Hindus Reclaim 5,000 Years of History in Kashmir , India

By PHP Staff
Monday, May 02, 2011

( Photo : A Hindu worships in Srinagar a capital city for Kashmir, India)

KASHMIR : Though the Kashmir valley has for centuries had a Muslim majority, its Hindu population - commonly known as Pandits - were always an integral part of the community. Hindus claim their history here dates back thousands of years.

When a separatist militancy gathered pace two decades ago, up to 400,000 Hindus either fled or were driven out. But over the last couple of years, something special has been happening in Kashmir. Sanjay Tickoo and other members of the small Hindu population that remained have set about restoring the temples, shrines and other sacred places. He claims several dozen such places have been repaired or reactivated.

"After the mass exodus of the Pandits, around 98 per cent of the temples were not attended. Only 23 temples have remained in constant use," said 42-year-old Mr Tickoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti, an NGO."We are doing it to improve Kashmiri society. But when we say we have a 5,000-year history in Kashmir... the history belongs to me only because of my presence in the valley. My identity is directly linked to the temples. If they disappear I cannot claim we have a 5,000-year history in the valley."

The plight of Kashmir's Hindus is one of the overlooked tragedies of south Asia. While Kashmir's Muslim population has attracted international attention for its long and often violent struggle for autonomy, which has resulted in the Indian authorities dispatching hundreds of thousands of troops and paramilitaries, the Pandits are often forgotten, even in their own country. Today, it is estimated there are fewer than 4,000 still here in the valley.

Were we really tolerant before the jihadis? —Dr Manzur Ejaz

By PHP Staff
Thursday, April 14, 2011

Whether led by mature middle-class people or otherwise, the extremist religious movements draw most of their following from the new urbanite classes. In most cases, they have become the source of religious violence

Pakistanis must ask a central

question: were we really tolerant people before Zia’s Islamisation or we were only naively indolent, prone to be violent at any moment? It is a common belief in Pakistan that when Zia, alongside the US, created violent jihadi organisations, they created hysteria in the public with narrow-mindedness ruling and people killing for frivolous reasons. Two questions come to mind about this explanation. One, were we really consciously ever a tolerant society for the jihadis to destroy? And two, how can we use this explanation to explain the parallel rise of extremist political Hinduism in India?

While talking about the killing fields that jihadis have created, we forget that the carnage of 1947 in Punjab cost more lives than the total number of people killed by jihadi violence in the last 20 years in Pakistan. Everyone blames the people of ‘other religions’ for the 1947 tragedy but, wherever Muslims were in overwhelming majority, they killed Sikhs and Hindus. Conversely, they faced the same treatment in areas where they were a minority. Amrita Pritam rightly said, “Aaj sabhay Kaidoo hu gaiy, husan ishaq de chor” (Today, everyone has turned into a villain, enemy of love). What happened in 1947 is closely linked to what is happening now and what occurred in east Punjab’s Khalistan Movement, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Most of the 1947 killings were concentrated in the rural areas; there were some in urban centres but they were limited. Most of the stories I have heard from Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs migrating from Pakistan indicate that the urban non-Muslims did not lose their family members while the stories from the rural areas are horror tales. One of my maternal uncles was killed in a village in Gurdaspur but at the same time none of the two neighbouring village’s Sikhs were spared — entire villages were murdered. How can so-called innocent rural people become murderous?

It can be argued that from the second to third centuries, the way the Gupta dynasty established self-sufficient but desolate and isolated village communities contributed to the religious violence of 1947, and even presently. When the Maurya Dynasty’s state ownership of entire land and manufacturing became unsustainable, it was replaced by self-sufficient village communities. Every community was required by the king’s law to have all kinds of artisans who were given a little land, residential and agricultural, and fixed shares of peasant produce. Consequently, the village communities had no need or desire to interact with other communities or reach beyond their own. Only a few traders and vendors were the link between the village and the rest of the world. The vendor, or vanjara in Punjabi, became a hero in folk songs because he was the only link with the outside world.

Due to the total absence of interaction and exchange of thought with the rest of the world, the village communities became lonesome entities. Mental horizons shrank and one generation of people was replaced with an identical next one. The village was considered a homeland or country whose honour was to be protected. This is why, during inter-village festivals, people would carry weapons as the possibility of war between the people of different villages was very real.

In eastern Punjab, some village communities were comprised of people of all religions but, when the British colonised western Punjab through an irrigation system, the village communities were established exclusively on religious basis. Therefore, another layer of separation was put in place where people of one religion became aliens for the other. The British education system did not mitigate such a separation because of the imposition of Urdu and denial of Punjabi identity. As a result, Sikhs limited themselves to the Gurmukhi script and Muslims to the Persian script. This was another fundamental divide created by the British. In Sindh, where Sindhi was made the official language and everyone used the same script, inter-religious hostility was a little less and did not lead to carnage in 1947. In the urban centres of Punjab where, despite furious religious political divides, the interaction between people was much better and the level of violence was also lower in 1947.

After the creation of India and Pakistan, the isolation of village communities continued. However, communal violence remained contained. It was tolerance by default and not a conscious decision made by the communities. However, when in 1970, mechanised farming, radio, TV and telephone made their way to village communities, 2,000 years of isolation were broken. A massive migration towards the urban areas started and in no time the cities swelled with the first generation of rural people. However, their thinking process, coming from thousands of years of isolation remained static, little altered or subverted. The contemporary cities of north India, including Pakistan, are overwhelmed by new urbanites who lack urban civic sensibility, and every town is entrapped in the worst kind of anarchy.

The old ideological mindset of the new urbanites was not sustainable in the changed environment. A vacuum of ideology emerged, which was readily filled with fundamentalist religious ideologies that were seemingly more rational than their semi-superstitious rural belief system. Whether led by mature middle-class people or otherwise, the extremist religious movements draw most of their following from the new urbanite classes. In most cases, they have become the source of religious violence.

It can be concluded that we were neither a consciously tolerant nor violent people — we were indifferent and isolated and therefore appeared to be tolerant of different faiths. As rural isolation ended and phenomenal urbanisation got underway, extremist religious movements emerged. The rise of the Khalistan Movement and the Hindu Saffron Movement along with the jihadi upsurge in Pakistan are interlined with a common cause. It is true that Ziaul Haq and the US used this emerging trend and turned it into a lethal force, but that is only one scene in a several acts stage play. Furthermore, Ziaul Haq was also a product of changing circumstances — we should not forget that Islamisation was initiated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who himself was a staunch secular person. His embracing of Islamisation shows that the socio-economic conditions were too powerful to be resisted even by him.

The degenerative process could have been contained by good governance and an intellectually mature ruling class but that was not the case. It can still be done if the ruling elites understand what is going on and find ways to harness the energy of new urbanites.

The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com

World's Muslim Population Proportionally Increasing

By NYC PHP Staff
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

(Photo : Projections for 2010-2030 in World's Muslim Population in World)

UNITED STATES : The world's Muslim population is likely to increase by about 35 percent in the next two decades, going from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion, according to new study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Globally, the Muslim population is projected to increase at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades--an average annual growth rate of 1.5 percent for Muslims, compared with 0.7 percent for non-Muslims. 

(Photo : Projections for 2010-2030 in World's Muslim Population in World)

Current trends, if they continue, suggest that Muslims will make up 26.4 percent of the world's total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4 percent of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion. While the global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, the Muslim population nevertheless is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades.

To read entire article visit below link -
http://pewforum.org/The-Future-of-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx

By Purushottam Singh
PHP New York

Renunciate Female Priests Run Krishna Temple in Jammu, India

Source: sify.com
Monday, October 11, 2010

JAMMU, INDIA : A temple devoted to Lord Krishna here is looked after by a group of female priests, who offer daily prayers and perform rituals. The priestesses say they want to spread the message of women empowerment through religion in the society. They maintain that women and men are equal, as both are children of God.

“Lord Krishna has said in the holy scripture Gita that there is no difference between a man and a woman, whether they are from different castes or class. No matter how a person is, they all have equal rights,” said tapasvi Sadha Bai, a priestess.

The temple is 200 years old and it was built by Ananda Bai, who devoted her life to the service of the temple. The priestesses, who are known as ‘Bai Ji’ (Sister), live very simply and wear pink attire. They also shave their heads and do not wear any ornament except for holy beads.

Today - Hindu minority homeless in Kashmir

By Dr. Radhe Shyam Kumar
Friday, July 30, 2010


Muslim separatist groups have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir for two decades. New Delhi blames Pakistan for supporting them. Pakistan denies the claim.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.

In the lead-up to talks between the two countriesin Islamabad on Thursday, Al Jazeera takes a closer look at the Kashmir unrest.

Al Jazeera's Prerna Suri reports from Srinagar about the region's Hindu minority left homeless by years of violence.

Hindu minority homeless in Kashmir - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Al Jazeera English

Kashmir Roots Tug Hindus Home

Source: www.nytimes.com
Saturday, July 24 , 2010

(Photo : Upper-caste Hindus known as Pandits prayed last month at the Vichar Nag shrine, above, in Srinagar, Kashmir)

SRINAGAR, KASHMIR : The ceremony is simple and common. A Hindu priest lights a fire, places some herbs, clarified butter and other offerings atop it and through its peculiar alchemy the smoke purifies everything it touches. But nothing about this Maha Yaghya ritual performed in the once-abandoned Vichar Nag shrine here on a recent Saturday night was simple. Most peculiar was the ceremony’s location, astride one of the world’s most fractious religious fault lines, between two nuclear-armed neighbors who have fought three wars, two of them over the land on which the shrine sits.

Twenty years ago, nearly 400,000 Hindus fled the Kashmir Valley, fearful of a separatist insurgency by the area’s Muslim majority. Now they are trickling back, a sign to many here that the Kashmir Valley, after years of violence and turmoil, is settling in to an uneasy but hopeful peace. More than a dozen shrines have reopened in recent years, said Sanjay Tickoo, a Kashmiri Pandit who never left the valley and is now trying to entice those who left to return. Both sides have taken steps toward a peaceful coexistence.

100,000 Brahmin Hindus return to the land of the Pandits, Kashmir

Source Thenational
Sunday, June 27, 2010

(PHOTO : The annual Mela Khirbhawani festival in Tulla Mulla, Kashmir)

TULLA MULLA :Two decades after fleeing Kashmir, thousands of Brahmin Hindus, known as Pandits, returned to their ancestral homeland yesterday to pray at a sacred shrine, the biggest congregation of Pandits since their exodus.

Amid tight security, around 100,000 Pandits came from across India to gather in Tulla Mulla, 27km east of Srinagar, at the historic Khirbhawani temple to seek blessings from the goddess Ragnya Devi.

“I don’t want to go back [to heartland India]. I want to die here,” said Ishri Bhatt, 65, a widow who fled the Muslim-majority valley in 1989 along with an estimated 200,000 Pandits when a insurgency against Indian rule broke out.

They re-settled in the Hindu-dominated southern part of the state, Jammu, and other parts of India.

But the Pandits have recently begun to return. An estimated 4,000 families have moved back to the territory, split between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in its entirety, since 2004 when relations between the nuclear-armed rivals began to thaw. The intensity of militant violence in Kashmir has also decreased since then.

Jawaharlal Langar, 72, a retired librarian at Kashmir University, now lives in New Delhi but is originally from Srinagar’s Shivpora district. He was one of the Pandits returning for the first time. Mr Langar said: “Why and how did we have to leave? I don’t want to go into those details because that would only reopen old wounds. I took a flight from Delhi and on landing in Srinagar found things have changed for the better and the atmosphere is quite cordial.”

Violence, however is still common enough to keep the vast majority of Pandits from moving back. Street battles between Indian security forces and stone-throwing protesters are a daily occurrence. Human rights abuses against civilians are also commonplace, according to rights groups. Tens of thousands have died.

Most of the visiting Pandits said they prayed for the return of peace so that they can come back to their homes. Prince Bhatt, 41, Ishri Bhatt’s son, said: “I’m quite happy over the way we were greeted by the people living in the temple vicinity and other Muslims. All that is needed now is some bold initiatives by the government and the politicians.”

The Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who visited the temple yesterday, said new government initiatives would encourage Pandits to return. They include reservations in government jobs.

Many of the Pandit families are well-settled in their new lives, making it difficult to return to an uncertain situation.

Mr Langar, sitting near the stream in the shade of poplars, willows and walnut trees, said: “I wish [to return] but I can’t. My children and grandchildren are settled outside the Valley of Kashmir and it would be naive to seek to resettle here when your beloved ones are not around.”

But the desire to return remains strong even among the post-migration generation, some of whom have never been to the valley. Rajat Hangloo, 13, said: “There is no better place to live than our own Kashmir.” Speaking in Kashmiri, Rajat added: “It is cool here and too hot there [in Jammu]. Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life here.”

Before the eruption of violence, Pandits and Muslims lived in relative harmony sharing a unique Kashmiri culture. At the Khirbhawani temple yesterday, Muslims greeted the pilgrims with open arms, offering them fruit and drinks and even hosting some in their homes. Habla Begum, a Muslim resident of Tulla Mulla, felt “quite contented” while pouring ghee into the tiny earthen lamp pots that are lit by the Hindu devotees as part of their prayers.

Abdul Aziz Shah, 64, a resident of neighbouring Safa Pora township, said, “Militancy was a curse. We’ve paid a heavy price and continue to suffer. One of the pitfalls was the flight of our Pandit brethren. They must come back.” Mr Shah said his family has sold sweets, flower petals and other items to Hindu pilgrims for seven generations.

From Pillar To Post, By Kuldip Nayar

By Editorial Staff
Sunday, June 20, 2010

(PHOTO : Mr Kuldip Nayar)

Pakistan : GENERAL Ayub Khan, then at the helm of the Pakistan government, is believed to have told Soviet Union's Prime Minister Kosygin that if India were to come to a settlement with Sheikh Abdullah, head of the Jammu and Kashmir government at that time, Pakistan might accept the agreement. Kosygin was trying his best to span the distance between India and Pakistan, despite Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's doubts over the role of Russia, who had been supplying arms to Pakistan.

Soon after, the Sheikh was detained for nearly 12 years in South India. He had reportedly asked New Delhi to make the terms of the Instrument of Accession good. The state had given to the centre only three subjects -- defence, foreign affairs and communications.

Since then, the All Party Hurriyat Conference jumped into the arena. Its agenda goes far beyond the Sheikh or, for that matter, the ruling National Conference. Unfortunately, the Hurriyat has split into hardliners and moderates. Whatever its verdict on the government headed by Farooq Abdullah, the Sheikh's grandson, he has made the security forces accountable.

The suspension by the army of a major and removal of a colonel from service for their "role" in dubious encounters is not a small achievement. In fact, Farooq has ordered an inquiry into the fake encounters in the past and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on his recent visit to Srinagar, said that strict orders had been given to the security forces not to violate human rights.

Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said: "We expected the prime minister to start a bold political initiative on Kashmir but nothing of that sort has come through."

Obviously, the Hurriyat has not taken into account Dr. Manmohan Singh's message that the government was committed to push forward the process of negotiation. His was the first visit to Kashmir after he had met Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani at the Saarc summit in Bhutan.

The Indian prime minister wanted the Hurriyat to come on board before India held a series of ministerial-level meetings with Pakistan. It is naïve on the part of Mirwaiz to demand a public announcement on what the government has in view. A dialogue is the only way to hammer out differences. In the case of Kashmir, Pakistan is also a party.

True, Srinagar was shut and hundreds were on the street when the prime minister arrived there. But this is an exercise over which the Hurriyat has gone many a time before. People are tired. They see very little on the horizon. They have sacrificed nearly all that they had.

The span of 25 to 30 years, the hey days of Hurriyat, is not a small period to wait. It is nobody's case that the people's alienation in the valley has not disappeared, nor that the Hurriyat has ceased to count.

I think the failure of the Hurriyat is in having preferred bullet to ballot. They revolted when they, young and idealistic, witnessed the charade of an election in Kashmir in 1987.

Indeed, the polls were rigged. But going across the border, getting training and returning with weapons was the reaction of angry, helpless people. Violence, as some Hurriyat leaders have realised, was not an option that could have yielded results. Coming into conflict with the state, which is thousands of times stronger, was foolhardy. Believe me, I am not underestimating the sacrifices of people. Very few movements in the world have been so determined and so sustained.

The Hurriyat should have returned to the ballot box after the violent agitation it had launched gave diminishing returns. In violence, the people in India witnessed a forceful cessation of Kashmir, which is considered part of the country. The Hurriyat movement was seen as a challenge to the country's integrity.

The Hurriyat should have tried to capture the Jammu and Kashmir assembly. Instead, they propagated the boycott of elections. Their argument was that the polls under the aegis of the Indian Election Commission were not acceptable to them. They proposed supervision by the UN observers. No sovereign country could have accepted this.

Had the Hurriyat leaders demanded that the Indian human rights activists should be the observers, they might have had the consent of New Delhi. But would the Hurriyat have won? This uncertainty might have been the main reason for it not participating in elections, which have their own dynamics. Popular agitators are not normally put in the gaddi.

The Hurriyat's tilt towards Pakistan, probably necessitated by the situation in which they were, has distanced it from India. That the solution of Kashmir is not possible without Islamabad is understandable. But the Hurriyat did not have to play the Muslim card. It only created further doubts in the mind of the majority in India. After the exodus of most Hindu pandits from Kashmir, the valley has nearly 96% of Muslims.

But this is the Hurriyat's weakness, not the strength. Not having the support of the Hindu-majority Jammu and the Buddhist- majority Ladakh, the Hurriyat has forfeited the right to speak for the entire state. It should have at least wooed the Kashmir pandits, many still in camps, to return to their homes. Some Hurriyat leaders have realised this a bit late. But the party as such still cannot pursue the matter wholeheartedly because a few among them do not want Hindus back till the Kashmir solution is finally settled.

Even in its demand, the Hurriyat has been equivocal. It has oscillated between autonomy and independence. Realising that Pakistan is equally opposed to independence, as India is, the Hurriyat wants a solution that is acceptable to the people of Kashmir. But that has not been spelled out.

The fact that Jammu and Ladakh are nowhere in the picture means that the Hurriyat's demand is only for the valley. This brings the Hurriyat in conflict with what Manmohan Singh has said many a time, that he has no mandate to change the borders. Even otherwise, the Indian nation would not accept another partition on the basis of religion.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the scenario in the region from Afghanistan to India has changed beyond proportions. America and Pakistan on one hand and India and Pakistan on the other are trying to come to terms with new developments. Kashmir too figures, but in the larger context.

The Hurriyat might do better if it were to confine the talks between Srinagar and Delhi till India and Pakistan reach a settlement on Kashmir. The Hurriyat should ask New Delhi first to restore the ante-1952 situation, where Srinagar gave it three subjects -- foreign affairs, defence and communications. It would be better than going from post to pillar.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.

To Be A Hindu Pilgrim, With A Mobile Phone all The Way, India

Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Friday, June 18, 2010

(PHOTO : During Amarnath Yatra in Kashmir)

UNITED KINGDOM : For the first time ever, the 400,000 Hindu pilgrims on the Amarnath Yatra will be able to take their mobile phones with them, after the state-owned operator BSNL said it would erect nine signal masts along the route. BSNL’s announcement is part of the Indian government’s plan to promote mobile telephony in inhospitable areas. And the masts will stay there after the Yatra (pilgrimage) is over.

For some, the idea of being able to use a mobile on such a mission is sacrilegious, but for most it will likely prove a means of support during a very dangerous journey. The Yatra is a truly perilous trip to embark on. Not only is it a grueling and sinuous climb to 12,750 feet to see an ice lingam that appears in a cave between June and August - the route can also be blighted by unseasonal blizzards, and is a terrorist target for Kashmiri separatists.

The Yatra has a checkered history and was suspended for five years in the 1990s after terrorist threats. The situation worsened when the suspension was lifted. In 1996, 100,000 yatris were caught in a storm that killed 242 people and four years later, in 2000, militants massacred 30 people as they began their slow march.

For Hindus, the Amarnath Caves are one of their religion’s holiest shrines and where the God Shiva explained the secret of life and eternity to his divine consort Parvati, more than 5,000 years ago. Devotees can make the 26-mile Yatra on foot from the town of Pahalgam, a journey that takes four to five days - or the shorter route from the town of Baltal, that takes about eight hours.