Er P L Khushu
It is now 32nd year of our forced exodus and exile. It is now 32nd year of our uprooting from our nests of centuries and unforgettable legacies. It is now the 32nd year of our conspicuous neglect and indifferent treatment by the authorities in power. It now the 32nd year of the result of the willful silence and conspicuous indirect abatement of the dynastic rulers of Kashmir with the Islamic fundamentalists who made us to face murders, rape, burning of our houses, looting of our properties, defacing our archives of temples and religious places, usurping of our official positions and business establishments with the final aim of making us to flee naked and empty handed from the soil of our birth, the Kashmir’. Our tales of doom and turmoil due to our forced displacements are now becoming histories of the past, as there is no one who is sincerely bothered to listen to our tales of destruction and devastation. Probably we are now getting added to the age old historical events and pages, when Kashmiri Pandits have been massacred, forced to get converted, or flee from Kashmir during certain tyrannical Islamic rules. Is it pseudo secularism of Congress and other pseudo secular political parties of Jammu and Kashmir, which is responsible for our present condition of being refugees in our own country? Or is it the non tag of our vote bank value which is responsible for our conditions. The nation at large shall have to reply it, as it is a visible issue of human rights violation of disastrous consequences for the KP’s. Where is ‘Hindutva’ about us? Do we not belong to the big race of the Hindus of this great ‘Bharat’. It is now very much unfortunate for us to seek refuge under this cover of Hinduism as the enormous and enough drum beating of the secular credentials of the nations commitment to the Constitution has failed to protect us from our extinction from the mini map of Kashmir and the bigger map of our great India. We are shrinking in numbers. It is a million dollar question. It has to be replied by the present government and lip sympathies will hardly work in this regard. After all Kashmir is a part of our blood and flesh, why to refuse it to us. Let the nation as a whole now rise to the occasion and remind the governance of the day to perform their fundamental duty of rehabilitating the Kashmiri Pandits back to their lost and deprived homes and hearths in Kashmir. They are the aboriginals of Kashmir. Let histories be traced about it. Kashmiri Pandits get reminded of their Kashmir which was known as ‘Paradise on Earth’, full of Sufi cult and an abode of tolerance and unparalleled brotherhood. This all broke in one night, the night of 19th January-1990. This paradise of the Pandits became a death trap for them due to the spurt of terrorism backed by Islamic fundamentalism sponsored across the border, when each one of them were caught unawares for no fault of theirs. The dark night of January 19, 1990, shivering with cold, is remembered by all of them, as it was the worst nightmare for the Kashmiri Pandits living in the valley. Screaming from loud speakers and crowded streets was a message for KPs living in Kashmir, which said, Ralive, Tsaliv, Neti-Galiv. (It meant that either convert to Islam or leave Kashmir and in the alternative face death). Even after about 31 years, Kashmiri Pandits shiver remembering the night which forced them into exodus and a life of exile within their own country. Jehadi cum communal speeches from mosques were put on loud speakers meant for ‘Azan & Namaz’, which would say ‘Yeti- Bani Pakistan, Bhatov Bhegeer the Bhatenen-San’, meaning there in that the Kashmir will become a Pakistan without male Kashmiri Pandits, but including womenfolk of Kashmiri Pandits. The prominent prey in this regard among Kashmiri Pandits were persons of immense repute, writers, community elders, legal luminaries, press and media personalities, government officers/officials who were on prominent positions in the state administration or were known prominently. The spurt to terrorism had actually given birth in year 1989 itself, which was taken very lightly by Pandits of the valley, presuming that the brother hood and compassion between the majority community and the Pandits had never received any serious jolt in the past. But it was a myth. On September 14, 1989, Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, who was a lawyer and a prominent leader of KPs, was murdered by JKLF in Srinagar. Prominent lawyer Prem Nath Bhat was gunned down on December 27, 1989 in South Kashmir. Soon after Taploo’s death, Pt Nilkanth Ganjoo, an imminent judge who had sentenced Maqbul Bhat to death, was shot dead. On April 29, 1990, Sarwanand Kaul Premi, a veteran Kashmiri poet was gruesomely murdered. His young son was also killed gruesomely. Several intelligence operatives were assassinated, over the course of January. On February 2, 1990, Satish Tikoo, a young Hindu Pandit social-worker was murdered near his own house in Habba Kadal. On February 13, 1990, Lassa Kaul, Station Director of Srinagar Doordarshan, was shot dead. This is only a small tale of KPs who were killed brutally, because of being Kashmiri Pandits. Many Kashmiri Hindu women were kidnapped, raped and murdered, during this period of exodus. In March 1997, terrorists drag out seven Kashmiri Pandits from their houses in Sangrampora village and gunned them down. In January 1998, about 23 Kashmiri Pandits, including women and children were shot dead in cold blood in Wandhama Village. In March 2003, about 24 Kashmiri Pandits, including infants, brutally shot dead in Nadimarg Village. More than 4, 00,000 Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley and took refuge in Jammu and elsewhere, leaving their entire properties and belongings in the valley to the mercy of terrorists and Jehadi’s. Most of them started living in the refugee camps established in Jammu Province, at places like Muthi camp , Purkhoo camp , Nagrota camp, Kathua camp and Battal Ballian camp Udhampur, etc. All these camp dwelling units of the sizes of 8 x 8 Feet size lacked all the facilities of proper human living standards, having a common facility of toilets and bathing space when the kitchens were located within this dwelling space itself. One can understand the agony of this exodus along with travesty of having lost everything in life, like one’s property, one’s belongings, agricultural lands and orchards, commercial establishments, means to earn a living honorably and above all our own culture which was unique for all of us and was very much dear to us. Most of the KPs still languish in refugee settlements of 8 x 8 ft, even after more than three decades. More than 1,500 KPs were killed by terrorists when most of them after being maimed and tortured in most inhumane ways. Over 800 KPs died due to sunstroke, snakebites in refugee camps at Jammu and Delhi. Over 8000 KP refugees died unnatural deaths while living in sub-human conditions in exile. The administrative set ups both at the central government and the state government levels never bothered enough to address seriously such a devastation of the KP’s till date. Reason being that we the Pandits are not a vote bank entity for anybody or any political entity in Jammu & Kashmir or outside Jammu & Kashmir. Such an approach on the part of the power corridors of the governance is not only depriving this community of their fundamental rights, but is an extreme act of human rights violation. Kashmiri Pandits want a return to their ‘homeland’, but not to the servitude of terrorists. Actions initiated by the government of India in the past for the return and rehabilitation of the KP’s to the Kashmir valley were taken just notionally and not with safe and a sound mission of actually settling them back in Kashmir, with full dictates of law. This process though still in the news, yet, it is just formal and not eventual. As soon as such a news with regard to government moves for the rehabilitation of KPs, becomes public, Muslim leadership across the political divide in Kashmir valley rejected the return of KPs to any kind of secured settlements in the valley. This unanimous rejection of the return of KPs to the Valley by the entire majority populace of Kashmir along with their leadership and the pseudo secularist political leaders of Kashmir, clearly shows that the forced migration of Kashmiri Hindus was not only an act committed by a few, but an organized off shoot of ‘Islamic Jihad’. One of the political leaders of a prominent political party in July 2016 said on the floor of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly about Kashmiri Pundits return to valley that they (Kashmiri Pandits) cannot return to their original homes in the current atmosphere. This political leader likened their home coming to ‘throwing pigeons among cats’. This speaks enough about the communal passion and kinetic gritty of sick mind of such Kashmiri leaders about the members of KPs community. Kashmiri Pandits are highly obliged and thankful to Jammu and its people who accommodated them with warmth in Jammu, in that hour of their devastation, where they could find a first place of solace to exist and live. Even as on day most of the displaced KPs are now living in Jammu and its surroundings with the passionate coverage of Jammu people. All the KPs are thus very much indebted to the people of Jammu in this regard. It is now a full-fledged ethnic cleansing of the Pandits from the valley? Is someone in the governance particularly the ministry of home affairs observing it? What is the remedy? Do they want to retain Kashmir at the cost of the cleansing of KPs from Kashmir? The writing is on the wall. Let the government of the day meet this challenge with resolute might and force. KPs are the aboriginal residents of Kashmir. They will go back to Kashmir at all costs. Government of India has to keep it in mind that no solution will be perpetual for Jammu & Kashmir unless the Kashmiri Pandits do not get their due which is a ‘Home Land’ for them within Kashmir, their mother land, with full security. It is their fundamental right and fundamental demand. At the same time it is the fundamental and a constitutional responsibility of the government to ensure it as early as possible. Does it need further consensus? Why so. There can be no other alternative about it.
(The author is a Chartered Consultant Civil Engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his Motherland-Jammu & Kashmir).