Ethnic Cleansing of Kashmiris, The Jammu Massacre

Ethnic Cleansing of Kashmiris, The Jammu Massacre

When Mountbatten was eating dinner one night, his daughter came and asked where her mother was, Mountbatten pointed upward. When Pamela Hicks reached upper floor room, Nehru and Edwina were clasping. She quotes from a letter by her father to her elder sister in June 1948: ‘She (Edwina) and Jawaharlal are so sweet together’ and ‘It was a “happy threesome’, Pamela concludes. The dalliance of Edwina and Nehru was the breakthrough history of Kashmir. Nehru played Edwina to illicit secret information from Mountbatten and significantly change the partition plan by grabbing Muslim majority regions of Gurdaspur and Firozpur.

On 24 October, 1947, Mountbatten talked to Nehru about Kashmir and he started crying for it and said ‘Kashmir is written upon mine(heart).’ Mountbatten understood but wanted to ensure some legal ways to give Kashmir to India, but he feared Muslims will give vote for Pakistan so he will go for invasion. Freedom at Midnight (See Chapter ‘Kashmir – Only Kashmir’)” reveals the inside story aptly. Mountbatten favoured Indian plan of invasion of Kashmir from Gurdaspur which Radcliffe pencil gave to India (p.372) in response to Pathans attack. Maharaja fleeing Srinagar reached Jammu and would order reprisal which would be latter considered one of the most horrific episode reminiscences only of Holocaust.

Prem Nath Bazaz in his book ‘Inside Kashmir’ writes that massacre of Muslims started in the districts of Kathua, Udhampur and Jammu.

In the book, Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays on Memory, Culture, and Politics, edited by Amritjit Singh, Nalini Iyer and Rahul K. Gairola, Indian authors confess the intent of ethnic cleansing by Indian and Maharaja government. They write that ‘The fact that this was not only more extensive and violent in the valley, but also linked to the singular political objective of clearing out the Muslim population from the area.’ G. K. Reddy, a Hindu editor of the Srinagar English weekly Kashmir Times wrote that ‘The mad orgy of Dogra violence against unarmed Muslims should put any self-respecting human being to shame.’ He saw armed bands of ruffians and soldiers shooting down and hacking to pieces helpless Muslim refugees heading towards Pakistan. (p. 142)

One million Kashmiri Muslim refugees were uprooted and an estimated 2,500,00-300,000 were massacred in the Jammu region alone in August-October 1947. Under the watchful eye of Mountbatten and Nehru, Indian troops had already started arriving in early October. Alastair Lamb also notes that ‘Indian troops had already arrived in Kashmir and secured Srinagar airfield by mid-October, and a further airlift of troops took place on October 26.’ He also doubts that The Instrument of Accession was ever signed or even if it was, it happened when Indian has already occupied Kashmir. Afterwards what started was apocalyptic mayhem for Kashmiris.

According to Ilyas Chattha in his paper ‘Terrible Fate: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Jammu’ Muslims in 1947’ more than 50,000 Sikhs and Hindus went to Jammu to seek revenge on the innocent local Muslims who lynched in bulk. Such an huge influx not only heightened communal tension but brought demographic shift in favour of Hindus and Sikhs. In his book Horned Moon, Ian Stephen wrote that by the end of autumn 1947, more than 200,000 Muslims had been killed in a single wave of violence. Similarly, Horace Alexander, writing in The Spectator on 16 January 1948, stated that these massacres took place with the silent approval of the state authorities, estimating the death toll to be around 200,000.

If one accepts the average estimate of these figures, more than 2,50,000 Muslims were lynched in Jammu and around which significantly comes under the ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The pogrom of Kashmiris in October and November largely seems written off from history due to continuous Indian propaganda and censorship. However, many Indian authors mentioned above have gave accurate description. Most recently revelation came from renowned Kashmiri Pandit Ved Bhasin who argued that massacre was orchestrated by Maharaja with Hindus and Sikhs with covert support of Nehru and Sardar Patel. According to him, RSS virtually ruled the state and kept killing Muslims in mass numbers until they cut Jammu’s Muslim population to half. Such horrific tragedy went unheard in then Indian press due to censorship while Mountbatten did not keep British officers in the loop to prevent resistance to their plan of changing demographic.

Life in Kashmir still going through the same tragedy even after 8 decades of struggle to make world listen their conscience. However, the world is keeping blind eye to Indian government crimes. From abrogation of statehood to changing demographic composition, Kashmiris have been subjected to deliberate neglect. The continuous ethnic cleansing of Kashmiris demands now firm and resolute action from the world community to ensure their right of self-determination so that they may shape their own destiny.