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| Will the Sikhs stay put in the intolerant Valley? | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Jan 12: NC president and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday urged the left over Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley not to quit it, saying the situation today there is vastly different from what it prevailed in 1990, when the Kashmiri Hindus migrated to Jammu and other places. He made this appeal while addressing the Sikh community on the auspicious occasion of Guruparav and committed that he would lay down his life if anyone forces the Sikhs to leave their homes and hearts.
The vary fact that Farooq Abdullah had to make an appeal and strongly urge the nearly 60,000 Sikhs not to quit Kashmir does suggest that all is not well in Kashmir and that there are forces in the Valley who continue to pursue the process of religious cleansing that they started years ago to rid Kashmir of all the non-believers. It would be wrong to use the term ethnic cleansing. For, the Kashmiri Hindus, the Kashmiri-speaking Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the Valley proper and Sikhs in Kashmir, barring a very few, are ethnically one.
Where was the need for Farooq Abdullah to ask the Sikhs in Jammu to see to it that their co-religionists in the Kashmir valley stay put there and not migrate to Jammu or elsewhere in the country? The answer is not far to seek. The answer is that there were elements in Kashmir in 1947 who did not allow the migrating Sikhs from Muzzaffrabad and its adjoining areas to settle in Kashmir Valley despite the fact that Muzaffarabad was part of Kashmir province and forced them to migrate to Jammu province and other places in the country. Paradoxically, Farooq Abdullah's father Sheikh Abdullah was at the helm that time. He did nothing to stop the Sikhs' migration to Jammu. On the contrary, his administration encouraged the process of religious cleansing and the result was mass exodus to Jammu. Not just the Sikhs, even Kashmiri Hindus started migrating from Kashmir after 1947 because the religious policy of the NC government was such. Thousands and thousands of Kashmiri Hindus had migrated to Jammu and other places even before the rise of militant movement in Kashmir in the late 80s.
The anti-non-believers remained somewhat dormant for sometime. They again became active in the late 1980s, when the NC was in power. The result was that all, barring a few Hindu families, migrated from Kashmir. A few Sikh families also migrated. All this happened in the early 1990. They migrated because they refused to join the anti-India movement. They had the option to stay on in their homes and hearts and the option was that they should join the "freedom struggle." So much so, some of the fanatics had wanted the non-believers to renounce their religion and culture and embrace the new faith, but without any result. Kashmir virtually became a land of people, sans the non-believers in the sense that their number is less than 80,000 out of a total of approximately 45 lakh persons.
These left over non-believers have never ever remained in a peaceful environment in Kashmir. Things for them turned extremely hostile in June last year, when Kashmir saw the rise of stone throwers and started witnessing an extremely violent movement directed both against the Indian State and the left over minorities. During the past about six months, the persecuted and harassed Sikhs have umpteen times threatened to quit Kashmir. The cause is the same that forced the Sikhs and other non-believers to migrate to Jammu in 1947-48 and early 1990. The left over Sikhs are not prepared to join the movement - Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik style. Nor are they prepared to renounce their religion as they are devout Sikhs. There are potent reasons to believe that these harassed Sikhs would migrate sooner than later and if at all it happens, it would further expose the Kashmiri leadership in the eyes of the international community and it is this eventuality that Farooq Abdullah and other leaders want to avert. It needs to be noted that the international community views the ongoing movement in Kashmir as a purely communal movement.
What the question is: Will Farooq Abdullah and the NC-led coalition government take all the necessary steps and preventive measures designed to isolate the anti-non-believers in the establishment and outside? It is indeed a very, very difficult question. Whether the Sikhs would stay put in the Valley or quit, it will depend upon what the state government does to those who want to purge Kashmir of all non-believers. |
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