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Kashmiri Pandits

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The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region located within the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits originally lived in the Kashmir Valley before Muslim influence entered the region, following which large numbers converted to Islam. They are the only remaining Hindu community native to Kashmir.

Quotes

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  • They ‘persecuted the few bramins who still remained firm in their religion; and by putting all to death, who refused to embrace Mahomedism. He drove those who still lingered in Kashmeer entirely out of that kingdom.’
    • About Ameer Khan (Ally Shah) in Kashmir. Ferishtah MQHS (1829) History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, translated by John Briggs, D.K. Publishers Distributors (P) Ltd, New Delhi, Vol. IV (1997 imprint), p. 268-9 as quoted in Khan, M. A. (2011). Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery.
  • In absence of government computations about the killings of Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and other Hindus, private agencies and non-government organizations have put the number of Hindus of all shades who have been killed at 2,500 out of which Kashmiri Pandits stand out with a figure of eighteen hundred and odd. The Report submitted to the National Human Rights Commission by PKM has put the figures of killed Pandits at 319 till October, 1990. B.N. Nissar, editor of the Kashyapvani, has issued out a list of 765 Kashmiri Pandits who were brutally massacred. As per him twenty two ladies were raped and killed, sixty-six males were kidnapped and released which included Vijay Koul, director of the Regional Institute of Science and Technology and Dr. A.K. Dhar, director of the Regional Research Laboratory, eighteen were hanged to death, twenty-five ladies were raped and let off, eight were strangulated, hundred twenty- four were kidnapped and killed and sixty were critically wounded and died for want of media laid. No fewer than fifty seven sikhs have been killed. It is said that many a mass massacre of Kashmiri Pandits of Sangrampora dimension was suppressed and not leaked to the press under the instuructions of the then Home Minister of India.
    • M.L. Kaul: Kashmir: Wail of a Valley (1999), New Delhi: Gyan Sagar Publications [1]
  • The legend runs that only a small number of families of Kashmiri Hindus survived the massacre and all the present population of Kashmiri Pandits is descended from them. It was said that cartloads of sacred threads, which the Hindus wear, were collected and thrown into the Dal Lake from the decapitated bodies of the killed and tortured. Crowds of women committed suicide to escape the clutches of the ravishers. Women, it is said, carried lethal poisons in their pockets to be swallowed when no other way was left to save their honor.
  • There are no words to express the devastation of the Nandimarg massacre and the sad history of the Kashmiri Pandits... The conflict in Kashmir cannot be separated from the global war against terrorism.
    • Frank Joseph Pallone Jr., March 26, 2003. in Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. page 57
  • Most of the foreign India reporters borrow not just data, but also opinions and judgments from their Delhi contacts without critically examining them. On top of these borrowed distortions, they themselves also manage to disregard pertinent data which stare every normal observer in the face. Thus, practically every Hindu activist whom I have interviewed between 1990 and 1998 brought up the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, murdered or expelled from their homeland, as a telling illustration of the true religio-political power equation in India.
    • Koenraad Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, in: Elst, K. The Problem with Secularism (2007) Chapter 6.
  • ‘Ten seers’ (twenty pounds) weight of sacred threads (the symbol of high caste status) were collected from forcibly converted Hindus, many of whom were later to ‘reconvert’ to Hinduism.
    • Bahadur Singh, Yadgar-I-Bahaduri Mss. 30,786 (also [2])
  • The Valley of Kashmir is the ‘holy land’ of the Hindus, and I have rarely been in any village which cannot show some relic of antiquity. Curious stone miniatures of the old Kashmiri temples (Kulr- Muru), huge stone seats of Mahadeo (Badrpith) inverted by pious Musalmans, Phallic emblems innumerable, and carved images heaped in grotesque confusion by some clear spring, have met me at every turn.
    • Sir Walter R. Lawrence (ICS) about Kashmir. in Lawrence 1895: 161). quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Espisodes from Indian history.[3]
  • On the imprisonment of Mahomed, Futteh Khan, assuming the reigns of government, and being formally crowned, was acknowledged King of Kashmeer in the year 902; and appointed Suffy and Runga Ray, the two officers who had lately made their escape, his ministers. About this time one Meer Shumsood-Deen, disciple of Shah Kasim Anwur, the son of Syud Mahomed Noorbukhsh arrived in Kashmeer from Irak. Futteh Khan made over to this holy personage all the confiscated lands which had lately fallen to the crown; and his disciples went forth destroying the temples of the idolaters, in which they met with the support of the government, so that no one dared to oppose them. In a short time many of the Kashmeeries, particularly those of the tribe of Chuk, became converts to the Noorbukhsh tenets. The persuasion of this sect was connected with that of the Sheeas; but many proselytes, who had not tasted of the cup of grace, after the death of Meer Shumsood-Deen, reverted to their idols…
    • Tãrîkh-i-Firishta by Firishta. Sultãn Fath Shãh of Kashmir (AD 1485-1499 and 1505-1516) Kashmir
  • Fath Shãh ascended the throne in AH 894 (AD 1488-89)… In those days Mîr Shams, a disciple of Shãh Qãsim Anwar, reached Kashmir and people became his devotees. All endowments, imlãk, places of worship and temples were entrusted to his disciples. His Sûfîs used to destroy temples and no one could stop them…
    • Tabqãt-i-Akharî by Nizamuddin Ahmad. Sultãn Fath Shãh of Kashmir (AD 1489-1499 and 1505-1516) Kashmir
  • In history there are no permanent heroes. Roles keep reversing with time.
  • What kind of a country is this where one can settle 5,700 Rohingya Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, but not 7 lakh Kashmiri Hindus-the original inhabitants of the land? There is no other way of saying it we live in a nation of broken mirrors, where you possess neither a shadow nor a reflection if you are a Kashmiri Hindu. We live in a nation that waits for death to rid us of our remembrances. Please wait a little more, just a little.
    • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan
  • Remember that five years ago, the Supreme Court rejected reopening cases of criminal atrocities against Kashmiri Hindus because too much time had elapsed. You read it right—justice is now weighed against time. Elapsed time is elapsed justice. In December of 2022, the Supreme Court reiterated its previous stand of not opening cases of atrocities against Kashmiri Hindus.
    • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan
  • Mind turns numb at the very thought that a nation is going about its business for 30 years while half a million Hindus have been reduced to refugees in their own land. ... Kashmiri Hindus are the Gandhis without guns, and that is the singular reason why no one cares for their plight. Because this nation hears complaints through the barrel of a gun, not the ink of a pen. This nation believes inaction is a medicine. It believes time heals. It believes wounds do not fester. It believes the exiled never return. This nation waits for death to rid its people of their remembrances. This nation wishes the Kashmiri Hindus all happiness and joy in the afterlife.
    • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan
  • In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahometan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikandar to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahometans in Kashmir; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband's corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahometans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikandar ordered all the temples in Kashmir to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikandar, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up....
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  1. ↑ Ashok Pandey on Kashmir and Kashmir Pandits.
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