Sarmad - the naked heretic

“When a heart is vulnerable to love, the darner’s needle acts as efficaciously as the executioner’s axe in slicing it down the middle… It seems that the simple Iranian trader, with an intensely lonely heart, was desperately looking for a buyer. When he felt the thrill of discovering one, he did not bother to find out who he was and what he offered in exchange. That a precious commodity (his heart) was desired by a pair of magical eyes, was enough reason for celebration. The deal was clinched.”

(Except from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s Urdu essay ‘Sarmad Shaheed’)

Contrary to the syncretic image which Sufi preachers enjoy, almost all without fail preached Islam, many fought Jihad for the Sultans and none parroted the Hindu belief of all religions being the same. What did set apart many of the Sufi preachers from their more puritanical counterparts was their relative benignity and unorthodoxy which in some ways, did not seem to conform fully to the Shariah.

What is noteworthy is that inspite of a popular imagery of conflict with puritanical Islam, hardly any major Sufi mystic was punished for heresy in India, even during the reigns of orthodox Sultans like Firuz Shah or Aurangzeb. Most of the times, the persecution of a particular Sufi mystic, e.g. Mansur Al-Hallaj of the Abbasid Caliphate followed more from political conflicts rather than on issues pertaining to religion. And why would it be? When right from the tenth century, it had been settled in Islamic jurisprudence that Sufi sects are true believers and act in conformity to principles of Islam.

Of the handful of Sufis who did not die on battlefield or of old age, the name of Muhammad Sa‘id Sarmad Kashani stands out. The tales around Sarmad are interesting for many reasons.

Probably born a Jew in the Iranian city of Kashan, Sarmad, in course of his trade, reached Thatta, a major port in Sind. There he fell in love with Abhai Chand, an inordinately beautiful sixteen year old son of a rich trader. Understandably horrified by the idea of a middle aged man seemingly lusting for his son, the trader sent his son away. Overcome by the shock of this act of Abhai’s father, Sarmad gave away all his belongings to the point of discarding his clothes. In his nude state, he sat at the door of Abhai’s house for days.

Abhai’s parents were touched by Sarmad’s act of renunciation. Convinced that his love for their son was genuine, they allowed Sarmad to take him under his tutelage. As surprising as this may sound today, this is what the tradition says.

Apparently, Sarmad never cared to cover himself ever again, let his hair and nails grow and became, at least in the physical sense, one of the many wandering mendicants of India. Accompanied by Abhai, he moved across India, to Lahore, to Hyderabad in Deccan before setting up his base in Delhi.

Dara Shikoh took a fancy to him and Sarmad proclaimed an impending victory to Dara in the war of succession. However, Dara lost, was captured, publicly humiliated and killed. Soon after his coronation, Aurangzeb put Sarmad to trial on 2 charges, nudity which was haram as per Islam and for refusing to recite the complete shahada. Sarmad would stop his recitation at “La Ilaha,” which means there is no God. He refused to recite the rest of it (Illallah, Muhammad-ur Rasul Allah) as he claimed that he was still absorbed with the negative part and won’t tell a lie.

For this heresy, Sarmad was beheaded on the steps of Jama Masjid. Miraculously, his cleaved head recited the complete shahada, indicating that he had completed his search and found God!

While this is the tale, more that the story itself, it is its treatment by many, which makes Sarmad Kashani such an interesting figure.

In popularity, Sarmad hardly stands anywhere even remotely close to the Chishtis and Aulias of India. His shrine is a small domeless structure, opposite Gate no 2 of Jama Masjid. Sarmad shares his resting place with Hare Bhare Shahm another Sufi mystic. The mazaar does not attract many visitors and even the locals identify the structure more with Hare Bhare Shah rather than Sarmad Shahid.

Sarmad has not left behind any order, any prominent murid or even any significant body of work. Though feted by Dara and probably respected well enough by the general public, there is little evidence that Sarmad was a very influential figure even in his prime. True, he was an accomplished poet and has left behind 300-odd Rubaiyyat in Persian. 

Exquisitely crafted, many of these can be read simply as a tribute of his love for Abhai Chand.

My heart is again lost in love for a beautiful one;

It is lost in desire and grief for the sweet-faced one;

I’m old but my heart still has the strength of youth,

That is, in autumn it blooms like spring. (from Asiri 1950, No. 71)

At the same time, Sarmad also composed more sublime verses in praise of God

Though He knows about my sins well,

Yet He calls me every moment to the table of His bounties,

I contemplated much about my hopes and fears,

And [I found] He is kinder to me than to all others (from Asiri 1950, No. 125)

Yet, the fact remains that many of Sarmad has had very limited impact on evolution of spiritual thoughts in the Sufi order in India. Many of his contemporaries despised Sarmad’s devotion as naẓar ilā-l-murd, love for the beardless boy and today, hardly are people aware of him.

Hence, it is quite interesting to note that almost all works by foreign authors on Sufi traditions in Delhi, or those works which explore history of alternate sexuality, celebrate the tale of Sarmad Kashani.

For someone who lived his life in the most unorthodox of manners, it would be most galling to note that after death, each of the groups have moulded his tale to suit their own prejudices.

If we discount miracles, the story of the severed head of Sarmad reciting the full Shahada only serves to affirm that the killed was not an apostate but a true believer, that death showed him the truth which he could not comprehend in life. Sarmad did not hide his unconventional love anytime when he was alive.

In religion, o Sarmad, you have created a strange confusion,

As you have offered your faith to the intoxicating eyes (of the Beloved)

With all humility and politeness you approached

And offered all your gains to the idol-worshipper. (from Asiri 1950, No. 326)

Yet, in death, all those who have accepted him have morphed his life to suit their own sensibiities. For the conservative, his love for Abhai is the love of a father for his son (as per fakirs frequenting the shrine). Some prefer to align it more with conventional Sufi percepts where the God is loved as a lover. Hence, arch-conservatives like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad could navigate around his forbidden love through use of the following imagery - “Thatta was Sarmad’s Mount Sinai… it was a Hindu boy whose divine glance cast a spell over Sarmad.” (from Azad’s Urdu essay ‘Sarmad Shaheed’). For the self-professed liberal, he is a blazing symbol of same-sex love in medieval India while for some others, he is an emblem of diversity inherent to Indian people. Perhaps the most benign of all these assimilations is that of the lay devotee, who sublimely unaware of Sarmad's sexuality or politics, comes to his shrine with a simple hope of getting their wishes fulfilled.

In a history full of warrior Sufis, proselytizing Sufis, orthodox Sufis and Sufis who either waged Jihad themselves or invited foreign rulers to wage Jihad on al-Hind, Sarmad Kashani stands apart for being a mendicant who had little time for matters other than love. From all accounts, Abhai Chand remained a Hindu and Sarmad’s own verses were at times ambiguous as regards his own convictions.

O Sarmad! Thou hast won a great name in the world,

Since thou hast turned away from infidelity to Islam.

What wrong was there in God and His Prophet

That you hast become a disciple of Lacchman and Rama? (from Asiri 1950, No. 334)

Was Sarmad truly a saint? No, if we want proofs of miracles. His own prediction of Dara Shikoh’s victory was proven false and he tried to cover it up by proclaiming “God has given him eternal sovereignty and my promise is not falsified.”

But moving away from miracles, if we see conviction, absence of pretensions and renunciation as a proof of sainthood, then the mere fact that Sarmad Kashani remained steadfast to his beliefs even at the altar of death, makes him deserving for respect.

Among his last lines were:

There was an uproar and we opened our eyes from eternal sleep

Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again

The nakedness of the body was the dust of the road to the friend

That too was severed, with the sword, from our head

History is many a times a fantasy filled game of ‘what-ifs’. What if Dara Shikoh had won the war of succession? Would Sarmad then have enjoyed renown rivaling better known Sufis. Difficult to say, but unlikely. Sarmad was too much of a heterodox to be accepted whole-heartedly in any order.

In the words of American historian Waldemar Hansen, Sarmad is one of those profoundly disturbing mystics whom only the East could produce and perhaps only India could tolerate”

And toleration is far-far away from veneration.

The very reason why Sarmad’s story is fascinating is that it is one of its kind. Neither his philosophy, nor his acts and definitely not his life is a representation of Sufism in India. He should be studied, if for nothing, if only to confirm that India is indeed a land where even caricatures are real, where unbelievable gets believed in and where the impossible happens.

Reference: Sarmad: Life and Death of a Sufi by Natalia Prigarina (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russia).

Who wants development?

Young India voted for development! People want development! India wants development! Development over divisive politics! Development over polarisation!

Media’s urge to simplify yet sensationalise, leads to catchy phrases, one-liners and homilies.  While good for dazzling headlines, on most occasions, these are but a lazy apology of any analysis. Yet, in what is reflective of the times we live in, large sections of the ‘thinking’ population seem to buy whatever is peddled in the name of ‘news’ which on most occasions are views formed of rigid ideologies and half-baked analysis.

So, even the most serious of issues is reduced to sloganeering – rising complaints of rape means India has a ‘rape culture’ even when investigative analysis from The Hindu shows that a large number of complaints being lodged today relate to minors eloping and love/live-in going bad.  A series of foreign visits by the Prime Minister get hailed as symptomatic of India’s claiming its ‘rightful’ place in the galaxy of nations, when there is no outcome which could support such delusion. A Laloo Prasad Yadav still gets spoken of as the Railway turnaround man, when his financial jugglery and mismanagement only pushed Railways to greater decline. The list is endless.  The media persists in simplifying issues even if it means extreme dumbing down, because a simple message is easy to communicate.

Other than rare circumstances, no elections are won or lost on a single issue alone.  UPA did not win 2004 because of India Shining alone. Likewise, BJP did not win on the plank of economic development alone.  Development yes, economic development alone, no! Some voted in hope of developing more secure borders, some for a less corrupt polity, some for Hindutva, some for a better life. The way National independence meant different things to different people, the same way, people voting for change expected different things from both the victors and losers.

Yet, for argument’s sake, let us assume that the Indian masses voted for economic development alone. Now in the last six months, the country has experienced quite a lot of Modi. Modi coined acronyms, Modi - the pop star, Modi – the charmer, Modi – the u-turn man, the silent-on-Sangh-Parivar-atrocities Modi, yada yada. These days, the MSM is brims over with wails on how the loony fringe (read RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, any Hindutva related organization) is diluting Government’s focus on development. Some more voices menacingly speak of how this is the ‘real’ agenda, development being hogwash! Some others bemoan that while the country voted for and is waiting for ‘development’, Modi government is sidestepping its responsibilities. That rather than ‘divisive issues’ getting sidelined, they are dominating ‘development’.

Again, for argument’s sake, let us assume that the media-imagined binaries do exist. Let us suspend our judgement and agree to the ominous assertion that what is not false must necessarily be true, that that is not yet must certainly be no. Let us, go with the MSM assertions since it has abrogated to itself, the right to act as the Nation’s moral guardian (even if morality is otherwise akin to a swear word).

Having accepted each of MSM’s assertion, can we ask them (MSM) if they are interested in development?

No one can blame MSM of lacking guts when it comes to pushing its agenda or campaigning for issues which are close to its heart. Be it the asinine Aman ki Asha or the venomous coverage of riots. For the last few months, the MSM has sharpened its missionary zeal to ‘discover’ attacks on secularism. No issue can be declared minor or irrelevant when the ‘idea of India’ is at stake and so, for months now, we have had apoplectic chatterati, screaming till they are blue in the face, that the RSS (worse than ISIS) is destroying secularism. Whether it is a case of a pastor clashing with a drunk marriage party, a suspected case of arson at a church, change of ICHR head, off-the-cuff remarks on history by sundry personalities, usage of some not-so-kosher terms by a minister, praise of an assassin, re-conversions, the MSM has admirably (in its own way) held aloft the flagging flag of secularism.

Pray, if the MSM is really interested in economic development, which is claims is getting sidestepped, where exactly is its outrage? When has it tried to put Modi Government on mat on the issue of development? This Government, after railing against UPA policies, has taken enough u-turns to resemble a UPA 3 government. A large number of questionable actions taken by this Government (changing rules for individuals, tinkering with railway fares through executive orders, gas pricing, political appointees in constitutional posts, etc.) are sought to be justified on specious grounds that the previous governments did the same. This government is following those UPA policies which it vehemently opposed when in opposition and now claims that those are silver bullets for economic growth. Which section of MSM has tried to put Modi on mat for it? If what NDA professes now is indeed true, why should it not be held equally accountable (as UPA) for those lost years of India’s growth? Which news anchor is trying to dissect the impact of changes in land acquisition bill and whether an ordinance was required to push this change?

A question to the MSM – if it is indeed true that the common man is more interested in finding a livelihood than anything else, is the MSM not guilty of batting for causes which are not a primary concern for this archetypical common man? How does it matter then, to a mill-worker or a CEO if Godse was a patriot or a bloodthirsty assassin? Anyway, since the MSM has made it very clear that rules which apply to the Hindus to not apply for the so-called minorities, let us grant it to them that while a Bhindranwale can be considered a martyr, an Afzal Guru an innocent victim of the oppressive Indian state, any Hindu opinion, unless validated and approved by the self-professed liberals, is by default communal, divisive and regressive. Hence, it is understandably welcome if a Muslim is concerned about Babri but abomination that a Hindu feels about Ramjanmabhoomi.

Still, even when allowing for all its ideological predilections, the MSM cannot be excused for not holding Modi accountable for any issue other than ‘secularism’. By ignoring ‘developmental’ issues and focusing on esoteric ideas, the MSM is letting the Modi government off the hook. A defense of secularism (even if it is at its most perverted) does not mean that Modi should not be questioned as vehemently for ‘real’ issues.

If only people blaming NDA for moving away from the development plank were themselves interested in development!

A 'secular' attack on the Kashmiri

July 25, 2014. Local inhabitants attack the Kheer Bhavani temple, Tulmula, Kashmir. They damage its gates by heavy stone pelting and threaten the pilgrims inside the temple, all the while raising pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans. Coverage of the shameful event – twitter, facebook, an inside page story of a few newspapers of Kashmir. No mention in the mainstream media (MSM).

For the uninitiated, Kheer Bhavani, the shrine of Ragnya Devi is considered the premier worshipping site of Kashmiri Hindus, even more so ever since Sharada Peeth became out of bounds for its devotees. In spite of having been forced into exile, even during worst of the terrorism years, Kashmiris from all over the globe made a once-a-year pilgrimage to this ancient temple to offer rice-porridge to Ragnya Bhagwati. Even for the secularists, this shrine is of critical importance as each year, the annual mela would provide an opportunity to the CM of the day to pose with an old Kashmiri exile, smiling to the cameras, all of this proving that the chimeral Kashmiriyat was very much alive and kicking.

This attack on the temple has coincided with a strike in Kashmir Valley, protesting against the Kashmiri Hindu efforts to restart those religious yatras (Kaunsar Naag, Harmukh, Surveshwar, Dhyaneshwar, Thejwaer, Harshawar etc) which had been stopped for the last two and a half decades on account of terrorism and their exile from the Valley. The ostensible excuses may seem strange but still bear reproduction, if for nothing, simply to highlight their absurdity and the rabid nature of Islamic separatism which wants nothing but to erase the last vestiges of non-Islamic presence from the valley.

The perpetually aggrieved Kashmiri Muslim has the following objections against the Kashmiri Hindu efforts to practice their religion peacefully:

1.    “I have not heard of these yatras being conducted for last so many decades”

2.    “At Amarnath, you at least have an ice Shivling. These other yatras have no idol, no object of reverence but simply lakes, mountains and springs. So, there is no reason why you should conduct the yatra.”

3.    These yatras have been invented by the Indian Government which wants to Hinduise Kashmir. Under the pretence of yatra, the Indian Government plans to resettle large number of non-Kashmiri Hindus to alter the demographics of Kashmir.

4.    “Your yatras will destroy the fragile ecology of these areas”

It does not take a very high degree of intelligence to determine that no emotion other than a visceral hatred of the non-Islamic presence in Kashmir has given rise to these objections of the ‘secular’ communalists. The many lost decades did not witness any of the above pilgrimages simply because the dispossessed exiles were not in a position to undertake them. It is akin to the classic case of the bully taking possession of an object by force and then claiming right of possession even though it was he who had dispossessed the weak.

As regards the supposed absence of any object of veneration in these yatras – well, by Islamic contention itself, Hindus are pagans par excellence. After all, which other people manage to find divinity in both the animate and the inanimate, stupid enough to lack the power of discrimination and worship the stone, the tree, the cow, the snake, the mountain and the rive? Does the fervent Islamist not know that a Hindu’s trip to the sources of rivers, of mountains, of sacred ponds and springs are a homage to the spot, to that very miracle of nature? More importantly, is it the Islamist who will decide how and what the Hindu will worship? In the all-pervading atmosphere of dimmitude, perhaps yes! After all, isn’t the MSM discourse on Moradabad riots full of homilies on how the generous Muslims ‘allowed’ the Hindus to build a temple, on how they ‘allowed’ the Hindus to celebrate Holi and use a loudspeaker once a year on Mahashivaratri and how the perfidious Hindu, goaded by the Talibanasque BJP has sought rights which they do not deserve, more so because they form a small minority on those ‘secular’ lands?

The excuse that the Indian Government wants to ‘Hinduise’ Kashmir is nothing but self-induced hallucination on the part of the Islamist. We have a state of affair where even the Jammu region has seen massacres and riots designed to force exodus of the minority Hindu from areas of mixed demography like Doda, Kishtwar and Rajaouri. Can Hindus really count among their ranks people with Islamist like fanaticism, who would be willing to settle in hostile, unfamiliar terrain, where each day would bring new dangers to life and limb? If, for argument’s sake, we assume both availability of such people and a Government design to settle them in these regions, will nature allow them to survive on what are essentially mountains, cut off from civilization, accessible only through trekking routes and anyway, under the snow for over six months a year? However, what use is logic and common sense to that fanatic who participated in a mass movement against the Amarnath Shrine Board’s desire to construct temporary shelters for Amarnath Yatra pilgrims on lands which are non-accessible for over eight months a year! And… even if the Hindu does want to Hinduise Kashmir, then what exactly is wrong? Is not the Hindu a citizen of Kashmir? Does she not a right to practice her religion like her sisters belonging to a different faith? What crime has she committed if she wants to maintain and celebrate the civilizational links of the land of Sharika Devi with rest of India?

The only valid concern is ecological damage. However, this excuse loses credibility when the same Kashmiri protesting religious tourism has no problem with commercial/adventure tourists. As against a few hundred yatris, thousands anyway trek to the Kaunsar Naag lake each year and no squeak is ever heard on the 'havoc' they wreak on the Kashmiri ecology. And in any case, environmental degradation is not a concern which cannot be addressed significantly through focused rules and implementation by both Government and pilgrim agencies.

Only a few weeks back, pilgrims and langar organisers were attacked at Baltal. Numerous tents were burnt, people assaulted, property worth lakhs damaged and pilgrims were left to fend for themselves without food and shelter. Other than this riot, vehicles carrying Amarnath pilgrims have been subject to stone pelting on numerous occasions this year. But of course, leave aside the ‘secular’ MSM, these events have been of little concern even for the ‘Hindu Nationalist’ BJP.

The way Kashmiri Islamists manage to discover nefarious schemes in almost all acts of Govt of India, the same way, our ‘secularists’ have managed to create an alternate reality of ‘Kashmiriyat’ under which the Kashmiri Hindu was cared for by the benign Muslim. In this alternate world, the only oppression was of the Dogra kings on Kashmiri Muslims, the only massacres were those of some Muslims in the aftermath of Partition. In this land, the Kashmiri Hindu ‘migrated’ from the valley on her own accord, under a revolting scheme hatched by the RSS and implemented by Jagmohan. For the ‘secularist’, there is no better example of the large-heartedness of the Kashmiri Islamist than the Amarnath Yatra, where the locals not only ‘allow’ the pilgrimage but also ‘facilitate’ it, of course oblivious of its financial implications to them. Now, such secularists cannot obviously be expected to berate the liberal Kashmiri Muslim for a Baltal or a Kheer Bhavani. And certainly, if the gorilla becomes too big to ignore, one or the other ‘secular’ fact-finding missions would certainly discover that the injuries sustained by the Hindus would be self-inflicted and their grievances, imaginary.

Yet, at one level, it is more the Nationalist Hindu who is to blame when she indulges in such breast-beating, berating the MSM for ignoring attacks on her person and identity. For so many years, the MSM has been nothing, if not consistent in ridiculing the Hindu angst in service of ‘secularism’. For the MSM, the only issues worth covering with vituperative fury would be some random comment and supposed forced feeding. Why cannot the Nationalist Hindu create a systemic alternate discourse where the need for validation from these ‘secularists’ would not arise? Alas, it may not be, for even the supposed ‘outsider’ who got elected in face of no-holds-barred attacks of these very secularists, seems to have decided to make all out efforts to win their approval. We have seen what happened to a previous regime which embarked on such defeatist and meaningless endevour. History will repeat itself and leave behind in its trail, tears of the Hindu who does not have the right to speak even for herself!

Update

The J&K State Government has succumbed to Islamist pressure and withdrawn permission to the Kaunsar Naag yatra. This is of course not an attack on the religious rights of minorities of Kashmir for no act of Islamists can be anything but kosher for our 'seculars'. 

The Road Much Travelled

It is not very often that communal riots, particularly which see the number of dead running into single digits, get raised in the parliament. At the same time, it is also not often that a local skirmish in a single village sparks off chain events in nine adjoining districts of the region. While it is sad that Jammu had to yet again undergo the cataclysm of riots, the only very thin silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud is a hitherto unseen appreciation of the fact that communal fault-lines in Jammu are strong enough to tear the region asunder.

For a very long time, the general public have been made to believe by the Government and the media that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is a non sectarian land and that a common thread of Kashmiriyat, seeded and nurtured by generations of Sufism, had made those citizens truly secular. So far as the secessionist movement is concerned, it has been painted as the result of disillusionment of the youth, a feeling which was completely independent of the religious identity of people demanding azadi.

If the contemptuous assertions that the Kashmiri Pandit migrated en masse of his free will and in connivance with the evil Jagmohan were not enough, we have been fed stories on how the Amarnath Yatra and the Kheer Bhavani fairs are supported by the local Muslims, the economic benefits being purely an irrelevant afterthought.

While the above tales were probably meant to control Hindu retaliation elsewhere, the general belief in the rarefield public decision making offices, which is supposed to be aware of ground realities, that the entire secessionist movement was restricted to the Kashmir Valley alone and that the general population of Jammu and Ladakh were absolutely pro-India, belies credulity.

This commentator may be accused of generalizing stray observations and presenting it as applicable for the entire region. However, when that generalization is seemingly proved by sequential events and evidence to the contrary seems absent, the hypothesis stands validated. Those interested in more details may refer to the post ‘Oh Kashmir’

It was only a few weeks back that Ramban was hit by skirmishes, instigated by a local Imam maliciously claiming that a copy of the Quran had been desecrated. The initial disturbances were only a precursor to riotous mobs chanting Azadi slogans taking over the town. Now, we have the spectacle of Azadi demanding mobs taking over Kishtwar and other Muslim majority areas of Jammu.

The reality was and still remains that other than the two and a half undivided districts of the Jammu region and the Leh district of Ladakh, the rest of the state of Jammu & Kashmir identifies itself as a body united in its desire for Azadi. This independence is not independence for political ends. Few even in J&K are unaware that residents of Pakistani occupied portions of the State have received a much worse deal compared to them. Hence, the demand for azadi is merely the yearning to fulfill the unfinished agenda of partition, which is securing a land of the pure, made even more pristine by the absence of those who do not follow the doctrine of the ‘pure’.

Communal riots in J&K are not a new phenomenon. The 1931 skirmish which resulted in cold blooded killing of 31 Muslims by the Dogra troops resulted in an uprising which immediately morphed into large scale attacks on Hindu lives and properties across all regions of the State. In 1947-48, it was not the Pakistani troops and Tribal invaders alone who targeted the Hindu population across areas which are called POK today. Perhaps only a few care to remember that not only did the towns of Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Skardu have large Hindu populations, the countryside, right upto Gilgit had significant pockets of Hindu presence. Just a few weeks of mayhem and the entire POK was cleansed of non-Muslim presence.

The more informed amongst us, particularly of the liberal variety, justifiably condemn the disgraceful conduct of Dogra troops when they, by their inaction, became party to massacre of Muslims in some Hindu majority areas of Jammu. However, what many forget is that overall; the conduct of the Muslim Police in Jammu was all the more reprehensible as it was an active participant in the massacre of Hindus, particularly in areas of mixed population. Unlike what many would now like us to believe, the mayhem in Indian areas of Jammu were plain communal riots in which there were a large number of casualties from both the communities.

The events of 1947-48 were not isolated in nature. Riots have recurred with nauseating frequency in the districts of Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar. True, the casualties were never as high as those in many other parts of the country but unlike those riots, the design behind communal unrest in J&K has always been more sinister. On a very statistical level, the absence of a large number of dead does not necessarily denote that the riots were minor, particularly when the number of dead is juxtaposed against the small populations of these districts. The Kashmiri Pandit community too faced around a thousand direct killings in the last few years leading to their forced exodus. The relatively small number against the supposed much larger number of Muslim casualties are sought to be presented as proofs that the terrorist movement in J&K is non-sectarian in nature. However, this half truth cleverly glosses over the fact that the thousand odd dead belonged to a small minority of some three lakhs, who overall comprised only some five percent of the Valley’s population. In effect it meant that almost each extended family was directly impacted by the terrorist activity – in form of a dead cousin, uncle, nephew or in-laws.

The forced exile of Kashmiri Pandits was not an overnight event. Disempowered and discriminated against by the rulers, target of frequent riots, the targeted brutal public killings of 1989, threat letters and public warnings from mosques, the Kashmiri Hindu took recourse to the only option he had. He left, perhaps never to return, the land of his forefathers with only his life and barest of necessities as his possessions. The residual Hindu community, holed up in villages continued to be the target of both the terrorists and the locals alike and today, barely three thousand Hindus survive, if it can be called such, in the Valley.

In this land of the pure, Anantnag and Verinag of 1986 are history and will never be repeated. After all, one needs an adversary to riot against. Still, the Valley is not tranquil. Each summer, the Valley denizens manage to find some issue to rally around and vent their hatred for India. Be it Shopian, Amarnath Land Transfer, Summer of 2010, hanging of Afzal Guru or simply alleged army high-handedness, each demonstration becomes the excuse for vandalizing of a few more temples and beating up of the residual Hindus and migrant labour population in the Valley.

Some amongst us might remember that the in the immediate afterglow of success of their ethnic cleansing strategy in Kashmir, the terrorists had tried to replicate the same formulae of targeted killings and public warnings in the undivided Doda district of Jammu. A series of massacres, specifically targeting the minority Hindu community, raised the specter of yet another forced exodus in the State. Fortunately for the country, at helm was a Prime Minister, who believed in securing his countrymen. It was PV Narasimha Rao who was instrumental in creating the Village Defence Committees, which managed to secure the Doda district against the nefarious designs of the terrorists.

This bulwark against the secessionist movement and indeed the safeguard against yet another forced exile of the Hindu minority is obviously not palatable to the secessionist forces of the State. While the likes of Geelani and Yasin Malik have long called for disbanding of these committees, now the Chief Minister of the State has joined their ranks. That this demand does not arise from some intellectual conviction is starkly obvious when we realize that this worthy does not appear to know that February in a non-leap year has only 28 days! Be it the demand for revocation of the AFSPA or the pre-1953 autonomy for the state, there appears little difference in between the political and secessionist belief systems in the Valley. With a Central Government indifferent to their plight, it will not be long before the hapless Hindu minority of the Muslim majority districts of Jammu gets overwhelmed and is forced to share the fate of their co-religionists from across the Pir Panjal.

Not only should the Village Defence Committees not be disbanded, for the very simple reason that the secessionist movement is still on, it is imperative that the artificial state of Jammu & Kashmir, an agglomeration of disparate people and geographical entities, brought together only by the expansionist zeal of the Dogra Kings, be restored to its natural boundaries. Not only will a trifurcation of the State on geographical lines secure the Hindu and Buddhist minorities of Jammu and Ladakh, drawing of new borders and a new political establishment will ensure that secessionist sympathies in the new states are crushed comprehensively.

It is likely that any move to trifurcate the state will face resistance from the secessionists as the dominant view in those circles seem to center around allowing only the heavily Hindu majority districts of Udhampur, Reasi and Kathua to separate from the State. The National Conference, it its controversial report on Regional Autonomy, which suspiciously mirrored the recommendations of the ISI backed Kashmir Study Group, has sought division of the Jammu & Ladakh regions on communal lines. The Muslim majority districts of Jammu and Ladakh have been positioned as the Pir Panjal & Chenab and the Kargil divisions respectively.  Such arguments cannot be accepted as none of the Indian States with mixed majorities saw such granular partition. Had that been the case, Thar Parkar and Umerkote districts of Sindh and Chittagong from East Bengal would have been ceded to India. The trifurcation of J&K has to be on geographical lines alone, to protect the land and its people from an otherwise certain descent into chaos. The need of the hour is not some high sounding politically correct pontification but firm actions to secure large sections of our Nation from its adversaries.

The Dangers of Negationism

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines, all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber, and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.”

Bertolt Brecht. 1898 – 1956, German poet, playwright, and theatre director

The survivors of most communal riots face an existential dilemma once situation gets ‘normalised’. Except for a handful who choose to migrate elsewhere, most are forced to continue on with their lives in their old localities, surrounded by the very people who had turned on them ferociously only a few days earlier. It is not always easy for the aggressor either to look into the eye of the survivor; particularly for those who otherwise had enjoyed congenial or even indifferent relations with the survivor. Not surprisingly, the ingenious human mind finds a way out and invariably, the rioters are declared to be ‘outsiders’, people from other localities or even villages, faceless and anti-socials beings! This transfer of culpability is not done by the aggressor out of guilt alone. The survivor too is complicit in this act, knowing fully well that he has no option but to share space with the aggressor even going forward and more importantly, to sate his need to believe that his friendly face of the yore couldn’t have turned beastly one day. Stories of such negationism (denial followed by fantasy) have been witnessed across riot torn people ever since the nature of riots became a subject of study. A few years after the partition, the very Punjabi who otherwise boasted of the number of men he killed or of the women he violated, started blaming the faceless 'other' for all ills of those riots.

While this negationism does manage to bandage the wound sufficient enough for life to progress, is this fair to those who suffered in riots? And how effective is denial in ‘reforming’ those who engage in riots?

Why does any society, howsoever primitive, possess a code of law which seeks to punish those who digress social mores? Simply speaking - to restore the societal balance, to provide justice to the harmed and most importantly, to punish the culprit for the crime so that the fear of punishment acts as a deterrent were he to stray from the societal path again.

But imagine a situation where the culprit is sought to be hidden and blame assigned to faceless people? Is the society then doing enough to redress the harm caused to the victim? Even more importantly, is it performing its moral obligation to hold a mirror to the culprit and show him his face made ugly by the crime? Punishment obviously cannot be imposed when the culprit is not even identified. So, is the culprit deterred by this denial? No. Is he emboldened further? Ys, as he knows no fear of punishment, secure in knowledge that he will neither be identified, nor shamed nor punished!

While the need for those involved in riots to engage in this exercise of denial can still be understood, what is inexplicable as to why do Governments and media-person engage in negationism? One generous reason could be their genuine belief in efficacy of denial. The second and more tragic reason is their pandering to their respective ideologies and biases. Hence, homilies abound whenever reporting of riots have to happen. If possible, riots don’t get reported if a particular community is the culprit and if too large to be ignored, blame is assigned to the victims. Readers shaking their heads in disbelief at this assertion would do good to take a single case - Bareilly, which has witnessed 3 riots in the last 2 years. The riots of March 2010, when the mob celebrating birthday of the Prophet attacked Hindu homes was sought to be blamed on Bajrang Dal. The July 2012 riots when mobs attacked Kaanwarias was sought to be blamed on music being played by them and riots again now, where scapegoats are still being found. A person reading news-reports of these riots will be stuck by the absence of any reproach for the Muslim mobs. If, even for arguments sake, it is agreed that music is abhorrent to Muslims, does it give them the right to murder and commit mayhem?

What will help in restoring order? A Government which identifies the culprits and punishes them or a one which only seeks to blame the victim?

An indulgent mother, who chooses to blame other kids for the shenanigans of her bully child only paves the way for her child becoming a hardened criminal. If only she had overcome her immediate maternal instincts and chosen to punish the child for his wrongdoings, her child still could have had a chance at being reformed. Sadly for the Nation, this attitude of successive governments and powerful media houses will only spell doom for its tottering fraternity. For too long has the Government and media indulged in this dangerous game of negationism. Will it have courage to recognise that their short term selfish interests are creating a Frankenstein which will devour them, in not so distant a future?

Let them have some courage, courage to see and report truth as it is. Let them develop a conviction strong enough to recognise that even the genuinely aggrieved, irrespective of their community, don’t have the right to riot and kill innocents. Let them be brave enough to recognise that there people who have grown on a narrative of victimhood can be the oppressors too.