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| Open letter to President Barrack Hussain Obama | | | Mahesh Kaul | 11/7/2010 10:38:52 PM |
| Mr .President, Your visit has raised many hopes among the people who believe in the human values and human rights in the modern world. The end of the Cold war created new political and strategic equations that had a tremendous affect on the nations all over the world. The theatre of war was then in our back yard then in the Afghanistan and whether we call it a co incidence or fate of our geographical location Afghanistan and Pakistan region now popularly known as AfPak region in strategic sense has again emerged a challenge for the world peace and democratic values .It is in this region that the most dreaded form of terrorism known as jihad and attributed to the fundamentalist thought process of Islam has threatened the existence of the civilized world .It has been a challenge to your country after 9/11 to restore order in that region so that the unfinished agenda of cold war can be given proper burial.
Mr.President, the terrorist infrastructure based on the ideological support of jihad was diverted towards the state of Jammu and Kashmir of the Indian union under the strategic plan of ‘Operation Topac’engineered by General Zia ul Haq the then Military dictator of Pakistan to dismember India and start the process of balkanization of the nation from J&K. the direct consequence of this strategy was the training the Kashmiri Muslim youth in the first stage of insurgency and then provide the reinforcement by involving the foreign mercenaries to fight in the Kashmir valley in the name of islam so that the sentiments and emotions of the Muslim majority are instigated to such an extent that the state of war is declared against the Indian union.
The immediate victims of this terrorism based on the fundamentalist indoctrination of Islamic jihad was the miniscule minority community of the Kashmiri Pandits who are the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley having more than 5000 year old roots in their homeland. They were targeted indiscriminately for their religious faith that is being Hindus and being the upholders of the democratic values as enshrined in the Constitution of India .It started with the selective killings of the prominent members of the community by the Islamic zealots and they were deemed infidels as per the Islamic rules. After that the killings of the Kashmiri pundits gained momentum day by day which reached its crescendo in the month of January 1990.
The all out war launched by the Islamic separatists at all levels ranging from psychological to military they were left with no option by to leave their homeland en mass as whole administrative and political machinery had failed to operate and uphold the rule of law in the Kashmir valley. The media was gagged to strangulate the voice of the desperate and despondent Kashmiri Pandits.the state machinery at all levels being manned by the people belonging to the majority community of the Kashmiri Muslims left no stone unturned so as to see that the plight of pundits is not made to reach out to the national and the international community .The situation was similar as had prevailed during the execution and persecution of Jews by the Nazis.
The community of Kashmiri pandits was left with no option but leave their ancestral homeland with heavy heart leaving behind whatever their forefathers had created and which they inherited as heritage and culture including the movable and immovable property. More than three lakh Kashmiri pandits left their homeland Kashmir and sought refuge in the Jammu region of the state and other parts of India. Thus this was a clear act of ethnic cleansing and genocide that was inflicted upon the peaceful community in 1990 to live as refuges in their own state and the country.
22 years have passed and lot is being said about the Kashmir issue at the international level and the hue and cry is being raised by the Islamic separatists of Kashmir regarding the human rights violation of the terrorists who have waged a war against India but not a single word has been raised for the exiled community of the kashmiri pundits who are the aborigines and the only community perhaps in the world that has a documented history in the form of Rajatarangini written by kalahana,the Hindu historian of Kashmir.
Not a single inquiry commission has been constituted till now to inquire into the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits by the Indian government or any other world body.a whole generation of kashmiri pandits has come up in the exile known as post displacement generation,which establishes the fact that this community has been reduced to non entity in terms of political calculations as it does not constitute a vote bank that can be wooed during electoral process.
Mr.President, no solution to Kashmir issue is possible without the redressal of the genocide inflicted upon the community of kashmiri pandits by the Islamic separatism based on jihad which seeks the ideological motivation from the Muslim Ummah and the creation of Nizam e Mustafa.Kashmir issue is a purely communal issue which has roots in the supremacy of one religion over the other and its jihadic overtones makes it a challenge to multi culturalism and democratic values.
What the world face on 9/11 or for that matter USA faced on 9/11 has been faced by the Community of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-90,thus giving them the unfortunate privilege of being the frontline victims of the Islamic or jihadist terror well before world could face it .
The exiled community of Kashmiri Pandits demand the incorporation of Kashmiri Pandit aspirations in any future settlement or policy contours on the state of J&K in general and Kashmir in particular. The exiled community of Kashmiri Pandits is the principal party to the Kashmir issue and their ethnic cleansing makes them the case worth consideration at in terms of human rights violations and genocide.
The geo political aspirations and empowerment of the exiled Kashmiri Pandit community can only be meted only when they are given separate political dispensation on their own terms within the democratic domains of the Indian democracy as enshrined in the Indian constitution in the Kashmir valley the land of their ancestors-their homeland.
Thank you very much Mr. President!!!
****(Writer is a PhD scholar at the School for Hospitality and Tourism Management,Univeristy of Jammu,President Sangarsh,Chairman,Heritage Initiative Foundation and an exiled Kashmiri Pandit)
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