the secular conspiracy

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'Deccan Chronicle'The secular conspiracyBy Balbir K PunjThe formation of

Pakistan was a "momentous" episode in the history of the subcontinent, though

executed in a faulty manner. But we neither fully comprehended the forces

behind this epoch nor raised the ideological and political bulwark needed to

counter its long-time consequences.Two recent events of unequal magnitude

enforced in mind this problem we refused to fix in 1947. One was Prime Minister

Atal Behari Vajpayee's call from Srinagar for bilateral dialogue with Pakistan.

And the other was the formal release of a book by Deputy Prime Minister L K

Advani. Titled Religious Demography of India, it was brought out by the Centre

for Policy Studies, Chennai.Making his recent visit to Srinagar an occasion,

the Prime Minister extended an olive branch to Pakistan. The gesture has

seemingly gone down well with both Islamabad and the NDA including the BJP. If

there is anything against us, it is the past involving the two countries. Such

talks, so far, have ended in failure, exacerbating the situation. India has

been stabbed in the back by Pakistan whenever it has taken well-meaning

measures like Prime Minister Vajpayee's Lahore bus-ride in 1999 and the 2001

ceasefire. But, we must be optimistic.Though the issues are intertwined, the

solution to the Kashmir problem is no longer a priority as is the "peace in the

Valley". It used to be so when the unrest of the Eighties followed by the

militancy of the Nineties had not reared their ugly heads in the Valley. Today,

the government's priority is to put an end to the cross-LoC terrorism and the

Pakistan-sponsored proxy war with a heavy hand and disseminate the fruits of

development in the Valley.India won a military victory against Pakistan at

Dhaka in 1971, but could not capitalise on that advantage to bring an end to

the Kashmir problem. That was the only occasion when Kashmir was really a

bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. At that time Pakistan, handicapped

by a US arms embargo (for genocide by the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh), faced

the real threat of not only losing Kashmir but also disintegrating into several

splinter States like Sindh, Balochistan and Pakhtunkhwa. The mock-chivalry of

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's speeches in those days only highlighted how real his fear

was.But which Kashmir do we refer to when we speak of Kashmiri peace? The total

area of J&K is 2,222,236 sq km, out of which 78,114 sq km are illegally

occupied by Pakistan and 42,685 sq km by China, of which Pakistan illegally

handed over 5,130 sq km to China. However, for all practical purposes, we have

given up our hopes of reclaiming that territory from Pakistan and China. The

Indian government or the media never raises the issue of the independence

movement in Balwaristan (in PoK), thinking it would irk Islamabad further.All

that we are fighting for, rather defending, is the Kashmir we still retain.

After thousands of their fellow men and women were killed, the 300,000 Kashmiri

Pandits expelled from the Valley are leading a sub-human life in the refugee

camps of Jammu and Delhi. Their properties have been legally undersold or

illegally occupied in a manner similar to Bangladesh's Enemy Property. The

well-planned Nadimarg (Pulwama) massacre of March 23, is prompting the exodus

of the residual Hindus from the Valley. The local Muslim populace has declined

to guarantee their safety. The message is quite clear: "Sir, kindly leave and

leave every square inch of your land-space for the cause of Dar-ul-Islam."But

when we talk of "Kashmir peace" or "Kashmir solution" we do not take into

consideration the Kashmiri Pandits. With their ancestral properties gone, their

return and rehabilitation is quite unlikely. The exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

is not only a human tragedy but also a civilisational holocaust. They were the

original and culturally unalloyed inheritors of Kashmir. If Muslims could be a

part of the "Kashmiriyat" of Hindus — which is as old as the land itself — why

could Hindus not be a part of the "Kashmiriyat" of Muslims? Can one think of

Hindus expelling Muslims from a place where the latter are in a minority? Then,

there would not have been any Muslims left in India. Article 370 was meant to

"protect the uniqueness of the State". This Article has been protected at every

cost and pretext but the true inheritors of Kashmir are languishing unprotected

in the refugee camps of Jammu and Delhi. What an irony!Since ancient times,

Kashmir has been a centre of the Shaiva tradition and a famed seat of Vedic

learning, it is for this reason alone all Kashmir Hindus are referred to as

Pandits (or scholars).Thus Kashmiri Pandits are the original and culturally

unalloyed people of the land. Their exit marks the loss of Kashmir's soul.

Moreover, it also raises the question that if Hindus are not safe as a

community even in India, where else will they be? The Muslims of Kashmir are

the descendants of those Kashmiri Pandits who converted to Islam mostly under

the threat of sword or in the hope of gaining some favour during the Muslim

era. Sheikh Abdullah admits in his autobiography, Atis-e-Chinar (Fire amongst

Chinar), that his great-grandfather was a Kashmiri Pandit, Bal Mukund Kaul. But

this great-grandson of a converted Kashmiri Pandit refused to identify himself

as an Indian. He always referred to himself only as a Kashmiri. In league with

another Kaul, Nehru, who was ashamed of his Hindu identity, he turned Kashmir

into his personal fiefdom.But are we also not a party to this tragedy? Jagmohan

pithily observes in his highly acclaimed book My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir:

"We denounced the two-nation theory, proclaimed to the world that in India

religion did not constitute the basis of separation or distinction. Ironically,

it is we who are applying the two-nation theory in Kashmir. And we are doing it

in the most suicidal manner. Pakistan, which owes its birth to the two-nation

theory, exists, after all, with its own resources. But here in Kashmir, Article

370 and the issue of autonomy are designed to be manipulated in such a way that

a virtual Sheikhdom or Sultanate, or mini-Pakistan, has been nurtured with

Indian money. Unfortunately, we have neither the inclination nor the depth of

perception to see through the game." (p. 240)But where are the imperceptible

roots of this palpable tragedy? Braving the secession of East Pakistan,

Zulfiqar Bhutto said in 1971, "Pakistan is an ideal. It will last even if it is

physically destroyed. We are prepared for the decimation of 120 million people.

We will then begin anew and build a new Pakistan." Thus he comes very close to

saying that Pakistan exists first in people's minds then as a political unit.

The concretisation of the political vision of Pakistan took place in the

Thirties and the Forties. But tragedy has its roots in the negation of

Indianism. Not even one per cent of Indian Muslims came from outside India, say

Arabia or Central Asia, but are converts from Hinduism and Buddhism, mostly

under duress. But on conversion their mindset became a chain reaction of the

Arab imperialism. That is the reason why several thousand Indian Muslims

quitting British India (a Dar-ul-Harab or land of the enemy) had chosen to

migrate (hijrat) to Dar-ul-Islam Afghanistan, out of which only 20,000 were

allowed to settle. A large number of Shias from Lucknow, including the

descendants of the Nawab of Awadh, chose to migrate to Karbala (now Iraq). At

the root of this is the denial of a pre-Islamic identity.The second event was

the formal release by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani on April 20, of a highly

statistical book, Religious Demography of India. It is a mammoth study of the

Census available for 110 years (1881-1991) of the subcontinent by A P Joshi, M

D Srinivas and J K Bajaj for the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai. Advani,

however, did not agree with the authors' categorisation of religions as Indian

religions and others (like Christianity, Islam) and said that the Indian

nationhood had suffered no devalourisation due to the "unfortunate"

Partition.Generally, we treat Partition as unfortunate. But let's see how

"fortunate" Hindus would have ended up if there were no Partition in 1947. The

study observes: "The proportion of Indian religionists in the population of

India (Indian subcontinent) has declined by 11 percentage points during the

period of 110 years for which Census information is available. Indian

religionists formed 79.32 per cent of the population in 1881 and 68.03 per cent

in 1991. This is an extraordinary high decline to take place in just about a

century; at the peak of Mughal rule at the time of Akbar, after nearly 400

years of Islamic domination, the number of Muslims in India was said to be no

more than one-sixth of the population. If the trend of decline seen during

1881-1991 continues, then the proportion of Indian religionists in India is

likely to fall below 50 per cent early in the latter half of 21st century." So,

is the fear misplaced that if there were no Partition India would have become a

Lebanon for Hindus? India remains secular and pluralistic because the decisive

majority comprises Hindus.So, Partition in a way staved off the Islamisation of

India. But how does one now cope with the large-scale infiltration of illegal

Bangladeshi immigrants into West Bengal and Assam, people who could turn these

provinces to "Greater Bangladesh"? The Deputy PM has rightly called for the

repealing of the IMDT Act, which in effect is a "secular" conspiracy to

dismember and Islamise India in parts, progressively. And notably, in an

Islamic state, secularism or Communism will also have no place. A typical

example of this are the Communists who actively worked towards the formation of

Pakistan in the Forties, provided Jinnah all the intellectual arsenal he ever

needed, but were themselves cleansed from the Islamic state which was

contemptuous of an impure object.(Balbir K Punj, MP, is convenor of the BJP's

think tank)

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