Apologia Apocalypse Part 1: The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits vs. The 3 Little Litigants (Sualeh Keen, 2020)

Apologia Apocalypse Part 1: The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits vs. The 3 Little Litigants

#EpicRapBattlesOfHistory

WHO WILL WIN?


It’s that time again, folks. Kashmiri Hindus, refugees from 30 years, get a chance at closure, and, as expected, a stale salvo of denials from the usual separatist Muslim suspects is launched, in the name of reconciliation, once again. Dispelling this cancerous denial is verily a fulltime whack-a-mole Sisyphean job. Here we go again. This time it is 3 Little Litigants, instead of 30,000 Militants.

I join battles alongside my Pandit friends daily, but the last time I wrote a “long read” was to rebut the bad reviews given by Deniers (similar to the Litigants) to Rahul Pandita’s memoir, Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of The Kashmiri Pandits. Coincidentally, this time also Rahul Pandita is involved, as he is the co-writer of yet-to-be-released Bollywood film Shikara: The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits. This time, the pandemonium is over the trailer.

Simply having disagreed with a dialogue in the film trailer, and jumping to falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus conclusion, 3 Little Litigants from—I am ashamed to say—my Muslim Kashmiri community, namely, Iftikhar Hussain Misger (50), Majid Hyderi (39), and Irfan Hafiz Lone (40), came together this time to file a PIL in J&K High Court with an urgent plea to get Shikara banned.

Claiming to be from “different sections of society”, the trio share a common preoccupation of being frequent television panellists, separatists, and ethnic cleansing deniers. But that’s mere coincidence.

Why ban Shikara? 

Because the exodus of Pandits makes Muslims look bad. And this need-to-look-good due to a disreputable past thanks to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism since 1990 is what’s exactly at the heart of this denial.

Read on.

Why Deny, What’s to Deny

Who would volunteer to admit to past wrongs? Certainly not those who don’t possess a conscientious mind or those who have something to hide. 

In 1989, Pakistan launched its proxy terrorist activities in Kashmir valley. Things took a turn for the worse when India’s Home Minister Mufti Sayeed of Kashmir gifted a grand victory to Kashmiri separatists by releasing more imprisoned terrorists than demanded in ransom, even after the demand had been withdrawn, in exchange of the release of his daughter who wasn’t even kidnapped. Mufti’s capitulation drama gave a major boost to terrorism by sending out this message: a few thugs with guns could make India crawl on its knees.

Consequently, the intervening winter of 1989-90 unleashed a time of anarchy, a time when one could get away with murder. It was around that time when Muslims started asking their Pandit (Hindu) friends, colleagues, officers, neighbours, merchants, clients, teachers, what their plans were now that "azadi was around the corner" and “Nizam-e-Mustafa” would be established as soon as “Kashmir banega Pakistan”. Pandits, however, had faith that a few terrorists couldn’t possibly win against the security forces and dismissed it as loose talk.

However, the coming days and weeks dispelled any hope that the Pandits had of the situation ever improving. They too became convinced that they indeed had lost Kashmir forever. The gratuitous and targeted murder and rape of Pandits, eviction letters posted to their homes, their names on hitlists posted at local mosques, anti-Kafir and anti-Pandit slogans shouted from public address systems of mosques, direct ultimatums by terrorist organisations in local newspapers ordering the Pandits to vacate the valley... all these, left no room for doubt. Security forces had lost Kashmir to anarchy and terror.

Then came the final signal of there being no room for Pandits in Kashmir: 

1) When some of their own Muslim friends, neighbours, students, and acquaintances exhibited open hostility towards them and even threatened them.

2) When some of their better Muslim friends advised them to leave the valley “as it was not safe for Pandits and they (Muslim friends) couldn’t assure them security.”

This good/bad advice/threat was the double-confirmation of their worst fears. Attacked by haters on one side and deserted by friends on the other, it left Pandits with no choice but to escape from the valley to save their life and the honour of their women and children, to become refugees in their own country. 

Today, three decades later, more than ninety-nine percent of erstwhile Pandit population lives outside the valley, yearning for homeland. But Kashmiri Muslims like these 3 Little Litigants, with their weaponised PIL, want to deny Pandits even a single chance to narrate their untold story to the world.

What Litigants Say in the PIL

1) That Shikara makes no distinction between terrorists and civilians. 

“The movie has communal content, with no distinction drawn between civilians and militants. When the government records also suggest that there was no role of Muslim population especially (?) Muslims in the mass migration from the Valley.”

The 3 Little Litigants create a neat but untenable dichotomy between the armed militants and the non-combatant Muslims. The Mujahideen were Muslim civilians before they picked up guns. Who supported the Mujahideen? Ordinary people, who came out in thousands in 1990. It’s these ordinary civilians who take advantage and attack the most vulnerable, such as minorities, with an eye for property or promotion, or to settle personal scores. Even if we call them “criminal elements”, the perpetrators were nonetheless the neighbours, colleagues, students, customers, and acquaintances of the victims. Most Muslims were not involved, but many Muslim non-combatants were certainly involved. As stated earlier, terrorists could have been dealt with by security forces, but Pandits did not feel safe inside their homes, what with the monstrous changes they saw in their neighbourhood.

And it was these uncivil civilians who danced on the spilled blood where Advocate Prem Nath Bhat was murdered outside his home. It was these uncivil civilians who distributed sweets when Bitta Karate, the notorious serial killer of Pandits, was released on bail. It was these uncivil civilians who denied them the truth, mocked them on a daily basis on social media, and continued to openly support separatists and terrorists, the tormenters of Pandits. Every single separatist didn't attack Pandits. However, they did raise anti-Kafir slogans, idolized terrorists who targeted Pandits, denied truth and lied for 30 years. Every Nazi wasn't a member of SS either. But they were still held guilty by the world at large, including their own future generations.

Note: Here the Litigants indulge in a politically-correct form of denial by euphemistically calling the Ethnic Cleansing and Exodus of Pandits a ‘migration’. Weasel vocabulary. But let me not get into details.

2) That Muslims & Sikhs asked Pandits not to leave, but they didn’t listen

“In fact, local Muslims were deadly (sic) against the incidents leading to the mass migration. It can be safely stated that the other Kashmiris (?) including the Kashmiri Muslims and Sikhs tried their level best to prevent the Kashmiri Pandits from leaving the valley.”

That is a false claim. From anecdotal evidence, most Muslim friends out of concern warned or advised their Pandits that Kashmir was no longer safe for them and that they should leave as soon as possible because Indian Kashmir was to soon become a part of Pakistan. So essentially, the message of the friendlies and hostiles was the same: Pandits have no place in ‘Aazad’ Kashmir.

Now, even if there were Muslims who tried to dissuade Pandits from leaving, and let’s assume there were, the question is: Were these nice Muslims empowered enough to provide the Pandits protection from terrorists running into thousands in the early 90’s, with a support base that went into lakhs? Let’s not forget that not just the entire Pandit community, the terrorists and their supporters also drove out about a lakh Muslims and many Sikhs as well, though some could come back due to intercessions and mediations by friends and relatives with local terrorist commanders. Pandits didn’t have such a network, so they couldn’t return. They lost all touch with Kashmir.

All this proves what should be obvious to everyone: There were civilian terrorists who were hostile, civilian terrorist supporters who were hostile and few friendly, civilian acquaintances who were hostile and friendly. And the friendly and few friendly were disempowered and worthless, so their “trying” to convince Pandits to stay was meaningless given the atmosphere of terror at that time, and even the utterers of these words know how hollow they rang when they mouthed them. 

In any case, this “we did level best” line of argument does not show anything at all. No petitions for justice to or return of Pandits, even as “we” rush to the funerals of slain terrorists in thousands. Nothing to show. Nada. If this is “our” best, “our” best isn’t good enough. Not by a long shot.

And when the 3 Little Litigants make an unsubstantiated claim that Kashmiri Sikhs also asked Pandits not to leave, are they authorized to speak on behalf of Kashmiri Sikhs? Have they done a poll with a fairly large sample size (since 0.5 % of a population segment can't be assessed on a small sample size) or are simply kite-flying. Which one is it, now? 

Fact is, the 3 Little Litigants speak for nobody, but want nobody else to speak.

3) That if the untold truth of Pandits is told, Kashmiri Muslims will face a backlash from right wing Hindus

“Those who are ignorant of the events and have never visited Kashmir valley, after watching the trailers, have started blaming the Muslim population, invoking a war cry. Many Kashmiri students studying across the country are likely to be victimised.”

Not going to put this mildly. It is this denial and the shamelessly unapologetic behaviour of apologists like the Litigants that creates the opportunity for the extreme Hindu right wing organisations to exploit the emotions of and corrupt the minds of some other Hindus and recruit them to their side. So if Muslims can support terrorists, Hindus cannot support Hindu victims? Then again, that’s only part of the picture, for Hindu right wing also loves Muslims of the right kind, like Arif Mohammad Khan and APJ Kalam Azad. Most certainly, the Litigants who want a film on Pandits to be banned are not the right kind. And it’s entirely their fault, not of the Hindu right wingers. 

Forget Hindu right wing, I, personally, completely disagree with the kind of entitlement the 3 Little Litigants carry alongside their bad attitude. These bigots can expect a huge backlash from Kashmiri Muslims like me. In any case, the 3 Little Litigants can’t use the victim card in this one. They are the intolerant ones who deny the Pandits their right to speak their own truth. They are the ones who want Shikara to be banned. They can’t use the collective suffering of the people of conflict to dodge responsibility.

As a wise man once pointed out, such pathetic pleas and PILs can be seen as an indirect mea culpa, an admission of guilt. It is a plea to not pursue the case against the Muslims any further, because they have already suffered and been punished enough. Well, why would a Muslim victim of terrorism not sympathise with Pandits who also suffered from the same terrorists? Indeed, there is a guilty conscience involved, because the Litigants are separatists themselves, on the side of terrorists, so to speak. They do not speak for the rest of us. Nationalist and secular Kashmiri Muslims like me and the entire Kashmiri Pandit community are in this fight together against the likes of the 3 Little Litigants.

The PIL is a personal ‘testimony' like that of someone who claims Gawkadal Massacre was pre-planned by militants to give Jagmohan a bad name. I would be ashamed to have the Litigants as my friends, but if some Pandits still overlook their lies, it is a reflection on their tolerance, and not the Litigants’ being good neighbours per se. There is no virtue in neighbours, who were like: "Pandit ji, you aren't safe here. Time to leave, mahra. Let me help with your luggage. Give me your house keys. Khodayas hawaal!"

Shantiveer Kaul, the greatest Pandit intellectual of his generation, evocatively puts this sense of betrayal thus: “I hope I could communicate the angst of a community that depended for its life on an oxygen supply that was suddenly turned off. The reaction of a fish that is thrown out by hostile water. The utter sense of dereliction a person faces when s/he is no longer welcome in his/her own habitat - and I am not talking AK47 here but doors of fraternal feeling closing on a community. Yes - there were plenty people who beseeched their neighbours to stay back. Were they empowered enough to do so? Was it only a matter of form? Were those crocodile tears? Look at the whole damn thing from MY perspective. Of course, Jagmohan did call on (name edited out) and many people like him to tell him/them what he did not tell me!”

In short, the 3 Little Litigants have no say in this matter. They might not relate to some scene in the trailer personally, but it is not their story to tell. Likely, the Litigants aren’t even the target audience, with all cinemas theatres been shut in the valley since 30 years due to Islamist diktat. 

These cognitively-dissonant hypocrites call a movie scene “false” without the prerequisite fact-checking they demand. This means they are not interested in facts. They didn't wait to see Shikara the movie before certifying it has “concocted and fabricated content”, which is why it must be banned. Denial is escaping truth, not seeking truth.

These are your typical Muslim Apologists with ready excuses and hurt feelings, smugly convinced that Muslims can never do anything wrong and that if something wrong happened to non-Muslims, it just happened, unfortunately, on its own “due to many reasons”, even though they regret it, although they were not responsible, and they will do it again it they don’t shut up, a la Broken Kettle logic.

Let’s be clear: The 3 Little Litigants are more interested in justifying or denying wrongdoing of fellow crooks, than in correcting social wrongs.

Not a great Confidence-building Measure (CBM). Not at all.

4) That all the efforts of the security agencies to maintain calm in Kashmir will go in vain if the movie is allowed to be released “with the concocted and fabricated content”.

Well, bare naked truth has tendency of hurting the sentiments of such Kashmiri Muslims as the Litigants. And when faced with the untold story of Pandit exodus, they hurt a lot. And when they hurt, they resort to time-honoured blackmail and indirect threats of agitation with a promise of a communal riot. 

Holding peace hostage, again, are we? 

Not in Naya Kashmir!

You well know what happened to those mighty Kashmiri tyrants, your masters, who threatened chaos if Article 370 is touched. Do you want to end up like them? 

Take care.

Forget & Forget (Instant Karmic Reconciliation Remix)

Basically, the 3 Little Litigants want no questions asked: 

Give and get a bear hug, that’s all folks.
Get down to make-up sex, no foreplay.
Don’t talk (about the past), just kiss. 
Don’t kiss and tell, or else.

There is no Truth component in the T&R Formula devised by the political masters of the 3 Little Litigants, even as they hypocritically feign interest in fact finding, their guilty conscience making them hope a token hanging of a Yasin Malik or a Bitta Karate would satisfy the purposes of justice sufficiently for Pandits to forget about ‘civilian’ supporters of terrorists such as themselves:

Iftikhar Misgar resigns from NC, amid cheers from ‘civilians’. This is the welcome party he wants Pandits to rush to for a reconciliatory hug. Excellent CBM. Kudos.

That’s right. The 3 Little Litigants basically expect reconciliation to be an “Absolutely Free” luxury cruise. They are past or recent criminals or friends of those, with straw in their beards, who are pleading for a blanket amnesty to all sins past, as a dividend of peace, as a windfall of the possible return of Pandits. A reconciliation ceremony of silence and let bygones be bygones, don’t owe an explanation. 

Due to the absence of enthusiasm in acknowledging wrongs, true reconciliation looks impossible between the persecuted Pandits, as a community in general, and individual separatists and those who harmed them and deny them truth and blame Jagmohan for everything. However, looks can be deceiving. 

Most Pandits have a sense of betrayal and deep resentment, the kind of hate meant for kith and kin. While most Pandits say a lot of bad things about their former Muslim acquaintances, practically none of them is ready to put it all in record, or ready to name and shame anyone. Sometimes, they themselves explained why they don’t want to send their neighbour’s son or somebody to jail after thirty years. 

“Why would I want to do that? What pleasure would I get out of it?” 

Pandits have really moved on; it’s just that the denial is infuriating and triggers them. Pandits never wanted to burn bridges; it was our own pyromania at fault.

So I want to assure the 3 Little Litigants that Pandits are not coming for revenge. Pandits will return for the love of their lost home. This glad news offers a golden opportunity for each Kashmiri Muslim to save face in front of future generations. Did you support persecuted minorities that day, today? Your children will ask you. The time to earn human credentials and to improve your brownie-point scores is now! Or the future will remember you as the Niazis of pre-2020 era.

However, the 3 Little Litigants are disqualified from sitting in judgment over a discussion how and why Pandits were exiled or which movie they should watch or not. Get a life! It is far simpler to accept complicity through omission or commission, blame Pakistan, Tassrufdar, our legendary Sezzar and/or Badzaat Kashmiri nature, Ides of March, Gonaahan hinz shahmat, Winds of Time, Maety Aab, or whatever.

Nobody is accusing you individually.
Say sorry on behalf of criminals we couldn’t control.
Just say Thunnay! 

Learn how to apologize:

I, Junaid Qureshi - A Kashmiri Muslim for the Kashmiri Pandits - apologize on behalf of some of my Kashmiri brethren for the sin of murdering Kashmiriyat.

I know it is not enough, but acceptance and introspection are the first steps towards reconciliation.

May God forgive us.

— Junaid Qureshi (@JQ_plaintalk) January 19, 2020

Because if one does not acknowledge a mistake, one never learns. And when one never learns, one repeats the same mistake, over and over again. Remember, this was the not the first time in history that Pandits were exiled by our kings, if not communities. Say sorry: as simple as that. Muslims have to do this to give Pandits the confidence to return. 

Otherwise Pandits will fear refoulement.

Final Score

So accustomed to bigotry and hate we are, especially on primetime television, that one would find it hard to believe that these 3 Little Litigants, in fact, are the milder tip of a gigantic iceberg of hate for Hindus in Kashmir.

Good Cop:

Not denying that Pandits were persecuted. 
Not propagating the Governor Jagmohan conspiracy theory for Pandit exodus.
Not quoting Qur’an to justify why expelling Pandits was the righteous thing to do.
Not saying Pandits deserved it as they were all police informers and anti-Muslim.
Not laying the condition that Pandit ‘respect’ the separatist ‘majority’.
Not saying Pandits are cowards, runaways, renegades, traitors, snakes, etc. etc.
Not saying Pandits found relief in exile.
Not directly saying a Pandit cannot write or direct a movie on Pandits.

Bad Cop:

Denying the role of hostile Muslim civilians who told Pandits to leave.
Denying the role of friendly Muslim civilians who advised Pandits to leave.
Denying that Muslims came out in thousands shouting slogans terrifying to minorities.
Denying that separatism is one of the many reasons for Hindu radicalisation in India.
Denying there was a general change in demeanour of Muslims when Aazadi was in the air.
Denying that Pandits had anything to fear because <wink, wink> Sikhs stayed.
Denying that Sikhs stayed because they were too tough to subdue.
Denying that entire villages of Pandits and Sikhs were massacred.
Denying that the main cause of conflict is your Muslim supremacy ideology, of which the very first article of faith is, “I, but no one else”.
Denying that the problem is in denial, not the truth.

Suppressio veri, Suggestio falsi...

Case dismissed!




WARNING: If the denials and red herrings continue, if Pandits and their course of history is again obstructed with such mean-spirited petty PILs, the accusations are bound to be even more vehement and tar-brushed, and even Friends will lose the R of relation and become Fiends. This denial business is only going to make things uglier. I’m warning you.



Dear Pandit friends,

Hopefully this rebuttal from yours truly from the Muzzarman community will break stereotypes and help justifiably Islamophobic non-Muzzarmans to relax a bit. I assure you, these 3 idiots don’t represent most Kashmiri Muslims, at least not the young generation with no Pandit blood and banishment on their hands and therefore no guilty defensive reflexes or persecution complex to propel them to forcibly deny the truth. Have you seen the happy videos come out of Kashmir? Kashmir has been Modified. 

#AgeMatters



And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding

— Sinéad O'Connor, Famine



Related topic:

DISAMBIGUATING A DENIALIST KASHMIRI CONSPIRACY THEORY

1) Before Jagmohan's appointment in Jammu as Governor on 19 Jan 1990, Hindus had started fleeing Kashmir. Taking charge at Srinagar next day, his tenure ended on 26 May. But exodus continued...

Coincidence, not correlation. https://t.co/JQCz7OUBc1

— Sualeh Keen (@sualehkeen) February 3, 2020