There has recently been a debate going on in the context of demographic challenges in various parts of Bharat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on record in the parliament when he talks about it with seriousness and objectivity and reiterates the same on a different occasion. Thereafter, B.L.Santhosh, All India General Secretary (Org) of the BJP talked about it in an exclusive interview with Panchajanya Weekly while he was referring to the ensuing election battle in West Bengal. He called the demographic challenge in West Bengal as a civilizational issue and intended to address the issue in the election campaign in the state as well.
These challenges can be seen and observed besides West Bengal in Assam, UP, Kerala, Maharashtra and even in the states like Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana and HP. The alarming bells in relation to the illegal infiltration by Bangladeshis and Rohingyas of Myanmar have added dangerous dimensions to the already existing grave scenario. In case the issue remains unaddressed, there are all possibilities of a civil-strife in an eventual unseen future.
The past history of six decades from 1947 onwards saw most of the political parties and players, so-called human rights activists and intellectuals, and also writers cum activists openly supporting the demographic imbalance for their political and vested interests. In particular, their support to the illegal infiltrations were motivated by their appeasement policies and vote-bank politics and they even didn’t miss to involve the courts also in this imbroglio.
Besides the uneven growth of population in various religious and caste denominations over the last seven decades, the Hindu population in the country has seen a worrisome negative downward trend. While the current birth-rate among Hindus per couple is 1.90, the Muslims have the birth rate as 2.50. The Sikh community along with the communities like Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and non-religious denominations have assumed a highly negative growth in their numbers ranging from 1.10 to 1.80. While the national growth rate in this context at present is approximately 2.00, the Muslim community growth rate stands at 0.50 more than the national growth rate.
The southern states have raised this issue a number of times. Their strict adherence and follow up of the national family planning policy has brought their numbers down as compared to the northern states. This demographic challenge has its different dimensions in different ways in different states. Here we take up the case of demographic imbalance and a sort of demographic invasion in context of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
It is a four-folded story of demographic invasion in regard to Kashmir valley in particular. This is quite contrary to the political statements and narratives which Kashmir centric political parties usually generate in the public domain to suit their political ends. They accuse others of some ‘cultural invasion’ based theories without speaking about the hard realities on the ground. These hard realities are as follows:
1. Consequent upon the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir, four decades ago and afterwards, the forced mass exodus of the community opened gates for demographic invasion at the local level. The most of the houses, mohallas, colonies, businesses and the land and properties of Hindus in Kashmir were either burnt, razed to the ground, destroyed, usurped -both legally and illegally, occupied with or without the connivance of the government and the administration and turned into a cent percent non-Hindu territories in the valley of Kashmir within a period of ten years during 1990s.
The government jobs, private jobs and also small and medium businesses of the Kashmiri Pandit community were appropriated by various organs of the society and the administration. There are at least two lakh local people of the Muslim community in Kashmir that are currently inhabiting the abandoned Hindu houses, mohallas and colonies in the valley. When Mufti Syeed was the Home Minister in the government of India, he made it sure that the government jobs particularly in the Banks and other such institutions in the valley pertaining to the displaced community members are passed on to the members of the local Muslim community.
They didn’t stop here and further made all attempts to block the way of any possibility of return of the exiled community back to the valley. How their hundreds of places of worship were destroyed in the valley without any remorse is another tragic story of the dark period for the community of the indigenous people of Kashmir -the Kashmiri Pandits. The whole Muslim majority community, barring a few, chose to remain silent on these grave human rights violatìons against the minority Kashmiri Pandit community..
2. Secondly, the local Muslim population of the Kashmir valley has been meticulously moving towards the Jammu region intermittently. Jammu region is bigger in size and has both hilly as well as plain tracks. There is a huge complaint and uproar in Jammu for the last fifty years in this regard. Kashmiri Muslims have legally and illegally occupied large areas in Jammu city, suburbs and even in the hilly areas of the region. This has surely caused demographic imbalance in the region over the last five decades. It has not happened by the way but was supported by many laws, rules and orders of the government which were many a time challenged in the courts of law also.
The Muslim community of Kashmir has formed a large base in the areas like Bhathindi, Gujjar Nagar, Janipur, Chinour, Sidhra, Nagrota, Samba and Bahu. Jammu and Samba districts are the two prominent districts which have been targeted under a plan in this connection. Recently, an outspoken BJP MLA Vikram Randhawa raised this issue publicly and also in the J&K Legislative Assembly. He gave examples of such demographic invasion in the region by the Kashmiri Muslim community and added that Royingyas and Bangladeshis were also brought to the region under a meticulous plan by the previous governments in the UT.
3. The third dimension of the issue pertains to the large-scale visits of the Kashmiri Muslim community throughout the length and breadth of the country. While they have been moving in different directions in connection with education, jobs, business and other related matters, they have also been purchasing properties at various places in different states. Flats, colonies, business houses at numberless places have come up in their name over the last a number of decades. In states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, UP, Haryana and West Bengal there are thousands of such glaring examples to depict.
Some illegal encroachments in states like HP, Uttarakhand and others by the Kashmiri Muslims have also come to light in this regard and the governments and the socio-political circles have raised a big alarm in this context. Some governments have even demolished such illegal encroachments over the last two to three years. Here it would be pertinent to explain that a number of Pakistani women were also staying or overstaying in India who married Muslim men in Jammu and Kashmir, however, they were recently asked to vacate India by the MEA during and after the Operation Sindoor. The involvement of well-educated Kashmiri Muslims in the terrorist and espionage activities have also come to light in many states in this connection recently.
4. The last and the most disturbing dimension of the demographic invasion belongs to the political and psychological spectrum. The continuous narrative of the last seven decades by the Kashmir centric political parties and leaders that ‘Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim majority state’ is loaded with warnings and threats to the non-Muslims in the UT. They are thus directly asking the non-Muslims in the state that they were virtually the second class citizens in the UT and there were no chances for them to be treated as the mainstream of the citizenry in the UT.
Moreover, the concept of Muslim majority state and the attached Muslim majoritarianism theory propounded by the politicians of Kashmir have no legal, constitutional or administrative basis, but this narrative is set at a socio-political level consciously and deliberately. Such a narrative builds an atmosphere for fundamentalism, religious extremism and also eventual separatism. Despite the nullification of Article 370 and 35A, a scenario is being created to impress upon that the ‘Muslim majority character of the Jammu and Kashmir was the only permanent reality’. This is in fact an integral part of the demographic invasion that has political meanings. However, there are no valid takers in the government of India to such a narrative unlike in the past when this narrative was protected and promoted.
Keeping in view the whole scenario, the ‘demographic invasion’ via Kashmir can’t be so easily ignored. Those who often complain about the so-called ‘cultural invasion’ in Kashmir due to a possible influx of people from other states in the valley choose to maintain silence on their own demographic invasion on others. The one-way traffic has to end for the betterment of the nation and the society at large. This is the time that an appropriate nationalist narrative based upon facts is generated, promoted and circulated.
The government of India owes responsibility to provide every citizen a right to live wherever he or she desires to live and settle. The Kashmir valley as on date is Hinduless and its indigenous population is also out for the last four decades. A coordinated effort needs to be undertaken to reverse the hard ground realities without wasting time in the best interests of the national, constitutional and civilizational goals. It is time to take the positive initiative in this regard to make the Kashmir valley actually liveable for all Indians irrespective of their religion, caste, creed, colour and political ideology.
