THE June 11, 1999 decision of National Human Rights Commission can at the most be called a non-decision. The honorable Commission although accepting that acts ‘akin to genocide’ have occurred in respect of Kashmiri Pandits and that the terrorists in the Valley had ‘genocide-type designs’, yet opines that the crimes against the Kashmiri Pandits ‘fall short of the ultimate crime of genocide’. By implication the order means nothing to the victims.

The Commission which has persistently been taking a broader view of Human Rights by stretching the scope of their definition to even include human sufferings caused by starvation and poverty, has perhaps for reasons diplomatic and political, chosen to restrict the definition of genocide and separated it from the crimes of even massacres and ethnic cleansing. The number of persons killed and the quantity of  violence forms more important yardstick for NHRC on the issue of qualifying the human tragedy that has befallen on Kashmiri Pandits. The intent and nature of violence directed against Kashmiri Pandits is of little consequence for the Commission. And there in lies the main flaw of the judgement.

The honorable Commission has made the mistake of measuring the charge of genocide against such tragedies as ‘holocaust’ with regard to Kashmiri Pandits. The human mass constituting Jews, Cambodians, targeted people in Rwanda, Hutus in Brundii was far more larger than the community of 300,000 Pandits in Valley. By simple logic lesser quantity of violence is required to cause pronounced genocidal effects in a smaller community.

The acceptance by the Commission that acts of violence against Kashmiri Pandits are akin to genocide is not only an expression of hollow sensitivity but also appears to be an attempt to cover up the real compulsions which might have constrained   it. The National Human Rights Commission is yet to make public its stand on whether the expelled Kashmiri Pandits be called ‘internally displaced persons’ or the ‘migrants’--an appellation given to them by the government. Ironically the   government has described the expulsion of Kashmiri Pandits as a ‘voluntary displacement’ and NHRC is said to have accepted such a contention of the government. If the Commission had faith in its own admission that acts of violence against Kashmiri Pandits are akin to genocide, it would not have conceded to such an atrocious point of view of the government.

The most dangerous part of the June 11 judgement of NHRC is its observation that the primary ‘intent, of the killing of both Hindus and Muslims in the Valley was to achieve secession of the state and possible annexation by Pakistan’. The Commission betrays its ignorance through this impression about the contours of Pan-Islamic fundamentalism, which the entire world is gradually rising to acknowledge as a real danger to the peace and pluralism. Such a generalization has only given secular legitimacy to the terrorist violence in the Valley.