Convert, Leave or Perish : The exile of Kashmiri Hindus was by Islamic design.

The gory exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, or Kashmiri Hindus, one of India's oldest indigenous
communities, in 1990 was not the first time. Not being evasive of historical facts and data,
perhaps not unnerved and befuddled with the ramifications of calling a spade a spade as
against Nehruvian secularist dogma, this was distinctly the seventh and the "last one", they
say. One is still not sure how long the relentless, cruel, horrific, repulsive, gruesome
"onslaught" of minorities – Kashmiri Hindus - will last in the valley. In terms of chronology,
the first exodus occurred around 1389–1413 with the arrival of Islam, followed by the second
around 1506–1584, the third between 1585–1752, and the fourth in 1753. The fifth migration
occurred between 1931 and 1965, and the sixth occurred in 1986, but the most infamous,
horrible, and horrendous was the final exodus of Kashmiri Hindus on January 19, 1990, at
midnight.

The Kashmir valley experienced a blackout during the middle of the night on the 18th and
19th of January, with electricity turned off everywhere except mosques, which broadcast
divisive and incendiary slogans calling for the purging of Kashmiri Hindus. As the night fell,
the valley began to reverberate with the war-cries of Islamists, who had stage-managed the
entire event with great care, choosing the timing and slogans to be used to daunt the Hindus.
Muslims were incited and insinuated to take to the streets and shatter the bonds of 'slavery'
with a slew of very offensive, communal, and threatening chants intermingled with martial
tunes. These sermons of the mosques urged the ‘believers’ to give the Kafir one last push in
order to usher in the real Islamic system. These slogans were accompanied by clear and
unmistakable threats against Hindus. They were given three options: Ralive, Tsaliv, or Galive
(Convert to Islam, Leave the place or Perish). Hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims
descended on the Valley's streets, chanting "death to India" and "death to Kafirs." These
words, which were played over the loud speakers of each of the 1100 mosques, exhorted the
frenzied mobs to join the Jihad. All male Muslims, including their children and the elderly,
wanted to be viewed as taking part in the Jihad. The only motive behind this abhorrent
display of muscle-flexing: to instil fear of death in the already terrified Pandits. The veneer of
Kashmiri Muslims' secular, tolerant, cultured, peaceful, and educated worldview, which the
Indian intelligentsia and liberal media had forced them to wear for their own reasons, was
gone in this moment of communal frenzy.

Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits contacted officials in Jammu, Srinagar, and Delhi, pleading
with them to save them from the impending disaster. Delhi was already too far away. The
wimpish Central Government was caught off guard, and its state agencies, particularly the
army and other paramilitary forces, could not act on time in the absence of any orders or
directives. The state government had been so thoroughly subverted that the administration's
skeleton staff in Srinagar (the state's winter capital having been relocated to Jammu in
November 1989) decided not to confront the massive mobs.
 

Till date, we are shivered by the apathy the Nehruvian-Secularists and the so called
"eminences" exhibit when it comes to acknowledging the injustice done to the Kashmiri
Hindus, since it doesn't fit the narrative of anti-India groups within India. Instead, their
murders are condoned, and the culprits are protected as "son of a school teacher." Jihad is an
endless war. The Western media continues to allow Hinduphobic columnists to push false
notions like India is about to perpetrate an anti-Muslim genocide. This "routine" news is
obliterated by the same selectively unequivocal media in states like Jammu-Kashmir and
West Bengal. The police shooting of a Muslim man in Assam, while terrible and gory,
becomes the impetus for the entire cabal, which predicts a "genocide." There are also some
one-sided conjectures. Almost all are preposterous at best and ludicrous at worst.

Militancy and secession were never about Kashmiriyat, insaniyat, or jamhooriyat, as the
secular commentariat maintained. It was always about establishing Islamic authority and
separating from India's plural, Hindu-majority roots, going by their own slogans. Some of the
slogans used include:

"Zalimo, O Kafiro, Kashmir harmara chod do".

(O! Merciless, O! Kafirs leave our Kashmir)

"Kashmir mein agar rehna hai, Allah-ho-Akbar kahna hoga"

(Anyone wanting to live in Kashmir will have to convert to Islam)

La Sharqia la gharbia, Islamia! Islamia!

From East to West, there will be only Islam

"Kashmir banega Pakistan"

(Kashmir will become Pakistan)

 

"Pakistan se kya Rishta? La Ilah-e- Illalah"

(Islam defines our relationship with Pakistan)

"Kashir banawon Pakistan, Bataw varaie, Batneiw saan"

(We will turn Kashmir into Pakistan, along with the Kashmiri Pandit women, but not their
men.)

It is time to break free from the fallacies and delusions of Nehruvian secularism and
secularists and ponder the real hard questions that haunt us as a civilisational state and a
modern Hindu state concerned with national security, if not polity:

1. Why should a secular country like India treat any religion differently?

2. Why did fewer people attend Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's funeral when huge crowds
gathered for terrorists like Burhan Wani?

3. What if the Indian Penal Code was abolished because Sharia needs a "Muslim
Personal Act" for civil laws? If the Muslim Personal Law is based on Islam, why not
demand Sharia instead of IPC?

4. Isn't it offensive to other religions when the Azaan is played five times a day and the
words "La Ilaha Illallah" are declared? If that's not negotiable, why do others need to
be secular?

 
 5. Islamist invaders desecrated temples, massacred residents, and destroyed
civilizational achievements, all in the name of their holy book. The book hasn't
changed, so why should the present followers of the same book be any different?

6. Is it Islamophobia to raise such issues, or is it Islamophobia to ignore them?

Finally, "Raliv, Galiv, Chaliv" isn't a one-time slogan employed in Kashmir. There is no
solution to the Kashmiri Jihad unless the aforesaid questions are answered. Kashmir is just
one example of what will happen if these issues go unanswered across India. This is neither a
90s taboo, nor is it an extrapolation by a clique labelled Islamophobic. The world community
has also seen the threat of "Jihadi Terror" and the "humanitarian disaster" it generates, most
recently in Afghanistan. Humanity's future depends on how successfully and quickly this
issue is addressed. It only took a few days to wipe out trillions of dollars and a decade of
humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Jihad will be democratised as a tool to return mankind to
the stone age in Kashmir and beyond until we mature enough to grasp the dangers of doing
nothing.

Yuvraj Pokharna,