Gujjars pay the ultimate price. Muslim upon Muslim -- violence
The Indian police said today that 10 Muslims, including 3 women, were killed in two overnight attacks in Kashmir. Investigators said the victims were nomadic Gujjar herders, a group embroiled in a local political dispute. The throats of all 10 victims had been slit.
In three other attacks today, 2 men were shot dead in different parts of the state and at least 19 people, mostly schoolchildren, were injured when a grenade exploded on a street outside the southern town of Anantnag. The Indian police blamed militants for the attacks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Collected info. on Gujjars
The Significance of Caste in Pakistan and Bangladesh
Caste exist in a subconscious manner amongst Muslims in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Despite their conversion to Islam, Pakistani Muslims still refer to themselves as Jats, Gujjars, Rajputs, and so on. This is especially so during match-making in an arranged nikah (marriage). One instance of the visibility of casteist feelings among Pakistanis is the reference Benazir Bhutto makes in her book 'Daughter of the East', when she says, "In my veins runs the blood of a Wadhera." Wadheras are a Rajput clan from the Punjab and Sindh.
...the Gujjar clan which is socially regarded to be inferior to the supposedly superior Mastoi tribe.
...Who are these so called criminal tribes - Sansis, Pardhis, Kanjars, Gujjars, Bawarias, Banjaras and almost
200 such communities?
The term "criminal tribes" was concocted by the British rulers, and entered the public vocabulary for the first time when a piece of legislation called the Criminal Tribes Act was passed in 1871. With the repeal of this Act (which was condemned by Pandit Nehru as a blot on the legal books of free India, and a shame to all civilised societies) these communities were officially "denotified" in 1952.
... is applicable also to the nomadic communities of Jammu and Kashmir. The Gujjars and Bakarwals descend from the Greco Indians and are interrelated with the Gujjars of Gujarat and the tribes settled around Gujranwala in Pakistan.
First, New Delhi needs to drive home the plurality of the State of Jammu & Kashmir (on the Indian side), which, besides the Kashmiri Muslims-in- majority, has diverse communities such as Gujjars, Bakkarwals, Kashmiri Pandits, Dogras and Ladakhi Buddhists for whom the right of self- determination has little appeal. |
