Why Article 370 was an Act of Injustice for Indians?
Many
people, I believe, would be happy today. Sardar Patel, Shayama Prasad Mukherjee
and many others. Many are in heaven. One of those would be my late father in
law, M L Tikku, a proud Kashmiri Hindu. He wanted the article 370 to go in his
lifetime like millions of Kashmiri Hindus. He wanted it abrogated for his
children and grandchildren. He would often tell me a story about that which I
think symbolizes the story of Hindus in Kashmir.
The
year was 1957. My father in law had gone to check his name in the selected list
of candidates admitted in BSc program of the degree college in Srinagar. Being
the son of K N Tikku known as the mathematician of Kashmir, his mathematics skills
were higher than average and he was confident of making it to the top ten and
telling that to his father.
But
what he saw on that day changed his life permanently. On the list, his name was
not there and below the name of selected candidates it was written, the above
is the selected list. A separate list of Hindu candidates may be released if
deemed so.
As
he told me he had come back crestfallen and told this to his father. He recalled
that as he told his father, he showed no reaction and merely said that he will
have to try harder. But for my young father in law, a question had already formed
that would trouble him for the rest of his life. Can this happen in any part of
independent India? As he talked to other students, he found that their reaction
was similar to his. They all realized there was no place for them in Kashmir
and no future either. As he recalled all of them migrated to other part of
India.
They
had then gone to the Chief Minister Bakshi Gulam Mohammed and pleaded to be
admitted. As he told them, their high marks were not the issue. It was the fact
that they were not Muslims but Hindus. He quoted Article 370 to say that the
article was to protect the Muslims of the valley. But what he said after that was more shocking.
“You have the whole of India to get admission. Why don’t you go away and take
admission elsewhere. Kashmir is for Muslims and Muslim boys will be considered.”
The implication was clear. Convert to Islam and get admission.
They
had managed to get a few minuscule number of seats after much pleading and were
given so after some humiliating condition.
When
he had asked his father why Kashmiri Pandits faced such discrimination he was told
that has been the fate of Kashmiri Pandits for last five hundred years. They
have always had to plead for what they needed to have it from Muslims. Then he had
mentioned and said that article 370 legalized it. Anything that Kashmiri Muslims
did to Hindus couldn’t be challenged in courts of law.
My
father in law was to find another reason why they were denied admission on the
basis of religion. The reason was simple. Hindu boys were considered more
intelligent, more hard working. They were to be sent outside Kashmir for
education and employment.
“Had
you written to the press?” I had asked. “Yes, they told us it is no news item. No
one took any notice of it. Who cared if a group of Hindu boys were
discriminated against or denied admission.”
That
is the time he learnt Kashmir has a separate constitution and a separate flag and
laws of India did not apply there. Every Kashmiri Hindu knew in his heart about
article 370 but believed that he will be left untouched. Just a few years
earlier Shayama Prasad Mukherjee had mysteriously died while in Kashmir. The message
to all Kashmiri Pandits was to remain silent and say nothing if they witnessed any
injustice. That was the wise course of action all followed. Kashmiri Hindus
were a minuscule minority and were at the mercy of Kashmiri Muslims.
He
told me many stories. One of them was about the history of Battmazar, an island
in the middle of Dal Lake. He told me how Hindus were taken to be converted
there and if they didn’t were buried alive and how the Muslim boatmen would not
take them there. “Why don’t you talk about it?” I had asked. “They shouldn’t be
lost to history.”
When
I thought of writing a novel on Kashmir, he encouraged me by telling me lot of
stories from his childhood and early struggles to find a foothold and those similar
to him, all ordinary Kashmiris who had lived in silence. The silence was due to
article 370. Many of them were anecdotes and always told of a deep divide that existed
between Hindus and Muslims, now officially sanctioned because of article 370.
When
I finished writing my book, he read it from beginning to end and said it will
help people to understand why article 370 should go. He felt it great that I, a
non Kashmiri, had written it and felt that Kashmiris were always alienated from
the rest of India. He also found it difficult to read certain chapters, those even
told by him. One was on how temples were destroyed in Kashmir was the most
difficult one for him. He told me how going to the Martand temple ruins was
traumatic for every Kashmiri Hindu and it couldn’t be restored because of
article 370. It would require specialists and conservationists to come and stay
from outside. Why will they come and stay if they can’t buy land or own
property here?
Article
370 was about injustice alone. For seventy years it told us that some Indians
were more equal than others and it couldn’t be questioned. The article bled our
motherland culturally, politically and socially being the very place where Hinduism
reached its peak. This article martyred many of our soldiers, put many in
prison and led to the destruction of the Hindu way of life in Kashmir. It at
the same time showed the spineless politics that dominated the Indian landscape,
a continuation of the colonial rule where Indians especially Hindus had to kneel
in front of their masters.
When
we saw the news of the ending of the Article 370, my wife and my first thought
was a wish he was alive today. He would have said if this article had been removed
earlier, he would have never left Kashmir to never come back. That very thought
would have been uppermost on the minds of millions of Kashmiris today who had
to leave their homeland and become refugees over centuries.
When
Obama became the president of USA, my friend, a Black, had called me up and
said, “I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime.”
Today,
I feel like saying the same, “I didn’t expect to see this day in my lifetime.”
Rajat
Mitra
Psychologist
and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
Link for my book ‘The Infidel Next Door’ on Amazon.in
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