In the beginning of the uprising in Kashmir that started in December 1989, armed activists of various groups such as the JKLF attacked Indian military, the police, and people they identified as operatives of the Indian intelligence services who were responsible for state violence

“The targets of this campaign were not from a specific religious community or targeted because of their religious identity. While majority of the people targeted in this campaign were incidentally Muslim, some Kashmiri Pandits were also among those targeted and killed.

Those Kashmir Pandits were targeted because of their political role not because of their faith.” - Kashmir Scholars Network

The total population of Pandits in Kashmir was approximately 124,000. Pro-India propagandists claim the murders of around 700,000 Pandits in early 1990s.

The Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, an association dedicated to the rights of Pandits, claims 357 Pandits were killed in Kashmir between 1990-2011. According to the Government of India, a total of 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed during the conflict from 1989-2013.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India report on June 1, 1999 states that of 157 leaders killed during this era, 37 were Hindus and 120 were Muslims. The killings were primarily political based.

The NHRC itself did not classify these killings of Pandits as “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing”.

There is no evidence of hundreds of thousands of Pandits being killed by Kashmiri Muslims because number one, such a huge population never existed and number two, Kashmiri Muslims never committed such an act.

There has never been a full and impartial account of what made so many Pandits leave Kashmir, but primarily those who left in the spring of 1990, after the infamous Gaw Kadal massacre ( During which the Indian army murdered unarmed protestors, killing 52 people and injuring 250).

For the Pandits, it was the lawlessness of Kashmir that made them feel unwanted and pushed many of them to leave. Malika Kaur’s in-depth research study states that Pandits cited general lawlessness, and not any specific targeted threat as a cause of migration of Pandits.

“One firsthand account18 of prominent Pandits of Kashmir who migrated in 1990 was published in 2016 by Mehboob Makhdoomi19. In a letter addressed to Kashmiri Muslims dated September 22, 1990

and sent to Al Safa, a prominent Srinagar-based newspaper, a group of 23 prominent Pandits sought forgiveness from their Muslim brethren and narrate the real situation of the time and reasons for their flight.

The letter states that the Kashmiri Pandit community was made “a scapegoat” by Jagmohan, the then Indian-appointed Governor of Kashmir. They characterize their exodus as a “drama enacted by BJP, RSS, & Shiv Sena”. The BJP, RSS and Shiv Sena are Hindutva groups.

They claim that their migration was presented to them as “a war between Hinduism and Islam” and “vital for preserving & protecting the Dharm & the unity & integrity of India.” They were assured that “it would pave way for realizing the dream of ‘Akhand Bharat.’”

The writers also claim that they were assured “in the name of all gods and deities” and that they shall be looked after. They were threatened of ‘dire consequences’ in case they didn’t agree to follow the plan.

There are other firsthand witness reports corroborate that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits was planned by the Government.”

Even the Delhi High Court has evidence that the Goverment of India facilitated the exit of Kashmiri Pandits. If they were Internally Displaced Persons, a term used for refugees within a country, then why did India’s NHRC deny classifying Pandits as IDP and rather as Migrants

who left “voluntarily”. Contrary to what Indians, Pandits, and Hinduvta groups have caused you to think, Pandits were not forced to go into exile by their Kashmiri Muslim neighbors who were busy fighting the beginning of an incredibly violent genocide.

Indians have managed to delude themselves into thinking that during the 90s while Kashmiri Muslims endured horrific massacres such as Gaw Kadal, Hawal, Sopore, and the terrible mass rapes of Kunan and Poshpora, a people that was so desperate to survive would go and murder the

entirety of a “700,000” strong Hindu population that had never existed, as if they didn’t have anything better to do. You know, like surviving crackdowns, trying not to be killed, etc.

“While there have been politicized accounts of the arson, theft, destruction and illegal occupation of Pandit properties, the fact is that after 1990, many vacant properties33 that belonged to Muslims, Pandits, and Sikhs who migrated were in fact taken over by Indian military

personnel. While there were reports of some illegal occupation of abandoned properties of Pandits, most vacant properties were primarily ruined due to their use by the army and consequently became the sites of armed encounters. In 1997, a law was passed to prevent the distress

sales of, and protect, these properties. Mallika Kaur Sarkaria in her research concluded that property reparation for Kashmir Pandit community should be conditional upon their return to the Valley, an act that would allow for a successful reintegration of the Pandit community.

Such a move would allow Pandits to not be used as a “pawn in the complex power play that is the Kashmir conflict.””

India’s Union Minister, G. Kishan Reddy, has said that the Government of India will restore and reopen “50,000” closed temples in Kashmir. The issue is that the total number of temples in Kashmir is 4,000. 50,000 temples have never existed.

In absence of Hindu caretakers, Kashmiri Muslims have been reported to take care of the temples. Propagandists and Hinduvta groups are fond of the saying that Kashmiri Pandits faced historical discrimination in Kashmir.

The reality is quite far from the delusion that India has planted in the minds of its people. The Pandits have historically been a privileged elite in Kashmir, a ruling class that has exploited the masses and were the educated of Kashmir.

Khalid Bashir discusses this in his book, Kashmir: Exposing the Myth Behind the Narrative, at the strength of the Pandits in matters of governance, and how the majority Muslim population rarely had a say in the affairs of their own country.

Even during the Muslim Sultanate of Kashmir, an era where Indians claim the height of atrocities against Pandits, the Kashmiri Brahmins controlled the government even then, employed and patronized by the Sultans themselves.

Kashmiri Pandits enjoyed disproportionate representation in government employment, holding around 21% of government jobs despite being 2% of the population.

The issue with the Kashmiri Muslim community is that many of us apologize for a crime that we never committed and a crime that has been exaggerated so much it has been compared to a “Holocaust”.

The Holocaust of Jewish people caused the deaths of around six million Jewish people. The political killings of Pandits who mostly aided in the oppression of the Kashmiri masses was around 200-400 dead. That is not a genocide.

Rather than Kashmiri Muslims apologizing year after year, the Pandit community needs to stop lying, inventing falsifications and genocides that never happened. 700,000 of you did not die, there weren’t even 700,000 of you.

Reconciliation should not be done with a community that regards Kashmiri Muslims as the scum of the earth and still repeats casteist, Islamophobic slurs toward us.

They need to reciprocate respect for us and stop inventing genocides to victimize themselves. We extend our hands in goodwill and kindness, but the Pandit community has scorned Kashmiri Muslims, mocked us as backwards and uneducated, and repeated insults that Brahmin supremacists

often use. Kashmiri Muslims of this generation will not entertain another ruling class that will exploit and blame us. Pandits will return to Kashmir as our equals or not.