Kashmiriyat is a cruel joke designed to sprinkle salt on the wounds of KPs. Kashmiriyat in the sense of tolerance among KPs, KMs, and Sikhs has been a mythical conception, with little reality to it. It was created by some Kashmiri poets,saints, and dreamers. History of Kashmir is inundated with foreign invasions, whose raison d’etre was greed and power for material success. There was never any love lost between local and invading communities.
Ever since Islam anchored deeply in Kashmir in 1339, there has been no rest in the occupier-occupied relationship between KPs and KMs. KPs were forced out of the Valley seven times due to the tyranny of Islamic rulers and people. The last one
in 1989 was the most epic and brutal.
Kashmiryat concept in its modern avatar is a cruel joke slapped in by Vajpayee’s gutlessness in managing the Kashmir Problem for political upmanship.
It is not only apparent but hugely manifest that Kashmiriyat, in a paraphrase of Shakespeare’s famous lines about life, is “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
