Civilian leaders who have tried to rein in the military have rapidly found themselves out of office and, if they are lucky, in exile. In both India and Pakistan civilian politics have taken on a military tinge, with some political parties sponsoring paramilitary organisations whose members wear uniforms, march in formation with flags and carry sticks to menace their opponents."

"The freedom fighter is a mujahid, his cause is jihad against Hindus. Will azadi from India mean Kashmir will be relocated to Arabia? No, it will remain on the Indian subcontinent, north of Jammu, west of Ladakh. Kashmir’s azadi means freedom from India’s secular constitution. Azadi is the right of Kashmiri Muslims to persecute Kashmiri non-Muslims because that is what Shariah stands for in Pakistan…"

"In an ideal world you could reunite the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir with the Indian-occupied part and restore the old borders. You could have both India and Pakistan agreeing to guarantee those borders, demilitarise the area, and to invest in it economically. In a sane world that would happen but we don't live in a sane world."

"It is clear that India has not behaved at all well in Kashmir; that the Indian military forces seem like, feel like and behave like an occupying army; that there are too many accusations of violence, rape, and murder for it all to be made up; and the Pakistani side has constantly exacerbated the situation by the use of jihadist groups, and by the funding of groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and so on."

"Any Indian who comes with the intention to settle in Kashmir will be treated as an agent of RSS and not as a civilian and will be dealt with appropriately."

"In 1989, the people of Kăshmir took their historic stance, and declared it a jihăd in the path of Allăh to achieve one of the two honours, either victory or martyrdom. Jihăd missions commenced against the Indian occupation, and the mujăhidin party emerged as a strike force in the midst of the occupation."

"Militants damaged 127 temples and 16,000 houses of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley between 1986 and 1992, according to a report prepared by the Panun Kashmir Movement (PKM). The report on "human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir" , submitted to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), says 32 temples were destroyed by the Kashmiri militants within 48 hours of the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The maximum number of 47 temples were vandalised and damaged in February 1986, followed by 44 in 1992. Of these, the maximum, 72 temples were vandalised in Anantnag, the rest in Srinagar, Baramulla, Kupwara, Badgam and Shopian, the report said. The report said temple lands had been usurped and the idols damaged by explosions. Some of the temples like Mata Khir Bhawani temple at Tulamula, Sun temple at Mattan, Luok Bhawan temple and the Ganpatyar temple, were destroyed in rocket and grenade attacks, the report said."

"The question of Kashmir would never be solved until every man in the country was militarily trained and armed with modern weapons. I am sure Kashmir would never join Pakistan without force."

"The year of 1957, after a hundred year, is a year of new hopes. This is a year to spread Muslim rule all over India. New blood should run into our veins to see the year 1957 approaching nearer. Seventy million Pakistani Muslims and fifty million Indian Muslims should have new hopes that after one hundred years they are going to get authority over the whole of India."

"‘If Indian Army leaves, Kashmir will become Afghanistan’...It is only the Indian Army and the sound footing of the Indian military democracy that has stopped the region of Jammu & Kashmir resembling Taliban occupied Afghanistan.The region is legally and rightfully an integral part of the Republic of India.”...“We should remember that while Kashmir Valley may be probably Muslim (dominated), Jammu is predominantly Hindu and Ladakh predominantly Buddhist. And the fact is, historically persecuted religious minorities of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, women and children have unfortunately suffered in the Valley.”"

"Where words lose their meaning, people are about to lose their freedom...By this standard, India is in some real danger, for the elite does use some Newspeak frequently... Thus... when Kashmiri Hindus have to flee their homes after reading open threats in the Urdu papers and seeing relatives butchered, they are called "migrants"; but when Bangladeshi Muslims terrorize their Hindu neighbours and then migrate from their Islamic state to India in search of job opportunities, they are called "refugees". This type of inversion of word meanings is part of a wider mind-set of mendaciousness expressed through more ordinary lies, often of breathtaking effrontery."

"..the ethnic cleansing of the near-total hindu population, a quarter-million people, from the Kashmir Valley in early 1990. It remains for future students of political and communications science to describe and explain the unbelievable phenomenon of a world press keeping the lid on this information. [The] New York Times is among the papers which have created the impression with effective consequences for US foreign policy, that the Kashmir conflict is between hapless Muslims and an ugly Hindu state machinery, a distorted impression which would have been corrected to a fair extent if the paper had faithfully reported the undeniable Islamic persecution of the local Hindu minority... But from American journalists and academics, the persistent denial of the forced exodus of the Kashmiri Hindus is inexcusable."

""These victims seek to rectify complicity and silence. They respectfully request recognition, acknowledgment, tribunals, justice and rehabilitation. Recognition is the first step in healing these traumas that impacted families socially, economically, medically and spiritually. This genocide should never be allowed to happen again," the body said."

"Among those who stayed on is Sanjay Tickoo who heads the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (Committee for the Kashmiri Pandits’ Struggle). He had experienced the same threats as the Pandits who left. Yet, though admitting ‘intimidation and violence’ directed at Pandits and four massacres since 1990, he rejects as ‘propaganda’ stories of genocide or mass murder that Pandit organizations outside the Valley have circulated."

"The Statesman, New Delhi, one of the leading Indian newspapers, carried the following, news item in its issue of July 18, 1991: "At least 1000 people belonging to the minority community Hindus) in the Kashmir Valley were killed by mitts and more than 20 were kidnapped and ‘were still untraced since July 31, 1988" If this carnage had taken place in the US, it would equal to killing one million people out of a total U.S. population of 250 million The havoc that the kings have caused to the Kashmiri Hind community can be gauged by this number. These killings and other atrocities have led to mass exodus of the Hindu community from the Valley. Over 260,000 people had to run for their lives to other cities in India, like Jammu, Chandigarh and Delhi where they are living as refugees It is sad hat not more than 500 households of Hindus are left in the Valley who are now living at the mere of the terrorists. Some of them have to pay protection money to the terrorist “area commanders”"

"There were six hundred thousand Indian troops in Kashmir but the pogrom of the pandits was not prevented, why was that. Three and a half lakhs of human beings arrived in Jammu as displaced persons and for many months the government did not provide shelters or relief or even register their names, why was that."

"On 15 March 1990, by which time the Pandit exodus from the Valley was substantially complete, the All-India Kashmiri Pandit Conference, a community organisation, stated that thirty-two Pandits had been killed by militants since the previous autumn."

"We also witnessed firsthand the basic hostility of Amnesty International to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. Sunil Bakshi had repeatedly sent invitations to them three weeks before the exhibition. I personally called the head of Kashmir at Amnesty International several times as well as Ingrid Massage, the director, Asia & Pacific Program of Amnesty. First she told us they only reported on first hand facts, I replied these were photographs and statistics which nobody could dispute. Finally, after ten phone calls, she said she had too many files on her desk and that she had no time to come, although the exhibtion was a few blocks from her office. So much for Amnesty's sense of justice."

"The entire Hindu population of the Valley of Kashmir... has been languishing for the last five years in makeshift tents. In the face of inhuman cruelty and terror inflicted by Muslims, these people had to leave their hearths and homes. .... During these five years [1989-94], there have been three Prime Ministers in the country, but not one of them had a day's time or the decency to even visit any of these camps. Why? Because the sufferers are Hindus. The Government of India has not even stated categorically till this day that it is committed to the safe return of these people to their own homes and properties."

"Almost all Hindus have in recent years been evicted from the Kashmir Valley as a result of jihãd. This particular jihãd has been authorised and financed by Pakistan and other Islamic countries. Clinton’s America is the latest addition to the names of countries actively promoting this jihãd. Of course, America has not called it a jihãd but declared its support of the mujãhids in the name of Human Rights, which means the same."

"By the middle of the year some eighty persons had been killed …, and the fear … had its effect from the very first killings. Beginning in February, the pandits began streaming out of the valley, and by June some 58,000 families had relocated to camps in Jammu and Delhi."

"McGirk also under-reports the number of Hindu refugees as 90,000 instead of over 200,000; but at least, he acknowledges their existence, till today a rare event in the Anglo-Saxon media... one could have expected a sympathy wave in favour of the Kashmiri Hindus, who were collectively hounded out of the Kashmir Valley in 1989-90. Nothing of the sort ever materialized, if only because most foreign media simply refrained from reporting this event... Hindu NRIs have shown me bunches of copies of their mostly unpublished “letters to the editor” of a variety of media in which they allege gross misreporting on the Kashmir problem... Till the time of his writing, most references to the Kashmir conflict in the international media fail to mention the Hindu refugee problem."

"Kashmir has been an eye-opener for the Hindus if one was needed. In the first part of 1990, more than two lakhs of Hindus, practically the entire non-Muslim population, were driven out from the Valley. Refugee Arvind Dhar testifies: "The aggression has been entirely one-sided. All central government employees (generally Hindus) were asked to leave their jobs, and those who did not were placed on a hit-list. One newspaper (Al-Safab) had a headline in March asking all Hindus to vacate within 48 hours of face bullets"... Syed Shahabuddin declared, along with some moderate Kashmiri Muslims, that the Hindus could come back to Kashmir, and that their property was being looked after by their Muslim neighbours. But the first- hand information of refugee Arvind Dhar tells a different story:"All my movable property has been stolen and my house was burnt a month ago."... Predictably... some papers declared that it was actually the Hindu refugees who were "creating a communal crisis" by fleeing to Jammu or Delhi. In their Newspeak, which calls terrorists militants, the refugees are called migrants, and it is an interesting illustration of the perversion of India's political parlance to see how even the refugees themselves have sometimes adopted this secularist-imposed usage... It is worth quoting a reply: "By advising the migrants, many of whom live in squalor in camps mourning the death of their kith and kin, to 'return to the valley boldly, taking it for granted that they will not be harmed...', Mr. Bazaz is mendaciously suggesting that these hapless people have fled the Valley out of an imaginary fear at someone's instance. The naked truth is that the peace- loving and peaceful non-Muslims were forced to flee... when they found that the goodwill of their well-disposed but unarmed Muslim neighbours... was of no avail to them against the orgies of selective murder, rape and arson perpetrated by armed Pak-trained militants... Considering that even a few gullible migrants, including a lone woman, were recently gunned down within hours of their return, one wonders whether Mr. Bazaz's facile assurance of safety to migrants emanates from his desire to fool the uninformed or to propitiate India-baiters in Pakistan". The kashmiri militants, Bushan Bazaz, Syed Shahabuddin, the Nehruvian defenders of Article 370, they are all, each in his own way, objectively part of the strategy of the anti-Hindu forces on the Kashmir front."

"In absence of government computations about the killings of Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and other Hindus, private agencies and non-government organizations have put the number of Hindus of all shades who have been killed at 2,500 out of which Kashmiri Pandits stand out with a figure of eighteen hundred and odd. The Report submitted to the National Human Rights Commission by PKM has put the figures of killed Pandits at 319 till October, 1990. B.N. Nissar, editor of the Kashyapvani, has issued out a list of 765 Kashmiri Pandits who were brutally massacred. As per him twenty two ladies were raped and killed, sixty-six males were kidnapped and released which included Vijay Koul, director of the Regional Institute of Science and Technology and Dr. A.K. Dhar, director of the Regional Research Laboratory, eighteen were hanged to death, twenty-five ladies were raped and let off, eight were strangulated, hundred twenty- four were kidnapped and killed and sixty were critically wounded and died for want of media laid. No fewer than fifty seven sikhs have been killed. It is said that many a mass massacre of Kashmiri Pandits of Sangrampora dimension was suppressed and not leaked to the press under the instuructions of the then Home Minister of India."

"By now the complaint that "you secularists weren't half as indignant, in fact entirely uninterested, when a quarter million Hindus were cleansed from Kashmir" is entirely worn out and boring, but only because it remains unanswered and hence in need of being repeated."

"Most of the foreign India reporters borrow not just data, but also opinions and judgments from their Delhi contacts without critically examining them. On top of these borrowed distortions, they themselves also manage to disregard pertinent data which stare every normal observer in the face. Thus, practically every Hindu activist whom I have interviewed between 1990 and 1998 brought up the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, murdered or expelled from their homeland, as a telling illustration of the true religio-political power equation in India. But most publications purportedly analyzing Hindu nationalism in the 1990s manage to overlook this expulsion of Hindus from a part of India. They have to if they want to uphold the image of India as dominated by an overbearing Hindu majority threatening a hapless Muslim minority."