Shahrukh Khan exposes Indian secularism

[Manas]

Why should Muslims have to prove their religion to the people Muslims previously ruled over?

Have you ever seen ur face in the mirror , ruler kahin ka ???

Don't make the Arab or central asian conquerors of Punjab and Sindh ur illegitimate ancestors to belie the horrific fact of how your original ancestors were converted to Islam just to mock Hindus who were stronger in their faith than you who didn't surrender their religion and culture in spite of up teem threats and inducements from the so called muslim rulers of Arab originor central asian origins.

 

[Don Jaguar]

Mr. Low cast nomo shudra, you shouldnt worry about Shias in Pakistan. We know your Dalit caste are discriminated in India

Shias in Pakistan are doing MUCH better than Dalits in India or Muslim in India. Shia get more representation than Sunnis in Army & govt. Compare that with India where a 2% Sikh population has more influence in the govt & Army than 15% Muslims, and a 2% Sikh population has been elected PM, but a 15% Muslim pop. is yet to be elected as PM.

Well said.

A little more explanation.

Why do Indian Muslims lag behind?

As historians tell it, during India's first election in 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru was already worrying about the feeble representation of Muslims in the country's positions of authority.

Many more Muslims had stayed back in India than the millions who migrated to newly-born Pakistan after the partition just five years before.

India's first prime minister's concerns about the country's second largest religious group and the largest religious minority were eminently justified.

"There were hardly any Muslims left in the defence service, and not many in the secretariat," says historian Ramachandra Guha.

Little change

Next year, in 1953, a group of intellectuals met to discuss forming a political party for the Muslims and spoke about the low representation of Muslims in political positions and bureaucracy.

More than half century later, on India's 60th anniversary of independence, very little has changed.

Today, at over 138 million, Muslims constitute over 13% of India 's billion-strong population, and in sheer numbers are exceeded only by Indonesia's and Pakistan's Muslim community.

The country has had three Muslim presidents - a largely ceremonial role. Bollywood and cricket, two secular pan-Indian obsessions, continue to have their fair share of Muslim stars - the ruling heroes in Mumbai films are Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman Khan, and the star of India's current English cricket tour is pace bowler Zaheer Khan. Not long ago, the national team was led by the stylish Mohammed Azharuddin.

That's where the good news essentially ends.

Muslims comprise only 5% of employees in India's big government, a recent study found. The figure for Indian Railways, the country's biggest employer, is only 4.5%.

The community continues to have a paltry representation in the bureaucracy and police - 3% in the powerful Indian Civil Service, 1.8% in foreign service and only 4% in the Indian Police Service. And Muslims account for only 7.8% of the people working in the judiciary.

Indian Muslims are also largely illiterate and poor.

At just under 60%, the community's literacy rate is lower than the national average of 65%. Only half of Muslim women can read and write. As many as a quarter of Muslim children in the age-group 6-14 have either never attended school or dropped out.

They are also poor - 31% of Muslims are below the country's poverty line, just a notch above the lowest castes and tribes who remain the poorest of the poor.

^^ that's according to indian standard and according to US standard about 70 to 90%.

Identity card

To add to the community's woes are myriad problems relating to, as one expert says, "identity, security and equity".

"They carry a double burden of being labelled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time," says a recent report on the state of Indian Muslims.

Historians say it is ironic that many Indians bought the Hindu nationalist bogey of 'Muslim appeasement' when it had not translated into any major socio-economic gain for the community.

So why has the lot of Indian Muslims remained miserable after six decades of independence?

For one, it is the sheer apathy and ineptitude of the Indian state which has failed to provide equality of opportunity in health, education and employment.

This has hurt the poor - including the Muslim poor who comprise the majority of the community - most.

There is also the relatively recent trend of political bias against the community when Hindu nationalist governments have ruled in Delhi and the states.

Also, the lack of credible middle class leadership among the Muslims has hobbled the community's vision and progress.

Consequently, rabble rousers claiming to represent the community have thrust themselves to the fore.

To be true, mass migration during partition robbed the community of potential leaders - most Muslim civil servants, teachers, doctors and professionals crossed over.

But the failure to throw up credible leaders has meant low community participation in the political processes and government - of the 543 MPs in India's lower house of parliament, only 36 are Muslims.

Also, as Ramachandra Guha says, the "vicissitudes of India-Pakistan relations and Pakistan's treatment of its minorities" ensured that Muslims remained a "vulnerable" community.

Regional disparities

The plight of Indian Muslims also has a lot to do with the appalling quality of governance, unequal social order and lack of equality of opportunity in northern India where most of the community lives.

Populous Uttar Pradesh is home to nearly a fifth of Muslims (31 million) living in India, while Bihar has more than 10 million community members.

"Southern India is a different picture. Larger cultural and social movements have made education more accessible and self employment more lucrative benefiting a large number of Muslims," says historian Mahesh Rangarajan.

In Andhra Pradesh state, for example, 68% of Muslims are literate, higher than the state and national average. School enrolment rates for Muslim children are above 90% in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Mahesh Rangarajan says poverty and "absence of ameliorative policies" has hurt India's Muslims most.

If India was to be "a secular, stable and strong state," Nehru once said, "then our first consideration must be to give absolute fair play to our minority".

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Why do Indian Muslims lag behind?

 

[Vasily Zaytsev]

Yup, there is why 3 Chief Justice of Supreme Court are Muslim, Vice President in Muslim, Prime Minister is Sikh, biggest movie stars are Three Khans, Leader of Ruling Congress party is Christian.

Can you tell me 5 people from minorities in Pakistan who have these type of Highest posts ?

Whenever you talk of nation of size of 1.2 billion people, 1/7 of total population, keep this number always in account.

What about

Hazaras
Shias


Pakistan's Hazara Shias living under siege - Features - Al Jazeera English



Pakistan's Hazara Shias living under siege



State 'incompetence or complicity'

Ali Dayan Hassan, the Karachi-based Pakistan director for Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that there had been a "steady increase" in attacks against Shias in general, and the Hazara in particular, during the past two years.

"This violence is one-sided. It is essentially Sunni militant groups, chiefly the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, targeting Shias, and they are targeting ordinary Shias going about their daily lives. These are not members of militant groups… it's regular people who are being targeted," he said.

In 2012, more than 400 Shias were killed in target killings and bombings, making it "possibly the bloodiest year in living memory for the Shia population of Pakistan".

The Hazara, he said, are being specifically targeted as a result of the fact that they are ethnically distinct. Also a factor, despite the fact that most of Quetta's Hazaras migrated to the city in the mid-1800s, is Afghan Hazaras' history of involvement with the Northern Alliance armed group against the Taliban in the 1990s.

"The LeJ is an offshoot of the SSP, and the actors that constitute the SSP and LeJ fought in that theatre of operations against the Hazaras and were part of [a massacre in the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif]. And so there is a specific history of massacre and persecution that these groups have engaged in against the Hazara, both in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan," he said.

As for how groups such as the LeJ were able to strike at the Hazara with apparent impunity, Hasan pointed to the LeJ fighters' "historical alliance" with Pakistan's military establishment, when they were used as instruments of a policy of supporting the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Moreover, there is also a lack of capacity to deal with such groups, given the state's continuing war against groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which are directly targeting it, argued Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, an Islamabad-based security and policy analyst.

"The preference of the Pakistani state is to first go after those groups that challenge the Pakistani state, and just ignore the other groups. And that gives [groups such as the LeJ] enough space," he told Al Jazeera.

Moreover, he argued, the "extremist Islamist ideology" has "become so powerful and entrenched, with roots in society", that it is now difficult to eliminate such groups, particularly given the establishment of numerous Islamic madrassas in Balochistan and elsewhere that preach such an ideology.

"The kindest explanation [of government inability to curb such attacks]," says HRW's Hasan, "is that the state and its security agencies are criminally incompetent and incapable of providing basic security to their own citizens.

"The more cynical explanation is that the state - meaning the security establishment, intelligence agencies and paramilitaries - is complicit."

The provincial government denied all allegations of complicity or incompentence before it was dissolved.

The problem, said Hasan, is deep-rooted in both society and state policy.

"The Pakistani military's default reaction has been that, instead of challenging and seeking to curb militancy and extremism, they seek as a matter of policy to appease and accommodate extremists."

- Ali Dayan Hasan, Human Rights Watch

"The Pakistani military's default reaction has been that, instead of challenging and seeking to curb militancy and extremism, they seek as a matter of policy to appease and accommodate extremists. Also, because these militant groups have been allies of the state, within the security establishment there are large numbers of sympathisers or people who are tolerant of these groups and their activities."

In interviews with Hazara activists, allegations of Frontier Corps complicity in the killings were repeatedly made by all who spoke with Al Jazeera. Several cited examples of attacks - including the offloading of Hazaras from buses, to be shot at point-blank range at the side of the city's main international highway - having occurred within metres of FC checkposts.

The provincial government had pointed towards casualties among police and security forces inflicted by armed groups in Balochistan as evidence of their resolve. Most of those casualties, however, were linked to a separatist struggle by Baloch nationalists, not to the sectarian LeJ.

While the allegations of state complicity, ubiquitous as they are, remain unconfirmed, what is clear is that there has been a failure of the state to prosecute those involved in the killings.

"It is a one week job, if the army chooses to do so. They are a handful of people … but we cannot say anything to them, when they are protected and supported by the government. What are our people supposed to do?" asked Khalique, the HDP leader, pointing to cases where those involved in attacks have been caught by Hazaras at the scene of the crime, and have subsequently been released by the authorities.

Hasan, the HRW director, holds Pakistan's normally activist judiciary responsible for displaying a lack of will in pursuing those involved in the violence.

"Deterrence comes from accountability - and nobody but nobody has been held accountable, either within the security agencies or in the militant groups, by the judiciary," he said.

The lack of accountability leads to an "erosion in the writ of the state", he added. "It is time the state started addressing that challenge, and it is time the security agencies understood that appeasing militants, being tolerant towards murder and bigotry and massacres is not an option… Your argument cannot perpetually be that 'we don't have the capacity, so people will die'.

"Because that makes the state untenable, if you cannot offer your citizens basic security. If your citizens cannot make themselves believe that you are even trying to protect them."

Meanwhile, in Quetta, the paramilitary FC has now taken over law enforcement responsibilities, in a move that is more a formalisation of what has been the reality for several years, according to residents of the city.

"We will never go towards violence. But our demand is this: 'Tell us what our crime is. Why are you killing us?'"

- Abdul Khalique Hazara,
Chairman, Hazara Democratic Party

It remains unclear as to whether, with the nationwide protests and the dismissal of the provincial government, anything will change on the ground. Hazara leaders insist that they will remain peaceful, no matter what the cost.

"Our people are educated, we are liberal people," said Khalique. "We will never go towards violence. But our demand is this: 'Tell us what our crime is. Why are you killing us? Why are people coming into our neighbourhoods [and murdering us]?'"

What is clear is that the LeJ does not intend to stop its campaign. After making good on its promise of launching attacks within Hazara neighbourhoods if they did not flee the city by the beginning of 2013, they have now vowed to redouble their campaign against them.

"If it is the will of God, in 2013 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi will not allow any Shias to remain living in Quetta [...] we will carry out such attacks that the enemy will, with the will of God, not have any escape. [...] Our message to the Shias is simple: be prepared to kill, or be killed," read the statement in which the group took responsibility for the Quetta attack.

Regardless of government action, for the Hazaras, the cold reality of impending death continues to loom in 2013.

Follow Asad Hashim on Twitter: @ASADHashim

 

[Ayush]

Explained you a 1000 times Pakistan plus Bangladesh plus urdu speaking in Pakistan.



Explained you a 1000 times Pakistan plus Bangladesh plus urdu speaking in Pakistan.

will explain you only one time that the combined Pakistan population at that time was 57 million. and Indian Muslims were 30 million. so that means 65% of the Muslims left

improve your gk.

 

[Don Jaguar]

What about

Hazaras
Shias


Pakistan's Hazara Shias living under siege - Features - Al Jazeera English



Pakistan's Hazara Shias living under siege



State 'incompetence or complicity'

Ali Dayan Hassan, the Karachi-based Pakistan director for Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that there had been a "steady increase" in attacks against Shias in general, and the Hazara in particular, during the past two years.

"This violence is one-sided. It is essentially Sunni militant groups, chiefly the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, targeting Shias, and they are targeting ordinary Shias going about their daily lives. These are not members of militant groups… it's regular people who are being targeted," he said.

In 2012, more than 400 Shias were killed in target killings and bombings, making it "possibly the bloodiest year in living memory for the Shia population of Pakistan".

The Hazara, he said, are being specifically targeted as a result of the fact that they are ethnically distinct. Also a factor, despite the fact that most of Quetta's Hazaras migrated to the city in the mid-1800s, is Afghan Hazaras' history of involvement with the Northern Alliance armed group against the Taliban in the 1990s.

"The LeJ is an offshoot of the SSP, and the actors that constitute the SSP and LeJ fought in that theatre of operations against the Hazaras and were part of [a massacre in the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif]. And so there is a specific history of massacre and persecution that these groups have engaged in against the Hazara, both in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan," he said.

As for how groups such as the LeJ were able to strike at the Hazara with apparent impunity, Hasan pointed to the LeJ fighters' "historical alliance" with Pakistan's military establishment, when they were used as instruments of a policy of supporting the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Moreover, there is also a lack of capacity to deal with such groups, given the state's continuing war against groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which are directly targeting it, argued Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, an Islamabad-based security and policy analyst.

"The preference of the Pakistani state is to first go after those groups that challenge the Pakistani state, and just ignore the other groups. And that gives [groups such as the LeJ] enough space," he told Al Jazeera.

Moreover, he argued, the "extremist Islamist ideology" has "become so powerful and entrenched, with roots in society", that it is now difficult to eliminate such groups, particularly given the establishment of numerous Islamic madrassas in Balochistan and elsewhere that preach such an ideology.

"The kindest explanation [of government inability to curb such attacks]," says HRW's Hasan, "is that the state and its security agencies are criminally incompetent and incapable of providing basic security to their own citizens.

"The more cynical explanation is that the state - meaning the security establishment, intelligence agencies and paramilitaries - is complicit."

The provincial government denied all allegations of complicity or incompentence before it was dissolved.

The problem, said Hasan, is deep-rooted in both society and state policy.

"The Pakistani military's default reaction has been that, instead of challenging and seeking to curb militancy and extremism, they seek as a matter of policy to appease and accommodate extremists."

- Ali Dayan Hasan, Human Rights Watch

"The Pakistani military's default reaction has been that, instead of challenging and seeking to curb militancy and extremism, they seek as a matter of policy to appease and accommodate extremists. Also, because these militant groups have been allies of the state, within the security establishment there are large numbers of sympathisers or people who are tolerant of these groups and their activities."

In interviews with Hazara activists, allegations of Frontier Corps complicity in the killings were repeatedly made by all who spoke with Al Jazeera. Several cited examples of attacks - including the offloading of Hazaras from buses, to be shot at point-blank range at the side of the city's main international highway - having occurred within metres of FC checkposts.

The provincial government had pointed towards casualties among police and security forces inflicted by armed groups in Balochistan as evidence of their resolve. Most of those casualties, however, were linked to a separatist struggle by Baloch nationalists, not to the sectarian LeJ.

While the allegations of state complicity, ubiquitous as they are, remain unconfirmed, what is clear is that there has been a failure of the state to prosecute those involved in the killings.

"It is a one week job, if the army chooses to do so. They are a handful of people … but we cannot say anything to them, when they are protected and supported by the government. What are our people supposed to do?" asked Khalique, the HDP leader, pointing to cases where those involved in attacks have been caught by Hazaras at the scene of the crime, and have subsequently been released by the authorities.

Hasan, the HRW director, holds Pakistan's normally activist judiciary responsible for displaying a lack of will in pursuing those involved in the violence.

"Deterrence comes from accountability - and nobody but nobody has been held accountable, either within the security agencies or in the militant groups, by the judiciary," he said.

The lack of accountability leads to an "erosion in the writ of the state", he added. "It is time the state started addressing that challenge, and it is time the security agencies understood that appeasing militants, being tolerant towards murder and bigotry and massacres is not an option… Your argument cannot perpetually be that 'we don't have the capacity, so people will die'.

"Because that makes the state untenable, if you cannot offer your citizens basic security. If your citizens cannot make themselves believe that you are even trying to protect them."

Meanwhile, in Quetta, the paramilitary FC has now taken over law enforcement responsibilities, in a move that is more a formalisation of what has been the reality for several years, according to residents of the city.

"We will never go towards violence. But our demand is this: 'Tell us what our crime is. Why are you killing us?'"

- Abdul Khalique Hazara,
Chairman, Hazara Democratic Party

It remains unclear as to whether, with the nationwide protests and the dismissal of the provincial government, anything will change on the ground. Hazara leaders insist that they will remain peaceful, no matter what the cost.

"Our people are educated, we are liberal people," said Khalique. "We will never go towards violence. But our demand is this: 'Tell us what our crime is. Why are you killing us? Why are people coming into our neighbourhoods [and murdering us]?'"

What is clear is that the LeJ does not intend to stop its campaign. After making good on its promise of launching attacks within Hazara neighbourhoods if they did not flee the city by the beginning of 2013, they have now vowed to redouble their campaign against them.

"If it is the will of God, in 2013 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi will not allow any Shias to remain living in Quetta [...] we will carry out such attacks that the enemy will, with the will of God, not have any escape. [...] Our message to the Shias is simple: be prepared to kill, or be killed," read the statement in which the group took responsibility for the Quetta attack.

Regardless of government action, for the Hazaras, the cold reality of impending death continues to loom in 2013.

Follow Asad Hashim on Twitter: @ASADHashim

You completely forgot to mention that the very same groups killed 36,000 sunnis.

 

[Rahil khan]

true democracy.? then why do the Pakistan hindus run to india.

and why do sunnis kill shias on your country.

plz don't say rubbish just to undermine my country.

Again that Shia Sunni stuff has dragged into the discussion. Brother, can you compare the Shia Sunni tensions before and after the Saddam's era in Iraq??? Can you compare the Shia and Sunni tensions before and after the Zia's regime in Pakistan. The difference in sky high. Why? because it suited the interests of someone who India know very well....same group of people who were targeting the Shia's were caught red handed many times when they were targeting the Sunnis...Can you claim that Shia's and Sunni's are thirsty for their blood for the 1400 years of histoyr of Islam??? the answer is a big NO.... but the Hindu mulim tensions are hundreds of years old. And that won't vanish so easy in 100 odd years. Perhaps you should listen to the interviews of your ex foreign minister Jaswanth Singh...in which he expressed many times his concerns about the status of Muslims in India.

 

[liontk]

This debate is like an ugly, deep, endless mire. The moment you comment here you get bogged down in centuries of f-itlh and rubbish being taught to each of us since birth. The more you comment the more the mire pulls you inside to its epicenter of filt-h. There is no debate to be had about this. The Indians do not want to hear a voice from across the border or with loyalties across the border and they do not wish to hear a voice that asks for rights from what is now in India either. In short nothing may change unless there is a collective conscious and movement for change. Also a lot of Pakistani members bashing here have done nothing to improve the situation at home and think exactly like these insidious people.

We are to fight eternally it seems. Now case in point here is that no one responded to the comments I made of unity and of other things and self-criticism. When some dirty comments attacked family, our ancient city and our people who made Muslim League and it enraged me I defended my town Lucknow which Muslims left there should be doing but for some reason we Pakistanis have to do the task for them. I am tired of fighting someone else's war. Time to fix things at home and then we will come to Mr neutral to take back our Lucknow. You call it shi-t no wonder its in the state it is with cow and dog shi-t everywhere, no cleanliness or anything just like other Indian cities including the one you are from. There has to be a policy or ban on animals walking around freely. Its not a farm but an urban center.

It was very beautiful with narrow streets but bricked and beautiful under Mughals and British too. There were serenades too.



Why don't you tell them about the Samjhauta Express Attacks and how ISI was blamed initially only to be proven wrong. This greatly reduces Indian credibility. Furthermore there are some elements that can't be controlled in either country. Pakistan also makes the same allegations which are not internationally heard because of its weaker media power. Also where have terrorists killed 50,000 people. The casualty records from last decade were 89,000+ killed in Kashmir and the vast majority were civilians. I can bring the cases for @liontk. You Indians have been doing propaganda for years even sending death threats then sending letters te eabout Nationalists-we would laugh at you.

When I told a Canadian about it he was very surprised. He even asked for proof. I gave him all the links to the arrests on the case. Was shocked. I asked him lets say this is the credibility of your neighbor. Would you believe him if he told you terrorists are constantly entering from your territory? Those guys were biased against Pakistan but they still nodded and were like at least we get the Pakistani view now.

There are always 2 sides of a coin.

The issue is our media has failed to project our point of view and India has gained massive support today worldwide-its media has also matured heavily today and their entertainment channels dominate us. India is growing assertive, we are not due to reasons I commented on before and I believe we too should grow assertive and present our views worldwide. The issue as liontk points out is in both nations but Indians head has become too high these days since the world favors them against Pakistan today. I have seen it while in Canada as well.

89000 civilians , can you give me the link asap because that is a big claim your making. That is more deaths than the entire syrian civil war @haviZsultan.

 

[Don Jaguar]

will explain you only one time that the combined Pakistan population at that time was 57 million. and Indian Muslims were 30 million. so that means 65% of the Muslims left

improve your gk.

It was around 65 million here at that time.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

true democracy.? then why do the Pakistan hindus run to india.

and why do sunnis kill shias on your country.

plz don't say rubbish just to undermine my country.

same can be said about israel too, so its also not a democracy.

Thing is that Pak n Israel r ideological countries one for Muslims n other for Jews.

But pak actually right now is not a true Islamic Republic.
read my post#242 on this.

 

[Raja.Pakistani]

Yup, there is why 3 Chief Justice of Supreme Court are Muslim, Vice President in Muslim, Prime Minister is Sikh, biggest movie stars are Three Khans, Leader of Ruling Congress party is Christian.

Can you tell me 5 people from minorities in Pakistan who have these type of Highest posts ?

Whenever you talk of nation of size of 1.2 billion people, 1/7 of total population, keep this number always in account.

OK add BD population too. Lets take all Asian and South Asian Muslims including Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Burma and Malaysia. equal to 600 million. (which is way high number as assumption considering there are total 1.5 billion Muslims).

Still look at Number of Muslims in India is 1/4 th of total Population of Muslims in all these country.

Now add up Muslims killed in last 10 years in India and these countries. Lets talk of major Events. Ignore American and NATO killings. Shall we ?

What you are talking about?

Give counter argument of points mentioned in article(written by indian) instead of talking irrelevant question. It dont make sense to compare the hindu minority in Pakistan with muslim in India because hindus are only 1.6 percent of total population of pakistan while Muslim have second largest population in India . yea we also had chief justice rana bhgawan das and there are many notable hindus in sports and others department. manmohan singh and kalam are/was just puppet in hands of their party and they were representing the agenda of their party not muslims or sikhs or anyone else . You think they had power to take decision or played any part in policy making? Answer is No, so it don't matter what religion they follow because they are not any different than others

Yea innocent people in Pakistan got killed because of terrorism irrespective of their beliefs/sects/gender but they were never discriminated or was not target of state terrorism or state discrimination. Its not fair to compare the numbers of people who get killed in terrorism with those who got killed in religious riots especially when local government or local leaders picked side in these riots and police was silent spectator.. yea few of such leaders got punishment and some are still walking freely

 

[for truth]

89000 civilians , can you give me the link asap because that is a big claim your making. That is more deaths than the entire syrian civil war @haviZsultan.

State data refutes claim of 1 lakh killed in Kashmir


this article will clear the myth of the Pakistani propaganda.

excerpt from the article

They are figures that have been quoted so often that they are widely believed to be true: almost 100,000 dead Kashmiri civilians and 10,000 people who have disappeared in the last two decades. From public meetings in small villages to TV studios, from online pages to newspaper reports, these figure are cited and printed, used to stir emotions and silence voices in Kashmiri society, even presented to visiting ambassadors and printed in petitions to the UN. Except, nobody bothers to explain just how these figures were arrived at.

TOI accessed Jammu & Kashmir government documents to arrive at the truth behind the urban legend. Collected between January 1990 and April 2011, the records are comprehensive and give year-wise breakup of all violent incidents in the state, the nature of the acts of violence, the number of people killed, and also the circumstances that led to the deaths.

Here's what the data says. In the last 21 years, 43,460 people have been killed in the Kashmir insurgency. Of these, 21,323 are militants, 13,226 civilians killed by militants, 3,642 civilians killed by security forces, and 5,369 policemen killed by militants. The 21,323 militants were killed in operations by security forces and include both Kashmiri and foreign militants. And of the 5,369 members of the security forces, around 1,500 are Kashmiri policemen.

The government has collated the figures of civilians killed by security forces since 1990: it lists 3,642 people. The numbers vary from a high of 539 civilians killed in 1990, the year in which 51 people were massacred by the CRPF in just one incident when it fired at a crowd of protesters on a bridge at Gaw Kadal in downtown Srinagar, to 120 protesters killed across the state in firing by the police and paramilitary forces in the summer of 2010.

The records also show another slaughter that has gone on ceaselessly since 1990, a slaughter that nobody comments on, nobody laments: of Kashmiris killed by militants since 1990. Of the 13,226 civilians killed by militants, 11,461 were shot and 1,765 died in grenade blasts and explosions.

These deaths are the ugly truth that Kashmir has learnt to ignore. The civilians killed fall into a black hole that Kashmiri society never discusses, remembers or protests against. They include two young sisters, Arifa (16) and Akhtara (18), who on January 31, 2011, were dragged out of their one-room house in downtown Sopore and killed. Akhtara took four wounds on her face and Arifa was shot in the chest. They were accused of being "immoral."

The moderate, the mukhbir (informer), the political activist or the unlucky bystander, these deaths are forgotten the day after they occur. But the central message is remembered: if you cross the line, you shall pay with your life. This message has been received and understood by the average Kashmiri. The knowledge that you can be killed anytime, anywhere, and the fear of the hidden assassin, has percolated across society. That`s why separatist leaders like Mirwaiz Omar Farooq or Prof Abdul Ghani Bhatt, who have spent years spreading the truth about the atrocities on Kashmiris by security forces, are protected by the very same CRPF and J&K police. That`s why many journalists in Kashmir are followed around by armed policemen. No local newspaper dares print a story accusing militants of killing a civilian; the operative word is "unidentified gunmen".

These 13,226 Kashmiris just do not exist in the collective psyche. There are no websites to them, no petitions and no organizations to keep alive their memory. Their only contribution has been to cement fear in 70 lakh people, where a clear distinction exists between what is said privately and in company. Where even people who are victims of militant violence are more comfortable talking about security forces and their atrocities.

These figures are from the government. They make no mention or distinction between the official account and what sometimes happens in this dirty war. For example, there`s no clarity on whether the 21,323 militants claimed killed in operations by security forces includes or excludes the six innocent Kashmiri boys picked up and murdered by the Army after the Chittisingpora massacre in 2000.

The Army had claimed they were foreign militants responsible for killing 36 Sikhs in Chittisingpora. The CBI later said the Army had abducted the six from places around Anantnag and shot them in cold blood. Or the three innocent young Kashmiris "bought" by an Army unit for Rs 50,000 each and murdered in Machil in April 2009.

So, how many militants killed were actually militants? How many of the civilians killed by militants, as claimed by the government, were victims of Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar and not of "government agencies" as the separatists claim? Unfortunately, neither the Hurriyat nor the Lashkar have any lists of their own. They neither investigate their mistakes nor own up their actions. The only thing these records establish is that one lakh people haven`t died in Kashmir insurgency. What they help prove is that minus the some 4,000 jawans of the Army, BSF and the CRPF and the 5,000 odd "mehman mujahideen" from Pakistan, 34,000 Kashmiri men and women have died violent painful deaths as militants, mainstreamers, moderates or mukhbirs.

 

[KRAIT]

You completely forgot to mention that the very same groups killed 36,000 sunnis.

So that means More Muslims killed Muslims than Hindus in India killed Muslims.

Doesn't it make Indian Muslims safer than those Muslims ?

89000 civilians , can you give me the link asap because that is a big claim your making. That is more deaths than the entire syrian civil war @haviZsultan.

First the figure is incorrect. And most of the people killed are killed by Terrorists trained and funded by Pakistan in the name of "Freedom of Kashmir".

So tell me, are they helping Kashmiris or killing them ?

 

[Vasily Zaytsev]

You completely forgot to mention that the very same groups killed 36,000 sunnis.

by your logic then ........ the same groups who were harassing Shahrukh targeted Sachin Tendulkar, Asha Bhosale ... "Hindus" ... for speaking the same language as that of Shahrukh ....

The only difference ... in India they harass you ... But in the land of the Pure they just kill you ...

Its always better to get yourself killed in the land of the pure .... so India is not "Secular" ... and The Land of the Pure is not "Communal" ....

What a logic !!!

 

[Don Jaguar]

So that means More Muslims killed Muslims than Hindus in India killed Muslims.

Doesn't it make Indian Muslims safer than those Muslims ?

Only because of recent taliban insurgency which will be finished soon.

 

[Iggy]

90% left in 1947.

What more?

Really? those were the people who you took as reference??

That was the best example you got?

90% left to Pakistan, still we are having one of the largest muslim population in the world.. What does that tell you??