Kashmir

Kashmir, a Divided State: Two Religions, One Ethnicity

By Adrienne Frieden

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For many centuries, the Kashmir Valley was peacefully occupied by both the Muslims and the Pandits. These two communities lived together relatively harmoniously, although each community maintained a strong sense of both Kashmiri identity and religious identity. Despite their successful co-occupation, the intermingling of these two communities never reached the point of true social cohesion and intermixing. Since the 1947 British de-colonization and the settlement establishing the creation of separate Indian and Pakistani states, the Kashmir region and its people have become ever more ethnically divided and polarized. The territorial division that currently stands, involves a small sliver of the region belonging to Pakistan (Azad Jammu and Kashmir), while the majority of the territory is under India rule (Indian Jammu and Kashmir), including the highly prized Kashmir Valley, as well as the Buddhist region of Ladakh. One of the most influential consequences of this division is the strengthening of separate ethnic identities and the end to peaceful ethnic co-habitation in the region.
Once the state of Jammu and Kashmir was established as an autonomous state, ethnic minority-majority relations came under direct pressure. Sheik Abdullah, elected Prime Minister in 1948, successfully united the Muslim community stressing a Kashmiri identity over the religious and initiating the azaadi (freedom) movement for an independent Kashmir. However, he never successfully gained the support of the Hindu-Pandits. Thus, the initial political divisions began. The Pandit population feared an independent Kashmiri state led by the majority Muslim population. This anxiety pushed them further towards the Hindu population in Jammu and alignment with the Indian government. For the Pandit population, simple state autonomy under the larger Indian federal government was not enough to diminish their fears and concerns of a Muslim majority; so they sought complete integration into the Indian Nation.

A Former Colony’s Division Divides Muslims and Pandits

The 1947 partition of India marked the split in the Kashmiri people’s historical narratives and the 1989-1990 instability cemented this division. No longer did the Kashmiri history follow just the story of the valley, but the diasporic populations as well. The Kashmiri Pandit historical timeline is characterized by a very different set of decisive events. The Pandit population has occupied the Valley for centuries. Their prime era of strength and proliferation was during the pre-Islamic era. Yet ever Islam began to spread and take hold within the Valley, the Pandits have been persecuted. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the height of discrimination occurred. The people were targeted and oppressed by Muslim rulers while hundreds of their temples were destroyed. Thus they began to migrate elsewhere and their numbers within the Valley diminished. However, since the 13th and 14th centuries, the minimal Pandit population has been able to live in relative harmony with the Muslim population. The 1947 division created a new situation for the Pandit minority though. Their timeline stresses the rise of Sheikh Abdullah as the commencement of the new Pandit oppression.

One of the first important reforms he implemented was the redistribution of land. From the Pandit perspective, Abdullah took land primarily belonging to the Hindu-Pandits, and redistributed it among the Muslim population, while providing the Pandits with no compensation for their losses. Furthermore, Abdullah fought for better education and jobs, but solely on the behalf of the Muslims. The final breaking point for the Pandit population was the violence and ethnic persecution that erupted in 1989. Farooq Abdullah, Sheikh Abdullah’s son and head of state at the time, was unable to control the government and in particular the rise of militant Islamic parties. The Kashmiri Islamic militants, as well as foreign militants crossing over the Line of Control from Pakistan, began attacking the Pandit population. Throughout the winter of 1989 and the early months of 1990, prominent Pandit academics and businessmen were targeted and killed. Threats against the population proliferated and fear spread rapidly. Hundreds of thousands of Pandits fled the valley. This vast refugee migration has by many nations been deemed the result of ethnic cleansing. More than a decade later, 200,000 Kashmiri Pandits are still living in refugee camps in Jammu.

In contrast, a list of important historical events for the Muslims looks entirely different from that of the Pandits. They would stress the quick disintegration of their autonomy as granted by the Indian constitution, Article 370. In 1948, after the division of India and Pakistan, Sheikh Abdullah was elected Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. However in 1953, he was removed from his position under claims that he no longer held the majority of his cabinet members, was granted no opportunity to disprove these false claims, and was immediately imprisoned. This, from the Kashmiri Muslim perspective, was the beginning of a string of Delhi imposed puppet regimes, denying the right of the Kashmiris to elect their own leader. In an attempt to maintain stability within their country, as well as prevent succession, India continues to try to maintain control over this sector of their nation. As a result, censorship, election rigging, and suppression of the opposition has became the norm, dominating the political scene since.

Beyond the political disenfranchisement, it has been the daily violence and military presence within the Valley which dominates the Kashmiri Muslim memory. Because the Kashmir Valley is the truly prized and highly valued region, it is here where the Muslims live that the violence and fighting has really taken place. The Muslim Militant fighters, most often trained in Pakistan, who have caused innumerable deaths and imposed a string of terror, have been the targets of the Indian Army. The invisibility of these militant forces in contrast to the clear Indian Army presence, has led the Kashmiri Muslims to perceive the Indian paramilitary troopers not as their protectors, but their occupiers. It is their guns, their uniforms, their sand bunkers that now dominate the valley landscape, and it is in their hands that 10,000 Kashmiri Muslims have disappeared.
As one looks at these two histories, it comes as no surprise that when one asks the same question in the two capital cities of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the responses are entirely disparate. What do you want for the future of Jammu and Kashmir? The answer within the Valley is almost unanimously “secession from India.” Yet the answer on the Jammu side of the state is an overwhelming “complete integration with India.” The longer each population continues to live in their own distinct communities, segregated from the other ethnic groups, the harder the process of re-cohesion becomes. It is imperative that these communities begin to work together and interact on some level to prevent a permanent division of the two groups both claiming a Kashmiri identity.