Despite shattering disintegration of Soviet state, there is no denying the fact that the Russian Revolution with the Marxist thought and ideology as its driving force was a momentous event with international impact and ramifications. The capitalist countries suffered a shock when Marxian thought shot up in public estimation and came to be seen potentially viable to replace the decadent capitalist order. The communist parties gained popularity and the thinkers, theoreticians and scholars felt deeply for the Marxist ideology and soviet experimentation in a system different from capitalist path. The communist party of India owing its genesis to the impact of Russian Revolution functioned under the Soviet patronage and came to be seen as the propaganda machine of the Russians and their projected strategies.

 

 

As India had been groaning and writhing under the ruthless British, the INC had already initiated a struggle for liberation from the British rule and the communist party of India with its feeble political base had no option but to append itself to the congress on the assumption that the anti-imperialist struggle had to be strengthened and fortified by the broad mobilisation of patriotic forces.

 

 

 

 

The communist party failed to take deep roots in India as it had no feel and appreciation of the enormous heritage of India and that was how its evaluation and perception of the Indian reality never harmonised. The same theme-song of "Proletarian, Revolution and class struggle" with hatred as its cosmic principle were plucked out of the Marxian Book to shape the Indian reality for a revolution. Crude attempts were harnessed to explicate the shaping processes of Indian history, in the light of Marxist tenets distilling ersatz of the Indian substance anomalous to its tone and temper. With the specific objective of expanding the base of communist ideology, a branch of communist party was also established in Kashmir under the leadership of Dr. NN Raina, who was the rallying point for all shades of communists and progressives.

 

 

In Kashmir, the communist party had a negligible base and drew its support and sustenance mainly from Kashmiri Pandit intellectuals who had a strong tradition of education enabling them to measure new ideological trends and waves shaping out on international arena. The potent and only factor that impeded and nearly stifled the steady growth of communist ideology in Kashmir was the hide-bound Muslim mind, indoctrinated and deeply steeped in narrowness of the spirit shaping out into an absolute abhorrence to everything that is not Islamic.

 

 

As the communists in India had set a precedent, the Kashmiri Pandit communists also functioned as a pressure group within National Conference, which had the same ideological goals and moorings as that of the Muslim Conference.

 

 

Sheikh Abdullah in his psychological dynamics had no love lost for Kashmiri Pandits but found their efficacy in thwarting the dominant role of Jammu Muslims whom he feared for their advancement in the field of education and also their articulation of politics through the clarity of language. Despite his cynical malign and open hatred towards the Pandits, Sheikh craftily used them to invest his anti-Maharaja campaign with a veneer of secularism and liberal political content. His superficial cries for Hindu-Muslim unity not flowing from his ideological moorings and convictions and his deep roots in the Aligarh Muslim University culture duped Nehru and the advanced sections from the Pandit Community. With the Sheikh's ascendancy in power the Pandits found him as no harbinger of the dividends of peace and amity and social solidarity and cohesion.

 

 

 

 

Pandit Jia Lal Kilam, a signatory to the National Demand, had the grace and independence to lodge appealing protest against Sheikh Abdullah's utterances against the religion of Hindus and raised the issue in the working committee of National Conference and offered his resignation when the Sheikh unexpectedly thundered that he was first a Muslim and last a Muslim. The National Conference would have sundered apart had not Pandit Nehru intervened for a patch-up to save the ship from sinking. But the Pandit communists as per their history in Kashmir have maintained a stony silence on issues of vital concern to the community.

 

 

 

Much in the line of 'Ahmadiyas' and 'Ahrars', the Muslim communists from Lahore and elsewhere descended upon Kashmir to add vigour to the communist ideology by roping in and forming contacts with the leaders of National Conference. The study circles where they flaunted their learning of the Marxist texts and the tactical line pursued by the Communist Party were largely attended by the Kashmiri Pandit converts to Marxism. And the Muslim League with its agenda of Pakistan as the destiny of Muslims had emerged on the political scene of India, communally besmeared Ideological content was provided to the National Conference to fight out the Maharaja as representing the decadent feudal system, but not a word was said about the Muslim League as representing the same feudal and parochial interests.

 

 

The strategy and socio-political framings as chalked out by the Muslim communists from the Punjab for political action was not “the people of Jammu and Kashmir versus British Imperialism” but “the people of Kashmir versus Maharaja Hari Singh”. Fazal Illahi Qurban and Abdullah Safdar pursued the same strategy in Kashmir with trappings of fixation as they felt satisfied that the ends of revolution were better served by pitting the Muslims against the Hindu Maharaja in particular and Hindus in general.

 

 

 

Of immense political significance was the arrival of BPL Bedi and his European wife, Freda Bedi in Kashmir. They as communists from the Punjab pioneered a new communist Manifesto for Kashmir in the form of New Kashmir document, a pious statement of Marxist cliches, supposed to concretise the goals chat were sought to be achieved through the force of a struggle against the Maharaja.

 

The role of two prominent Kashmiri Pandit communists Dr. NN Raina and late Moti Lal Misri was highly laudable in drafting the document, but was diluted and never recognised for their Hindu credentials by the National Conference which was principally a Muslim organisation preserving and battling for the Muslim interests at the expense of other ethnic and religious groups.

 

The document of New Kashmir apparently egalitarian with an accent on minority rights was supposed to pave the way for and establish a rational democratic order. With that end in view the communists organised and held study circles to acquaint the lumpens with the social and political content of the document. Much to their dismay the Sheikh swooped on them, de-legitimised them, got the study circles stopped on the plea that they were propagating communism among the Muslim youth though the fact was that the Muslims by and large detested and shunned communism for its atheistic approach and premise.

 

 

The Kashmiri Pandit communists glued to the pursuit of guidelines issued out by party bosses deft in doling out cliches and off-ground phantasies were absolutely lacking in Hindu lore and orientation and passed for extreme liberals which trait of theirs was mix-understood, never swallowed and appreciated by orthodox Muslims mired in illiteracy and obscurantism.

 

The Pandit communists and many Pandits in National Conference without any commitment to the community, thus rootless, surrendered the will of the community to the Muslim majority. Also, through their closer interface with Muslims appeared to have contributed to the growth of pernicious trends which compromised and diluted the Hindu position of Pandits. The Hindu communists by all standards got a life-time shock, when few Muslim communists subscribing to the 'instinctive tilt of Muslim psyche for Pakistan' theory denounced them as reactionary Brahmans and anti-Muslim. The Muslim communists made a concerted bid to capture the Communist Party though the Pandits as a matter of fact formed a bulk of its membership, yet they were beaten and thrashed, looted, humiliated and put to crass contumely.

 

The Pandit Communists and also the Pandits drawn into the dragnet of National Conference after dissolving their parent body might not have been conversant with persecutionary history of how the Muslim intolerants with their prejudices subjected them to a pogrom which had no semblance of a human face, how a genocide was triggered off to transmute the religious complexion of Kashmir and how the Hindus had been forced to march out of their native abode five times to say the least.

 

In their unstinted support to the new dispensation led by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Communists created the fronts and fortified the forces to put up an ideological battle against the instrumentalities of destabilization and national insecurity Kashmir as an official organ of the Communists in Kashmir published editorials and lead-articles that highlighted and put forth a reasonable analysis of the game-plan of Imperialist powers to wrest Kashmir from the Constitutional organization of India to establish its independence as a requirement of cold war politics of Dullesian vintage. Over the years with changes taking place in Kashmir politics the Communist Party in keen earnestness to craft its politics to the needs of the scenario back-tracked from the Central Committee resolution on Sheikh Abdullah who in all clarity of language was accused of having fallen into the Imperialist dragnet.

 

 

Sheikh Abdullah with a deep Streak of vengeance and vindictiveness in his personality wits in no mood to forgive the Pandit Communists for their so-called betrayal in 1953. But aware of their political fertility and acumen as Pandits, he invited a brilliant thinker of the stature of late Moti Lal Misri to participate in the people's Convention. Hastily organised as a political gimmick to smoothen his highway for a somersault, he wished to ensure his ascendancy to the seat of power and also to dole out fake and false impression that he was convinced of the absurdity of the Plebiscite Front politics of which he was the pioneer and innovator too. Despite opposition from many quarters the Sheikh was hastily and even politically under a quaint arrangement installed as the leader of Congress Legislature party and in the wake of quirks and heaves of history he entrenched himself as the elected Chief Minister of the State and the weapon used was to feign illness to invoke public sympathy.

 

 

And dismaying as it is, he launched a diatribe against the Pandits by labelling them as 'Fifth Column', a Muslim calumny and canard motivated by his antipathy towards the Pandit Communists formulating his distasteful role in the formulaic phrase of 'unconscious votary of imperialism'.

 

Writes Koul, "The order proved a land-mark in the history of discrimination and relentless elimination of the Kashmirian-Hindus.

Violative of the Constitutional provisions, the orders were outrageously communal making religion as a determining factor for entry into services and admissions in professional colleges. What was shocking that such orders were issued at the behest of GM Sadiq who had pretensions to secular and progressive credentials.

 

Comrade HS Surjeet and his encounter with the trend of ominous events shaping in the secular skies of Kashmir

 

Harkishan Singh Surjeet once known as an Akali Communist and now as a dubious power broker has been overseeing the functioning of his Party unit in Kashmir and directing its affairs prior to the split of the Communist Party and continued with the over-lordship even after the Party floundered into groups and sub-groups. His Jaunts between Delhi and Kashmir undertaken with the objective of proliferating and strengthening the base of CPI (M) unit in Kashmir and his successes and failures in this behalf are within the knowledge of people interested in political affairs.

 

As is common knowledge, his sphere of activities in Kashmir has been limited to a house in Khanyar, Srinagar, which is owned by Yusuf Zargar, a Muslim activist, but a comrade in Communist parlance. It was at the same house situated within the tangle of narrow lanes and the locality that Comrade Surjeet dilating on the political scenario of Kashmir was said to have expressed his shirking doubts about the relevance and efficacy of Article 370 and was said to have advocated its repeal. The meeting though not largely attended was suddenly wound up when hundreds of Muslims lying in wait surrounded the house and lapidated it and let loose a barrage of abuse and curse against the owner of the house and filthily denounced Surjeet, his Party and the atheistic philosophy of Marx in so loud tones as to rend the sky.

 

The Scene was set for manhandling the Comrades. But, before Comrade Surjeet could be bashed by Muslim crowd, his party men, led him out of the house through the back-yard door to the house of a Kashmiri Pandit, late JL Dhar, not a comrade, where he cooled his heels and felt safe and reassured.

 

Invested with an exceptional capacity of mind and intelligence, Surjeet should have promptly measured the trend of ominous events shaping in the secular skies of Kashmir and despairing as it is he without touching the hornet's nest maintained wooden silence and thought it highly prudent and sagacious not to broach the subject with the powers that be then at the Central capital and perhaps fearing loss of face concealed the incident fraught with nefarious designs of ominous proportions even from ills own party circles to which he was responsible if responsibility is a principal informing the Communist politics. The Muslims who had surrounded the house as the venue of Communist activists were the same fanatic brigands churned out from the Madrasas functioning as the seminaries of fanaticism and bigotry and upholding the agenda of converting the valley into a haven of Islam through its annexation with Pakistan.

 

Kashmiri Pandits as a distinctive religious minority were expelled from their native birth-place by the armed Muslim killers earning not covert but overt support and collaboration from large sections of Muslim majority, but comrade Surjeet set on the trail of faceless opportunist refuses to identify and cognise the stark reality. If he does, the apple-cart of hollow secularism as conceived and practised in the country will turn turtle and that is why he and his party as votaries of the same phoney secularism have not politically necessary and expedient to issue out a single statement on the cruel expulsion of the entire Hindu minority from the Kashmir valley. He can be unflinching in his support to the creation of Malappuram, a citadel of Islamic Sevak Sangh, but he cannot afford to pay even lip-service to the cause of the three lakh Hindu refugees wallowing in dust and dirt lest it should taint his secular image which in fact is nothing more than a mask to conceal his anti-Hindu motivations.