Anguish of Jammu Hindus

Day after day, week after week tens upon thousands of people are on the march in the north Indian region of Jammu. The mountain area has witnessed a sea of humanity from young to old, rich to poor, village man to city executive walking for a cause, dying for a cause with an indomitable do or die spirit. And it shows no sign of abating.

The turbulent province of Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state has been witness to an armed insurrection for the past two decades. We have seen scenes of appalling violence and brutality in the Kashmir valley heralded by the ethnic cleansing in 1990 of the regions Hindu minority. Over 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus were forced almost overnight to leave their homes under the gaze of the worlds media and for the past two decades have been unable to return to their homes living in squalor in camps in the neighbouring Jammu region. The valleys majority community despite testimonies to the values of secularism and the oft quoted 'Kashmiriyat' have failed, together with the Indian state to create a safe atmosphere for the return of the minority community to the Kashmir valley.

The Indian state in an attempt to conciliate with the various factions operating in the valley, both underground and as part of the political system have operated at different levels, from throwing huge amounts of state funds at the valley to the preservation of the peculiar benefits accruing to the states inhabitants.

Thus, an age old pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine in the north of Kashmir by Hindu devotees has been categorised as a recent one held at the generosity of the local Muslim community. Thus fifteen years of violence and brutality held at bay by the Indian security forces have been minimised. Thus when a small area of about 40 hectares was proposed to be placed under the jurisdiction of a Hindu religious body for a period of two months each year, a region which is forest land and virtually uninhabitable for ten months in the year the government rapidly withdrew the order in the face of furious protests in Kashmir against the intrusion of 'outsiders' and 'Hindus'.

What happened next was unexpected. A sense of betrayal and grievance fostered in the Hindu majority region of Jammu virtually exploded in horror at the perceived weak action of the state authorities. The Central government dithered over the matter for some days and the people irked by decades of accepting the dominance of the Kashmir region in the interests of the country as a whole exploded.

Not since the heyday of the freedom movement has India seen so many people on the march. The Hindu masses have arisen in what is perceived as justifiable resentment. After all the Indian state has subsidized the Hajj pilgrimage for Muslim pilgrims to the extent of creating a separate terminal in Delhi's International airport and provides numerous subsidies for minority places of education and worship, all funded by the Indian, majority Hindu, taxpayer. And yet we see a violent majority in the Kashmir valley being unable to tolerate even a tiny piece of uninhabitable land being given for temporary usage to Hindu pilgrims to the ice bound shrine of Amaranth.

Tens and thousands are now on the march, several have been killed. Young and old are filling the states jails and many more are waiting to take their places. The resentment born out of a sense of neglect and lack of empathy for their plight has been symbolised by the public suicide of young men like Kuldip Dogra who consumed poison to raise awareness of the issue. It is a symbol of the hurt and helplessness felt by many Hindus by the injustices heaped upon them. Others have followed his path since in several more tragic suicides. More have fallen to the bullets of the police.

A humanitarian crisis is brewing in Jammu with no end in sight. The politicians and rabble rousers in the Kashmir valley with their calls to militant Islam are once again baying for separation from India's Hindu majority. The ethos of composite and multi faith cooperation are under grave threat as religious militants and their fellow travellers from India's leftist intellectuals are focusing on the valley.

What they leave behind them is a burning Jammu. A region where the Hindus in the outskirts are being pushed to leave hearth and home again. A region where the injustices of six decades are now creating an outpouring of angst amongst the Hindus which is threatening to spill over into the Indian plains. A horrified outrage that in the modern age man can be divided against his fellow man in the name of religion has pushed the people of Jammu to the point where the government of India needs to take immediate remedial action. The banks of Jammu are empty, the food stores are almost empty, basic medical supplies are running short, people on the periphery are under threat from religious fanatics and yet the agitation shows no sign of slowing down.