They have now begun to ‘ban’ priests, ‘banish’
foreign NGOs and demand that missionary-run schools should include
Islamic prayers. Given this kind of bullying, it is little wonder that
the Valley’s Christians are living in fear. They have become the victims
of a vicious slander campaign that includes the kind of story that one
of the State’s English dailies ran last Thursday.
A full-page
spread titled, ‘Apostasy Unveiled’, the report is a first person account
of a love-lorn young Muslim boy who has been lured with money, alcohol
and drugs and ultimately beguiled into converting to Christianity — just
the kind of thing that the Muslim-majority State’s religious guardians
can be trusted to raise a ruckus about.
Ever since the conversion dispute surfaced, the situation has progressively worsened for the Christians, as the Valley’s mullahs
have stepped up their efforts to make the entire community in Jammu
& Kashmir — which has only a few hundred members — and even
foreigners who practice Christianity, their target of hate and violence.
The most telling example of this mindless harassment is perhaps
the story of Juan Marcos Troia — an Argentine football coach who had
been promoting his sport in the Valley but is now being hounded by the
fanatics. His house has been vandalised, funding for his clubs are under
the scanner and he has received calls in the middle of the night asking
how many copies of the Bible he keeps at home.
At the centre of this controversy is a certain Protestant Pastor, CM Khanna. The mullahs have released a video of his baptising Muslim boys and a shari’ah
‘court’ has expelled him from the State in blatant violation of the law
of the land that does not recognise such illegitimate directives.
While the fundamentalists have behaved in the way they would be
expected to — and as they have always done — it is for the State
Government to end the persecution of the Christian minority which
follows the cleansing of the Kashmir Valley of its Hindu minority.
Unfortunately, no protection has been given to Pastor Khanna (instead,
he has been arrested for disturbing communal peace) nor to the likes of
Mr Troia — all of whom have been left to fend for themselves.
Similarly,
the country’s Left-liberals, who are quick to denounce Hindus, have,
once again, remained stunningly silent in the face of Islamist bullying.
Just like they once glossed over the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits
from the Valley, today there is barely a murmur of protest in support of
the Christians living in the Valley.
Showing posts with label kashmir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kashmir. Show all posts
Monday, February 27, 2012
Militants behead two jawans in J&K - Indian Press supresses story
India Today
Ajmer Singh New Delhi, August 6, 2011
In a barbaric incident, which has shocked army officials, Pakistan-trained militants beheaded two soldiers and dumped their bodies during an encounter to check infiltration attempt near the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara district of Kashmir late last month.
It is suspected that the militants killed the jawans from the 20 Kumaon regiment, beheaded the duo and reportedly retained their heads as war trophies.
But, the army officials are not willing to accept the tragic story, as it might have an impact on the morale of the armed forces waging anti- terror operations in J& K. A jawan of 19 Rajput, who was part of the patrol party, also died in the cross- fire.
A senior Army official, requesting anonymity, disclosed that the two men of Kumaon regiment were killed and their heads were chopped off. Their bodies were also mutilated, he said.
The incident happened around Pak foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar's visit to the country, in the last week of July, disclosed the officer.
The martyred soldiers were identified as Havildar Jaipal Singh Adhikari and Lance Naik Devender Singh.
The details of the third jawan, from 19 Rajput, couldn't be ascertained.
The soldiers were cremated on Wednesday at their native places in Pithoragarh and Haldwani districts of Uttrakhand.
A state police officer, who was present at the cremation of Devender Singh, confirmed that the bodies were badly mutilated and not shown to relatives. The Army authorities informed that the heads were blown away during the fierce encounter, he said.
Lance Naik Devender Singh's uncle also admitted that the bodies weren't shown to the family members, and so did a 20 Kumaon regiment official. Militants fired rocket propelled grenades at the jawans, killing them on spot and blowing off their heads, the official said.
He, however, refused to share details of the encounter. Lt Col J. S. Brar, the official spokesperson, HQ 15 Corps wasn't available for comments.
Rajesh Kalia, the official spokesman of Udhampur based Northernern Command, said there was an infiltration bid near Farkian Gali, which is close to the Line of Control (LOC), and that they had lost three men.
When asked if militants beheaded Indian soldiers, Kalia avoided a direct reply by merely commenting that " details weren't available". But, the actual incident is quietly being discussed among the army circles in the valley.
A commanding officer of a Rashtriya Rifles ( RR) unit, deployed in the Kupwara sector, also privately confirmed that militants had beheaded two soldiers of the Kumaon unit.
Officers said that the trend of beheading armymenby the militants has resurfaced after four yeras.
A major rank officer of Kumaon Scouts, however, claimed that soldiers were martyred in a fierce encounter, which took place at 16.40 hrs on July 30, near Kupwara.
The ambush party had come under attack from three sides.
The barbaric incident is despicable and has outraged top army officers, stated one colonel posted in Kupwara sector.
In 1999 also, there was a national outcry, when Kargil hero Lt Saurabh Kalia and five Jawans were captured by Pakistani troops.
They were brutally tortured and then shot dead.
According to Lt Kalia's father's online petition, Pakistan had dared to humiliate India by flouting all international norms.
_________________________
The Birkin effect: Our jawans are beheaded
Pioneer 24 August 2011 15:26
Kanchan Gupta
Pakistan’s businesswoman-turned-Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar may feign to be miffed that the media chose to focus attention on her Birkin handbag, Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, Jimmy Choo shoes and South Sea pearls during her recent visit to India rather than her intellectual contribution towards peace-making between a terrorist state and its victim neighbour, but that does not in any manner diminish the fact that a calculated gamble by the decrepit civilian Government in Islamabad and the criminal military-jihadi complex in Rawalpindi has served its purpose and paid rich dividends.
The feckless political class in India has elected to be reduced to a bowl of quivering jelly in the face of Pakistan’s charm offensive, much as it was when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto brought along his daughter Benazir and managed to extract huge concessions at Simla in 1972 without raising any hackles. As for the media of this unfortunate country, led as it is by television channels desperate to grab eyeballs whatever it takes and ever-so-mindful of sensitivities across the Radcliffe Line, it has neither the time nor the inclination to look beyond the obvious. Given as we are to self-flagellation, self-doubt and self-denigration, it is only natural that our media, which frankly reflects our society without any distortion, should have seized upon Ms Khar’s visit to paint Pakistanis as the sub-continent’s beautiful people and Indians as the beasts. Nothing could have exemplified this better than the running commentary by the editor of a news channel comparing fuddy-duddies in the Government of India with the swish visiting Minister, and how we as a nation are straggling while Pakistan is boldly marching forward. It’s a pity that our media houses continue to enjoy the untold and never-to-be disclosed benefits of stationing their studios in Delhi and its suburbs; their hearts and minds belong elsewhere.
And so it is that ever since Ms Khar came to Delhi, showed off her sartorial preference for hand-made exclusive Hermes bags which she wouldn’t dare flaunt in the lanes of Karachi and conquered our Left-liberal commentariat which controls media content, rare has been the story or article critical of Pakistan or fair in its assessment of that country’s continued hate India, harm India policy that is implemented with the ruthless fanaticism of jihadis who have dedicated their lives to the mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children. Hence, it stands to reason that our media should have purposefully glossed over the barbaric beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistanis — it is unclear whether the perpetrators were Pakistani soldiers or Pakistani terrorists being provided cover by the former while trying to sneak into India — near the Line of Control in Kupwara district of Jammu & Kashmir. The ghastly incident, it now transpires, occurred late last month, around the time of Ms Khar’s visit. Sketchy details that are available suggest the Indian soldiers’ bodies were “dumped” on our side of the LoC, which would mean they were kidnapped, tortured and then beheaded, a ritual without which jihadis believe their faith-ordained task is incomplete.
India Today’s web edition, which has a story on the brutality, says “It is suspected that militants killed the jawans from the 20 Kumaon Regiment, beheaded the duo and reportedly retained their heads as war trophies.” The journal says, “A senior Army official, requesting anonymity, disclosed that the two men of Kumaon Regiment were killed and their heads were chopped off. Their bodies were also mutilated.” Such was the mutilation that the families of the soldiers were requested not to lift the shrouds covering their bodies. Quoting Army officials, the report identifies the two martyrs as Havildar Jaipal Singh Adhikari and Lance Naik Devender Singh. A third jawan, from 19 Rajput Regiment, was shot dead. His name has not been disclosed. The fallen soldiers were cremated on Wednesday at their native villages in Pithoragarh and Haldwani districts of Uttarakhand. But for the report in India Today, India would have remained ignorant of this horror story.
Unfortunately, the Army has chosen to maintain a strange silence. According to officials who spoke to India Today, this is because confirmation of the slaughter would ‘demoralise’ the soldiers on duty. But that’s balderdash: Jawans are not known to take the killing of their fellow jawans lightly, nor do they suffer loss of morale. If anything, it hardens their resolve and strengthens their belief that the enemy must be fought tooth and nail, till the last man standing. The capture and subsequent horrific torture of Lt Saurabh Kalia and five jawans whose mutilated, unrecognisable bodies were returned by the Pakistani Army did not weaken the resolve of our men in uniform during the Kargil war. While media is to be blamed for not sniffing out the story and splashing it (although it spared no effort to sniff out that Ms Khar was indeed carrying a Birkin handbag and that it could cost up to Rs 17 lakh and then went on to inform us why those who carry this bag are to be taken seriously) we must not overlook the role of our effete political leadership in keeping such details of Pakistani perfidy under wraps. It would not be unfair to presume that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, desperate to go down in history as the friend of a country that torments India, took personal interest in ensuring the story did not surface in the public domain; it would have remained a secret had an intrepid reporter of India Today not put it out.
Soon after I resumed writing for this newspaper in 2004 after returning to India from Cairo where I was posted on a Government assignment, I had penned a piece on a similar incident that had missed the attention of media and fetched no protest from the Government of India, headed then as it is now by Mr Manmohan Singh. Late in the evening on Saturday, April 16, 2005, an Assistant Commandant and a constable of the Border Security Force, on duty at Lankamura outpost on the India-Bangladesh border, a mere eight km from Tripura’s capital, Agartala, were dragged into Bangladeshi territory. By the time the BSF got them back, Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar was dead. He had been shot at point blank range. Injuries on his body indicated he was brutally knifed before being killed. Constable KK Surendran, seriously injured, was battling for his life. I must confess I do not know whether he survived that attack. On that occasion, in the absence of any official statement, I had sought to reconstruct events on the basis of what local residents had to say: The two men were rushed by a group of Bangladesh Rifles personnel in civilian clothes, dragged across the border and then set upon by their colleagues. All the while, the BDR’s men kept firing on the Lankamura outpost. The firing stopped around midnight, followed by a hastily arranged flag meeting during which Kumar’s lifeless body and a barely alive Surendran were handed over to the BSF. There was not even a word of condemnation.
PS: On Kargil Diwas I tweeted about Saurabh Kalia. There were numerous tweets in response, asking me who was Saurabh Kalia. Those asking this question were young Indians, well-educated and from middle-class families. A nation forgets its martyrs when it is led by those who hold martyrs in contempt and are elected to office by those who are bowled over by Birkin handbags, Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, Jimmy Choo shoes and South Sea pearls — namely, our selfish, self-serving middle-classes.
PAKISTAN SUPPORTS TERRORIST REBELS IN KASHMIR -- BY YOSSEF BODANSKY AND VAUGHN S. FORREST
US Congressional Record
PAKISTAN
SUPPORTS TERRORIST REBELS IN KASHMIR -- (BY YOSSEF BODANSKY AND VAUGHN S.
FORREST) (Extension of Remarks - June 22, 1994)
[Page: E1295]
---
HON. BILL
MCCOLLUM
in the House
of Representatives
WEDNESDAY, JUNE
22, 1994
- Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House a very important matter. The role of Pakistan in aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir is well documented, so much so that the administration almost placed the Pakistani regime on the 1993 list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, the administration did not take such action because it was assured by Pakistan that Islamabad was taking credible steps to dissociate itself from the militants in Kashir.
- Recent reports however, suggest that Pakistan never stopped its aid to the terrorists in Kashir. A report in the Washington Post dated, May 16, 1994, titled, `Pakistan Aiding Rebels in Kashmir: Muslims Reportedly Armed and Trained,' by John Word Anderson, datelined Muzzaffarabad, gives a first-hand account of such assistance by Pakistan to terrorists in Kashmir.
- The State Department has also confirmed this fact in its annual report titled, `Patterns of Global Terrorism' I quote, `* * * there were credible reports in 1993 of official Pakistani support to Kashmiri militants * * *.'
- This fact is further confirmed from a study conducted by The Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare titled, `The Kashmir Connection,' which I would like to place in the Record, immediately following these remarks which details the extent of Pakistani involvement in aiding the terrorists in Kashmir.
- This House should take cognizance of this serious issue particularly as some of those who have indicted in the bombing of the World Trade Center had also received training in Pakistan.
(BY YOSSEF
BODANSKY AND VAUGHN S. FORREST)
As the rivalry between India and Pakistan has intensified, perhaps no other region has taken on the significance of Kashmir. That province is unique among all the crisis points along the Indo-Pakistani border in that it is not just an area of strategic and economic importance, it is also the object of the ideological passions of the various states in the region. Thus, the following paper will briefly summarize the ongoing rivalry in Kashmir, focusing on Pakistan, Iran, the various Islamist movements, and the military/terrorist dimension of the conflict.
For Islamabad, the liberation of Kashmir is a sacred mission, the only task unfulfilled since the days of Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. However, Kashmir is equally important in that it serves the domestic interests of the Pakistani Government in three crucial respects. First, tension over Kashmir creates a diversion from frustrations at home. Second, the Kashmir cause allows Islamabad to rally the support of Pakistan's Islamist parties and their loyalists in the military and the ISI, and third, it serves the regime as an important access point to the markets of Central Asia.
Similarly, Iran considers an escalation of the Jihad for the liberation of Kashmir a key to the assertion of its own strategic prominence, particularly under the auspices of its Islamic Bloc. Indeed, Iran sees Kashmir, because it is the land of the Ayatollah Khomeynia's roots, as sacred ground and is using that fact to instill ideological zeal in the various nationals who make up Tehran's terrorist infrastructure. Not surprisingly, having taken the proverbial tiger by the tail and invested such prestige in the `Islamization' of Kashmir, Tehran now finds itself committed to fighting for it.
Additionally, beyond Iran and Pakistan, the Armed Islamic Movement, as well as several Saudi, Gulf Arab, and other supporters of Islamist causes, put Kashmir high on their list of jihads to be fought. This is not only because of Kashmir's aforementioned material and `spiritual' importance, but also because it is seen as a relatively easy target. Being geographically isolated and chocked full of weapons and terrorists cells, many Islamist groups believe that the wresting of Kashmir from India would be a great prize acquired at minimal cost and would inspire their followers and further the cause.
Whatever the validity of such as assumption, all of the states and organizations engaged in Kashmir have large, highly trained and well equipped forces, and most have not yet been committed to the Kashmiri jihad. Thus, there exists an environment in which ideological zeal and strategic and political considerations have coalesced. Specifically, as already noted, Pakistan needs Kashmir as a distraction from its domestic problems, various terrorist `Afgahan' groups are chomping at the bit to move, awaiting only a wink and a nod from the ISI, and Iran and various Arab states stand willing to finance the effort.
Thus, it is safe to assume that the fighting in Kashmir will escalate significantly, with numerous additional highly trained and well equipped mujahideen many of them professional special forces and terrorists, joining the fight and expanding the struggle into the rest of India. Indeed, there are already in place extensive stockpiles of weapons as well as large sums of money to sustain and support such a conflict.
Consequently, apparently reassured about the steadfastness of its Islamist support, Islamabad has acknowledged openly the futility of its negotiations with India over the Kashmir issue. At the same time, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has begun to accede to demands from her military leaders for further increases in the Pakistaini defense budget.
In fact, the rising militancy of Pakistani officials is far from empty rhetoric, for Ismanabad has used the increasing tension in Kashmir as pretext for expanding its terrorist training and
support system for operations in Central Asia and elsewhere in the world.
To that end, the ISI has established the Markaz-Dawar, a center for world wide Islamist activities. Mulavi Zaki, the center's spiritual leader, has told the trainees that their destiny is to fight and liberate `the land of Allah from infidels' wherever they might be. The commanders and instructors at Markaz-Dawar are AIM members, primarily Ikhwan from Algeria, Sudan and Egypt, and most of them have more than a decade of combat experience in Afghanistan.
In early 1992, some of these `Afghans' were transferred to Azzad Kashmir where new camps were being built for them by the Pakistani Army. By early 1993, there were over 1,000 `Afghan' mujahideen in the Markaz-Dawar alone. Following the completion of their advanced training, the `Afghans' were sent to Kashmir, Algeria and Egypt. Furthermore, Islamabad's claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the main offices of the Islamist terrorist organizations have remained functioning in Peshawar.
In addition to the transfers noted above, a series of `raids' by police since October 1992 resulted in the shifting of some 200 terrorist operatives, including some wanted by Western police officials, to facilities near Jalalabad, just across the Afghan border. Indeed, in the fall of 1993, an Arab `Afghan' with first hand knowledge of the situation confirmed that Pakistan had `pushed them out of the door only to open a window for them to return and they come and go as they wish in Peshawar.'
In the meantime, in the summer of 1993, the ISI had in the Markaz-Dawar another force of some 200 Afghans--mainly Jallalluddin Haqqani's people from the Khowst area--operating under its direct command and earmarked for special operations in Kashmir. According to Muhammad Fazal al-Hajj, a PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] terrorist captured in southern Kashmir in the summer of 1993, additional `Afghans' and Afghan nationals were being prepared by the ISI for a forthcoming escalation in Kashmir. At least 400 `Afghans' and Afghan nationals were known to have been organized in one camp, where they were trained by the ISI to augment and provide a leadership core for the Kashmiri Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. There was also a corresponding expansion of the preparation of Islamist terrorists for operations in forward bases in Kashmir, with some 600 terrorists, about half of them veteran `Afghans' and Afghans, already at the final phase of their training.
Indeed, many Arab volunteers continue to arrive in Peshawar almost every day. The preferred port of entry is the Karachi airport. There, a special department run by a Major Amir--an ISI Major with Afghan experience `turned' director of Immigration at the airport--oversees the volunteer's `proper' entry into Pakistan and quick dispatch to Peshawar. The main Ikhwan facility is the Maktaba-i-Khidmat [Services Offices], which was originally established by the late Shaykh Abd Allah Azzam and is now run by his successor, Shaykh Muhammad Yussaf Abbas. The Maktaba-i-Khidmat still processes volunteers for AIM, but at present many of the volunteers are dispatched to the numerous training camps run by Arab `Afghan' militants inside Afghanistan. The ISI continues to provide the weapons and expertise necessary to support this operation.
Meanwhile, the Government of Afghanistan has also increased its support for terrorist training and preparation. This growing direct involvement is important because the main operating bases for the ISI's activities in Central Asia are in northern Afghanistan. The origins of this arrangement run back to the aftermath of the fall of Kabul. At that time, many Arab `Afghans' returned to Peshawar where they were organized by the Pakistani government to support various Islamist causes in concert with Iran and Sudan. Many of these fighters later returned to Afghanistan as quality forces or to serve in personal guard details.
Subsequently, in early December 1993, during a state visit to Pakistan, the Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, Maulana Arsalan Rahmani, elaborated on Kabul's perception of the Islamist struggles worldwide, and especially in south and central Asia. He hailed Afghanistan's active support for Islamist armed causes and stressed that `we don't consider this support as intervention in any country's internal affairs.' Maulana Arsalan Rahmani also admitted that Afghanistan was providing military assistance to various insurgencies because, `we cannot remain aloof from what is happening to the Muslims in occupied Kashmir, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Burma, Palestine and elsewhere. . . . We are not terrorists but Mujahideen fighting for restoring peace and preserving honor.'
Rahmani acknowledged that Afghanistan has also played a major role in a recent development among the Islamist organizations fighting in Indian Kashmir, namely, the merger of the Harakat ul-Jihad Islami and Harakat ul-Mujahideen into the potent Harakat ul-Ansar group. This support for the unification of the two movements, according to Rahmani, was but part of the active support given by Afghanistan to the Islamist fighters in Kashmir, Tajikistan, and Bosnia. `There are about 8,000 members of Harakat ul-Ansar who are supporting the Kashmiri struggle against Indian occupation,' Rahmani stated.
[Page: E1296]
The ISI also provides these and other terrorists with new
- weapons. For example, in the summer of 1993, the Kashmiri mujahideen were provided with powerful long range missiles--called `chemical missiles' by the Sikhs who had learned about them while in training in Pakistan. At that time, the Kashmiri and ISI crews were being trained in the use of these missiles in Pakistani Kashmir. In fact, these are Saqr missiles which were developed in the 1980s with help from the United States for use by the mujahideen in Afghanistan.
- Subsequently, there has been a significant expansion in the smuggling of quality weapons from Pakistan into Kashmir and as of late 1993 there has been a corresponding change in the tactics used by terrorists, including the use of hit and run strikes by highly trained and well equipped detachments. Among the new weapons now used in Kashmir are 107mm rockets, 60mm mortars, 40mm automatic grenade launchers (Soviet and Chinese models), a modification of the 57mm helicopter rocket pods with solar-powered timing devices for the delayed firing of rockets and a LAW-type tube-launched ATMs (Soviet and Chinese models).
- In addition, the Kashmiri terrorists have also begun using sophisticated communications systems including small radios (systems with frequency hopping, selective broadcast, digital burst communications, etc.) and collapsible solar-panels for reload systems, as well as frequency scanning devices for detecting and homing in on military-type broadcasts. All the communication systems are of NATO/US origin, with some components made in Japan. All of these systems have been used by the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, having been provided via the ISI.
- On top of all of this, there has been a large increase in the quantities of small arms provided to the Kashmiris, including Type 56 ARs (PRC AK-47s), several types of machineguns, long-range sniper rifles, pistols and RPGs, all of Soviet and Chinese manufacture. Also, some of the Kashmiri terrorists have begun receiving highly specialized weapons for assassination projects.
- Given this obviously high level of sophistication, it would seem safe to assume that the situation in Kashmir will become increasingly ominous. As Pakistan and India eye each other with rising suspicion, and as other powers come into play, the danger or outright war becomes ever more real. In future reports, the Task Force will examine the full extent of this danger and will explain its ramifications.
Pakistan and Terrorism from a 1994 US Congressional Debate
Monday, January 23, 2012
In Kashmir Christians get to taste the ethnic cleansing Hindus once faced
Pioneer
January 23, 2012
The manner in which Muslim zealots in Jammu & Kashmir have been harassing the State’s Christian minority community over a religious conversion row that erupted last week demonstrates yet again the unbridled and absolutely illegal manner in which mullahs are enforcing their writ.
January 23, 2012
The manner in which Muslim zealots in Jammu & Kashmir have been harassing the State’s Christian minority community over a religious conversion row that erupted last week demonstrates yet again the unbridled and absolutely illegal manner in which mullahs are enforcing their writ.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
CONVERSIONS AS MUSLIM MALAISE
From ML Kaul's excellent book:
Kashmir: Wail of a Valley
There is hardly any conceivable excess and atrocity which the Kashmiri Pandits as a characteristic religious group have not been subjected to by the Muslim marauders. Apart from the pogrom having no semblance of a human face that was perpetrated on them the devastating catastrophe that could befall them was the forcible conversion to an alien religion of Islam.
History is a pulsating witness to the brutal conversions that were realised by Muslim monarchs whether of Sunni or Shia brand through spilling of blood, hacking of flesh and splintering of body limbs for transforming religious complexion of Kashmir. Sikander, Ali Shah, Malik Saif-ud-din, Kaji Chak, Aurangzeb and Afghan surrogates as medieval despots were at pains to devise all instruments of coercion and repression with the ominous motive of proliferating the support-base of Islam which in Kashmir at the initial stages was near negligible. With the loss of political power to the Sikhs the raging fury of proselytisation campaigns came to a sudden halt but the deep and crippling scar of conversion was already inflicted on the religious personality of Kashmir. Some of the neo-converts who were traumatised by the forcible conversion to Islam harked back to their birth religion. Had the process found support from the power structures it would have turned into a roaring tide.
With the decay of Sikh state the reins of power in Kashmir were handed over to the Dogras by the British masters and with the speed of lightning a consistent campaign of calumny virulent hatred was unleashed by the Punjab based violent and fanatic Muslim groups urging the Kashmir Muslims to dismantle the Dogra rule spoke by spoke. Demands were yelled that the rulers who were dubbed as staunch Hindus should cease to create hurdles in the holy task of conversions from other faiths and should desist from interference in the launch of straightforward hate campaigns against the religious enemies.
In the murderous loot of 1931 the seven Kashmiri Pandits belonging to a single family of the village of Kanikoot near yusmarg were offered conversion as an alternate choice to escape slaughter. In 1932 when riots were triggered off in Mirpur the Hindus were massacred, arsoned and coerced to accept Islamic faith. Forty-one Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam in the Kotli Police Station area. In the Seri Police Station area four hundred and thirty-five Hindus from ten villages were coerced to join the Islamic ranks. In Kotli Tehsil five Hindus were slaughtered- who reportedly rejected the offer of conversion to Islam. A Maulvi, combative and violent, from Kashmir was responsible for the riots in Rajouri with their quick impact in all the adjoining areas.
"Islam is in danger" (and ironically it is always deemed in danger) is the standard Muslim tactics of generating Muslim paranoia against Hindus and mobilising the Muslim hordes for unleashing wild frenzy for Jehad. In the ensuing tidal wave of chaos and mayhem the Hindu minority for one reason or the other is charged with betrayal and sacrilege to Islam and struck with fear psychosis generated in ample measure by the yelling and howling Muslim crowds many succumb to the sword of Islam. Pt. Hargopal, a poet and historian, known as the Lion of Kashmir, along with Janki Nath and Sham Narain was accused of having used abusive language against Islam over a trifling issue of trespass which, his neighbour, a Moulvi, refused to remove despite numerous requests and entreaties. Hargopal was put under detention to quell the mob fiery. His licence as a practicing lawyer was cancelled. Despite court acquittal the Muslims as a combination of brute force and harsh coercion never felt satisfied with the quantum of punishment awarded to him. Ultimately all the three were exiled from their native homes.
The tribal raid of 1947 had all the contours of Muslim Jehad and primeval savagery. Thousands of Hindus, men, women and children whose staggering numbers were never divulged were mercilessly butchered and conversions as a Muslim malaise resorted to on a large scale. Till the adjoining areas of Baramulla and the town itself were under the deluge of tribals Kahmiri Pandits who were unable to move to the safer zones in the city of Srinagar were not only looted and killed but also converted to the Islamic religion by the secular progeny of humanists drummed about as Islamic sufis. After the territories under the avalanche of the barbarous raiders were cleared by the valiant soldiers of India, prominent Kashmiri Pandits like Pt. Kashyap Bandhu, Pt. Shamboo Nath Ogra, Pt. Sham Lal Shalla alongwith Rameshwari Nehru toured the villages and hamlets where Muslim marauders having planted banners of crescent had effected forcible conversions. The neo-converts despite threats and verbal invectives from the Muslim bigots were re-christened and restored to their birth religion.
The Muslim fundamentalist movement of 1989-variety targeting the Kashmiri Pandits as enemies of Islam and agents of Brahmanical imperialism realised their massive exodus to the Siberia of Indian plains. History has been repeating for them. They were slaughtered and their hefty properties looted, grabbed or destroyed as per the religious ordinances and fatwas that have been relentlessly and immutably in vogue. Buzzing off to safer zones despite heavy losses in terms of life and limb, what satisfied them the most was that they preserved their ideological and religious personality which they had acquired through civilisational processes of growth and flowering and had not renounced even in the worst.times of Muslim holocaust. Yet there are a few thousand of their co-religionists who chose to stay back for their own reasons despite polarisation on communal lines and religious cleansing. Their presence in the valley though confined to the high security zone has been blown out to authenticate and propagate the dubious theory of Muslim secular sense, tolerant ethos and intellectual acceptance of composite culture. As is buttressed by the authentic reports their numbers are believed not to exceed a bare two thousand. But the vested interests in cohorts with unscrupulous elements in the corridors of central government inflated their figures to a whopping twenty thousand only to secularist the troubled times and to establish that the Pandits' perception of deadly threat from the Muslim majority was only a ploy to be in self-exile.
The Kashmiri Pandits who have chosen to stay back as subservient to Muslim identity and majoritatianism are to all intents and purposes hostages to the Muslim majority and have been victims to Muslim fundamentalist terror attacks and Qrgies of carnage. The fate of Sohan Lal Braroo, his wife and his innocent daughter has blackened the countenance of Muslim rationality and exposed the Muslim pretensions of allegiance to Sufi Islam and caused shivers in the corridors of Geneva, the seat of Human Rights Commission. T.N. Bhat who had stayed back and was a poor guy eking out existence from the scarce earnings from a few temples. The inhuman terrorists earning tremendous favours and sympathies from the Muslim masses robbed him of his earnings at the Shrine of Zeshta Devi, tied him to a three wheeler, wounding him brutally and fatally and hurled him in an unconscious state into the Dal Lake for final burial. But the humiliating disability and torture that they have been subjected to is the forcible conversion to Islam and adoption of Muslim dress codes, language nuances and other outer appearances that stand out a Muslim.
The Report of a team of the Gandhi Peace Foundation which visited Kashmir very recently reveals, "Those Kashmiri Pandits who have stayed back with their families have made adjustments with the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Their women do not wear sari, do not put on a bindi or wear 'dejohur'. They have no outward sign of being married."
Since the volcanic eruption of fundamentalist insurgency till June, 1994 a good number of Kashmiri Pandits and their daughters under duress have been forcibly converted to Islam at the hands of rabid Muslims owing allegiance to multiple armed outfits.82 The Pandit girls who were abducted from their house-holds and work - places were forcibly converted and married to Muslims after meting out to them the treatment prescribed for the looted women of Kafirs. In the hateful conversion campaigns the Jammaati-Islami has been in the active vanguard and has drawn unstinted and unqualified support from a Muslim fanatic, Qazi Nissar, and some Janata Dal turn-coat politicals with a dubious track-record in politics. The pages of "Kashmiriayat" as the official organ of umat-e-Islami have showered a litany of plaudits and praises on Qazi Nissar impelled by the Islamic concept of Kufra for the initiation and direction of the conversion campaign. The hapless victims to the brutality of conversion generally belong to the villages of Anantnag, Pulwama and Tangmarg.
In Tral (District Pulwama) a Pandit family with a teenage daughter clinging to its habitat like a limpet was coerced to accept Islam by the rabid Jammaat activists.84 Since its conversion the brutalised family has been shifted from its ancestral house to the house of a Muslim in the same locality. Attempts galore have been made to abduct the teenage girl by the lecherous elements held in high esteem as the saviours of Islam. The Pandit family is under close watch lest it should slip off to the safer zones for retrieval from the atrocity and as is reliably reported has been under lessons of initiation in Islamic precepts and practices by some rabid Mullahs who have been howling along with dogs since 19/20th January 1990 as generalismos of Islamic army of marauders.
Another Kashmiri pandit girl from Safapora was made off as a prize catch by a Muslim in broad daylight. She was converted under the shadow of a gun and married to her Muslim abductor. The parents of the girl living in absolutely hostile environs meekly protested against the atrocity but were threatened with dire consequences if they did not shut up their traps and maintain stoic silence. The mother of the girl under a terrific shock developed serious ailments and her spouse floated a humiliating application in the dailies for permission from the brutal terrorists to shift his wife to Srinagar for proper medical;aid. The family somehow managed to flee to Jammu and thus was able to save another teenage daughter from the similar fate awaiting her.
In Tangmarg a Kashmiri Pandit lady married with children was said to have been lifted and forcibly married to a Muslim who is said to be a driver. Her husband tried to report the abduction to the nearby police station but was threatened with dire consequences by the hostile Muslims in the area. In the same area another girl with Hindu origins was said to have been converted and married to a Muslim under duress.
Again in Tral (District Pulwama) a Kashmiri Pandit girl living with her parents was abducted by the Islamic terrorists who rule the roost despite government claims of normalcy. She was converted to Islam under gun-point and married by a terrorist affiliated to a particular brand of terrorist formation. Another terrorist of a different brand did not take kindly to the marriage and after an incessant chase were able to spot the terrorist and his bride and without mincing words commanded him to hand over the girl to him for marriage. Losing his cool and in utter rage the terrorist pounced on his rival and in the ensuing bloody duel he fell to a bullet. The rival made off with his catch to the privacy of a den leaving behind no clues for tracing him out.
In the health resort of Pahalgam a Kashmiri Pandit boy possessed of Dutch courage reportedly married a Muslim girl from the same area. The Muslim terrorists alongwith their Muslim supporters were shell-shocked by such a marriage as it was deemed to score off the history that they were writing in Kashmir. They were dead set after the two lovers for their annihilation. Ultimately after a hunt the couple was traced, abducted and mercilessly beheaded with a blunt axe. Their bodies with severed heads were recovered from a field. How could a space be allowed to those who are deviants from the grammar of Islam?
Scores of Sikh girls have been abducted and brutally converted to the Islamic religion. The abduction and subsequent conversion of Satinder Kour D/o Bhupender Singh R/o Khawaja Bagh, Barmulla and Surinder Kour D/o Dalip Singh R/o Alucha Bagh, Srinagar have been splashed in the media. Appeals to the Sikh separatist leader Simranjit Singh Mann who had informed the valley Sikhs that he had ensured their safety through a pact with the Kashmiri terrorists failed to secure their release from the clutches of the Islamic crusaders. The Sikh organizations of varied hues from the Punjab have also issued numerous appeals for the redemption of the Sikh girls but to no avail. The chief of the Dukhtaran-i-Milat, Aisha Indrabi, has been assiduously working to the nefarious end of realising the conversion of many a Sikh and Pandit girl.
In the villages of Sopore, Tral, Mattan, Anantnag et al the Pandit families that have been atrociously converted to Islam are allowed to retain the pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses only to mislead the anti-terrorist operators and maintain the effectiveness of the den.
Som Deva reports, "Since the eruption of the fundamentalist insurgency till June, 1994 nearly a hundred Pandit and many Sikh girls have suffered this fate at the hands of Jamaat-i-Islami and Its armed outfit Hizbul Mujahideen. Later on they were married to Muslim boys."
He continues, " In July, 1993 two Pandit girls at the historic village Omanagri (Anantnag) and another one at Safapore were forcibly converted to Islam by Jammaat activists. The attempts by their families which subsequently migrated to Jammu to seek the help of official agencies for retrieving their daughters evoked no response."
Kashmir: Wail of a Valley
There is hardly any conceivable excess and atrocity which the Kashmiri Pandits as a characteristic religious group have not been subjected to by the Muslim marauders. Apart from the pogrom having no semblance of a human face that was perpetrated on them the devastating catastrophe that could befall them was the forcible conversion to an alien religion of Islam.
History is a pulsating witness to the brutal conversions that were realised by Muslim monarchs whether of Sunni or Shia brand through spilling of blood, hacking of flesh and splintering of body limbs for transforming religious complexion of Kashmir. Sikander, Ali Shah, Malik Saif-ud-din, Kaji Chak, Aurangzeb and Afghan surrogates as medieval despots were at pains to devise all instruments of coercion and repression with the ominous motive of proliferating the support-base of Islam which in Kashmir at the initial stages was near negligible. With the loss of political power to the Sikhs the raging fury of proselytisation campaigns came to a sudden halt but the deep and crippling scar of conversion was already inflicted on the religious personality of Kashmir. Some of the neo-converts who were traumatised by the forcible conversion to Islam harked back to their birth religion. Had the process found support from the power structures it would have turned into a roaring tide.
With the decay of Sikh state the reins of power in Kashmir were handed over to the Dogras by the British masters and with the speed of lightning a consistent campaign of calumny virulent hatred was unleashed by the Punjab based violent and fanatic Muslim groups urging the Kashmir Muslims to dismantle the Dogra rule spoke by spoke. Demands were yelled that the rulers who were dubbed as staunch Hindus should cease to create hurdles in the holy task of conversions from other faiths and should desist from interference in the launch of straightforward hate campaigns against the religious enemies.
In the murderous loot of 1931 the seven Kashmiri Pandits belonging to a single family of the village of Kanikoot near yusmarg were offered conversion as an alternate choice to escape slaughter. In 1932 when riots were triggered off in Mirpur the Hindus were massacred, arsoned and coerced to accept Islamic faith. Forty-one Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam in the Kotli Police Station area. In the Seri Police Station area four hundred and thirty-five Hindus from ten villages were coerced to join the Islamic ranks. In Kotli Tehsil five Hindus were slaughtered- who reportedly rejected the offer of conversion to Islam. A Maulvi, combative and violent, from Kashmir was responsible for the riots in Rajouri with their quick impact in all the adjoining areas.
"Islam is in danger" (and ironically it is always deemed in danger) is the standard Muslim tactics of generating Muslim paranoia against Hindus and mobilising the Muslim hordes for unleashing wild frenzy for Jehad. In the ensuing tidal wave of chaos and mayhem the Hindu minority for one reason or the other is charged with betrayal and sacrilege to Islam and struck with fear psychosis generated in ample measure by the yelling and howling Muslim crowds many succumb to the sword of Islam. Pt. Hargopal, a poet and historian, known as the Lion of Kashmir, along with Janki Nath and Sham Narain was accused of having used abusive language against Islam over a trifling issue of trespass which, his neighbour, a Moulvi, refused to remove despite numerous requests and entreaties. Hargopal was put under detention to quell the mob fiery. His licence as a practicing lawyer was cancelled. Despite court acquittal the Muslims as a combination of brute force and harsh coercion never felt satisfied with the quantum of punishment awarded to him. Ultimately all the three were exiled from their native homes.
The tribal raid of 1947 had all the contours of Muslim Jehad and primeval savagery. Thousands of Hindus, men, women and children whose staggering numbers were never divulged were mercilessly butchered and conversions as a Muslim malaise resorted to on a large scale. Till the adjoining areas of Baramulla and the town itself were under the deluge of tribals Kahmiri Pandits who were unable to move to the safer zones in the city of Srinagar were not only looted and killed but also converted to the Islamic religion by the secular progeny of humanists drummed about as Islamic sufis. After the territories under the avalanche of the barbarous raiders were cleared by the valiant soldiers of India, prominent Kashmiri Pandits like Pt. Kashyap Bandhu, Pt. Shamboo Nath Ogra, Pt. Sham Lal Shalla alongwith Rameshwari Nehru toured the villages and hamlets where Muslim marauders having planted banners of crescent had effected forcible conversions. The neo-converts despite threats and verbal invectives from the Muslim bigots were re-christened and restored to their birth religion.
The Muslim fundamentalist movement of 1989-variety targeting the Kashmiri Pandits as enemies of Islam and agents of Brahmanical imperialism realised their massive exodus to the Siberia of Indian plains. History has been repeating for them. They were slaughtered and their hefty properties looted, grabbed or destroyed as per the religious ordinances and fatwas that have been relentlessly and immutably in vogue. Buzzing off to safer zones despite heavy losses in terms of life and limb, what satisfied them the most was that they preserved their ideological and religious personality which they had acquired through civilisational processes of growth and flowering and had not renounced even in the worst.times of Muslim holocaust. Yet there are a few thousand of their co-religionists who chose to stay back for their own reasons despite polarisation on communal lines and religious cleansing. Their presence in the valley though confined to the high security zone has been blown out to authenticate and propagate the dubious theory of Muslim secular sense, tolerant ethos and intellectual acceptance of composite culture. As is buttressed by the authentic reports their numbers are believed not to exceed a bare two thousand. But the vested interests in cohorts with unscrupulous elements in the corridors of central government inflated their figures to a whopping twenty thousand only to secularist the troubled times and to establish that the Pandits' perception of deadly threat from the Muslim majority was only a ploy to be in self-exile.
The Kashmiri Pandits who have chosen to stay back as subservient to Muslim identity and majoritatianism are to all intents and purposes hostages to the Muslim majority and have been victims to Muslim fundamentalist terror attacks and Qrgies of carnage. The fate of Sohan Lal Braroo, his wife and his innocent daughter has blackened the countenance of Muslim rationality and exposed the Muslim pretensions of allegiance to Sufi Islam and caused shivers in the corridors of Geneva, the seat of Human Rights Commission. T.N. Bhat who had stayed back and was a poor guy eking out existence from the scarce earnings from a few temples. The inhuman terrorists earning tremendous favours and sympathies from the Muslim masses robbed him of his earnings at the Shrine of Zeshta Devi, tied him to a three wheeler, wounding him brutally and fatally and hurled him in an unconscious state into the Dal Lake for final burial. But the humiliating disability and torture that they have been subjected to is the forcible conversion to Islam and adoption of Muslim dress codes, language nuances and other outer appearances that stand out a Muslim.
The Report of a team of the Gandhi Peace Foundation which visited Kashmir very recently reveals, "Those Kashmiri Pandits who have stayed back with their families have made adjustments with the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Their women do not wear sari, do not put on a bindi or wear 'dejohur'. They have no outward sign of being married."
Since the volcanic eruption of fundamentalist insurgency till June, 1994 a good number of Kashmiri Pandits and their daughters under duress have been forcibly converted to Islam at the hands of rabid Muslims owing allegiance to multiple armed outfits.82 The Pandit girls who were abducted from their house-holds and work - places were forcibly converted and married to Muslims after meting out to them the treatment prescribed for the looted women of Kafirs. In the hateful conversion campaigns the Jammaati-Islami has been in the active vanguard and has drawn unstinted and unqualified support from a Muslim fanatic, Qazi Nissar, and some Janata Dal turn-coat politicals with a dubious track-record in politics. The pages of "Kashmiriayat" as the official organ of umat-e-Islami have showered a litany of plaudits and praises on Qazi Nissar impelled by the Islamic concept of Kufra for the initiation and direction of the conversion campaign. The hapless victims to the brutality of conversion generally belong to the villages of Anantnag, Pulwama and Tangmarg.
In Tral (District Pulwama) a Pandit family with a teenage daughter clinging to its habitat like a limpet was coerced to accept Islam by the rabid Jammaat activists.84 Since its conversion the brutalised family has been shifted from its ancestral house to the house of a Muslim in the same locality. Attempts galore have been made to abduct the teenage girl by the lecherous elements held in high esteem as the saviours of Islam. The Pandit family is under close watch lest it should slip off to the safer zones for retrieval from the atrocity and as is reliably reported has been under lessons of initiation in Islamic precepts and practices by some rabid Mullahs who have been howling along with dogs since 19/20th January 1990 as generalismos of Islamic army of marauders.
Another Kashmiri pandit girl from Safapora was made off as a prize catch by a Muslim in broad daylight. She was converted under the shadow of a gun and married to her Muslim abductor. The parents of the girl living in absolutely hostile environs meekly protested against the atrocity but were threatened with dire consequences if they did not shut up their traps and maintain stoic silence. The mother of the girl under a terrific shock developed serious ailments and her spouse floated a humiliating application in the dailies for permission from the brutal terrorists to shift his wife to Srinagar for proper medical;aid. The family somehow managed to flee to Jammu and thus was able to save another teenage daughter from the similar fate awaiting her.
In Tangmarg a Kashmiri Pandit lady married with children was said to have been lifted and forcibly married to a Muslim who is said to be a driver. Her husband tried to report the abduction to the nearby police station but was threatened with dire consequences by the hostile Muslims in the area. In the same area another girl with Hindu origins was said to have been converted and married to a Muslim under duress.
Again in Tral (District Pulwama) a Kashmiri Pandit girl living with her parents was abducted by the Islamic terrorists who rule the roost despite government claims of normalcy. She was converted to Islam under gun-point and married by a terrorist affiliated to a particular brand of terrorist formation. Another terrorist of a different brand did not take kindly to the marriage and after an incessant chase were able to spot the terrorist and his bride and without mincing words commanded him to hand over the girl to him for marriage. Losing his cool and in utter rage the terrorist pounced on his rival and in the ensuing bloody duel he fell to a bullet. The rival made off with his catch to the privacy of a den leaving behind no clues for tracing him out.
In the health resort of Pahalgam a Kashmiri Pandit boy possessed of Dutch courage reportedly married a Muslim girl from the same area. The Muslim terrorists alongwith their Muslim supporters were shell-shocked by such a marriage as it was deemed to score off the history that they were writing in Kashmir. They were dead set after the two lovers for their annihilation. Ultimately after a hunt the couple was traced, abducted and mercilessly beheaded with a blunt axe. Their bodies with severed heads were recovered from a field. How could a space be allowed to those who are deviants from the grammar of Islam?
Scores of Sikh girls have been abducted and brutally converted to the Islamic religion. The abduction and subsequent conversion of Satinder Kour D/o Bhupender Singh R/o Khawaja Bagh, Barmulla and Surinder Kour D/o Dalip Singh R/o Alucha Bagh, Srinagar have been splashed in the media. Appeals to the Sikh separatist leader Simranjit Singh Mann who had informed the valley Sikhs that he had ensured their safety through a pact with the Kashmiri terrorists failed to secure their release from the clutches of the Islamic crusaders. The Sikh organizations of varied hues from the Punjab have also issued numerous appeals for the redemption of the Sikh girls but to no avail. The chief of the Dukhtaran-i-Milat, Aisha Indrabi, has been assiduously working to the nefarious end of realising the conversion of many a Sikh and Pandit girl.
In the villages of Sopore, Tral, Mattan, Anantnag et al the Pandit families that have been atrociously converted to Islam are allowed to retain the pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses only to mislead the anti-terrorist operators and maintain the effectiveness of the den.
Som Deva reports, "Since the eruption of the fundamentalist insurgency till June, 1994 nearly a hundred Pandit and many Sikh girls have suffered this fate at the hands of Jamaat-i-Islami and Its armed outfit Hizbul Mujahideen. Later on they were married to Muslim boys."
He continues, " In July, 1993 two Pandit girls at the historic village Omanagri (Anantnag) and another one at Safapore were forcibly converted to Islam by Jammaat activists. The attempts by their families which subsequently migrated to Jammu to seek the help of official agencies for retrieving their daughters evoked no response."
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
In Letter to Harvard, Civil Liberties Group Cautions Against Swamy Investigation
Harvard Crimson
By Leanna B. Ehrlich,
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Friday, July 29, 2011
Subramanian Swamy, is accused of penning an op-ed that is inflammatory towards Muslims.
In the wake of a controversial article written by Subramanian Swamy, the group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter to University President Drew G. Faust on Wednesday urging her not to allow Harvard to take action against the Harvard Summer School instructor.
Swamy, a political leader in India who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1965, penned an op-ed published July 16 in the Indian newspaper Daily News and Analysis that advocated for the removal of hundreds of mosques and the denial of voting rights to non-Hindus with the goal of stemming terrorist attacks in the country.
Following the publication of the article, several Harvard affiliates circulated a petition calling on the University to end its ties with Swamy, and in a statement, the dean of the Summer School said that the school “will give this matter our serious attention.”
But FIRE, a civil liberties group with a focus on academia, cautioned in its letter to Faust that the group is “concerned about the threat to freedom of expression” that may come about from that attention.
“The threat of a disciplinary investigation of Swamy stands in sharp and unflattering contrast to this admirable and appropriate understanding of the importance of freedom of expression in the academic community,” Adam H. Kissel '94, vice president of programs at FIRE, wrote in the letter.
Harvard has not explicitly said that it is investigating Swamy or that it has considered such an investigation. Messages to spokespeople for the University were not immediately returned.
Swamy teaches Economics S-110: “Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business” and Economics S-1316: “Economic Development in India and East Asia” at the Summer School.
In his letter, Kissel said that an investigation of Swamy’s article would go against Harvard’s commitment to free speech, as outlined in the “Free Speech Guidelines” adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1990.
“If members of the Harvard community are given to understand that Harvard might begin an investigation—with possible disciplinary consequences—of the views they express, they likely will self-censor,” he wrote. “This is precisely the result that a university dedicated to intellectual freedom must seek to avoid.”
“Harvard must honor its own promises,” he said in a phone interview. “Students have every right to protest for or against ideas in article, as does Harvard, but Harvard may not investigate or punish the expression.”
While in some instances a professor’s publicized opinions might warrant disciplinary action, in these “extreme cases,” the professor’s opinion would have to prevent him from successfully teaching the subject, he said.
“In this case, it’s an economics professor with political opinions, and his subject has nothing to do with politics,” he said. “The University cannot simply investigate someone for publishing an opinion piece.”
—Staff writer Leanna B. Ehrlich can be reached at lehrlich@college.harvard.edu.
By Leanna B. Ehrlich,
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Friday, July 29, 2011
Subramanian Swamy, is accused of penning an op-ed that is inflammatory towards Muslims.
In the wake of a controversial article written by Subramanian Swamy, the group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter to University President Drew G. Faust on Wednesday urging her not to allow Harvard to take action against the Harvard Summer School instructor.
Swamy, a political leader in India who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1965, penned an op-ed published July 16 in the Indian newspaper Daily News and Analysis that advocated for the removal of hundreds of mosques and the denial of voting rights to non-Hindus with the goal of stemming terrorist attacks in the country.
Following the publication of the article, several Harvard affiliates circulated a petition calling on the University to end its ties with Swamy, and in a statement, the dean of the Summer School said that the school “will give this matter our serious attention.”
But FIRE, a civil liberties group with a focus on academia, cautioned in its letter to Faust that the group is “concerned about the threat to freedom of expression” that may come about from that attention.
“The threat of a disciplinary investigation of Swamy stands in sharp and unflattering contrast to this admirable and appropriate understanding of the importance of freedom of expression in the academic community,” Adam H. Kissel '94, vice president of programs at FIRE, wrote in the letter.
Harvard has not explicitly said that it is investigating Swamy or that it has considered such an investigation. Messages to spokespeople for the University were not immediately returned.
Swamy teaches Economics S-110: “Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business” and Economics S-1316: “Economic Development in India and East Asia” at the Summer School.
In his letter, Kissel said that an investigation of Swamy’s article would go against Harvard’s commitment to free speech, as outlined in the “Free Speech Guidelines” adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1990.
“If members of the Harvard community are given to understand that Harvard might begin an investigation—with possible disciplinary consequences—of the views they express, they likely will self-censor,” he wrote. “This is precisely the result that a university dedicated to intellectual freedom must seek to avoid.”
“Harvard must honor its own promises,” he said in a phone interview. “Students have every right to protest for or against ideas in article, as does Harvard, but Harvard may not investigate or punish the expression.”
While in some instances a professor’s publicized opinions might warrant disciplinary action, in these “extreme cases,” the professor’s opinion would have to prevent him from successfully teaching the subject, he said.
“In this case, it’s an economics professor with political opinions, and his subject has nothing to do with politics,” he said. “The University cannot simply investigate someone for publishing an opinion piece.”
—Staff writer Leanna B. Ehrlich can be reached at lehrlich@college.harvard.edu.
Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror
DNA
By Subramanian Swamy
Saturday, July 16, 2011 8:00 IST
The terrorist blast in Mumbai on July 13, 2011, requires decisive soul-searching by the Hindus of India. Hindus cannot accept to be killed in this halal fashion, continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally collapses. Terrorism I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against its will and well-being.
Islamic terrorism is India’s number one problem of national security. About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to “complete unfinished business”. Already the successor to Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda leader has declared that India is the priority target for that terrorist organisation and not the USA.
Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100% converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics.
In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatan Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for the Kumbh Mela, completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the assemblies.
The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create the fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.
Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or, worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat (committed) Hindu.
We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus. If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).
Any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a virat Hindu. For this, one must have a Hindu mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and rashtriya charitra (national character). For example, Manmohan Singh has high personal character, but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.
The second lesson for combating terrorism is that we must never capitulate or concede any demand, as we did in 1989 (freeing five terrorists in exchange for Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya) and in 1999, freeing three terrorists after the hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.
The third lesson is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate massively. For example, when the Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, we should have retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. This is rubbish. Osama bin laden was a billionaire. In the failed Times Square episode, failed terrorist Shahzad was from a highly placed family in Pakistan and had an MBA from a reputed US university.
It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational and willing to die. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action.Thus, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India.
Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370 and resettle ex-servicemen in the valley. Create Panun Kashmir for the Hindu Pandit community. Look for or create an opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to get their independence.
Goal 2: Blast temples, kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites.
Goal 3: Turn India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement the uniform civil code, make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.
Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare that caste is not based on birth but on code or discipline. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, the northern third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle illegal migrants.
Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset.
India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews could be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it should not be difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83% of India), to do so in five years.
Guru Gobind Singh showed us how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.
The writer is president of the Janata Party, a former Union minister, and a professor of economics.
By Subramanian Swamy
Saturday, July 16, 2011 8:00 IST
The terrorist blast in Mumbai on July 13, 2011, requires decisive soul-searching by the Hindus of India. Hindus cannot accept to be killed in this halal fashion, continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally collapses. Terrorism I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against its will and well-being.
Islamic terrorism is India’s number one problem of national security. About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to “complete unfinished business”. Already the successor to Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda leader has declared that India is the priority target for that terrorist organisation and not the USA.
Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100% converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics.
In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatan Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for the Kumbh Mela, completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the assemblies.
The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create the fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.
Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or, worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat (committed) Hindu.
We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus. If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).
Any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a virat Hindu. For this, one must have a Hindu mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and rashtriya charitra (national character). For example, Manmohan Singh has high personal character, but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.
The second lesson for combating terrorism is that we must never capitulate or concede any demand, as we did in 1989 (freeing five terrorists in exchange for Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya) and in 1999, freeing three terrorists after the hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.
The third lesson is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate massively. For example, when the Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, we should have retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. This is rubbish. Osama bin laden was a billionaire. In the failed Times Square episode, failed terrorist Shahzad was from a highly placed family in Pakistan and had an MBA from a reputed US university.
It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational and willing to die. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action.Thus, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India.
Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370 and resettle ex-servicemen in the valley. Create Panun Kashmir for the Hindu Pandit community. Look for or create an opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to get their independence.
Goal 2: Blast temples, kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites.
Goal 3: Turn India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement the uniform civil code, make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.
Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare that caste is not based on birth but on code or discipline. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, the northern third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle illegal migrants.
Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset.
India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews could be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it should not be difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83% of India), to do so in five years.
Guru Gobind Singh showed us how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.
The writer is president of the Janata Party, a former Union minister, and a professor of economics.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Fai’s guests weren’t traitors, but just ISI’s ‘useful idiots’
R Jagannathan
Jul 21, 2011
FirstPost
The arrest of Kashmiri propagandist Ghulam Nabi Fai in the US, allegedly for failing to report the fact that he was working for the Pakistani government and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), raises many questions. The main thought: are Indian liberals unwittingly or wittingly turning out to be the ISI’s “useful idiots”?
The term “useful idiots” was originally used to refer to Soviet sympathisers in the West, who naively thought they were friends of the Soviet Union. In reality, the Soviets had nothing but contempt for them. They were useful for propaganda purposes – and nothing more.
Kashmiri separatist leader Ghulam Nabi Fai. FBI has arrested Fai on Tuesday on charges of being an ISI agent who lobbied for the Pakistani spy agency and army on the issue of Kashmir. PTI
Two caveats are in order upfront: a witch-hunt of people who partook of Fai’s ISI-funded generosity at his annual Kashmir conferences is not on. Two, one should also presume that the US has suddenly woken up to the reality of ISI activities in America. They always knew what Fai was upto; it is just that the present moment is ideal to bring out his ISI connection.
On Friday, one news channel started an inquisition to find out who was hosted by Fai at its Kashmir conferences, which inevitably ended up supporting the Pakistani position of Kashmir – a fact Fai used to lobby with US politicians, including Dan Burton, a habitual India-baiter. Burton, too, now claims he didn’t know the ISI was funding his vocal cause.
As for Fai, we now know that his Kashmiri sympathies were compromised by his Pakistani connection. He used the money to create a fifth column within India to aid the Kashmiri effort.
Among the intellectuals who are known to have enjoyed the hospitality of Fai are Dileep Padgaonkar, who was the government’s J&K interlocutor, Kuldip Nayar, a known peacenik, Justice Sachar, who was author of the Sachar report on the economic status of Muslims in India, and Gautam Navlakha, a peace activist. Or so says The Indian Express.
It is stupid to pretend that all these people are traitors or were somehow wrong in appearing at Kashmir forums. Most of them either genuinely believed in what they were saying, or at least convinced themselves that they were doing the right thing. Now that they know how they were being used and who was paying for their five-star breakfasts and business class travel, they stand warned.
It is also worth noting that the arrest of Fai is not a sudden US gift to us. It is the result of US-Pak shadow-boxing to push the other into a corner. The US wants to paint the ISI into a corner from where it is forced to help the US extricate itself from Afghanistan without bringing in the old Taliban, with its Mullah Omars and reactionary fundamentalists. The Pakistan government, and especially the army, is playing its own games with the US to extract military aid and other benefits.
What the US did not do is arrest Fai for India’s benefit. They knew what he was doing all along, just as they knew what David Coleman Headley was upto, since he was their double-agent who turned jihadi. We are incidental to US calculations. We are the ones making a big song-and-dance about Fai or Headley. The US will act against them to the extent they can put pressure on the Pakistanis for protecting their own interests.
That said, the only things our own Padgaonkars and Kuldip Nayars need to do is introspect. Granted, they did not know their junkets were being bankrolled by the ISI. Now they need to think about how they have manipulated.
Whether it is Arundhati Roy or any of our human rights activists, the problem is their (presumably) honestly held views are being used and abused to promote a separatist ideology with communal overtones. In other words, from the ISI’s point of view, they are “useful idiots” who unwittingly serve a sectarian cause in Kashmir by assuming that the fight is about human rights – which it is partially, but not wholly.
The problem with conscientious liberals is that they speak loudly against the Indian state when it tramples human rights, but not when those who call for azaadi do the same, or worse. This is what makes them ISI’s “useful idiots.” What they say loudly can be used against India, and what they say weakly against the jihadis can be drowned out in the noise of verbal warfare.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time they learnt to balance their views. They may, in their liberal hearts, want to back calls for azaadi, but they bite their tongues when discussing what kind of azaadi we are talking about where an entire people have been ethnically cleansed from the Kashmir Valley.
Arundhati Roy raises the right questions (do we have the right to trample on so many Kashmiris?) in many ways, but what stands out is what the ISI wants the world to hear. Not her liberalism (Read her 2008 Outlook article and ask yourself what stands out – whether it is what the ISI wants to hear, which is the first half of her article, or her liberal inner side, which comes muted in the second half?)
Do our liberals want to remain the ISI’s “useful idiots” forever? They are all willing, like Yudhishtira at Kurukshetra, to say that “Ashwathama is dead” loudly, but mention the elephant (of communal separatism) under their breaths. This does not serve the cause of truth.
Jul 21, 2011
FirstPost
The arrest of Kashmiri propagandist Ghulam Nabi Fai in the US, allegedly for failing to report the fact that he was working for the Pakistani government and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), raises many questions. The main thought: are Indian liberals unwittingly or wittingly turning out to be the ISI’s “useful idiots”?
The term “useful idiots” was originally used to refer to Soviet sympathisers in the West, who naively thought they were friends of the Soviet Union. In reality, the Soviets had nothing but contempt for them. They were useful for propaganda purposes – and nothing more.
Kashmiri separatist leader Ghulam Nabi Fai. FBI has arrested Fai on Tuesday on charges of being an ISI agent who lobbied for the Pakistani spy agency and army on the issue of Kashmir. PTI
Two caveats are in order upfront: a witch-hunt of people who partook of Fai’s ISI-funded generosity at his annual Kashmir conferences is not on. Two, one should also presume that the US has suddenly woken up to the reality of ISI activities in America. They always knew what Fai was upto; it is just that the present moment is ideal to bring out his ISI connection.
On Friday, one news channel started an inquisition to find out who was hosted by Fai at its Kashmir conferences, which inevitably ended up supporting the Pakistani position of Kashmir – a fact Fai used to lobby with US politicians, including Dan Burton, a habitual India-baiter. Burton, too, now claims he didn’t know the ISI was funding his vocal cause.
As for Fai, we now know that his Kashmiri sympathies were compromised by his Pakistani connection. He used the money to create a fifth column within India to aid the Kashmiri effort.
Among the intellectuals who are known to have enjoyed the hospitality of Fai are Dileep Padgaonkar, who was the government’s J&K interlocutor, Kuldip Nayar, a known peacenik, Justice Sachar, who was author of the Sachar report on the economic status of Muslims in India, and Gautam Navlakha, a peace activist. Or so says The Indian Express.
It is stupid to pretend that all these people are traitors or were somehow wrong in appearing at Kashmir forums. Most of them either genuinely believed in what they were saying, or at least convinced themselves that they were doing the right thing. Now that they know how they were being used and who was paying for their five-star breakfasts and business class travel, they stand warned.
It is also worth noting that the arrest of Fai is not a sudden US gift to us. It is the result of US-Pak shadow-boxing to push the other into a corner. The US wants to paint the ISI into a corner from where it is forced to help the US extricate itself from Afghanistan without bringing in the old Taliban, with its Mullah Omars and reactionary fundamentalists. The Pakistan government, and especially the army, is playing its own games with the US to extract military aid and other benefits.
What the US did not do is arrest Fai for India’s benefit. They knew what he was doing all along, just as they knew what David Coleman Headley was upto, since he was their double-agent who turned jihadi. We are incidental to US calculations. We are the ones making a big song-and-dance about Fai or Headley. The US will act against them to the extent they can put pressure on the Pakistanis for protecting their own interests.
That said, the only things our own Padgaonkars and Kuldip Nayars need to do is introspect. Granted, they did not know their junkets were being bankrolled by the ISI. Now they need to think about how they have manipulated.
Whether it is Arundhati Roy or any of our human rights activists, the problem is their (presumably) honestly held views are being used and abused to promote a separatist ideology with communal overtones. In other words, from the ISI’s point of view, they are “useful idiots” who unwittingly serve a sectarian cause in Kashmir by assuming that the fight is about human rights – which it is partially, but not wholly.
The problem with conscientious liberals is that they speak loudly against the Indian state when it tramples human rights, but not when those who call for azaadi do the same, or worse. This is what makes them ISI’s “useful idiots.” What they say loudly can be used against India, and what they say weakly against the jihadis can be drowned out in the noise of verbal warfare.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time they learnt to balance their views. They may, in their liberal hearts, want to back calls for azaadi, but they bite their tongues when discussing what kind of azaadi we are talking about where an entire people have been ethnically cleansed from the Kashmir Valley.
Arundhati Roy raises the right questions (do we have the right to trample on so many Kashmiris?) in many ways, but what stands out is what the ISI wants the world to hear. Not her liberalism (Read her 2008 Outlook article and ask yourself what stands out – whether it is what the ISI wants to hear, which is the first half of her article, or her liberal inner side, which comes muted in the second half?)
Do our liberals want to remain the ISI’s “useful idiots” forever? They are all willing, like Yudhishtira at Kurukshetra, to say that “Ashwathama is dead” loudly, but mention the elephant (of communal separatism) under their breaths. This does not serve the cause of truth.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Pakistan’s Army spent millions subverting U.S. Policy
Pakistan’s Military Plotted to Tilt U.S. Policy, F.B.I. Says
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ERIC SCHMITT
July 19, 2011
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India’s control of much of Kashmir — including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday.
The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan — and in particular its spy agency — amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.
Mr. Fai is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that lobbies for and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to the affidavit, the activities by the group, also called the Kashmiri Center, are largely financed by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with as much as $100,000 a year in related donations to political campaigns in the United States. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates.
“Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose — to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir,” Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said. “His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”
A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy denied any connection to matter, saying, “Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case.”
Law enforcement officials said Pakistan used a network of at least 10 unnamed straw contributors, which Mr. Ahmad helped organize, to make the campaign contributions and donate the bulk of the Kashmiri Center’s annual operating budget. The ISI would reimburse them — or their families in Pakistan — for the donations, the officials said.
Most of the straw donors who made contributions to the Kashmiri Center and to politicians in the United States were identified only by code in the court document, though the investigation was continuing and eight F.B.I. field offices executed 17 or 18 search warrants related to other suspected donors on Tuesday, an official said.
The goal of the group, according to internal documents cited by the F.B.I., was to persuade the United States government that it was in its interest to push India to allow a vote in Kashmir to decide its future. The group’s strategy was to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs with private briefings and events, staging activities that would draw media attention and otherwise to elevate the issue of Kashmir — the disputed region between India and Pakistan that each country controls in part but claims entirely — in Washington.
The F.B.I. said that there was no evidence that any of the lawmakers who received campaign funds from Pakistan were aware of its origins, and it did not name any of the recipients.
However, a search in Federal Elections Commission databases for contributions by Mr. Fai showed that he has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions over the past two decades. The bulk of his donations went to two recipients: the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Representative Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana.
Mr. Fai made numerous — though smaller — contributions to Democrats as well, including to Representatives James P. Moran of Virginia, Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and Gregory W. Meeks of New York, and $250 donations to the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Mr. Ahmad also donated to Mr. Burton, records show. For at least 15 years, Mr. Burton has been a champion for Kashmiri causes in Congress, appealing to Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama to get more involved in attempting to mediate a settlement between India and Pakistan over the border region. He has also endorsed allowing the Kashmiri people to vote on their own fate.
Mr. Burton said he was “deeply shocked” by the arrest of Mr. Fai, because he had known him for 20 years and “in that time I had no inkling of his involvement with any foreign intelligence operation and had presumed our correspondence was legitimate.” He said he would donate the funds provided to his campaign to the Boy Scouts of America.
Both Mr. Fai and Mr. Ahmad also donated to Representative Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican who visited the region in 2001 and 2004, meeting with Pakistani and Indian leaders and calling for a cease-fire. He also introduced a resolution in 2004 calling for President George W. Bush to appoint a special envoy to help negotiate peace.
A spokesman for Mr. Pitts said he had donated $4,000 — an amount equal to the donations his campaign received from the two defendants — to local charities in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Among the evidence that Mr. Fai was working for Pakistan, the affidavit said, are annual budget requests he allegedly submitted to his handlers along with lists of accomplishments and strategic-planning documents. Other documents and intercepts showed that they sometimes quarreled over reimbursing him for the costs of trips or about contracts for which he had not gotten advance approval.
The board of the Kashmiri American Council comprises mostly physicians and lawyers from across the United States, and election records show that several board members have made significant donations to lawmakers who have championed peace in Kashmir.
Gulam Hassan Butt, a retired California physician and member of the council’s board whose name does not appear in the donor database, said in a phone interview that the council carried out a “regular, honest, open campaign” with lawmakers and the State Department to get the United States to help resolve the Kashmir issue.
He also said he was unaware of any money that Pakistan’s government might have provided to the Kashmiri American Council, but Mr. Fai did not inform board members about all the sources of the council’s revenue: “Where does he get the money?” Mr. Butt said. “I don’t know. Who gives him the money? I don’t know.”
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ERIC SCHMITT
July 19, 2011
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India’s control of much of Kashmir — including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday.
The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan — and in particular its spy agency — amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.
Mr. Fai is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that lobbies for and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to the affidavit, the activities by the group, also called the Kashmiri Center, are largely financed by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with as much as $100,000 a year in related donations to political campaigns in the United States. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates.
“Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose — to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir,” Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said. “His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”
A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy denied any connection to matter, saying, “Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case.”
Law enforcement officials said Pakistan used a network of at least 10 unnamed straw contributors, which Mr. Ahmad helped organize, to make the campaign contributions and donate the bulk of the Kashmiri Center’s annual operating budget. The ISI would reimburse them — or their families in Pakistan — for the donations, the officials said.
Most of the straw donors who made contributions to the Kashmiri Center and to politicians in the United States were identified only by code in the court document, though the investigation was continuing and eight F.B.I. field offices executed 17 or 18 search warrants related to other suspected donors on Tuesday, an official said.
The goal of the group, according to internal documents cited by the F.B.I., was to persuade the United States government that it was in its interest to push India to allow a vote in Kashmir to decide its future. The group’s strategy was to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs with private briefings and events, staging activities that would draw media attention and otherwise to elevate the issue of Kashmir — the disputed region between India and Pakistan that each country controls in part but claims entirely — in Washington.
The F.B.I. said that there was no evidence that any of the lawmakers who received campaign funds from Pakistan were aware of its origins, and it did not name any of the recipients.
However, a search in Federal Elections Commission databases for contributions by Mr. Fai showed that he has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions over the past two decades. The bulk of his donations went to two recipients: the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Representative Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana.
Mr. Fai made numerous — though smaller — contributions to Democrats as well, including to Representatives James P. Moran of Virginia, Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and Gregory W. Meeks of New York, and $250 donations to the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Mr. Ahmad also donated to Mr. Burton, records show. For at least 15 years, Mr. Burton has been a champion for Kashmiri causes in Congress, appealing to Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama to get more involved in attempting to mediate a settlement between India and Pakistan over the border region. He has also endorsed allowing the Kashmiri people to vote on their own fate.
Mr. Burton said he was “deeply shocked” by the arrest of Mr. Fai, because he had known him for 20 years and “in that time I had no inkling of his involvement with any foreign intelligence operation and had presumed our correspondence was legitimate.” He said he would donate the funds provided to his campaign to the Boy Scouts of America.
Both Mr. Fai and Mr. Ahmad also donated to Representative Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican who visited the region in 2001 and 2004, meeting with Pakistani and Indian leaders and calling for a cease-fire. He also introduced a resolution in 2004 calling for President George W. Bush to appoint a special envoy to help negotiate peace.
A spokesman for Mr. Pitts said he had donated $4,000 — an amount equal to the donations his campaign received from the two defendants — to local charities in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Among the evidence that Mr. Fai was working for Pakistan, the affidavit said, are annual budget requests he allegedly submitted to his handlers along with lists of accomplishments and strategic-planning documents. Other documents and intercepts showed that they sometimes quarreled over reimbursing him for the costs of trips or about contracts for which he had not gotten advance approval.
The board of the Kashmiri American Council comprises mostly physicians and lawyers from across the United States, and election records show that several board members have made significant donations to lawmakers who have championed peace in Kashmir.
Gulam Hassan Butt, a retired California physician and member of the council’s board whose name does not appear in the donor database, said in a phone interview that the council carried out a “regular, honest, open campaign” with lawmakers and the State Department to get the United States to help resolve the Kashmir issue.
He also said he was unaware of any money that Pakistan’s government might have provided to the Kashmiri American Council, but Mr. Fai did not inform board members about all the sources of the council’s revenue: “Where does he get the money?” Mr. Butt said. “I don’t know. Who gives him the money? I don’t know.”
Thursday, November 4, 2010
India has a secular system, which we Kashmiris can under no condition accept: Syed Ali Shah Geelani
Interview with Yoginder Sikand
27 Oct 2010
NewAgeIslam.Com
Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Jamaat-e Islami of Jammu and Kashmir is a veteran Kashmiri politician. Presently, he heads the Tehrik-e Hurriyat-e Jammu Kashmir. He talks about the Kashmir conflict and its possible solution in this exclusive interview with Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com:
Q: In your writings, and in those of other similar Islamist ideologues, the Kashmir conflict is often described as a war between Islam and ‘disbelief’. Do you really think it is so? Is it not a political struggle or a nationalist struggle, actually?
A: The Kashmir dispute is a fall-out of the Partition of India. The Muslim-majority parts of British India became Pakistan, and the Hindu-majority regions became the Dominion of India. There were, at that time, some 575 princely states in India under indirect British rule. Lord Mountbatten gave them the choice of joining either India or Pakistan, and instructed that their choice must be guided by the religious composition of their populace as well as by the borders they might share with either India or Pakistan, as the case might be.
On this basis, almost all the princely states opted for either India or Pakistan. There were, however, three exceptions to this. Hyderabad, a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for independence, but India argued against this on the grounds that the state had a Hindu majority, and so ordered the Police Action to incorporate the state into the Indian Dominion. Junagadh, another Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for Pakistan, but India over-ruled this decision, again on account of the state’s Hindu majority, and annexed it. If India had adopted the same principle in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu ruler, there would have been no conflict over Kashmir. After all, more than 85% of the population of the state at that time were Muslims; the major rivers in the state flowed into Pakistan; the state shared a border of over 750 kilometres with Pakistan; the only motorable
road connecting Kashmir with the outside world throughout the year passed from Srinagar to Rawalpindi; and the majority of the people of the state had cultural and historical ties with the people of Pakistan.
However, over-ruling these factors, which would have made Jammu and Kashmir a natural part of Pakistan, in October 1947 the Indian Army entered the state in the guise of flushing out the Pathan tribesmen, who had crossed into Kashmir in the wake of large-scale killings of Muslims in Rajouri and Poonch. Using this incursion an excuse, Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, engineered the intrusion of Indian forces. The British scholar Alistair Lamb says that the so-called Instrument of Accession that Haris Singh is said to have signed to join India temporarily was itself fraudulent. He claims that Hari Singh did not even sign it.
Thereafter, India itself took the issue of Kashmir to the United Nations. The UN passed some eighteen resolutions related to Kashmir, recognizing the status of the state as disputed and calling for a resolution of the conflict based on the will of the people of the state, which the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, himself also publicly promised. Now, all that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are saying is that India should live up to this promise that it made of holding a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolutions. So, this is the basic issue.
Q: So, aren’t you here saying that the conflict is essentially political, and not specifically religious?
A: For a Muslim, no action is permissible which is against Islam. How can we say that the sacrifices that the Muslims of Kashmir make, the tortures that they suffer, and the martyrdom that they meet have nothing to do with Islam, and that they won’t be rewarded by God for this? In this sense, it is a religious issue also. Islam teaches that Muslims must follow the guidance of Islam in every action of theirs—not just in prayers but also in matters such as war and peace, trade, international relations and so on, because Islam is a complete way of life. If a true Muslim participates in any struggle, it is for the sake of Islam. So, how can you say that the Kashmir conflict has nothing to do with religion?
Q: This might be true in theory, but surely many Kashmiris who are involved in the movement for separation from India might be motivated by other factors, including for economic and political reasons, or also due to a commitment to Kashmiri nationalism, as distinct from Islam?
A: I agree that there may be various reasons why different people may participate in the movement. Yes, there can be many who do not adopt the guidance of Islam in this regard. They might champion secular democracy and irreligiousness. Their sacrifices might be motivated by nationalism or ethnicity, rather than Islam. They might have no problem with the system of governance in India, their opposition to Indian rule being simply because of the brutalities of Indian occupation. Of course, one cannot say that all Kashmiri Muslims think alike. But I am speaking from the point of view of a practicing Muslim, who accepts Islam as a complete way of life. For such self-conscious Kashmiri Muslims, it is undoubtedly a religious issue and their sacrifices are for the sake of the faith.
Q: Maulana Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e Islami, who is a major source of inspiration for you, opposed the creation of Pakistan. So, then, why is that that you have consistently been advocating Kashmir’s union with Pakistan?
A: You are wrong here. Maulana Maududi was not opposed to the creation of Pakistan and to the ‘two nation’ theory. What he was opposed to was the practice of the Muslim League leaders, who were leading the movement
for Pakistan. He told them that while they talked of the ‘two-nation’ theory and Islam, they were not serious about establishing an Islamic state in Pakistan. They were not preparing the activists of the League for an Islamic state. Maulana Maududi wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic state, and this was the grounds for his opposition to the Muslim League. But he, like the League, supported the ‘two-nation’ theory. In fact, the League did not have any theoretical justification for its ‘two nation’ theory until this was provided by Maulana Maududi through his copious writings.
Q: But do you really see Indian Hindus and Muslims as two separate ‘nations’? After all, they share so much in common.
A: They are totally separate nations. There is no doubt at all about this. Muslims believe in just one God, but Hindus believe in crores of gods.
Q: But the Prophet Muhammad, in his treaty with the Jews and other non-Muslims of Medina, described the denizens of Medina as members of one nation. The leader of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind and a leading Deobandi scholar, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, even wrote a book to argue against the League’s ‘two nation’ theory, stressing a composite Indian
nationalism that embraced all the people of India. So, how can the Muslims and Hindus of one country be considered separate ‘nations’, even by Islamic standards?
A: Islam lays down that in an Islamic system (nizam) all non-Muslims, including even atheists, will get equality, justice, security of life and property and freedom of faith. Maulana Madani’s arguments were
critiqued by Maulana Maududi.
Q: In your prison memoirs, Rudad-e Qafas, you write that ‘It is as difficult for a Muslim to live in a non-Muslim society as it is for a fish to live in a desert’. But how can this be so? After all, the pioneers of Islam in India and in Kashmir itself, mainly Sufi saints, lived and preached in a society in which Muslims were a very small minority.
A: I meant to say this in a particular sense. Islam, as I said, is a complete way of life. No other path is acceptable to God. So, in the absence of an Islamic polity, it is difficult for Muslims to lead their lives entirely in accordance with the rules of Islam, which apply to social affairs as much as they do to personal affairs. For instance, Muslims in Kashmir under Indian rule live in a system where alcohol, interest and immorality are rife, so how can we lead our lives completely in accordance with Islam? Of course, Muslim minorities are Muslims, too, but their duty must be to work to establish an Islamic dispensation in the lands where they live so that they can lead their lives fully in accordance with Islam and its laws. Missionary work to spread Islam is as much of a duty as is praying and giving alms to the poor.
Now, as for your question about those Sufis who lived and worked in societies where Muslims were in a minority—they may have been pious people, but we take as our only model the Prophet Muhammad.
Q: But, surely, no one is forced to drink alcohol, deal in interest or act immorally in Kashmir?
A: True, but these things automatically spread since they are allowed by the present un-Islamic system. So that is why you see the degeneration of our culture and values happening on such a large scale.
Q: You mentioned about preaching Islam being a principal duty of all Muslims. But, surely, for this you need a climate of peace, not of active hostility, as in Kashmir today?
A: Absolutely. I agree with you entirely. No one can deny this. We need to have good relations with people of other communities. Only then can we communicate the message of Islam to them. But if one side continues to oppress the other and heap injustices and says that this should be considered as ‘peace’, how can it be accepted? If, for instance, Narendra Modi says that what happened with the Muslims in Gujarat represents peace, how can anyone accept it? If India stations lakhs of troops in Kashmir and says this is for establishing peace, how can it be, because these troops themselves are disturbing the peace?
Q: You, following other Islamist ideologues, have consistently been advocating what you call an ‘Islamic state’, seeing this as an indispensable Islamic duty. To your mind, which is the best functioning ‘Islamic state’ in the world today?
A: The world-wide Muslim community ummah is today in such a sorry state that there is no Islamic state anywhere in the real sense. Saudi Arabia is described as an Islamic state, but it is run by a monarchy, and monarchy has no sanction in Islam. If Muslim countries, including those that claim to be ‘Islamic’, were truly Islamic states they would never have been enslaved to America, as is the case today. They all support America’s policies and adopt its dictates. They are completely, on all accounts, dependent on America. They cannot even defend themselves. They have to rely on America and Europe to do this. They keep their money in American banks. We say that they should use their wealth to empower themselves and get out of America’s clutches and convert themselves into genuine Islamic states.
Q: In the wake of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, how do you see the impact of American pressure on Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, to change their position on Islamist movements?
A: The events of September 2001 have caused most Muslim states to change their policies and to toe America’s line even more closely. You can see this happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The only Muslim country that refuses to cave under American pressure is Iran.
Q: And now America is seeking an excuse to attack Iran, is it not?
A: Yes. America is trying to stoke Shia-Sunni rivalries in order to undermine Iran. It is trying all other such weapons, dividing the Muslims on the basis of sect, nationality, race and ethnicity against each other so as to weaken them. And the leaders of most Muslim countries are now playing the role of agents of the USA, be it in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Palestine or as is the case with the Saudi monarchs. See what’s happening in Waziristan, the Frontier Province and Baluchistan, in Pakistan. A climate is being deliberately created in those parts of Pakistan to justify American attacks and bombings in the name of flushing out militants.
Q: If Pakistan is now so pro-American, acting against its own people, and if it is not an authentic ‘Islamic state’, then why have you been advocating Kashmir’s union with it?
A: As I said earlier, the Muslim League claimed that Pakistan was won in the name of Islam, but it did not give its cadre the necessary training to establish an Islamic state there. Because of this, the influence of the Army and the country’s Westernised leadership, Pakistan failed to become an Islamic state. But it was meant to become such a state, which is something that we want. So, if the people of Jammu and Kashmir were given the
right to decide between India and Pakistan, the majority, I think, would prefer the former.
I admit that there are weaknesses in Pakistan, but these can be addressed. India has a secular system, which we can under no condition accept. Because of the oppression that we have been suffering under Indian rule for the last sixty years, how can we opt for India? In just a few weeks, in late 1947, some five lakh Muslims were killed by Dogra forces and Hindu chauvinists in Jammu. In the last seventeen years, over one lakh Kashmiri Muslims, mainly innocent civilians, have been killed. So many localities have been burned down, women raped and men rendered missing. After such brutal experiences, only a blind person would opt in favour of India.
Q: Many Kashmiri Muslims would rather be independent than join India or Pakistan. Do you agree?
A: The UN resolutions provide for only two options: joining India or Pakistan, and if this rule is followed then the majority would, I think, opt for
Pakistan. However, if the three parties to the dispute—Pakistan, India and the people of Jammu and Kashmir—come to a consensus on an independent Jammu and Kashmir, then, as I have repeatedly said, we will
accept that formula also.
Q: In some of your writings you have argued against Kashmir being an independent state, even claiming that this is an Indian ‘ploy’. Can you elaborate?
A: This is true. It is an Indian ploy, because India does not want to see Pakistan strengthened, which it would be if Jammu and Kashmir joins Pakistan. The slogan of Azadi is aimed at weakening Pakistan. Independence would result in a territory that would have been a natural part of Pakistan being taken away from it. But, then, compared to staying with India, independence is a lesser evil.
Q: Many Kashmiris, seeing the current political and economic troubles in Pakistan, might say that they would prefer to be independent.
A: If we get independence, we will accept it.
Q: What if most people of Jammu and Kashmir wish to live in a secular or democratic set-up, and not a Taliban-style ‘Islamic’ state?
A: We don’t want to bring Taliban-type Islam, but the real Islam of the Quran and the Practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet.
Q: But the Taliban argued that their state was in accordance with the Quran and the Sunnah.
A: To claim something is different from acting on that claim. For instance, while Islam makes it a duty for every Muslim male and female to acquire education, as soon as the Taliban came to power they banned girls’ education. What they should have done, instead, was to set up separate schools for girls. So, like this, there are many issues on which we can differ. The Islamic state that we would like to establish in Jammu and Kashmir would be one based on the understanding that all of humanity are children of the same primal parents, Adam and Eve. They will all be treated equally and justly. There shall be no discrimination based on religion. After all, the Prophet once remarked that all creatures are of the family of God and that the best is he who treats members of God’s family—which obviously includes non-Muslims, too—in the best way.
Q: You advocate Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, but today minority nationalities in Pakistan, such as the Baluchis and the Sindhis, suffering under Punjabi domination, are struggling for independence. Might not
the same thing happen to the Kashmiris if the state were to join Pakistan?
A: We want to join Pakistan, not be absorbed into it. We would have internal autonomy.
Q: But, surely, despite Pakistan’s claims, the part of Jammu and Kashmir under its control—‘Azad Kashmir’—lacks real autonomy?
A: Yes, Azad Kashmir cannot be said to be really autonomous since there, too, everything happens according to the wishes and directions of the Federal Government. But we would make sure that our autonomy
be written into the Constitution.
Q: Do you see any significant changes in Pakistan’s policies vis-à-vis Kashmir in recent years, perhaps under American pressure?
A: Yes, considerable changes can be noticed. Earlier, Pakistan used to insist on the right to self-determination for the people of Jammu and
Kashmir. Musharraf was the first to change this, arguing for a solution outside that of the UN resolutions, an out-of-the-box solution. This constituted the first deviation in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Then, Musharraf began talking of seven zones in Jammu and Kashmir, soft borders and his four-point formula, which is nothing but a means to preserve the status quo.
Q: How do you respond to media allegations that the Kashmiri movement for self-determination is ‘anti-Hindu’?
A: How can our struggle be called ‘anti-Hindu’? It is a struggle for certain principles. In Hindu mythology, when the Kauravas and the Pandavas, cousins of each other, were arrayed against each other on the battlefield, Arjun turned to Krishanji Maharaj, and told him that he could not bear to fight his own brothers. Why, he asked him, was he asking him to fight them? He wanted to refuse to fight. But, then, Krishanji Maharaj said, ‘Arjun, this is a battle for certain principles. In this, do not consider the fact that those who are opposed to you are your relatives’.
We Kashmiris, too, are engaging in such a battle for certain principles with the Indian Government, for occupying us against our will and for not acting on its promise to let us decide our own political future. It is not a war
against Hindus or the people of India. It is not a communal conflict. In fact, there are many Indians who support our stand on the right to self-determination.
Q: Then why is it that the Indian media, and large sections of the Western media, too, present the movement as ‘Islamic extremism’ or ‘terrorism’?
A: The Indian media is bound to support India’s military occupation. How can you expect it to support our cause? I’ve seen so many massacres by the Indian Army here, but often the media describes them as ‘encounters’ with ‘militants’. You know how the agents of the Indian Army engineered the massacre of so many innocent Sikhs in Chhatisinghpora and falsely
attributed this to ‘militants’, in order to convey the misleading message to the then American President, Bill Clinton, at that time on a visit to India, that our struggle is a ‘communal’ one, and not a freedom movement. I can cite so many more such cases to prove this point.
Q: But, if that is so, why is it that you and people like you have not condemned killings by militants in the same way as you condemn similar crimes by the Indian Army?
A: Wherever such incidents have happened, we have condemned them, irrespective of the religion of the victims. The Quran clearly states that enmity with a people should not make one stray from the path of justice, because justice is closer to piety.
Q: If Jammu and Kashmir becomes independent, how do you envisage its relations with India and Pakistan?
A: It should have brotherly relations with both countries.
Q: Some radical groups active in Kashmir argue that all Hindus are ‘enemies’ of Islam. What do you feel?
A: No, this is erroneous. There should be no enmity or discrimination with anyone simply because of his religion, caste, race, colour or country. We are
permitted to fight only those individuals who fight us or place hurdles in the path of our faith. With others we should have good relations, and that applies to our relations with ordinary Hindus as well. So, when some
people argue that as a community the Hindus are ‘enemies of Islam’, it is wrong. It is not an Islamic way of thinking.
Q: Certain militant groups active in Kashmir say that they will not stop their war with India until India itself is ‘absorbed’ into Pakistan and the Pakistani
flag flies atop Delhi’s Red Fort. What is your opinion?
A: This is emotional talk and should not be paid attention to. We don’t agree with this argument. Our fight with India is only to the extent that India has taken away our right to self-determination. Once we win that right we will have no problem with India. In fact, if by exercising this right the majority of the people of Jammu and Kashmir say that they want to be
with India, we will also accept that.
Q: But don’t you feel certain radical groups active in Kashmir who preach hatred against Hindus and call for India’s ‘absorption’ into Pakistan are actually defaming the religion whose cause they claim to champion?
A: Islam has been given a bad name more by Muslims themselves and less by Hindus. Islam has been damaged less by open ‘disbelief’ (kufr) than by hidden hypocrisy (munafiqat), by people who claim to be Muslims but are really not so in practice.
Q: So, would you agree that these groups who condemn all Hindus as ‘enemies’ are actually misinterpreting Islam?
A: We cannot take responsibility for what others say. You can ask these people yourself.
Q: What message do you have for the people of India?
A: I will only say that India should honour its promise to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to let them decide their own political future. Honouring one’s promise is a major principle of the Hindu religion.
Raja Dasharath, honouring the promise he made to his wife Kaikeyi, gave his throne to his son Bharat and ordered Ram Chandraji to go into the forest in exile. Simply in order to keep his promise he sent his elder
son to fourteen years in the forest and gave the throne to Bharat instead. Bharat was a man of character, and so he placed Ram Chandraji’s sandals on the throne, believing that his elder brother deserved to rule. So, the Hindu religion teaches that one should live up to one’s promises, and if India were to act on the advice of the Hindu scriptures in this regard on the issue of Kashmir the conflict will easily be solved.
Copyright 2010 @: New Age Islam Foundation
27 Oct 2010
NewAgeIslam.Com
Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Jamaat-e Islami of Jammu and Kashmir is a veteran Kashmiri politician. Presently, he heads the Tehrik-e Hurriyat-e Jammu Kashmir. He talks about the Kashmir conflict and its possible solution in this exclusive interview with Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com:
Q: In your writings, and in those of other similar Islamist ideologues, the Kashmir conflict is often described as a war between Islam and ‘disbelief’. Do you really think it is so? Is it not a political struggle or a nationalist struggle, actually?
A: The Kashmir dispute is a fall-out of the Partition of India. The Muslim-majority parts of British India became Pakistan, and the Hindu-majority regions became the Dominion of India. There were, at that time, some 575 princely states in India under indirect British rule. Lord Mountbatten gave them the choice of joining either India or Pakistan, and instructed that their choice must be guided by the religious composition of their populace as well as by the borders they might share with either India or Pakistan, as the case might be.
On this basis, almost all the princely states opted for either India or Pakistan. There were, however, three exceptions to this. Hyderabad, a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for independence, but India argued against this on the grounds that the state had a Hindu majority, and so ordered the Police Action to incorporate the state into the Indian Dominion. Junagadh, another Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for Pakistan, but India over-ruled this decision, again on account of the state’s Hindu majority, and annexed it. If India had adopted the same principle in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu ruler, there would have been no conflict over Kashmir. After all, more than 85% of the population of the state at that time were Muslims; the major rivers in the state flowed into Pakistan; the state shared a border of over 750 kilometres with Pakistan; the only motorable
road connecting Kashmir with the outside world throughout the year passed from Srinagar to Rawalpindi; and the majority of the people of the state had cultural and historical ties with the people of Pakistan.
However, over-ruling these factors, which would have made Jammu and Kashmir a natural part of Pakistan, in October 1947 the Indian Army entered the state in the guise of flushing out the Pathan tribesmen, who had crossed into Kashmir in the wake of large-scale killings of Muslims in Rajouri and Poonch. Using this incursion an excuse, Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, engineered the intrusion of Indian forces. The British scholar Alistair Lamb says that the so-called Instrument of Accession that Haris Singh is said to have signed to join India temporarily was itself fraudulent. He claims that Hari Singh did not even sign it.
Thereafter, India itself took the issue of Kashmir to the United Nations. The UN passed some eighteen resolutions related to Kashmir, recognizing the status of the state as disputed and calling for a resolution of the conflict based on the will of the people of the state, which the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, himself also publicly promised. Now, all that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are saying is that India should live up to this promise that it made of holding a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolutions. So, this is the basic issue.
Q: So, aren’t you here saying that the conflict is essentially political, and not specifically religious?
A: For a Muslim, no action is permissible which is against Islam. How can we say that the sacrifices that the Muslims of Kashmir make, the tortures that they suffer, and the martyrdom that they meet have nothing to do with Islam, and that they won’t be rewarded by God for this? In this sense, it is a religious issue also. Islam teaches that Muslims must follow the guidance of Islam in every action of theirs—not just in prayers but also in matters such as war and peace, trade, international relations and so on, because Islam is a complete way of life. If a true Muslim participates in any struggle, it is for the sake of Islam. So, how can you say that the Kashmir conflict has nothing to do with religion?
Q: This might be true in theory, but surely many Kashmiris who are involved in the movement for separation from India might be motivated by other factors, including for economic and political reasons, or also due to a commitment to Kashmiri nationalism, as distinct from Islam?
A: I agree that there may be various reasons why different people may participate in the movement. Yes, there can be many who do not adopt the guidance of Islam in this regard. They might champion secular democracy and irreligiousness. Their sacrifices might be motivated by nationalism or ethnicity, rather than Islam. They might have no problem with the system of governance in India, their opposition to Indian rule being simply because of the brutalities of Indian occupation. Of course, one cannot say that all Kashmiri Muslims think alike. But I am speaking from the point of view of a practicing Muslim, who accepts Islam as a complete way of life. For such self-conscious Kashmiri Muslims, it is undoubtedly a religious issue and their sacrifices are for the sake of the faith.
Q: Maulana Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e Islami, who is a major source of inspiration for you, opposed the creation of Pakistan. So, then, why is that that you have consistently been advocating Kashmir’s union with Pakistan?
A: You are wrong here. Maulana Maududi was not opposed to the creation of Pakistan and to the ‘two nation’ theory. What he was opposed to was the practice of the Muslim League leaders, who were leading the movement
for Pakistan. He told them that while they talked of the ‘two-nation’ theory and Islam, they were not serious about establishing an Islamic state in Pakistan. They were not preparing the activists of the League for an Islamic state. Maulana Maududi wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic state, and this was the grounds for his opposition to the Muslim League. But he, like the League, supported the ‘two-nation’ theory. In fact, the League did not have any theoretical justification for its ‘two nation’ theory until this was provided by Maulana Maududi through his copious writings.
Q: But do you really see Indian Hindus and Muslims as two separate ‘nations’? After all, they share so much in common.
A: They are totally separate nations. There is no doubt at all about this. Muslims believe in just one God, but Hindus believe in crores of gods.
Q: But the Prophet Muhammad, in his treaty with the Jews and other non-Muslims of Medina, described the denizens of Medina as members of one nation. The leader of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind and a leading Deobandi scholar, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, even wrote a book to argue against the League’s ‘two nation’ theory, stressing a composite Indian
nationalism that embraced all the people of India. So, how can the Muslims and Hindus of one country be considered separate ‘nations’, even by Islamic standards?
A: Islam lays down that in an Islamic system (nizam) all non-Muslims, including even atheists, will get equality, justice, security of life and property and freedom of faith. Maulana Madani’s arguments were
critiqued by Maulana Maududi.
Q: In your prison memoirs, Rudad-e Qafas, you write that ‘It is as difficult for a Muslim to live in a non-Muslim society as it is for a fish to live in a desert’. But how can this be so? After all, the pioneers of Islam in India and in Kashmir itself, mainly Sufi saints, lived and preached in a society in which Muslims were a very small minority.
A: I meant to say this in a particular sense. Islam, as I said, is a complete way of life. No other path is acceptable to God. So, in the absence of an Islamic polity, it is difficult for Muslims to lead their lives entirely in accordance with the rules of Islam, which apply to social affairs as much as they do to personal affairs. For instance, Muslims in Kashmir under Indian rule live in a system where alcohol, interest and immorality are rife, so how can we lead our lives completely in accordance with Islam? Of course, Muslim minorities are Muslims, too, but their duty must be to work to establish an Islamic dispensation in the lands where they live so that they can lead their lives fully in accordance with Islam and its laws. Missionary work to spread Islam is as much of a duty as is praying and giving alms to the poor.
Now, as for your question about those Sufis who lived and worked in societies where Muslims were in a minority—they may have been pious people, but we take as our only model the Prophet Muhammad.
Q: But, surely, no one is forced to drink alcohol, deal in interest or act immorally in Kashmir?
A: True, but these things automatically spread since they are allowed by the present un-Islamic system. So that is why you see the degeneration of our culture and values happening on such a large scale.
Q: You mentioned about preaching Islam being a principal duty of all Muslims. But, surely, for this you need a climate of peace, not of active hostility, as in Kashmir today?
A: Absolutely. I agree with you entirely. No one can deny this. We need to have good relations with people of other communities. Only then can we communicate the message of Islam to them. But if one side continues to oppress the other and heap injustices and says that this should be considered as ‘peace’, how can it be accepted? If, for instance, Narendra Modi says that what happened with the Muslims in Gujarat represents peace, how can anyone accept it? If India stations lakhs of troops in Kashmir and says this is for establishing peace, how can it be, because these troops themselves are disturbing the peace?
Q: You, following other Islamist ideologues, have consistently been advocating what you call an ‘Islamic state’, seeing this as an indispensable Islamic duty. To your mind, which is the best functioning ‘Islamic state’ in the world today?
A: The world-wide Muslim community ummah is today in such a sorry state that there is no Islamic state anywhere in the real sense. Saudi Arabia is described as an Islamic state, but it is run by a monarchy, and monarchy has no sanction in Islam. If Muslim countries, including those that claim to be ‘Islamic’, were truly Islamic states they would never have been enslaved to America, as is the case today. They all support America’s policies and adopt its dictates. They are completely, on all accounts, dependent on America. They cannot even defend themselves. They have to rely on America and Europe to do this. They keep their money in American banks. We say that they should use their wealth to empower themselves and get out of America’s clutches and convert themselves into genuine Islamic states.
Q: In the wake of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, how do you see the impact of American pressure on Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, to change their position on Islamist movements?
A: The events of September 2001 have caused most Muslim states to change their policies and to toe America’s line even more closely. You can see this happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The only Muslim country that refuses to cave under American pressure is Iran.
Q: And now America is seeking an excuse to attack Iran, is it not?
A: Yes. America is trying to stoke Shia-Sunni rivalries in order to undermine Iran. It is trying all other such weapons, dividing the Muslims on the basis of sect, nationality, race and ethnicity against each other so as to weaken them. And the leaders of most Muslim countries are now playing the role of agents of the USA, be it in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Palestine or as is the case with the Saudi monarchs. See what’s happening in Waziristan, the Frontier Province and Baluchistan, in Pakistan. A climate is being deliberately created in those parts of Pakistan to justify American attacks and bombings in the name of flushing out militants.
Q: If Pakistan is now so pro-American, acting against its own people, and if it is not an authentic ‘Islamic state’, then why have you been advocating Kashmir’s union with it?
A: As I said earlier, the Muslim League claimed that Pakistan was won in the name of Islam, but it did not give its cadre the necessary training to establish an Islamic state there. Because of this, the influence of the Army and the country’s Westernised leadership, Pakistan failed to become an Islamic state. But it was meant to become such a state, which is something that we want. So, if the people of Jammu and Kashmir were given the
right to decide between India and Pakistan, the majority, I think, would prefer the former.
I admit that there are weaknesses in Pakistan, but these can be addressed. India has a secular system, which we can under no condition accept. Because of the oppression that we have been suffering under Indian rule for the last sixty years, how can we opt for India? In just a few weeks, in late 1947, some five lakh Muslims were killed by Dogra forces and Hindu chauvinists in Jammu. In the last seventeen years, over one lakh Kashmiri Muslims, mainly innocent civilians, have been killed. So many localities have been burned down, women raped and men rendered missing. After such brutal experiences, only a blind person would opt in favour of India.
Q: Many Kashmiri Muslims would rather be independent than join India or Pakistan. Do you agree?
A: The UN resolutions provide for only two options: joining India or Pakistan, and if this rule is followed then the majority would, I think, opt for
Pakistan. However, if the three parties to the dispute—Pakistan, India and the people of Jammu and Kashmir—come to a consensus on an independent Jammu and Kashmir, then, as I have repeatedly said, we will
accept that formula also.
Q: In some of your writings you have argued against Kashmir being an independent state, even claiming that this is an Indian ‘ploy’. Can you elaborate?
A: This is true. It is an Indian ploy, because India does not want to see Pakistan strengthened, which it would be if Jammu and Kashmir joins Pakistan. The slogan of Azadi is aimed at weakening Pakistan. Independence would result in a territory that would have been a natural part of Pakistan being taken away from it. But, then, compared to staying with India, independence is a lesser evil.
Q: Many Kashmiris, seeing the current political and economic troubles in Pakistan, might say that they would prefer to be independent.
A: If we get independence, we will accept it.
Q: What if most people of Jammu and Kashmir wish to live in a secular or democratic set-up, and not a Taliban-style ‘Islamic’ state?
A: We don’t want to bring Taliban-type Islam, but the real Islam of the Quran and the Practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet.
Q: But the Taliban argued that their state was in accordance with the Quran and the Sunnah.
A: To claim something is different from acting on that claim. For instance, while Islam makes it a duty for every Muslim male and female to acquire education, as soon as the Taliban came to power they banned girls’ education. What they should have done, instead, was to set up separate schools for girls. So, like this, there are many issues on which we can differ. The Islamic state that we would like to establish in Jammu and Kashmir would be one based on the understanding that all of humanity are children of the same primal parents, Adam and Eve. They will all be treated equally and justly. There shall be no discrimination based on religion. After all, the Prophet once remarked that all creatures are of the family of God and that the best is he who treats members of God’s family—which obviously includes non-Muslims, too—in the best way.
Q: You advocate Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, but today minority nationalities in Pakistan, such as the Baluchis and the Sindhis, suffering under Punjabi domination, are struggling for independence. Might not
the same thing happen to the Kashmiris if the state were to join Pakistan?
A: We want to join Pakistan, not be absorbed into it. We would have internal autonomy.
Q: But, surely, despite Pakistan’s claims, the part of Jammu and Kashmir under its control—‘Azad Kashmir’—lacks real autonomy?
A: Yes, Azad Kashmir cannot be said to be really autonomous since there, too, everything happens according to the wishes and directions of the Federal Government. But we would make sure that our autonomy
be written into the Constitution.
Q: Do you see any significant changes in Pakistan’s policies vis-à-vis Kashmir in recent years, perhaps under American pressure?
A: Yes, considerable changes can be noticed. Earlier, Pakistan used to insist on the right to self-determination for the people of Jammu and
Kashmir. Musharraf was the first to change this, arguing for a solution outside that of the UN resolutions, an out-of-the-box solution. This constituted the first deviation in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Then, Musharraf began talking of seven zones in Jammu and Kashmir, soft borders and his four-point formula, which is nothing but a means to preserve the status quo.
Q: How do you respond to media allegations that the Kashmiri movement for self-determination is ‘anti-Hindu’?
A: How can our struggle be called ‘anti-Hindu’? It is a struggle for certain principles. In Hindu mythology, when the Kauravas and the Pandavas, cousins of each other, were arrayed against each other on the battlefield, Arjun turned to Krishanji Maharaj, and told him that he could not bear to fight his own brothers. Why, he asked him, was he asking him to fight them? He wanted to refuse to fight. But, then, Krishanji Maharaj said, ‘Arjun, this is a battle for certain principles. In this, do not consider the fact that those who are opposed to you are your relatives’.
We Kashmiris, too, are engaging in such a battle for certain principles with the Indian Government, for occupying us against our will and for not acting on its promise to let us decide our own political future. It is not a war
against Hindus or the people of India. It is not a communal conflict. In fact, there are many Indians who support our stand on the right to self-determination.
Q: Then why is it that the Indian media, and large sections of the Western media, too, present the movement as ‘Islamic extremism’ or ‘terrorism’?
A: The Indian media is bound to support India’s military occupation. How can you expect it to support our cause? I’ve seen so many massacres by the Indian Army here, but often the media describes them as ‘encounters’ with ‘militants’. You know how the agents of the Indian Army engineered the massacre of so many innocent Sikhs in Chhatisinghpora and falsely
attributed this to ‘militants’, in order to convey the misleading message to the then American President, Bill Clinton, at that time on a visit to India, that our struggle is a ‘communal’ one, and not a freedom movement. I can cite so many more such cases to prove this point.
Q: But, if that is so, why is it that you and people like you have not condemned killings by militants in the same way as you condemn similar crimes by the Indian Army?
A: Wherever such incidents have happened, we have condemned them, irrespective of the religion of the victims. The Quran clearly states that enmity with a people should not make one stray from the path of justice, because justice is closer to piety.
Q: If Jammu and Kashmir becomes independent, how do you envisage its relations with India and Pakistan?
A: It should have brotherly relations with both countries.
Q: Some radical groups active in Kashmir argue that all Hindus are ‘enemies’ of Islam. What do you feel?
A: No, this is erroneous. There should be no enmity or discrimination with anyone simply because of his religion, caste, race, colour or country. We are
permitted to fight only those individuals who fight us or place hurdles in the path of our faith. With others we should have good relations, and that applies to our relations with ordinary Hindus as well. So, when some
people argue that as a community the Hindus are ‘enemies of Islam’, it is wrong. It is not an Islamic way of thinking.
Q: Certain militant groups active in Kashmir say that they will not stop their war with India until India itself is ‘absorbed’ into Pakistan and the Pakistani
flag flies atop Delhi’s Red Fort. What is your opinion?
A: This is emotional talk and should not be paid attention to. We don’t agree with this argument. Our fight with India is only to the extent that India has taken away our right to self-determination. Once we win that right we will have no problem with India. In fact, if by exercising this right the majority of the people of Jammu and Kashmir say that they want to be
with India, we will also accept that.
Q: But don’t you feel certain radical groups active in Kashmir who preach hatred against Hindus and call for India’s ‘absorption’ into Pakistan are actually defaming the religion whose cause they claim to champion?
A: Islam has been given a bad name more by Muslims themselves and less by Hindus. Islam has been damaged less by open ‘disbelief’ (kufr) than by hidden hypocrisy (munafiqat), by people who claim to be Muslims but are really not so in practice.
Q: So, would you agree that these groups who condemn all Hindus as ‘enemies’ are actually misinterpreting Islam?
A: We cannot take responsibility for what others say. You can ask these people yourself.
Q: What message do you have for the people of India?
A: I will only say that India should honour its promise to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to let them decide their own political future. Honouring one’s promise is a major principle of the Hindu religion.
Raja Dasharath, honouring the promise he made to his wife Kaikeyi, gave his throne to his son Bharat and ordered Ram Chandraji to go into the forest in exile. Simply in order to keep his promise he sent his elder
son to fourteen years in the forest and gave the throne to Bharat instead. Bharat was a man of character, and so he placed Ram Chandraji’s sandals on the throne, believing that his elder brother deserved to rule. So, the Hindu religion teaches that one should live up to one’s promises, and if India were to act on the advice of the Hindu scriptures in this regard on the issue of Kashmir the conflict will easily be solved.
Copyright 2010 @: New Age Islam Foundation
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Musharraf talks circles around this useless Indian "Journalist"
Burkha Dutt, a classic case of an unprepared interviewer who tries to get her way by bullying.
Kashmir - Not Freedom But an Islamic Republic
Monday, 23. August 2010
Sundeep
A Brief History of Jihad in Kashmir
Rajatarangini first begun by Kalhana and then continued by Jonraj records that Zul Qadir Khan (Dulchu?) was an early Turkish Tatar (or Tartar) who raided Kashmir with a savage horde of about 70000 barbarians. His plunder lasted eight months and when he was done, it left behind rivers of blood of thousands of massacred Hindus, expansive swathes of burnt crops, razed towns, and death and destruction. That one plunder turned the Paradise into a wasteland. Dulchu would’ve stayed on if not for the severe winter that foiled his plans. He took with him about 50000 kaffir men, women, and children to sell them in the lucrative slave markets in Turkistan (the Central Asian regions lying between Siberia on the north; Tibet, modern day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran on the south; the Gobi Desert on the east; and the Caspian Sea on the west). However, a terrible blizzard ensued when he was crossing Devsar Pass and he perished with his entire army and captives. The place was subsequently known as Bata Sagan meaning “the death oven of Brahmins.”
This pretty much marks the beginning of the first genocide-cum-exodus of Kashmiri Brahmins or Pandits in their own homeland. This incredible site records seven such exoduses. Aside, it doesn’t make for easy reading. Line after line of cold prose records the horrid massacres of a peace-loving and innocent people who had attained collossal heights in culture, arts, and learning.
The kings of a state that had successfully nixed Mohammad Ghaznavid’s incursions twice so harshly that he didn’t cast his eyes in that direction ever again eventually succumbed to repeated attacks from barbaric Muslim armies. The decisive turn came with the Tibetan/Buddhist Rinchan Shah who converted to Islam so he could get the throne. He lasted only three years after which the Shamiri dynasty ruled for over 200 years. “Pure” Islam bared all its intolerant fangs under the fourth ruler of the dynasty, Sikander who was honoured with But-Shikan (iconoclast). Sikander bulldozed almost all Hindu temples in the state. He ordered the bodies of the slain Hindus to be thrown into the Dal lake not before cutting their sacred threads off their bodies and burning them. This yielded him a grand harvest of seven maunds (1 maund=37.3 Kgs) of sacred thread. Today, this place is known as But-mazar (or Batta Mazar) or grave of Brahmins. Kaffirs had two choice: to convert to Islam or die. Several Brahmin families fled to the Panchal range as refugees. A large percentage of present-day Kashmiri Pandits are their descendants.
The story of Kashmir ever since was an unending nightmare of atrocities on Hindus by successive Muslim rulers except for a brief respite by Akbar. Jahangir described the place as a “heaven on earth” and promptly did his bit to destroy Hindu temples and impose Jeziya. Shah Jahan was a worthy successor. Bernier, the historian describes that “the doors and pillars were found in some of the idol temples demolished by Shah Jehan and it is impossible to estimate their value.” He also lauded Kwaja Mam, an underling who looted Pandit Mahadeo’s house and set it afire. Aurangzeb, the role model of Indian secularism needs special mention. His reign saw the carefully-chosen appointment of 14 of the vilest and cruelest subedars and governors to Kashmir. Iftekar stands tallest among these. Thousands converted at the point of the sword and thousands still fled to Delhi and settled in today’s Sitaram Bazaar. Incidentally, an unconfirmed story has it that Jawaharlal Nehru’s wedding procession came all the way from Allahabad to Sitaram Bazaar to get his marriage solemnized. Meanwhile, the Aurangzeb-Iftekar duo had made life hell for Kashmir Pandits who sent a strong delegation to the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur. Moved by their plight, he met Aurangzeb who received him well but deceived him and in the end, had his throat slit. Guru Tegh Bahadur’s foul murder was also one of the major incidents that shook Aurangzeb’s empire really badly. Post-Aurangzeb, Ahamad Shah Abdali, the Afghan marauder quickly gobbled up whatever remained of the Mughal empire. But that only opened a new chapter of even worse atrocities on the Kashmir Pandits. Here’s a sample:
Mir Muquim Kanth and Khwaja Zahir Didamari, two prominent Muslim leaders of Kashmir, were responsible for inducing Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade Kashmir to bring it under his hegemony. Accepting the invitation, Abdali despatched a strong army of Afghans under Abdullah Khan Ishk Aqasi (1753) to reduce Kashmir. The local resistance offered by Qasim’s commander could not stand the Afghan onslaught and Ishk Aqasi established the rule of Afghans in Kashmir. He proved a scourge for the Kashmirians. He indulged in a spree of loot, plunder and murder to amass wealth. Writes PNK Bamzai, “Rude was the shock that the Kashmirians got when they witnessed the first acts of barbarity at the hands of their new masters.” The Afghans maintained their suzerainty over Kashmir for a period of sixty-seven years. They were absolutely ignorant, barbarous, cruel and inhuman. Their atrocities on the Kashmirian Hindus beat all previous records. They inflicted brutalities even on the Muslims. They plundered the houses of the rich as well as the poor. Anybody resisting or complaining would be straight-away put to sword. Their methods of torture and persecution were absolutely brutal and inhuman. Mir Muquim Kanth…harassed and persecuted the Kashmirian Hindus. He was hand in glove with Ishk Aqasi, who, in the wake of his victory, let loose a reign of terror. The houses of the Hindus were looted and pillaged. Huge fines were imposed on them. Any Hindu audacious enough not to pay the fines was brutally murdered. Having failed to withstand the brutal torture of the Afghans, the Kashmirian Hindus started migrating to safer zones in the neighbourhood of Kashmir. Mir Muquim Kanth proved to be their worst persecutor.
Peace returned in about 1819 when Diwan Mohakam Chand, a general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh decisively routed the Afghans and brought Kashmir under the sway of the Sikh empire. In other words, about one thousand hundred years had elapsed before Kashmir again witnessed some strong and real Hindu rule. After Ranjit Singh, it eventually passed on to the British.
And then we cut to the present.
A Pandit Screws His Own Homeland
This lengthy history was necessary because this precisely is what the perverts in the media, intellectuals, and academia want the nation to forget. There’s no real difference between the Kashmiri Pandits who fled to the Panchal range to escape Sikander’s atrocities and the Pandits of our time who live like refugees in their own homeland and are otherwise scattered across the globe. Equally, there’s no change in the ideology that motivated Sikander and continues to motivate Allah’s worthies in Kashmir and their counterparts across the border.
The facade behind the “complexities involved” in settling the Kashmir dispute is just an exercise in national deception because it hides an important fact: the all-pervasive cluelessness of the Pandit who screwed his own homeland. Towards the end of the first Indo-Pak war it was clear that Pakistan had been outnumbered, outgunned, and outmanoeuvred in every sector it fought Pakistan in. But the rose-sporting arch-angel of Peace who was out on a mission to prove to the world his nobility, called for a unilateral ceasefire. This Brown Sahib true to his nature, was a champion of several firsts. He was the first Prime Minister ever to call for a ceasefire in a war India would’ve won if he didn’t have the wet dream of seeing himself being crowned as the Champion of World Peace. And it is this that our worthies want to push under the carpet by spinning fantastic yarns. I don’t blame Maharaja Hari Singh’s deep distrust of Nehru. Here’s more reading material if you’re interested. And we know what’s happened ever since till the ’90s when Pakistan declared an open Jihad in Kashmir.
Kashmir began to re-bleed in a big way. Re-bleed because let’s not forget the 1000-plus years of Muslim rule. And what was common again? History revisited innocent Kashmiri Pandits. This time, the number was greater, the time span shorter. Within a decade, Kashmir was ethnically cleansed of Hindus. Five hundred thousand Hindus were killed and/or driven out because they were Hindus. Also recall that in the first Indo-Pak war, the Pakistani irregulars and soldiers alike killed large numbers of Hindus. The new century saw the extension of this Jihad to Jammu. In an old post I termed the Amarnath issue as a phenomenon out to steadily make Hindus the second-class citizens in India–Jihad again. Two years later, it’s only gotten worse. The question then to ask is: why didn’t we witness any Amarnath-like social disruption even five years ago? The obvious answer lies in changed demographics and/or accumulation of more power and influence by the Religion of Peace.
Proud Stonepelters and their Media Mollycoddlers
The media, which had maintained that “Kashmir belongs to India no matter what” has today changed the tune to “grant autonomy to Kashmir.” It’s no surprise that it toes the line of a certain secular party on all things of anti-national importance. The Indian media is blessed with great clairvoyance. It runs well-placed pieces and posts heart-rending pictures of the heartless Indian army gunning down innocent Kashmiri Muslims. A few weeks later, the Prime Minister announces that he’s ready to give autonomy to Kashmir.
From an angel of peace who created the Kashmir problem to a Puppet Prime Minister extraordinaire, we’ve come a full circle. And all it took for Dr.Gentle to issue that nauseous statement was several days of relentless stone-pelting by freedom-loving Kashmiri Muslim youth. A certain courageous paper known for Peeping Tom journalism ran a mile-long article that basically says the following:
* Kashmir has never had any Hindus
* We stand for pacifism and peace
* We hate to be called Indians
* Indian soldiers are basically poor villagers who languish under the Indian state as much as we do
And then another truth-pursuing channel invites a known India-baiter who threatens a Kashmiri Pandit live on TV. Meanwhile, the Kashmiri Pandits who take out protests in Delhi are caned by the cops whose chain of command finally ends with Dr. Gentle who has just gone on record announcing the possibility of granting autonomy to Kashmir. Wait. But nobody needs to talk about the Pandits–Kashmir is more or less completely Muslim. And so what Pakistan couldn’t achieve by force in 1947-48 is being given to it by India on a platter because Dr.Gentle hates stones.
Our well-fed journos and liberals are only too happy to lend their voice in support of giving away Kashmir. Tomorrow, it could be Kerala, which is showing tremendous promise of becoming the Kashmir of the South.
Plight of the Pandits
To be fair, all the hard work, organization and dogged determination of the Kashmiri Pandits are slowly paying off. For the first time, the protests in Delhi left a mark that (we hope) won’t be ignored. Media reports, independent reporters, bloggers, and the Internet are also pretty reliable indicators of the support that’s built up in their favour. But it’s not enough for a people who’ve pretty much been at the receiving end of untold misery for centuries. The only parallel I see is in the plight of the Jews till Israel was formed.
The Shape of Things to Come
Azad Kashmir then, is not about freedom for Kashmiris. It’s the freedom to make Kashmir an Islamic state, which will become a satellite state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Granting autonomy to Kashmir in any form simply means the Indian state has accepted defeat at the feet of Pakistan’s Jihad machine. We already have a foretaste of the Islamic Republic of Kashmir.
Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley have received anonymous letters from Islamic militants asking them to either embrace Islam and join the protests against civilian killings or pack up and leave the Valley. The 60,000-strong Sikh community is the single largest minority group in the Valley.
There. The future dhimmis have already been identified. It doesn’t matter that the double-dealer Geelani has “reassured” the Sikhs. Only the secular party believes the likes of Geelani.
The Way Out
The past offers several solutions to current problems. Guru Tegh Bahadur is one such example who laid the foundation for the destruction of the Mughal empire. This man moved to tears by the plight of Kashmiri Pandits living far away invited death upon himself. The idea, old-fashioned and emotional by today’s standards is eternal. He had recognized the cultural unity of India in his own way and sacrificed himself to preserve that. That set off a wave of revolt starting with his own son and successor, Guru Gobind Singh, and then the Rajputs, Chattrasal, and Shivaji. Equally, Ranjit Singh who liberated Kashmir from bloodthirsty Muslim rulers was wise to realize the consequences of unchecked Muslim power. He never allowed any Muslim chieftain–big and small–to grow beyond his boots and as V Nalwa records, he kept a tight watch on the Muslim clergy. Mullahs were “not looked upon kindly as they were known to fan fanaticism.” [Hari Singh Nalwa - Champion of Khalsaji].
Which brings us back to the one word that’s been made dirty by the secular establishment: nationalism. It was the same word that gave us political freedom from the British. Surrendering Kashmir is surrendering that freedom. It’s still not too late.
Sundeep
A Brief History of Jihad in Kashmir
Rajatarangini first begun by Kalhana and then continued by Jonraj records that Zul Qadir Khan (Dulchu?) was an early Turkish Tatar (or Tartar) who raided Kashmir with a savage horde of about 70000 barbarians. His plunder lasted eight months and when he was done, it left behind rivers of blood of thousands of massacred Hindus, expansive swathes of burnt crops, razed towns, and death and destruction. That one plunder turned the Paradise into a wasteland. Dulchu would’ve stayed on if not for the severe winter that foiled his plans. He took with him about 50000 kaffir men, women, and children to sell them in the lucrative slave markets in Turkistan (the Central Asian regions lying between Siberia on the north; Tibet, modern day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran on the south; the Gobi Desert on the east; and the Caspian Sea on the west). However, a terrible blizzard ensued when he was crossing Devsar Pass and he perished with his entire army and captives. The place was subsequently known as Bata Sagan meaning “the death oven of Brahmins.”
This pretty much marks the beginning of the first genocide-cum-exodus of Kashmiri Brahmins or Pandits in their own homeland. This incredible site records seven such exoduses. Aside, it doesn’t make for easy reading. Line after line of cold prose records the horrid massacres of a peace-loving and innocent people who had attained collossal heights in culture, arts, and learning.
The kings of a state that had successfully nixed Mohammad Ghaznavid’s incursions twice so harshly that he didn’t cast his eyes in that direction ever again eventually succumbed to repeated attacks from barbaric Muslim armies. The decisive turn came with the Tibetan/Buddhist Rinchan Shah who converted to Islam so he could get the throne. He lasted only three years after which the Shamiri dynasty ruled for over 200 years. “Pure” Islam bared all its intolerant fangs under the fourth ruler of the dynasty, Sikander who was honoured with But-Shikan (iconoclast). Sikander bulldozed almost all Hindu temples in the state. He ordered the bodies of the slain Hindus to be thrown into the Dal lake not before cutting their sacred threads off their bodies and burning them. This yielded him a grand harvest of seven maunds (1 maund=37.3 Kgs) of sacred thread. Today, this place is known as But-mazar (or Batta Mazar) or grave of Brahmins. Kaffirs had two choice: to convert to Islam or die. Several Brahmin families fled to the Panchal range as refugees. A large percentage of present-day Kashmiri Pandits are their descendants.
The story of Kashmir ever since was an unending nightmare of atrocities on Hindus by successive Muslim rulers except for a brief respite by Akbar. Jahangir described the place as a “heaven on earth” and promptly did his bit to destroy Hindu temples and impose Jeziya. Shah Jahan was a worthy successor. Bernier, the historian describes that “the doors and pillars were found in some of the idol temples demolished by Shah Jehan and it is impossible to estimate their value.” He also lauded Kwaja Mam, an underling who looted Pandit Mahadeo’s house and set it afire. Aurangzeb, the role model of Indian secularism needs special mention. His reign saw the carefully-chosen appointment of 14 of the vilest and cruelest subedars and governors to Kashmir. Iftekar stands tallest among these. Thousands converted at the point of the sword and thousands still fled to Delhi and settled in today’s Sitaram Bazaar. Incidentally, an unconfirmed story has it that Jawaharlal Nehru’s wedding procession came all the way from Allahabad to Sitaram Bazaar to get his marriage solemnized. Meanwhile, the Aurangzeb-Iftekar duo had made life hell for Kashmir Pandits who sent a strong delegation to the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur. Moved by their plight, he met Aurangzeb who received him well but deceived him and in the end, had his throat slit. Guru Tegh Bahadur’s foul murder was also one of the major incidents that shook Aurangzeb’s empire really badly. Post-Aurangzeb, Ahamad Shah Abdali, the Afghan marauder quickly gobbled up whatever remained of the Mughal empire. But that only opened a new chapter of even worse atrocities on the Kashmir Pandits. Here’s a sample:
Mir Muquim Kanth and Khwaja Zahir Didamari, two prominent Muslim leaders of Kashmir, were responsible for inducing Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade Kashmir to bring it under his hegemony. Accepting the invitation, Abdali despatched a strong army of Afghans under Abdullah Khan Ishk Aqasi (1753) to reduce Kashmir. The local resistance offered by Qasim’s commander could not stand the Afghan onslaught and Ishk Aqasi established the rule of Afghans in Kashmir. He proved a scourge for the Kashmirians. He indulged in a spree of loot, plunder and murder to amass wealth. Writes PNK Bamzai, “Rude was the shock that the Kashmirians got when they witnessed the first acts of barbarity at the hands of their new masters.” The Afghans maintained their suzerainty over Kashmir for a period of sixty-seven years. They were absolutely ignorant, barbarous, cruel and inhuman. Their atrocities on the Kashmirian Hindus beat all previous records. They inflicted brutalities even on the Muslims. They plundered the houses of the rich as well as the poor. Anybody resisting or complaining would be straight-away put to sword. Their methods of torture and persecution were absolutely brutal and inhuman. Mir Muquim Kanth…harassed and persecuted the Kashmirian Hindus. He was hand in glove with Ishk Aqasi, who, in the wake of his victory, let loose a reign of terror. The houses of the Hindus were looted and pillaged. Huge fines were imposed on them. Any Hindu audacious enough not to pay the fines was brutally murdered. Having failed to withstand the brutal torture of the Afghans, the Kashmirian Hindus started migrating to safer zones in the neighbourhood of Kashmir. Mir Muquim Kanth proved to be their worst persecutor.
Peace returned in about 1819 when Diwan Mohakam Chand, a general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh decisively routed the Afghans and brought Kashmir under the sway of the Sikh empire. In other words, about one thousand hundred years had elapsed before Kashmir again witnessed some strong and real Hindu rule. After Ranjit Singh, it eventually passed on to the British.
And then we cut to the present.
A Pandit Screws His Own Homeland
This lengthy history was necessary because this precisely is what the perverts in the media, intellectuals, and academia want the nation to forget. There’s no real difference between the Kashmiri Pandits who fled to the Panchal range to escape Sikander’s atrocities and the Pandits of our time who live like refugees in their own homeland and are otherwise scattered across the globe. Equally, there’s no change in the ideology that motivated Sikander and continues to motivate Allah’s worthies in Kashmir and their counterparts across the border.
The facade behind the “complexities involved” in settling the Kashmir dispute is just an exercise in national deception because it hides an important fact: the all-pervasive cluelessness of the Pandit who screwed his own homeland. Towards the end of the first Indo-Pak war it was clear that Pakistan had been outnumbered, outgunned, and outmanoeuvred in every sector it fought Pakistan in. But the rose-sporting arch-angel of Peace who was out on a mission to prove to the world his nobility, called for a unilateral ceasefire. This Brown Sahib true to his nature, was a champion of several firsts. He was the first Prime Minister ever to call for a ceasefire in a war India would’ve won if he didn’t have the wet dream of seeing himself being crowned as the Champion of World Peace. And it is this that our worthies want to push under the carpet by spinning fantastic yarns. I don’t blame Maharaja Hari Singh’s deep distrust of Nehru. Here’s more reading material if you’re interested. And we know what’s happened ever since till the ’90s when Pakistan declared an open Jihad in Kashmir.
Kashmir began to re-bleed in a big way. Re-bleed because let’s not forget the 1000-plus years of Muslim rule. And what was common again? History revisited innocent Kashmiri Pandits. This time, the number was greater, the time span shorter. Within a decade, Kashmir was ethnically cleansed of Hindus. Five hundred thousand Hindus were killed and/or driven out because they were Hindus. Also recall that in the first Indo-Pak war, the Pakistani irregulars and soldiers alike killed large numbers of Hindus. The new century saw the extension of this Jihad to Jammu. In an old post I termed the Amarnath issue as a phenomenon out to steadily make Hindus the second-class citizens in India–Jihad again. Two years later, it’s only gotten worse. The question then to ask is: why didn’t we witness any Amarnath-like social disruption even five years ago? The obvious answer lies in changed demographics and/or accumulation of more power and influence by the Religion of Peace.
Proud Stonepelters and their Media Mollycoddlers
The media, which had maintained that “Kashmir belongs to India no matter what” has today changed the tune to “grant autonomy to Kashmir.” It’s no surprise that it toes the line of a certain secular party on all things of anti-national importance. The Indian media is blessed with great clairvoyance. It runs well-placed pieces and posts heart-rending pictures of the heartless Indian army gunning down innocent Kashmiri Muslims. A few weeks later, the Prime Minister announces that he’s ready to give autonomy to Kashmir.
From an angel of peace who created the Kashmir problem to a Puppet Prime Minister extraordinaire, we’ve come a full circle. And all it took for Dr.Gentle to issue that nauseous statement was several days of relentless stone-pelting by freedom-loving Kashmiri Muslim youth. A certain courageous paper known for Peeping Tom journalism ran a mile-long article that basically says the following:
* Kashmir has never had any Hindus
* We stand for pacifism and peace
* We hate to be called Indians
* Indian soldiers are basically poor villagers who languish under the Indian state as much as we do
And then another truth-pursuing channel invites a known India-baiter who threatens a Kashmiri Pandit live on TV. Meanwhile, the Kashmiri Pandits who take out protests in Delhi are caned by the cops whose chain of command finally ends with Dr. Gentle who has just gone on record announcing the possibility of granting autonomy to Kashmir. Wait. But nobody needs to talk about the Pandits–Kashmir is more or less completely Muslim. And so what Pakistan couldn’t achieve by force in 1947-48 is being given to it by India on a platter because Dr.Gentle hates stones.
Our well-fed journos and liberals are only too happy to lend their voice in support of giving away Kashmir. Tomorrow, it could be Kerala, which is showing tremendous promise of becoming the Kashmir of the South.
Plight of the Pandits
To be fair, all the hard work, organization and dogged determination of the Kashmiri Pandits are slowly paying off. For the first time, the protests in Delhi left a mark that (we hope) won’t be ignored. Media reports, independent reporters, bloggers, and the Internet are also pretty reliable indicators of the support that’s built up in their favour. But it’s not enough for a people who’ve pretty much been at the receiving end of untold misery for centuries. The only parallel I see is in the plight of the Jews till Israel was formed.
The Shape of Things to Come
Azad Kashmir then, is not about freedom for Kashmiris. It’s the freedom to make Kashmir an Islamic state, which will become a satellite state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Granting autonomy to Kashmir in any form simply means the Indian state has accepted defeat at the feet of Pakistan’s Jihad machine. We already have a foretaste of the Islamic Republic of Kashmir.
Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley have received anonymous letters from Islamic militants asking them to either embrace Islam and join the protests against civilian killings or pack up and leave the Valley. The 60,000-strong Sikh community is the single largest minority group in the Valley.
There. The future dhimmis have already been identified. It doesn’t matter that the double-dealer Geelani has “reassured” the Sikhs. Only the secular party believes the likes of Geelani.
The Way Out
The past offers several solutions to current problems. Guru Tegh Bahadur is one such example who laid the foundation for the destruction of the Mughal empire. This man moved to tears by the plight of Kashmiri Pandits living far away invited death upon himself. The idea, old-fashioned and emotional by today’s standards is eternal. He had recognized the cultural unity of India in his own way and sacrificed himself to preserve that. That set off a wave of revolt starting with his own son and successor, Guru Gobind Singh, and then the Rajputs, Chattrasal, and Shivaji. Equally, Ranjit Singh who liberated Kashmir from bloodthirsty Muslim rulers was wise to realize the consequences of unchecked Muslim power. He never allowed any Muslim chieftain–big and small–to grow beyond his boots and as V Nalwa records, he kept a tight watch on the Muslim clergy. Mullahs were “not looked upon kindly as they were known to fan fanaticism.” [Hari Singh Nalwa - Champion of Khalsaji].
Which brings us back to the one word that’s been made dirty by the secular establishment: nationalism. It was the same word that gave us political freedom from the British. Surrendering Kashmir is surrendering that freedom. It’s still not too late.
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