Saga of Kashmiri Pandits

By Arun Dassi
Kashmiri lifestyle is essentially slow paced and reflects religious diversity. we are known to enjoy our music in its various local forms, and the traditional dress of both sexes is often quite colourful.The Dumhal is a famous dance in Kashmir, performed by men of the Wattal region. The women perform Rouff, another folk dance. Kashmir has been noted for its fine arts for centuries, including poetry and handicrafts.Original Kashmiri Pandit refers to a person who belongs to a sect of Hindu Pandits who originate from the Kashmir region we have been living there continuously for centuries prior to the existence of Islam. The Kashmiris are probably the purest members of the Aryan Race in India and the original home of the Aryans was probably Kashmir.we have a recorded history in Kashmir for thousands of years and have also been mentioned in the Mahabharata.During the Islamic period of the Kashmir valley, hundreds of temples in Kashmir were destroyed.As a result, Kashmiri Pandits gradually migrated to other parts of India to escape persecution. Kashmiri Pandits and Buddhists were forcefully converted which in time resulted in Kashmir becoming predominantly Muslim. Although, some Kashmiris willingly accepted Islam, specially because of the Sufi missionaries. The devastation wrought by the Turkish general from Turkmenistan Zulju in 1320, during his conquest of many regions of Kashmir Valley was especially unfortunate. This could have a been a reaction to Lalitaditya's earlier conquest of Turkmenistan. Sultan Sikander (1389-1413), the seventh Muslim ruler in Kashmir, is known for his oppression of non-Muslim populations, which caused many Kashmiri Pandits to leave the Kashmir valley. Historians call him an idol-breaker (or iconoclast) and he is said to have killed several thousand Kashmiri Pandits and/or forced them to convert to Islam or flee. Sultan Ali Shah and others followed suit. There have been a few Muslim rulers who were tolerant towards the Pandits, however they were not able to ultimately alleviate the plight of the Pandits. This can be ascertained from the fact that the Pandits never rose to their pre-Islamic glory and that their population in the valley continued to decrease over time. From the 14th century due to the growth of Islam and forced conversions into Islam their numbers in the valley began to diminish and the Muslims by spreading Islam began to outnumber them.British historians, such as Walter Lawrence, note that persecution of Kashmiri Hindus ie ours by zealous Muslim rulers resulted in as little as eleven original Kashmiri Hindu families remaining in Kashmir at one point. Walter Lawrence mentions that: More recently (1990), hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits had to flee the Kashmir valley because of being targeted by Kashmiri and foreign militants. As per the statement of US Congressman Joe Wilson, beginning in 1989, mosques in Kashmir declared jihad and blared warnings from loudspeakers to the Hindus that they were infidels and had to leave Kashmir. He further says that, "From 1989-1990, Islamists began a terror campaign to drive Hindus from Kashmir". Some people have noted that some Kashmiri Muslims were tolerant of minorities, but since partition, most Kashmiri Muslims have adopted a more conservative approach to Islam, and since 1989, a more militant and fundamentalist approach. By the turn of the last century, only 6.4% of Kashmiris were Hindus.The US Department of State reports that, according to the Indian National Human Rights Commission, the Kashmiri Pandit population in Jammu and Kashmir dropped from 15 percent in 1941 to 0.1 percent as of 2006.