Is
Homeland slogan in any way against the interests
of the community?
Infact,
the community has never nurtured a political
insight nor given vent to its political
aspirations ever since it was subjected to
persecution down the centuries of Muslim rule. It
always lived on a fringe. It was always secondary
and peripheral in any political, social and
economic reconstruction, whenever there was one.
The community only lesrnt to accumodate, acquiesce
a just subsist. It always lived from day to day.
Therefore, the vision of a Homeland is something
difficult to believe and assimilate. 'Offer a
feast to a hungry man and suddenly he loses
appetite' . He would rather accept crumbs and bits
and left-overs. The community has to break the
shackles that have held it captive to the Muslim
majority perceptions for centuries and break loose
and think for itself. The vision of a Homeland may
appear an impossible dream. But a dream is the
first step away from unreal and a step towords
reality. We have to shake ourselves from non-
being into being and that is only possible when we
stand for our rights and not wait for the mercy
and pity of the Muslim majority.
A
Home1and is the minimum programme for the survival
of the community. There are some amongst us who
still delude themselves with the belief that
normalcy is going to return to Kashmir and they
are going to be able to live in honour and dignity
and with equal rights and opportunities to life,
and therefore, say that we should not offend the
Muslims by asking for our due share in the form of
a Homeland. But you can count them on fingers.
Most of them are the yes-men or hand-maidens of
power brokers and discredited politicians, others
are in league with the terrorists and have become
tools in their hands and provide them with a mask.
We have a couple of thousand Hindus still living
in the valley. Most of them are living in fear and
under a seige and pay 'protection money'. They are
forced to speak the militants' language. - Some of
them have converted, if not in name but in
practice, to Islam. Others have become spokesmen
against the so-called excesses and atrocities by
the security forces. All of them serve as
show-boys of the terrorists, who often manage to
project them in the media to plead that their
movement is non-communal, yet in the same breath
being votaries of a "Jehad" with the
ultimate aim of throwing out India and running the
State on the tenets of Holy Quran. They are, thus,
already a part of the Islamic crusade. This
handful of Hindus who are eking out their time in
the valley, infact, are the Hindu pockets of
acquiescence and not resistance against the
communal frenzy that has engulfed the valley.
The
Kashmiri Hindus have to realize that every quarter
is cashing on their disaster. The people in the
valley are cashing on the presence of those few
thousands whom they have deliberately nurtured to
present a false image of communal harmony to the
gullible world. The administrative machinery
ruling us in exile is trading in our misery. The
relief agencies are siphoning off the funds meant
for relief and rehabilitation of the displaced
people. They have bungled crores of rupees in
league with the bankers and middlemen but managed
to blame and discredit the beleagured community.
Various political parties are deriving political
mileage out of our misery. The traders, landlords
and other businessmen in the host cities have a
different price for their ware for the displaced
people than for the locals. How long can we afford
to be thus cheated from all quarters unless we
have a place of our own, our HOMELAND?
Our
genuine demand for a Homeland does not hurt
anybody 's intrests as we have no desire to
encroach upon the legitimate rights of others.
Infact, there are clear indications that the
Muslim majority is irked by our capacity to bear
silently the sufferings heaped upon us than by our
waking up to our rights. The grant of a Homeland
to displaced Kashmiris will be the greatest
stumbling block to their design of enforcing their
version of poitical and religious dispensation in
the whole of the valley and spare this part of the
valley from degenerating into a theocratic
enclave.
| 
Previous
Section
