The missing Hindus of South Asia and a conspiracy of silence.( ref: Sikkim Future)?

The missing Hindus in South Asia and a conspiracy of silence

Civil society, media and the government of India have all remained mute spectators while this human tragedy has been unfolding right in their backyard.

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POLITICS

 |   Long-form |   19-12-2014

SASWATI SARKAR

 @sarkar_swati

Indian media has done a commendable job in covering international events, be it Arab Spring, Tahrir Square, Gaza conflicts to beatification of saints at Vatican. The only blind spot has been the plight, or rather the genocide, of Hindus worldwide, including our neighboring countries like Pakistan or Bangladesh. This is quite inexplicable given that other events in these nations that have been generously covered.

Genocide of Hindus in India’s Backyard

Let me first start with startling facts that should have  by now been well known to an Indian audience in normal course. When Pakistan was created in 1947, Hindus constituted about 15 per cent of the population of West Pakistan (current Pakistan); by 1998 it is about 1.6 per cent  (p. 76, Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2013) - the population has declined by about 90 per cent in about 50 years. This decimation is the outcome of sustained  legal and social discrimination ever since the creation of Pakistan. On the legal front, only Muslims are eligible for the position of President or Prime minister of Pakistan. The Sharia court in Pakistan has promoted religiosity and strengthened fanatics. It inflicts Islamic punishments, including stoning to death, amputation of hands and feet, flogging in public to non-Muslim citizens too. Blasphemy laws carry a death sentence and have been used to target non Muslims. Family laws for non-Muslims do not exist. Thus, marriages can not be legally established for purpose of travel, and divorce and property right disputes can not be resolved. On the social front, curriculum in government schools and Madrasas promote religious hatred against minorities. The number of Madrasas has increased from 244 in 1956  to 10,000 in 2013 (p. 74) .

As a result, Hindu women, mostly minors,  are being persistently abducted and forcibly converted, Hindu businessmen kidnapped for ransom, and Hindu temples destroyed. An elaborate infrastructure has been designed to prey upon the likes of  Rachna Kumari and  Rinkel Kumari. The human rights commission in Pakistan reports that 20-25 young Hindu girls are abducted and forcibly converted every month. Dawn puts this number at 1000 every year for Hindu and Christian women. Pakistan has been home to numerous Hindu temples of which only 360 remain, with an even smaller number functioning; thousands of temples have been destroyed since 1947 (p. 81). One of the holiest sites of the Hindus, the Hinglaj Mata Mandir has also been targeted by extremists. Bereft of any hope for dignified survival in Pakistan, Hindus are taking refuge abroad. Pakistan Hindu council estimates that about 5000 Hindus leave for India every year (p. 73).

The genocide of Hindus is not limited to Pakistan. Starting in the late 1980s, Buddhist Bhutan has expelled nearly 100,000 traditional Hindus, constituting about 1/6th of Bhutanese population. From almost a third of East Pakistan’s (currently Bangladesh’s) population as per Pakistan’s 1951 census, by 1971, when Bangladesh was born out of East Pakistan, Hindus were less than a fifth of its population; Hindus constitute less than 10 per cent of the populace there thirty years later; and  as little as  8 per cent today per reliable estimate (R Benkins A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing – The Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus). The situation is now so dire that even Amnesty has taken note that the Hindu community in Bangladesh is at extreme risk and is being targeted simply for their religion (p. 24). In 1971 alone 10 million ethnic Bengalis, mostly Hindus fled to India and 200,000 women were raped (p. 26). From 1975 onwards, religious minoryities including Hindus have been subjected to discriminatory property laws, restrictions on religious freedom and violence perpetrated by both state and non-state agencies (p. 30). For example, Hindus are attacked almost every year during the celebration of their most important festival, Durga Puja. Before creation of Bangladesh Pakistani government had instituted an enemy property act (EPA) in 1965, which officially labeled Hindus as enemies and enabled annexation of their properties. The EPA has continued under different names since the creation of Pakistan: VPA (Vested Property Act), VRPB (Vested Property Return Bill) etc, and has robbed 200,000 Hindu families of 16 X 107 square meters of their land between 2001 to 2007 (estimated by Abul Barakat of Dhaka University) (p. 43). Similarly, the Bumiputra policies explicitly discriminate against 6.3 per cent Hindus in the Islamic republic of Malyasia (p. iv).

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing

Descrimination in Sikkim

DISCRIMINATION IN SIKKIM

 DISCRIMINATION IN SIKKIM

An obscure, recently formed organization ,called Sikkim Solidarity Forum has submitted a memorandum to the Governor of Sikkim on 22^nd October 2013. They are complaining against the Association of Old Settlers who have gone to the Supreme Court with their grievances against discrimination and  want the Old Settlers to withdraw their petition.

The petition of the Old Settlers has been accepted by the Supreme Court and in a subsequent hearing the Honourable court has even observed pithily that nobody should pressurize the Association to withdraw its petition.

The State Government has also specifically supported the Association in the Supreme Court. (It  has also actually passed an Official Bill in the Assembly supporting the Association of Old Settlers.)

The remedy (if any ) for the FORUM and all like minded people now lies in the Supreme Court and not in either the Raj Bhawan  or the streets of Gangtok.

The new Governor of Sikkim, an experienced man has been a senior IAS Officer and a two term Parliamentarian to boot.

He is not likely to support a cause which is being heard by the Supreme Court and is supported by the State Government.

 Please see below the concise point wise contents of the ill thought out memorandum which makes the following representations.Our counter comments to each point are given in Capitals.

1.      That the merger of Sikkim was effected under article 371F which protects the old laws of Sikkim

ANSWER :     CORRECT.

2.   That the Indian residents of Sikkim were offered Sikkim citizenship by the Erstwhile King  without alienating their property and commercial interests in India but they refused this offer.

ANSWER : NOT CORRECT. IN FACT A BLATANT LIE. READ SIKKIM SUBJECT REGULATIONS WHICH ARE QUITE EXPLICIT ABOUT REQUIREMENTS FOR CITIZENSHIP.

 3.   The Memorandum attaches an FIR filed by the forum against a list of “Indians” and demands action against them. The list consists of people who have been assessed for tax for money transfer via gifts. These taxes have apparently been paid as per demand which the attached list itself shows!!  

 

ANSWER :  HOW HAS THIS LIST OF TAXPAYERS BEEN CONVERTED TO A LIST OF CRIMINALS?

        IN FACT THE LIST IS NOT COMPLETE AS POWERFUL PEOPLE WHO GAVE GIFTS ---IN CRORES TO ( Rajesh Khanna , Sridevi and a host of other film stars) ARE ABSENT. THIS MISSING  LIST IF ANY REQUIRES AN INQUIRY AS THESE PEOPLE PAID NO TAX ON THE GIFTS THEY MADE AND EVEN TODAY PRESUMABLY STRUT THE POLITICAL STAGE OF SIKKIM.

 

4.    The Memorandum next makes out a blatantly false and communal claim of blaming the Association of trying to take away benefits awarded by the Erstwhile King to the Bhutias ,Lepchas and Nepalese ??.

ANSWER : THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY WAS ALSO ALWAYS GIVEN THE SAME EXEMPTIONS AS EVERYBODY.THE KING MADE NO DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN COMMUNITIES AND IN FACT NO SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENT ALSO EVER MADE ANY DISCRIMINATION (UNTIL THE CENTRAL GOVT. WAS MISLED INTO INSERTING THE DISCRIMINATORY CLAUSE IN THE FINANCE BILL 2008.)

5.  The Memorandum then goes on to make the fantastic claim that the association has questioned the participation of Sikkimese of Nepali Origin in the Popular mandate of 1975 otherwise known as the” SIKKIM REFRUNDRUM.” (For Sikkim to merge with India). Please see below the number of people who voted to merge with India.

Sikkim REFRUNDRUM Results as per Wikepedia.

Choice	Votes	%
For	59,637	97.55
Against	1,496	2.45
Invalid/blank votes		–
Total	61,133	100
Registered voters/turnout	97,000	63
Source: Direct Democracy

ANSWER :  SO SOME 60 THOUSAND PEOPLE VOTED FOR THE REFERENDUM AND THEY DID NOT INCLUDE EITHER THE INDIANS OR THE 74000 OTHERS WHO WERE CONVERTED FROM STATELESS TO INDIAN CITIZENS IN 1989 OR THEREABOUTS.

The memorandum then ends with a fantastic appeal to H.E. The Governor to 

1. Interfere on their behalf with the supreme court??!!
2. To take action against the list of tax payers.!!
3. To work on their behalf to influence the Central Government to take up their cause in the Supreme Court.

 ANSWER :  IT IS AMAZING THAT REPRESENTATIVES OF AN 75% MAJORITY OF THE STATE ARE ASKING THE GOVERNOR TO TAKE UP THEIR CASE AGAINST A 2% MINORITY.

TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY THEY TRY TO TAKE SUPPORT FROM CLAUSE (G) OF ARTICLE 371F OF THE CONSTITUTION. (QUOTED BELOW)

“(g) the governor of Sikkim shall have special responsibility for peace and for an equitable arrangement for ensuring the social and economic advancement of different sections of the population of Sikkim and in the discharge of his special responsibility under this clause, the governor of Sikkim shall, subject to such directions as the president may, from time to time, deem fit to issue, act in his discretion;”

THIS CLAUSE IS OBVIOUSLY SOLELY TO PROTECT THE MINORITIES FROM DISCRIMINATION AND CERTAINLY NOT FOR MAJORITY PROTECTION. IT IS A VERY POWERFUL CLAUSE ALLOWING THE GOVERNOR POWERS WHICH NO OTHER GOVERNOR IN INDIA HAS ----BUT ONLY TO BE USED TO PROTECT THE MINORITIES.

EPILOGUE

ALL THIS ASTONISHINGLY FROM REPRESENTATIVES OF A COMMUNITY WHICH IS FACING EXACTLY THIS SAME KINDS OF DISCRIMINATION ALL OVER THE NORTH EAST FROM THE MAJORITY COMMUNITY THERE AND WHO ARE  TRYING TO CHASE THEM OUT --A LA BHUTAN.

Sikkim Subject and the Criminal Intimidation by so-called representatives of the majority community in Sikkim.

CONTEXT.

(In the last two days the Sikkim press is full of threats to the miniscule plains people population of the state for applying to the Supreme Court for Justice and equal treatment as guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.)

When there is no recourse left in law then criminal intimidation is the only way.

Here are some questions for Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (BGP) AND A CERTAIN  Mr.Nepal ---we certainly hope the name does not denote that he is a  foreigner.

5 QUESTIONS.

1      1.   This petition has been in court for 3 months and more . Why does not this organization/person not challenge the petition  in the Supreme court if they/he think that  the old settlers do not have a legal case ?

2     2.   As an Indian and---- if he is an Indian --- should he not have  had faith in India’s Supreme Court  Instead of trying to blackmail and frighten a minuscule minority in Sikkim ?

3    3.   If some people opted to retain  Indian or other citizenship if the Chogyal offered them Sikkim Subject  , then all who refused should be in the same boat—and the records  will show that there were more Nepalese who refused the Sikkim Subject offer than others ?

4    4.  The State Government itself has certified that the Sikkim subject list contains at least thirty thousand false names –a majority of them Nepalis—then why do you grudge others from getting the same benefit and that too via the Supreme Court in a transparent and legal manner?

55.   And The Chogyal of Sikkim certainly did not give all the current holders of Sikkim Subject their rights . It was in fact  the GREAT BHANDARI who fought for  these stateless –some 80,000 non Sikkimese so that they could have  the right----which they are now mysteriously claim as Chogyal's grant and want to restrict people who have served the state for a hundred years and more from getting the same Rights.   WHY ???  

CANNOT HELP BUT WONDER ----WILL THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PARTS OF INDIA ---TO PLAINS PEOPLE IN SIKKIM AND THE NEPALESE IN ASSAM ?

Why the Return of Kashmiri Pandits Is Still a Distant Dream.

MUKESH GUPTA / REUTERS

       

       

By RAHUL PANDITA

June 3, 2013

On April 24, Kamal, a 35-year-old unemployed Kashmiri Hindu, died in the Jagti refugee settlement on the outskirts of the city of Jammu, the winter capital of the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. His body was found a few days after his death. More than three weeks later, the Jammu Tribune reported that the young man, who was living alone after his parents died some time ago, was mentally disturbed and had died of starvation after the state government’s relief department stopped his monthly stipend for unknown reasons.

Kamal’s death is the latest event to add to the Jagti residents’ sense of abandonment by the state and central governments. The Jagti settlement is home to about 4,000 Kashmiri Hindu families, who have been living there since 2011 after the state government dismantled their old camps scattered around Jammu, which had served as their homes since 1990. The Kashmiri Hindus, more popularly known as Pandits, were forced out of their land in 1990 when an Islamist insurgency broke out in Kashmir Valley. It’s the only Indian state where the Muslims are in a majority.

About 350,000 Pandits, including my family, were forced into exile after being brutalized on the streets of Kashmir and inside their homes. Hundreds were killed and many raped and maimed. Since the Pandits are an educated lot, most of them moved on, securing jobs and careers in India and abroad. But a small percentage continues to live in miserable conditions in refugee settlements like Jagti.

I was there in September last year when a few residents were on a hunger strike, protesting against the state government’s apathy. Those families who didn’t have a government job survived on a monthly dole of 1,250 rupees, or $22. The government provides a maximum monthly stipend of 5,000 rupees for each family, and the Pandits at the Jagti settlement were demanding more aid and new facilities.

Many such families had taken small loans from banks, both private and government to start small businesses before they were shifted to Jagti. The loan installment was deducted from their meager monthly stipend.

All year round, the camp faced a power outage of 16 to 18 hours each day. Residents alleged that a substantial amount from the 3.69 billion rupees allotted for the construction of the camp had been siphoned off by government officials and their political bosses. “We belong to nobody,” a resident, Bhushan Lal Bhat, told me. “No government is interested in us because we are not a vote bank.”

When a team of three delegates appointed by the Indian government looked into the grievances of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the report it issued in October 2011 was dismissed by everyone, including the separatist groups in Kashmir. The Pandits, in any case, expected nothing from it. The report made some vague references to the Pandits, asking the government for “sympathetic consideration” toward their plight. In an even vaguer reference, it said that the “women can provide a bridge for Kashmiri Pandits to reconcile with their co-citizens in the Valley.”

Recently, the same government-appointed team submitted a feedback report to the Home Ministry in New Delhi, recommending the construction of a new city in the heart of Kashmir Valley for the rehabilitation of the Pandits. Howver, it doesn’t acknowledge the circumstances that led to the exodus of the Pandits in the first place, a trauma that is still fresh in many Pandits’ minds. Without official recognition of the events of 1990, true reconciliation is not possible.

In April, I was in Bangalore for the release of my book, “Our Moon Has Blood Clots,” which deals with the exodus of the Pandits. Among the audience was a lady who sat upright all time, paying attention to every word I spoke. As I read a passage, she bowed her head and I could see she was trying hard to control her emotions. Later, I learned her name, Rudrakshi Warikoo. She spoke about her experiences of 1990 – she was 19 at that time, she said. “I still have nightmares about those days,” she said, shuddering.

Most Pandits have gone through similar experiences and have no hope of returning to their homeland. “We visit Kashmir Valley in summer to escape the heat,” another Jagti resident, who did not wish to be identified, told me. “The former militants who killed Pandits in 1990 have turned politicians and keep on saying: ‘Kashmir is incomplete without the Pandits.’ But they don’t mean it.”

That is what a few hundred young men and women who returned to their erstwhile home under a central government job program, which has been operating since 2008, have experienced. In the valley, they stay in a few ghetto-like camps. But security is the least of their concerns. They have faced such harsh treatment and harassment from their Muslim colleagues that many of them have left their jobs and Kashmir Valley.

“I suffer from a permanent depression because of what I go through daily,” one man told me when he visited me secretly at my hotel room in September. He worked as a teacher and said he was thinking of leaving his job.

In all the Pandit killings, there has been but one conviction so far. Meanwhile, people like the militant Farooq Ahmad Dar, alias Bitta Karate, freely run around Kashmir – a man who in 1990 confessed on national television that he was responsible for the killings of about two dozen Pandits, including his neighbor, on whose scooter he used to pillion ride at times. He spent 16 years in jail awaiting a trial, then was granted bail after a judge, N.D. Wani, said the prosecution had shown no interest in arguing the case. For some in Kashmir, Mr. Dar is a hero.

In September, I was at one of the camps in Kashmir Valley where some Pandits live under police protection. I met an old lady who sat on her haunches outside her quarters, winnowing rice grains. She would not let my photographer colleague take her picture and declined to give her name. But she said in the last seven years she had been out of the camp only thrice. “My heart is about to burst,” she said.

The return of the Pandits to Kashmir Valley seems like a distant dream unless the wounds of the 1990s exodus are healed. Under such circumstances, the idea of the new city, as proposed by the government-appointed delegates, is far fetched.

Rahul Pandita is an author, more recently of “Our Moon Has Blood Clots.” He works with the newsweekly Open. Follow him on Twitter @rahulpandita.

WHY HAVE THE OFFICES OF NEWSPAPER WHICH WAS TOEING THE LINE OF THE CHAMLING GOVERNMENT BEEN VANDALIZED BY SDF GOONS ??

Those who live by propagating falsehoods will be dealt with by their own falsehood.

Poetic Justice.

SIKKIM PLANS DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT RECORDS

1.This is a very worrying and obvious attempt to wipe out recorded details of corruption from both Government and also corrupt State Business institutes like State Trading Corporation etc etc.

2. Immediate legal steps have to be taken to protect the records.

3. This will also wipe out a very important part of Sikkim's History especially negative actions of the state.

4.The Sikkim subject records will be destroyed to allow fake people to gain Sikkim Subject Status.

5. Money will be spent by the powers that be to buy both the Judiciary and also Central Government's acquiescence and even the Governor can be changed if he does not agree to sign on the dotted line as, if rumours in Sikkim are to be believed ,the Central Home Minister will follow the state governments direction exactly.

6.It is good that the fast has put the matter on public record as responsible people will ultimately be held accountable by an increasingly aware public which is now on the verge of a national and probably violent revolt against corruption.

7.Remember it is likely that previous regimes which have also been corrupt may in secret support this move as it will also remove records of their corruption.

8. Somebody should bring Sikkim's corruption to the notice of Anna Hazare and ask him to come for a one day fast to educate public opinion.

WHY CANNOT THEY SIMPLY DIGITIZE ALL THE RECORDS BEFORE DESTROYING AS TODAY THE COST IS HARDLY ANYTHING---IN FACT I SUSPECT THEY WILL PAY MORE TO BE SURE OF ACTUAL DESTRUCTION THAN THE COST OF ACTUAL DIGITIZING.