Communal discord is threatening to rear its head in Jammu and Kashmir, much like what we saw in 2008 when the Amarnath land row cut into fragile relations between the two regions. This time the controversy is centred on the rights of a few hundred thousand refugees from West Pakistan. At the time of Partition in 1947, Hindu and Sikh families from what became West Pakistan migrated to Jammu. The number of families has grown today. These ‘refugees’ have had different rights compared to those who settled in other parts of India at the time.
Many people in Kashmir see this as an attempt to change the demography of a Muslim-majority state. One complaint is that the divisional administration of Jammu bypassed the revenue ministry and directly took orders from the Government of India on these moves. This testifies to the fact that the Peoples Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party have divergent ideologies. A Joint Parliamentary Committee had recommended giving these ‘refugees’ the right to vote among others. The State government recently issued them domicile certificates but this raised eyebrows over what is perceived as a move to fully integrate these people. The next step would be giving them a State Subject Certificate. People argue that there are other ways to grant them domicile such as issuing Aadhar cards.
These refugees genuinely face problems that need to be humanely addressed. But in handling them, the state risks paying a high price. Indeed, a debate has already started in Kashmir. Add to this the context of the Sangh Parivar’s divisive Hindu nationalist agenda which includes “Ghar Wapsi” (Return home) efforts to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.
Part of the debate is mired in a controversy on the numbers and demographics. The president of the West Pakistan Refugees Organisation, Labha Ram Gandhi, claims that there were only 5,764 Hindu and Sikh families who migrated to Jammu in 1947, but their numbers have since grown to 25,460, making it roughly 150,000 people. This is disputed by some people. According to a scholar who has worked on Jammu Muslims, the number of these refugee families at that time was nearly 12,000 and that must have grown by 50,000, roughly making it a population of about 300,000. “There are many families who did not register with the organization,” he says. Whatever the actual figure, granting them rights is seen more as politically motivated than anything else. The most contentious recommendation is to grant them voting rights and the BJP is using this as a talking point. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is referring to it in election rallies and people see that the committee’s recommendations are being pushed through. And people are noting that the PDP is silently approving these developments.
In the long run, these decisions will help those forces that want to see Jammu at par with Kashmir in terms of the number of seats to pave the way for power in the state without being dependent on voters in Kashmir. Though the delimitation of the assembly constituencies has been frozen till 2026, this move could benefit those parties that have been thriving on the bogey of discrimination and “Kashmir domination”.
With this debate taking up much of the public discourse, there is no word on other displacements. One question is why these refugees were sent to Jammu in 1947 and not to any other part of India? As history unfolded, it became clear to many that this was aimed at changing the demography of the state. Jammu had a Muslim majority and this was one way to tackle that aside from perhaps massacring its 300,000 Muslims. The crumbling Dogra monarchy’s parting “gift” to its subjects, who had been faithful to it for more than a century, was a massacre. Today the Muslim population in Jammu is 5% compared to 39% in 1947. Similarly, it was 30% in Kathua district and today it is 8%. “Although our media pride themselves on free and bold speech, they maintain a conspiracy of silence on some issues relating to the supposed ‘national interest’. This includes the mass killing and expulsion of lakhs of Muslims from Jammu in 1947,” noted journalist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in The Times of India on January 19, 2015, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the migration by Kashmiri Pandits. He was referring to what happened to Jammu’s Muslims in 1947. “That story should be recalled on this sombre anniversary,” he wrote.
Around 1.2 million refugees from Jammu and Kashmir live in mainland Pakistan. Out of them nearly 1.1 million hailed from the erstwhile Jammu and Kathua districts. The way they were massacred and hounded from their homes has been narrated by distinguished journalist Ved Bhasin. In a chilling account, he told an interviewer in 2003 that it has been planned by the Maharaja’s government and the RSS. “Once Mir Chand Mahajan (the PM) came to Jammu when communal riots were taking place. He invited some minority leaders, including from communal parties and the National Conference. Trilok Chand Dutt was there, Girdhari Lal Dogra was there, and Om Saraf was there. I was also there as a student representative. At the Maharaja’s Palace, he said the power is being transferred to the people of J&K state so why don’t you Hindus and Sikhs demand parity? Parity means equal representation to Hindus and Muslims as the Muslim League … in India had said. No one replied except Om Saraf. He said, how can we demand parity? There is such a difference in the population of Hindus and Muslims. Muslims are a vast majority, Hindus are a small minority. How is it practical and possible? To this Mir Chand Mahajan pointed to a forest area down [from] the Maharaja’s Palace, where there were some Gujjar bodies, who had been recently killed. He said that the population could also change. So what did he mean by that?” Bhasin said. These refugees do not have complete rights except that they have eight seats reserved in the “AJ&K Assembly”.
In order to facilitate the return of the Jammu and Kashmir refugees living in Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had brought forward a Resettlement Bill (also known as Bill No 9) in 1977. It was aimed at opening the doors for those state subjects who had migrated till 1954. The bill is still undecided.
And so, while there has been much talk about the West Pakistan refugees, no one talks about those who migrated to Pakistan not only up till 1954 but after 1990 when they could not stand cross-border shelling and firing along the Line of Control. Those people number more than 35,000 and they are living a tough life in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. Both the issues of the return of the Kashmiri Pandits and those who were forced to migrate to Pakistan-Administered Kashmir must be handled with uniformity.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Srinagar (Kashmir) and can be reached at shujaat7867@gmail.com
Many people in Kashmir see this as an attempt to change the demography of a Muslim-majority state. One complaint is that the divisional administration of Jammu bypassed the revenue ministry and directly took orders from the Government of India on these moves. This testifies to the fact that the Peoples Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party have divergent ideologies. A Joint Parliamentary Committee had recommended giving these ‘refugees’ the right to vote among others. The State government recently issued them domicile certificates but this raised eyebrows over what is perceived as a move to fully integrate these people. The next step would be giving them a State Subject Certificate. People argue that there are other ways to grant them domicile such as issuing Aadhar cards.
At the time of Partition in 1947, Hindu and Sikh families from what became West Pakistan migrated to Jammu. The State government recently issued them domicile certificates but this raised eyebrows over what is perceived as a move to change the demographics of a Muslim-majority state
These refugees genuinely face problems that need to be humanely addressed. But in handling them, the state risks paying a high price. Indeed, a debate has already started in Kashmir. Add to this the context of the Sangh Parivar’s divisive Hindu nationalist agenda which includes “Ghar Wapsi” (Return home) efforts to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.
Part of the debate is mired in a controversy on the numbers and demographics. The president of the West Pakistan Refugees Organisation, Labha Ram Gandhi, claims that there were only 5,764 Hindu and Sikh families who migrated to Jammu in 1947, but their numbers have since grown to 25,460, making it roughly 150,000 people. This is disputed by some people. According to a scholar who has worked on Jammu Muslims, the number of these refugee families at that time was nearly 12,000 and that must have grown by 50,000, roughly making it a population of about 300,000. “There are many families who did not register with the organization,” he says. Whatever the actual figure, granting them rights is seen more as politically motivated than anything else. The most contentious recommendation is to grant them voting rights and the BJP is using this as a talking point. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is referring to it in election rallies and people see that the committee’s recommendations are being pushed through. And people are noting that the PDP is silently approving these developments.
In the long run, these decisions will help those forces that want to see Jammu at par with Kashmir in terms of the number of seats to pave the way for power in the state without being dependent on voters in Kashmir. Though the delimitation of the assembly constituencies has been frozen till 2026, this move could benefit those parties that have been thriving on the bogey of discrimination and “Kashmir domination”.
With this debate taking up much of the public discourse, there is no word on other displacements. One question is why these refugees were sent to Jammu in 1947 and not to any other part of India? As history unfolded, it became clear to many that this was aimed at changing the demography of the state. Jammu had a Muslim majority and this was one way to tackle that aside from perhaps massacring its 300,000 Muslims. The crumbling Dogra monarchy’s parting “gift” to its subjects, who had been faithful to it for more than a century, was a massacre. Today the Muslim population in Jammu is 5% compared to 39% in 1947. Similarly, it was 30% in Kathua district and today it is 8%. “Although our media pride themselves on free and bold speech, they maintain a conspiracy of silence on some issues relating to the supposed ‘national interest’. This includes the mass killing and expulsion of lakhs of Muslims from Jammu in 1947,” noted journalist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in The Times of India on January 19, 2015, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the migration by Kashmiri Pandits. He was referring to what happened to Jammu’s Muslims in 1947. “That story should be recalled on this sombre anniversary,” he wrote.
Around 1.2 million refugees from Jammu and Kashmir live in mainland Pakistan. Out of them nearly 1.1 million hailed from the erstwhile Jammu and Kathua districts. The way they were massacred and hounded from their homes has been narrated by distinguished journalist Ved Bhasin. In a chilling account, he told an interviewer in 2003 that it has been planned by the Maharaja’s government and the RSS. “Once Mir Chand Mahajan (the PM) came to Jammu when communal riots were taking place. He invited some minority leaders, including from communal parties and the National Conference. Trilok Chand Dutt was there, Girdhari Lal Dogra was there, and Om Saraf was there. I was also there as a student representative. At the Maharaja’s Palace, he said the power is being transferred to the people of J&K state so why don’t you Hindus and Sikhs demand parity? Parity means equal representation to Hindus and Muslims as the Muslim League … in India had said. No one replied except Om Saraf. He said, how can we demand parity? There is such a difference in the population of Hindus and Muslims. Muslims are a vast majority, Hindus are a small minority. How is it practical and possible? To this Mir Chand Mahajan pointed to a forest area down [from] the Maharaja’s Palace, where there were some Gujjar bodies, who had been recently killed. He said that the population could also change. So what did he mean by that?” Bhasin said. These refugees do not have complete rights except that they have eight seats reserved in the “AJ&K Assembly”.
In order to facilitate the return of the Jammu and Kashmir refugees living in Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had brought forward a Resettlement Bill (also known as Bill No 9) in 1977. It was aimed at opening the doors for those state subjects who had migrated till 1954. The bill is still undecided.
And so, while there has been much talk about the West Pakistan refugees, no one talks about those who migrated to Pakistan not only up till 1954 but after 1990 when they could not stand cross-border shelling and firing along the Line of Control. Those people number more than 35,000 and they are living a tough life in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. Both the issues of the return of the Kashmiri Pandits and those who were forced to migrate to Pakistan-Administered Kashmir must be handled with uniformity.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Srinagar (Kashmir) and can be reached at shujaat7867@gmail.com