Kashmir, one of the three provinces of the northern state (Jammu and Kashmir) of India has been facing intermittent turmoil for years. The Kashmiri Pandits, known for their knowledge driven, civilised life-style were challenged too many times by the onslaught resulting in their regular migration out of Kashmir. The final push was orchestrated in ‘secular’, ‘democratic’ India in the 1989-90 when almost all the remaining Pandits were forced to leave Kashmir. Veer Khar delves into the losers and gainers of this recent conflict.
Losers of the Kashmir conflict
Top of the list are the Kashmiri Pandits. Thousand killed and the rest tortured and forced out of their homeland, Pandits are now scattered as rootless displaced people; in and outside India. These Kiashmiris faced the combined onslaught of Muslim fundamentalism and the corrupt political system in the state. The shameful inaction by the government of India has been instrumental in the genocide of the Pandits and the ethnic cleansing is so rapid that hardly a Pandit is now visible in the very land of their ancestors and their population is only of its kind in India that is dwindling. Hangings, shootings of individuals to scare the community in early days of the upheaval and annihilation of leadership with unabated killings of reformers like Tika Lal Taploo, Prem Nath Bhat and Sarwanand Premi left the community struggling to understand as to why the rest of the country stayed paralysed?
The losers include those who lost family members to the conflict by being innocent passers by. Even losers are those families to which belonged the dead or imprisoned indoctrinated terrorists. My dear neighbour Gulam Nabi Ahanger’s family belonged to this group of losers and I remember the grief stricken faces of his family members when I went to pay my condolence, travelling all the way from Delhi to our remote village in South Kashmir. Gh. Nabi, I was told had been short dead by the security forces. Even those people are losers who lost leaders like Molvi Farooq and Gani Lone that did not fit in the scheme of the ‘coterie’.
Losers in Kashmir; includes those whose dear ones like Josey Joseph, Lassa Koul and Mushir-ul-Haq; were killed while performing their duty as security personnel or as staff in radio station, university etc. The long list continues on with rape victims, tortured individuals and common people who detest uncivilised living.
Other Indian states are big losers too, as their resources are getting diverted to the boiling pot of ‘Kashmir Conflict’.
Evan Pakistan as a nation can be added to the list of losers. The obsession to get Kashmir and to derail India coupled with internal conflicts like inter-provincial domination and Sunni supremacy has categorised this young country as a failed state. Pakistan’s meddling in Kashmir has done more harm to its own citizens than to the intended.
Seeing the trends; Shias may be the next to be targeted like Pandits and add to this infamous list of ‘jahaname’ benazeer’……..
Gainers of the Kashmir conflict
Top of the list are the families that have amassed immense wealth and power as a result of the conflict. Like justice monkey, these scavengers of sick society have benefitted from all sides. They get ‘funds’ to raise voice and then ‘funds’ to calm down. They get flown in air force planes for even flu treatment and are protected by the security forces even while indulging in antinational activities. With a large portfolio of assets, these families are now well entrenched into almost all business ventures across the globe. Well knit clans like Abdullas, Sozs, Syeds and Azads may be worth investigating as to what is their current worth. How come they have never been targeted by ‘terrorists’ and how come they are passing the battens of power between themselves?
Gainers also include religious bigots and street peddlers; who strangely enough are assisted by the government with visas plus ‘expenses’ to speak against India itself and are even provided with Khadi to balance the act. These include Gilani’s and Maliks.
Then there are those who are busy confiscating properties that of the Pandits. This lot also manages to get lucrative contracts and loans that are not to be paid back. These are the ones who provide cadre’ to the game directors in the coterie’. They organise stone peltters or strikes to allow bargains for the masters. Illicit business operators from within and outside Kashmir have also taken big strides in the prevailing chaos.
In the list of gainers is also the government of India. Kashmir situation has portrayed Pakistan as a villain and India as a member of civil society. Events in the Muslim world have left no sympathy for the religious fundamentalism and India has done well to categorise the conflict as communal. India has successfully managed to hide its absolute disorder, corruption and malfunctioning behind the veil of Kashmir conflict and even used the exodus of Pandits to wash its sins in the process.
With such an arrangement; where on one side the perpetrators are funded to keep the pot boiling and on the other side the resources from areas like Bihar and Orissa are diverted and embezzled in the garb of funding the security and welfare arrangements in Kashmir; it seems the conflict in Kashmir is to stay. It is a business that is unaffected by recession.
Veer Khar is a practicing civil engineer with Masters in International Relations. The opinions expressed here are the author's own.