A Kashmiri Hindu Asks for Answers From Her
Ex Neighbor
“Why is it that a Kashmiri
Hindu never asks questions from his Kashmiri Muslim neighbor who drove him out
of his home? Why don’t we ever ask what made him shout the slogans ‘convert or
leave or die’ and ‘leave your women behind to create Pakistan’ from his mosques?”
“Your neighbor
alone can answer this question.”
“Then why doesn’t
he?” she asked.
“Because you don’t
ask him,” I answered.
I was talking to a
Kashmiri Hindu woman, Neha (name changed) who had run away in 1990 on 19th
January. Her eyes hid a painful past behind a mature self that she presented.
“This is a
question that you need to ask them some day. Someone has to be courageous to do
that,” I had added.
“I had visited my
old home to find out what happened to my favorite Chinar tree. Did it still
stand or was it cut down by my neighbor? I had wanted to write a letter to not
just my friend but all Kashmiri neighbors of a Hindu.” She added saying, “I
will do so now.”
This is her
letter. It is a powerful indictment of evil in human nature and how it hides as
banal as pointed by Hannah Arendt. Rubina was the girl she used to play with.
Dear Rubina
I had gone back to
see my home at the insistence of ma, my mother. She wanted me to see it one
last time before she died. She died peacefully after seeing it, like many
others parents I know.
We had been
neighbors for generations. Your Abbu jaan used to be friends with my father.
Once, I saw
everything from the eyes of a child. I believed what was told. Today, my
questions are from the eyes of a refugee, someone who wants to ask it on behalf
of her people.
Do respond even if
in anger.
The Chinar tree in
our backyard separated our homes. I grew up under it. I learnt you cut it down last
summer because it is not good to remember the past. But the past is all we
have. The memory is all I have today.
Ammi jaan
recognized my mother. They hugged and wept. They asked me to do the same. I
couldn’t. It all felt unreal. Ahmed baijaan and your father wiped their eyes saying
how much I have grown up. But my eyes remained dry. I felt like a stone. This
letter is to say why.
I grew up in a
refugee camp and learnt not to cry. Children who grow up in a refugee camp hide
their emotions. They remain raw unlike those who grow up in homes like you. Emotions
are a luxury for us.
You held my hand as
if we were long lost friends. You wanted me to say what happened in my life. If
I was married or not. You asked where I lived and then became quiet as your
Abbu looked at you sternly. My mind was full of images of the camps. The dirty
drains, the single room where a family of seven lives, the daily shortage for
food. What was there to say?
“How could it all
happen to you?” you all asked my mother. “Who did this to our Kashmir?”
Three things about
refugees. They live in fear and dream of going back. Then one day they realize they
won’t. No one wants them back.
They also live and
die in shame. My father did. He asked for forgiveness before his death because
he couldn’t protect us from his neighbors.
Ahmed baijaan,
told me the freedom struggle of Kashmiris will continue till self-determination
for Kashmir is achieved and then everyone can live happily.
My parents taught
me never to raise questions. When I asked them why, they remained silent. I was
told we will have to go back one day and live as neighbors. But it will not
happen. I know after visiting you. Will you all accept us back if we don’t
convert? Please answer.
I grew up hearing the
wails of why it happened to us. No one ever asks why our neighbors did this to
us? The world accepted your version.
It was Ahmed baijaan
who was a teenager then, roaming the streets asking ‘kafirs’ to leave. It was
the Imam saab from the local mosque I wished everyday whose voice came over the
loudspeaker saying only Hindus who convert will be allowed to remain.
But your parents,
you, all of you never protested and remained silent. So why ask today who did
it?
Does Ahmed baijaan
ever think before the right for self-determination comes the right to self-definition?
For not a few but for all. The self-definition of who is a Kashmiri? Are those,
who have lived here for thousands of years, have less rights than those claiming
the land for themselves?
Kashmiri Muslims tell
the whole world about atrocities on them. You have powerful writers telling
these stories. But you don’t write to us, your brothers? You tell the world about
the injustices done to you but not about us, why?
Will any Kashmiri Muslim
explain to the Kashmiri Hindu, why my father had to bundle up his children and run
away in the middle of the night to save his daughter from getting raped? Will he
explain about the people who were killed and whose bodies lay on the roads for
being Hindu?
Will he say why the
men, the ordinary Kashmiri men raped us and dragged many only to kill them? Will
any Kashmiri Muslim say why the voices of from the mosques asked the Hindu men to
leave behind their women?
Will someone answer
my questions?
There is a wall
that exists between us, a wall of denial, of lies. It can be broken by those
who built it. I wonder if someone will ever do it.
Bitter enemies become
friends. That is what history tells us. It happens when they have the courage
to open. In your eyes you made us the manufactured Indian spies, informers you
couldn’t trust. To us you were the one who called us ‘kafirs’ and said we have
no right to live next to you.
Will you
acknowledge our right to be, to exist, to have our religion and live amongst
you?
Do you claim the
Kashmir valley on religious identity alone?
Will you challenge
the stories that you said to the world and include a story that includes us?
Would you
acknowledge the violence you have inflicted upon us?
Would you forfeit
the narrative that you have pedaled before the world as false?
Would you
acknowledge that I am a Kashmiri Hindu because of my history?
Would you
acknowledge that Kashmir is a land of ancient faiths that existed much before Islam
came and they have a history?
There is a last
question. Nowhere during my visit did I find any of you condemning the violence
that happened on us. No one has spoken or written about our sorrow, our
suffering though voices from your side have been written. It appears as if our sorrow
and suffering never existed. It is as if one fine day, the Kashmiri Hindus just
vanished from Kashmir of their own free will.
Was then our seventh
exodus a final solution to create an Islamic Kashmir?
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist,
Speaker and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
Link for my book ‘The Infidel Next Door’ on amazon.in
Link for the book on
amazon.com
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on amazon.in
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on amazon.com
Link for the book on Garuda Publications
Link on Snapdeal for hard copy of the book
The book is also available at select book stores like Bahrisons.
Link for the book for buying Overseas
Contact Book Club of India via following email bookclubofindia@gmail.com for delivery of overseas orders of the book.
A much suppressed question. Thank you Rajat da, for bringing out the questions of Kashmiri Hindus.
ReplyDelete