History tells us that Kashmir’s Hindus have been persecuted and killed by Muslim rulers through the ages. But no matter how terrible their subjugation, Kashmir’s Hindus have survived A few weeks ago, an acquaintance wanted to know more about my community’s forced displacement from the Valley of Kashmir and asked me, “How did your ethnic cleansing in Kashmir come about?” I struggled for an answer. I thought and then said, “Gradually and then suddenly.”