19th January each year brings into sharp focus the painful exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. It is only in the last decade or so that there has been a rising awareness about the horrifying persecution of minorities in the Kashmir Valley and the Kashmiri Pandit genocide and exodus. It has helped in breaking the silence around this painful exodus but has also challenged the conspiracy theories and the whitewashing of what was an Islamic Jihad as some home grown call for Azadi. Those who have been recently sensitized to this issue, have expressed shock at the brutality of the exodus, the silence over it for so many decades and the subsequent glossing over of facts and blame game.
As a Dogra from Jammu nothing shocks me because this has been the norm. Jammu is the refugee capital of the nation. The region has opened its doors to persecuted and fleeing populations since the 18th century. In more recent times Jammu has been a refuge to the West Pakistani refugees and those from Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Jammu despite being oppressed and discriminated against by successive Kashmiri regimes has squeezed and shifted and made room for the homeless refugees. Jammu has not asked for acknowledgement but has noted in stoic silence that the massacres and the subsequent exodus which occurred on its mainland and the Jammu hills have gone under reported. They have barely made a blip in the national consciousness.
Before the Jagti KP Refugee camp, there were settlements like Bakshi Nagar for the refugees from POJK. The number of Hindus and Sikhs brutally killed in Mirpur, Bhimber, Kotli, all mainland Jammu and now POJK, was way higher than the Hindus killed in the Valley in nineties. There are many parallels between the events surrounding the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits and the Hindu massacres of Hindus in POJK.
False Equivalence
Falsely equating what was a communal and Islamist Jihad against the Hindus of the Valley as a home grown uprising for Azadi has been an attempt to skew the truth. Similarly, the propaganda about “Jammu Massacres” armed with false figures has been an attempt to silence the only pluralistic region in the state and the tragedies like Mirpur massacres it has borne. The inflated figures and the propaganda is now being challenged with new research emerging. An exhaustively researched article on the subject which brings to light the truth is https://sringeribelur.wordpress.com/the-partition-riots-and-attendant-demographic-changes-in-the-state-of-jammu-and-kashmir/
It is evident that it was a United Jammu (Indian +POJ) which was 61% Muslims and Indian Jammu 48% Muslims in 1947. The partition expelled 1.19–1.9 lakh Muslims from Indian Jammu and 1.5 lakh Hindus from POJK. Today Indian Jammu has 33% Muslims and their expulsion in 1947 was limited even in the worst affected areas of Jammu in contrast to their expulsion in the border districts of Punjab. On the other hand, Hindus and Sikhs were completely wiped out from POJK. The perpetrators were not only the local Muslims, but also the Pakistani army and their tribal raiders.
Cries of Help go Unheard
Just as the Kashmiri Pandits rightfully expected an uproar in the Parliament but were shockingly let down, Mirpuris cries of help were met with indifference and callousness. By 21st October 1947 Pakistan had attacked the districts of Poonch, Mirpur, Baramulla and Muzaffarabad. The Mirpuris living in Jammu city were worried about their relatives in Mirpur and sought help from Professor Balraj Madhok, a respected leader from Jammu. The Mirpuri delegation had already met with sheikh Abdullah who showed no interest in sending the Army to Mirpur, his priority being Kashmir. This was despite the news of massacres, mass rapes and abduction of Hindu and Sikh women pouring in from Mirpur and its adjoining areas. On 13th November 1947, a delegation comprising of former chief minister of the state Mehar Chand Mahajan and Ram Lal Choudhury went to Delhi to meet Pt Nehru. Pt Nehru refused to meet the delegation and agreed to meet only Mehar Chand Mahajan whom he had already met many times before. Nehru refused to send help to Mirpur despite being told that one lakh Hindus and Sikhs were stuck there and would be massacred. Bal K Gupta in his book Forgotten Atrocities of Mirpur mentions that Nehru went on to say that many Hindus and Sikhs have migrated from Pakistan to India and the Mirpuris should also do the same. Mahajan in frustration said that should he meet the Pakistani PM since Nehru was not interested in saving the Mirpuris. Upon hearing this Nehru lost his temper and asked the Mirpuri delegation to leave. The same day the delegation also met Sardar Patel who expressed his helplessness adding that Jammu Kashmir was a matter that Nehru was looking after. He advised the Delegation to meet Gandhiji and then Nehru again on 15th November when he came to Jammu.
When the delegation met Gandhiji he told them that the Army could not go to Mirpur because there was snow on al the roads leading to Mirpur. He repeated this despite being told by the delegation that it does not snow in Mirpur. The delegation came back from Delhi having secured no help for Mirpur. On 15th November they tried to meet Nehru again at Jammu airport but Nehru refused to meet them and went onto to Srinagar to monitor the situation in Kashmir.
On 23rd November Professor Balraj Madhok and Premnath Dogra met with Brigadier Paranjpe of the Indian Army in Jammu who sympathised with them but told them that their instructions were that there could be no troop movement in Jammu Kashmir without Sheikh Abdullah’s permission.
On 25th November Professor Balraj Madhok and Premnath Dogra made another attempt to meet Nehru on his return from Kashmir. They recounted the perilous situation of Mirpur but Nehru asked them to talk to Sheikh Abdullah. Madhok’s pleas of Sheikh Abdullah being indifferent to the issues of Jammu Region fell on deaf ears and Nehru did not send the Army to Mirpur.
On 25th November Mirpur fell.
The Horrors of the fall of Mirpur
The magnitude of mass murders, rape and abduction of Hindu and Sikh women have been documented in survivor accounts and recorded by DR Karan Singh, historian Harbans Singh Sambyal. There are horrifying accounts of mass suicides by women who jumped into the Jhelum river, many throwing their children first to avoid rape and abduction.
Tarlokchand Dangaryal’s eyewitness account of the harrowing killings in Kasgumma are documented in the book Forgotten Atrocities of Mirpur by Bal K Gupta. Tarlokchand Dangaryal who was later was rescued from the infamous Gurudwara turned into a prison camp — Alibeg, mentions how local Muslims, many of whom were deserters from the Maharaja’s Jammu Kashmir State Forces would loot the Hindus and Sikhs. He mentions locals Raja Murtab Khan and Raja Lal Khan keeping the fleeing Hindus and Sikhs captive, stealing their gold and valuables and abducting and raping their women. All males Dangaryal says, 500 of them were taken up a hill, stripped and hacked before being thrown into the ravine in Kasgumma.
Dr Kulvir Gupta, in his book also mention bands of local Muslims waiting to pounce upon the fleeing refugees to abduct girls and young women. Many male relatives died trying to protect their wives, daughters and sisters. Mass suicides including cases of male relatives killing their women to save them from being kidnapped and sold into the markets of Pakistan are recorded. Multiple accounts reveal the hatred Pakistani commanders had for Sikhs because of their opposition to the Partition. Dr Kulvir himself a survivor from the Alibeg Camp, says there were no Sikh male survivor in the camp and kesh of young Sikh boys were wither burnt by their mothers of shorn off by rubbing the strands between two sharpened stones to hide their Sikh identity. Alibeg camp has witnessed indescribable horrors — men being taken away to be killed, women being stripped, starvation, miserable living conditions leading disease and death.
Balraj Madhok in his memoirs describes how hundreds of women of Bhimber town upon seeing no escape consumed poison, others were kidnapped and men butchered. Bhimber saw one of the worst massacres. For so many refugees from POJK there was no closure because they did not have the bodies of their loved ones to cremate. Dr Kulvir Gupta lost his father on 3Rd Dec 1947, along with other men from Alibeg camp who were stripped, beaten and butchered mercilessly by the Pakistani Army before being thrown into the Mangla canal. Bal K Gupta’s mother was kidnapped with 100 other women and children on 25th November 1947 in Mirpur, and some of these women could be rescued by the Red Cross and repatriated to India only between 1951–1952.
Today former Pakistani Cricketer Shahid Afridi who is the poster boy for Pakistan’s propaganda on Kashmir alleges he stands for Kashmir and its people but forgets to apologise for his ancestors the Afridis who along with other tribals, lead by the Pakistani army entered the erstwhile Princely state of Jammu Kashmir in waves, raping, looting and murdering the innocent peopl of Jammu Kashmir. The Nuns of a Christian convent in Baramulla were also not spared. The cries of “Hindu ka zar, Sikh ka sar” (we want Hindus wealth, and the Sikhs head) rented the air. The horrors of the atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs in what is POJK have left a deep scar. They must be remembered so as never to be repeated. POJK today sans its Hindu and Sikh population is an unfinished business.
Comments are closed.