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Caught in the Crossfire between Militants and Military

by Daya Kishan Thussu
**For nearly half a century, Kashmir has been a bone of contention betueen India and Pakistan. Despite strong local opposition, India has administered its only Muslim-majority province by direct rule from New Delhi. Caught in the crossfire between Indian troops and the militant Islamists is the state's tiny Hindu minority, most of whom have been forced to leave. Gemini News Service reports on a little-known aspect of the Kashmir crisis.
THEY rarely figure in the international human rights reports on Kashmir or in the world media's coverage of the 3' uted border state between a and Pakistan.
The more than 300,000 displaced Kashmiri Hindus are the largely unseen and unheard victims of the Islamist insurgency.
"They have been forced to leave their homes and hearths and live in appalling conditions in refugee camps in lammu," says Dr Shiban Du-rani, president of the Indo-European Kashmir Forum, a British-based lobbying group for Hindu Kashmiris.
Since the insurgency began sic years ago, more than 1,600 Hindus have been killed and another 6,000 have died in refugee camps in the adjoining region of Jammu, many unable to cope with the heafthere. Fewer than 20,000 Hindus remain in the Kashmir valley.
Shailendra Aima, a founder member of Panun (Our) Kashmir, an organisation in India of Kashmiri Hindus which highlights the problems of displaced Kashmiris, says , his community has been subjected to "genocide and religious cleansing" by the mili tants.
"Their property was destroyed, their houses occu pied. How do you expect the Kashmiri Hindus, traditionally teachers and intellectuals, to deal with gun-wielding militants?" asks Aima.
Kashmir has a history of religious tolerance and co-existence, but in the eight years • since the last elected government of Kashmir was dissolved in 1987 the province has seen serious political disturbances, leading to a Hindu exodus and a clampdown on militants by the Indian security forces.
The conflict in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority province, tends to be seen as a clash in with Islamist mili-. tants are fighting against a Hindu India. But nearly 100,000 Kashmiri lyiuslims have also fled the valley to escape living under the shadow of the militants' guns.
Until 1947 Kashmir was an independent princely state. Within months of the parti-
tion of India, under attack from Pakistan-inspired Kabalis (militias), Maharaja Hari Singh signed the "Instrument of Accession" with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Himself a Kashmiri, Nehru promised to hold a UN-decreed plebiscite. But it never took place. After the 1971 war Islamabad signed the 1972 Simla Agreement which said, among other thins, that the Kashmir issue would be resolved bilaterally and not internationally. However, Pakistan has tried to interna tionalise the issue.
Kashmiri militants claim they are fighting for Azadi (freedom) from Indian rule, some want to create an independent state of Kashmir, others desire to become part of Pakistan.
New Delhi argues that to grant Kashmir independence on the basis of religion would undermine India's secular society, which would bode ill for the country's Muslim mi-
nority. There are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan.
Maharaj Krishna Rasgotra, a former Indian Foreign Secre tary who in his own words has "four decades of experience in dealing with the Kashmir problem,” has a novel plan.
He points out that only a small minority of Kashmiris *iant to be part of Pakistan. Rasgotra suggests that the governments of India and Pakistan should agree an "orderly transfer" of this militant group to Pakistan, funded partly by international institutions such as the World Bank.
Rasgotra says that Pakistan is aiding and abetting the insurgency in the •valley by running training camps from Azad (free) Kashmiri, the area of Kashmir under Pakistani control. "Pakistan is at war with India in Kashmir," he asserts.
Rasgotra says a large amount of arms and ammunition — including rocket
launchers - were recently sized by the Indian security forces from the militants "These things do not grow in the orchards of Kashmir," he says with a wry Sfrule.
Ordinary Kashmiris are fed up with living under the guns of the Indian security forces and the militants. "Bread and butter issues are taking over politics," says Dr Ali Mohammed Khusro, a former economic adviser to the Prime Minister of India and a distinguished academic. After a recent visit to Kashmir, he says that the militants’ hold is slipping.
"It is true that, every mili 'lant in Kashmir is a Muslim but not every Muslim in Kashmir is a militant," says the soft-spoken Khusro, himself a Muslim.
He predicts that the Kashmiri Hindus, generally better educated than many of the state's Muslims, will return to take up new jobs in
the expanding private sector which forms part of a gov eminent plan to revitalise the province.
Khusro is optimistic. He believes that given the democratic nature of India, once the political process gets going, things will start sorting themselves out.
New Delhi is keen to hold elections to the state assembly this autumn, which many fear may give the militants political power The Hindus will not vote, says Aima, whose uncle was killed by the militants, as it would be tantamount to "signing our own death certificate."
He demands a separate homeland on the Pakistani border for the Kashmiri Hindus, whom he characterises as the only minority in India which is "territory-less." This would save the region from what he calls" militarised Islamic fundamentalism.''
DA YA KISHANTHUSSU is Associate Editor of Gemini News