Lessons from Outbursts of Yasin Malik and Mufti Nasir on Newshour Debate

Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of the valley in January of 1990 by Kashmiri Muslims backed by Pakistan’s Jehadi-ISI combine.  This was made possible through arms, money and political backing of Pakistani establishment after the call by Benazir Bhutto.

Terrorists like Bitta Karate and Yasin Malik were personally responsible for killing of many Kashmiri Pandits.  Yasin Malik also is held responsible for killing four Indian Air Force personnel.

After unleashing a campaign of terror by killing prominent Pandits in the Valley, slogans and speeches were blasted from the mosques asking the Pandits to either convert or leave.  IN absence of any of these they were threatened with death.  On January 4th, 1990 a press release by Hizb ul-Mujahideen asked the Pandits to leave the Valley immediately.  As the drama of Jagmohan’s appointment was being played out on January 19, 1990, crowds of Muslims with guns and slogans to kill the Pandits swelled in the Valley.

After the Kashmiris left, their properties were burnt and temples devastated.  They became refugees in their own country and lived in ghettos in Jammu and Delhi since.

The Violent Muslim leaders who were responsible for Ethnic Cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits have not just been let off the hook and never charged or brought to justice but the Secular Media and Intellectual circles have sanitized their image to make them appear as victims themselves.

One still remembers the convention titled  ‘Azadi–The Only Way’ held in Delhi, where Arundhati Roy shared the stage with Hurriyat Leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Maoist leader Vara Vara Rao to eulogize the efforts of the Islamists. (also read – Hypocrisy of Kashmir Situation)

“Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free” – shouted Arundhati Roy

This was while the Kashmiri Pandits were protesting the ethnic cleansing by the same Islamists sitting on the stage playing victims.  And, ironically, the Pandits were blocked from raising their voice.

Now, in a Newshour debate on TimesNow (see the full debate at the bottom), Mufti Nasir-ul-Islam, Deputy Grand Mufti of Srinagar and Yasin Malik – two people who were very much responsible for the killings and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Pandits first started off with the seemingly peaceful stance of “Pandits are our brothers and should come back to the Valley” and when their deeds and violence were recounted by a Kashmir Pandit – Rashneek Kher, Founder Member, Roots in Kashmir – they started calling the Kashmiri Pandits “Cowards” and “Coward Rats”.

The obvious reference and logic in their epithets was that Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley as opposed to staying and fighting.  Or in other words, taking to arms and terror!  For, they – these psychopathic Islamists – who did take up arms to throw out the Kashmiri Hindus have been held up as the paragons of Secularism by the Gods of Small and Big things!

So this brings us to an important question – Is Indian Secularism a shameless mistress of Victim-playing Violent Blackmailers?  And the obvious takeaway of the rhetoric of terrorists like Yasin Malik and the Mufti – should Kashmir Pandits have really taken up the arms and resorted to killings of Muslims not just in the Valley but outside as well?  Because that is exactly what the Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorists did!  And were rewarded elite passes for the highest echelons of Indian Secularism!

A nation where the idea of Violent Terrorism is held above Non-violent Voices can only end up in chaotic turmoil.  It is shameful that the educated and the intellectual elite have not just tolerated the idea of supremacy of violent terrorism over non-violence voices of those who were ethnically cleansed but also supported the humiliation, bullying and mocking of these Pandits.  This very group are shamefully held up as guardians of our collective morality.  It is time to either take charge of our own moral compass or be the next victims of the same Terrorist-Intellectual cabal!  The choice is now ours.