India’s slow-motion genocide in Kashmir
The mysterious killings of four minority employees at the hands of unknown assailants continue to grab headlines within and outside the Kashmir valley. The killings, for all the right reasons, have evoked widespread condemnation from a cross section of the Kashmiri society. Going beyond the political rhetoric, Kashmiri leadership across the political spectrum has denounced the killings and without using any menacing words have termed it a shocking outcome of the BJP government’s communal policies.
Despite the fact that the assailants involved in these targeted killings still remain unidentified, the Indian media has started a vicious campaign to put the blame on Pakistan and the Kashmiri resistance fighters. Right wing Hindutva worriers who hold greater sway in the government affairs have been adding fuel to the fire by stoking hatred and spewing venom against Kashmiri Muslims.
The new conspiracy theory that puts blame of the killings on Kashmiri freedom fighters is one of the most bizarre pieces of misinformation aimed at hoodwinking the international community.
It is not the first time that the Indian government has resorted to such a bizarre disinformation campaign. But history bears testimony to the fact that Indian rulers have always used its state and corporate media as a propaganda tool to circulate biased or misleading information about Kashmir with the sheer intent of promoting a political agenda.
The BJP, which thrives on communal agenda, is employing the same age-old tactics to malign Kashmiris everywhere. Media channels that have virtually become mouthpieces for the ruling party have been shamelessly portraying these killings as yet another conspiracy against Kashmiri pundits. Lapdog journalists sitting in the cozy TV studios are trying hard to link these killings with 1990’s pundit exodus.
On the one hand the government remorselessly paddles fake conspiracy theories to conceal ground realities while on the other hand, it has grossly overlooked the fact that not a single member of the minority community (pundits) was killed in Kashmir from 2010 to 2019. To the contrary, hundreds of Kashmiri civilians have been killed since 5th august 2019, the day when India’s racist regime abrogated the Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
It is a sheer dichotomy on the part of Indian media and the government to project the killing of four pundits as a “genocide” while ignoring the systematic killing of over 100,000 Kashmiris at the hands of Indian armed forces, which amounts to genocide.
International Human Rights watchdogs that have been closely monitoring the situation in the restive region (Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir) have time and again raised their concerns and called for immediate cessation of state sponsored violence unleashed upon the Kashmiris.
Sadly, India’s present-day government, which continues to thrive on communalism, didn’t bother to pay heed to these clarion calls. Instead of reviewing its hostile policies towards Kashmir, the racist regime crossed all limits of savagery to oppress and suppress Kashmiris. In the aftermath of 5th August 2109, Kashmiris witnessed a massive and multi–front political, social and cultural onslaught from New Delhi. Along with its military might, the Modi government used parliament, judiciary and other state institutions to fortify its control over the territory and its people.
First, they revoked Article 370 and 35–A, then divided and downgraded the status of the state and reduced it to a union territory; besieged the valley and held people hostage for more than one and half year; suppressed dissent and imprisoned the entire political leadership to enable complete silence on Kashmir. Despite using all means of oppression, the BJP miserably failed to subdue the Kashmiris. Now that its lofty claims and so-called normalcy narrative on Kashmir have proved a mere hoax, the party has come up with another conspiracy theory to fool its people and the world community.
Taking a leaf out of the former governor Jagmohan Malhotra’s rule book, the BJP is using a section of the Kashmiri pundit community as pawns on its chessboard of power and politics. This particular section of the Kashmiri pundits, whose elders had played a dubious role in mid 1990s, has now offered its services to the BJP government. A silent majority of pundits within and outside the valley knew it fully well sincethe right-wing forces have been using them as pawns.
In early 1990s, the community was forced to migrate en-masse from the valley. The then governor of J&K, Jagmohan Malhotra, was the man who orchestrated the drama of so-called pundit-exodus to give a communal colour to Kashmiris’ ongoing struggle. Years later, a group of Kashmiri pundits through an open letter to editor Daily Alsafa (Srinagar based news daily), confessed that the community was made a scapegoat by Governor Malhotra and the drama was staged by communal Hindu organisations, like the BJP, RSS and other far right-wingers.
Not mincing any words, the letter further said that “the Indian occupation forces had drawn a plan to massacre a large section of Kashmiri Muslims, particularly, those in the age group of 14-25 so that the people could be enslaved for all the times to come”. The letter revealed that some self-styled leaders of the pundit community begged the pundits to migrate for the protection of Dharm (religion) and unity and integrity of India.
Mr. Koul, the author of the letter, also wrote about a particular category of migrant pundits who, he said, have no property worth its name back in the valley. According to Koul, this particular segment of the community that has nothing at stake in the valley was content with receiving relief and other concessions from the government.
Interestingly, this lot of have-nots who later became cheerleaders for the BJP government’s ambitious plan of “mainstreaming/integration” of Kashmir into Indian union in 2019, has now become a tool in the hands of the BJP. It is the same lot that was lured by the BJP to return back to Kashmir valley. The government offered them jobs and other incentives and used them as show-pieces to project its so-called normalcy narrative.
An utterly unblushing government that has degraded human lives and pushed the territory into further peril and chaos by its ruthless policies was yet again weaponizing Kashmiri pundits’ pain to exact political benefits and further its nationalist agenda in Kashmir. The Bollywood’s propaganda laden movie ‘Kashmir Files’ is one such example that shows how the BJP used Kashmiri pundits for propaganda to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment and spread hate against Kashmiri Muslims in the Indian mainland. The movie shows Kashmiris as rabid fanatics. It portrays killing of minorities as ethnic cleansing while ignoring the pain and pangs of the majority community that has been bearing the brunt of state sponsored violence for the past several decades.
In the movie, the killings of 24 civilians at Nadimarg is portrayed as an irremediable tragedy but the makers of the controversial film did not dare to show the brutal massacres such as Sopore Massacre, Kupwara, Handwara, Hawal, Gawkadal, Bijbehara and others in which thousands of Kashmiris were callously killed by the Indian occupation forces.
Uncovering the truth has never been a priority for the film makers, nor have they any interest or sympathy with the Kashmiri pundit community. Instead, the purpose of ‘The Kashmir Files’ is to inflame hatred against Muslims and all those whose faith runs contrary to the supremacist tenets of Hindu nationalism. The controversial movie, however, offers all that the BJP needed to further its Hindutva ideology. But at a time when creeping communalism in Indian society is turning into a full-blown pandemic, the movie marks India’s further descent into darkness and bigotry. The film, which has been decreed by independent analysts as a manipulative propaganda vehicle to rouse emotions against Muslims is being used by Modi and his party as a tool to incite people on religious lines within and outside Kashmir.
An environment of fear and insecurity is being deliberately created under the garb of the mysterious targeted killings of four minority employees. Using pundits as tools, the BJP is preparing the ground in Kashmir to stage yet another drama in the name of protecting the minority community. But the question that needs to pondered on is why is there so much hue and cry in India on the issue? Why are these killings being portrayed as a conspiracy against pundits? Why does this particular segment of pundit community living in separate townships want their relocation out of the valley? Who is forcing them to vacate and why?
The Indian government, as usual, had put the blame on resistance fighters, but so far, no organization whatsoever has claimed the responsibility and assailants remain still unidentified. The political leadership of Kashmir, civil society and even the common Kashmiris have reiterated their resolve to protect the pundits and termed them as an essential part of their society. It may be noted that a sizable number of Kashmiri pundits, in particular the Sikh community who refused to become part of the Jagmohan’s conspiracy in mid 90s, have been living peacefully in Kashmir for the past several decades. Several attempts were made in the past to force them to vacate the valley to give a communal colour to Kashmiris ongoing struggle. Chattisinghpora, Nadimarg and Wandhama massacres are the shocking examples that speak volumes about how the Indian army and its security agencies used members of minority communities as cannon fodders to achieve their strategic goals.
Kashmir watchers, who have been closely monitoring the situation in the region, smell a similar kind of conspiracy in the targeted killings of minority members. They believe that those known “unknowns” who had planned Chattisingpora and Wandhama massacres in past are now using pundits as pawns to pave a way for genocide of Muslims in Kashmir and turn the Muslim majority region into a minority.
While Hindu extremists with links to Modi-led BJP repeatedly call for ethnic cleansing and genocide of Muslims in India and Kashmir, it is time that the world should take effective notice of the matter rather than turning a blind eye to the hate speech against the Muslim community. The international community must play its much-needed role to prevent the ongoing genocide of Kashmiri Muslims that has been going on unabated in the region for the past several decades.
Lest the world forgets, international experts have already warned of the impending ‘genocide’ of Muslims in Kashmir. Sounding alarm over the immense increase in violence against Muslims in Kashmir, Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, said during a US congressional briefing last year, “there were early signs and processes of genocide in the Indian occupied Kashmir.”
Stanton, a former lecturer in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the George Mason University in Virginia, began warning of genocide in India in 2002, when a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat resulted in the killing of thousands of Indian Muslims.
The writer is chairman of Islamabad based think tank – Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR)