Pandits observe ‘black day’ over 1931 riots

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 13

Regional divide was clear in the state on Martyrs’ Day with displaced Kashmiri Pandits and other groups in the Jammu region observing it as ‘black day’.

The J&K High Court Bar Association, Jammu, and several Dogra and displaced Hindus organisations held protests and demanded discontinuing the tradition of observing state holiday on Martyrs’ Day. They said the successive state governments had legitimised “communal riots” for decades.

After 1947, July 13 was declared Martyrs’ Day to remember the 21 persons killed by the police force of erstwhile Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh at Srinagar in 1931. It remainsa controversial chapter in the history of the state for the last 87 years.

Historians in the Valley consider it the first mass awakening against the Dogra rule, but Pandits have been observing it as black day for decades.

“This misplaced commemoration has been thrust upon us since 1947. The incidents of 1931 have not been presented in the right perspective and it is a complete distortion of facts to hide the communal riots in the Valley. There was a targeted attack on the minorities and their businesses by rioters and the police force of the Maharaja responded accordingly,” said B Slathia, president, J&K High Court Bar Association, Jammu.

Meanwhile, organisations of displaced Kashmiri Pandits also staged protests to remember the victims of the riots.

“There was a selective attack on minorities and their business establishments in 1931. At places like Maharaj Ganj, Hari Singh High Street and Bohri Kadal in Srinagar and Kanikoot village in Budgam, over 10 Hindus died in attacks by Muslim Conference workers and the rioting prisoners of the Srinagar jail,” said Ashwani Chrangoo, president, Panun Kashmir.

Panun Kashmir has alleged that July 13 was a conspiracy against the minority Hindu community in Kashmir and Maharaja Hari Singh at the behest of the British colonial rulers.

Members of the All-State Kashmiri Pandit Conference (ASKPC) staged a protest in Jammu and alleged that the National Conference and the PDP were playing communal politics. “How successive governments recognised the perpetrators of violence as martyrs is a subject of research for historians. Those who targeted the minorities have been given the status of martyrs,” said Ravinder Pandita, president, ASKPC.