Rekha Chowdhary
This article is in response to JP Singh’s article ‘Contesting Horrors of Partition’ in Daily Excelsior dated 15th January. He has given reference to my talk in IIPA on the title ‘Jammu: the Idea and Ethos of Multicultural Society’ and made some comments about my reference to partition, more particularly he has written that I made the statement that five lakh Muslims are said to have been massacred in Jammu. Unfortunately J P Singh failed to understand my reference tp partition and has put in a perspective which is totally in contradiction to the spirit of my lecture. I want to reiterate the content of my speech to put things in perspective.
As the title of my talk emphasises, my talk was on representing Jammu in its proper light and to argue as to how the real idea of Jammu and its ethos lies in its pluralism and in its multicultural society. That being the central idea of my talk, I started by referring to Jammu being the only region within the state that is more complex having multi-layered diversities. It is the mulit-religious, multi-cultural and multi-ethinic ethos of Jammu that defines not only the plurality of Jammu region but on which the plurality of the state is also defined. It is in the tradition of Jammu’s tolerance and its accommodation that one can find the real secularism – the living secularism. Giving example of the mixed society and mixed life, one can vouch that the region is an example of shared spaces, not only the cultural ones but also the spiritual ones.
In order to emphasise as to how one can see the everyday evidence of shared cultural and spiritual spaces, one can give example that though Jammu city is known as the ‘city of the temples’ (and rightly so because of the presence of large number of beautiful temples in the city) yet, it has presence of as many sufi shrines. These Sufi shrines not only are visited by large number of Hindus, but many of them are taken care of by the Hindus. In the reflection of the mixed society that Jammu region represents, many of these shrines have legends which are very interesting and represent an interesting mix. To give one example one can talk of the Chamliyal shrine. Which has the legend of a Hindu saint who is owned by both Hindus and Muslims. So much so, that after his death, the story goes, there was a conflict between Hindus and Muslims as both wanted to claim the body. As the miracle would have it the head was severed from the body and was claimed by one group and the body by the other. Centuries later, the saint continues to be revered by people across the religions and despite having a border between the two sides, the Chamlyal mela takes place every year with the patronage of both the countries. That there is possibility of having a shrine like that of Chamliyal which is equally revered by Hindus and Muslims and which brings not only people of different faiths together but also the two hostile nations together – is a possibility only of Jammu. And in this one can see the spirit of real mixed life and the real idea of living secularism.
This being the major theme of the talk, I emphasised that Jammu has given evidence of its mixed life in its recent political history. With the exception of partition when the region is supposed to have witnessed communal violence, Jammu has an extraordinary record of communal amity. It is Jammu region which has been given refuge to large number of people from other regions and even from outside the state from time to time. During partition itself, Jammu became one of the major place of refuge for people who had suffered in various ways. In more recent period of militancy, Jammu again became a place of refuge for the Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes in the valley. But it is not only the Kashmiri Pandits but also the Kashmiri Muslims who have found Jammu a safe heaven for them. The Muslim middle class has silently owned the city of Jammu, constructing and renting the houses here. Last twenty five years have seen Jammu expanding and Jammu acquiring a multicultural, metropolitan and cosmopolitan look because the city has been flooded by all kinds of people. New colonies have come into being and new areas have expanded. Jammu’s demography, at least Jammu city’s demography has undergone substantial changes – but the credit goes to the people of Jammu that no one has raised the issue of ‘demographic change’. There was some discourse in the initial period that Jammu is being encircled by ‘Muslims’ and Jammu Hindus may have to leave like Pandits had to leave Kashmir, but after some years, one did not hear this discourse at all. Jammu people had accepted Muslims from Kashmir and other parts of the region and the state as their own and all of them also felt comfortable being in Jammu. Except during the period of Amarnath agitation when there was momentary anxiety, the Hindus and Muslims in Jammu city and Jammu region have been very comfortable with each other.
That Jammu continued with its tradition of accommodation despite the fact that there were provocations to the contrary throughout the period of militancy – is a matter of pride for the people of Jammu. People in this region got caught up in the situation of militancy involuntarily and had to face the brunt of it and pay heavy price of it because of blasts and shoot outs. Many people were killed in the process. Most provocative for the region were the series of selective killings in the erstwhile Doda district. At a number of times this happened that Hindus were targeted and killed only because of their faith. It was the acid test for the Jammu region and people went through this test very calmly without giving any communal response. There was no retributive communal killing and no communal political response.
The response of Jammu region to the summer agitation of 2016 has also been very praise worthy. Jammu’s economy suffered a lot during this agitation. Much happened in Kashmir which was not to the liking of the people here. The kind of politics that was pursued, the ideology that was represented, the slogans that were raised – all in the name of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This kind of political discourse was not to the liking of people here. But like earlier, Jammu maintained its cool dignity and there was no communal reaction whatsoever. On the contrary, Jammu like earlier times offered refuge to people from Kashmir. It offered not only normal life to people, but also educational opportunities and even economic resources.
This was the major crux of my speech. My argument being that Jammu is much more tolerant, accommodative and secular than it is projected. However, there is a tag of ‘communal’ to Jammu which needs to be countered – and countered forcefully. We need to offer arguments that the ethos of Jammu is such that it cannot be called communal. A rare incident that happens at one point of time becomes the national headline but the everyday life of communal amity does not make any news. It is in this context that it becomes important to refer to partition. Because in the discourse, while Kashmir was throughout peaceful, Jammu witnessed communal violence. In this discourse the only reference which is made to partition and Jammu is that Muslims were massacred. The figures that are given are two lakhs to five lakhs. These figures of course, are exaggerated. The numbers are not authentic because these represent only one side of story. The full story is comprised of three – four elements – one, partition violence in Jammu was not an isolated event, it was a part of phenomenon in which whole of the sub-continent had been captured. It was not story of one community killing the other, but the story of violence on all sides. Kashmir did not get caught up in this situation because it was predominantly one religion society, Jammu was caught up because it was plural society. Moreover, the communal killings did not take place initially. In the beginning Jammu was understood to be a safe route from which the refugees of both the communities passed and both took this route because Jammu was a peaceful place. Thirdly, when the violence took place, it is not only that Muslims were massacred in Jammu but large number of Hindus were also killed in areas like Mirpur, Kotli, Bagh, Muzzfarabad. While significant number of Muslims continued to stay in Jammu region, however, there were no Hindus left in areas under Pakistan control. The tragedy of the whole story of partition is that the story of Hindus affected by partition – their killing, their siege (as in Poonch and Rajouri). their displacement – has not been written. The only discourse that has been prevalent at the national and international level is that Muslim massacre happened. But that it was not isolated Muslim massacre and Hindus were also massacred is not mentioned. Since there has been no systematic study of the partition, the myth of only Muslim being massacred is being continued and the number keeps being floated. There is no authenticity of the number – neither of five lakhs nor of two lakhs till the time a dispassionate analysis is made and till the time the complete story is written.
It is in this above context that I made reference to partition massacre of Muslims. My argument being that Jammu deserves a better representation. It needs to be understood in the way its realities are. There are isolated events which are condemnable but these isolated events are so much emphasised that the day to day reality of Jammu is overshadowed. In the present day world which is marked by polarities and strong political identities – Jammu’s realities represent an exception. This exception needs to be emphasised and we need to talk more and more about it.
(Feedback welcome at rekchowdhary@gmail.com)
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