“Why did you say
that genocide doesn’t happen without your neighbors’ participation?” It was a
young girl, catching up after my talk. I had just finished giving a talk at a
university followed by a long question and answer session.
I was at the end
of a book tour of ‘The Infidel Next Door’ a work of fiction based on how the
Kashmiri way of life was brought to an end through a systematic pogrom. In talk
after talk, the Kashmiri pandits had shared a platform with me talking about
their exodus. Their feelings had emerged raw, flowed like a stream through the mountain
crevices. Their emotions bottled up for decades and hidden from the world, sometimes
from each other had burst forth due to abrogation of Article 370 tearing apart
the carefully constructed wall of an aggrieved community living through a self
imposed alienation for their survival.
“I am a second
generation Kashmiri pandit brought up here,” she continued, “I was too young
when my parents ran away from the valley in 1990. How we ran away from Kashmir remains
a silent topic in our family,” she said.
“I have one
question that has always bothered me. How did our neighbors behave when we ran
away? I have asked my parents many times but they don’t tell me. Sometimes they
say we were too busy running away to notice but I believe the answer is different.”
“I will write an
answer for you.” I promised her and walked away knowing that the answer might
be long and couldn’t be contained in a single sentence. My host had joined us
telling me it was time for me to go and catch my flight. Also, some answers are
better read in private spaces rather than be discussed in public.
As I came to the
airport and sat in the comfort of my plane, an image from long ago began to emerge.
I was sitting in Tihar jail, India’s infamous prison and taking a group with
militants. They were laughing, and their words seemed to mock.
They were from
Kashmir, were militants and the talk had turned to the exodus of the Kashmiri
pandits from the valley on 19th January 1990. One of them spoke up.
“It was a complete
spectacle, a total entertainment, the running away. There was nothing like it
in the Kashmir valley for a long time. It was as if a circus was going on. Not
even when Pakistan won a cricket match had there been such a celebration and
you think we will ever welcome them back? Till today it must be the most widely
watched spectacle in the valley. We all knew they would be running away and
didn’t miss it. It was a celebration and no one wanted to be excluded.”
“Do you know my
mother gave me new clothes to wear to watch them run away? She even cooked some
delicious dishes on that day. Every family we know did so. It was a ‘davat’ (party)
like atmosphere. My friend’s father gave him a pair of binoculars to go and
watch it from the rooftop.”
“So, it wasn’t a
sudden event that took everyone by surprise?” I had asked.
“Not at all. We
all knew they would run away on that particular day,” he had replied. “You know
the funniest thing about it is that no one has yet talked about it. Second the
most important aspect was it happened in broad daylight, not in the darkness of
the night. It had to be seen, watched like a circus, a full public spectacle,
so that all of us could describe it to our future generations, preserved for
posterity.”
“So, do you talk
to the younger people, the future generations?”
“Yes, not only me
but every family I know does so.”
“Why did it have
to be that way?” I had asked.
“We wanted to see
the fear, the terror in their eyes as they ran away,” he continued.
In movies on
ancient Rome, the cameras would often zoom-in on the eyes of the survivors in
the coliseum and stay there showing his terror, the victim waiting for his death
at the hands of either a lion or gladiator. The death was not fun, watching the
terror in his eyes was. That is what the audience would pay for. They would watch
fascinated, as they reveled wanting the scene to go on. It was an excitement, unequaled,
the Adrenalin flowing in.
“Was the exodus of
the Kashmiri Hindus any different in the eyes of their neighbors from that
spectacle?” I had wondered.
“We had decided to
use slogans to terrorize them. They were raised from every mosque in the
valley, by all the Imams who announced that ‘kafirs must leave the valley
leaving their women behind’.”
“Do you know why
we did it? Because we felt it would be too much stress for us to pull the
trigger four hundred thousand times.” He had continued, “We would have done that
as a last resort only if it became necessary. We realized it would be much
simpler if we could make them run away mentioning that we are eyeing their
women. Once gone, they would die of the heat, diseases and illnesses they were
not used to. There would be no culpability on us, no guilt to carry. Who would say
it was a genocide in Kashmir?”
His words seem
prophetic and visionary seen thirty years later. No one in the world today accuses
the Kashmiri Muslims of committing a genocide on their neighbors. On the
contrary the Kashmiri Muslims are crying ‘victim’ for their disconnected phone
connections and the democrats, the liberals and the labor parties of the world
are not only listening but shedding tears at the gross violation of human
rights.
Wasn’t it the
biggest mass delusion of all times when four hundred thousand, many times more
outside Kashmir believed that it is only a matter of time, a few months at the
most when the Kashmiri pandits will come back amongst the same people who had
threatened to lynch them?
I had listened to
the details with a sense of déjà vu, an unreality that pores down to my bones
even today. The precision, the planning, the execution had been flawless to the
last detail. The atmosphere in the group had turned unreal, surreal and a bit nauseating.
Every sequence in it had been given attention to and worked out with perfection.
From calculating the number of pandits in each village and hamlet, the
corresponding number of people assigned to threaten them to leave and the
policemen who were relied upon to look the other way, everything was precise to
put even Adolf Eichmann to shame.
When the meeting
had ended, I had walked away feeling emotionless. His narration rang in my
ears. The murders of pandits had followed a template, a script down to the last
detail. Even the date of 19th January 1990 was worked out keeping in mind
logistical issues across the border. The militants and the local population had
formed a team to become collaborators. Pandits were killed execution style in
broad daylight so that it served as a warning for everyone to never imagine
coming back to their homes. Kashmiri Muslims in this were not bystanders but
active participants. The plan shrouded in secrecy and silence was kept away
from the pandits, from the world at large under the umbrella of ‘Kashmiriyat’
otherwise known as mass denial.
For too long, the
majority in India has been at the receiving end of violence and persecution. In
Kashmir, in Bengal, in Punjab, in many other nondescript places, no one asks
why certain neighbors turn on certain days saying convert or leave and ‘my God
is the only God’. Why they threaten to kill, maim and intimidate those with
whom they have supposed to have lived for generations in harmony? No one ever asks
who started it first, least of all journalists who swear by freedom of speech.
The reaction, the response becomes more important than the trigger that caused
it.
There is a magical
thinking that runs deep, in communities who have lived under slavery that
somehow this time, things will work out if we stay silent and don’t ask hard
questions. That all questions as to the motive of perpetrators be never raised.
That things come back to normal if one looks at the other way, don’t look at
perpetrator in the eye and demand to know why he did it. As a result no one
asks why and who started the direct action day in Bengal, who set fire and murdered
the women and children in Godhra train massacre?
Today, it is we
who have become the new neighbors. The boundary has shrunk and is coming to our
doorsteps. We didn’t speak up when they needed us. In Kashmir, in Bengal, in
Punjab. We stayed silent thinking it will never be us.
As I write this,
the faces of an entire Hindu family butchered to death in West Bengal stares at
us asking for justice. Their murderers enjoy an impunity like every other
murderer of mass violence has enjoyed in India for ages.
Only if we decide
today collectively to stop that impunity that binds us and ask for
accountability from our perpetrators, I believe there is hope and justice for
the future generations to practice their faith without fear.
Millions have been
slaughtered for their religious belief throughout our nation’s history. We as a
people owe a redemption to our ancestors that their sacrifice for us did not go
in vain.
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist,
Speaker and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
Link for my book ‘The Infidel Next Door’ on amazon.in
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amazon.com
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on
amazon.in
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on
amazon.com
Link for the book on Garuda Publications
Link on Snapdeal for hard copy of the book
The book is also available at select book stores like Bahrisons.
Link for the book for buying Overseas
Contact Book Club of India via following email bookclubofindia@gmail.com for delivery of overseas orders of the book.
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