my truth & 20 years of exile

Below are some lines which depict the general sentiments of KP community in exile for 20 years….

My wounded scars have not yet healed,
In exile, everyday,
my heart bleed…

I too have a voice, you need ears to listen
I too have emotions;
you need a heart to feel it…

I too am a human being, I too have a life,
With eyes open,
you can see my strife..

my politicians don’t want the truth to come out,
They don’t want me to stand by truth,
and shout..

they don’t like bitter truth’s taste,
for them,
my truth is just a waste..

20 years of exiled imprisonment & still Under locks,
my truth has been blocked,
my truth has been locked..

truth strangulated, justice denied,
oh! this is so unfair,
my choked truth is Gasping for air,but my India doesn’t care..

@Azaad Pandit

Once there was a Kashmiri pandit…..

Once upon a time , There lived a community in Kashmir, who were known as Kashmiri Pandits…

Imbibing their age old customs, They lived in the valley till the eighties..

As the angel of death Azrael hounded them in early nineties…

In the dead of night, they fled from the valley, lest they get killed, by the Islamic mob …

Killers killed old and young, their conscience deaf towards the cries of helpless and a child’s sob….

Their only sin was that they were Hindus and loved India and believed in peace and god’s grace…

While the jihadis celebrated the killings of pundits with impunity as they left their sinister trace….

The demagogues incited the poor and Bourgeoisie to kill the minority for the sake of heaven….

And the Jihadis indoctrinated the rape and killing of infidels as religious duty and a sign of Brave men…

With deceit, can killing of unarmed neighbor be termed as pride and bravery, and a struggle for independency…..

Alas, Vicarious knowledge has never given anyone tranquility, peace and a berth in heaven, nor Ecstasy..

Ostracized & penniless, they had to leave their hearth and homes, During the height of Jihadic mobocracy….

Now, left with little faith have become disillusioned and disheartened with so called pseudo-democracy….

Now In kashmir, Gone are the times of Pandits, when there was goodness and a time of simple folks..

In the land of Amarnath, even shiva has failed to behold the Islamic crescent in his hair locks….

Are there still any good men left, who can stand by truth, justice and maintain their dignity and poise…

Have been looking for those stoic & brave men, who can shake the dead conscience by their stentorian  voice..

Once upon a time , There lived a community in Kashmir, who were known as Kashmiri Pandits…

azaad.pandit@gmail.com

My name is not Khan, I am Mr Kaul

Tarun Vijay Tuesday December 22, 2009, 08:55 AM
Link – http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indus-calling/entry/my-name-is-not-khan

I am not Khan. My name bears a different set of four letters: K A U L. Kaul. As those who know Indian names would understand I happened to be born in a family which was called Hindu by others. Hence, we were sure, we would never get a friend like KJ to make a movie on our humiliations, and the contemptuous and forced exile from our homeland. It’s not fashionable. It’s fashionable to get a Khan as a friend and portray his agony and pains and sufferings when he is asked by a US private to take off his shoes and show his socks. Natural and quite justifiable that Khan must feel insulted and enraged. Enough Masala to make a movie.
But unfortunately I am a Kaul. I am not a Khan.
Hence when my sisters and mothers were raped and killed, when six-year-old Seema was witness to the brutal slaughtering of her brother, mother and father with a butcher’s knife by a Khan, nobody ever came to make a movie on my agony, pain and anguish, and tears.
No KJ would make a movie on Kashmiri Hindus. Because we are not Khans. We are Kauls.
When we look at our own selves as Kauls, we also see a macabre dance of leaders who people Parliament. Some of them were really concerned about us. They got the bungalows and acres of greenery and had their portraits were worshipped by the gullible devotees of patriotism.
They made reservations in schools and colleges for us. In many many other states. But never did they try that we go back to our homes. They have other priorities and ‘love your jihadi neighborhood’ programmes. They get flabbier and flabbier with the passing of each year, sit on sacks of sermons; issue instructions to live simply and follow moral principles delivered by ancestors and kept in documents treated with time-tested preservatives.
They could play with me because my name is Kaul. And not Mr Khan. I saw the trailer to this fabulous movie, which must do good business at the box office.
There was not even a hint that terror is bad and it is worse if it is perpetuated in the name of a religion that means Peace. Peace be upon all its followers and all other the creatures too.
So you make a movie on the humiliation of taking off shoes to a foreign police force which has decided not to allow another 9/11.
The humiliation of taking off the shoes and the urge to show that you are innocent is really too deep. But what about the humiliation of leaving your home and hearth and the world and the relatives and wife and mother and father? And being forced to live in shabby tents, at the mercy of nincompoop leaders encashing your misery and bribe-seeking babus? And seeing your daughters growing up too sudden and finding no place to hide your shame?
No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie, a telling, spine-chilling narration on the celluloid, of five-year-old Seema, who saw her parents and brother being slaughtered by a butcher’s knife in Doda. Because her dad was not Mr Khan. He was one Mr Kaul.
Sorry, Mr Kaul and your entire ilk. I can’t help you.
It’s not fashionable to side with those who are Kauls. And Rainas. And Bhatts. Dismissively called KPs. KPs means Kashmiri Pandits. They are a bunch of communalists. They were the agents of one Mr Jagmohan who planned their exodus so that Khans can be blamed falsely. In fact, a movie can be made on how these KPs conspired their own exile to give a bad name to the loving and affectionate Khan brothers of the valley.
To voice the woes of Kauls is sinful. The right course to get counted in the lists of the Prime Minister’s banquets and the President’s parties is to announce from the roof top: hey, men and ladies, I am Mr Khan.
The biggest apartheid the state observes is to exclude those who cry for Kauls, wear the colours of Ayodhya, love the wisdom of the civilisational heritage, dare to assert as Hindus in a land which is known as Hindustan too and struggle to live with dignity as Kauls. They are out and exiled. You can see any list of honours and invites to summits and late-evening gala parties to toast a new brand. All that the Kauls are allowed is a space at Jantar Mantar: shout, weep and go back to your tents after a tiring demonstration. Mr Kaul, you have got a wrong name.
A dozen KJs would fly to take you atop the glory – posts and gardens of sympathies if you accept to wear a Khan name and love a Sunita, Pranita, Komal or a Kamini. Well, here you have a sweetheart in Mandira. That goes well with the story.
And you pegged the movie plot on autism.
I wept. It was too much. I wept as a father of a son who needed a story as an Indian. Who cares for his autistic son, his relationship with the western world, his love affair with a young sweet something as a human, as someone whose heart goes beyond being a Hindu, a Muslim or a proselytizing Vatican-centric aggressive soul. Not the one who would declare in newspaper interviews: “I think I am an ambassador for Islam”. Shah Rukh is Shah Rukh, not because he is an ambassador for Islam. If that was true, he could have found a room in Deoband. Fine enough. But he became a heartthrob and a famousl star because he is a great actor. He owes everything he has to Indians and not just to Muslims. We love him not because he is some Mr Khan. We love him because he has portrayed the dreams, aspirations, pains, anguish and ups and downs of our daily life. As an Indian. As one of us.
If he wants to use our goodwill and love for strengthening his image as an ambassador for Islam, will we have to think to put up an ambassador for Hindus? That, at least to me, would be unacceptable because I trust everyone: a Khan or a Kaul or a Singh or a Victor. Who represents India represents us all too, including Hindus. My best ambassadorship would be an ambassadorship for the tricolour and not for anything else because I see my Ram and Dharma in that. I don’t think even an Amitabh or a Hritik would ever think in terms Shah Rukh has chosen for himself. But shouldn’t these big, tall, successful Indians who wear Hindu names make a movie on why Kauls were ousted? Why Godhra occurred in the first place? Why nobody, yes, not a single Muslim, comes forward to take up the cause of the exiled and killed and contemptuously marginalized Kauls whereas every Muslim complainant would have essentially a Hindu advocate to take on Hindus as fiercely as he can?
If you are Mr Khan and found dead on the railway tracks, the entire nation would be shaken. And he was also a Rizwan. May be just a coincidence that our Mr Khan in the movie is also a Rizwan.
Rizwan’s death saw the police commissioner punished and cover stories written by missionary writers. But if you are a Sharma or a Kaul and happened to love an Ameena Yusuf in Srinagar, you would soon find your corpse inside the police thana and NONE, not even a small-time local paper would find it worthwhile to waste a column on you. No police constable would be asked to explain how a wrongly detained person was found dead in police custody?
Because the lover found dead inside a police thana was not Mr Khan. No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie on ‘My name is Kaul. And I am terror-struck by Khans’.
Give me back my identity as an Indian, Mr. Khan and I would have no problem even wearing your name and appreciating the tender love of an autistic son.
The writer can be reached at tarun.vijay@gmail.com

Kashmiri Pandits fear dream may turn sour

Seema Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, February 17
Expectation is running high among around 10,000 migrant Kashmiri Pandits, who filled in consent forms to return to their homeland in the Kashmir valley in April last year under the Prime Minister’s package for their return and rehabilitation, amid fear whether conditions are conducive.

The three families, which returned to the valley and tried to live in their homes there, had to return humiliated by people and authorities.

Yogesh Kandhari, who took voluntary retirement from Deccan Aviation to settle down in his home in the Habba Kadal area of Srinagar a year ago, returned to Jammu unhappy and dejected within a year.

His dreams got shattered when he found a part of his house and a shop encroached.

Kandhari says, “Last year, I went back to Habba Kadal with my family in a hope to spend the remaining part of my life at my birth place. But I was shocked to see a large part of my house encroached upon by my neighbour. Somebody also broke open one of my three shops and occupied it. It took me one year running from one office to another to retrieve the rights of my properties. I was able to get my house vacated, but my shop was handed over to the intruder. Aghast over the sickening attitude of people there, I returned to Jammu to find peace of mind.”

Pushkar Razdan, a retired teacher at Pulwama, has not been even that lucky. He saw his house taken over by the state police and farms invaded by local people.

He lamented, “Expensive walnut trees in my orchards were felled and stolen by some people. A 32 feet road was drawn across my fields without my permission. My house was taken over by the state police, which created a police post there after the infamous Vandhama mass killing case. The police even refused to pay me rent. Now, the matter has got stuck with the Home Ministry. Ultimately, I had to leave my home in the valley.”

Equally distraught is Triloki Nath Bhatt, a resident of Monghama, who is physically challenged with a twisted arm by birth, to see that his own people have become estranged to him.

“When I went back this year to reconstruct my ruined home in Monghama to make it worth living, I was restrained by people and the local administration. I was aghast to know that I can’t carry out construction at my place. This shows people who keep an eye on profitable properties never want us to return.” He too returned empty-handed and disheartened.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090218/j&k.htm#3

Kashmiri Pandits and saraswat Brahims

by P.N.K. Bamzai
Koshur Samachar

The Valley of Kashmir is known among the Kashmiri Pandits or Saraswat Brahmins of Kashmir as Saradapeeth or the Abode of the Goddess of Learning and Fine Arts. During their five thousand years of history, they have made colossal contribution to world civilization in the field of Religion, Philosophy, Sanskrit literature, medicine, history, aesthetics, etc. As models of non-violence, they have never handled lethal weapons or spoken harsh words. Devoted to the study of Vedas and other Sastras in all their aspects, the essence of these studies has been coursing in their blood-stream from generation to generation. In peaceful or turbulent times they were protected under their spiritual umbrella by a large number of highly advanced saints and sages who flourished in the Valley from time to time.

No wonder they preferred death to change in their religion and withstood stoically the ruthless masters for five hundred years of Muslim rule. And when pushed back to the wall, they migrated to places of safety in the hot plains of India.

This process has been repeated in 1990 but on a vaster scale. Threatened with annihilation by Islamic Fundamentalists and gun-toting terrorists, the hapless Brahmins migrated en masse to Jammu and other places in the hot plains of the rest of India, leaving behind their hearths and homes, movable and immovable properties, their jobs and business, even the education of their children. The treatment they received from the State and Central Governments is perhaps the most bitter instance of this nature in the world. As refugees in their own country, their governments treated them with disdain. Instead of giving them comfort and solace, their attitude towards them was callous and inhuman.

How and wherefrom did the Kashmiri Pandits or Vedic Aryans enter and settle in the Valley is an interesting episode in the early movement of people from place to place.

The main theory about the Aryan settlement in Kashmir as advanced by Dr. Grierson was that they formed a part of the stream of Indo-Aryans from Central Asia, but did not share the migration to India via the Kabul River Valley to settle in the Punjab. They broke away from the mainstream while crossing the Hindukush and entering the Valley via Dardistan settled there.

But after deep research for the last 15 years the writer has come to the conclusion that Dr. Grierson’s Theory was erroneous. Actually they came to the Valley from the Punjab centuries after the first settlement of Aryans there.

Briefly speaking, the earliest stream of Aryans who entered India, found the banks of the River Saraswati in the Punjab fertile and conducive to easy cultivation, and settled there.

Described in the Rig Veda as “the mother of rivers”, scholars have debated for centuries whether Saraswati is a myth or has been a reality at some distant point of time.

Fortunately a team of archaeologists, geologists, geographers and historians led by the famous archeologist Dr. V.S. Wakankar, began their quest of the river in 1985. Armed with high-tech facilities like landsat and multi-spectoral scanner (MSS), the team began the quest from the believed source of the river at Adi Badri in the Shivalik Hills in Ambala They sieved through the whole area notably 150 prominent sites along the route in the Thar Desert ending at Somnath in Gujarat.

At the end of it all they had solid evidence to prove the existence of a highly developed culture on the banks of a mighty river which they say was Saraswati.

Apart from this evidence, the existence of a mighty river, matching the Vedic description of Saraswati, has been scientifically proved. The multi-spectoral scanner (MSS), a widely used and relied upon equipment in archaeology, indicates various channels of the river in the region.

According to MSS observations of various channels, Sutluj was the main tributary of Ghaggar (the present name for Saraswati, now in Pakistan). But tectonic movements forced Sutluj to flow in different direction (at right angle to its original channel), thus leaving Ghaggar dry.

A study of the landsat imagery of Ghaggar (Saraswati) reveals that the river had a constant width of six to eight kilometres from Shatrana in the Punjab to Marot in Pakistan.

The waters of the river spread prosperity all around and the settlers passed centuries there in peace, building well-planned towns and cities to live in. The Aryan society was by and by stratified into classes according to the kind of their work and profession or varna. But as ill-luck would have it, the life-giving river changed its course several times and ultimately dried up. Known as Saraswat Brahmins, Kshatryas and Vaisas, they left the Punjab in search of equally good if not better land in the rest of the sub-continent. An enterprising batch went back to the mountains in the north to reside in the Kashmir Valley of whose beauty and salubrious climate they had heard from their forefathers who used to go there during summer. They sought the protection of Nila, the Lord of the Nagas and begged his permission to settle in the Valley permanently as his subjects.

Nila listened to their tale of woe sympathetically, but promised the requested permission on condition that they conformed to the social usages and customs of the Nagas. The Saraswats agreed to these conditions when the Naga chief permitted them to reside permanently in the Valley.

Aryan Entry Into The Valley

At what point of time this important immigration into the Valley of Saraswat Aryans (comprising Brahmans, Kshatryas, Vaisas and Sudras) took place is not possible to say. However, the beginning of the Saptarishi or Laukika Era seems to be the time when the Sarswat Aryans entered into and settled in the Valley, after getting permission from Nila, the lord of the Naga tribe who were already settled there. The beginning of this era nearly coincides with Mahabharata war. The date of the coronation of King Yudhishtra is given as Kaliyug Samvat 653. Kalhana too begins the Rajatarangini from this time as is evident from the description of the installation by Lord Krishna of Queen Yasomati on the throne of Kashmir as the guardian of her son King Gonanda II.

The Saptarishi or Laukika era is still in current use among the Brahmin population of Kashmir. Buhler was the first to prove from the extant tradition of Kashmiri Brahmins and other evidence that the commencement of the Laukika Era is placed on Caitra Sudi 1, of Kali Samvat 25 (expired) or the year 3076-75 B.C. Since his discovery correct accounts of the Laukika reckoning are to be found in all handbooks of Indian chronology.

That the Kashmiri Brahmins have held on to and followed this calendar tenaciously for the last 5066 years is a strong point in favour of assuming their entry in the Kashmir Valley round about the beginning of this era.

The various exigencies of time and division of labour gradually differentiated the priestly Brahmins from other castes. And when the Saraswat Aryans entered the Valley, the Brahmins were in a dominating position and laid down rules and regulations for the other castes to follow in accordance with the agreement with Nagas. From that time begins the emergence of the Kashmiri Pandits or the Saraswat Brahmins of Kashmir as a distinct community in the all-embracing comity of people called Hindus.

Profoundly learned, it was only the Kashmiri Pandits who were capable of expounding the Vedas, the Vedanganas, the Itihasas, the Puranas and the Mimamsa. They were well-versed in various orthodox and heterodox philosophic systems. Jurists, astrologers, mathematicians, poets and philosophers were from this community. Even the less educated among them did fairly well, for they could act as Kathavacaks or reciters of sacred stories and performers of various domestic rites. Sanskrit was their mother tongue and both men and women spoke it fluently.

Society took good care of the Brahmins, for they received land gifts and money. There is mention of many grants or agraharas in literature and epigraphs. Villages were transferred to the Brahmins with pastures for cows, with lands, water and trees, fruit bearing or otherwise.

A class that helped in the preservation of Dharma and contributed much to cultural progress, naturally enjoyed some privileges in a society dominated by it. Smritis and the Puranas speak of the Brahmins as being exempt from taxation and capital punishment. The ancient Dharmasastras lay down that a Brahmin should not be given any corporal punishment. Many other Smritis speak of exile as the maximum punishment for a Brahmin.

Education

The Saraswat Brahmins of Kashmir were models of simplicity, purity, truthfulness, ascetic tendency and compassion. All these traits of the highest human culture were built-up by Rishis and Maharishis who, in their secluded Ashrams performed austere penances and at the same time taught a large number of students who stayed in the Ashrams and led a life befitting Brahmin Brahmacharin. Thus the Guru-Shishya Parampara was established. The children of a house-holder lived with Acharyas (teachers) in the latter’s home. There they used to serve their teacher by gathering fuel for homa and offered morning and evening prayers. The recitation of the Vedic hymns with their proper accents, preceded by the syllable OM took place at day-break. Early morning was the time set apart for studies.

Consequently, Upanayan Sanskara, which literally means taking the child to the Guru, was the most important in one’s life. The Brahman, the Khatriya and Vaisa boys were initiated when they were 8, 11 and 12 years respectively. This initiation of a boy into the three R’s took place on an auspicious day in a festive atmosphere. Gods were propitiated, feasts arranged and presents offered to the teacher before entrusting the student to his care. A very disciplined life was laid down by the medieval digests for students receiving Brahmanical education. By the time the boy attained the age of sixteen years, he was expected to be the master of all sciences and arts.

The educational course naturally differed according to the needs of the student. A Brahmin learnt the four Vedas, the six Angas, the various scripts, Mimamsa, Smritis, Puranas, Karmakanda, Jyotish, Ganita, Music, Sciences, etc.

The education of a student did not end here. They took inspiration from the Rishis and Paramrishis who in their ashrams and seats of learning propagated gems of philosophy, art, literature and history. Apart from imparting education to hundreds of Kashmiri students, they instructed numerous scholars from distant lands, who braving long and arduous journey came to Kashmir to drink deep from the well of knowledge at the feet of the masters. No wonder that from remote ages Kashmir became the seat of learning, and earned for itself the appropriate name of Saradapeeth or the seat of Sarada, the Goddess of Learning and Fine Arts.

Apart from performing rites and rituals as prescribed by the Sastras, the Brahmin householder worshipped the Hindu Triad, namely Siva, Vishnu and Brahma and their Consorts – Parvati or Uma who has a variety of other names such as Kali, Durga, Mahadevi (the Consort of Siva); Sri or Lakshmi (the Consort of Vishnu) and Vagheswari or Saraswati (the Consort of Brahma)

In later times a special sect who were devotees and worshippers of Sakti – the manifestation of power and energy of Siva – came into prominence and were known as Saktas. Their rites and rituals and the mode of their performance differed basically from the mainstream of the Kashmiri Pandits.

The snow-capped mountain peaks around the Valley evoked the image of Siva with Ganga coming out of His locks and gushing down in streams to the plains below, spreading life all around. Hence, Kashmir has, from time immemorial, been known as the Land of Siva (Sivapuri). The worship of Siva and the study of Saivism is, therefore, a predominant theme in the religious and philosophic practices of the Kashmiri Brahmins. Though the Trikka philosophy popularly known as Kashmir Saivism took shape in the 8th Century A.D., Sivasana or Sivagama, that is Saivism as such, is far older than this date. Indeed we can trace its beginning in the Vedic Revelations.

The origin of the earliest works on Saivism in Kashmir is lost in antiquity. It is said that originally there were sixty-four systems of philosophy covering every aspect of thought and life, but they all gradually disappeared and the world was plunged into spiritual darkness. Then Siva, goes the legend, moved by pity for the ignorance and sufferings of mankind, appeared on the Kailasa mountain in the form of Srikantha. He commanded the sage Durvasa to spread true knowledge among men. Durvasa created three sons by the power of his mind and to one of these, Tryambaka, he imparted the knowledge of monistic philosophy.

So Brahmanism diluted with the animistic faith of the indigenous Nagas and influenced by the Saivite faith, formed the religion of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley from their settlement there till the appearance of Emperor Asoka in the middle of 300 B .C. along with a contingent of 5000 Bikshus whom he settled in the Valley to study and propagate Buddhism.

Muslims of tibet

Muslims of Tibet

By Masood Butt
Tibetan Bulletin
January – February 1994
Tibet had pockets of Muslims entrenched within its borders although there is no documentary evidence on how Muslims first came to settle there. In fact, information on Tibetan Muslims in general itself is scarce. But the existence of Tibet appears to be known to the Muslim world from the earliest period of recorded history. Arab historians like Yaqut Hamawi, Ibn Khaldun and Tabari mention Tibet in their writings. In fact, Yaqut Hamawihas, in his book Muajumal Buldan (encyclopaedia of countries), refers to Tibet in three different ways Tabbat, Tibet and Tubbet.

During the reign of Umar bin Abdul Aziz (717-720) of the Persian Empire, it is believed that a delegation from Tibet and China requested him to send Islamic missionaries to their countries. Caliph Umar is said to have sent Salah bin Abdullah Hanafi to Tibet. The Abbasid rulers of Baghdad also maintained re1ations with Tibet in the eighth and the ninth centuries.

Kashmir and Eastern Turkestan were the nearest Islamic regions bordering Tibet. It is said that Muslim migrants from Kashmir and Ladakh areas first entered Tibet around 12th century. Gradually, marriages and social interaction led to an increase in the population until a sizable community came up around Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. There was no large-scale conversion to Islam though. Thomas Arnold, in his book, The Preaching of Islam, published in the early part of this century says, “Islam has also been carried into Tibet proper by Kashmiri merchants. Settlements of such merchants are to be found in all the chief cities of Tibet: they marry Tibetan women, who often adopt the religion of their husbands…”

Tibetan Muslims trace their origin from immigrants from four main regions: China, Kashmir, Ladakh and Nepal. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Persia and Turkestan.

Muslims are known as Khache among Tibetans. This appear to be because the earliest Muslim settlers to Tibet were from Kashmir which was known as Khache Yul to Tibetans.

The arrival of Muslims was followed by the construction of mosques in different parts of Tibet. There were four mosques in Lhasa, two in Shigatse and one in Tsethang. In recent years, one mosque in Lhasa has been renovated, with Tibetan Muslims from India sending religious inscriptions to it for use. Tibetan Muslims were mainly concentrated around the mosques that they constructed. These mosques were maintained well and were the centres of Muslim social life in Tibet.

Tibetan Muslims led a reasonably free life in a Buddhist environment. In fact, during the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, Tibetan Muslims received the following special privileges:

i) They were permitted to settle their affairs independently, according to the Shariat Laws. The government permitted the Muslim community to elect a five-man committee, known as ‘Ponj’ who looked after their interest. From among the Ponj, a leader – known as Mia to Muslims and Kbache Gopa – (Muslim headman) among non-Muslims – was elected. ii) Tibetan Muslims were free to set up commercial enterprises and were exempted from taxation. iii) Tibetan Muslims were also exempted from implementing the ‘no meat rule’ when such a restriction was imposed in Tibet every year during a holy Buddhist month. Muslims were also exempted from removing their caps to Buddhist priests during a period in a year when the priests held sway over the town. Muslims were also granted the Mina Dronbo (invitation to different communities) status to commemorate the assumption of spiritual and temporal authority by the fifth Dalai Lama.

In addition, Muslims had their own burial place. There were two cemeteries around Lhasa: one at Gyanda Linka about 12 km from Lhasa town and the other at Kygasha about 15 km away. A portion of Gyanda Linka was turned into a garden and this became the place where the Muslim community organised their major functions. Gyanda Linka is said to contain unmarked graves believed to be those of foreigners who came to preach Islam to Tibet. Kygasha was mainly used by Muslims of Chinese origin.

The above privileges were contained in a written document provided to the Tibetan Muslim community by the Tibetan government. These privileges were enjoyed until Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959.

Tibetan Muslims confined themselves mainly to trade and commerce. Hardly any of them indulged in fanning. As the community grew, Madrasas (primary schools) were set up in which children were taught about Islam, the Koran and the method of offering namaz (prayers). Urdu language was also part of the curriculum. There were two such Madrasas in Lhasa and one in Shigatse.

After finishing their stuthes in these Madrasas, students were sent to India to join Islamic institutes of higher learning such as Darul-U1oom in Deoband, Nadwatul-U1ema in Lucknow and Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. The annual report of Darul-U1oom for the year 1875 mention the presence of two foreign students there: a Burmese and a Tibetan. Jamia Millia Islamia received its first batch of Tibetan students in 1945.

In those days, transportation within Tibet was a problem. Students were sent along with Muslim merchants making their annuals trip to India. This took months as they had walk or ride on yaks for most of the way. Therefore, once the students got admitted to institution in India, they usually did not return to Tibet until the completion of a stage of their education.

Quite a few Tibetan Muslims have successfully completed their stuthes in India, with many being well versed in Arabic, Urdu and Persian. The most famous among them could be Faidhullah who undertook the ambitious task of translating into Tibetan Gulestan and Boastan, Persian poetry of Sheik Sadi. Faidhullah’s is well known among Tibetans for his popular book aphorism Khache Phalu (few words of advices from a Muslim). Even today, Tibetans continue to quote from his book, (an English translation of Khache Phaluh as been done by Dr. Dawa Norbu and published by the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives).

Tibetan Muslims were able to preserve their community’s identity while at the same time absorbing their traditional Tibetan social and cultural traditions. They elected a Ponj committee to look after their affairs. The Tibetan government approved the formation of this committee and gave it a free hand to undertake its activities and to decide on matters concerning the Tibetan Muslim community. Tibetan Muslims have also made significant contribution to Tibetan culture, particularly in the field of music. Nangma, a popular c1assica1 music of Tibet, is said to have been brought to Tibet by Tibetan Muslims. In fact, the very term Nangma is believed to be a corruption of the Urdu word Naghma meaning song. These high-pitched tilting songs, developed in Tibet around the turn of the Century, were a craze in Lhasa with musical hits by Acha Izzat, Bhai Akbar-la and Oulam Mehdi on the lips of almost everyone.

After the Tibetan National Uprising of 1959 His Holiness the Dalai Lama went into-exile in India followed by a significant number of Tibetans. However, a majority of Tibetan Muslims, particularly those residing in Lhasa, could go out of Tibet only a year later. In between they had to suffer extortion, terrorism and cruelty under the hands of Chinese occupation forces, like their fellow Tibetans. During this critical period, Tibetan Muslims organised themselves. They approached the Indian mission in Lhasa to claim for Indian citizenship, referring to their Kashmiri ancestry, to escape Chinese tyranny. Mr. P.N.Kaul was the head of the Indian mission then. At that time, the head of the Ponj of Tibetan Muslims was Haji Habibullah Shamo. He was, however , under Chinese detention along with other leaders like Bhai Addul Gani-la;.Rapse Hamidullah, Abdua1 Ahad Hajj, Abdul Qadir Jami and HajiAbdul Gani Thapsha under various charges. While Bhai Abdu1 Gani-la was charged with the putting up of anti-Chinese posters, Rapse Hamidullah was arrested on account of his connection with a senior Tibetan official. The initial response of the Indian Government was lukewarm. It said only those whose Permanent domicile remained in the state of Jammu & Kashmir and who visited India from time to time, whose parents or one of whose grandparents were born in undivided India, are potential citizens of India”, and it would , only accept them. But some time later, in later 1959, the Indian Government suddenly came out with the statement that all Tibetan Muslims were Indian nationals, and started distributing application forms for Indian nationality among them.

Chinese illtreatment of Tibetan Muslims continued Chinese authorities duped Tibetan Muslims into selling their property to them in return for the freedom to emigrate to any Muslim country. Seeing this as a possible way of saving their religion and culture, many Tibetan Muslims willingly parted with their property. But having acquired these property, 1ibetan Muslims were not allowed to emigrate. Instead, restrictions were imposed, and a social boycott declared. Nobody was allowed to sell food to Tibetan Muslims. Many old and weak Tibetan Muslims as well as children thed of starvation.

Those Tibetan Muslims who were able to cross over into India in the border towns of Kalimpong, Darjeeling and Gangtok in late 1959 gradually moved to Kashmir , their ancestral homeland from 1961 to 1964. They were accommodated in three huge buildings in Idd-Gah in Srlnagar by the Indian Government. At that time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama had sent his Representative to inquire about the conditions of Tibetan Muslims.

During the first two decades of their life in exile, Tibetan Muslims attempted to rebuild and re-organise themselves. Lack of proper guidance and leadership proved to be an obstacle in their development. Also, housing in Idd Gah was inadequate to meet the requirements of a growing family. In the process, Tibetan Muslims began to scatter, emigrating to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Nepal as well as moving to other parts of India in search of better opportunity .

His Holiness the Dalai Lama continued to keep in touch with the situation of Tibetan Muslims. Knowing their problems, His Holiness, during his visit to Srinagar in 1975, took up the matter with the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir. He also encouraged the formation of the Tibetan Muslim Refugee Welfare Association. This Association began to chalk out projects for the economic and educational upliftment of Tibetan Muslims. With an initial financial assistance by His Holiness, coupled with assistance received, later from Tibet Fund, New York, a handicraft centre, a co-operative shop and a school were established. A group of young Tibetan Muslims were given training in Carpet making in Dharamsala.

The Association was able to get some land for resettlement. Saudi Arabia provided funds for the construction of 144 houses and a mosque in the new settlement. Construction was completed in 1985 and the houses distributed among the people. Not all people could be accommodated and some continued to reside in the old settlement.

A primary school had been started in 1975 in a rented building to provide modern as well as traditional education to Tibetan Muslim children. Although the school was shifted to a comparatively better place in the new settlement, it still faces problems: it is run on donations and does not have a separate compound. However, some students are being sent to Central Schools for Tibetans elsewhere in India. To date, 22 Tibetan Muslim children have been admitted to Central School for Tibetans in Shimla and Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh state.

The Association has eight office bearers who look after the affairs of the community . There is a Tibetan Muslim Youth Association which plays an important role in social upliftment of the community . This youth association is in contact with the Tibetan Youth Congress. The Department of Health in Dharamsala has set up a primary health care centre to look after the medical needs of the settlers.

Nothing much is known of the present condition of Tibetan Muslims inside Tibet. According to one report there are around 3000 Tibetan Muslims and around 20,000 Chinese Muslims. Since the opening up of Tibet, some Tibetan Mus1ims outside Tibet have been able to visit the country while quite a few have also come out.

The total population of Tibetan Muslims outside Tibet is around 2000. Of them, 20 to 25 families live in Nepal, 20 in the Gulf countries and Turkey. Fifty families reside in Darjeeling-Kalimpong areas bordering Tibet in eastern India. Tibetan Muslims in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Nepal have a joint Tibetan Muslim Welfare Association based in Kalimpong. Its present general secretary is Mr. Amanulla Chisti. During His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to Darjeeling in April l993. Tibetan Muslims there dressed in their traditional garments participated in a ceremony. There are around 1200 Tibetans in the new settlement in Srinagar consisting of 210 families.

Tibetans in general have suffered greatly under Chinese occupation. Tibetan Muslims have undergone great mental and physical strain on account of their peculia situation. They continue to look upon their Muslim brethren throughout the world to support peaceful solution of the Tibetan problem so that the, too, like their Tibetan Buddhist brethren, can return to their homeland. When asked whether he would return to Tibet in the even of a solution, a young Tibetan Muslim responded, “It is better to live under the bridge in one’s own homeland than be a refugee in an alien land.”

rival kashmiri groups protest outside U.N

Holding placards and banners, rival Kashmiri groups staged protests outside the United Nations on Friday afternoon during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the plenary session of the UN General Assembly.

The two groups — Kashmiri American Council, a predominantly Muslim body that demands the right of Kashmiris to self-determination under the UN Security Resolutions, and the Indo American Kashmir Forum, a predominantly Hindu outfit that highlights the plight of Pandits because of ‘ethnic cleansing’ by Pakistan-aided terrorists in the state — staged the protests side by side, separated only by waist length iron barricades set up by the police.

While the KAC raised slogans against the Indian government for alleged draconian laws that imprison people who ‘resist Indian occupation,’ the IAKF blamed the Pakistani government for allegedly promoting global Islamic terrorism.

Traditionally, KAC has held protest demonstrations outside the world body every year during India’s address to the UNGA, but this was the first time IAKF held the protest as well.

“Every year, the police decline to give permission for any protests during the UNGA because there are always too many protesters during UNGA and only those who had applied early for permission to stage demonstrations, get to hold that. This year, we made it a point to prepare early to get the permission,” Lalit Kaul, president of IAKF, told rediff.com.

Both the groups handed memoranda to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, urging the world body’s intervention in solving the crisis.

KAC said that there must be an immediate and complete cessation of the “military and paramilitary action by Indian forces against the people of Jammu & Kashmir”.

The organisation demanded that all bunkers, watch towers and barricades set up by the military and paramilitary forces in towns and villages must be immediately dismantled and the right of peaceful association, assembly and demonstration should be restored to the people.

The KAC memorandum was signed by Dr. Ghulam  Nabi Fai, Shaheen Bhat, Dr Ghulam Nabi Mir, Raja Muzzaafar, Aftab Shah and Hafiz Muhammad Sabir, among others.

“The Kashmir question is one of the oldest unresolved international problems in the world. The experience of nearly six decades has shown that it will not go away and that an effort is urgently required to resolve it on a durable basis,” Fai said.

In its memorandum, the IAKF stated that even today the abuse of human rights of Kashmiri Hindus by the Islamic terrorists in the valley continues.

It urged the UN Secretary General to direct the Indian government to restore Kashmiri Hindus’ political and economic rights that would give them equal status, rather than a second class citizenship in their native land.

“We would continue our fight for our rights, whether the world body or the Indian government take any action or not. We will keep on fighting,” Kaul told rediff.com.

SOURCE:REDIFF.COM

unwanted people of India

This is a copy of letter posted by a kashmiri pundit refugee to a local newspaper.This will give you some idea of general conditions of Kashmiri hindus or Kashmiri pundits in Jammu & Kashmir.

 

Discriminating migrants shameful

Dear Editor,
It is disgusting to find the divisive tactics of government willfully discriminating the exiled community of Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) dubbing them camp migrants and non-camp migrants in their own state.
Not to speak of their selection in any particular section of discipline they are skillfully avoided and rejected in employment cadre for no valid reason.
In the recent allotment of two room sets, the stick of justices has completely been restricted and restrained so to say denied to non camp migrants despite the fact most of them live in miserable condition paying rent for hired rooms from the date they had been displaced, dislodged under political conspiracy and threat perception.
Primarily it looks disgraceful and unconstitutional to treat KPs as migrants instead displaced. KPs are displaced by designs and not by choice.
In the first half of the decade after migration they had to wander from place to place like nomad with old parents, young girls and children to find refuge somewhere and somehow. In the second phase few of the migrants were housed in one room tenements worst than ghettos in Nazi Germany. Now after more than a decade and half few amongst the camp dewellers are made to shift to two room quarters. The government has made them a rolling stone to play a somersault in the state pushed towards identity crisis.
Policy of the Centre has been most pathetic towards rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. Centre has no plan or intention for their concrete rehabilitation operating hit trial strategy evolving a shift gap arrangement which has made their life most uneasy and disconsolate.
Bolt from blue cannot be more severe than annihilation of birthplace leaving sufferer in perpetual shock. “I remember, remember the house where I was born, the little windows where the sun came peeping in the morning.” Home is where one starts from and unto which one’s ancestors have gone.
Musharraf’s visit to India would have remained incomplete had he not visited his ancestral place and so is the same with Advani. Nawaz Sharief’s desire to see his ancestral place at Shopian can’t be doubted. It is a natural tie and can’t be questioned.
It is most unwise to launch a project without estimating requirement of sets, on need basis which has created mess of camp and non-camp migrants causing bitterness and discomfort among migrants in general.
In upshot it is suggested to make allotment of quarters on need basis on 50:50 basis amongst camp and non-camp migrants, to accelerate the construction of two room sets on war-footing to accommodate all migrants in two room sets, rent allowance for all those migrants residing out side the camp be made operational on
humanitarian grounds Besides, time frame schedule should be evolved to avoid the crisis in allotment of quarters.
-PN Sus,
129, Surya Vihar,
Bohri, Jammu.

source:kashmir times

propoganda against hindus of kashmir

Here are the headlines which show that how Hindus in Kashmir are wiped out in last 19 years…source by Mr.Manish zijoo

Srinagar (January 4, 1990): Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu and Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order.

In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir valley with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference government abdicating all responsibilities of the State. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans.

Reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.

Walls are plastered with posters and handbills, summarily ordering all Kashmiris to strictly follow the Islamic dress code, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks and imposing a ban on video parlours and cinemas. The masked men with Kalashnikovs force people to re-set their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time.

Shops, business establishments and homes of Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley with a recorded cultural and civilisational history dating back 5,000 years, are marked out. Notices are pasted on doors of Pandit houses, peremptorily asking the occupants to leave Kashmir within 24 hours or face death and worse. Some are more lucid: “Be one with us, run, or die!”

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Srinagar (January 19, 1990): Jagmohan arrives to take charge as governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah, whose pathetic, whimpering, snivelling government has all but ceased to exist and has gone into hiding, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect.

Throughout the day, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising cowering Pandits who, by then, have locked themselves in their homes.

As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: ‘Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai’ (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-O-Akbar); ‘Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa’ (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); ‘Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san’ (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).

In the preceding months, 3000 Hindu men and women, nearly all of them Kashmiri Pandits, had been slaughtered ever since the brutal murder of Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, noted lawyer and BJP national executive member, by the JKLF in Srinagar on September 14, 1989. Soon after that, Justice N K Ganju of the Srinagar high court was shot dead. Pandit Sarwanand Premi, 80-year-old poet, and his son were kidnapped, tortured, their eyes gouged out, and hanged to death. A Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura Medical College Hospital in Srinagar was gang-raped and then beaten to death. Another woman was abducted, raped and sliced into bits and pieces at a sawmill.

In villages and towns across the Kashmir valley, terrorist hit lists have been floating about. All the names are of Kashmiri Pandits. With no government worth its name, the administration having collapsed and disappeared, the police nowhere to be seen, despondency sets in. As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation.

And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley take a painful decision: to flee their homeland to save their lives from rabid jihadis. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.

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Srinagar (January 19, 2005): There are no Kashmiri Pandits in Srinagar, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the Kashmir valley; they don’t live here anymore. You can find them in squalid refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi. As many as 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have fled their home and hearth and been reduced to living the lives of refugees in their own country.

Two-thirds of them are camping in Jammu. The rest are in Delhi and in other Indian cities. Many of them, once prosperous and proud of their rich heritage, now live in grovelling poverty, dependent on government dole and charity. In these 18 years, an entire generation of exiled Kashmiri Pandits has grown up, without seeing the land from where their parents fled to escape the brutalities of Islamic terrorism, a land they dare not return to, although that land still remains a part of their country.

A large number of them are suffering from a variety of stress and depression related diseases. A group of doctors who surveyed the mental and physical health of the Kashmiri Pandits living in refugee camps, found high incidence of ‘economic distress, stress induced diabetes, partial lunacy, hypertension and mental retardation.’ Statistics reflect high death rate and low birth rate among the Kashmiri Pandit refugees.

And thereby hangs a tragic tale that has been all but wiped out from public memory.

An entire people have been uprooted from the land of their ancestors and left to fend for themselves as a weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu and Kashmir’s destiny. A part of India’s cultural heritage has been destroyed; a chapter of India’s civilisational history has been erased.

Had this tragedy occurred elsewhere in Hindu majority India, and had the victims been Muslims, we would have described it as ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide.’ We would have made films with horror-inducing titles. We would have filed cases in the Supreme Court of India. Our media would have marshalled remarkable rage in reporting the smallest detail.

But, this tragedy has occurred in Muslim majority Kashmir valley, and the victims are all Hindus, that too Pandits. What has been lost is part of India’s Hindu culture, what has been erased is integral to India’s Hindu civilisation.

Therefore, the government makes bold to record that the Kashmiri Pandits have “migrated on their own” and their ‘displacement (is) self-imposed;’ the National Human Rights Commission, after a perfunctory inquiry, refuses to concede that what has happened is ‘genocide’ or ‘ethnic cleansing,’ though facts add up to no less than that, never mind that 300,000 lives have been destroyed.

And, our jhola-wallah brigade of secular activists rudely turn up their noses to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits: Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror, stinks.

Now Year 2008 18th anniversary of the forced flight of Kashmiri Pandits, look back at India’s wretched history of secular politics and consider the terrible price the nation has paid at the altar of appeasement because the Indian State has, and continues to, toe the line of least resistance.

What exactly Those Terrorist are proposing? Are they saying that They have a fundamental right of self-determination and Kashmiri Hindus don’t have a right to exercise their fundamental right of political voice? terrorists can have a political voice and a peace-loving patriot cannot. What kind of standard is it?