Letter to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi – Jagmohan

Jagmohan -Ex Governor J&K

Jag Mohan Malhotra (born 25 September 1927) is a former governor of Jammu and Kashmir in India. During his tenure as the Governor from 1984 to 1989, militancy in Jammu and Kashmir was at his peak and he was credited with providing capable administration to the state. In Jammu & Kashmir], Jagmohan is credited with bring order to one of the most revered shrines of Hindus, called Mata Vaishno Devi. He created a board that continues to provide administration for the shrine. Infrastructure was developed and that continues to facilitate pilgrims.

[The letter is being reproduced as this letter is of prime importance for readers to understand the callous attitude of central Govt in handling the terrorism in it’s initial stage ]

Letter to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi - Ex Prime Minister of India

By Jagmohan
April 21, 1990

Dear Shri Rajiv Gandhi,

You have virtually forced me to write this open letter to you. For, all along, I have persistently tried to keep myself away from party politics and to use whatever little talent and energy I might have to do some creative and constructive work, as was done recently in regard to the management and improvement of Mata Vaishno Devi shrine complex and to help in bringing about a sort of cultural renaissance without which our fast decaying institutions cannot be nursed back to health. At the moment, the nobler purposes of these institutions be they in the sphere of executive, legislature or judiciary etc. have been sapped and the soul of justice and truth sucked out of them by the politics of expediency.

You and your friends like Dr. Farooq Abdullah are, however, bent upon painting a false picture before the nation in regard to Kashmir. Your senior party men like Shiv Shankar and N.K.P. Salve have, apparently at your behest, been using the forum of the Parliament for building an atmosphere of prejudice against me. The former raked up a fourteen-year old incident of Turkman Gate and the latter a press interview an interview that I never gave to hurl a barrage of accusations of communalism against my person. Mani Shankar Iyer, too, has been dipping his poisonous darts in the columns of some magazines. I, however, chose to suffer in silence all the slings and arrows of this outrageous armoury of disinformations. Only rarely did I try to correct gross distortions by sending letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines. My intention was to remain content with a book, an academic and historic venture which, I believed, I owed to the nation and to history.

But the other day some friends showed to me press clippings of your comments in the election meetings in Rajasthan.

That, I thought, was the limit. I realised that, unless I checked your intentional distortions, you would spread false impression about me throughout the country during the course of your election campaign.

WARNING SIGNALS: Need I remind you that from the beginning of 1988, I had started sending “Warning Signals” to you about the gathering storm in Kashmir ? But you and the power wielders around you had neither the time, nor the inclination, nor the vision, to see these signals. They were so clear, so pointed, that to ignore them was to commit sins of true historical proportions.

To recapitulate and to serve as illustrations, I would refer to a few of these signals. In August 1988, after analysing the current and undercurrents, I had summed up the position thus: “The drum-beater of parochialism and fundamentalism are working overtime. Subversion is on the increase. The shadows of events from across the border are lengthening. Lethal weapons have come in. More may be on the way”. In April 1989, I had desperately pleaded for immediate action I said: “The situation is fast deteriorating. It has almost reached a point of no return. For the last five days, there have been large-scale violence, arson, firing, hartals, casualties and what not. Things have truly fallen apart. Talking of the Irish crisis, British Prime Minister Disraeli had said: “It is potatoes one day and Pope the next”. Similar is the present position in Kashmir. Yesterday, it was Maqbool Bhat; today it is Satanic Verses; Tomorrow it will be repression day and the day after it will be something else. The Chief Minister stands isolated. He has already fallen-politically as well as administratively; perhaps, only constitutional rites remain to be performed. His clutches are too soiled and rickety to support him. Personal aberrations have also eroded his public standing. The situation calls for effective intervention. Today may be timely, tomorrow may be too late”. Again, in May, I expressed my growing anxiety: ‘What is still more worrying is that every victory of subversionists is swelling their ranks, and the animosity is being diverted against the central authorities”. But you chose not to do anything. Your inaction was mistifying. Equally mistifying was your reaction to my appointment for the second term. How could I suddenly become cammunal, anti-muslim and what not ?

When I resigned in July 1989, there was no rancour. You wanted me to fight, as your party candidate, election for the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Since I had general revolusion for the type of politics which out country had, by and large, come to breed, I declined the offer. If you had any serious reservation about my accepting the offer of J and K Governorship for the second term, you could have adopted the straightforward course and apprised me of your views. I would have thought twice before going into a situation, which had virtually reached a point of no return. There would have been no need for you to resort to false accusations.

May be you do not consider truth and consistency as virtues. May be you believe that the words inscribed on our national emblem – Satyameva Jayate – are mere words without meaning and significance for motivating the nation to proceed in the right direction and build a true and just India by true and just means. Perhaps power is all that matters to you – power by whichever means and at whatever cost.

REALITY: In regard to the conditions prevailing before and after my arrival on the scene, you and your collaborators have been perverting reality. The truth is that before the imposition of Governor’s rule on January 19, 1990, there was a total mental surrender. Even prior to the day (December 8, 1989) of Dr. Rubaiye Sayeed’s kidnapping, when the eagle of terrorism swooped the state with full fury, 1600 violent incidents, including 351 bomb blasts had taken place in eleven months. Then between January 1 and January 19, 1990, there were as many as 319 violent acts – 21 armed attacks, 114 bomb blasts, 112 arsons, and 72 incidents of mob violence.

You, perhaps, never cared to know that all the components of the power structure had been virtually taken over by the subversives. For example, when Shabir Ahmed Shah was arrested in September 1989, on the Intelligence Bureau’s tip- off, Srinagar Deputy Commissioner flatly refused to sign the warrant of detention. Anantnag Deputy Commissioner adopted the same attitude. The Advocate-General did not appear before the Court to represent the state case. He tried to pass on the responsibility to the Additional Advocate General and the Government council. They, too, did not appear.

Do you not remember what happened on the day of Lok Sabha poll in November 22, 1989 ? In a translating gesture, TV sets were placed near some of the polling booths with placards reading “anyone who will cast his vote will get this”. No one in the administration of Dr. Farooq Abdullah took any step to remove such symbols of defiance if authority.

Let me remind you that Sopore is the hometown of Gulam Rasool Kar, who was at that time a Cabinet Minister in the State Government. It is also the hometown of the Chairman of the Legislative Council, Habibullah, and also of the former National Conference MP and Cabinet Minister, Abdul Shah Vakil. Yet only five votes were cast in Sopore town. In Pattan, an area supposedly under the influence of Iftikar Hussain Ansari, the then Congress (I) Minister, not a single vote was cast. Such was the commitment and standing of your leaders and collaborators in the State.

And you still thought that subversion and terrorism could be fought with such political and administrative intruments.

Around that point of time, when the police set-up was getting rapidly demoralised, when intelligence was fast drying up, when inflitration in services was bringing stories of subversives plan like TOPAC, your protage, Dr. Farooq Abdullah was either going abroad or releasing 70, hardcore and highly motivated torrosists who were trained in the handling of dangerous weapons, who had contacts at the highest level in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, who knew all the devious routes of going to and returning from Pakistan and whose detention had been approved by the three member advisory board presided over by the Chief Justice. Their simultaneous release enabled them to occupy key positions in the network of subversion and terrorism and to complete the chain which took them again to Pakistan to bring arms to indulge in killings and kidnappings and other acts of terrorism. For example, one of the released persons, Mohd. Daud Khan of Ganderbal, became the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of a terrorist outfit, Al-Bakar, and took a leading part in organising a force of 2,500 Kashmiri Youths. Who is to be blamed for all the heinous crimes subsequet}y committed by these released 70 terrorists ? I would leave this question answered by the people to whom you are talking about the “Jagmohan Factor”.

The truth, supported by preponderence of evidence, is that before January 19, 1990, the terrorist had become the real ruler. The ground had been yielded to him to such an extent that dominated the public mind. He could virtually swim like a fish in the sea. Would it matter if the sea was subsequently surrounded ?

LABELLING ANTI-MUSLIM: In your attempt to hide all your sins of omission and commission in Kashmir and as a part of your small politics which can not go beyond dividing people and creating vote banks, you took special pains to demolish all regards and respects which the Kashmiri masses, including the Muslim youth, had developed for me during my first term from April 26,1984, to July 12,1989. Against all facts, unassailable evidence, and your own precious pronouncements, you started me labelling me as anti-Muslim.

May I, in this connection, also invite your attention to three of the important suggestions made in my book, Rebuild- ing Shahjahanabad: The Walled City of Delhi. One pertained to the creation of the green velvet between Jama Masjid and Red Fort; the second to the construction of a road linking Parliament House with the Jama Masjid complex, and the third to the setting up of a second Shahajhanabad in the Mata Sundari road-Minto road complex, reflecting the synthetic culture of the city, its traditional as well as its modern texture. Could such suggestions I ask you, come of an anti-Muslim mind ?

FORUM OF PARLIAMENT: How you and your associates use the fonum of Parliament undermine my standing amongst the Kashmiri Muslims, was evident from what N.KP. Salve, MP ?, did in the Rajya Sabha on May 25, 1990.

Referring to the so called interview to the Bombay Weekly, THE CURRENT – an interview which I never gave – Salve chose wholly unjustified expressions; “There was a patent and palpable attitude if very disconcerting communal bias and, therefore, he (Governor) was happy under the garb of eliminating the terrorist, the saboteurs and the culprits, in eliminating the whole community as it were; now the Governor has himself given profuse and unabashed vent to his malicious malignity, hate and extreme dislike, branding every member of a particular community as a militant”.

I know Salve. I do not think, if left to himself, he would have done what he did. Clearly, he was goaded to say something which was against his training and background. But the elementary precaution which any jurist, at least a jurist of Salve’s imminence, would have taken, was to first check up whether any such interview weekly had been given by me, and if so, whether the remarks attributed to me were actually made. The unseemly haste was itself revealing. The issue was raised on May 25, while the weekly was dated May 26 June 2, 1990. You yourself rushed a let to the President on May 25, on the basis ofthe interview that in reality did not exist. You explained that V.P. Singh had appointed a person with “Rabid Communalist Opinion as Governor. You also got your letter widely published on May 25 itself.

Since your party men did not allow me to have my say in the Rajya Sabha, even when an opportunity came my way to speak on the subject, I was left with no other option but to file a 20 Lakhs damage suit against the Current Weekly in the Delhi High Court. The case may take a long time and I may donate the damages, if and when awarded, to charity, but I intend sparing no effort to expose all those who have played dirty roles in the disinformation-drama.

ARTICLE-370: You created a scene on March 7, 1990, at the time of the visit of the All Party Committee to Srinagar, and made it a point to convey to the people in 1986 I wanted to have Article 370 abrogated. At that critical juncture, when I was fighting the forces of terrorism with my back to the wall beginning to turn the corner after frustrating the sinister designs of the subversives from January 26, 1990 onwards, you thought it appropriate to cause hostility against me by tearing the facts out of context. Whether this act of yours was responsible or irresponsible, I would leave to the nation to decide.

What I had really pointed out in August-September 1986 was: ‘Article 370 is nothing but a breeding ground for the parasites at the heart of the paradise. It skins the poor. It deceives them with its mirage. It lines the pockets of the “power elites”. It fans the ego of the new sultans, in essence, it creates a land without justice, a land full of crudities and contradictions. It props up politics of deception, duplicity and demagogy. It breeds the microbes of subversion. It keeps alive the unwholesome legacy of the two-nation theory. It sufficates the very idea of India and fogs the very vision of a great social and cultural crucible from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. It could be an epicentre of a violent earth-quake, the tremors of which would be felt all over the country with unforeseen consequences.

I had argued, ‘The fundamental aspect which has been lost sight of in the controversy for deletion or retention of Article 370 is its misues. Over the years, it has become an instrument of exploitation in the hands of the ruling political elites and other vested interests in bureaucracy, business, judiciary and bar. Apart from the politicians, the richer classes have found it aonvenient to amass wealth and not allow healthy financial legislation to come to the State. The provisions of the Wealth Tax, the Urban Land Ceiling Act, the Gift Tax etc, and other beneficial laws of the Union have not been allowed to be operated in the State under the cover of Article 370. The common people are prevented from realising that Article 370 is actually keeping them impoverished and denying them justice and also their due share in the economic advancement.’

My stand was that the poor people of Kashmir had been exploited under the protective wall of Article 370 and that the correct position needed to be explained to them. I had made a number of suggestions in this regard and also in regard to the reform and reorganisation of the institutional framework. But all these were ignored. A great opportunity was missed.

Subsequent events have reinforced my views that Article 370 and its by product, the separate Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir must go, not only because it is legally and constitutionally feasible to do so, but also because larger and more basic considerations of our past history and contemporary life require it. The Article merely facilitates the growth and continuation of corrupt oligarchies. It puts false notions in the minds of the youth. It gives rise to regional tensions and conflicts and even the autonomy assumed to be available is not attainable in practice. The distinct personality and cultural identity of Kashmir can be safeguarded without this Article. It is socially regressive and causes situations in which women lose thier right if they marry non-State subjects and persons staying for over 44 years in the State are denied elementary human and democratic rights. And, above all, it does not fit into the reality and requirement of India and its vast and varied span. What India needs today is not petty sovereignties that would sap its spirit and aspirations and turn it into small “banana-republics” in the hands of ‘tin-pot dictators’, but a new social, political and cultural crucible in which values of truth and rectitude, of fairness and justice, and of compassion and catholicity, are melted, purified and molded into a vigorous and vibrant set- up which provides real freedom, real democracy and real resurgence to all.

I must also point out that when other States in the Union ask for greater autonomy, they do not mean separation of identities. They really want decentralization and devolution of power, so that administrative and development work is done speedily and the quality of service to the people improves. In Kashmir, the demand for retaining Article 370 with all its ‘pristine purity’, that is, without the alleged dilution that has taken place since 1953, stems from different motivation. It emanates from a clever strategy to remain away from the mainstream, to set up a separate fiefdom, to fly a separate flag, to have a Prime Minister rather than a Chief Minister, and Sadr-i-Riyasat instead of a Governor, and to secure greater power and patronage, not for the good of the masses, not for serving the cause of peace and progress or for attaining unity amidst diversity, but for serving the interests of ‘new elites’, the ‘new Sheikhs’.

All those aspiring to be the custodians of the vote-banks continue to say that Article 370 is a matter of faith. But they do not proceed further. They do not ask themselves: What does this faith mean? What is its rationale ? Would not bringing the State within the full framework of Indian Constitution give brighter lustre and sharper teeth to this faith and make it more just and meaningful?

In a similar strain, expressions like ‘historical necessity’ and ‘autonomy’ are talked about. What do these mean in practice ? Does historical necessity mean that you include, on paper, Kashmir in the Indian Union by one hand at a huge cost and give it back, in practice, by another hand on the golden platter ? And what does autonomy or so called pre-1953 or pre- 1947 position imply? Would it not amount to the Kashmiri leadership say in: ‘you will send and I will spend; you will have no say even if I build a corrupt and callous oligarchy and cause a situation in which Damocles’ sword of secession could be kept hanging on your head’?

KASHMIRI PANDITS: You and the like of you have made India a country which has lost capacity to be true and just. Anyone trying to be fair is dubbed communal. The case of the Kashmiri Pandits bears eloquent testimony to this fact.

Whatever be the vicissitudes of the Kashmiri Pandits’ history and whatever unkind quirks their fate might have brought to them in the past, these all pale into insignificance in comparison to what is happening to them at present. The grim tragedy is compounded by the equally grim irony that one of the most intelligent subtle, versatile, and proud community of the country is being virtually reduced to extinction in free India. It is suffering not under the fanatic zeal of mediaeval Sultans like Sikander or under the tyrannical regime of Afghan Governors, but under the supposedly secular rule of leaders like you, V.P. Singh and others who unabashed search for personal and political power is symbolized by calculated disregard of the Kashmiri migrants’ current miserable plight and the terrible future that stares in their eyes. And to fill their cup of pain and anguish, there are bodies like ‘Committee for Initiative on Kashmir’ which are over-anxious and over active to rub salt into their wounds, and to label anyone who wants to stand by them in their hour of distress as communal.

In a soft, superficial, permissive and, in many ways, cruel India which has the tragic distinction of creating over one lakh refugees from its own flesh and blood and then casting them aside like masterless cattle to fend for themselves on the busy and heartless avenues of soulless cities, chances for Kashmiri Pandits to survive as a distinct community are next to nothing. Split, scattered and deserted practically by all, they stand today all alone, looking hopelessly at a leaking, rudderless, boat at their feat and extremely rough and tumultuous sea to face before they can reach a safe shore across to plant their feet firmly on an assured future.

The deep crisis through which the Kashmiri migrants, or for that matter, the entire Kashmir, is passing is really the crisis of Indian values – the perversion, in practice, of its constitutional, political, social and moral norms. If I visited the camps of the refugees and tried to extend the firm hand of justice to a community in pain, if I instructed that, instead of cash doles, the migrant Government servants should be given leave salary, and if I conceded the demand of a widow of the person brutally killed by a terrorist, for allotment of a house on payment, I became communal, a known anti-Muslim, about whom concocted stories were planted in the press. If, on the other hand, someone falsely accused the Indian Army and the Governor’s administration, if he assailed Jagmohan in particular, of giving inducements through provisions of plots and trucks, without giving particulars either of plots or of trucks, his accusations got published all over the press, his reports were flaunted in national and international forums and were copiously quoted in Parliament by the members of your party and he was labeled as secular and progressive and champion of human rights and what not. Hard Evidence about ‘Jagmohan Factor’. I do not like to refer to anything that looks like indulging in self-praise. But not to let you get away with your calculated campaign of disinformation, about Jagmohan communal factor, I must invite attention to some hard evidence about what the people of the Valley actually thought about me before you and your proteges started the smear campaign on my appointment for the second term.

Your principal prop of current politics of Kashmir, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, was not to be left behind in the drive launched to create an ‘anti-Muslim’ image of mine. In his interview published in the Times of India of August 30, 1990, he said, “A known anti-Muslim was appointed as Governor of a Muslim majority state”. How untrue, how unfair, was the propaganda, should be obvious from the fact that on November 7, 1986, at the time of his swearing-in-ceremony, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, in a public speech for which the records exist, said: “Governor Sahib, we should need you very badly. It is, indeed, amazing that such remarkable work could be done by you in a short time through an imbecile and faction-ridden bureaucracy. If today three ballot boxes are kept – one for the National Conference, one for the Congress and one for you, your ballot box would be full while the other two ballot boxes would be empty”.

The misfortune of our country is that we have leaders like Dr. Farooq Abdullah who have no regard for facts or truth and whose superficiality is matched only by their unprincipled politics.

Incidentally, did it not strike you that Dr. Farooq was virtually accusing your late mother of being anti-Muslim because she was the Prime Minister when, in April 1984, a ‘known anti-Muslims’ was appointed for the first term, as ‘Governor of a Muslim majority State”?

Apparently in consultation with you, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, on February 15, 1990, issued a written statement to the press in Urdu in which he inter alia, said, “The Governor, in the personification of ‘Hallaqu’ and ‘Changez Khan’, is bent upon converting the valley into a vast graveyard. On account of continuous curfew since January 20, it is difficult to say how many hundreds of people have become victim of the bullets of the army and paramilitary forces, and in this general slaughter how many hundreds of houses have been destroyed. At this moment, when Kashmiris are witnessing their beloved country being converted into a vast graveyard. I appeal to the national and international upholders of humanity to intervene in Kashmir and have an international inquiry made into the general slaughter of Kashmiris at the hands of army and paramilitary forces”.

Here is your ‘patriot’ calling Kashmir “Aziz Wattan”, suggesting a separate country. Here is your ‘national leader’ asking for an international inquiry into the general slaughter of the Kashmiris by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces. Here is your ‘responsible friend’ speaking about the continuous curfew for 25 days in the valley and his consequent inability to find out many ‘hundreds of innocent and unarmed Kashmiris’ had been massacred and how many hundreds of Kashmiri houses razed to the ground, although he knew perfectly well that there had been a number of days when there was no day- curfew, partially or wholly, and the authorities had brought out the list of casualties, about 40 upto February 16, and were daily asking the public to provide with the additional names, if they had any, so that correction in the official list could be made. Here is an erstwhile Chief Minister who did not care to explain how ‘innocent and unarmed’ people were ruthlessly shooting down IAF officers, BSF jawans, senior officers of the Television and Telecommunications Department and young men in the streets; and how, while inciting people through lengthy and fiery statements, he did not find a single word to condemn such brutal murders.

Is the nation not entitled to know why you have not disowned such unfortunate behaviour on the part of Dr. Farooq Abdullah? And how do you account for his recent statement as published in The Times of India of February 7, 1991: ‘I directed my party men to lie low, go across the border, get training in arms handling; do anything but not get caught by Jagmohan’ ?

Stabbing me in the back at personal level, perhaps, did not matter. But by keeping the pot boiling, you your proteges prolonged the agony of Kashmir and caused many more deaths and much more destruction. The politics of unscrupulousness was brought to its lowest depth.

ROOTS: You once said, ‘I do not read history; I make history’. Apparently, you do not know that those who happen to make history without reading it, usually make bad history. They cannot understand the undercurrents and the fundamental forces that really shape the course of events and determine the ultimate destiny of a nation.

In the absence of historical perspective, you and the like of you never perceived the roots and tendrils, which gave rise to the current crop of separatism and subversion in Kashmir. Poisonous seeds were persistently planted in the Kashmir psyche. And these were liberally fertilised. Those of you whose obligation it was to stop these plantations and their fertilization, were not aware of even the elementary lesson of history; to compromise with the evil was only to rear greater evil; to ignore the inconvenient reality  was only to compound it; to bow before the bully was only to invite the butcher the next day.I could cite scores of cases to support my contention. Here I would restrict myself to only two examples.

Softness and Surrender. On October 2, 1988, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday his statue was to be installed in the new High Court complex at Srinagar. The function had been announced. The Chief Justice of India, R.S. Pathak, was to do the formal installation. But a few Muslim lawyers objected. They threatened to cause disturbance at the time of the function. The Chief Minister gave in, almost willingly, to the bullying tactics. The function was cancelled.

What are the implications of what happened ? A secular Kashmir, part of a secular India, could not have, even in its highest seat of justice, a statue of the Father of the Nation, of a sage, who laid down his life for communal harmony. Who was the person spearheading the move against the installation ? It was none other than Mohd. Shafi Bhat, an advocate of the J and K High Court and an active number of the National Conference, who was later on given party ticket for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in the elections held in November 1989 and with whom you kept warm company during your visit to Srinagar on March 7, 1990, to create as many difficulties as possible for Governor’s administration.

At that time there was National Conference (F) Congress (I) Ministry in office. Such was its lack of adherence to principles, such was the character of Congressmen who formed part of the Ministry and such was its disposition to cling to power that not even a little finger was raised when the function was cancelled.

The bully’s appetite could not have been whetted better. Intimidation could not have secured better results. The troublemakers could not have perceived a more casual and non- committed adversary. Was it not natural for them to nurture higher ambitions and think that more spectacular results could be achieved by deploying a more aggressive and threatening strategy ? Only a naive would believe that in the context of the Kashmir situation, softness and surrender on basic principles would not act as an invitation to terrorism and militancy.

The Union Government enacted the Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1988. It was made applicable to all the States of the Union except J and K. Because of Article 370, concurrence of the State Government was needed for extension of this law to the State. But the same was not given. Why ? Because J and K is different what an argument for having a law which aimed at eradication of misuse of religious premises for political purposes.

Nowhere was this law needed more than in the State of J and K. Nowhere were religious places misused more than here. Nowhere were seeds of fanaticism and fundamentalism sown every Friday more assiduoulsy than from the pulpits of the mosques here. Nowhere was it preached more regularly than here that Indian democracy was un-Islamic, Indian secularism was un-Islamic and Indian socialism was un-Islamic. And yet, neither the State Government which was ruled by two supposedly secular parties, nor the Union Government took the matter seriously. What intrigued the most was that the law which was considered good for 100 million Muslims in other parts of India, was not considered good for 40 lakh Muslims of Kashmir.

What was the use of the nationalist forces ruling the country when they would not act in national interest at all, when they remained mental slaves of the politics of communalism; when they were inclined to place reliance on words and not on deeds; when they did not lead, but succumbed; when they encouraged, and not defeated, separatist elements; when, instead of building a new society strong in human and spiritual values, they did everything, wittingly or unwittingly, to repair, renovate and strengthen the old decaying and smelly sitadel of obscurantism; and when they invariably gave precedence to expediency over the basic goals and principles of our Constitution ? What could be the result of all this? Did it require any unusual insight to understand where such imperious forces would take us?

I leave it to the well-wishers of the nation to consider, without any political or personal bias, a basic question. How was it that Dr. Farooq was calling me Hallaqu and Changez Khan, and you were travelling all the way to Srinagar to ‘expose’ me as anti-Article 370, anti-Kashmiri and anti-Muslim and, at the same time, Miss Benazir Bhutto was vowing to tear me to pieces – ‘Jagmohan ko Bhag-Bhag Mohan Kar Denge’ ?

There are many other facets of Kashmir’s truth which lie buried underneath the heaps of disinformation and also of superficiality and shallowness. These days I am busy in an attempt to remove some of these heaps. One day, I hope, the country will acquire the true perspective of the problem. The Kashmiri masses would also realise that I was their greatest well-wisher. I wanted to save them permanently from the exploitative oligarches and also from the machinations of religious ‘Czars’ and forces of obscurantism.

You have already committed the sin of letting down the Bharat Mata in Kashmir. Now do not add to it another sin of letting down the other Mata also. There is, after all, some power above. Conscious of her. She may condone your negligence. But she would not condone your sin of blaming an innocent person for what were your own faults, particularly when he had been persistently reminding you of your obligations.

So far as I am concerned, I am content with my gloomy pride of having done the correct thing in Kashmir. True, I seemingly and, perhaps, temporarily, lost the goodwill of some of the locals. But I was not seeking a certificate from anyone. I had gone for the second term to do a national duty.

The country’s polity and administration have assumed such a character that it has become incapable of solving from its roots, any serious problem. Elections have virtually lost all meaning. And these would continue to be meaningless until and unless Indian democracy and its constitutional structure acquires a healthy cultural base, a pure soul and soil, from which the seed of justice, truth and selfless service could sprout and blossom into a Great Tree providing shade and shelter from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Currently, the inner light is gone, and we are being led virtually by blind men with lanterns in their hands. We stumble from one crisis to another. As a poet says:

It has happened
and it goes on happening
and it will happen again.

With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Jagmohan

Reproduced from:
Converted Kashmir – Memorial of Mistakes
A Bitter Saga of Religious Conversion
Author: Narender Sehgal
Utpal Publications, 1994

Source :Kashmir Information Website

The ugly world of Kashmir’s online rebels – PRAVEEN SWAMI

“I know I’m sexy,” Srinagar resident Junaid Rafiqi proclaims on his Facebook page, below a professionally lit photograph that, among other things, shows off his possession of an expensive pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

He goes on with an enthusiasm unfettered by punctuation, spelling and grammar: “I got the looks that drives the girls wild I got the moves that really move them. I send chills up and down their spines” [sic., throughout and below].

Facebook users like Rafiqi have been sending chills down the spines of the police in Jammu and Kashmir for much of this summer. Much to the dismay of the authorities, social networks backing the cause of the Islamist-led protesters have proliferated on the Internet.

There is no evidence that social networks have been used to organise or fund the protests — but their content underlines concerns at the growing influence the religious right-wing has over the educated young people in Kashmir.

“We Hate Omar Abdullah,” a network Mr. Rafiqi often participates in, gives some insight into the world of Kashmir’s Facebook rebels. The network hosts a collection of political satire. There is, for example, a digitally-manipulated image of Paul, the celebrity octopus, picking a dead donkey over the Chief Minister in response to a question who has “more guts.”

But much of the satire is venomously communal. Mr. Abdullah is repeatedly referred to as “Omar Singh” — a derisory reference derived, evidently, from the rumour that his wife is Sikh. The former Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, is shown offering respects at a Hindu temple, while another image caricatures the Chief Minister and his wife as pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine. The administrators of the “We Hate Omar Abdullah,” quite clearly see politicians’ efforts to reach out to multiple religious communities as a betrayal.

“The Dalla [broker] family,” the Ray-Ban wearing Rafiqi asserts in one post on the Facebook page, “should be hanged publicly.” Elsewhere, he refers to Mr. Abdullah as a kafir, or unbeliever. In another post on the page, a member asserts that Mr. Abdullah has been denied permission for pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia because of his marriage — a canard circulated by Islamists soon after he took power.

Some networks host express calls to violence. “Everybody,” exhorts the administrator of “Times Now is Anti-Kashmiri,” “[the] next time you see any Times Now correspondent pick up a stone and throw that on their face!.” Arnab Goswami, the channel’s editor-in-chief, one user asserts, “should be killed.” Ethnic-Kashmiri anchor Mahrukh Inayet comes in for unprintable abuse targeting her gender.

Hate group created Facebook

Barkha Dutt, arguably India’s best-known English-language television journalist, also draws flak. “We hate Barkha Dutt” contains claims that her reportage on the clashes lacked balance. Much of it, though, consists of personal invective — and threats. “Hell is meant for her,” writes network member Faizan Rashid, “but she should have some kinna punishment in this world as well…‘stoned to death’…wot say?”

Facebook’s terms of use prohibit content that is hateful, threatening or incites violence. Little infrastructure, though, seems to be in place to enforce those terms.

Not all protest-linked networks promote these kinds of invective. Barring the odd comment about “Indian dogs,” “I Protest Against the Atrocities on Kashmiris” has no abusive language. Most posts on this network address questions of media bias and political grievances, not individuals.

Even networks like this, though, are remarkable for the complete absence of the very kinds of serious commentary and debate they believe is wanting in India’s mainstream print and electronic media.

There is no way of telling just who the participants on these sites are: users contacted by The Hindu, including Mr. Rafiqi, did not respond to requests to be interviewed. For the most part, though, users seem to be English-speaking and Kashmiri. Judging by their clothing and cultural idiom, are middle-class. Despite the aggressive religious chauvinism evident on the site, there is nothing to suggest substantial numbers of users support established Islamist clerics.

The police say most young people held on the charge of throwing stones do not have a high-school education, and are either unemployed or semi-employed — a class quite distinct from that of the Facebook radical.

More likely than not, official concerns at these networks is exaggerated: their scale and reach is tiny. “I Protest Against the Atrocities on Kashmiris” has 810 members — small numbers compared, for example, with the Palestine solidarity page “Palestine Freedom,” which has 101,178. “We Hate Omar Abdullah” has 675 members and “Civil Disobedience 2010-Quit Kashmir Movement” 134. “Bloody Indian Media,” set up to protest the reportage of the street violence in Srinagar, has 58.

It is possible, though, that the ideas they propagate reflect new ideological trends among some sections of young people in Jammu and Kashmir — a prospect which, if true, holds out a real reason for concern.

Source of written text : The Hindu

Hartal, freedom and future

So ,to begin with, after 20 years some saner minds have started to realize of how “Hurriyat” is bringing death to Kashmir

Strike & Violence is used by separatists to Talibanise Kashmir

Hartal*, freedom and future – Manzoor Anjum

By closing down all the schools, the leaders are pushing our next generation into an abyss of

Whatever is happening in Kashmir these days, people may have different explanations and descriptions for the same but fact of the matter is that whatever it is, it is intense. The fires that have engulfed the entire valley spread gradually. Life after life was lost and the fires of anger and pain continued intensifying.

If all the developments of the three weeks are looked at in a sequential manner, the results are shocking and surprising.

It seems there has been a pattern in whatever happened. To bring the situation to the boil, every killing took place at appropriate time; every protest was staged at appropriate time; every atrocity was committed at appropriate time and every demonstration was held at an appropriate time.

And this could have not happened without a proper planning. But how is it possible that two warring sides will have a joint strategy and planning. Then why this pattern, a question that may long for answers for times to come.

Fifteen precious lives were lost in two week’s time. Who is responsible – armed forces; government; those who instigated people or; peoples’ own anger and emotions? There are no answers and intention too is not to look for answers at this juncture. Important is to see what is happening next.

From three weeks life all over the Valley is paralysed. Sometimes it is the government curfew that cripples life, sometimes the civil curfew announced by separatists and imposed by stone pelters; Government relaxes curfew, stone pelters are again on the roads, protests are staged and thus again imposition of curfew and the deterioration continues unabated.

Both the factions of Hurriyat are eager to see the situation on boil. Both factions are in a race to take credit for protests and demonstrations. On the other hand, some angry youth are threatening leadership that if they call off strike, they (youth) would hoist Congress flag at Jama Masjid, Srinagar. Cowed down by such warnings, the leadership is trying to make it a ‘do or die’ situation. Dukhtran-e-Milat chief Asiya Andrabi threatens parents against sending their children to schools. Massrat Alam of Hurriyat (G) also tells people not to talk about education of children but to think of the children who have made sacrifices.

One wonders how could a nation, whose leaders are so averse to knowledge and education, dream of freedom. Knowledge is the power that makes humans distinguish between freedom and slavery – good and evil. Uneducated, illiterate and knowledge-less people can’t have any appreciation for freedom. They live in the abyss of ignorance where ideals like freedom, dignity and honour have no relevance.

And here are the leaders who deliberately and intentionally want to push our young generation into the abyss of ignorance and then have cheek to talk about freedom. If these leaders are barring Kashmiri children from seeking knowledge for some noble religious cause, let somebody tell them that it is the knowledge only that helps humans to recognize and accept Allah.

It is unfortunate that the leadership is listening to the voices which are too emotional, vocal and angry but fail to hear the voices of sanity and logic, which are in majority but not as vocal and loud as those of groups of emotional people.

Logic and reason fail to understand that how the unending strikes, that harm none but Kashmiris alone, would force India out of Kashmir. How long will the leadership go forcing the people to observe strikes and how long could people survive remaining confined to four walls of their homes.

Those who threaten to hoist Congress party flag on Jama Masjid (if the strike call is taken back) need to be told that it will make no difference which flag they hoist where. One can’t get freedom by hoisting flags of one colour and neither can one defeat the aspirations of people by hoisting flags of some other colour. What percentage of youth is on roads enforcing hartal and civil curfew? And are those who don’t join them not for resolution of Kashmir? No, they too are for it but the only difference is that the majority of the youth understand and appreciate that they can’t get freedom by pelting stones. They have to acquire knowledge and education so that they know what freedom means and then strive for that the way civilized people are supposed to do.

A few days back when curfew was relaxed in Srinagar areas, people thronged markets. Life seemed back on tracks with shops open and traffic plying on the roads. Suddenly groups of youth emerged on the scene. Stoned vehicles and shops and enforced strike. Does that mean whatever is happening is happening under pressure and people are not with the movement? No, that too is not true.

People have made huge sacrifices for resolution of Kashmir issue and therefore they can never be against the movement. But fact of the matter is that people are able to think more rationally and logically than the leadership. They understand that if the situation continues to be what it is today, the movement will die once for all. They know that freedom is not round the corner which could be reached out at by observing strikes for a few days. And also, the strikes can’t continue for months and years together. People know that to sustain freedom struggle it is a must that our children go to school and the situation remains normal. It is only in a normal situation that a nation evolves in a positive direction.

Unfortunately we have a crop of leadership here for whom their own relevance is more important than the broader struggle. To show that they matter and they are heard, this crop of leadership is hell bent upon breaking the back of the entire nation by imposing unabated restrictions. And interestingly this crop of leadership is helped in furthering their agenda by the government forces who too are obsessed with imposing restrictions.

On July 15, while on one hand the stone pelters were stoning vehicles in Srinagar to impose civil curfew, armed forces did the same to enforce their brand of restrictions. Armed forces are not allowing ailing people to reach hospitals and same is done by stone pelting youth. Neither government is having any sympathy for ordinary people and any respect for human rights nor these angry youth. Caught in a Catch-22 situation, the common people have become prisoners of the situation. They (people) have lost all hope in the government; in separatist leadership and also in these youth whom they, at one stage, viewed as messiahs.

The rich of the society have already send their children outside Kashmir for pursuance of education and those who hadn’t earlier are doing the same now. But the people who can’t afford to do so (and majority is of such people) are seeing themselves caught between devil and deep sea. The bleak future of their children stares right in their faces and they are watching helplessly.

When I was writing this column, Hurriyat (G) had issued a fresh calendar asking people to resume normal life on Saturday (July 17) but just till 2 p.m. For rest of the days, again programme of strikes, agitation, sit-in and protests has been given and coming Sunday has been exempted from strikes and protests and people have been asked to do shopping on that day.

It seems that those who have issued this calendar are in possession of some hidden treasure. They will protest for six days; not work and therefore not earn anything and still come out on the seventh day and do shopping. To do shopping, one needs money and to earn money, one needs to work. A worker does work for at least eight hours a day and then earns around two hundred bucks and in that money he can’t even buy sufficient vegetables for his family. Those who issue calendars seem unmindful of the armies of widows and orphans who have to struggle to earn a square-meal. And when they are forced to remain indoors for six days, wherefrom they will get money to shop on the seventh day?

I have no hesitation in saying that more than freedom it is every individual life that is important. We can have struggles, movements and revolutions only when we are alive but Hurriyat calendar seems taking the entire nation towards death. This calendar is a humiliation to the entire Kashmiri nation. This calendar can’t get freedom but just destruction.

The author is Editor of Daily Uqab and the article has been translated from Urdu.  Source : DailyKashmirImages

*Hartal : Mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience.

**More & more Kashmiris are rising against the forced strikes by Hurriyat and other separatists.

Hindu minority homeless in Kashmir – AjJazeera report

Al Jazeera’s Prerna Suri reports from Jammu & Kashmir about a Hindu minority left homeless by Islamic radicals and the demand of Hindu refugees for a separate Homeland in Kashmir

Confession of a mastermind behind stone pelting in Kashmir

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT

My name is Shabir Ahmed Wani S/o Ali Aziz Wani r/o of Narbal.

This Hurriyat takes out these processions through these small children and give them money which results in stone pelting. In this context I called Wasim Allahpuri on Wednesday whose actual names is Ghulam mohammed dar and is the district president of Tehrek-e-Hurriyat led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. I told him that there is a procession going on here and where he was. He complimented me and said that in this at least 10 to 15 people should get martyred so that the pot (demonstration) keeps boiling..as in the disruptions continue. This is basically tehrek-e-Hurriyat which gives money and brainwash also some of the kids as they want that the situation should not improve at all in this place.

Question : Who is this Ghulam Mohammed Dar?
He is the district president of Tehrek-e-Hurriyat and before this he was a militant of Hizbul Mujahideen and was known as Wasim Allahpuri.

Is he the man who incites mobs ?

Yes he is the person who is responsible for taking out processions through small children which results in stone pelting and subsequent tears gas shelling from the other side resulting in killing of innocents

Kashmir Violence -Media Instigators from Pakistan

In my last post I had proved of how LeT, JuD and Hurriyat activists are actively promoting hatred and anti India activities through facebook.

Today I am again presenting to my readers some interesting facts promoted by Pakistan based media , the intent remains the same. Here is one of them which operates under the domain http://www.kmsnews.org

KMSNEWS provides some statistics of killings which have happened in Kashmir since 1989.  Here is a screen shot of same.

If one goes by the above figures , which are often quoted by separatists in the valley , we need to believe that

• 13 people have been killed in Kashmir everyday without a fail for last 20 years , not even a moron would believe it.
• It claims over One lac seven thousand have been orphaned in the valley , but the total killed are less than that figure. That means more than 10 thousand siblings lost a parent , and rest 90,000 or more also lost a parent. I guess the KMS editorial havent studied mathematics.
• The mathematics of KMS proves that of those who were killed around 22,728 were married and rest of 70,547 bachelors….
• And the data ends with statistics of around 1 women raped/ molested each day since last 20 years.
• Considering 107,351 children orphaned and 22,728 widows , makes out that each married person who dies had average 5 children.

Many of my friends who have different ideologies would believe these statistics. It is people like these , who receive huge some of money from certain quarters, and whose main job is to keep the valley burning and ensuring that peace doesn’t return.

On further check up , I found out that the website is run by one Mr Tajammul Islam from Islamabad, Pakistan. It doesnt surprise me to see a ‘foreign hand in this’. Check below the registration details ..

‘Hidden’ Facebook instigators ! They dont want a peaceful valley

Just check out this wall message on Facebook. Peace returning back to valley scares the separatists, and thay have employed scores of youth to instigate and doctrine more youths into the Jihadi Movement . In the first screen shot you would find Lashkar E Tayiba / JuD [ Jamat Ul Dawa ] activists distributing Jihadi videos and asking the activists to play these over the loudspeakers of the Mosques.

In the second screenshot , a separatist is worried about failing support and exploring the method of emotional blackmail.

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Mr Geelani, were you served biriyani for the day?

Mr Geelani, were you served biriyani for the day? -Dr Sanjay Parva

Geelani & Biryani

More than a decade-and-a-half back I was on a photographic assignment to Fatepur Shekhawati, a town in Sikar district of Rajasthan, known for its exquisite havelis and frescos. It was a beautiful, wintry but sunny Friday afternoon at the bus adda in Jaipur. When the bus didn’t leave at its stipulated Rajasthan Roadways timing, I went to the driver to ask why he was delaying the departure. “I am sorry for the delay, bhaisahab,” he said politely and pointing towards a remote corner on the platform, he added, “Some countrymen are offering their Friday namaz.” As I turned around, I found some 8 to 10 Muslims offering namaz in a seamless queue and in perfect synchrony. It was a sight to behold, and to be honest I loved it. For a Muslim in India, and that too in a state like Rajasthan, where Advani et al had left no stone unturned spewing venom against Muslims some years before that on Babri issue, it was azadi at its best.

Since it was only a few years before this incident that I had become a so-called Kashmiri migrant (some Indian dhoti-clad, paan-spitting politicians still call us refugees, not knowing the difference between the two; but that is another story, not debatable here), my instant reaction to this incident was that the bus driver is a Muslim. I could not hold my inquisitiveness and asked him if he was himself a Muslim. Pat came the reply, “I am a Hindu.” Needless to say, I had asked a ridiculous question.

More than a decade-and-a-half later, and some 3 weeks back, as I was taking pictures around old Amirakadal in Srinagar, I found this little boy of around 8-9 years jumping into almost every other frame till he caught me perfectly into one that I intended to have this gloomy-looking but typically-smiling man (a trait wed to Kashmiris – both Pandits and Muslims – despite pain and parch) in thirties selling fresh currency notes in exchange for the old, torn-out currency.

The boy was impressive and innocent, likable to the core, and rather than dissuading him from doing his lovable mischief, I tried to strike a chord with him. Reluctant and shy in the beginning, he walked a step towards me later. “You look pretty smart in the picture,” I complimented. He smiled and came one more step closer, his cheeks growing pink. “Do you want to see how you look?” I asked. “Aa hawkhe haz,” he asked as if doubtful. As I handed over the camera to him for a live view, his doubts shrank and trust grew more. Looking at himself he smiled and tried to frolic away; but before he would, I asked him if he was studying. He gave a vertical nod first and soon effaced it with a horizontal one; seemed to be in no mood to take another question on the topic and freed himself from my grasp and went out of sight.

Long after the incident, the boy was lingering on my mind and I wondered what his hybrid nod meant. Did he mean he was enrolled in a school but because of frequent hartals and official/ unofficial closures he was infrequent to attend; or did he mean school, as it used to be, was nomore a basic right of children in the Valley? I cannot and must not presume answers for this dilemma; because I leave that to Syed Ali Shah Geelani and men and women of his ilk who are so blinded by their personal aspirations and interests that for young boys as these they feel it is wise to let them march from post to pillar instead of encouraging them to go to school. For innocent boys as these – sadly some of whom fell prey to bullets recently – this certainly is not azadi of any sensible kind.

However, for people like Syed Ali Shah Geelani this must be azadi of the very true and ‘kind’ kind. Diagnosed with renal cancer he knows no other country (not to speak of a bankrupt nation as Pakistan) could have been as sumptuous on him as India by providing him free sarkari biriyani and free medical treatment throughout his detentions and doing everything to defy God’s will and keep him up and running against the nation itself. Azadi, for him, is his best weapon to incite vulnerable parents of the Valley to deprive their children of the previous gift of education, exploit youth to pick stones, take out procession and alas, destroy their own futures by what can never be a fulltime, honorable profession; so much so that youth of the Valley have found a good pastime in sanghbazi until CRPF retaliates.

For Syed Ali Shah Geelani azadi, as a Urdu word, would be more sweeter than Kashmiri phirni, since it is this word that helps him blackmail India and extract money from Pakistan to prevent his own fortunes from plummeting. There are reports that Hurriyat chairman has received a whooping 80 crore rupees ever since the “struggle for self-determination” began. Hurriyat is once believed to have remarked that the money was “collected” for “relief and rehabilitation” of “militancy-affected people of the Valley”. Relief and rehabilitation? One may ask where and what did they rehabilitate so far. And can one expect relief and rehabilitation from a party that incites hapless Kashmir’s to come out in to streets, pick stones with an intention to kill or get killed in the process. All this looks preposterous; it may be a human being on one or another side of the fence; at the end of it all, it is someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s husband and someone’s loved one that departs.

It has become an irony in Kashmir that when a sanghbaz gets killed, people who initiate him into the most medieval act actually convey his dear ones a message that he was worth just Rs 50 to 150 a day. Well-meaning, thoughtful people of the Valley realize this; some even want to speak out since they believe it is time to be in peace rather than turmoil, but they can’t since either they fear elimination or don’t have a platform to do so. History is also testimony to the fact that evil spreads fast; trampling goodness on its way.

Goodness in the Valley has been strangulated; but fortunately still prevails. People at the grassroots, irrespective of being rich or poor, still beat with a warm heart; they welcome you, they hug you and they respect you as a fellow human being, a fellow Kashmiri from whom they had departed 20 years ago. Matchless hospitality, as against azadi, runs through these people’s veins. Such people – during my personal and innumerable interactions with them – have come as a ray of hope who might keep the impeccable Kashmiriyat alive.

The general perception that I gather is that people of this understanding are well-informed about all aspects of the Valley as it stands ruined post-terrorism now and as it was beautifully flourishing before murderers started getting glorified post-1990s. That must bring Kashmiri awam to Yasin Malik, whom money accumulated from terrorism landed him from a congested Maisuma Bazar house to a plush new bungalow in Maisuma, not to speak of commercial buildings, hotels, and investments in real estate not only in Kashmir but in United Kingdom also. Renunciation of violence, as he has done, after accumulating so much of fortune is a natural and safe recourse from the movement that took lakhs of lives in what he had promised as “separation of Jammu & Kashmir from secular India as an Islamic Nation”. Ironically the guy who can barely speak sense, whenever he opens his mouth, says now he is looking for “peaceful methods to come to a settlement on the Kashmir conflict.” Sadly no one questions his integrity that he had shown earlier, no one dares him ask his accountability for the personal fortunes he has built over the dead. Average, hapless Kashmiri has been and still is at the receiving end; his mind practically a hostage to a misled thought emerging from a perverted mind. The trend is fatal, and if it continues parents would wish in future if only they could have reverse the past for their children’s good.

Bytheway, it is Friday again, and across the length and breadth of the country devout Muslims would be offering juma namaz peacefully (and surely in complete azadi) in thousands of mosques. In the Valley, however, menacing concertina wires have been put up to prevent any human movement. A friend calls me up and says he has run out of milk and vegetables for lunch; and in the same breath (almost as a salute to his Kashmiriyat) he asks me if I needed anything? I tell him I can live on just oxygen-rich air nonstop for at least 76 hours; but am seriously worried about Geelani whether or not he was served in time his regular biriyani for the day ….

Innocent ! As they claim if they die in action .

Usually the security forces are blamed in Kashmir for deaths of children and women who die in a police action. People claim the victims as innocent. Have a look …the kid hardly looks 10 year old..

June Protest - picture source CNN-IBN

Ever seen a HARTAL calendar ? In Kashmir they have one

Produced below is a “Hartal” Calendar issued by Hurriyat , a Islamic fundamentalist organisation claiming to represent people of Kashmir.

These are the people who do not wish normalcy to return to Kashmir .  The calendar is worth laughing.

Stone Pelting – A lucrative business in Kashmir

Over the past few years, militancy in Kashmir has been on a dwindle. Top police sources reveal that this has caused considerable unease among separatist leaders, who find it hard to justify the flow of funds that comes their way through various channels including hawala. The diversion of funds to troublemakers who instigate the youth to confront security personnel has been a convenient way out for them. – Open Magazine