Often the plight of Kashmiri Pandits is used as excuse by Hindu Right Wing and people like Anupam Kher to further their cause of polarising Hindus and Muslims of India. Of course what happened to Kashmiri Pandits was a grievous wrong. In no way I am trying to undermine the grievous wrong that happened to Kashmiri Pandit. The point I am trying to make that many crimes are committed during insurgencies by all groups that they regret later on. But Hindu Right Wing brings this as an example of characterlessness of Muslims, but they do not realise that their fellow Hindus have done the same, the same characterlessness that they accuse Muslims of was also committed by Hindus. Most people do not know that there is a parallel to story of Kashmiri Pandits, the story of Tamil Muslims. Today, both Hurriyat and JKLF both have acknowledged that it was wrong to throw Pandits out and they would protect Pandits should they choose to come back, same is the case with Tamil Hindus who are ready to welcome Muslims back.
The parallel is that like Kashmiri Pandits, Tamil Muslims were also thrown out of their homes in exactly similar circumstances. The crime was committed by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). LTTE was a Tamilian outfit in Sri Lanka with goal of establishing a Tamil homeland in Northern & Eastern Sri Lanka, where Tamilians were in majority. Along with Tamil Hindus lived Tamil Muslims that formed around 20% of the region’s population. Tamil Muslims decided that they did not want Sri Lanka to be divided and hence refused to join LTTE in their insurgency. LTTE decided to throw Tamil Muslims out. This is exactly the case with Kashmiri Pandits, when Kashmiri Muslims started insurgency Kashmiri Pandits refused to join the insurgency. It was after this Kashmiri militants decided to thrown Kashmiri Pandits just as LTTE had done to Tamil Muslims. In fact LTTE was far more violent and killed far more Tamil Muslims than the number of Kashmiri Pandits killed by Muslim insurgents.
Both acts of ethnic cleansing were wrong and horrible; and should not have happened. Today, both Tamil Hindus and Kashmiri Muslims believe that ethnic cleansing carried by their brothers was a wrong thing to do. The only point I am making is that Hindu Hyper Nationalists that are currently ruling India do not see the that wrongs things happen during insurgencies, but to toe the line 30 years later with intentions of punishing not just the Kashmiri Muslims of today along with entire Muslim community of India is completely wrong.
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