Our Moon Has Blood Clots

Title: Our Moon Has Blood Clots – The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

Author: Rahul Pandita

Publisher: Random House India, 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9788184000870

Pages: 258

 

When India was partitioned in 1947, the British provinces were annexed to each successor state on the criterion of which community commanded a majority in population. When that majority was thin, the province also was partitioned otherwise it went as a whole. For native states ruled by local princes, there were no solid criteria but the general communal principle was still upheld. If a state had a majority of a particular community and if it was geographically contiguous with the new nation in which that community held a majority, the native king acceded likewise. The rulers of Junagadh and Hyderabad wanted to join Pakistan, but that was out of the question. Not only were those two states having a very large Hindu majority, but were totally landlocked by India. States on the border regions had much more flexibility. Two states were notable in this respect for the choices they made. The state of Amarkot had a Hindu ruler and a Hindu majority in population, but the ruler decided to join Pakistan. Jinnah readily agreed even though the merger went against his foundational two-nation theory. The ruler of Kashmir prevaricated for a while, but Pakistan forced his hand with an invasion of his country by a mixed lot of tribal Pathans and disguised Pakistan army soldiers. Kashmir immediately acceded to India, but Pakistan continued its subterfuge ever since; and from the 1980s onwards, it is carrying out an armed jihad. The Islamists don’t want to just free Kashmir politically, but also to drive out the Hindus from their own soil and establish an exclusive Islamic state. Consequently, the Kashmiri Brahmins called Pandits have been at the receiving end of a brutal planned violence from the year 1990, forcing them to flee Kashmir and settle as refugees in other parts of India. This book tells this story from the author’s own painful personal experience. Rahul Pandita is a journalist-cum-author who has reported extensively from warzones. He was born in Kashmir valley and was only 14 years old when his family was forced into exile.

 

Pandita establishes his community’s roots in Kashmir with an eagle’s eye view of the attacks and persecutions they suffered at the hands of religious bigots. Towards the end of 14^th century, Islam entered Kashmir. Initially it fused with local practices and evolved into a way of life rather than a strict monotheistic religion. By the turn of that century, the picture changed. Sultan Sikander unleashed a reign of terror and brutality against his Hindu subjects. It is said that the number of Pandits he killed was so large that the sacred threads worn by these unfortunate men weighed nearly 200 kg when they were weighed before burning. A century later, Chaks of Shia sect took power and they were intolerant to both Sunnis and Pandits. Iftikhar Khan, who was the provincial governor in the time of Aurangzeb, was the next in the line of oppressors. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru, was martyred when he intervened with the Mughals on behalf of the Pandits. Kashmir fell to the Afghans in 1752. Conditions were then so hostile that during the reign of Atta Mohammed Khan, any Muslim who met a Pandit would jump on his back and take a ride (p.17). Finally, the Hindu Dogra family bought Kashmir from the British for 75 lakh rupees, one horse, twelve goats and three Cashmere shawls! Even under their rule, Pandits were targeted by Muslim hardliners many times, especially in 1931.

 

The author claims that irreversible bitterness between Kashmiri Muslims and Indians caused the minority Pandits to be at the receiving end of the wrath which it evoked. A lot of illustrative examples are given in the book in which Kashmiris victimized the Pandits. Crowds half-mad with religious frenzy chanting hum kya chahte? – Azadi (what do we want? – freedom) would attack Pandit homes and their business establishments on the wayside. They would kick Pandit children at school for singing India’s national anthem. The author’s personal experiences include Kashmiri children tearing off images of goddess Saraswati from school magazines and grown up men flashing openly when Indira Gandhi addressed them in a public meeting in Srinagar. When India played against other teams in cricket, spectators would raise Pakistan flags and cry for Pakistan’s victory. Pandit homes’ window panes would be smashed whenever India defeated Pakistan in cricket. The entire Kashmir erupted in celebration when Javed Miandad scored a sixer from the last ball at Sharjah in 1986. This was in the 1980s, even before the violence escalated.

 

Matters came to a head in 1990. A notable feature of the book is that it horrifies readers with the plain truth in the narrative. One would be unable to contemplate the emotions which would stir a person to inflict such cruelty on his fellow humans. The events of Jan 19, 1990 were nightmarish for the Pandits. Slogans and war cries were raised from mosque loudspeakers throughout the night. Meanwhile, hoodlums assembled outside Pandit homes and threatened them by pelting stones. This pattern repeated in the following days. The mayhem would begin in the night and would continue till the wee hours of the morning, thus continuously depriving sleep for the victims. The incident of Naveen Sapru’s murder exposes the complicity of ordinary Kashmiris in the ethnic cleansing. Sapru was targeted and shot near a mosque in Habba Kadal. The attackers and spectators then danced around the bleeding body which was writhing in pain and agony of death. Minutes later, the spectacle ended and Sapru’s body lay motionless. A police truck then took the body to a hospital. The crowd followed the vehicle cheering from behind and shouting slogans. Nobody was convicted as the police also sided with the militants. Throughout the year 1990, Pandits were picked up selectively and put to death. If the chosen one was not to be found, a proxy of the same community sufficed. It was all about numbers and how many were killed. Kashmiris freely molested Pandit women in public and they habitually removed their bindis while going outside their homes. These innocent people suffered because the Islamists wanted Kashmir to be cleansed of Pandits. The jihadis were sure that if one was killed, a thousand would flee. Ads were placed in newspapers asking the Pandits to leave the valley or face consequences. Once they vacated their houses, the neighbours swooped in to claim the articles left behind. After a few months in the hellish refugee camps in Jammu, agents would approach them with offers of sale of non-movable property like houses, land, farms and orchards at rock bottom prices. Desperate for money, the Pandits would sell their assets to their attackers. The Kashmiris had done their groundwork well and made a perfect example of ethnic cleansing.

 

The author provides a grim description of the refugee life. His house in Srinagar had 22 rooms in total, but the family had had to accommodate themselves in a single room in Jammu without any kind of privacy. Government employees continued to receive their salaries but most others had to manage with the pittance offered by the administration. Denied their cool homes, several refugees were killed by heat stroke in Jammu. Eventually, they spread to various parts of India, notably in Delhi, with memories of uprootedness still fresh in their minds. For some of the older generation Pandits, this was a rerun of the 1947 exodus from the areas that lay in the path of attacking Pakistan tribals. They also killed, raped, looted and burnt. We read about people who had thus to undergo two such migrations in a single lifetime.

 

What makes this book unique is its personal touch. Most of the described incidents were directly experienced by the author or occurred to a close friend or relative. In spite of this, he maintained a right balance of mind and sense of justice. Years later, as a journalist, he questioned and opposed the authorities in cases of alleged human rights violations of Kashmiri Muslims during counter-insurgency operations. He also declined to join right-wing organisations as an act of avenging for his losses. Pandita’s lack of bitterness against his tormentors is remarkable. He still maintains touch with several people in Kashmir and visit there often as a solace to the feeling of loneliness in the collective psyche of the Pandits. The book has some disadvantages as well. There is no mention of the actions of the mainstream parties in the uprising and also in the buildup to the final outbreak. Readers don’t get an idea of how the restlessness originated and developed to disastrous proportions. Readers can not close the book without a pang of sadness and a thought for the miserable plight of an innocent diaspora that is still struggling to find their place and plant roots wherever they are living at present.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star