A Open Letter to my Kashmir Pandit Brother and Sister…!!

By Naqshab Afra


When any Muslim Kashmiri supports Muslim Pakistan you call him communal because he supports the country on religious sentiments,similarly if any Kashmiri Hindu supports Hindu India he also deserve the same title of being called communal because he supports a country on religious sentiment. Right!! Why shuld we be Pakistanis or Indians, Why cant we be Kashmiris??

Forget for the time being what your religion is. Kashmir is a political issue rather than a religious issue. However both India and Pakistan want to refer it as communal... Kashmir wants freedom and wants to liberate its occupied lands from occupation of imperial neighbours named India and Pakistan.

To support the national cause neither you nor we require to loose our religious identity. We have lived together and we will insha-Allah live together. The two brutal foreign rule of Panjabes and Afghans could not divide us. despite of the fact from that era we are left with deep scars, which we wouldn’t forget but we have healed the wound together...

In two authoritarian dynastic (non-foreign rule) rules of Swat (Shahmiries) and Jammu (Dogra) we both faced ups and downs... Now why, should we continue with our differences? I am not making a wild assumption that we are true copies of each other. However the smaller differences we had was mercilessly exploited by our neighboring countries which have been plotting and maneuverings for our resources and rich lands from years. And how long should we allow ourselves to get used, miss-used and abused by these powers. The question is straight to all those people who have been sacrificing and have painfully wasted their sacrificed in vain for others except for their motherland. Their motherland Mouj Kashir remain weeping and Jhelum continues to flow her tears…...in every season reminding us of our forgotten responsibilities. Right now Kashmir nation is struggling together against the atrocities unleashed by India. And yet a small section but equally important, remains aloof in the dry land and scorching heat of India away, far away from this sacred cause of liberating our mouj Kashir.......... Why??

Our demand to India is simple and logical. And any rational person with reasonable understanding can understand it. That is, “To leave Jammu and Kashmir to its own people”. Don’t forget the idea of sovereign independent Kashmir was articulated by our first Prime Minister Mr. Ram Chander Kak, While as Sheikh Abdullah only wanted to transfer the power to his family and replace a dynasitic rule. Apart from the 219 Kashmiris that were killed in nineties. There are still thousand of Kashmiri Hindus living with their Kashmiri Muslim brothers. And more than 100,000 Kashmir Muslims were killed since nineties. The number of injured and tortured are even more than this. A section of Kashmir Hindus and Muslims left Kashmir early nineties, however they have equally bitter experience of Indian state. Who else can have a bitter experience of Indian state...?? If we were killed and tortured in Kashmir by India, you were misused and used against your own Kashmiri brothers by India. Even now whenever Kashmiri moves ahead in achieving freedom you are used as a stumbling block. Our political opinions can be different but we have common destiny. Provided you are seriously thinking of returning to Kashmir. You can’t continue with this suicidal approach. Don’t you want to return to your home…. How many more decades you will wander in India?

Neither I can make you a Pakistani nor you can make me an Indian. But we both are Kashmiris. We both have responsibility towards our ailing motherland. If our brothers and sister in Kashmir are killed and humiliated by Indian facist soliders, aren’t they your brother and sisters.

You have the right to protest for your 219 Kashmir pundits killed in two years (1990-91), so do we!! Since 1990 (in 21 years) the number of Kashmiri Muslims killed has exceeded 100,000. Can we forget that?? Can we forget those hundreds kashmires families who were compelled to cross the ceasefire line/LoC and are now staying in other parts of Kashmir, dadyal, mirpur, muzafarabad?? the A human being may have many identities but when he or she is killed he dies as a human being. Suffering is suffering doesn’t matter whether Hindu (pundits)suffers or Muslim sufferers. Neither you have got justice of 219 murdered Kashmiri pundits nor have we got justice of 100,000 murdered Kashmiri Muslims. Justice delayed is justice denied. And Indian Judicial system has utterly failed us. We demand probe by international neutral agencies into the crimes committed against humanity in Kashmir. Support us!!

India has an acute problem of imposing, generalizing, deciding on behalf of other communities/nationalities as if other people do not know how to speak or they speaks gibberish...and they alone have wisdom to understand. India as a sovereign country and has a right to exist in this world, and same right of existance belongs to Kashmir.

Kashmir is a sovereign nation, occupied by India. India, a country which got its freedom just 60 years back from British after 100 years of bloody struggle. But denies the same freedom to other nations.

India occupied Kashmir by deceit. Broke all the international covenants guarantying Kashmir right to choose their own future. Which is your right and which is my right. Uptill 1990 Kashmir wanted to resolve this occupation through dialogue. However India believed in violence & in military solution. Untill 1952 India continued to promise that they will allow referendums in J&K, India broke its promise, became greedy and misinformed its own people that it was part of their mainland.

And when using all the peaceful methods to convey our message to Indians we started demanding it more loudly India responded with sending 800,000 Indian soldiers in my country in our country called J&K. They committed all the worst atrocities, 100,000 Kashmir’s were killed, 50,000 children became orphan, there are at least 200,000 tortured victims, 8000 just vanished in your custody. To shield your soldiers from legal implications and justice, Indian leaders designed “Armed Forces Special Powers Act”, “Disturbed Areas Act” etc so that these criminals in uniform are provided with impunity and they inturn continue their naked dance of death, destruction, murder and loot.... Humiliation of our elders, women, worship places has became a part-time for Indian forces operating in J&K. India a self-proclaimed secular democracy made every effort to communalize the atmosphere of J&K and denied the basic right to every human being to decide for his/her own future.

We are called thankless....? You know why? India claims to be democracy and responds peaceful protest with cane-charges, teargas, curfews, arrest, torture... !! In rage when our children throw stones on Indian solders, Indian democracy responds with bullets. What a comparison Stones vs Bullets..!!

We will continue our struggle for freedom, justice, peace and equality while as India appears in no mood to understand the reality and seems to continue of grabbing land and resources of other nations ... for example Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab, Tilangana, Rajputana etc, They continue systematic genocide, distort the history of the occupied lands and communalize atmosphere and misinform its own people in India and the world community that the people they suppress are separatist.

This war is between vice against virtue, hegemony vs freedom, discrimination vs equality, authoritianism vs democracy...it has always continued in the world, we both have to decide which side you want to support…Truth or Falsehood?

na unki rasm nai hai , na apni reet ani,

na unki haar nai hai, na apni jeet nai,

issi sabab sai falak ka gila nahi kartay,

issi sabab ham Dil bura nahi kartay…!!

agar aaj tumsay juda hein, tu kal baa’ham houn gai,

ye chaar din ki judaaie to koi baat nahe,

Aur agar Aaj pay hai tala-i-rakeb to kia...?

Ye char din ki Khudaiye to koi baat nahi..!! (faiz)


(This letter I wrote last year and read it out in public in front of all the fellow protestors in Delhi..Kashmiri Muslims, Pundits, Sikhs and also some Tamil, Naga & Manipur students at Janter Manter. The protest was in context of the bloody situtaion in Kashmir, where small children where being killed only because they wanted initially an investigation into the Machil fake encounter and later only because they asserted their right to protest; since no space was provided in Kashmir, Kashmiri youth (around 200) first time in decades, decided to extend the protest in Delhi near Janter Manter...Ironically a separate group (of 20 to 25 protestors) led by "roots of kashmir" was protesting against our right to protest across the road near Janta-Dal Office...and you know what next day Indian Media only mentioned the other event and black listed our event........!!
I have no grudges & no expectations from Indian State, this is how an occupier and imperilist state behaves...but I have lot of expectations from its people and from other communities and nationalities forced to remain within India, who have also been suppressed and denied of their Democratic Right to be Free..)