Agenda
Anand Shankar Pandya
IT is a matter of grave concern that brave but very generous and peace loving Hindu society, which not only preaches but also practices to perfection Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (whole world is one family) and Ahimsa Parmo Dharma (non-violence is the highest form of religion) since thousands of years is being attacked, plundered and killed at regular intervals in history.
According to the famous historian Will Durant, Indian history of one thousand years has been the bloodiest one in the world.
It is very unfortunate that even after freedom, Hindus are being eliminated in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Fiji, Africa, etc. and their human rights and democratic rights are being systematically destroyed.
With the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, Hindus in Muslim countries have been subject to great threats and reprisals, resulting in a flow of frightened, disenfranchised, often brutalised people who have seen their homes destroyed, their wealth appropriated, members of their family put to death and their fundamental human rights destroyed which has to date attracted minimal attention in the Indian and world press and other news media in the name of secularism.
Take the case of Kashmir, a part of India. Three hundred thousand Hindus (3,00,000) who were inhabitants of Kashmir since thousands of years were forced out of Kashmir in 1990 by Muslim fundamentalists.
They are continuing to live in filthy tents, window-less one room tenements and hovels, behind community halls without any privacy. Since their forced flight, all their houses have been looted and reduced to ashes.
The terrorist killings have been accompanied by torture unheard of in the annals of human history, which tantamount to grave crimes against all law and against humanity. In sheer disregard of the norms of political behaviour, generally recognised by civilised nations and now embodied in several international convenants, the Charter of Human Rights Declaration, and resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, the terrorists have inflicted grievous hurt, injury and death/torture on hundreds of Hindus and other dissenters. Torture deaths have been brought about by inhuman practice.
The dead bodies of several Kashmiri Hindus have been salvaged from various places in Kashmir. Their heads had been severed off. Several dead bodies of Kashmiri Hindus were recoverd, which had been branded by hot iron before killing them. Several bodies were found with eyes gouged out. 58 Rambhaktas were brutally burnt alive in Godhara, which has no parallel in the world. Hundred of Hindus are being mercilessly killed in Jammu, Kaluchak etc. by terrorists.
Amensty International and the other human rights organisations including press outside India and the human rights organisations in India, expressed little concern about the genocide of Hindus in Kashmir. In Pakistan and Bangaldesh more than 20 lakh peace loving Hindus were butchered, most inhuman atrocities were inflicted on innocent women and children and 15 million Hindus are still missing, but no press media and political party has cared to look into this greatest genocide in history just in the name of secularism. Hence in reaction to all this, Hindus want to renounce their 5,000 year old traditional generosity in self-defence for which they are being branded as communal and fundamentalists.
Human rights are recognised as the basic and fundamental rights. They are also civil and religious rights. They are universal and applicable without any discrimination. They proclaim that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
The responsibility of the violation of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir rest upon the terrorist regime in the State established by the terrorists, their abettors and foreign collaborators.
The Muslim crusade in Jammu and Kashmir is a negation of human rights, because its objectives are to merge the State into the Muslim nation of Pakistan. Similar are the cases of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan where Hindus have been looted, brutally tortured forcefully converted to Islam or butchered. More than 4,000 temples of Hindus there have been destroyed.
Hundreds of thousands of houses, shops, godwons, schools, and other institutions of Hindus have been reduced to ashes. With the result that while there were about one crore Hindus in Pakistan before Partition there are now hardly one million left. Similarly in Bangladesh instead of 30 million Hindus before Partition now there are about 15 million only living like slaves. They are being regularly looted and murdered, hence they are fleeing to India, but no human rights institutions including Hindu intellectuals have the courage to speak the truth lest they be labelled as communal. Many refugees of other nationalities like Palestinians, Vietnamese Cambodians, Haitians, Bosnians, etc. have been in the foreground of world issues at one time or another and have received financial and other help from United Nations but for some unknown reasons the plight of the Hindu refugees is obscure and unrecognised on the international forum and United Nations. The whole world thinks that Hinduism is for tolerance and Hindus are born to tolerate injustice.
Even in India, the media is not taking up the cause of Hindus. Their democratic, human, religious and political rights are being crushed in the name of pseudo secularism. For example no Prime Minister of India visited or helped the camps of Hindu refugees from Kashmir. Non-violent unarmed Hindus were showered with bullets for 45 minutes when they gathered in Ayodhya to demand their most sacred Ramjanmabhoomi.
Hindus, like second rate citizens, get government job and bank loans only after other commuities have had their share. Hindus like slaves are not even allowed to teach their religious books in schools, so the young generations is completely cut off from their heritage making them rootless and immoral. It is a violation of human rights in the name of secularism.
All this is happening because a Hindu due to his Atmavadi Darshan (Spiritual Philosophy) refuses to see the danger ahead. His philosophy is —“No enemy, stranger none, we are at peace with everyone.” The Hindu has not learned any lesson from its turbulent history of 1,000 years. So when the danger comes he is badly beaten. He has no feeling of Dharma Bandhutva towards his own community because he is still spellbound under the romantic slogan of Vishva Bandhutva. A Hindu should now create a synthesis between Vishwa Bandhutva and Dharma Bandhutva, if he wants to survive in a hostile world.
Prof. Ainslee Embree, one of the foremost India Watchers in America addressing a meeting of Amnesty International on religion and human rights in Washington asserted that Hinduism is a way of life, a culture rather than a religion, the culture of the people of India. Hinduism which was followed by 70 per cent people of India was a religion identified with the land a territorial religion and therefore of great importance for human rights in India. For human rights, the concept of Dharma, Embree said, holds most importance because the word meant some form of “duty obligation”. Any idea of rights are subsumed under this concept. (India Abroad New York 2.10.1992).
Hence I appeal to the Government of India to preserve India as a natural habitat for Hindus from all over the world specially when they are in trouble and want to return to the bosom of their “Mother India”.
I also appeal to the United Nations as well as to the world news media to exert every pressure to end the persecution of a peace loving race.
