PART I

Chapter 9

COMPROMISE AS TACTICS

As evidenced by historical records, the Muslims usurped the seat of power by a coup d'etat and fully aware of the Hindu personality of Kashmir, they trod the Kashmir soil very warily and cautiously lest they should slip and meet disaster. Sanskrit was allowed as the language in government circles not because it was a continuation of the past legacy, but because it at that locus of Kashmir history could not be replaced by Persian which had yet to register any imprint and headway in the courts of Sultans. Brahmans were tolerated in the rungs of services as a matter of tactics and compromise. The dominating and essential concern of the Muslim rulers at the initial stages was to entrench their rule and also to break the Hindu resistance as the first step towards forcible conversions. Shah Mir encouraged inter-marriages to dent the wall of Hindu resistance and a vital step he undertook was to pattern and model his administration and modes of governance after the system prevalent in Muslim countries. Damaras, fierce and garrulous, as centres of Hindu resistance, were annihilated and Lavanyas and Tantrins as peasant soldiers were disarmed and butchered.

The moment Muslims felt sanguine and sure that a final and decisive war could be waged against the Hindus, it was carried out without dither and tergiversation. To stein, the conversion in Kashmir was gradual and a matter of slow process but the dismal fact remains that a sudden conversion to Islam with the fury of a crusade was effected by the troika of Mir Mohammad Hamadani, Sultan Sikandar and Ali Shah through unholy means and cruel strategies. Conversion of large masses of Hindu population to Islam during the latter half of the 14th Century is an accomplished tact for Stein, true but how the conversions were effected anti realised did not draw his keen attention and deep concern.