reportedly 10,000 strong.

Even wooden
doors and window frames have been
removed. The death toll here was however
low. According to Nathnagar circle officer
Mohammad Rahmatullah, 11 people lost
their lives at the hands of the mob which
had attacked the village. The reason for
relatively low toll was that most old men,
women and children had been evacuated
from Timoni on the night of October 25.
The villagers reportedly repulsed the
attack with the help of two licensed guns.
They knew that a bigger attack would be
mounted; so taking advantage of darkness,
women and children and old men were sent
to neighbouring villages/The few young men
left behind tried to repulse the attackers, but
were outnumbered. The attackers had quite
a few guns with them. The village was surrounded on three sides and when these
Muslims found resistance impossible, they
decided to run. The eight elderly people who
lost their lives had refused to move out the
night before thinking that the nearby Katerni
police station has been informed and the
police would do something to protect them.
They paid for their faith in the police with
their lives.
One can go on documenting the failure
of police to protect lives and properties of
Muslims in village after village. According
to a senior army official helping to maintain law and order in Bhagalpur, not more
than ten per cent of the Muslim households
in the villages falling in the ten-mile radius
of Bhagalpur could have remained untouched by the madness on the three days
following the first clash of October 24. So
extensive was the killing in the villages that
many bodies were buried, salt sprinkled over
them and after covering them with earth,
vegetables were grown to hide the killings.
Right upto the second week of January 1990
bodies were being fished out of the wells and
ponds in and around the town and the local
people maintain that many more lay buried
in the innocuous looking unharvested paddy
fields. And their apprehensions do not seem
to be wide off the mark if the digging out
of about 100 bodies from a cauliflower field
at Logain village is any indication. A top
district official who preferred anonymity,
said that he himself knew at least half of
dozen wells in the suburban areas of
Bhagalpur from where bodies were yet to be
fished out.
The grim tragedy of Bhagalpur and the
villages around owes much to the role of the
police on one hand, and some notorious
criminals, on the other. The people from
Madaninagar village believe that notorious
criminals like Mahaldar, Nanda Mandal,
Motriya Yadav and Tarini Mandal were used in looting and burning houses. These
criminals were also recently released on the
eve of the Lok Sabha elections. For three
days from October 24 to 27 organised
massacre, arson and looting continued by
crowds of people led by these criminals: The
rioters killed Muslim prostitutes from Jogarsar and Mansurganj mohallahs of Bhagal-

pur; a student from Jogarsar mohallah said

that when rioters entered the mohallah, the
Muslims ran towards Ganga and there they
were killed by Gangotras, a criminal gang;
more than 50 died in this massacre. Near
Bhagalpur station a pregnant woman's body
was found whose womb had been burst open
by a heavy stone. In Navtola mohallah
almost all Muslim families were killed
small children were caught by their legs and
their heads pounded on the ground killing
them instantaneously in the presence of their
mothers. In Jawahar medical college
hospital one can find many children whose
hands or feet have been severed. Many were
killed in the trains passing through
Bhagalpur, The rioters found out the names
of a particular community from reservation
charts and attacked them. On Murarpur station near Bhagalpur, a 100-strong mob
pulled out four people from 115 up Tinsukhia Express and killed them. The dead
were poor labourers from West Bengal who
were going to Delhi as contract labour. Five
passengers from Azamganj Passenger were
done to death and six people were thrown
out of a running train; one person was killed
in a train going from Japalpur to Sultanganj
near Dariyarpur railway station. There are
any number of such incidents which would
require several pages to describe.
It is very difficult to estimate the losses
as new incidents are still coming to light,
each more heart-rending than the other.

However, various agencies involved have

prepared some estimate of the losses which
we give in the table.

Also, 37 mosques, 7 madrasas, 8 tombs and

5 Shi'a Imambaras were destroyed. Hindii
houses gutted completely are not exactly
known but it is in any case more then 300.
The figures are at best tentative. There are
likely to be more losses, Though the state
government has announced a compensation
of Rs 1,00,000 for every dead, very few have
benefited so far as compensation depends
on post mortem report and police certificate
and the police is suppressing the number of
dead. In fact even in Chanderi village where
more than 100 people died, not more than
a dozen have been given compensation so
far. The police is very reluctant to certify.

Kashmiri Muslims, Islam and Kashmiri

Tradition
Balraj Puri

Kashmiri Muslims, who constitute 95 per cent of the population

of the valley; have always reconciled cosmopolitan Islamic
affiliations with territorial patriotism because Islam in Kashmir is
rooted in the Kashmiri tradition and the Kashmiri tradition is
permeated with Islam. The Kashmiri Muslim remains a Kashmiri
as well as a Muslim and rarely suffers from the schizophrenic
pangs which Islamic links and local patriotism often create among
Muslims elsewhere in the sub-continent.
KASHMIR must have existed for much
longer than 5000 years. But authentic
scientific evidence establishes beyond any
doubt continuity of its present tradition
roughly for this period. According to Stein,
the celebrated translator of Rajtarangi,
"Kashmir can claim the distinction of being the only region of India which possesses uninterrupted series of written
records of its history". The phenomenon
is perhaps unparalleled in any other part
of the world. The peculiar factors that
made this possible provide vital clues to
the understanding of the contemporary
Kashmiri personality and the crisis it is
faced with.

Such an exercise was made by over hundred eminent Kashmirisacademics,

writers and public menat a recent seminar
organised by the Institute of Jammu and
Kashmir Affairs in Srinagar. In an atmosphere which is polarised between the
militants and the police and which has
made all parties and leaders redundant,
the frank, uninhibited, intelligent and cordial assessment of the Kashmiri heritage
and threats to it at the seminar demonstrated that dialogue has yet not completely
collapsed among Kashmiris of different
communities and schools of thought.
The longevity of the Kashmiri tradition
can mainly be attributed to it being a
1990

Economic and Political Weekly February 10, 1990

unique melting pot of races and ideas.

Mahmud of Ghazni also met two reverses
Whichever races emigrated to Kashmir
in his attempt to conquer Kashmir.
from ancient times merged their indiThe non-violent and pacifist nature of
vidual identities into one homogeneous
the Kashmiris has been interpreted and
identity. According to the renowned
ridiculed as cowardice. The current miliKashmiri historian, Mohammad Din Fauq,
tancy of a section of Kashmiri youth is
even the people who came from Arabia,
partly a reaction to this provocation.
Iran, Afghanistan and Turkestan as late
Kashmiri historians accuse Mughal rulers
as six and seven hundred years ago were
for disarming their community and makso mixed with Kashmiri Muslims in
ing them non-martial.
culture, civilisation and matrimonial relaKashmir history is not divided between
tions that "all non-Kashmiri traces are
Hindu
and Muslim periods but between
completely absent from their life".
the periods of Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri
Similarly, in terms of ideas and religious
rulers. 1586, when Akbar annexed Kashmir
movements, Kashmir proved to be a
to the Mughal empire, is regarded by most
melting pot. Equipped with a high degree
Kashmiris as the beginning of the end of
of intellect and a store of knowledge,
Kashmir's independence. A part of their
Kashmir received every new creed with
distrust of Delhi is a reflection of their
discrimination and enriched it with its
perception of the present rulers as sucown contribution without throwing away
cessors of the Mughal kings whose role
its earlier acquisitions. At the seminar
is flaunted by them in Kashmir to estascholars evaluated the impact of preblish their secular credentials.
Aryan beliefs, ancient Vedic thought,
Vaishnavism, Buddhism and Shaivisrn on
Four scholarly papers underlined the
Kashmir and Kashmir's contribution in
various peculiarities of Islam in Kashmir.
these fields. All of them became an inteIslam did not come to Kashmir as a faith
gral part of the Kashmiri heritage. Underof the conquerors and therefore did not
lining consensual nature of Kashmiri
humiliate or hurt the people's pride.
society, it was pointed out that every faith
Muslim rule in Kashmir was not an outwas moulded to meet its specific requireside import but was a result of the conments of the time through a process of
version of a local ruler as a part of its
consensus which practically the whole
spiritual evolution. Nund Rishi or Shaikhsociety followed. For instance, Kashmir
ul-AIam Hazrat Shaikh Noor Din Nurani,
became the strongest base of Buddhism
who became the patron saint of Kashmir,
in India. Kashmiri scholars not only refinmade the conversion into a massive emoed and made it a dynamic faith but also
tional and spiritual upsurge that swept
spread it far and wide in north-eastern
through every Kashmiri heart. Lai Ded or
directions. Similarly, after the revival of
Laleshwari is a vital link between Nurani
neo-Vedantic, monotheistic Shaivisrn,
and the pre-Islamic tradition of Kashmir.
Kaskmir became its leading centre in the
She represented the climax of the precoountry.
But it retained the basic
tenets
Islamic
civilisation of Kashmir and comand values of Buddhism as also the
bined the ascetic, devotional and monoculture bequeathed by it to Kashmir.
theist strands of the Kashmiri tradition as
also the Sufi influence. As a self-professed
Participants in the seminar recalled with
spiritual son of Lai Ded, Nund Rishi inpride the contribution made by Kashmir
herited the entire spiritual heritage of
to ancient Indian civilisation which was
Kashmir and carried it ahead. The Rishi
compared to the contribution of ancient
order, of which Nurani became the most
Greece to the European civilisation.
outstanding
figure in its Islamic phase,
Jawaharlal Nehru acknowledged that
dates back to the earliest period of
"Kashmir dominated the intellectual scene
Kashmir history and had continued till
of the country for almost 2000 years".
recently.
There is no branch of human knowledge
in which ancient Kashmir did not make
a pioneering and substantial contribution.
Unlike the rest of the country, there
is no communal watershed in Kashmir
history. Kashmiri Muslims are perhaps the
only Muslim community in the sub-continent which owns its pre-Islamic past with
as much pride as the non-Muslim Kashmiris do. Recalling the proud martial
traditions of Kashmiris, Muslim scholars
mention in particular the exploits of Hindu
(tings like Laiitaditya who, according to
the historian Mohibbul Hassan, "defeated
the Arab forces led by Mohammad bin
Qasim's successor and governor of Sind,
Junaid, and overran his territory".

Islam did not come to Kashmir as a

revolt against or as a destroyer of established tradition, as is the case in many
other parts of the country, but as a preserver, consolidator and perpetuator of
the tradition. Much scholarly evidence
was cited at the seminar to establish com-

mon points between Vaishnavism and

Buddhism in Kashmir. G M D Sofi observes, in his monumental work Kashir, "the
cult of Buddha, the teaching of Vadata,
the mysticism of Islam have one after
a n o t h e r f o u n d congenial h o m e in
Kashmir".
However, the young faith of Islam invigorated the Kashmiri personality and
culminated in a new renaissance reflected
in what Kashmiris regard as the golden
age of the king Zain-ul-Abidin, popularly
called Bud Shah from 1420-70. Bud Shah
symbolised a harmonious Kashmiri personality on the secular or the non-religious plane, as Nund Rishi did it on the
spiritual plane.
The fact that Islam is rooted in the
Kashmiri tradition and the Kashmiri tradition is permeated with the Islamic tradition has enabled Kashmiri Muslims, who
constitute 95 per cent of the population
of the valley, to reconcile cosmopolitan
Islamic a f f i l i a t i o n s with territorial
patriotism. The Kashmiri Muslim always
remains a Kashmiri as well as a Muslim
and rarely suffers from the schizophrenic
pangs which Islamic links and local
patriotism often create among Muslims
elsewhere in the sub-continent.
Kashmiri Muslims have thus remained
isolated from the Muslim mainstream of
the sub-continent. They reacted on occasions as Kashmiris and on other occasions
as Muslims, depending on which aspect
of their identity they perceived to be
threatened. This would explain apparently
baffling changes in their moods from time
to time. Despite their present state of alienation from the rest of India, Kashmiriat
continues to be a live force.- Unlike the
issue of Punjabi language and identity
which divided the Hindus and Sikhs of
Punjab, Kashmiriat has always been a
cementing force between the Muslims and
Hindus of Kashmir and is the basis of the
secular character of Kashmir,
The seminar created a sense of selfawareness among the Kashmiri intelligentsia and contributed its mite towards the
revival of the spirit of Kashmiriat. Interestingly, it was followed by a dialogue
between Kashmiri panditsall Hindus in
Kashmir are panditsand the militants,
through the columns of the local press, on
allegiance to Kashmiriat and on preservation of its rich heritage. As long as
Kashmiriat and dialogue are not dead, all
is not lost in Kashmir.

Economic and Political Weekly February 10, 1990