Vivek Gumaste
The civil society must introspect and have the courage to confront what is unequivocally the ultimate moral lapse of post-independent India
Vivek Agnihotri's The Kashmir Files has been a raging success at the box-office with its collections topping Rs 27 crore over the first weekend.
But more important than the financial success is its altruistic mission: to uncover the truth of a horrendous past, intentionally kept buried for over 30 years; to let Indians know what their brethren suffered; and to jolt the comatose conscience of an indifferent nation. The Kashmir Files brings to the fore the long suppressed and heart wrenching tragedy of the Kashmiri Pandits- namely the heinous ethnic cleansing of over a quarter million Kashmiri Pandits who became refugees in their own country, overnight.
This was an ethnic cleansing that was deliberately marginalized by the international community especially the Hindu phobic Western media in deference to what it termed as Muslim self- determination. Domestically too this atrocity was downplayed by influential sections of our media who callously popularized the abominable canard that the KPs left voluntarily at the behest of the then Governor Jagmohan- in effect blaming the victim for the crime.
More than 30 years have elapsed since that fateful exodus and a whole generation of Indians have come of age. It is ethically crucial that they know the truth including our own failing as a nation that facilitated this barbaric crime.
The targeting of Hindus began in late 1989. The first to be killed was Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, a prominent Kashmiri Hindu Pandit: he was gunned down in broad daylight outside his home.
In the months leading to January 1990, pressure against the Hindus kept mounting. Walls were plastered with posters asking Hindus to leave Kashmir, Hindu homes are dotted red and Hindu women are forced to sport marks on their foreheads. The scene was reminiscent of Nazi Germany: the KPs were the new Jews.
Then on January 19, 1990 dubbed as the Kristallnacht of the Kashmiri Hindu Pandit community, the pressure reached its zenith. As dusk approached, Hindu families-women and children – cowered inside their homes, behind the false security of their doors, while outside the spine-chilling exhortations blared out from mosque tops; the following three taped slogans repeatedly resonated throughout the cold January night:
“Kashmir mei agar rehnahai, Allah-O-Akbar kehnahai (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-O-Akbar)”.
“Yahan kyachalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa (What do we want here? Rule of Shariat)”.
“Asi gachchi Pakistan, BataoroasteBatanevsan (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men)”.
Grabbing just what they could carry, Kashmiri Pandits fled leaving behind their ancestral homes.
All in all, according to IDMC (internal displacement monitoring center of the Norwegian Refugee Council) 350,621 Kashmiri Pandits or 90 per cent have fled Kashmir. The majority of them still continue to live in refugee camps as of today.
At the beginning of the 20th century there were close to 1 million Kashmiri Pandits. Kashmiri Hindus made up 15 per cent of the population in 1941. By 1991, their numbers had dwindled to comprise a mere 0.1 per cent.
While it is easy to blame the terrorists, it cannot absolve us of our responsibility. There was a total failure, at every level of the defence mechanisms that define a civilised nation: society, government and the press-all abrogated their responsibility and failed the Kashmiri Hindu.
What happened in Kashmir could not have occurred without the tacit compliance of civil society, namely Kashmir's majority Muslim community and so, despite their protestations, they must bear the brunt of this charge.
And large sections of the media were content to be mute spectators. There was no screaming, frontpage headlines, no hard-hitting editorials or incisive op-eds. There was a conspiracy of silence to maintain the charade of a false secularism. When we can crowd the streets for a supposed act of potential (not actual) discrimination like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), why were there were no street protests, no candle light vigils, and no sit ins like Shaheen Bagh for a palpable and visible act of brutal ethnic cleansing?
Is it because Indian secularism rests on a shaky premise- – the victimhood of the Hindu?
The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits is an Indelible stain on an otherwise pristine fabric of our democracy and secularism. Only when this wrong is righted can we hold up our heads with pride.
Indian civil society must introspect and have the courage to confront what is unequivocally the ultimate moral lapse of post-independent India. The Kashmir Files compels us to do that.
(The author, a US-based academic and political commentator, frequently writes on current affairs in India. The views expressed are personal.)
