A recently read book,
Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits; by Rahul Pandita,
brought forth much anguish and horror of events that are comparatively recent past, which seems to repeat a dark period of recent history, of Europe before WWII and not merely Europe at that. There were horrors in Europe, but there were famines in India and Ireland that were due to armies being fed with harvest taken away from populace, with millions dead. This was done in Ukraine and generally USSR too, with many many more millions dead.
And all this apart from the massacres, the people driven away from homes, the theft of their properties, and more.
These events ought to have stopped post WWII but did not - in fact, it seems people copy such horrors, perpetrate them, and worse. What is more those perpetrators go about with propaganda in force about how they are victims of discrimination and humanitarian rights being violated, by precisely those that they themselves are perpetrating horrors against. What is all the more incredible is, they seem to get away with it.
This book is about one such spot in time and place, Kashmir, and the atrocities perpetrated against Hindus in Kashmir, by outsiders with consent or silence of their neighbours the majority, and it is a history at once personal and universal. The author describes his own and his family's life and story, and others he knew or otherwise, along with a brief description of illustrious history of Hindu populace of Kashmir that faced onslaught, terror, massacres, and worse, for centuries, from invaders who did it in name of their faith but in reality intended only to steal land and other property and kill and rape and loot.
This whole episode that is recent is framed very well in context of the history and geography of such atrocities, committed by these same terrorists and other similar people in the name of this so called faith, through history in Kashmir (and needless to say throughout rest of India as it was before "partition" to give away parts of India to the fanatics), as well as atrocities perpetrated throughout west and central Asia around the same time as they were happening in events focused on in this book.
Kashmir is the northernmost state of India whether before or since the partition, and its proximity to central Asia makes it perhaps more vulnerable. This whole region of central and west Asia has been swept across by various militaries seeking world domination, from Attila the Hun and other Mongols and in between by Arab and Turkic and other invaders. There was a short period in history when the locals were comparatively dormant and European empires were in control, and there was a small chance to establish peace that was missed.
Once it was a political play between various empires, England and Russia and Turkey and France, to control what they variously named Near East, Levant, or otherwise. The objective of the so called Great Game was to control the landmass from Mediterranean to India - that is, India as it had always been understood since antiquity until 1947, before it was "partitioned" to suit "religious" fanatics who could not live with "others" but insisted anyway on occupying others' lands and then killing them.
This was especially important to England for not losing the so called Jewel in the Crown that was India. So they played it better than others, divided the various lands, and India too before they had to leave. This last bit meant creating a new "nation" that was in no way different from India except it was given over to the fanatics who would kill thousands in name of faith, with really the lust for killing and theft driving them more than anything else, by carving up India and thereby encouraging the killings. India the new, truncated land found it hard to come together but she did, and the thorns or bullets were various pieces dominated by the fanatics either because a ruler was of them (even if majority in that state was not), or else because a good proportion but not necessarily majority was of them (those states where majority were of them were already given to the new carved out portion, whether they wished or not, for example the Frontier Province, now renamed Waziristan, as most parts in the carved out piece are often redivided and at the very least renamed, just so no one could without confusion refer to them).
And this became an immediate danger to newly independent India, what with so called "tribals" revolt in Kashmir, which in reality was nothing but tribals from outside Kashmir - from the newly carved piece of India - being sent along with military support, to destabilise India in every way, beginning with attacks on Hindu populace to continue, after a million or so killed so more could be induced to leave and the new "nation" was limited to one religion.
Kashmir however had a monarch who saw finally the wisdom of accepting India instead of his wish to be separate as a nation, and once accession was signed Indian military could protect Kashmir. This, the new nation of Pakistan understood, could only be changed by the usual tactics of old since a millennia - attack, lie, propaganda, massacres, deny attacks - rather than the new civil ways of UN and appeals.
Kashmir had been at the receiving end of attacks and massacres by muslims from north and west as long as rest of India had, and populations had been massacred and converted at sword point for that millennia and more. And now the case for "majority" of population in Kashmir was made by Pakistan, with no thought to the question of what if India used the same thinking and insisted only majority live in India.
This book is the documented tale of the most recent decades and the horrors suffered by Hindu populations in Kashmir at hands of terrorists, armed with money and weapons provided freely by US that were meant for throwing out USSR from Afghanistan (never mind the reality of the invitation to USSR by the then Afghan ruler to help him control just such Islamic terror in his nation), with false propaganda and more. False, because most Hindus of the northwest and north, or east, were thrown out and had to relocate to India as refugees, only due to massacres they suffered at hands of such terrorists who changed locals, their neighbours and friends, into beasts of horror more often than humanitarian helpers (yes, the latter happened too, and this author acknowledges it as much as any other Indian, including refugees who had to flee for life). If not for such horrors, not only Kashmir but both Pakistan and Bangladesh would not be as devoid of people of other religions as they now are. India has people of more religions than perhaps even the rest of the world and so would have been both these pieces carved out of India.
The horrors faced by Kashmiri Hindus match those of Germany during and before WWII in every way, and the only difference apparent is of organisation - Germans were more organised than anyone else as they always are at everything material; and the terrorists entering Kashmir whether locals converted via sojourn into pakistan for the purpose of terror indoctrination or total strangers from as far as Levant and Africa arriving to wreak havoc on hapless peaceful intellectuals, farmers and people of other such occupations, these terrorists were all too primitive and without any shame about their main purpose being kill, rape, loot.
Importance of this work is of documentation, of these horrors they faced in their homeland in Kashmir, at hands of neighbours and strangers, and also of documentation of the superb history of the Hindu populace of Kashmir and their achievements in realms of knowledge and more.
What is also a horror is how these people's travails were ignored for the two decades that saw propaganda against Hindus in another part of India, and against persecution of muslims of Bosnia. It is as if Hindu were of least importance, not only in an era when US became supreme and Russia lost the great game finally on world stage, but also in their own homeland.
That India is secular is merely due to precisely this characteristic being an integral part of Hindu religion where any path to Divine is considered as good as any other, and conversion an unnecessary idiocy. Fact remains that even if India is officially secular and the only officially Hindu nation is the tiny Nepal, over a billion Hindus of India and diaspora across the world has no other homeland other than India. So this second class citizenship in one's own homeland politically, in fact albeit not de jure, via the rule of past decades and due media falling in step with powers behind on world stage, only makes it a subdued horror for the whole populace on a level that Kashmir Hindus suffered for a long time on a far more open level.
One ought to thank whatever powers made it possible for the author to document this tale, if one cares about such matters as truth, over and above the propaganda and powers and swords dangling at throats if one so cares.
