Hindu temple's reopening in Kashmir spotlights Muslims caring for temples for decades

Kashmiri Pandits Santosh Razdan and Meena Handoo sit inside their local childhood temple in Srinagar as temple reopens after 31 years. Photo by Basit Zargar.

SRINAGAR — Santosh Razdan was one of dozens of Kashmiri Hindus who returned to her childhood neighborhood this month with her family of four from Delhi after fleeing an armed rebellion 31 years ago. A Hindu temple that has remained shut all those years, but maintained by a Muslim neighbor, reopened on Feb. 17.

“We are feeling very happy on returning to Kashmir,” Razdan said. “Special prayers for peace were organized in the temple.” 

Emotions ran high as Hindus and Muslims who had lived as neighbors for decades reunited. In the nineties, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits (another name for Kashmiri Hindus) fled for their lives and settled outside Kashmir in places like Jammu and Delhi. In the last three decades, about 47,000 people have been killed in conflict, mostly Muslims and mainly between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militant separatists, some with links to Pakistani terror groups, according to government figures.

Among the Muslims who greeted Razdan on her arrival was her former neighbor and friend Mohamamd Ashraf who lives near the temple. Ashraf has regularly brought fruits, rice, sugar and other materials from his home needed for Hindu prayers and to honor the deity at the temple, even though almost no devotees visited for decades.

“I did this because I wanted to contribute to this noble cause,” Ashraf said.

Recounting the times when Muslims and Pandits lived together in harmony in Kashmir, he said when his mother died, Pandits carried her coffin to the graveyard.

Ashraf said the Muslims in the area also safeguarded the temple after violence between the militants and security forces erupted. “The temple was attacked twice in the early nineties, but the local Muslims saved it,” he said.

Today nearly seven million people live in the Kashmir Valley, 97% of them Muslims. Kashmir has been a flash point for conflict between India and Pakistan since their independence from the British. The Himalayan region had acceded to India in 1947 rather than merging with a Muslim Pakistan. The region has also been the center of Indian politics. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party has stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status agreed to during independence, enforced the world’s largest communication blackout for months, introduced laws to allow greater Hindu settlement in the country’s only Muslim-majority region, and Indian security officials have arbitrarily arrested journalists, politicians and young Muslim men, often under a law that allows detention without evidence or trial for up to two years. 

But while tensions between Hindus and Muslims play out all over India, everyday Indians often break that stereotype. Razdan says the Srinagar temple opening would not have been possible without the support from local Muslims.

“We have no complaints against the Muslims. They are like our brothers and sisters, they didn’t force us to migrate from Kashmir. The local Muslims have always supported and loved us.”

“We have no complaints against the Muslims,” Razdan said. “They are like our brothers and sisters, they didn’t force us to migrate from Kashmir. The local Muslims have always supported and loved us.”

Hindus and Muslims in the neighborhood used to celebrate each of their religious festivals together, like the annual Vasant Panchami celebrations, the birthday of the temple deity Sheetalnath Bahirav. Vasant Panchami, also called Sarasvati Puja in honor of the goddess Saraswati, is a festival that marks the preparation for the arrival of spring.

About two dozen Kashmiri Hindus who sold their houses in Kashmir and left to live in other places returned for a couple of days to take part in the reopening and annual prayer ceremony at the Sheetalnath temple.

Before the migration, 115 Hindu families lived in the congested neighborhood of the temple. Now only a few Hindu families are still residing there. 

Efforts are underway to ensure that the temple remains open. A priest has now been appointed to lead the morning and evening prayers at the temple and its renovation is being discussed.

Ashraf says both the communities are sensitive to each other’s sufferings. When the floods hit Kashmir in September 2014 and caused massive devastation, his former Pandit neighbors living in Jammu sent him money to deal with the crisis.

“We miss our Pandit brothers and sisters who have left us but it feels great to see them back in Kashmir though briefly,” he said.

Other devotees who have arrived to pray at the temple like Upinder Handoo said while they’re away from Kashmir, Ashraf is like the hands and eyes of the Pandits.

“God didn’t tell us that we are Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, what’s important is that we live like human beings,” Handoo said. “Our destination is the same, the paths may be different. God made us similar and hasn’t discriminated on the basis of religion.” 

Handoo said in the past, special Hindu prayers called “Havan” were held annually in the temple to celebrate Vasant Panchami, but after militancy erupted, the practice stopped. She said the temple was set on fire twice in 1992 and 1994 and the “Havan shalla” or the place of special prayers and the Pujari or priest’s room were burnt.

“In 2011 our Muslim neighbors informed us that some land mafia has encroached on the temple land,” she said. “We approached the administration and got the land retrieved with the help of the Muslims.” 

There are a total of 1,842 Hindu places of worship in Kashmir including temples, shrines, holy springs, holy caves and holy trees. Of the 952 temples, 212 are running while 740 are in a dilapidated condition, according to the tourism ministry. Just 65 temples remained open after Pandits left Kashmir in the early nineties. They were open mainly due to the presence of security forces or non-migrant Pandits living in the vicinity. In 1997-1998, 35 temples were revived mostly in the villages with the help of Kashmiri Muslims. From 2003 till date, 72 more temples have been revived by the government tourism department in collaboration with the managing committees of the temples.

Caretaker of Rama Koul temple Mohammad Sideeq sweeps inside the temple in Srinagar. Photo by Basit Zargar.

Muslims have taken a lead role in preservation of temples like the Rama Koul temple in Srinagar, which is more than 100 years old. Mohamamd Sideeq has been the caretaker and cleaner of the temple since the migration of Pandits. He oversaw the temple’s repainting and its boundary wall renovated. Sideeq said there were tense times during the rise in Kashmiri militancy when the temple came under threat, but he always ensured that it remained safe.

“We did not allow any harm to the temple when Babri mosque was demolished,” he said, referring to when in 1992 Hindu extremists destroyed a 14th century mosque in North India and resulting riots across the country killed hundreds of Muslims and Hindus. “On a second occasion some people wanted to burn the temple, but I and my parents didn’t allow that to happen.”

Sideeq said being custodians of the temple, it’s their duty to safeguard and preserve it.

“I believe if I safeguard the temple, God will keep me safe, it’s my duty to do that,” he said. “God hasn’t divided people, we may have different names but essentially we are all human beings practicing different faiths.”

He said hardly any devotees come to visit the temple now and for him it is like watching a sunrise when a Pandit devotee comes to pray at the temple.

He said it is the fundamental duty of Muslims to treat all human beings with respect: those who are the people of the book like Christians and Jews, and those who are not, like the Hindus. 

“All places of worship must be respected. God has created all of us without any discrimination. He hasn’t given any special powers to some and not to others. It is the politicians who divide people on the basis of religion.”

“My religion tells me that if I owe money to somebody, I must go to his or her home to return the money because if I die without paying it back God will question me for that on the day of judgement,” Sideeq said. “We don’t have to think that after death we will go to heaven and they will go to hell. Heaven and hell are on this earth, if you do me good, you will go to heaven, but if you do wrong, you will enter hell.”

He believes as a Muslim it’s his duty to respect a temple the same way he respects a mosque.

“All places of worship must be respected. God has created all of us without any discrimination. He hasn’t given any special powers to some and not to others. It is the politicians who divide people on the basis of religion,” he said.

Sideeq believes looking after the temple for the Pandits is a calling God has given him and he will continue to do so till he is alive. He is even advising his children to carry on the tradition after his death.

“I feel very peaceful when I clean the temple,” he said. “Sometimes some people ask me, ‘Why do you do that, does the temple belong to you?’ My reply to them is that I am answerable to the temple’s devotees.”

He wishes more Kashmiri Pandits would return to Kashmir and tells them not to be scared of anything.

 Zaffar Iqbal is a journalist based in Kashmir, India. He has reported for 18 years on armed encounters, environmental issues, crime, politics, culture and human rights. He’s formerly the bureau chief of Jammu and Kashmir for NDTV.