RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE
HOUSE
(MARGDARSHAN - 91)
ORGANISED BY PANUN
KASHMIR
ON 28-12-1991 AT JAMMU,
J&K, INDIA
RESOLUTION
The terrorist
violence that has ravaged the State of Jammu and
Kashmir for the last four years is the culmination
of the long secessionist movement carried on by
the fundamentalist forces in Kashmir since 1947,
and overtly and covertly supported by the
Pakistan. Terrorism in Kashmir is a Muslim
religious crusade aimed at the secession of the
State from the Republic of India and its merger
with Pakistan. It is founded on an ideological
struggle of which the main tenets are
i. That Kashmir which
has a majority Muslim population should become a
part of Pakistan on the basis of religion;
ii. That all institutions which stand for
secularism and democracy are destroyed and all
individuals or groups that vouch for equality,
justice and religious tolerance are eliminated;
iii. That the rich cultural traditions of
Kashmir hallowed over more than five thousand
years of the history be demolished and replaced
by Islamic fundamentalism.
Pakistan is deeply involved
in its attempts to subvert the constitutional and
administrative machinery of the State of Jammu and
Kashmir in order to strain and snap the relations
between the State and the Republic of India. Its
abatement in the terrorist violence by lending
moral, political and military support is common
knowledge. The terrorists operative in Jammu and
Kashmir are being trained in camps raised for this
purpose in Pak held Kashmir and the neighbouring
states of Pakistan and then pushed into India to
cause large scale anarchy, destruction, arson,
murder, molestation and rape.
The Kashmiri Hindus have
become the first victims of terrorism as a result
of which they had to flee the place of their
abode. The Hindus in Kashmir have, right
from the dawn of freedom faced and fought
communalism and fundamentalism. They are a part of
the Vedic heartland of India and have lived in
Kashmir from times immemorial. In fact, they are
the original inhabitants of the valley of Kashmir,
now reduced to an ethnic minority, with a history
of more than five thousand years dating back
beyond the “ Neelmat Era “ almost contemporary
to the Vedic civilization of India. The Hindu
religious precepts have borne the message of
universal peace, brotherhood and coexistence of
all creeds and faiths. The Hindus of Kashmir are
the progenitors of “Shakt” and Shaivite Monism
and Hinyan and Sarvastvadin Budhism, which spread
to Central Asia, Tibet and western China. They
propounded the great Shaivite doctrine of Trika
and the theory of recognition. Kalhana,
Jonaraja, PrajBhat, Shuka and Shrivara, the great
masters of History compiled the historical
chronicle of Rajatarangini. The Hindu Kingdom of
Kashmir reached its zenith with the ascendance of
the Karkotas when Kashmir commanded respect and
tribute from its neighbouring Kingdoms till the
fall of Utpalas. The ascendancy of Muslim
Sultans in the thirteenth entury witnessed fierce
religious persecution and attempts at conversion
of Kashmiri Pandits who resisted it with will, and
determination, preferring death to surrender.
The Kashmiri Pandits have
played a major role in the liberation struggle
against the British and their colonial imperatives
in the State. The secularization of the various
communal movements which rocked the State in the
aftermath of the growth of Muslim separatism in
India was achieved, mainly due to the efforts of
Kashmiri Pandits. They authored and
sponsored the famous declaration of National
demand in 1938, which later became the secular
national movement in the State. The political
movement for National self-government received its
ideological content from the Kashmiri Pandits who
gave the first call for self-government.
Since the independence of
India and accession of Kashmir to the Indian
Union, the Kashmiri Hindus have continued to fight
the religious precedence as well as the
separatism, which accompanied the rise of Muslim
communalism. They were reduced to a plight
of slavery, misery and servitude but they did not
react against Muslim communalism as a
communal minority. In spite of the forces
arraigned against them viz. Muslim
fundamentalists, the Muslimised State-apparatus
and the secessionist group, the Hindus suffered at
the stake to save the secular and democratic image
of Kashmir and India. While resisting the
orchestrated moves fostered by Muslim communalists
inside the State and their mentors in Pakistan to
Islamise the State and snatch it from the Union of
India, the Hindus became the victims of communal
hatred and faced hostility, ridicule and
privation. The Indian leaders, on the other hand,
served their petty personal interests and party
objectives leaving the field open for the
fundamentalists to carry out their nefarious
designs. The Kashmiri Hindu was the main obstacle
in the attainment of the goal of fundamentalists
and became the victims of communal hatred and
faced hostility, ridicule was branded as the agent
of the Government of India. Even a leader of the
stature of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah charged them
of acting as the fifth column of India. They, thus
became the victims of a dangerous irony, where on
the one hand they were persecuted because of their
adherence to the values of secularism and
democracy enshrined in the Indian Constitution and
on the other hand the rulers of India jettisoned
them. The Hindus of Kashmir, because of their
minority and almost negligible representation in
the State legislature and bureaucracy, became
helpless onlookers to the manoeuvring,
manipulation and distortion of the established
democratic, constitutional and legal institutions
of the State which gave rise to Muslim
majoritarianism, Under this system Kashmiri Hindu
faced a deliberate, steady and relentless squeeze
of his constitutional, political and legal rights
and was forced into a slow exodus. In the process
nearly three lakh Hindus have already left the
valley during the last four decades.Muslim
majoritarianism is inherently communal in nature.
The Indian partition was not an accident of
history nor was it contrived by the British to
contain the Indian freedom movement. It was
the culmination of the Muslim struggle for
separate Muslim majority State where the
pre-eminence of Muslim Umah was recognized. During
the last forty years of the history of Pakistan
the Hindus who constituted nearly thirty percent
of its population at the outset are reduced to
only one percent as on today. The operative design
of Muslim communalism in Kashmir has almost been
similar-the Hindus of Kashmir who formed about
nine percent of the population of Kashmir in 1947
are almost wiped out of the Kashmir Valley by now.
As a part of the grand strategy for the attainment
of the Islamic and Fundamentalist State of
Kashmir, communal elements and terrorist are bent
upon annihilating the Kashmiri Hindus as a
result of which their exodus has been made
inevitable.
The terrorist violence
has taken a heavy toll of unarmed, peace loving
and tolerant Hindus of Kashmir valley.
Hundreds of Hindus-men, women and children,
were brutally murdered and hundreds were subjected
to inhuman torture and suffering. The community
was driven out of Kashmir valley by force or on
the pain of death. The properties left behind by
them have been looted and their houses burnt or
destroyed by dynamite. Right at present a
scorched-earth policy is being followed by
terrorists by systematically burning the Hindu
localities, Hindu Houses and Hindu shrines and
temples. The Kashmir history is replete with the
contribution of Kashmiri Hindus to the Nation’s
march in general and that of Kashmir in
particular. Kashmiri Hindus
have served as a
beacon light to the entire national polity and are
the real founders of secularism and democracy in
Kashmir. In the modernization of the State
of Jammu & Kashmir, the Hindus have
contributed much more than their share and have
imparted to the Kashmiri society its scientific,
progressive and humane outlook. Throughout their
history, more specifically in the modern
times, they have tried their
utmost to live at peace with their Muslim
compatriots. The secular facade, which Kashmir has
worn all through the last forty-three years, has
been provided mainly by Kashmiri Hindus. They have
not reacted to Muslim communalism, instead they
have faced the rigours of Muslim dominance with
the fervent hope that the thrust on universal
education and scientific progress in the
State would pave way for the free flow of
democratic thought, recognition of the human
rights, the genuine urges and aspirations Kashmiri
Hindu minorities, religious tolerance equity and
justice.
This hope is now
shattered, Neither his Muslim brethren in
Kashmir nor the Indian Government which swears by
secularism came to the rescue of Kashmiri Hindus
at the time when they were being butchered and
bounded out of their homes and hearths, nor at
this moment when they have been
uprooted and thrown into wilderness to face
a life and death struggle for survival. All
the constitutional guarantees for the protection
of their limb, life, property, their status and
dignity have been trampled with impunity. The
Hindus of Kashmir wherever they are, therefore,
unequivocally declare that:
i.
With their deep and firm commitment to social
unity, religious coexistence, democracy and
secularism they will not accept a society which
is communalistic, obscurantist, intolerant and
medieval. They will not submit to any authority
in the State that does not recognize their right
to life, equality, faith and protection against
discrimination. They will not be a party
to the present struggle launched against secular
and democratic India.
ii.
With their history of having lived and died for
freedom and their open espousal of the cause of
tolerance peace, amity and brotherhood between
various ethnic, social and religious, groups,
they cannot accept the pre-eminence and
predominance of any single religious community
at their cost.
iii.
Having been the
original inhabitants of
Kashmir from ancient times and being
the inheritors of a glorious cultural tradition
of more than five thousand years, Kashmiri
Pandits have as, much right to live in Kashmir
as any other religious group. Preservation
of this community in its natural and historical
habitat is a political necessity.
iv.
The present crusade by the terrorists against
Kashmiri Pandits to drive away the last
remnants of this proud community from its
rightful place is a shame for
the secular India in particular and the world
community in general. Any measure taken to
rehabilitate this community outside Kashmir
valley will only result in the dispersal of this
community leading to its dissolution and
extinction. This will be a tragedy, as the only
relic of a small but distinct race with an
outstanding culture will be destroyed,
v.
Because of their equal rights to the land of
their birth they stake their claim to be an
equal party to any future deliberations in the
process of normalization and ultimate solution
on Kashmir problem.
The Kashmiri Hindus,
therefore, DEMAND:
a) The establishment
of a separate homeland for
Kashmiri Hindus in the Kashmir Valley,
comprising the regions of the valley to the East
and North of river Jehlum;
b) That the constitution of India be made
applicable in letter and spirit in this homeland
in order to ensure right to life, liberty,
freedom of expression, faith, equality and rule
of law;
c) That their homeland be placed
under central administration with a Union
Territory Status till it evolves its own
economic and political infrastructure;
d) That all the seven lakh Kashmiri
Hindus, which includes those who have been
driven out of Kashmir in the past and yearn to
return to their homeland and those who were
forced to leave on account of the
terrorist violence in Kashmir, be
settled in the homeland on
equitable basis with dignity
and honour.
Dated: 28/12/1991
Station : JAMMU TAWI.
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