INDIA NEWS
Apr 1-15, 2022 - Vol 2, Issue 18
EDITORIAL
India captures only 8% of 4K ‘The Kashmir Files’ billion cubic meters of rain reveals tip of the iceberg PAVAN KAUSHIK
by Dr Amjad Ayub Mirza The movie released in India called “The Kashmir Files” is a brave attempt to reveal the atrocities committed by the Pakistan sponsored Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front and other Jihadi proxies and with conformity of a significant
M
any historians and archaeologists believe that the Indus Valley Civilisation that existed about 2,500 years ago mysteriously lost its existence and disappeared suddenly due to catastrophic water scarcity caused either by shifting rivers or by drastic climate change. In India, a major portion of the population does not have a reliable and constant means of getting water for their daily needs. About 70 per cent of our sources are contaminated and country’s major rivers are dying because of pollution. In June 2019, a report suggested that 65 per cent of all reservoirs in India reported below-normal water levels, and 12 per cent were completely dry. A NITI Aayog report of 2018 clearly stated that nearly half of India’s population, about 600 million people, is all set to face extreme water stress in coming years. NITI Aayog also estimated that 21 major cities, including Delhi, would run out of groundwater by 2030. With time, India has become the world’s largest extractor of groundwater, accounting for 25 per cent of the total available water. Agriculture consumes over 85 per cent of water in India, contrary to the popular belief that domestic usage or industrial usage captures most of the water. With only 40 per cent assured irrigation, the farmers depend heavily either on rains or on groundwater for their needs. Surprisingly, the irony is, the demand for water through rains is much less than actual rainfall received during the year. Even though the monsoon season in India extends over four months, and we barely get 30 days of heavy rainfall in all, India has not put-in much required efforts to wishfully capture this abundance of rainwater. India needs a maximum of 3,000 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water a year while it receives 4,000 billion cubic meters of rains. The country captures only 8 per cent of its annual rainfall, which is amongst the lowest in the world. This also means that rain water harvesting and replenishing the ground water, and also conserving the available water resources seems to be one of the most efficient and doable solution, that has scope and opportunity to resolve water scarcity. There are many lessons in
www.indianews.com.au
number of local Islamists in the Valley of Kashmir. traditional water harvesting system in India too. One of the most popular rainwater conservation practices has been raindrop conservation. Water from the rooftops was collected during the rains and stored in tanks. Water in community areas was collected and stored in artificial wells. Another method was harvesting monsoon water by diverting water from overflowing streams to be stored in water bodies. The traditional procedures for saving water had their own methods too. The PATS of Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh are irrigation panels. These irrigation panels are fed using water that is diverted from fast moving hill streams. Then there is JAUHAD, the earthen check dams that were meant to collect rainwater. Because of their earthen nature, water percolated easily into these systems. This resulted in tremendous rise of the groundwater levels. SANJHA KUWAN are wells built on a partnership basis. With multiple users, these SANJHA KUWAN were primarily used for irrigation. A group of farmers usually had one made amongst themselves. TALAAB have been very famous in the golden old days and even today. These are reservoirs -- natural, as in Bundelkhand, or man-made, as in Udaipur. These reservoirs were used to meet irrigation and drinking water requirements. These constructions lasted only as long as the monsoon. Post-monsoon, the beds of these water bodies were cultivated with rice. Rajasthan has PAAR, a harvesting practice used in the desert areas of Rajasthan. This involves collecting rainwater from the catchment to let it percolate into the soil.
The atrocities were executed against the indigenous Hindu minority living in Kashmir during the 1990 and led to the genocide and forced exodus of nearly 500,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the Valley. However, what the movie reveals is like peeling the first layer of the onion. The genocide of the Kashmiri Hindus, in modern day and age, did not begin in 1990 in the valley. It goes way back to when the Pakistan army attacked the independent state of Jammu and Kashmir on October 22, 1947. At the time of partition of India, Jammu and Kashmir territories occupied by Pakistan today (PoJK) had a thriving Hindu and Sikh population. The table below gives a breakdown of the Hindu and Sikh demography in several districts in PoJK in 1941. A survey conducted by Snedden and published in 2012 mentions that “there are no estimates of Hindus or Sikhs left today in the region and the entire population is assumed to have either been expelled or killed”. The report, widely quoted by research scholars, confirms that they were not able to find a single Hindu or Sikh in the entire region of PoJK. It is estimated that
to swell. For instance, Bhimber received at least 2000, Mirpur 15,000, Rajouri 5,000 and Kotli an unaccounted number of Hindu and Sikh refugees. The Hindu population in Bhimber tehsil was 35 per cent. None have survived the 1947 Pakistan sponsored Hindu-Sikh genocide. But the worst atrocity, to my knowledge, was committed in my hometown of Mirpur where 25,000 Hindus and Sikhs were rounded up, mutilated, shot and beheaded and the women raped by “Allah O Akbar” ; chanting Pakistan army and religious fanatic members of Lashkar. To this day November 25 is observed as Mirpur (Massacre) Day by the family members of those who were lucky to reach Jammu. On that ill-fated day in 1947 Pakistan army and the mercenary tribal Lashkar entered Mirpur setting on fire several parts of the city, burning down shops and houses of “Kafir” A couple of days before the fall of Mirpur, a convoy of 2,500 Hindus and Sikhs had managed to make their escape along with the state troops of Jammu Kashmir and reach Jammu safely. Those who were left behind were rounded up and marched to Ali Baig where the invaders said that a Gurdwara had been converted into a refugee camp. What was thought to be a march to safety soon turned into a death march as the Pakistan army and members of the mercenary Lashkar killed over 10,000 Hindus and Sikhs along the way. They abducted a further 5,000 of our women, most of whom were sold
in the bazaars of Rawalpindi, Jhelum and Peshawar. Out of 25,000 Hindu and Sikh captives, only 5,000 made it to Ali Baig. However, the killing and rape of the captive men and women continued unabated by their prison guards. Only 1,600 were later rescued by the International Committee of Red Cross who brought the survivors to Rawalpindi and transferred to Jammu. By 1951, only 790 non-Muslims were alive out of a total population of 114,000 Hindu and Sikh in PoJK. Today there are none. The Mirpur massacre death toll is over 20,000. Many women committed suicide by consuming poison or by jumping over a cliff. Similarly, numerous men also committed suicide. The genocide of Hindus was repeated in Rajouri, Baramulla, Muzaffarabad, Bhimber just to mention a few and continues to this day in Kashmir. The movie “The Kashmir Files” has just revealed the tip of the iceberg. The horror of the Hindu genocide is far more deep-rooted and horrific than it might seem on the silver screen. (Dr Amjad Ayub Mirza is an author and a human rights activist from Mirpur in PoJK. He currently lives in exile in the UK)
around 122,500 Hindus and Sikhs went missing from PoJK during and after the 1947 invasion of PoJK. Let us not forget that thousands of Hindus and Sikhs had fled the communal riots in Punjab and had sought sanctuary in today’s PoJK towns bordering Punjab. This resulted in the number of Hindus and Sikhs in PoJK in 1947
According to Central Water Commission’s report, India would reach a population of about 1.66 billion by 2050. The annual food requirement will also exceed 250 million tonnes. This also means that demand for water will also increase substantially. Certainly, we do not want to be a civilization that became extinct just because we could not preserve the most precious natural resource -- the Water. (Pavan Kaushik is a leading Communicator, Storyteller and Writer)
A survey conducted by Snedden and published in 2012 mentions that “there are no estimates of Hindus or Sikhs left today in the region and the entire population is assumed to have either been expelled or killed”.
facebook.com/indianewsaustralia
20
