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Talk:Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus/Archive 3

< Talk:Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus
Latest comment: 2 years ago by TrangaBellam in topic Inconvenient people
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Emigration?

Latest comment: 2 years ago48 comments6 people in discussion
  • Evans, Alexander (2002-03-01). "A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001". Contemporary South Asia. 11 (1): 19–37. doi:10.1080/0958493022000000341. ISSN 0958-4935.

… the Pandit community was forced to leave the Valley.

Focusing on their history, and forced migration from their homes in the Kashmir Valley,

Given the condition of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits living in forced exile in various parts of India and also due to lack of attention by previous Kashmiri Pandit emigrees to …

Focused particularly on the displaced Hindu Pandits (KPs) of Kashmir, forced out by rising anti-Pandit …

thousands of Kashmiri pandits have been driven out of their homes

The events in 1989 and early 1990s did lead to the mass migration of most Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley and communal discourses acquired unprecedented salience.

Kashmiri Pandits, the non- Kashmiri Hindus, Kashmiri Sikhs and other minorities were thus forcibly displaced from Kashmir.

@Fowler&fowler General consensus among scholars is that it was a forced mass exodus. Apart from that I don't see any scholar using word "Emigration" for this event. Maybe quote some sources if you think it was an "Emigration" and not a "forced mass exodus". LearnIndology (talk) 07:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Long time, no see. Have you read the entire lead? TrangaBellam (talk) 12:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Exhibit 1: In this edit at 15:13, 14 August 2021, the phrase "fled the Valley" sourced to NYT was removed and "left the Valley" was inserted, using Bose 1997, p.71 as one of the sources. Yet Ankur Datta, citing the same source, says:

Approximately 100,000 to 140,000 Kashmiri Pandits had fled the Kashmir Valley by the end of 1990 (Bose 1997: 71).[1]

So, what is in Bose 1997, p.71 that warranted this change? Datta is also clear that this was "by the end of 1990". Yet in our text, it was "during that decade"!
  • Exhibit 2: By 17:48 on thte same day, "left the Valley" further changes to "moved away"!
  • For Mridu Rai, it was 'voluntarily' undertaken (quote marks in the source). But that goes with an apologetic footnote:

[199] One has to be cautious in assessing the degree of voluntariness in decisions made from a position of insecurity and the threat, even if only potential, of the loss of life and property.

It is entirely unclear where the supposed "voluntariness" is coming from!
I am afraid a skewed narrative has been constructed using wishy-washy sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:58, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Citing Nitasha Kaul who speaks of "mass migration" (a Pandit herself, who has consistently rejected RW narratives about the Pandit exodus, if TI had actually bothered to read her interviews/pubs.) to claim that there is a consensus among scholars that it was a "forced mass exodus" is just weird. Or a letter to editor by some Ranjit Sau or some random publication by one M. K. Kaw. Or quoting Evans out of context.
Both of us know that KP exodus remains severely understudied (except for Dutta) and we do not have sources to claim that they were driven out by radical Jehadis or whatever. A cursory reading of Dutta shows how apologetically he traverses these domains, trying hard to not piss off either sides.

[A]s the narrative of the Pandit ‘exodus’ was inextricably folded into the rise of Hindutva politics in the India of the 1990s, every small fact about it became bogged down in a minefield of rhetoric. There is little clarity, therefore, even about the basics: when did the displacement take place, what triggered it, where did the departing migrants go? Even something as apparently straightforward as the numbers involved remains entirely imprecise.
— Kak, Sanjay (2018-06-01). "Book Review: Ankur Datta. 2017. On Uncertain Ground: Displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 52 (2): 240–245. doi:10.1177/0069966718754658. ISSN 0069-9667.

TrangaBellam (talk) 14:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Datta, Ankur (2017), On Uncertain Ground: Displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir, Oxford University Press, p. 47, ISBN 9780199466771
Which "either side"? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:32, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I assume this to be a rhetorical question, right? Dutt has spoken about this parallel-universe experience encountered in his ethnography: almost all KMs rejected all that were said by KPs (of the camp) while almost all KPs rejected all that were said by KMs. The homogenization so-disliked by all sociologists.
Regrettably, much of the objective evidence (newspaper reports etc.) supported the narrative of KMs and thus, he invokes Gyan Pandey's theory about victims of an event producing a single ritualized account of their experienced lives after being repeatedly asked to share their experience. This is also highlighted in Kak's review; he also highlights a part. line of Datta (that I missed):

In sharp contrast to the way the ‘exodus’ of January 1990 has often been depicted, Datta notes that the ‘actual process of the flight nevertheless remained an individual or familial affair.’

TrangaBellam (talk) 14:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
According to the OED, an exodus is "The departure or going out, usually of a body of persons from a country for the purpose of settling elsewhere. Also figurative. Cf. emigration n. 2" And "emigration n.2" is: "The departure of persons from one country, usually their native land, to settle permanently in another." (subscription reqd)
There were two exoduses (i.e. emigration, or migration out) of the Pandits from the Valley. The first took place between 1947 and 1950, and the second in the first three months of 1990. The lead paragraph refers to both. I am happy to change "emigration" to "migration out," or "en masse migration" (a term used by Evans for the second, and implied by Zutshi for the first).
There are two conspiracy theories. One current among Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) speaks to forced migration in a form of ethnic cleansing. It also inflates the numbers of KPs. The second current in the Valley among Muslims speaks to a deliberate and planned attempt by the Indian authorities to remove the Pandits (in effect to use them as a sacrificial pawn) so as to have an unimpeded go at the Muslims (literally or figuratively).
The view of the major scholars (with the Google Scholar citations of their major publication in parentheses) Sumit Ganguly (449), Sumantra Bose (658), Alexander Evans (59, and the more recent work cited is that the truth is somewhere between. Says, Sumantra Bose,

Organized groups representing Pandit migrants have since claimed that they were forced out of the Valley by a systematic terror campaign of “ethnic cleansing and even “genocide.” Pro-azaadi Muslim opinion in the Valley tends to argue that the migration was encouraged and even actively facilitated by Indian officials, particularly Governor Jagmohan, in a deliberate attempt to stigmatize the azaadi movement as sectarian and “fundamentalist.” While it is not possible to resolve such conflicting versions conclusively, the facts of the matter appear to lie somewhere between the two poles.

Says Alexander Evans

My own interviews with a number of KPs in Jammu, many of whom hold Pakistan responsible, suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark. The two conspiracy theories already described are not evidence based. As Sumantra Bose observes, those Rashtriya Swamy Sevak publications’ claims that large numbers of Hindu shrines were destroyed and Pandits murdered are largely false, to the extent that many of the shrines remain untouched and many of the casualties remain unsubstantiated. Equally, it is important to note that some incidents did take place. Leading KPs were targeted—some attacked, some murdered—but almost always as political targets (e.g., as integrationist politicians, judges and policemen).

and says again in conclusion:

No matter what designs lay behind these attacks, KPs were bound to feel uneasy. Legitimate fear encouraged KPs to leave the Valley they were born in for other parts of India. Once it became clear that the government could not protect senior KP officials—and would pay their salaries in absentia—many other KPs in state employment decided to move. At the outset, few of these migrants expected their exile to last more than a few months.

What is the point @LearnIndology: of countering them with chicken droppings, i.e. sources that are hardly cited (with Google scholar citations in the single digits)? Alexander Evans says nowhere that the KPs were forced out. He says only that KPs assert that they were forced out. It is his first conspiracy theory, referred to above. And et tu @Kautilya3:? What was the point of the POV template? "Fled" (Talbot and Singh, for example) is not the same thing as being forced out. OED Flee: To run away from or as from danger; to take flight; to try to escape or seek safety by flight. ODE (Oxford Dictionary of English) "force out" compel someone to leave (a job or position,) especially by indirect means. Isaac New fled Cambridge during the Plague to his mother's house in Woolsthorpe. But he wasn't forced out by the Plague.
I am an experienced editor. I know how to paraphrase in a manner that does not miss the forest for the trees. What was the point of playing gotcha with a footnote K3, and playing it with an author who is not here to answer you? Do you seriously think I did not read the footnote? The author is reliable; her book is widely cited (353 times in Google Scholar) There is no Wikipedia rule or guidelines that allows you to counter that with your personal quibble with a footnote. Why do you think I added "seemingly?" I have now added the footnote as well. You guys are seriously wasting my time, and to the extent (given my history on Wikipedia) I am attempting to do something constructive, are being disruptive. I am seriously disappointed. Please think about this before you rachet up the disruption. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:05, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler Chitralekha Zutshi's recent book (Cambridge University Press) introduce the event calling it an involuntery migration- See [1]

Displacement has defined the experience of another group in Jammu and Kashmir, the Kashmiri Pandits, whose responses to their involuntary migration in the wake of the insurgency form the subject of Haley Duschinski’s essay.

Akshaypatill (talk) 18:05, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: I had cited that book in another context, but it was removed by a pertinent objection from K3. I bought that book when it was published a year or two ago. It is a highly compressed Oxford India series. I have another in that series by Tirthankar Roy on Natural Calamities. They are really written for the unvarnished layman. I'm aware of her use of involuntary. Please read WP:DUE. The weight of the scholarly opinion does not support Zutshi. I will attempt below to frame the consensus argument. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:15, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
If you guys have questions or objections, please frame them in words, not by attempting data dumps of cherry-picked sources, which provokes me to do the same. We can all do Google searches for strings of words. What is your argument? I'd like to hear it. I will repeat mine: " Meddling in the democratic process in Indian-controlled Kashmir beginning in 1947 but peaking in the late 1980s gave rise to an insurgency against the administration of that state by India. Independence from the Indian administration, one of the stated early goals of the insurgency, was viewed as a threat by the Pandits, who saw their link to India as a lifeline. The insurgents who were Kashmiri Muslims engaged in political violence directed at various figures of authority, among which were some high-profile Kashmiri Pandits; there were the occasional announcements broadcast from mosques asking the non-believers to leave; there were occasional threats against the Pandits delivered by various means, all contributing to an ambiance of violence, which the Pandits being in a minuscule minority found especially threatening. Through it all, there was precious little reassurance (let alone defense) offered by the Indian administration. Realistically or unrealistically, the Pandits assessed the situation to pose a threat to life and property and migrated out en masse, very quickly, over three months, to camps in Jammu whose hygiene was poor but which had been set up by the state's administration." That is what the major sources support. There is no point telling me that academics have not really delved into what really happened. Wikipedia does not allow those sorts of objections. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler Involuntary means 'done against someone's will'. I think your own argument reinforce that it was involuntary migration. Going through all these points, I don't think one will lable this as voluntary migration. Political violence directed at various figures of authority, among which were some high-profile Kashmiri Pandits. - I don't find this very convincing. Rekha Chowdhary has called it 'targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits'. there were the occasional announcements broadcast from mosques asking the non-believers to leave; there were occasional threats against the Pandits delivered by various means, all contributing to an ambiance of violence, which the Pandits being in a minuscule minority found especially threatening. - This is clearly 'forcing them out.' Akshaypatill (talk) 19:08, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
And, "emigration" is contradicted by your sentence a couple of paragraphs down, where you say they did not "[expect] their exile to last beyond a few months", whereas emigration means going somewhere to settle permanently. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:04, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
@Kautily3: Yes I did say, "At the time of their exodus, very few Pandits expected their exile to last beyond a few months." I was closely paraphrasing Alexander Evans, "At the outset, few of these migrants expected their exile to last more than a few months." The reason for that particular usage is that Evans considers their out-migration for the most part to be permanent. Going back is not easy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:38, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Were some KPs "forced out"?
Yes. [Evans, Husain et al.]
Can the entire exodus be termed as forced migration/purge?
No. [Datta, Rai, Husain, Evans et al.]
Does that mean KPs had enough power to voluntarily choose the migration out?
No. [Datta, Husain.]
So, what terminology do we use?
Internal displacement or simply, displaced. [Datta, Husain.] TrangaBellam (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowlerUser:Kautilya3 (Addtion to my earlier comment) To cite Sudha Rajput,

Many were threatened, abducted and killed, and those who were forced to flee, formed the pool of 250,000 displaced persons, officially dubbed as “migrants”.

Akshaypatill (talk) 21:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

But there were only 140,000 KPs by K3's own edit. See the citations in the lead. There is a reason that third-party sources (ie. vetted by international academic publishers) are preferred. Even Oxford India has poor standards. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
If I am accepted at two colleges: Harvard University with its stellar reputation and Podunk College with half the reputation of Harvard. If Podunk gives me a full scholarship and is 100% safe and Harvard gives me 75% scholarship and is 75% safe because of an insurgency, and if together with my parents I choose Podunk, is it a voluntary, reluctant, or involuntary decision? My first choice would have been Harvard at 100% and 100% safety. Still, there will be thousands eager to lap up Harvard under those conditions. The Middle Passage was an involuntary migration. My choice of college is a voluntary move. The Kashmiri Pandits' was a reluctant migration in the view of most sources. Alexander Evans says it very clearly, "My own interviews with a number of KPs in Jammu, many of whom hold Pakistan responsible, suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark. (p. 23) ... The KP tragedy has not taken place in isolation in Kashmir, nor was it the result of a nefarious Muslim campaign directed against them. Kashmiri Muslim civilians remain by far the largest group among those killed in political violence since 1988 and, even at the height of selective militant killings in 1989–1990, relatively few KPs were killed." In other words, I chose Podunk, but there are likely hundreds of Black kids from the inner city for whom Harvard under the insurgency would be considered a 100% safe place. It is all a matter of perception and opportunities. The Muslim civilians of the Valley had nowhere else to go, even in the face of Death. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree that 140,000 (round about) is the number of KPs. I think the Sudha Rajput books is not very illuminating. The above statement was quoted verbatim from something called ACCORD, 2010 which, as far as I can tell, is some paper published in a South African journal. Not sure why.
Anyway, we are done contesting numbers. If you anybody wants to reopen that issue, please open a new thread. And read all the present sources first! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I think there is some vague support for the term "forced migration", but not strong enough. So I am voting for "displacement". I found this interesting passage:

Although identified as 'migrants' by the Government of India, the displaced people feel that the term, as applied to them, has a negative connotation, as they are not mere migrants who voluntarily left Kashmir; they were forcibly displaced because of armed conflict. The displaced Kashmiri people wish to be identified as 'internally displaced persons' (Mishra 2004).[1]

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:53, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

"Forcible displacement" is a well-defined term now. Wikipedia has a page Forced displacement. The Pandits do not occur in it. The UNOHCHR has publications on "forced displacement." The Pandits do not occur in them. Third-party sources do not consider the Pandits to be forcibly displaced, though that might well be the choice of their preference. "Internally displaced person" too is a well-defined term. Wikipedia has a page Internally displaced person as does OHCHR many publications. The Pandits find mention in neither. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:20, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia has a page Forced displacement. The Pandits do not occur in it.
No problem, I'll add it.
  • The UNOHCHR has publications on "forced displacement." The Pandits do not occur in them.
Yes they do, see AkshayPatil's comment below.
  • Third-party sources do not consider the Pandits to be forcibly displaced.
Yes they do it, I have already cited multiple sources, should I cite more?
  • Wikipedia has a page Internally displaced person as does OHCHR many publications.'
No problem, I'll add on Internally displaced person and here is OHCHR report defining Kashmiri Hindus as IDP's[2]
Now, I don't see why shouldn't we use the word "forced mass migration" in lede. LearnIndology (talk) 06:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
@LearnIndology: Please don't be facetious. You have already been warned on your user talk page to not engage in India-POV promotion, and I have warned you that you are on the verge of a topic ban broadly construed. You know what Wikipedia says about reliable sources and due weight. Please do not push your luck. Let this be a warning. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:15, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Read WP:FOC and don't derail the discussion in hand. LearnIndology (talk) 12:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Sawhney, Charu; Mehrotra, Nilika (2017), "Displacement from Kashmir: Gendered responses", in Vibha Arora; N. Jayaram (eds.), Democratisation in the Himalayas: Interests, Conflicts, and Negotiations, Taylor & Francis, p. 186, ISBN 9781351998000
User:Fowler&fowler Your analogy is missing some important points. It is not just matter of choice. Are you saying that Pandits should have stayed there, waiting for some very adeverse condition to evolve and only then leave the valley, so we can call it involuntery? The fact is the KP's were scared. The killings, millitancy and other things fueled it and government couln't do much. This event is definitely not a mere 'migration'.
Also OHCHR's report has termed the event as forced. See [3] Also There has been no progress in investigations into the attacks and killings of minority Hindu community known as Kashmiri Pandits, thousands of whom were forced to flee the Kashmir Valley in the 1990s due to threats by armed groups.
If the event is to be called as Internal displacement, then there are plenty of sources to back it. Apperently UNHCR considers KPs to be 'Internally Displaced Persons'. See [4] Akshaypatill (talk) 06:02, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: Those are primary sources. They have not been peer-reviewed. I have already discussed the OHCHR reports before somewhere (which I will soon dig up). I was not talking about those two reports, i.e. the OHCHR report 2018 (see 2018 report here) and a follow-up published in the following year (see 2019 report here). In both, there are 145 paragraphs on the Indian human rights violations. The 2018 report, for example, says on page 39, paragraph,

137. A major episode of attacks against civilians by armed groups operating in the Kashmir Valley is that against the minority Hindus, known as Kashmiri Pandits.307 These attacks and threats from armed groups forced hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits to flee Kashmir and seek shelter in Jammu and other parts of India.308

So are we to also believe, "hundreds of thousands," which means at least 200,000 and possibly many more, were driven out of the valley? Please tell me. Obviously, it is not reliably written; it is not written by a scholar of Kashmir. In any case, as I have already stated, those were not the reports I was talking about.
The OHCHR has global reports: "The Global Report presents the work carried out by UNHCR in 2019 to protect and improve the lives of tens of millions of people of concern—refugees, returnees, internally displaced people, stateless persons, and others of concern. See, for example, see here. Neither, Kashmir nor the Pandits are mentioned in these yearly reports, at least no mention that I have been able to discern. Those reports give you proper due weight. Again, the major tertiary sources (see WP:TERTIARY) give no credence to the use of either "internally displaced," or simply "displaced" in the context of the Pandits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:04, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
To summarize, it seems that both I and Kautilya3 agree that there is no broad support for terms like "forced migration" or "forced exodus" or like. Rather, we support the terminology of "internal displacement" or simply, "displaced." Akshaypatill probably has no objections to our proposal. That leaves us with LearnIndology who prefers "forced mass migration" (I am not seeing the sources in support apart from cherry-pickings) and F&F, whose objections to the particular nomenclature of internal displacement seem to be not well-founded. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:16, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
I have, like everyone else, own choice but since we are close to building a consensus for "internal displacement" or "displaced", I am fine with that too. LearnIndology (talk) 07:38, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Akshaypatill (talk) 08:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a democracy of participating editors; it is a democracy of sources, for which there are only two principles: a) reliable sourcing: WP:SOURCETYPES (which states, "Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources.") and b) "due weight": WP:TERTIARY (which states: Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other.") I have used two major tertiary sources, both widely used textbooks, both cited hundreds of times on Google Scholar. They are:
  • Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 274 Quote: The Hindu Pandits, a small but influential elite community who had secured a favourable position, first under the maharajas, and then under the successive Congress regimes, and proponents of a distinctive Kashmiri culture that linked them to India, felt under siege as the uprising gathered force. Of a population of some 140,000, perhaps 100,000 Pandits fled the state after 1990; their cause was quickly taken up by the Hindu right.
  • Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, New Approaches to Asian History, Cambridge University Press, pp. 136–137, ISBN 9780521672566,  Between 1990 and 1995, 25,000 people were killed in Kashmir, almost two-thirds by Indian armed forces. Kashmirs put the figure at 50,000. In addition, 150,000 Kashmiri Hindus fled the valley to settle in the Hindu-majority region of Jammu.
There is no evidence that the tertiary sources, e.g. the two above, are using "displacement." "Flee," however, I have added both to the infobox and to the second paragraph which discussed the second migration. Thus far no one has provided evidence of due weight. Let me be blunt with you guys. I have been on WP a very long time. I've taken part in dozens of discussions on the village pump, on the talk page of the FA India, in RfCs, and dispute resolutions. I have a pretty good sense of what I am talking about. If you really want to go that rout, I am happy toblige, but you will only be wasting time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
In that case, do you propose that we write [..] KPs fled the state [...] as the first line? Umm, I do not object :) Datta is the only scholar to have published an academic monograph on the subject (from OUP, to rave reviews) and his reasoned choice to use internal displacement matters more than tertiary sources, which do not support your version either. The terminologies of internal displacement and fleeing introduce an aspect of involuntariness, which was central to the KP experience but is lacking in migration. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:21, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: Both "migration" and "flight" are supported in the best scholarly sources. Please see my edit here. "Displacement," is highly problematic. It means, "The enforced departure of people from their homes, typically because of war, persecution, or natural disaster." (See Oxford Dictionary of British English (subscription required); and some cited examples: "HRW reported that in 1998 Bulgaria supplied both sides in the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict, which had led to large displacements of civilians in both countries." "If such a plan were to be implemented, the logic of the 1947 partition of the sub-continent would be replicated with attendant mass displacements and violence.") That the KP migration or flight was an "enforced departure" is not supported in the sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: "Internal displacement" is even more problematic, for it begs the question, "Internal to what?" India does not have undisputed sovereignty over Kashmir (any part of it). Why are we wasting time adding "a region administered by India since 1947 and a part of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan from approximately the same time." if in the same breath we are saying it is "internal" presumably to India, for half the Pandit migrants have apparently been displaced to the Delhi region. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:11, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler:Internal in the sense that all this happened in area under administration of India. They didn't cross international border. You are just adding more confusion. Apart from this here is analysis of the exodus along with discussion about what constitutses for Internal Displacement and why the exodus can be called Internal displacement [5] -

In Indian context there was conflict-induced displacement in Kashmir. Large-scale internal displacement took place from the valley during 1989-90when the region came under the control of many secessionist groups. Since thebeginning of 1989, the minority communities in Kashmir started receiving notices to to quit Kashmir. Panic gripped the valley. Secessionist organizationscalled for a boycott against those opposing the secessionist movement in thestate. Kashmiri Pandits, the non- Kashmiri Hindus, Kashmiri Sikhs and otherminorities were thus forcibly displaced from Kashmir.

And we a full book that discuss the event in details- Internal Displacement and Conflict The Kashmiri Pandits in Comparative Perspective by Sudha Rajput [6] Akshaypatill (talk) 06:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: You had never edited this page. You suddenly appear here out of the blue. You have been given warnings about WP:HOUNDING and POV-pushing by user:SpacemanSpiff and user:Bishonen. You are blatantly edit-warring. You have made a spectacular revert of some of the best sources on Wikipedia back to a single sentence in Alexander Evans. Kautilya3 has already stated here that Sudha Rajput is not very enlightening. I suggest that you self-revert. Please don't relentlessly go after me. Otherwise, you are looking at penalties. Be warned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: I am fairely new to editing Wiki, though I signed up a few years ago. So it is obivious that I will be percieved as coming out of the blue. And for the warnings part, whenever someone points towards a mistake, I accept, reflect on it and learn. And for your kind information, I have never been accused of POV pushing, you better check. You have been accused of POV on this very page. My mistakes from past are not relevent here. For the edit warring part, this is my first revert on this page and that's too because you aren't respecting consensus. Please, let's complete the discussion first. This isn't the place to discuss about all this. Instead, lets work towards a resolution. Akshaypatill (talk) 08:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
I believe Kautilya3's comment was for the KP's population and not on the entire book. Akshaypatill (talk) 08:54, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: Of course it is. Look at your editing history. You have mainly edited Shivaji. You have followed me on Subas Chandra Bose, Talk:Subhas Chandra Bose, Talk:India, and now this page. You have erroneously interpreted consensus. Please read WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. You have reverted an edit with some of the best sources including Alexander Evans (who uses both "migration," "migrate," and "en masse migration" many more times than he does "displacement.") What is going on? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:41, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: I have just taken a lot at Sudha Rajput's embarrassingly third-rate book that reads like the common claptrap published in the back alleys of Old Delhi. Why don't you ask Kautilya3 or TrangaBellam for their opinion? I am pretty sure they will not be able to defend the first couple of dozen pages available on Google books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:50, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler:There was no need to insult the work. You could have just called it unreliable. The author may have put in a lot of effort to create the work. You need to respect that even if you don't agree. One need not eat litter to tell it tastes bad. Akshaypatill (talk) 20:25, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: Please examine SpacemanSpiff's warning here. Is there anything here you have agreed with me about? Whatever I say, you counter with something unreliable or incorrect. You produce the OHCHR primary sources to counter my point. You are arguing about a statement attributed to Chitralekha Zutshi's prize-winning book (Columbia 2004). You have an argument with her? Well, take it up with her. Her book remains a supremely reliable source. You cite Sudha Rajput, a shabby book, and stop only when K3 agrees. What is going on? And now you are spectacularly edit-warring. Have you read the sources I have added? You are going to counter them with one sentence from Evans? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: SpacemanSpiff's warning was in a different context. And if you have any concern over my conduct, I invite you to my talk page. Here, lets discuss the issue at hand. For the agreeing part, I agree most of the content you have wrote in the lead. I am acquainted with your contributions on other articles and I find it to be of very high quality and I respect that. Let me say it, you are really good at what you do. But here, it isn't about just me, but several (or all of them) editors arn't in agreement with you and you have to address there concerns before making the final edit. Akshaypatill (talk) 10:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: I have self reverted for now. But you are liable to build concensus. Akshaypatill (talk) 10:34, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler And thanks for mentioning the admins who had warned me. Indeed, a good technique. Respect.Akshaypatill (talk) 11:43, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: Ankur Datta's Ph.D. dissertation (LSE 2011) was published by Oxford India in 2017. OUP India is not the same publisher as OUP, Oxford and New York, which is far more rigorous. You may read about the inadequacies of the book in the review in Himalaya, by Kyle J. Gardner, now of George Washington University, whose own Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago (2018), has been published by CUP, Cambridge in 2021: The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border 1846–1962. Please examine the beginning of Gardneer's review:

Of the many recent events in Kashmir’s post-1947 history, perhaps none better symbolizes its violent social upheaval than the flight of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley in 1989–90. In the wake of a disputed state election in 1987, Kashmiri separatists built an insurgency that drew on waves of popular protest and rising Islamism. By 1989 these groups’ tactics included assassinations of a number of prominent Kashmiri Pandits, an upper-caste Hindu minority that had long occupied a privileged position in Kashmiri society (the honorific title “Pandit” reflects this). After Indian forces opened fire on protesters in Srinagar on January 21, 1990, the Valley descended into a particularly intense cycle of protest and military retaliation, with the Pandits becoming increasingly associated with the occupying Indian forces. The growing sense of harassment and uncertainty convinced the majority of Pandits to leave. Within a year, perhaps as many as 120,000–140,000 Pandits had left in what became known as the “migration” or “exodus.”

Datta's is not quite in the same class those of Mridu Rai (Princeton, 2004) Chitralekha Zutshi (Columbia, 2004), or Shahla Hussain (CUP, Cambridge, 2021). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:26, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Garnder's review is hardly damning (even Rai had reviewers pick up quibbles) enough to discredit authors. I had objected to K3's usage of this line of reasoning to discard Talbot/Singh and object to you, as well.
That being said, I am reading through all the monographs on Kashmir (published in the last decade) and there appears to be a consensus for flight/migration against displacement to my personal displeasure. I will note my findings soon. Of particular interest is how Rai's longuee-duree history of Kashmir (slated for publication, next year) will cover the issue. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:57, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
She tends to prefer "departure" (noun) and "left" (verb). See my footnote in the infobox. I suppose you could use "precipitous departure" in her style. :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: I've just read Holly Reed's review of On Uncertain Ground by Ankur Datta in the American Journal of Sociology (see here). Here is an excerpt:
extended content

In On Uncertain Ground: Displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir, an ethnographic study of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in India, Ankur Datta breaks new ground in terms of his subject matter and thematic focus. However, some shortcomings, such as an overuse of jargon, the need for copy editing, and insufficient empirical evidence in some places, prevent the book from reaching its full potential. Nevertheless, it is an important addition to the social science literature on displacement and forced migration. This is particularly true since there are relatively few published studies of IDPs, despite the fact that over 40 million persons are displaced from their homes within their own countries. ... Since 1989, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has endured a conflict between the Indian national government and the Kashmiri separatist movement. The elite Hindu Pandit minority was displaced in 1990 due to this conflict. Most Pandits fled Kashmir to the south, where they still live in cities like Jammu and New Delhi. This ethnographic account focuses on these IDPs in their new homes, both “camps” (temporary quarters) and more permanent settings, and their memories of Kashmir and the violence, their interactions with their new neighbors, and their claims on the Indian state. In the book, Datta argues that although the Pandits are but one of many exiled populations in the world who have experienced pain and suffering and loss, they are also unique in terms of their geographical and political location. Although they are vulnerable, they also have rights and status, at least to some extent, because of the Indian government’s support of them. Moreover, they are an example of protracted displacement (which is more and more often the norm), which ultimately affects their own self-perception as victims, sufferers, and agents. ... However, in much of the book there is a tension between Datta’s use of one particular story to illustrate an argument (which gives the book readability) and a shortcoming of evidence to support some of the arguments. Of course, he spoke primarily with Pandits, but he sometimes fails to acknowledge that this privileges their biases in accounts of the past and present. He discusses the loss in status that accompanies flight when Pandits must live in one-room houses within camps, but the reader needs more evidence of how these camps differ from the IDPs’ previous homes or imagined homes and how homes within the camps differ from one another. There are differences in privilege and status within displacement camps as well. He also argues that displacement is gendered, but it is unclear how he, as a South Asian man in a gender-biased society, had access to women’s accounts of their lives. Many accounts in the book seem to be from men, or if women are also interviewed, they are interviewed in the presence of men.

Datta has very likely done good anthropological fieldwork among the Pandit males in the refugee camps in Jammu. But this is a Ph.D. dissertation, we cannot use him for the meta language, i.e. "internally displaced." We need a broadscale source for that, which this obviously is not. Also, I'm generally troubled by "an overuse of jargon, the need for copy editing," a common hallmark of Oxford India. That is why in Kashmir-related matters, my first preference is always, scholarly books published by academic publishers in third-party liberal democracies. By "third-party" I mean outside South Asia and not in a country that takes predictable sides in the Kashmir dispute (China, Russia, Arab countries). That is the policy we have followed in the leads of all recent Kashmir-related pages, e.g. 2019 Balakot airstrike, 2019 India–Pakistan border skirmishes and indeed even Hindu-Muslim issues in India such as 2020 Delhi riots, though in those instances, we have news reports. In a section below I will collect what I consider are third-party scholarly sources, which I still maintain Datta's book is not. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:45, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
If consensus is emerging for "internal displacement" or displacement, I would support that as most KP authors are not okay with the standard term "migration". And this article would be more neutral if it includes all views including KP scholarly sources and secondary sources. "Displacement" is widely used even in the related book titles such as below: Jhy.rjwk (talk) 22:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Extended content

Displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley of Kashmir - Riyaz Ahmad Khanday · 2015

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Displacement_of_Kashmiri_Pandits_from_th/uFAaswEACAAJ?hl=en

Conflict and Displacement in Jammu and Kashmir: The Gender .. - Seema Shekhawat · 2006 ·

{{talkquote|
Internal Displacement and Conflict: The Kashmiri Pandits - Sudha Rajput · 2019

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Internal_Displacement_and_Conflict/F8yGDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Kashmiri+Pandits+%22displacement%22&printsec=frontcover

Fear, Displacement, Departure: The Experience of the Kashmiri Pandits - Love, Loss and Longing in Kashmir. Sahba Husain. 2019

The Pandit population

Latest comment: 2 years ago24 comments5 people in discussion

@LearnIndology: Please note that the Pandits having stably constituted 4 to 5% of the population of the Valley in every census of the British Indian Empire from 1871 to 1941 is one of the dogmas of Indian demography. No one took a census in 1947. The next census was the Indian census in 1951. The Pandits' share of the population could not have jumped from under 5% to 15% in six years (1941 to 1947). That it is still the dogma can be seen in Shahla Hussain's and Sumantra Bose's 2021 books:

  • Hussain, Shahla (2021), Kashmir in the Aftermath of the Partition, Cambridge University Press, p. 43,  Waging a united struggle for civil rights and bringing majority and minority communities onto a common platform posed new challenges. The minority Hindu community, comprising approximately 5 percent of the Valley's population, dominated the state services and viewed the political mobilization of the Muslim community with apprehension. They had expressed unhappiness with the 1931 Glancy Commission recommendation to increase the number of Muslims in government employment.
  • Bose, Sumantra (2021), Kashmir at the Crossroads, Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, Yale University Press, pp. 48–49,  Between 1950 and 1952 about 700,000 serfs became peasants working their own land .... In the Valley the Pandit community, less than 5 per cent of the population, owned one-third of the arable land, and Abdullah softened the blow for them. They were allowed to retain their fruit orchards and 10 per cent of jobs in the J&K State government.

Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC) Actually, I don't even remember reading about a Kashmir census of 1951, although there was certainly one in India. I think the next one may have been in 1961. Even so, a population increasing 300% from 5 to 15% in 20 years (1941 to 1961) is unrealistic, especially for a highly educated community which typically had low birth-rates. Will check later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It was also the dogma in 2004 in Mridu Rai's book's discussion based on the 1921 census figures:

  • Rai, Mridu (2004), Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir, Princeton University Press, p. 253,  In 1927, these various moves having failed to satisfy either an increasingly vocal Kashmiri Pandit community or the Dogra Sabha, Hari Singh instituted yet another definition. According to it 'all persons born and residing in the state before the commencement of the reign of Maharaja Gulab Singh and also all persons who settled therein before the commencement of 1885 and have since been permanently residing in the country' were now considered state subjects. Simultaneously, Hari Singh decreed that no person who did not fit the bill would be permitted either employment in state services or the right to purchase agricultural land in the state. ... For the Kashmiri Pandits, however, while the threat of the Punjabi official had been mitigated considerably, they were now forced to turn their attention to a new and even more potent rival, the Kashmiri Muslims, vastly outnumbering both the Punjabi Hindus and the Pandits, had begun to mobilize for their own rights and from a standpoint as legitimate as that of the Kashmiri Pandits in their being equally 'sons of the soil'. While the Pandits had tactically included, at least implicitly, the interests of Kashmiri Muslims when making regionally based demands for a proper definition of the term 'state subject', they were eventually confronted with the logical extension of their strategy. As state subjects the Kashmiri Muslims were as entitled to consideration from the Kashmir durbar as were the Pandits. But Pandit privileges were decidedly shakier when faced with Muslim demands for special concessions to overcome their educational 'backwardness' and for representation in the state services in proportion to their numbers. Forming only 5 per cent of the population of the valley against the 95 per cent of Muslims, the regional solidarity they had waxed so eloquently on only recently began to sour a little. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:32, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

In other words, the three high-quality sources above, published by the world's most renowned university publishers, state that in the 1920s, the 1930s, and the early 1950s, the Pandits constituted 5 percent of the Valley's population. There is little chance they could have been 15 percent in 1947. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It is pretty clear now that the claim of pandits constituting 5% even in 1871 is nothing but your personal opinion which you presented as a fact in lead, and Alas!, no on even noticed. Even the source you yourself quoted above doesn't directly speak of that. Hussain's statement is not clear whether she's talking about pandit population of 1931 or post 50's.

The minority Hindu community, comprising approximately 5 percent of the Valley’s population, dominated the state services and viewed the political mobilization of the Muslim community with apprehension

Pandit's dominated the state services both during 47 as well as post 50's. Which era is she talking about?

They had expressed unhappiness with the 1931 Glancy Commission recommendation to increase the number of Muslims in government employment.

Here she immediately shifts to past tense and uses "had", so should we assume that she's was talking about pandit population post 50's, while giving example from 30's?
Same case with Mridu Rai. She doesn't directly talk about pandit population, rather uses 5% as sideline with no in depth analysis of their population as Evans did.
It is best to avoid sideline statements and use sources that directly talks about 1947 population. See sources below:

It is a fact of history that Kashmir is a Muslim-majority state but it is equally a fact of history that it has a rich Hindu past featured by the population of Pandit Community. They had stably constituted approximately 14 to 15 per cent of the population of the valley during Dogra rule (1846–1947). However, around 20 per cent of them left the Kashmir valley in 1948-1950 and most of them migrated in the 1990s leaving behind a handful of them who willingly preferred to stay back in Kashmir only.

Census figures are quoted to indicate that the community is facing virtual extinction: In 1947 the Pandits constituted 15 percent of the Valley's population, which fell to 5 percent by 1981, and after the exodus to 0.1 percent.


LearnIndology (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
User:LearnIndology Thank you for putting this. I was doubting about the number '20%' as I couldn't find any other source.
For the 15% population part, NHRC confirms this. (Primary source) [7]

The NHRC reported that the Pandit population in Jammu and Kashmir dropped from 15 percent in 1941 to 0.1 percent during the year.

Fowler, you are certainly wrong here. Akshaypatill (talk) 16:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
What to do with the "...less than 5% of the population...." in the next sentence? The cited source says so. Akshaypatill (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
There is undue emphasis on land reforms in lead. The prime focus of sources used in the article are the events of 90's and not the land reforms. The first para in the lead even violates WP:LEAD, as land reforms are no where mentioned in the body of the article. @Kautilya3 LearnIndology (talk) 17:42, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I believe Fowler is going to wrote the main body soon. Akshaypatill (talk) 18:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Even after writing the main body, the land reforms cannot sound like the main reason for exodus as Fowler has tried to portray in lead, given the main focus of sources remain on attacks and threats faced by KH's as the cause of exodus and not land reforms. The lead needs a serious re-writing. LearnIndology (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
To be precise, first para needs serious re-writing, not the whole lead. LearnIndology (talk) 18:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Warning

@LearnIndology: and @Akshaypatill:: Both of you have been warned by admins about various forms of POV pushing or Hounding. Neither of you had made any contribution to this page until you saw me get involved in a dispute of sorts (but with more seasoned editors). You are now countering my solid sources with nonsense dredged from the bottom of the barrel. Wikipedia policy with regards editing is based on two principles of high-reliability and due weight:

  • WP:SOURCETYPES for reliability which states: "Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." and
  • WP:TERTIARY: Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other.

My three sources are books written by Sumantra Bose (published by Yale University Press in 2021), by Mridu Rai (published by Princeton University Press in 2003) and Shahla Hussain published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. They all say 5 per cent and they cover the period 1921 to 1951. You are now arguing with them and at the same time countering them with abysmally third-rate doozies dredged on the fly from the bottom of the barrel. If you are looking for the 1901 Census Data, allow me to give information from my copies of the Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, the major record of the Raj (see here), the ultimate tertiary source of the British Raj, published by the Secretary of State for India and luckily carried by the University of Chicago online. See their section on Kashmir, population, (see here). What does it say? It says:

The total population includes 2,154,695 Muhammadans, 689,073 Hindus, 25,828 Sikhs and 35,057 Buddhists. The Hindus are found chiefly in the Jammu province, where they form rather less than half the total. In the Kashmir province they represent only 524 in every 10,000 of population

Note also that the information has been in the Kashmir page from 2007 and is as stable as anything on Wikipedia (see the lead of the Kashmir page in my May 2007 edit here) It says the same thing. I did make a slight error. It should be "had stably constituted between 4 and 6 per cent of the population of the valley between 1891 and 1941." (not 4 and 5 per cent), but that is no reason to change it to a ludicrous 14 and 15 per cent.) See the page of Mridu Rai cited in the 2007 Kashmir page edit:

  • Rai, Mridu (2004), Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir, Princeton University Press, p. 37,  According to Walter Lawrence, the British settlement commissioner deputed to Kashmir in 1889, the Hindus comprised about 5 to 6 per cent of the population of the valley, the Sikhs about 0.5 per cent and the Muslims (including the Shias) about 93 per cent. The total population, according to him, amounted to 814,214. Walter Lawrence, The Valley of Kashmir (Srinagar: Chinar Publishing House, repr. 1992), p. 284. These numbers remained relatively steady as the 1941 census of India indicated that the Muslims comprised 93.6 per cent and the Hindus about 4 per cent of the total population of the valley. Census of India, Jammu and Kashmir, 1941.

Please don't facilely edit war with me. If you do not self-revert @Akshaypatill: in the next 24 hours, I will report you to the admins and ask for a topic ban for you and LearnIndology on Kashmir-related pages. Please stand warned. I've had enough of the both of you. Wikipedia is not about having to defend scholarly NPOV edits that have been in the Kashmir article for 15 years, every time POV-pushing editors appear on a page and edit war. I really have had enough. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Pinging @Kautilya3: and @TrangaBellam: You guys know better than to put up with this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • I will suggest that F&F's edit be restored. The 1891 census records Kashmir to have ~6.36% Hindus. The 1901 census data reduces the percentage by ~1, taking it close to 5. The 1921 report reduces it even further to 5.05. I will be looking at more census data once the libraries re-open tomorrow but 15 is absolutely implausible unless KPs had a uniquely exceptional growth rate. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • LearnIndology's suggestion to use some hardly-renowned journal from University of Kashmir to challenge multiple secondary and tertiary sources is ridiculous in itself. You have been here for long enough to do better. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
    I was not challenging the sources, rather the way they were being interpreted. LearnIndology (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the census report @TB, it is way better than the sidelines. @Akshaypatill you may restore the content. @Fowler&fowler The issue of first para still remains unsolved. Maybe cmt on that? LearnIndology (talk) 19:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Christopher Snedden says, In 1947, these Hindus amounted to about six per cent of the Kashmiri population. [8]. I can check the 1941 census myself, but there is no reason to disbelieve Snedden. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Right, by the 1941 census it is 5.2504245119990384 %. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
5.45% is KH count. (p. 383 + p. 304) TrangaBellam (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler, Can you please stop accussing me of POV? I have already supported you for writing oppression by Hindu rulers on Muslims. You yourself removed the text. I am ok with everything as long as it is written correctly. I am familiar with your obbsession over your choice of words in lead of important articles. This? - [9]by India Pak consensus we are required to qualify that the Valley and other large regions are disputed in the very first sentence; we cannot postpone it to the second. What kind of argument is this?
User:Kautilya3 I restored LearnIndology because this note from Behera's book

Rasgotra argues that 1941 marks the beginning of a statistical assault on the Pandit numbers by the junior local Muslim officials, who underestimated the strength of the Pandits by nearly 10–15 percent. The 1981 census had put the Pandit numbers at a little over 124,000 in a total population of 3.1 million, which stood exposed in 1990 when 300,000 Pandits fled the Valley.

Akshaypatill (talk) 19:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
@LearnIndology: What sidelines? Here is the 1901 Census which has the data for both 1891 and 1901 on page 35. (For 1901 it is 5.24%, ie 524 in 10,000 as reported in IGI or on the Kashmir page for 15 years) and for 1891 it is 6.36%. Please don't make irrelevant comments. @Akshaypatill: My warning stands unless you make a self-revert in the next 24 hours. You can explain all this at AN when a topic ban is being considered. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I am afraid Behera destroyed her own credibility by reproducing some random Pandit mythology. She should not be cited in the lead. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
NHRC too [10]Akshaypatill (talk) 19:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, more of the same mythology. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Displacement

Latest comment: 2 years ago20 comments4 people in discussion

I will add sources here later, but to my ear for the English language, "displacement" is more the fact of being displaced or the state of being displaced than the act of being displaced (though that meaning is not non-existent; actually it is quite common in the physical sciences and engineering, but I doubt we can say, "The Vietnamese in Wisconsin are a displaced people whose displacement lasted five years."). In other words, displacement is the state at the end of the migration, it is not commonly the act of migrating. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:56, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

PS Thus @Kautilya3: and @TrangaBellam: when Holly Reed uses "protracted displacement" in her review above of Ankur Datta (see here), she does not mean that the act of being displaced out of Kashmir was protracted, but that their state (or fact) of being displaced after having migrated out has been protracted. They have not gone back. This means that we can't really say, "The exodus of Kashmiri Hindus" is the internal displacement of ... The exodus is a departure. Internal displacement is the state of having arrived somewhere else. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:56, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I suppose they have arrived somewhere without ever departing. All this hair-splitting is just crazy!

Mridu Rai’s “Narratives from Exile: Kashmiri Pandits and Their Construction of the Past” unravels the predicament of Hindus from the Valley who were forced to leave in 1990. She shows how a collective memory was constructed following the displacement.[1]

As simple as that. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Kautilya3 Fowler's 'Author of an Award winning book' Chitralekha Zutshi may agree [11]

Displacement has defined the experience of another group in Jammu and Kashmir, the Kashmiri Pandits, whose responses to their involuntary migration in the wake of the insurgency form the subject of Haley Duschinski’s essay.

Akshaypatill (talk) 09:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
It is a question of English usage. You cannot define "exodus of" to be "internal displacement of," which you have attempted to do. Bose and Jalal say in their introduction:

Mridu Rai’s “Narratives from Exile: Kashmiri Pandits and Their Construction of the Past” unravels the predicament of Hindus from the Valley who were forced to leave in 1990. She shows how a collective memory was constructed following the displacement. Certain members of the Kashmiri Pandit community were more successful than others in retelling their pasts. Rai skillfully brings out the internal contestations within the Pandit community and the ways in which today’s dominant narrative is closely intertwined with state power. Implicating the entire community of Kashmiri Muslims in the violent activities of a handful of militants is reminiscent of the British colonial project of handing down collective punishment. While the sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits are real, they have enabled the Indian state and the mainstream media to deflect attention from the pain inflicted on Kashmiri Muslims and to justify the state’s punitive measures against them.

which means following having completed the migration. You cannot say the collective memory was constructed following departure. "Displacement" in Bose and Jalal is written from the perspective of years later. For it takes time, sometimes, even decades, for that to happen. And in any case, "internal displacement," or even "displacement," does not apply to the late 1940s migration. And by the way, they don't imply either that the term "forced displacement" can be applied to the Pandits in the 1990s. The term is specific. I note that the
  • Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Elena; Loescher, Gill; Long, Katy; Sigona, Nando (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press all 800 pages of it, makes no mention of the Pandits, as far as I can tell. It does mention displacement in the context of India, but of tribal Indians by various development projects including the infamous dam in Gujarat. You would have thought they'd have a footnote. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
@Kautilya3: @TrangaBellam: OK I think I have now accommodated all the points of view. I don't think that the consensus of the sources support either "forced" or "internal." Otherwise, though, I think the current version of the text is fairly NPOV. Please take a look. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Can we remove the 'especially' and make it more readable like '...is the en-mass migration or the large scale flight that....'? It is hammering the readability of already monstrous sentence. Akshaypatill (talk) 06:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree with User:Fowler&fowler that it may not be termed as forced, but he has failed to produce any source to back why it cannot be termed as 'internal', apart from his own theory, while multiple sources have been cited that assert that it can be called 'internal'. The area being subject to dispute isn't a valid reason, apart from being a WP:SYNTH. Fowler has to back it with a valid source. My argument is that KPs didn't cross any international borders and the whole incidence happened under the area administered by India, which makes it a perfectly valid candidate to be termed as internal. I will be happy to resign from my stance if Fowler produces any source that shows that it cannot be termed as 'internal' without any WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Multiple sources have been produced by User:LearnIndology that asserts that it is indeed internal. Akshaypatill (talk) 07:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Yuyutsu Ho too has provided some excellent sources in another discussion above that calls it internal displacement. Akshaypatill (talk) 07:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Those are garbage sources. Are there any monographs published by internationally known university presses there? No there are not. Hold on. I will produce some reliable scholarly sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a reason for "especially." Most sources say only "migration," but some very high-quality ones say "mass,"or ën masse." We are not putting the finishing touches on an FA. We are trying to include the major scholarship so we can expand the article. I've written the history, geography, and many other sections of the FA India. You don't think I know how to craft a sentence? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with your experience. I have been in UX writing for a few years. I know how to assess the readability of content. Akshaypatill (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't know what UX is, but do you also know that the Government of India does not consider them "internally displaced?" Rather, it considers them "migrants," mainly because it does not want the international agencies breathing down its neck for the bigger brutalization, i.e. of Kashmiri Muslims. Do you also know that by an India-Pakistan consensus on WP, we are required to qualify the disputed nature of the Kashmir Valley in the very first sentence? Why do you think the sentence is slightly convoluted. See also Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Ladakh, Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Kashmir. They all have the same format, the same map, the same language, and the same sources. In you come riding like the lone ranger and change it to a sentence of your liking cited to abysmally third-rate sources. This is my last warning. Please self-revert. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I've fixed it now. So don't bother. I have also added a source that states that they are not considered IDPs and why. You are going on and on and on, wasting time. Thus far you have added nothing to this discussion. I am now requesting that @Kautilya3: and @TrangaBellam: remove the POV tag. I don't see any reason for it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:39, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
A sentence with 60+ words, enough to kill someone with ADHD. I beg you to split it. WP:Lead fixation Akshaypatill (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I've accommodated your objection. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:12, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
That looks good. Thank you Akshaypatill (talk) 13:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler Which source of yours supports the claim

Kashmiri Hindus, had stably constituted between 4% and 5% of the population of the Kashmir valley in all censuses from 1871 to 1941

And what is the reason for reverting me here with this vague edit summary? LearnIndology (talk) 13:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@LearnIndology: Sorry I did not see this. My response is in the section below. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • The OED meaning of displacement is: 2a. Removal of a thing from its place; putting out of place; shifting, dislocation. This is the sense in which the term is being used. The people have been "removed" by some force, agency or circumstance, from their normal habitat.
Migration does have two meanings:
  • 1a. The movement of a person or people from one country, locality, place of residence, etc., to settle in another; an instance of this.
  • 1b. The seasonal movement or temporary removal of a person, people, social group, etc., from one place to another; an instance of this. Also (occasionally): a journey.
The second meaning does apply to the Pandit situation. But, unfortunately, the implication that they had gone to settle somewhere else also exists. The term "displacement" does not have this problem. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

First para

Latest comment: 2 years ago33 comments5 people in discussion

@Kautilya3@TrangaBellam @Akshaypatill @Fowler&fowler. The first para gives undue emphasis on land reforms, rather than the threats and attacks, which remains a focal point of this article. No source used in this article has focused on land reforms but the attacks and overall environment of Kashmir at that time. With that, it also violates WP:LEAD, as there is no content regarding land reforms in the body. The first para should be re-written with emphasis given on attacks rather than land reforms. Please comment your views. LearnIndology (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Again @LearnIndology: and @Akshaypatill: I see that you have reverted your edit, but keep the warning in mind. Don't you think that it is ludicrous that the citation to Mridu Rai which I added to the WP Kashmir page in the first half of 2007 and which is there in the lead now states that the percentages were stable from the early censuses to the late (the last being 1941). You can't just play games with a seasoned competent editor. Neither of you has any knowledge. You have not read the basic books on Kashmir or Indian history for that matter. You seriously think that playing games with cherry-picking some silly example with a binary Google search will make you a whizz on Kashmir history? Neither of you is able to write a few sentences of narrative history. What are you hoping to accomplish here by bickering or wasting the time by pretending to be an expert? Seriously? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Why are tagging me? I already have restored your version. Akshaypatill (talk) 20:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler, I ain't here to bother you. All I did is, restored last version of yours.[12] I don't know what are you talking about. Akshaypatill (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Fowler, Please comment on topic. LearnIndology (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the 1950s migration is WP:UNDUE for the lead. Its treatment is also unsatisfactory from my point of view. Fowler and I have been through this before. But he has stuck to his guns. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You need to make an argument. You can't make an edit to the lead and insert "internal displacement," which the exodus was not, now cited to the Indian government's own description of it (see here). You were also essentially misquoting Mridu Rai about the Pandit landownership. She is hardly saying that they weren't landowners, or that they were even recent, accidental, or middle-class landowners. In fact, they had large estates. 5% cannot own 30% of J&K's most fertile land (i.e. the Valley) if they don't have large estates. I'm not sure what virtues your were attempting to garner for the Pandits when you quoted her implying they did not protest the land reforms as shrilly as the Dogras. It had little to do with having smaller plots which constituted modest savings for middle-class couples in retirement. In fact, her point is that the Pandits didn't protest as vociferously as the Dogras because orchards were exempt from the acreage limit of 22¾. They, therefore, employed the twin strategies of first breaking up the large landholdings of a joint among the family's males and then both retaining orchards and converting cereal acreage to orchards. Here is her full quote:
excerpt from Mridu Rai on the Pandit landholdings in the late 1940s

This legislation set a maximum limit of 22¾ acres on the holdings of landowners. Proprietors could, however, retain orchards, grass farms, and fuel and fodder reserves beyond this ceiling and would have full freedom to choose which acres of their holdings they would keep for these purposes. Land in excess of this amount was transferred in ownership right to the tiller without compensation to the original owner.

However, corruption in the National Conference machinery mitigated the harsher aspects of the reforms for the big landowners. the commonest way, typical also of land reforms enacted in the rest of India, to evade resumptions was by breaking up joint families, thereby entitling each adult male to the limit of 22¾ acres. The dilution of the radical promises made in 1944 was intended to ensure political and social stability in the countryside. Although not all Kashmiri Pandits were by any means wealthy landowners, nor the only members of the landed elite, large landholdings were certainly common among them. It is said that over 30 per cent of the land in the valley belonged to them prior to the reforms, much of which had been obtained at the time of the first settlement of the 1880s. An equally large proportion was obtained through purchase afer 1934, when proprietary rights were granted to Kashmiri cultivators following the agitation of 1931-2. Considering that the Pandits comprised approximately 5 per cent of the Kashmiri population, their control of over 30 per cent of the land speaks for significantly large holdings. However, Pandits did not resist the abolition of big landed estates quite as shrilly as did their Dogra counterparts. To a certain degree this can be attributed to the flaws in implementation referred to above. Yet, these loopholes would have worked to the advantage of Dogra landowners too. Here a crucial distinguishing factor may have come into play in the valley. This had to do with the provision of the Act that exempted orchards from appropriation, and thus paved the way for big landholders to escape the ceiling by converting cereal acreage into orchards. The returns from orchards, especially from apple orchards, tended to be much greater than from the cultivation of foodgrains. So by retaining their orchards as well as converting some of their cereal acreages, the bigger landlords of Kashmir, whose ranks included Pandits, reversed some of their losses by entering into the highly profitable world of horticultural exports. Once again, while the beneficiaries of this exemption were by no means only the Pandits or indeed all the Pandits, there were certainly prominent elements among them who were given an important stake in supporting the new state.

Please note per WP:LEAD:

The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.

What is the context here? As I have already stated, two major tertiary sources on Indian history (Metcalf and Metcalf (cited 846 times on Google scholar) and Talbot and Singh (cited nearly 400 times on GS in different versions) see the context to be the mistreatment of Kashmiri Muslims by the Hindu elite, both Pandit and Dogra, especially during the later years of Dogra rule and the first 30 of independent Indian rule, but you don't want to include that because you think the Google scholar index does not mean these authors were cited for the KP exodus? Of course, they weren't, but together the citations constitute a statement of the reliability accorded to these tertiary sources by the scholarly community. You were well aware of the very poor state of the article before I began to edit it. You even edited it yourself. But not a peep was heard for years. So why are you so worked up now when the lead is sourced to the latest sources, many published during the last five years, and the article is in this condition, with a context that a novice reader can understand? I have to say I am mystified.

Allow me to rewrite the main body. Why so much protest? As you can see the citations to the lead end in reference 49 or 50; thereafter there is a change of gene pool, metaphorically speaking, from scholarly ones about the various views on the Kashmiri exodus to semi-scholarly ones on terrorism. I mean you are welcome to keep the POV tag on, but this is sort of response is very uncharacteristic of you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

As for the argument about the lead not being a summary of the article body, of course, it is not. That is because it is written in an NPOV fashion, citing the latest sources, in order that the main body can be rewritten. I have written the leads of many articles in such a fashion: Sanskrit, Indus Valley Civilization,Indian Rebellion of 1857, Partition of India, Mahatma Gandhi, Brahmi script, Muhammad Iqbal, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mughal Empire, Shalwar kameez, Indus river, Ganges, Great Bengal famine of 1770, Himalayas, Romila Thapar, India, Dominion of India, History of Pakistan, Delhi, Varanasi, ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
To repeat my point, the 1950s migration is UNDUE for the lead. Mridu Rai is not even mentioning it. So I don't see what you are tring to prove. Of all the sources that are in play here, Chitralekha Zutshi is the only one that mentions it, and she is not such a great source in your own estimation.
As for the "internal displacement" issue, your POV is obvious from the fact that you even started citing the Government of India! When did the Government of India become a reliable source? At this rate, we should even start saying that India shares a border with Afghanistan! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:24, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, I didn't say she was not reliable. I said only that her Kashmir, published in 2020, in the series "Oxford India Short Introductions" is not reliable. The series seems to be Oxford India's pitch at an audience that would prefer something more scholarly than just another trade book but not so scholarly that their eyes begin to glaze over. I also have Tirthankar Roy's Natural Disasters in the same series, which too, is simplistic, very different from his treatment of famines, for example, in his economic history of the Raj. Zutshi's Language of Belonging is a very well-received book cited some 300 times on Google Scholar. Note, btw, the same 20% has been mentioned in Kashmir#Demographics for years.
I've now supplemented the citation with another to Prem Nath Bazaz's book, which quotes a Hindustan Times report of June 1953, mentioning the out-migration of some 8,000 KPs after the land reforms of 1950. According to Alexander Evan's estimate of the KP population in 1947 (of 72K) would be 11%; the official 53K in the 1941 census, see here, would make that 15% of the KPs. My own OR version of 60K, would make that migration account for 13.3%. The Hindustan Times report was published in June 1953; by 1955, they may have been more. It may well have been more, generally, as children would have been hard to estimate. It was a turbulent time; there had been no census in Kashmir in 1951. But, regardless, it was no small number.
As for the "internal displacement," it is mentioned in the footnote. It states that the Indian government considers them "migrants," not any of the other categories that the KPs would prefer, e.g., refugees or "Internally Displaced People." The analogy is not Afghanistan, but Kurmi, Jat people or Yadav (which Sitush and I wrote long ago) who are called OBC in the Indian government's classification, and not "clean Shudras from whom the Brahmins would accept water" as described in some ethnographies. The footnote is cited to Haley Duschinsky's chapter in a scholarly book. She herself uses "migration," as you will see in the many citations for migration in the first sentence. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Zutsi has cited Bajaj for the land reforms part(the number '20%) is from Bajaj). Also, correct me if I am wrong but this official report from Census commissioner of Kashmair states the population of KPs to be 76K. 76868 to be precise. See [13]

The Hindus in the State. including the Scheduled Castes but excluding Sikhs and Jains, total 809,165 or 20.12 per cent. During the decade they increased by 9.90 per cent. The most important numerically are the Brahmans, the Rajputs and the Kashmiri Pandits. Their numbers at the recent Census were 198,004, 168,582 and 76,868 respectively.

Akshaypatill (talk) 13:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I was referring to the argument you made above: "You can't make an edit to the lead and insert "internal displacement," which the exodus was not, now cited to the Indian government's own description of it (see here)." That makes it sound as if we need to follow the Indian government's diktats.
I have noticed the addition of the Bazaz and Hindustan Times addition. But they are inconsequential. What was considered an "exodus" in 1950s is now passe. This page is dealing with much more serious exodus of current times, and the first paragraph of the lead going off on a tangent is WP:UNDUE. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I meant that citations to "internally displacement" were few (in contrast to "migration" and "flight,") and there is also the matter of official terminology, which I have now added. "Displacement," itself is already cited in the lead sentence. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. It doesn't matter that it is passe. It did happen. It was substantial. It is a part of the context of the 1990 en masse migration, just as the Pandits being big landlords who participated in a system of exploitation of Kashmiri Muslims under medieval conditions was. Numerous sources including Ankur Datta, attest to one or another. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
It does matter. That is what WP:UNDUE means. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Only one of our sources mentioned it, and even this source did not describe it as "the context of the 1990s en masse migration". That is your WP:OR. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Do you seriously think I don't know what UNDUE is? The 1990 flight has a context (for the novice reader). Who the KPs are is a part of the context; explaining their numbers is; explaining their large landownership and exploitation of the Muslims is. In the context of migration, their earlier migration in independent India is also the context. Different sources mention different aspects of the context depending on their scale (broad or narrow). Talbot and Singh, state in their very first mention: The modern history of Jammu and Kashmir is normally dated from the Treaty of Lahore (1846) which ended Sikh rule in the province and marked the beginning of a Hindu monarchy that lasted almost a century. During this period the Hindu elite established an ethnically and economically stratified society in which the status of the vast majority of Muslims was reduced to that of a heavy exploited and servile peasantry. But you don't like them either, because one of the two authors, Gurharpal Singh who is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science a SAS and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at SOAS is a noted POV pusher, for which you don't have any evidence; not to mention we don't have any evidence either that the sentence was the work of one author). Regardless, I can produce Metcalf and Metcalf, Sumantra Bose, Mridu Rai, even the somewhat conservative and pro-India Sumit Ganguly who all attest to the medieval modes of exploitation of Muslims by the Hindus. So, is that passe also? It seems to me that you are advocating the ultimate India-POV. Treat this as a terrorist-inspired insurgency, supported by Pakistan, not to mention Jihad, a pogrom in which anti-Hindu terrorists forced the Pandits to be displaced. Moreover, you want an encyclopedia to state that it is "internal displacement" in a country that does not have sovereignty over the disputed region on the basis of one definition of Internal Displacement but you are questioning the country's own definition of Internal Displacement even in a footnote. You stuff in "internal displacement" cited to Alexander Evans (who used it once): During the course of 1989, civil disobedience and political violence by Kashmiri Muslims gathered pace, and the Indian government imposed central governor’s rule in late January 1990. Governor Malhotra Jagmohan faced a series of challenges, and the internal displacement of Pandits was but one of them You didn't like "civil disobedience," so you removed that. You clear forgot that Evans mentions "migration" half a dozen times. And you are proposing to tell me about UNDUE. It won't happen if I have to take the matter to the Wikipedia forums of last resort. I know what NPOV is. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
@Akshaypatill: You are correct. I did make an error in my "OR" section on Talk:Kashmir. The numbers there are the "urban" populations. But yours are for the KP population in the state. If you examine the table on page 362 (365 in the pdf reader) you will see that the main populations in the valley number 62K + 11K i.e 73K. 8/73 is approximately 11%. That is a large exodus in any reckoning in a short period of time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
In other words, howsoever you estimate the numbers, there was an exodus in the early 1950s. It was in response to the land reforms in which the Muslim peasants finally got back a semblance of human life after at least 150 years. (Major economists such as Daniel Thorner who took a personal interest in the Naya Kashmir inspired land-reforms, attest to that.) A substantial section of the Pandits, let's say between 10% an 20% migrated out in response. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

There were no "medieval modes of exploitation" in 1990. Muslims were running their own affairs, large landlords (Pandit or otherwise) had been eliminated, and 50% of the government jobs had been reserved for Kashmiri Muslims. I haven't seen any RS assert that the exploitation of old times had an impact on 1990. But I have seen plenty of editors over the years, who claim that they know the background better than any RS. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Seems like the very definition of the subject is in contest. We need to evaluate which events are constituted for the "exodus". Is the migration in 1990 alone referred to as exodus or does it take account of the migration in the 1950s too? We can solve this by what RS consider to be exodus. Another thing, when Zutsi talks about the migration in 1950s, she is referring to the migration of 20% of Hindus in Jammu + Kasmiri Pandits, while our article is saying 20% of Pandits. ......led to increasing insecurity among Hindus in Jammu, and among Kashmiri Pandits, 20 per cent of whom had emigrated from the Valley by 1950. The calculation 8/73 reiterates it. From the source, we can't figure out how many of these were KPs. Further, when Zutsi use the word 'exodus' (in context of 1950s), she is refering to all of the hindus in the whole state and not only KPs. .....since a majority of landlords were Hindu, the reforms led to a mass exodus of Hindus from the state. So does 'the exodus of Hindus from the state' is same as 'the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from vally'? Akshaypatill (talk) 19:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Also the citation from Bajaz's book is problematic, because it not presented as fact but seems like someone's opinion.

"The kashmir pandit" reported the Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in June 1953, "who is so close to the Kashmiri Muslim personally, politically and culturally, although he has not run amuck like his co-religionist in Jammu, is equally panic-stricken. It is no mere accident that some 8000 Pandits have migrated to India since the inception of the new order"

Akshaypatill (talk) 20:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
This page has always been about the 1990s exodus when the almost entire population fled the valley. Fowler started adding the 1950s migration starting in this edit on 14 August . It seems to have been reverted on 24 August. It was reinstated twice.
This constitutes a unilateral change of scope by Fowler without obtaining CONSENSUS. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I didn't know enough about the topic at that time. There was a lot of fog about "numbers", and talk of an on-going migration which somehow "peaked" in 1990, a lot of Pandits still left in the Valley, who are entire comfortable, Jagmohan had arranged the people to migrate and all that kind of nonsense. It is now clear that it was all hogwash. This was a precipitous exodus which happened in the span of a few weeks. Everything that happened before is just background. It was not part of this exodus. And it is wrong to suggest otherwise. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't edit narrow scale articles such as this. Not sure what caused me to step into this swamp. This article I see is a relatively new one. Created as a POV page in 2015. (You may see its history.). There is an older page Kashmiri Pandits. That too is too narrow-scale for my general interest. But perhaps at Sitush's urging, for this was around the time he and I were writing some caste-related articles, I stepped into that swamp. I made some edits nearly 10 years ago, where I essentially added some material from the Kashmir page, or perhaps from my intuition about Kashmir, a page which had edited for much longer. This was the state at the end of my edits to the Kashmiri Pandits page in March 2010. I had added the 20% exiting in 1950 in it. The picture I had added then in the infobox is still there. You, @Kautilya3:, made some significant edits to the Kashmiri Pandits page, Exodus of 1985–1995 and Population distribution section in 2016. See here. Among the very words you added were

In 1947, the Pandits made up about 6 percent of the Kashmir Valley's populaion.[44] By 1950, their population declined to 5 per cent as many Pandits moved to other parts of India due to the uncompensated land redistribution policy, the unsettled nature of Kashmir's accession to India and the threat of economic and social decline.

In the discussion above you were arguing with me that it was only economic insecurity, not "economic and social decline." Seriously, what is going on? It seems you are continuously bickering about little details, making random edits (about internal displacement), and this after I have told everyone that the lead is written in an expanded fashion so that the rest of the article can be written. I have explained above that I have done this uniformly across a range of WP articles. It is not the final lead. Once an article is in place, the expanded lead will self-destruct as it will then be a true summary of the NPOV article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Also, please don't lob haikus of "wisdom" at me from the hilltop. I make precise statements here. I don't say: academics have paid no attention to the Pandits at the beginning of the discussion way above. Well, lo and behold, it was left for me to find more than half a dozen sources, all books published by major university presses in the last two years, who do pay attention to the Pandits, though perhaps not from a POV that had hitherto inflicted this article. That lead of nearly 1,000 words is mostly my handiwork. And you are bickering about one or two sentences in the background paragraph of 220 words. Whatever your impulse has been to engage me in this fashion, which as I have stated above is very uncharacteristic of you, I have no interest in, but please be consistent. You had expanded the Kashmiri Pandits article again in October 2020. Please scroll down to its Exodus 1985–1995 section. The 20% statistics had been in place for nearly nine years by then. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Excellent! Thanks for digging that up! I also found today the exact same passage from Zutshi tucked away in a corner of my notebook and I was wondering how it got there. You would notice that I had accurately summarised the passage by listing the three factors that were at play. I also noted the "uncompensated" nature of the land redistribution policy. Nobody ever contests such NPOV edits.
I had also apparently related the threat of economic and social decline to the issues stated in the previous sentence of Zutshi, which I didn't include in the text, viz., "the problems of acute scarcity of grain, high food prices, widespread unemployment, and starvation". I did not connect it with landlordism and "medieval exploitation" as you are trying to do.
I have also found in my notebook some talking points I had gathered for some talk page discussion, which don't seem to have been posted anywhere. I have now put them up at User:Kautilya3/Dogra rule, which you are welcome to peruse. Those notes make two points I think: (1) the Dogras didn't change anything when they took over Kashmir and other parts of the state. They ran them like they were always run. (2) Pandits weren't "installed" by the Dogras. They had always been doing the same kind of jobs, God knows for how long. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler can you please discuss off topics on his talk page? Akshaypatill (talk) 04:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)\
Kautilya, from Premnath Bajaj- The History Of Struggle For Freedom In Kashmir by Bzaz, Prem Nath [14]

With doors of government services virtually slammed against them; with government contracts almost totally denied to them; with trade and commerce in a chaotic condition in the State; with land taken away from them; and, above all,with the insecurity and uncertainty all-round in their home-land, if Kashmiri Pandits found the demons of starvation and destitution staring them in their face there is no wonder in it. Realising that there could be no end to the abnormal conditions so long as the dispute over the accession issue between India and Pakistan continued many Kashmiri Pandits decided to leave their motherland for good.

Akshaypatill (talk) 07:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
What is the locus of this discussion? If there was one ever ..... TrangaBellam (talk) 08:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, thematically, some people want the India-POV—the same that the Pandits have—to be the one in this article. In other words, the text, like the Pandits, should be more attached to India than Kashmir. When the Muslims get screwed, shot, blinded, they have nowhere else to go; when the Pandits get inconvenienced, they decamp to India. They did it in the face of the land reforms of 1950; they did it again in 1990 (when they were genuinely threatened, but never as much as the Muslims have). More specifically, this page is a POV spin-off of the Kashmiri Pandits's pages exodus section. One of these editors who is now objecting to the 1950 migration to being included in this page and who had slapped the POV tag on the page, is on record in 2016 to have edited and expanded the section on the exodus in the original Kashmiri Pandits page and had no objections to the 1950 exodus being included then. I have quoted from the edits above. The problem I see is bigger though. The 1950 exodus is a red herring. The real worry is that I will make the page more neutral. This page is the worst kind of POV and POV-attack page. I wrote an expanded lead so that the article can be expanded in a neutral fashion. As I have stated above I do that all the time in all sorts of articles on South Asia-related topics. The community must respect my judgment otherwise I would not have been doing it for so many years. I don't think I will be allowed to edit as my every sentence will be challenged, nickel and dimed, nitpicked, and so forth. I have no interest left in the article. The other editor, you can ignore. A bizarre time-waster he is, a troll best not fed. He's been warned about hounding me. Lo and behold, he appears here out of the blue, a typical drama seeker. Go figure. You were a breath of fresh air, but I think I have lost interest, at least for now. Have other things to do. Sorry. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: What I mean is that the discussion above is slippery, they object to little details and when you respond to one detail, it changes to another. They objected to Chitralekha Zutshi's quote. The sentence is: "The unsettled nature of Kashmir’s accession to India, coupled with the threat of economic and social decline in the face of the land reforms, led to increasing insecurity among Hindus in Jammu, and among Kashmiri Pandits, 20 percent of whom had emigrated from the Valley by 1950." being summarized in the lead. That is the sentence. It is her summary of everything she said before. When they were caught having editing that very version long ago, they change the objection to: the reforms offered no compensation. My interlocutors want to add that the Pandits were unfairly discriminated against in the land reforms, that they were on the verge of starvation and whatnot (i.e. this at being allowed only an upper limit of 22 and 3/4 acres, allowed to keep all their orchards, allowed the ability to convert cereal acreage to orchard acreage, and allowed the usual escape-strategy of breaking up the ownership into all the males of a joint family. You can read all about it in Mridu Rai (2004)) More broadly they are objecting to anything critical of the Pandits, e.g. that they participated in the villainy visited on the Muslims for 150 years. It is irrelevant that major scholars have said:

  • Talbot and Singh above During this period the Hindu elite established an ethnically and economically stratified society in which the status of the vast majority of Muslims was reduced to that of a heavy exploited and servile peasantry.
  • Mridu Rai, "The dependence of the Kashmiri Muslim cultivator on the Pandit-controlled revenue department was also ensured by the system of begar or the forcible and usually unpaid impressment of labour. In a still vastly underpopulated territory where labour was a scarce and valuable commodity, the Dogras had made an art of obtaining it for free.
  • Sumantra Bose: Practically all accounts of J&K in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paint a grim picture of a self-absorbed, hopelessly incompetent regime and a Muslim subject population living in medieval conditions of poverty and oppression. In 1889 a visiting British dignitary, Walter Lawrence, commented on the begar (indentured labor) system prevalent in the Kashmir Valley, under which Muslim serfs were forced to work without compensation for a small Pandit landed elite and state officials. So, you see, the 20% is a red herring. They don't want the Pandits to come out in a bad light. At all. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

From my point of view, the locus is Fowler's blatant violation of MOS:BEGIN, where his first paragraph talks about everything except the topic of this article. When questioned, he has sometimes said that it is part of topic and sometimes said it was a bakcground paragraph. Entirely slippery and unhelpful. I am afraid my patience is getting exhausted. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

No worries, I have restored the article to the version just before I edited it on 14 August 2021. You had already edited it with nary an objection. So no worries now? Have a ball. Promote the India-POV, unhindered. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks like Fowler has withdrawn from the page. I sincerely appreciate all the work he has put into it and the excellent sources he has brought to the table. I am going to take a break for a few days while I attend to my other work, but I intennd to come back and rewrite the lead per WP:NPOV and MOS:LEAD. I will be reusing the majority of Fowler's content in doing so. Happy New Year to everybody! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Oxford Research Encyclopedia on "The Kashmiri Pandit Exodus"

Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Returning to January 19, 1990, on the night of Jagmohan’s swearing in in Jammu and a day and half before he repeated the ceremony in Srinagar, Kashmiri Pandits began leaving their homeland in Kashmir in large numbers. According to some estimates, out of a population of 140,000 a dramatically high proportion—100,000—were said to have left beginning on that date and in the months after. Others have suggested higher figures for Pandit departures at 250,000. By 2011, the numbers of those remaining in the Valley had dwindled to about three thousand, give or take a few hundred. An insignificant number have returned.

Explaining the exit of Pandits is an ideological minefield. Some have attributed their departure entirely to the machinations of the Indian government, specifically by Jagmohan. He allegedly encouraged non-Muslims in Kashmir to leave, making arrangements for their exit so as to clear the ground for military action against “terrorists” without the risk of collateral damage to Hindus. Others speak of calls issued from mosques, announcements in newspapers, and of posters and pamphlets distributed by Islamist groups who threatened to kill non-Muslims who would not leave Kashmir.There can be no single explanation for the departure of so many at different points in time.

The different reasons for the departures will remain mired in controversy until there can be a careful sifting through disputed facts and memories at variance—a tall order in a war zone. But that so many Pandits left their homeland so quickly belies arguments that this “exodus” was entirely voluntary. It seems reasonable to suggest that many Pandits left because of a clear sense that they, their families, and their futures were no longer secure in Kashmir.

Much Pandit discourse, however, implies that Kashmiri Muslims were collectively complicit in their “expulsion,” even if only through their silence or inaction. This allusion is fortified by the absence in Pandit narratives of exile of any acknowledgment that Muslims, too, have suffered from decades of unrest. Such partial narration implicates the many Kashmiri Muslims in the actions of a few aggressors. The bridging of these fractured perspectives is made harder by the fact that at least one generation of both Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims has grown up in each other’s absence. The rift is fertile terrain for manipulation.
— Rai, Mridu (2018-04-26). "Kashmir: From Princely State to Insurgency". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.184. Retrieved 2022-01-16.

TrangaBellam (talk) 15:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Sounds like Mridu Rai has written it, or that it has borrowed a lot from her chapter in Bose and Jalal 2021. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Oh I see you did add Rai in a later edit. Apologies. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
PS Btw, @TrangaBellam: I have appeared here because I noticed you have changed the version of August 14, 2021 to which I had reverted the page to a later one which you suggest we have consensus for. It is true I do not wish to be involved with this page, in part because I have more pressing concerns (saving Darjeeling at FAR and revising Subhas Chandra Bose for his 125th), but I will sometime later today or tomorrow, make a short of list of the kinds of OR or text-deletions that have resulted in the current version of the page. In my view, they are not supported by the sources, the bit about land reforms being unrecompensed being one. I do trust that you will do a good job and I wish you luck. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Some more sources

A large population of Kashmiri Pandits left Kashmir in 1989, following the beginnings of Kashmir's armed struggle and the widespread protests in which predominantly Kashmiri Muslims demanded their right to self-determination, pledged to them by the UN and India's first prime minister, Jawaharhal Lal Nehru. Kashmiri Pandit communities felt a general sense of fear and insecurity provoked by the targeted killings of well-known and influential Pandit men who were part of the state apparatus (Datta). Although the numbers vary, it is estimated that roughly 120,000 to 140,000 Pandits fled Kashmir in the 1990s, while only 800 families remained in the region.

While there are a host of historical factors responsible for the sudden departure of Pandits from Kashmir in the 1990s, in mainstream political narratives their departure is frequently attributed to the rise of "Islamic terror" in Kashmir, while the Kashmiri Muslim demand for self-determination is attributed to Pakistan's proxy war with India over Kashmir's disputed political status. Soon after their "Migration" (as it has come to be known) from Kashmir, which was heavily shaped by differences of class and location, many poor Pandits who had fled without their possessions lived in miserable conditions in migrant camps across India. On the other hand, many wealthier and urban Pandits experienced their departure quite differently. Ankur Datta discusses in detail how the economic and social heterogeneity among Pandits also determined how they could or could not "remake life" or acquire property outside Kashmir.
— Bhan, Mona; Misri, Deepti; Zia, Ather (2020). "Relating Otherwise: Forging Critical Solidarities Across the Kashmiri Pandit-Muslim Divide". Biography. 43 (2): 285–305. doi:10.1353/bio.2020.0030. ISSN 1529-1456.

TrangaBellam (talk) 15:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Inconvenient people

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

Following Rahul Pandita's book Our Moon has Blood Clots, there was a debate of sorts in the Economic and Political Weekly. One of the contributors named Sualeh Keen, who is described as a "Kashmiri writer, poet, graphic artist and cultural critic" who apparently runs a group called "Moderate Voice of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh".[2]

The Pandit experience is subject to various forms of outright denial, falsification and conspiracy theories by Kashmiri Muslim "Deniers".

  • The first form of denial casts the Pandit victims as outright liars by claiming that there was no threat to the minority in 1990, a time when thousands of Kalashnikov-toting Mujahideen walked openly in Kashmir. If there was no atmosphere of threat and terror, why did the Pandits flee? The Deniers' answer: The then governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Jagmohan, instructed Pandits to leave the Valley so that the security forces could crack down on Muslims. This unsubstantiated theory portrays Pandits as Little Eichmanns whose "absence" facilitated the massacres of Muslim separatists following the state's use of counter force to crush militancy and indiscriminate shooting to disperse mobs. The Deniers go on to say that the Pandits used their refugee status to get educational reservations and relief in refugee camps. This not only brushes aside the Pandits' encounter with terror, it transforms them from victims of terror to profiteers who connived with the governor against Muslims.
  • The second form of denial accepts that Pandits were targeted by the Mujahideen, but creates a neat but untenable dichotomy between the armed militants and the non-combatant Muslims. The Mujahideen were Muslim civilians before they picked up guns. Who supported the Mujahideen? Ordinary people. In an atmosphere of social anarchy, it has been often observed that ordinary people take advantage and attack the most vulnerable, such as minorities, with an eye for property or promotion, or to settle personal scores. Even if we call them "criminal elements", the perpetrators were nonetheless the neighbours, colleagues, students, customers, and acquaintances of the victims. Most Muslims were not involved, but many Muslim non-combatants were certainly involved.
  • The third form of denial grudgingly accepts that Pandits were targeted, but denies or downplays the role of communal animus. This form of denial cites a "socio-economic factor" and "class struggle" as the reasons for animus. This seemingly leftist variant justifies the terrorising of Pandits in 1990 by cherry-picking instances of oppression by Hindu Dogras and Pandits from the pre-1947 feudal era history, which had no bearing on the social status of Pandits in 1990.

The question arises: why deny? To begin with, blaming Jagmohan, the non-existent high status of Pandits circa 1990, or red herrings like "more Muslims were killed" gives the Deniers absolution from collective guilt: the Pandits either did it to themselves, were asking for it, or were "collateral damage". Further, after the successful "non-violent" stonepelting campaign, Kashmiri Muslim separatists feel that for the first time they have a moral upper hand over the Indian state, making it imperative that past misdeeds be disavowed vehemently, lest they compromise international support for the movement. Also, there is a post-9/11 compulsion to distance the Kashmiri insurgency from religion-driven terrorism.

A generation of Kashmiri Muslims who came of age after the Pandit exodus have been brainwashed into firm conviction of the denial.

References

  1. ^ Sugata Bose; Ayesha Jalal, eds. (2021), Kashmir and the Future of South Asia, Routledge, p. 7
  2. ^ Keen, Sualeh (8 June 2013), "Inconvenient people", Economic and Political Weekly, 48 (23): 75–77, JSTOR 23527214

Kautilya3 (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

What is the point? Keen—who finds Alt News to be an "Operandi of the Communist-Muslim Secessionist alliance"—is neither a "moderate" nor a RS, under any definition. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Agree. It is a discussion response to the review of Rahul Pandita's memoir by someone or other. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The point is to notice how our lead employs all these tactics of denialism. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Our lead has nothing on oppression by Hindu Dogras and Pandits from the pre-1947 feudal era history. So, all is certainly a misnomer :) TrangaBellam (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Our lead notes that there was genuine panic among the Pandits that stemmed as much from the religious vehemence among some of the insurgents. So, the first point ain't applicable either.
That being said, the theory is not at all unsubstantiated: Jagmohan gave multiple public interviews where he spoke of plans to unleash the "ruthless might" of "Indian State" in "Muslim-majority" areas but lamented how Pandits might be unfortunate victims. Balraj Puri claims that Jagmohan told him about how facilitating the Pandit migration would aid in counter-militancy.
Everybody knows that KM apologias about Jagmohan arranging for trucks to tow away Pandits etc are nonsense but that does hardly mean Jagmohan had nothing to do with the migration.
Anyways, to satisfy Keen, you need to write something like: "Beginning 1989, the Muslims true to their barbarian spirit and history of inflicting genocides of Kashmiri Pandits, rose in unison to purge the Pandits out of the valley. [...]" I do not have any issues except that is not approachable using RS. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Throughout the 70 and 80s, Rughonath Vaishnavi lamented the increasing bonhomie of KPs with Right, their flat refusal to engage with Muslim concerns about autonomy and accession, their embeddedness in the Indian state apparatus, and their misplaced belief about how it will only take a single iron-handed administrator to "integrate" Kashmir with India. Why will Keen's view of the exodus and allied issues take precedence over Vaishnavi's?
It was hardly that Vaishnavi was some self-hating Pandit: he remained at the forefront of initiatives to preserve temple-shrines and a sharp critic of Pakistan's descent into an Islamic state with no rights for minorities etc. [That being said, Vaishnavi is as good as Keen from a RS-perspective.] TrangaBellam (talk) 17:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
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