partition-gandhi-s-ray-of-hope-in-kashmir

Even after 78 years of partition and the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with India, multiple historical myths continue to survive. One of the greatest myths about Kashmir is that there was no communal violence in Kashmir and there were no killings either. This was endorsed and certified by no less a person than Mahatma Gandhi, who famously saw “a ray of hope in Kashmir”.

Nothing can be far from the truth than to suggest that there were no communal incidents, no killings, no lootings or no rapes in Kashmir. Yes these did not happen at a large scale as in neighbouring Punjab. But these did take place in Kashmir with the same ruthlessness, brutality and barbarity.

The brutal and barbaric gang-rape of Christian nuns in Saint Joseph’s Catholic Mission and Hospital in Baramulla on October 26/27 is just one of the brutal examples. Since this happened in an important town and since the Christian nuns were the victims it did get reported extensively in newspapers like the New York Times, elsewhere across the northern parts of the Kashmir valley in the districts of Baramulla and Muzaffarabad and Poonch and Rajouri areas of Jammu region, there were hundreds of such incidents, which did not get mentioned or reported anywhere then.

As the global media was busy in the neighbouring Punjab where millions of people migrated across the Radcliffe Line and almost the equal number got massacred on either side of the line, nobody had any time for Kashmir. Besides, Kashmir remained isolated because of the partition and Pakistan’s blockade to force its ruler Maharaja Hari Singh to accede with it.

Since the violence, rape and bloodshed in Kashmir was not reported, Gandhi remained blissfully ignorant about it and in the spur of the moment he said that famous line, “while the rest of the country burns in communal fire, I see a ray of hope in Kashmir only”. Gandhi, unintentionally not only covered up the brutal communal violence against the non-Muslims, he also gave a clean chit to the culprits as if nothing happened in Kashmir.

Communal violence takes place mainly when the two conflicting communities are mainly balanced in terms of numbers. In Kashmir, there was no such case. Non-Muslims were a microscopic minority. They could hardly retaliate, rather they could not even defend and protect themselves or their women from rapes. Besides, the local Muslim population was encouraged and supported by the tribesmen and the Pakistani army to massacre the non-Muslims as, in them, they saw the “last remnants and symbols of India”. It was a one-sided massacre in Kashmir.

There is a striking similarity in the narratives of today with that of 1947. First of all the entire western media ignored and overlooked the communal pogrom against the non-Muslims. Only the rape of the nuns in Baramulla got prominence. Even if some incidents were reported here and there, these were exclusively attributed to the tribesmen, thus giving clean chit to the local people.

It is indeed a fact that a majority of the Kashmiri Muslims that time did not participate in the violence and massacre, but a lot many did. After all, it was the locals who guided and navigated the tribesmen by identifying the non-Muslim targets. For the tribesmen it was impossible to make out a difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim, except in the case of Sikhs, who were easily identified by their turban. That is also the reason that more Sikhs died in Kashmir than Hindus, as they were not able to conceal their identity.

The tribesmen would ask people to recite ‘Kalima’ to verify whether the people who claimed to be Muslims to escape death, were actually Muslims. This is strikingly similar to the Pahalgam terror attack where the victims were asked to recite ‘Kalima’ to verify their religious identity. Also, the way today a narrative is built up in Kashmir in which the local population is given clean chit and all violence is attributed to foreigners like the Pakistanis, the same thing happened in 1947. Entire violence was attributed to the tribesmen, while the locals were given a clean chit. There are recorded incidents where the locals would not only guide the tribesmen in identifying the non-Muslims, but would follow up by looting and setting fire to the properties of the non-Muslims if and where they were left untouched by the tribesmen.

There, indeed, were sections of people who did not support the tribesmen in their brutality and barbarity against the non-Muslims. Most of them remained neutral, which was understandable. First, the local Muslims feared for their lives. Second, there was an element of “religious brotherhood” as the tribesmen professed the same faith.

There were still people like Maqbool Sherwani who tried to resist the tribesmen as much as they could with limited resources. Sherwani is believed to have misled the tribesmen by guiding them through a longer route to Srinagar, thus delaying their reaching the capital city. This delay proved crucial as by that time the Indian Army had already landed in Srinagar and the tribesmen were stopped at Shalteng, just seven kilometers from the city. Sherwani was found out and he was brutally killed and nailed to death by the tribesmen.

The brutal communal violence in Kashmir that was orchestrated by and at the behest of the tribesmen, had a retaliatory fallout in the Jammu region also. Besides, being closer to Punjab, which saw the worst brutalities, communal riots did take place in various parts of the Jammu region where the members of the two communities targeted and killed each other with brute impunity.

To suggest that Jammu and Kashmir remained “untouched” from the paranoia of partition and no communal killings took place is far from the truth. Just because the incidents did not get reported anywhere does not mean that these did not take place at all.  The worst example is that of the brutal gang rape of the Christian nuns in Baramulla.  

The tribesmen would ask people to recite ‘Kalima’ to verify whether the people who claimed to be Muslims to escape death, were actually Muslims. This is strikingly similar to the Pahalgam terror attack where the victims were asked to recite ‘Kalima’ to verify their religious identity. Also, the way today a narrative is built up in Kashmir in which the local population is given clean chit and all violence is attributed to foreigners like the Pakistanis, the same thing happened in 1947.

 

Entire violence was attributed to the tribesmen, while the locals were given a clean chit. There are recorded incidents where the locals would not only guide the tribesmen in identifying the non-Muslims, but would follow up by looting and setting fire to the properties of the non-Muslims if and where they were left untouched by the tribesmen.