Time to Reclaim Kashmir and End the Mindless Violence

Reflecting upon the legitimacy of the state, politics and the socio-cultural heritage of Kashmir.

Kashmir has been instrumental in defining how paradise would look — beautiful and serene. It was named after sage Kashyap over 4,000 years ago. The mystical place’s history was largely peaceful was symbolic of various religions living together peacefully with predominant influences from Muslim sufi culture and Hindu shaivism.

However what has unfolded in last few decades in Kashmir has created memories of agony, suffering and endless fighting for ‘freedom’.

In the current situation, every time Kashmir boils, a question everybody fails to ask is “Who does Kashmir truly belong to?” Does it belong to the original inhabitants the Kashmiri Pandits or to the majority Muslim population which came from various other locations to settle in Kashmir? Or does Pakistan actually have a rightful claim on Kashmir?

Some questions don’t really have a simple, clear answer.

From a political stand-point, India is claiming Kashmir after Raja Hari Singh sided with India during the 1948-49 attack from Pakistan. On the other hand, the mass majority of Kashmiri Muslims wanted to go to Pakistan.

So, where do we go from here? We have to understand that Kashmir is not just another state, it defines India in many ways.

A part of the reality is that excluding a few thousand Kashmiri Pandits who still remain in refugee camps in Jammu, most displaced Pandits today have settled well in various parts of India and the world and have moved on in life. However, thousands of those who remain in the valley are getting killed in the violence day and night.

Generations after generations, it is the Kashmiris (largely Muslims) as young as 5 and 10 years old, who are getting killed in the fight for ‘freedom’.

Do we really think that an idea of freedom that kills one’s own people can be legitimate? Politics has done a lot of damage to Kashmir, but why is it that any attempt to bring economic prosperity and industries to Kashmir has always been dismantled?

With so many questions around us, what is the solution to this madness? Well, a complicated answer emerges. If one understands the core of why Kashmir is always boiling with anger, violence and slogans of freedom, one realises that it all stems from ignorance and largely from blind religious beliefs. People are trying to destroy the paradise on earth in the promise of paradise in the afterlife.

We all need to introspect on whether violence is truly the solution to the Kashmir problem. History is what we do today. Time has come to end the ignorance and reclaim the lost paradise.

(Vishal Dhar is a Kashmiri Pandit who was forced to leave the Valley in the early 1990s with his family. He is a life coach, a freelance writer and a singer.)